Persian Units from the Achaemenid Empire

While the scale armour looks decidedly Persian, the helmet and linen shoulder straps look very much as if taken straight off Boeotian hoplite (compare: http://img412.imageshack.us/img412/203/boeotianhoplitely5.jpg). The horseman in the picture attached to the first post is a later Persian development; I quote his description:

The horseman in the picture is from a later period. He is a member of the lifeguard of Cyrus the Young, and his clothing shows several Greek influences. His bronze helmet is decorated with a plume made of horsehair, and he is wearing a linen jacket reinforced with bronze plates. Just like the Greek cuirasses his jacket has two rows of plates at the bottom which were placed like roofing tiles, the so-called wings or pteruges. His legs are also protected by bronze plates, which resemble the chaparajos of the cowboys in the wild west. The Greek cavalry of the same period did not have these protections for the legs. On his feet he is wearing leather moccasins.

His horse comes from the Medic plains and is quite large and strong. His chest was protected by small bronze plate, while a larger bronze plate covered the front of his head. The bronze plate on the head was normally decorated and formed together with chains of small bronze rings the headstall of the horse. The horseman is holding two javelins in his right hand but most likely he would have had a Greek short sword as secondary weapon. The Persian cavalry was mostly used for throwing projectiles at the enemy, and not so much for charges like the Macedonian cavalry. Altogether he is well protected, and he formed the first of a new type of cavalry: the katafraktoi, or the completely armoured Persian knights.


As such, this horseman might altogether be a mercenary from Greek poleis in Asia Minor. This equipment design would be increasingly common after Alexander's conquest of Persia, and would last well until Persia fell to Parthians. Moreover, the cavalry type depicted, carrying several javelins, would likely be a mounted skirmisher, a very common cavalry role at the time (interestingly enough, there are NO javelin-throwing cavalry units made for Civ 4 at all), not shock cavalry.

More native design for heavy cavalry would likely look close to these pictures:

http://www.ghandchi.com/iranscope/Anthology/KavehFarrokh/300/image020.jpg
http://img47.imageshack.us/img47/6395/persiannoblesgq4.jpg
http://www.atstoysoldiers.axxs.net/images/ZVD8008PersianCav.jpg
http://velizariy.kiev.ua/avallon/museum/pic/lic1.jpg
http://www.roman-glory.com/images/italeri-gallery/img08.jpg

The last picture is actually the closest when it comes to late Persian cataphracts; note the rider on the right with his left arm clad in scale mail used instead of a shield - the same can be said about the rider on the second last picture, but he is shown with only this arm facing us, so you can't see his other hand is unarmored.

If you'd like me to, I can aid you in search for unit concept artwork - I used to aid Chuggi a lot before his disappearance.
 
I could make this horseman,
http://www.ghandchi.com/iranscope/Anthology/KavehFarrokh/300/image020.jpg

or this one,
http://img47.imageshack.us/img47/6395/persiannoblesgq4.jpg

or I could take the lazy route and replace the odd helmet. :p
But on the other hand, I'm always ready for an excuse to make more Persian units! Someone should also make some Javelin Throwing Cavalry animations, this are badly needed (as well as horsemen armed with pistols).

The design with the horse/leg armor in the roman-glory and the toy soldiers site is probably a bit too strange for the animations (the rider's legs would move around and cause flickering with the armor on the horse a bit too much to be ignored). I actually originally wanted this type of heavy cavalry but ran into these problems.

In my own defense concerning the shoulder straps, many times Persians are shown with shoulder straps like in the attachments.

I always welcome any and all help and discussion regarding reference art and research. Believe it or not, I collect it. I am a History/Anthropology student at my university, even though my focus is not on military history (I'm more of a literature focus/culture historian, which is why I instantly went to Herodotus when in doubt).

By the way, how accurate are those Sassanid Osprey images and those miniatures I posted? Oh and could you find a good picture of Daylami Infantry from the Sassanid period? I read that while Sassanids performed mass light levy infantry, wiki states that Daylami where among the few heavy infantry they fielded, is this true? And if so, are there any images of what type of armor they would use? Since the Sassanids set is also going to fill in the vanilla middle ages I need some heavy infantry for the maceman replacement.
 
Well, if I were you, I'd modify the existing one - as I said, it is not totally unrealistic, and removing Greek influences wouldn't be that hard. I'd go for a helmet like in this pic:
http://velizariy.kiev.ua/avallon/museum/pic/lic1.jpg

And, if possible, also a collar and arm scaled armor like in that pic (we're talking about the lowest figure, of course). And maybe make those shoulder straps armored, not linen - that would make sense for a heavy cavalryman.

BTW, it is very likely that Greeks actually borrowed that shoulder-strap deisgn for their linothorax armor from Persians, but unfortunately that resulted in it becoming a recognizably Greek armor element.
 
Baaaa! I spent too long editing the post and you already replied!

How accurate are those Osprey images and miniatures that I posted?
Also, I will say it again, any and all help and advice is welcomed. :)
 
I always welcome any and all help and discussion regarding reference art and research. Believe it or not, I collect it. I am a History/Anthropology student at my university, even though my focus is not on military history (I'm more of a literature focus/culture historian, which is why I instantly went to Herodotus when in doubt).

By the way, how accurate are those Sassanid Osprey images and those miniatures I posted? Oh and could you find a good picture of Daylami Infantry from the Sassanid period? I read that while Sassanids performed mass light levy infantry, wiki states that Daylami where among the few heavy infantry they fielded, is this true? And if so, are there any images of what type of armor they would use? Since the Sassanids set is also going to fill in the vanilla middle ages I need some heavy infantry for the maceman replacement.

Well, I am somewhat of a collector myself, and this is what I could scrape about Sassanids on my HDD; the pictures don't feature any heavy infantry, but it wouldn't be very hard to reconstruct (the pictures are uploaded to Rapidshare, since they weigh quite a bit: http://rapidshare.com/files/195683784/Artwork.rar.html). I believe the Osprey images to be quite accurate; most of that equipment would later be borrowed by Eastern Roman troops. Later on, especially in the Western provinces, there would be a switch to chain mail from scale mail (in most cases a chain shirt with scalemail sleeves and breeches) - but still, scale mail would be used as body armor for heavy cavalry up until Arabian conquest if only for the psychological effect that such an armor blazing in the sunlight has.

Daylamis are not really a unit type, but a native people of Daylam province conscripted for army service, but in Civ terms, they can well fill heavy infantry role in medieval times.

We know that scale mail was the staple of Sassanid armorcraft - this makes a scale suit the most probable armor type for a heavy infantryman (with a very notable, but not very noticeable technical distinction due to the fact that the scales would overlap the other way, due to the fact that most blows on infantrymen come from above, while a cavalryman expects the hardest blow from level height and below).

The most likely weapon would be a mace or a handaxe, which would best correspond with formation-breaker role reserved for Daylami. I believe the swords that Persians used were more suited for cavalry fighting.

Overall outlook of such troops could be quite similar to heavy infantry used by Umayyads (that could actually be drawn from Persia) and Azeris (at that time under very considerable Persian influence). The middle figure in the first picture and the rightmost one in the second.

http://img12.nnm.ru/imagez/gallery/b/7/1/a/3/b71a3603178029be19885fbbb972ea03_full.jpg
http://img11.nnm.ru/imagez/gallery/1/7/1/d/f/171df3464a75ca3fdf7aef45999702d2_full.jpg
 
Hi Bakuel.....I just had a look at these Persian units in nifscope. I like them and I thank you for your generousity in sharing so much of your hard work with all of us.

A quick question. I noticed you seem to be using the "nif viewer" method to create some of these units. (i.e., shrinking the head, removing/adding equipment, new head, etc.)

Do people do this to avoid having to use a 3d program and reskining the model?
 
@Acronym2

Like many of the unit and leaderhead makers, I use the free 3d program blender along with nif viewer (even though many people like nif scope these days). I use the 3D program blender to manipulate and retexture models, Then I import the model into nif format to attach the model to animations.

To briefly describe the usually process I go through,

Inside of blender, I start with a Firaxis model as the base and import it into blender, for example, the Persian heavy horseman uses the rifleman as the base, I then fool around with the model, say make the pants bigger, add shoulder pads, make a new helmet .etc. Then I work with the rifleman texture and manipulate the uv map on the model to make it look right (I admit I often end up getting the model to fit the texture then the other way around :mischief:).

After this is all over, I export the model into nif format and attach it to animations with nif viewer, in nif viewer I also attach weapons I've made, spears and so on.

seZereth was kind enough to show me a different method for attaching units to animations so I probably won't be using nifveiwer that much besides attaching weapons.
 
Bakuel, I read Sezereth's post and thought it interesting information and would like to see more. The way I animated my Marder APC (not yet released) was by creating the model with animation boxes/bones (like the tank) and than importing the mechanized infantry animations one by one and finally exporting to CivIV. I didn't use the nifscope or nifviewer at any time.

Could you point me to a tutorial or something that explains animation with nifscope or nifviewer? I generally use existing animations for my vehicles, so I would prefer to simplify my animation process to concentrate on making and skining new unit models.
 
ok, i don´t know which program you use, but in Blender:

you make your model, afterwards import the skeleton of the nif you want to use the animation. Now rig your model to the bones (in units mostly called Dummy..., living units Bip, Bip01). When rigging don´t move the bones - simply assign your parts, even if your turret will have the wrong position. Assign textures etc and export the nif.

now open your exported nif (N1) and and nif for the animation (N2) in nifscope, copy branch your exported model from N1 to N2, make it a child of the damage texture. Delete the original mesh and adjust the effects nodes. Adjust the position of bones wit hthe help of link nodes (a node between the one you want to move and the parent, move this link to move the child).

More or less if your model is rigged correct it´s the same like exchanging the archer with another vanilla unit.

If your model isn´t rigged, make your parts directly children of the dummy nodes.

Nifscope: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=305606
unrigged model: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=310535

(tutorials with perhpas interesting parts:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=279548 (general)
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=296286 (rigging) )
 
Thanks The_Coyote!
You explained the blender rigging better then I ever could. :)
 
Hello everyone!

I just wanted to announce that I had just uploaded some ancient age Persian units.

persianachaemenidempirepic_xsD.jpg


http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=11762

Included inside of the zip are alot of extra units as well as the standard axeman-swordsman-horseman etc.

The reason for this is that I LOVE Persia!! But they could also be useful for mods or scenarios as well. The concept art for the units is inside of the attachments and here http://www.dbaol.com/armies/army_28b_figure_1.htm, the units are overall pretty historically accurate. I will probably make some middle age units in the style of the Sassanid Empire later.

Anyway, don't forget to comment, tell me if anything is wrong with the download or the files, what you like or what you don't, or even if the units just hurt your eyes.

Just wanted to say: excellent addition all around!:goodjob:
 
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