[Vanilla] Did Firaxis represents Roman Legionary correctly?

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

Whenever you say anything about the Roman Legion, first you have to define When. The Legion went through a whole string of changes from the early Republic to the End of Empire: some due to changes in the available weapons and equipment, some due to changes in the potential and actual opponents.

For starters, the "Legion" was originally a decimal phalanx. We know this not because of any specific description, but because the smallest unit in the later Legio, the 'squad' if you will, had 8 men, there were 10 of them in a 'Century' but the squad commander (the lowest-ranking leader in the Legion) was called a Decurion - which translates as "Leader of Ten". That means the original Legion was, in fact, a bunch of Hoplites - armored spearmen in a block ten ranks deep and probably in Centuries 10 files wide, making 100 men. The original Roman military was raised just like the Greek Hoplites, from men with enough property to provide their own equipment. The big difference was that from the earliest accounts (Livy, Varro, Polybius) there are swordsmen among the Legion's spearmen, originally only the Hastati which, tellingly, are in front of the Principes - the "Main Body" which means the swordsmen may have originally been considered auxiliaries rather than part of the main 'phalanx' of spearmen.
By the time they were fighting the Carthaginians only the Triarii, the reserve of the Legion, still carried spears: both Principes and Hastati were swordsmen who threw heavy javelins (the Pilum, possibly originally Etruscan) to disrupt the enemy formation before charging in. The Pilum was, in fact, associated exclusively with Roman Swordsmen: the spear-carriers never used it and the swordsmen apparently never left home without it.
In other words, at no time was the Legion a 'pure' swordsman unit: they always had other weapons available in addition to the primary sword.

After Marius' reforms, the heavy infantry of the Legion were all swordsmen with Pilum. The other 'characteristic equipment' was good metal armor, originally link mail, then steel/wrought iron plate, then link mail again, and by the late Empire (4th century CE) increasingly non-metal leather body armor, a large wooden shield that could cover most of the body from knee to top of the head, and a metal helmet. In the 4th century, with increasing numbers of mounted opponents, the Lanciarii were introduced - spearmen as part of the Legions, sometimes mixed with the swordsmen, other times gathered into separate spear units.

By the late 4th century the Spiculum, a heavier spear than the Lanciarii carried, was becoming the principle weapon of the Legion, BUT they also carried and were trained with a long sword. The late Roman (and earliest Byzantine infantry) Legion was an armored infantry unit (metal-reinforced leather body armor and heavy wooden shields) equipped with spears as long as a Hoplite Xyton but also with long swords - it combined the characteristics of Civ's spearmen and swordsmen into one unit.

The strength of the Legion from beginning to end, though, was that they were always well-trained with their weapons, and the Legion was always composed of permanent sub-units (maniples, cohorts) that could maneuver independently: the Legion from its first appearance in the historical record is more flexible and better able to react to events on the battlefield than any of its opponents

So the F'xis chose what they believed to be 'definitive' legion from the Marian-Reforms era to represent Legionairy. since in game they became available AFTER hoplites (With Ironworking, while Hoplites came to exists with Bronze Working). Do you think this still fits well with warfare represented one or two millenia before firearms came to be?

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

So the F'xis chose what they believed to be 'definitive' legion from the Marian-Reforms era to represent Legionairy. since in game they became available AFTER hoplites (With Ironworking, while Hoplites came to exists with Bronze Working). Do you think this still fits well with warfare represented one or two millenia before firearms came to be?

As the Poster before you pointed out, and I hope I made clear, you either make a Legion unit that is All Things At All Times, or you pick one of several different Legions to model. Firaxis picked the late-Republic - early Empire Legion of heavily-armored swordsmen. Partly, I suspect, because it fit nicely as a Unique replacement for their Swordsmen = Classical Melee Unit as a successor and foil to the Ancient = Best UNit is a Spearman (sort of) in the game.

And by the way, while Spearmen in a compact block with big shields and anti-cavalry properties date back to the beginning of the Bronze Age, the Greek Hoplite is in fact an Iron Age Unit, dating only from the 7th century BCE several hundred years after the first iron weapons appear in Anatolia, and as I pointed out in my previous post, the original Roman Army was probably a 10 rank deep formation of iron-armored Hoplite-like spearmen that Evolved over several hundred years into a looser formation of well-trained Swordsmen.

The real problem (for me) is that the Roman Legion of swordsmen with Pilum is such an iconic image of Classical Warfare that it skews everybody's view of Classical Warfare. In fact, Swordsmen were not the majority in any other army anywhere in the world: they are too d****d expensive to maintain. As long as a spearman knows enough to keep the pointy end pointed at the enemy and his buddies close by on both sides, he's pretty effective. A swordsman has to train with his weapon, and keep practicing on a regular basis. That means the spearmen can be working, earning a living, paying taxes, until war comes and they have to grab spear and shield and show up to fight. The swordsman has to practice with his sword, so someone else has to support him, and he is a constant drain on the State until war starts. How expensive was it? The Roman Empire, with a population estimated (Beloch) at 54,000,000, managed to support a professional full-time army of about 500,000 men at its peak (1st - 3rd centuries CE) or about 1% of its population could be supported as full-time soldiers.

Nobody else could afford that many swordsmen, or even that percentage of their population as full-time warrior/soldiers. So, wherever else you find swordsmen, they are the elite, the aristocracy, the Thegns and Jarls and nobles who can afford to have someone else (vassals, slaves, serfs, peasants, etc) support them while they practice at murder. The majority of all the Ancient. Classical and Medieval armies were amateurs - part-timers called up for the duration, with no training in moving as a group or unit, usually standing behind a Front Line of the professionals.

Games in general and Civ in particular are very good at specifying and representing all the variations in weapons and equipment in historical military, but they are very bad at showing the difference in training and motivation among the parts of armies. This is particularly problematic when those differences were practically built-in to the weapons: an amateur farmer-turned-swordsman is quite simply an Oxymoron, whereas the classical Spearman phalanx, whether they were Greeks, Gauls, Etruscans or early Romans, was so commonly composed of amateurs that the few full-time professionals are famous: Spartans, Theban Sacred Band, etc.

 

[Haig]

Wasn't pike the main weapon in renaissance battlefields? That would mean that hoplite way of fighting made a comeback and was more better than heavy swordsmen or legions, in the end.

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

As the Poster before you pointed out, and I hope I made clear, you either make a Legion unit that is All Things At All Times, or you pick one of several different Legions to model. Firaxis picked the late-Republic - early Empire Legion of heavily-armored swordsmen. Partly, I suspect, because it fit nicely as a Unique replacement for their Swordsmen = Classical Melee Unit as a successor and foil to the Ancient = Best UNit is a Spearman (sort of) in the game.

And by the way, while Spearmen in a compact block with big shields and anti-cavalry properties date back to the beginning of the Bronze Age, the Greek Hoplite is in fact an Iron Age Unit, dating only from the 7th century BCE several hundred years after the first iron weapons appear in Anatolia, and as I pointed out in my previous post, the original Roman Army was probably a 10 rank deep formation of iron-armored Hoplite-like spearmen that Evolved over several hundred years into a looser formation of well-trained Swordsmen.

The real problem (for me) is that the Roman Legion of swordsmen with Pilum is such an iconic image of Classical Warfare that it skews everybody's view of Classical Warfare. In fact, Swordsmen were not the majority in any other army anywhere in the world: they are too d****d expensive to maintain. As long as a spearman knows enough to keep the pointy end pointed at the enemy and his buddies close by on both sides, he's pretty effective. A swordsman has to train with his weapon, and keep practicing on a regular basis. That means the spearmen can be working, earning a living, paying taxes, until war comes and they have to grab spear and shield and show up to fight. The swordsman has to practice with his sword, so someone else has to support him, and he is a constant drain on the State until war starts. How expensive was it? The Roman Empire, with a population estimated (Beloch) at 54,000,000, managed to support a professional full-time army of about 500,000 men at its peak (1st - 3rd centuries CE) or about 1% of its population could be supported as full-time soldiers.

Nobody else could afford that many swordsmen, or even that percentage of their population as full-time warrior/soldiers. So, wherever else you find swordsmen, they are the elite, the aristocracy, the Thegns and Jarls and nobles who can afford to have someone else (vassals, slaves, serfs, peasants, etc) support them while they practice at murder. The majority of all the Ancient. Classical and Medieval armies were amateurs - part-timers called up for the duration, with no training in moving as a group or unit, usually standing behind a Front Line of the professionals.

Games in general and Civ in particular are very good at specifying and representing all the variations in weapons and equipment in historical military, but they are very bad at showing the difference in training and motivation among the parts of armies. This is particularly problematic when those differences were practically built-in to the weapons: an amateur farmer-turned-swordsman is quite simply an Oxymoron, whereas the classical Spearman phalanx, whether they were Greeks, Gauls, Etruscans or early Romans, was so commonly composed of amateurs that the few full-time professionals are famous: Spartans, Theban Sacred Band, etc.

1. So Greek Hoplites placed within the Ancient Era (To represent Greek troops that invaded Troy as well as to represent Athenian and Spartan troops that stopped Persian Invasions)
2. This is a real problem with game designs. Actually how well did Legionairy do against cavalry? for them being swordsmen is correct or being swordsmen that earns spearmen benefits fit them better?

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

Wasn't pike the main weapon in renaissance battlefields? That would mean that hoplite way of fighting made a comeback and was more better than heavy swordsmen or legions, in the end.

Actuallly they are.
Pikemen as represented in Civ5 and 6 actually began in 13rd Century as Swiss Federation's solutions against Austrian Imperial Knights. Eventually they dominate the battlefield especially with the existince of musketry. For them to begin at early middle age is a bit wrong, And with Civ6 engine that brought much of Panzer Generals gameplay, Pikemen as a solo unit are as wrong as musketeers, Before Swiss pike squares, anticav choices of that time were either armored spearmen or billmen of the medieval era I think.
The more correct 'pike' unit is 'pike and shot' and they should be a new class entirely because vulnerability against swordsmen of any kind no longer apply to them. as well as anticavalry bonus is very obivious that compelled many cavalry units to rethink tactics and considered using firearms as well. (this came pistoliers and harquebusiers)

 

[nzcamel]

Also, the "archers fire over miles and miles of terrain" bit is also historically inaccurate but provides a bit of more interesting gameplay.

I like to imagine in my mind that the game is working on two levels. As you move units you are on a higher strategic map; but once combat starts, it's zoomed in to a more tactical level.

 

[Andrew Johnson [FXS]]

I like to imagine in my mind that the game is working on two levels. As you move units you are on a higher strategic map; but once combat starts, it's zoomed in to a more tactical level.

That's my head-canon, too. You can do a progression - a medieval "shooter" (e.g. Mount and Blade), the super-zoomed-in combat of something like AoE or AoW, Civ's slightly more generalized version, and then something like EU or CK, where it's just a stack that mashes into another stack. Defenders have advantage on hills... OK. In Mount and Blade you can hide behind a rock and leap out at your enemies trying to climb. In Civ you can position your archers so that they have open fields of fire at that pass where the enemy is coming in, in EU it's just like "defenders on hills +20%". Different choices, different experiences - none better than the other, really.

In the other thread (the closed HK thread), there seems to be this "HK VS CIV" narrative. But everyone at Firaxis loves games and plays "the competition"'s games all the time - and likes them. We're all fans more or less of most games! Sure, there's business competition, but if people are really into historical grand strategy - great!

 

[Shadowstrike]

I mean I wouldn't mind it if that were the case.
In the boardgame, at least the 2010 version, the three categories are divided by infantry, ranged, and mounted and definitely feels more rock-paper-scissor inspired.
Ranged is stronger than infantry, infantry is stronger than mounted, and mounted is stronger than ranged.
That being said the infantry is made up of roughly spearmen, pikemen, musketeers, and modern infantry.

In order to follow that logic in game there would be: Warrior, Spearmen (Classical era?), Pikemen, Pike and Shot formation?, Line Infantry/Rifleman, Modern Infantry/A.T Crew.

My question is how would they be balanced? I guess the solution would be infantry is stronger when defending against cavalry, but not against ranged, and stronger combat strength when attacking both. Cavalry is stronger when attacking other units except infantry, and defending against ranged. Ranged is stronger when attacking infantry and siege units from afar, never strong at defending. Siege units obviously for taking cities.

I would probably add in modern mechanized infantry at the end, but I would agree with that kind of infantry layout. One question that I'm not very sure about is whether the medieval era represents something distinctly in advance of the classical one, or if that's just an artifact of Eurocentrism. Like were knights and men-at-arms really improvements over say cataphracts and legions?

One thing I thought was very neat was the evolution of ranged units from archers into field artillery. That was a smart decision.

I guess there's also the question of whether there should be heavy and light cav units as well too...

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I like to imagine in my mind that the game is working on two levels. As you move units you are on a higher strategic map; but once combat starts, it's zoomed in to a more tactical level.

To "role-play" Civ you need a box full of Hats:
God of the Civilization of the Britons, Angles, English, British - all at once
Ruler of the Medieval Kingdom of Anglestan
Diplomat for King Aethelblat trying to wrangle a few extra horses out of Ivan the Tolerable
General Cathcart D'Eath leading the army of Medieval Weassex against the Perfidious Everybody Else
Sheriff Boris of Nottingpork telling his Yeomen who to shoot at.

And, of course, Sam the Toad and Barking Basil the archers firing away at the enemy.

One needs both flexibilty and imagination to play the game . . .

 

[Andrew Johnson [FXS]]

Recall how the tech progression works - it's not cataphract - knight; it's chariot - knight!

Chariots were important cavalry units, although they at times might be more "light" than heavy. A classic heavy chariot might be the chariots at the centers of Zhou military strategy - big death machines that would smash into each other on the battlefield, armed with scythes projecting from their wheels. They were eventually outclassed by horse archers imported from Xiongnu and other steppe groups, but were stellar in their time. More to the West, you get a similar decline of the chariot as more mobile cavalry comes up.

So the knight here is perhaps less Renaissance Faire jousting knight and more a heavily armored cavalry unit from late antiquity into the middle ages . I might see a Byzantine tagma as a representation of the elite 10th-century Byzantine cataphract (tagma refers to the regiment, cataphract would refer more to the unit). A Roman or Persian knight would certainly be equivalent to a cataphract.

Men-at-arms are a representation of a slightly later unit - munition armored soldiers, slightly more professional than "welcome to the lord's levy, here's your pointed stick" soldiers. While the term is general, here it's a heavy footsoldier (the term would have been applied to knights as well) - ashigaru would be the Japanese equivalent, and more specific to infantry. I think the unit is armed with a bec de corbin (thus, yes, giving it more of a European feel than an ashigaru), a weapon from the very late Middle Ages to Renaissance. But in both Asia and Europe, the man-at-arms is supposed to be from around 1400s-1600s.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

I would probably add in modern mechanized infantry at the end, but I would agree with that kind of infantry layout. One question that I'm not very sure about is whether the medieval era represents something distinctly in advance of the classical one, or if that's just an artifact of Eurocentrism. Like were knights and men-at-arms really improvements over say cataphracts and legions?

Yes Mechanized Infantry would go at the end. Honestly one could make an Anti Tank Infantry unit in Atomic and upgrade into Mechanized Infantry, as a response to Tanks arriving in the Modern.

I would argue that the Man-at-Arms unit is probably the least needed, out of the newest three. To be fair most men-at-arms were heavily armored cavalry men, though that would conflict with the knight already in the game. Pikes and pike formations were used primarily by infantry at that time. Though the Man-At-Arms looks like they use halberds, which is a pole weapon. Because of that I'm hoping they could act like a reverse Pike-and Shot where it gains a bonus toward cavalry units in game.

I guess there's also the question of whether there should be heavy and light cav units as well too...

If we go a single cavalry line I can see Chariot>Horseman>Knight>Lancer>Cavalry>Tank>Modern Tank which would kind of require less units to be in the game unless we make it 2 per era, which at that case there should be a distinction.

So the knight here is perhaps less Renaissance Faire jousting knight and more a heavily armored cavalry unit from late antiquity into the middle ages . I might see a Byzantine tagma as a representation of the elite 10th-century Byzantine cataphract (tagma refers to the regiment, cataphract would refer more to the unit). A Roman or Persian knight would certainly be equivalent to a cataphract.

You "might" see the Byzantine tagma as representing a cataphract?

 

[Andrew Johnson [FXS]]

You "might" see the Byzantine tagma as representing a cataphract?

Just maybe. A little.

(Of course, obviously - but other armies around the area had their own, similar cataphracts. But, yeah, that's the Byzantine cataphract, 100%).

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Wasn't pike the main weapon in renaissance battlefields? That would mean that hoplite way of fighting made a comeback and was more better than heavy swordsmen or legions, in the end.

Weapons are not 'better' in a vacuum. The pike made a return to the battlefield because the major combat force was mounted: Knights. And there is nothing better to stop a heavily-armored charging horseman than to use his own momentum to drive a half-meter-long iron point through his chest.

Pikes disappeared in the Middle East - Mediterranean around 200 BCE because they were extremely vulnerable to flank attacks by anything, and swordsmen who got past the pike points could massacre them, as the Legions did to the Macedonian pike phalanx in the last Macedonian War. They returned, as mentioned by @Lonecat Nekophrodite, in Switzerland (and other places - see below), both because they had Knights as opponents but also because the Swiss Cantons were dirt poor and couldn't afford anything more elaborate.

The 'Magic Date" for pikes is actually the very beginning of the 14th century, a good century or more before the Renaissance starts by any measure:
1302 CE: Battle of Courtrai - Flemish militia, which was pretty well-trained and equipped since they were the City Militia of the prosperous Flanders towns, used pike blocks to break the charge of French knights, hung up 500 pairs of spurs as a Victory Offering in the cathedral afterwards, from knights that no longer had any use for spurs in this life.
1314 CE: Battle of Bannockburn. English knights learned the hard way that trying to charge through a marsh to get at Scottish Schiltrons - more pike blocks - leaves you stuck in the marsh on exhausted horses when the Scots come up and slaughter you like mounted sheep.
1339 CE: Battle of Laupen. Knights found they couldn't make a dent in a Swiss pike 'Hedgehog" (Igel - a circular defensive formation) and then ran for it when the Swiss charged and smashed their infantry (militia) to bits.

Note that the Swiss Pikes were the last in a string of pike units that appeared starting in the beginning of the 14th century, but Mercenary Swiss Pikemen became the Infantry To Have for the rest of the 14th and 15th centuries, until Maximilian started forming Landsknecht pikemen mercenaries at the end of the 1400s.

Both the Swiss and the Landsknechts sometimes mixed their pikes with halbards or Great Swordsmen (2-handed extra-long swords) for extra force in the melee, but the infantry was Primarily Pikes until 1493 CE, when the Spanish began forming 'Colunelas', each about 1000 men and combining pikemen, halbardiers, swordsmen and arquebusiers - the first 'pike and shot' units. By the 1530s 3 colunelas were being combined into a Tercio of 3000 men that was about half pikemen and half arquebusiers.

That means, for about 200 years the Pike Phalanx, with or without some swordsmen and halbardiers mixed in, was the primary infantry unit, a period that was largely (1300 - 1450) in the High Middle Ages or Medieval Era, not the Renaissance. By 50 - 80 years after the traditional start of the Renaissance (1453 CE) the pikes had become the first Pike and Shot, and that formation/unit dominated European warfare for the next 170 years, until the flintlock musket made pikes redundant around 1700 CE.

 

[Shadowstrike]

If we go a single cavalry line I can see Chariot>Horseman>Knight>Lancer>Cavalry>Tank>Modern Tank which would kind of require less units to be in the game unless we make it 2 per era, which at that case there should be a distinction.

I might even combine Lancers and Cavalry. Mounted units went through a weird adjustment where they first adapted firearms, and then reverted to lances. It might be simplest to represent all post-knight cavalry as a single unit type.

 

[Shadowstrike]

Weapons are not 'better' in a vacuum. The pike made a return to the battlefield because the major combat force was mounted: Knights. And there is nothing better to stop a heavily-armored charging horseman than to use his own momentum to drive a half-meter-long iron point through his chest.

Pikes disappeared in the Middle East - Mediterranean around 200 BCE because they were extremely vulnerable to flank attacks by anything, and swordsmen who got past the pike points could massacre them, as the Legions did to the Macedonian pike phalanx in the last Macedonian War. They returned, as mentioned by @Lonecat Nekophrodite, in Switzerland (and other places - see below), both because they had Knights as opponents but also because the Swiss Cantons were dirt poor and couldn't afford anything more elaborate.

The 'Magic Date" for pikes is actually the very beginning of the 14th century, a good century or more before the Renaissance starts by any measure:
1302 CE: Battle of Courtrai - Flemish militia, which was pretty well-trained and equipped since they were the City Militia of the prosperous Flanders towns, used pike blocks to break the charge of French knights, hung up 500 pairs of spurs as a Victory Offering in the cathedral afterwards, from knights that no longer had any use for spurs in this life.
1314 CE: Battle of Bannockburn. English knights learned the hard way that trying to charge through a marsh to get at Scottish Schiltrons - more pike blocks - leaves you stuck in the marsh on exhausted horses when the Scots come up and slaughter you like mounted sheep.
1339 CE: Battle of Laupen. Knights found they couldn't make a dent in a Swiss pike 'Hedgehog" (Igel - a circular defensive formation) and then ran for it when the Swiss charged and smashed their infantry (militia) to bits.

Note that the Swiss Pikes were the last in a string of pike units that appeared starting in the beginning of the 14th century, but Mercenary Swiss Pikemen became the Infantry To Have for the rest of the 14th and 15th centuries, until Maximilian started forming Landsknecht piemen mercenaries at the end of the 1400s.

Both the Swiss and the Landsknechts sometimes mixed their pikes with halbards or Great Swordsmen (2-handed extra-long swords) for extra force in the melee, but the infantry was Primarily Pikes until 1493 CE, when the Spanish began forming 'Colunelas', each about 1000 men and combining pikemen, halbardiers, swordsmen and arquebusiers - the first 'pike and shot' units. By the 1530s 3 colunelas were being combined into a Tercio of 3000 men that was about half pikemen and half arquebusiers.

That means, for about 200 years the Pike Phalanx, with or without some swordsmen and halbardiers mixed in, was the primary infantry unit, a period that was largely (1300 - 1450) in the High Middle Ages or Medieval Era, not the Renaissance. By 50 - 80 years after the traditional start of the Renaissance (1453 CE) the pikes had become the first Pike and Shot, and that formation/unit dominated European warfare for the next 170 years, until the flintlock musket made pikes redundant around 1700 CE.

So two questions that come to mind:

1) What did European infantry consist of between the fall of the Roman Empire and the 1400s?
2) Why didn't new sword formations emerge to counter late Medieval pike formations?

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Just maybe. A little.

(Of course, obviously - but other armies around the area had their own, similar cataphracts. But, yeah, that's the Byzantine cataphract, 100%).

That's partly why I was kind of against the Byzantines always getting the Cataphract in game as their UU, considering the cataphracts weren't necessarily even Byzantine in origin. Ideally they would make a great universal Heavy Cavalry unit between a chariot and a knight, unless it becomes a UU for a Parthian civ, or other similar Iranian group civ.
But obviously referring to them as a Tagma in Civ 6 is all right.

I might even combine Lancers and Cavalry. Mounted units went through a weird adjustment where they first adapted firearms, and then reverted to lances. It might be simplest to represent all post-knight cavalry as a single unit type.

In that way maybe make Cavalry/Lancers go into Cuirassiers? I think by the Industrial Era some form of mounted unit with a gun should be used.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Recall how the tech progression works - it's not cataphract - knight; it's chariot - knight!

Chariots were important cavalry units, although they at times might be more "light" than heavy. A classic heavy chariot might be the chariots at the centers of Zhou military strategy - big death machines that would smash into each other on the battlefield, armed with scythes projecting from their wheels. They were eventually outclassed by horse archers imported from Xiongnu and other steppe groups, but were stellar in their time. More to the West, you get a similar decline of the chariot as more mobile cavalry comes up.

The most intriguing thing about Chariotry is the variety in this Single Unit historically. In every case that they've been able to dig up archeological, mythical or historical evidence, the chariot is the first instance of the Spoked Wheel, the first 'high speed' wheel after the solid plank wheel and generally about 2000 years after it. The earliest chariots (from what little evidence we have) were very light - even the Hittite/Mitanni 'heavy' chariots were pretty fragile, because metal tires hadn't been invented yet - a chariot could shatter its wheels in a heartbeat if it tried to make speed over rough ground. Consequently, most Chariot Warfare made use of the chariot being faster than a man on foot to pepper the enemy infantry with javelins or arrows until he broke and ran, and then imitate the many hunting scenes of Kings in Chariots shooting down various animals to do the same to the enemy troops.
The Chinese seem to have gotten the chariot technology straight from the 'northern Barbarians' next door, and then developed the wheels into very sturdy multi-spoked versions, much more robust and heavier than anything seen further west. That, in turn, allowed them to use the chariot as much more of a Shock Platform than a Missile Platform.

So the knight here is perhaps less Renaissance Faire jousting knight and more a heavily armored cavalry unit from late antiquity into the middle ages . I might see a Byzantine tagma as a representation of the elite 10th-century Byzantine cataphract (tagma refers to the regiment, cataphract would refer more to the unit). A Roman or Persian knight would certainly be equivalent to a cataphract.

The fully armored man on a horse with a lance dates back to the 4th century BCE at least: Alexander's and Phillip's Hetairoi (Companions) carried spears so heavy they were nicknamed kontos - 'barge pole' and were noticeably heavier than the xyton - the Hoplite's spear. They also charged in a tight wedge formation, a tactic completely unsuited to throwing spears, but very effective if you were using the impact of multiple spear/lance points to penetrate and break up an enemy formation. Armored lancers are also depicted among the Sarmatian and Alan barbarians, and the Imperial Roman army had quite a few auxiliary cavalry units labeled Equites Lanciarii Sarmatii - Sarmatian Lancer Cavalry.

What made the classic Medieval Knight different was not his equipment, which was not that different from 'armored lancers' of 1000 years earlier, it was his Social Status: the Carolingian and Merovingian armored mounted warriors were the first given land to support themselves so they could train full time as armored cavalry. That meant that even relatively impoverished political states, like the early European Post-Roman ones, could afford to field a large force of armored horsemen. This 'feudal system' that fueled the armies of Medieval Knights has never really been modeled in Civ as far as I know.

Starting in the 12th century, the problems with the system began to show: you could only keep the knight and his retinue (a 'knight' almost always was part of a larger group of servants, 'squires' and other auxiliaries that were supposed to come to the muster with the mounted knight - the 'lone knight' is actually an early Renaissance romantic invention) in service for a limited time or his fief back home was liable to fal apart and he would lose the income required to make him useful. The remedy was for the knight to hire and send a substitute, armed and armored and mounted like a knight, and stay home to squeeze the maximum advantage from his fief and serfs. Those Sergeants (which originally meant a man armred like a knight but not of 'noble' birth) quickly became Preferred, since you could keep them under arms much longer, and generally, being nearly full-time warriors, they were better trained than many of the knights had been. By the 14th century CE, most of the 'feudal' armies of Europe were mostly mercenaries - individuals or mercenary companies.

Men-at-arms are a representation of a slightly later unit - munition armored soldiers, slightly more professional than "welcome to the lord's levy, here's your pointed stick" soldiers. While the term is general, here it's a heavy footsoldier (the term would have been applied to knights as well) - ashigaru would be the Japanese equivalent, and more specific to infantry. I think the unit is armed with a bec de corbin (thus, yes, giving it more of a European feel than an ashigaru), a weapon from the very late Middle Ages to Renaissance. But in both Asia and Europe, the man-at-arms is supposed to be from around 1400s-1600s.

As said, by the time the term Man at Arms becomes common the 'amateur' levy has largely become the City Militias: the king preferred well-trained, paid troops thankyouverymuch. The majority of illustrations, since we don't have a lot of statistical written data, show armored men on foot with Great Axes, but the Great Sword (2-handed or 'bastard' hand-and-a-half long swords) is the weapon associated with the Man-at-Arms. From about 1300 there are also increasing numbers of point and blade combinations on a long haft - eventually all lumped together as Halberds - that show up, and every single type seems to have had a separate name: glaive, bill, fauchon, etc. A varian was to have a hammer head and spike behind the point, better suited for cracking into plate armor - that was the bec de corbin, or bec de faucon, or 'Lucerne Hammer' when it was used by the Swiss.
All of these 'heavier weapons' were answers to the Armor Progression: after about 1150 CE the old 'mail hauberk' began to be increasingly augmented by plate armor until the fully-articulated suit of plate ('panoply') appears around 1420 CE. These were real steel plates, products of much better metallurgy and metal forming than anything seen in Classical times. Note, however, that 'real' plate armor appears about the time the Renaissance starts and after the appearance of the pike as a primary infantry weapon. Plate armor was the aristocracy's way of keeping their armored and mounted selves relevant after their battlefield dominance began to wane . . .

Okay, I'll go away now and let somebody else flood the Thread . . .

 

[Shadowstrike]

In that way maybe make Cavalry/Lancers go into Cuirassiers? I think by the Industrial Era some form of mounted unit with a gun should be used.

With the caveat that I'm not particularly knowledgeable about this, my understanding is that cavalry went back and forth between guns and lances in the early modern period. It seems like medieval lances were first replaced with pistols in caracole cavalry (ride up, fire, retreat and reload), and then in the Napoleonic era, they went back to swords for the shock. This might be best represented by a single combined cavalry unit that stands in for both of these formations (since casual players would obviously be very confused to have knights upgrade to a unit that uses guns, and then into another that goes back to swords).

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

Recall how the tech progression works - it's not cataphract - knight; it's chariot - knight!

Chariots were important cavalry units, although they at times might be more "light" than heavy. A classic heavy chariot might be the chariots at the centers of Zhou military strategy - big death machines that would smash into each other on the battlefield, armed with scythes projecting from their wheels. They were eventually outclassed by horse archers imported from Xiongnu and other steppe groups, but were stellar in their time. More to the West, you get a similar decline of the chariot as more mobile cavalry comes up.

So the knight here is perhaps less Renaissance Faire jousting knight and more a heavily armored cavalry unit from late antiquity into the middle ages . I might see a Byzantine tagma as a representation of the elite 10th-century Byzantine cataphract (tagma refers to the regiment, cataphract would refer more to the unit). A Roman or Persian knight would certainly be equivalent to a cataphract.

Ain't Cataphracts Classical Era primary heavycavs? Actually they SHOULD be somewhere between Heavy chariots and Knights (And to be honest, Knights are more tied to civics and less on techs, they were analogues to Ksatriyas of the Old India but with more advanced armor and weaponry and worshipped Jesus Christ rather than Vedic Pantheons. Cataphracts IMAO were (in case of Roma and Byzantium) government troops and not of overlords.

In Rome: Total War there's a Brit unit called 'Graal Knights. Technically they're cataphracts, but they're referred to as 'Knights' and not 'Cataphracts'

https://totalwar.fandom.com/wiki/Graal_Knights

Men-at-arms are a representation of a slightly later unit - munition armored soldiers, slightly more professional than "welcome to the lord's levy, here's your pointed stick" soldiers. While the term is general, here it's a heavy footsoldier (the term would have been applied to knights as well) - ashigaru would be the Japanese equivalent, and more specific to infantry. I think the unit is armed with a bec de corbin (thus, yes, giving it more of a European feel than an ashigaru), a weapon from the very late Middle Ages to Renaissance. But in both Asia and Europe, the man-at-arms is supposed to be from around 1400s-1600s.

Men at arms could be either full time heavycavs, mounted infantry or superheavy infantry armed with Great Weapons to fight another heavily armored opponents. They might be used against medieval spearmen of some kind @Boris Gudenuf did even point out that MAA should be a MELEE UNIT of the Middle Ages (And actually the LAST of this class. the Age of Guns will eventually rendered distinctions between Melee and Anticavs utterly irrelevance. well maybe except for the existence of Lancers.

EDIT: Men At Arms are or or less came from 2nd Estate. I'm not sure if a squire has to progress through foot MAA before he earned a real Knighthood first?

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

Starting in the 12th century, the problems with the system began to show: you could only keep the knight and his retinue (a 'knight' almost always was part of a larger group of servants, 'squires' and other auxiliaries that were supposed to come to the muster with the mounted knight - the 'lone knight' is actually an early Renaissance romantic invention) in service for a limited time or his fief back home was liable to fal apart and he would lose the income required to make him useful. The remedy was for the knight to hire and send a substitute, armed and armored and mounted like a knight, and stay home to squeeze the maximum advantage from his fief and serfs. Those Sergeants (which originally meant a man armred like a knight but not of 'noble' birth) quickly became Preferred, since you could keep them under arms much longer, and generally, being nearly full-time warriors, they were better trained than many of the knights had been. By the 14th century CE, most of the 'feudal' armies of Europe were mostly mercenaries - individuals or mercenary companies.

More about Sarge please. Were they began as a common peasant or a noble who's at the late stage of being squire but unable to earn knighthood so his superior knight had instead put him in a full suit of armor and weapon set and tell him to join the army in his place ??