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Cataph's - Imperator Augustus: Rising Levant (rosters expansions)

== Updated for Desert patch ==

Warning: I haven't played R2 for years, can't check full functionality in campaign.
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Welcome to this pack. I’m Cataph and you may remember me from such serial mods like “Half Broke Cataphracts”, “How I met your Cretan” and “Two Hypaspists and half”, or the award-winning movie “A Persian in New York”.
What I mean to do with this pack is giving new life to the eastern mediterranean scenery in the Imperator Augustus campaign. Specifically through:
- an overhaul of the ptolemaic roster which shouldn’t be like it was almost 300 years before at all;
- a remake of the judean roster, which should be hellenized but of course not a boring placeholder;
- an extended expansion for Palmyra, in a vague imitation of the much later zenobian empire;
note to self, we’re running out of waffles;

Of course, I am not history incarnate and everything, so the key word will be as always “historical-ish”. Except where I’m blatantly making up stuff, that’s where it’s possibly “feasible”.

Key changes to Egypt being based on the fact that by that time the pike phalanx had been already abandoned in favor of more mobile and most of all native troops, which, under Cleopatra, were being trained by ‘loaned’ roman legionaries.
As such, most of their old roster has been replaced by highly romanized units of native egyptian stock, the non-elite hellenic units reskinned to represent egyptian levy. They even have limited but early access to fully roman veteran legionaries, and equally limited recruitment of native pikemen (cherry on top, a small revival of the olden times).


While I couldn’t put my paws around some definite historical work (like a certain Osprey publishing) all the stuff I could find around the interwebz agree on one thing: I’m almost quoting myself talking about Bithynia, but Judea was a highly hellenized place, with well-nigh none of that Monty Python bearded raghead business, e.g. they mostly were clean shaven at the time. Of course, the tribal fragmentation was particularly intense, with traditionalist fringes raging against the hellenized parties and at the world in general while they were at it.
Now, I have extremely limited knowledge about the judean tribes. I couldn’t and I didn’t want to make the judean roster some sort of sept warfare with fanatics all over the place, doesn’t seem something the semi-professional Herodian army could have been. Before the dagger-armed zealots, there were the hardy judean thorakitai, well appreciated by Ptolemies and Seleucids. Before the tribal local levies, which as far as I know were not recruited much anyway even when they were judged loyal since they were more useful fighting brigands, there were mercenaries and some professionals.
Also, I have not introduced a judean culture. Why? Because of all the cultures in the world, the Jews do not really spread their influence around like hellenes or romans did. A Judean Empire wouldn’t have been an Empire of Jews, but a hellenic kingdom led by a reserved ethnic-religious group who would have been forced to learn to deal with the other cultures or fail at ruling.
I have although introduced a new temple chain, culminating with the Second Temple (lvl V). It has no culture spread but high public order bonuses. Of course a jew religious community wouldn’t be spreading hellenic ideas that much, or building pagan temples, but would make their own people immensely happy. On the long term, this Judean Kingdom has minor difficulties converting other cultures (imagine proud Romans living under them) but their laissez-faire policy compensates for that.
Roster-wise, they do not sport romanized infantry but older and reliable armoured spearmen/skirmishers (thorakitai), led by a strong royal guard.

This is an unit expansion based on a quite big what-if, with the rich Palmyra deciding to make a empire of their own before Zenobia, with a big “hell, no!” to Parthians and Romans who wanted to keep it as a handy puppet.
The background: in the first century BCE Palmyra was still an extremely rich trade node, culturally a melange of native aramean/aramaic and hellenic cultures, with sides of judean and arabic. Antioch was still one of the biggest cities around, and I can assume with a large hellenic population if even three centuries later Palmyra was so influenced by it as to mainly speak and write in greek.
Which means that, military-wise, they have been given eastern units with romanized infantry, specialized camel units, and a few hellenic ones making a sort of seleucid revival. Of course, by this time the Greeks are not the world-conquerors of old and shouldn’t be as militarized as to allow for a full exploitation of their manpower, but a new aristocrat/mercenary caste is bound to rise in this scenario.
Gamewise, you can easily recruit basic hellenic spearmen, but the availability of the elite ones will require you to give up the useful romanized infantry recruitable before for the lvl IV greek barracks. If you choose not to, you have at your service a strong and versatile eastern army comparable to the Parthian’s. Please note that syrian elephants were extinct at this time.
Also, Palmyra can now build three branches of exclusive temples based on historical religious syncretism.

HISTORICAL CRITICISM AND CORINTHIAN HELMETS:
Now now, we all know corinthian helmets were planted in the past by some modern guy with a time machine and an excellent fashion and design skills. Since they actually do not exist, I’m not putting them in whatever unit, I’m just that nonconformist.
Moreover, the historical ground of this mod is based on what a quite savvy talking duck has told me, which is more than some people can boast. Also, I have a parrot.

GAMEWISE NOTES:
They are not meant to be easy campaigns, especially Palmyra. You are sitting among two giants and it’s easy to get crushed. If buffs are needed, be patient and keep providing your feedback to speed the process up!
Without his reappearance on the workshop this mod would have been a dormant one for more time yet.
Includes a compatibility table for Auxiliary recruitment for Egypt (in case you use Auxilia for Everyone or similar).

Please note that the screenshots were made with other mods enabled (I’m that lazy), both ours and from other guys, like Sebidee’s linothoraxes, Mackles’ hoplons and Thunderbolt II’s Notitia Dignitatum. Their features might or might not be spotted in the screens but I’m reporting this anyway because fair’s fair.

SPECIAL THANKS:
To Kaziel for permission to use his cool lorica hamata designs (from his Kaziel’s Romans: Early Republic pack.
To Daruwind who spent hours helping a stranger with building tables issues.
To Heir of Jerusalem/Prince of Judah for helping with the historical/military background of Judea.

OFF-Steam downloads.[drive.google.com]

Whatever you do, remember to thumbs up or down or sideways or whatever fancies you! Everytime you don't give feedback, the Judean People's Front (not to be confused with the People's Front of Judea) commits mass suicide. Just... just do it.