Athenian Tireme As Greek UU

[Elite Hoplite]

After the battle of marathon Athens built a strong navy. In the pelopenesian war Athens managed to but on quite a resistance in naval combat with the pelopenesian league. Sparta aint that great, they are kinda wierd. They always have ceremonial celebrations and commit war to weaken Greece. Sparta also played no part in Marathon and lost in the war between Athens after the 2nd Persian invasion. But they were the most respected warriors of Greece.

 

[Elite Hoplite]

Naval UUs suck unless you're on a certain kind of map. Anyways, why would you call it the "Athenian" trireme when you are suggesting it be a general Greek UU? It's not like Athenian triremes were better, and only a small percentage of Athens navy actually came from Athens anyways. The Greek civ is already preposterously Athens-centered.

Athens had a city state in Attica, and most of the navy came from Athens.... Other minor cities helped in naval combat..... Athens is very important cos its the bulk of Greek culture, technology and army(numbers were big).

 

[IamJohn]

Wasn't unique? The Greeks ruled the seas, defeating vastly more numerous Persian fleets, and builing a civilisation around it.

Built a civilization out of their rule of the seas? Where do you get that? Their navy was important I guess, but not nearly that important...

As for Triremes, I have yet to see a description of how exact they are unique...

 

[Larklight]

Well, their colonies, the amazing amount of naval trade. The inland conditions were too mountainour for easy transportation, encouraing them to set sail. Boats were far quicker and more relyable, making control of the waters very important.
Redcoats weren't unique, nor most of the UUs. It was the effect they had, and the Athenian trireams, manned by freemen, were awsome. They reached speeds that modern-day rowers dream of.

 

[Pangur Bán]

Athens had a city state in Attica, and most of the navy came from Athens.... Other minor cities helped in naval combat..... Athens is very important cos its the bulk of Greek culture, technology and army(numbers were big).

Athens was a city-state based in Attica, which notably had no friggin wood!!!

You are wrong on the second point. Athens was an important state for about 80 years or so, not a long time in the history of Greece, and they only got that time because they were able to make themselves a sea power by sucking the power of the greater Aegean world, until all the other Greeks got sick of them and crushed them under their traditional leader, Sparta. Sparta was always far more important politically, as was Thebes in its time (the period before and after c. 480-400), Argos in its time, etc. Athens is only so prominent cause they wrote a lot more down that anyone else, and their bragging perspective takes up about 90% of the sources. How different things would be if 19th century Romantics had only sources from Phocis! A different Ancient Greece students would be studying today.

Hey ... the Athenians had to tamper with the Iliad to add themselves to the Greek Catalogue of Ships - they were so unimportant they had been omitted. In truth, the real springs of Greek culture were Corinth, Ionia and, more important than anything, Alexandria, without which we wouldn't even know about Athens. And then of course there's the Romans and Romanised Greeks who romanticised Athens and revitalised the town by making it a prime tourist location. For nearly 2 millennia it was a barely more than a village until Greek nationalists and western idealists chose to build it up. "Bulk of Greek culture, technology and army(numbers were big)"? Nothing could be further from the truth.

 

[thelibra]

Actually, in regards to the "Best Navy in History" argument, I'd say the United States is the clear winner, as the "Best Navy" is the one that still largely controls that theatre of war. The fact that they didn't exist 5000 years ago doesn't really matter, as history is not limited to that time period. The U.S. Navy is currently the largest, most advanced, most highly trained. Their tiniest PT boat could in all likelihood shred the entire Spanish Armada in its prime.

In regards to the rest, giving only one Civ 2 UUs would be a big mistake. If one civ gets 2 UU's, they all get 2 UUs.

 

[Silver Marmot]

A unique naval unit would be absolutely useless in that era.

 

[Antilogic]

The Athenian navy was the best in the Medditeranean... Even the Athenians once took over the Spartans after the Persian invasion. There was no battle in navy between Athens and Sparta.

What? Have you read anything about the Peloponnesian War? The Spartans won a few straight naval battles against the Athenians (ignoring the Sicilian Expedition, however much of a disaster that was). Here are a list of naval battles between the Athenians and the Peloponnesians (dominated by Sparta, although the Corinthian fleet played a role and others):

Naupactus (429 BCE)
Syme (411 BCE)
Cynossema (411 BCE)
Abydos (410 BCE)
Cyzicus (410 BCE)
Notium (406 BCE)
Arginusae (406 BCE)
Aegospotami (404 BCE)

I'm certain I'm missing a few, but I focused on the ones at the end. The Athenians rebuilt their fleets after Sicily, and fought several battles against the Spartan fleets at sea, mostly around the Hellespont over grain shipments to Athens (the Spartans realized the only way they could stop the Athenians was to cut off their food shipments by sea from this region). The final battle was Aegospotami, where the Spartan fleet utterly decimated the Athenians. Read The Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan for more details. Or, you could probably find info on Wikipedia.

What instance are you referring to when the Athenians took over the Spartans after the Persian invasion? Is this a reference to Cimon's expedition to help them put down the helot rebellion? If so, they were thrown out of Sparta not long after they arrived, gaining nothing for Athens and resulting in Cimon's ostracism, if I'm not mistaken.