Spartans

Civilization	Technology tree

Civilization	Technology tree

“	It occurred to me one day that Sparta, though among the most thinly populated of states, was evidently the most powerful and most celebrated city in Greece; and I fell to wondering how this could have happened. But when I considered the institutions of the Spartans, I wondered no longer.	”
—Xenophon, Constitution of the Spartans^[1]

The Spartans are a European civilization in Chronicles: Battle for Greece. They are based on the city-state of Sparta (Lacedaemon) in Classical Greece. They focus on infantry.

They correspond to some of the Greeks in Age of Empires.

Characteristics[]

Civilization bonuses[]

A Polemarch is spawned for free in both the Civic Age and Classical Age.
Villagers and Fishing Ships drop off 10% more food.
The Elite Hoplite upgrade is available in the Classical Age.

Unique units[]

Polemarch (hero): Powerful heavy infantry unit that makes nearby military units attack 15% faster (does not stack). Immune to conversion and slowly regenerates hit points. Becomes stronger each Age. Limited to one in the Civic Age, and two in the Classical Age.
Hippeus: Highly resilient but slow infantry unit. Receives 1.5× boosts from Polemarchs.

Unique technologies[]

Helot Levies: Spearmen, Skirmishers, and Villagers train 50% faster.
Xyphos: Hoplites and Monoremes +1 attack for every 5 nearby enemy military units [max +3].
Agoge*: Maximum armor boost that Hoplites can gain from their aura increased by +1/+1.
Peloponnesian League: Monoreme-line +5 attack vs. Galleys and Forts slowly generate gold.

Polemarch technologies[]

From the Classical Age onwards, the player can upgrade their Polemarchs with only one of the following two technologies:

Ephorate: Polemarchs enable nearby military units to regenerate hit points.*
Morai: Polemarch aura radius increased, and Polemarchs increase the movement speed of nearby military units.

There are further two other technologies the player can research for Polemarchs:

Skeuophoroi: Polemarchs receive +2 attack and a shield against projectiles.
Hippagretai (requires Skeuophoroi): Polemarchs +50 hit points.*

Team bonus[]

Barracks technologies (except the Paragon upgrade) research 50% faster (-33.33% time taken). Paragon is researched in 61.67 seconds.^{[note 1]}

Overview[]

The Spartans are focused entirely on infantry and offense. They have an economic bonus to obtain food faster and in greater quantity, favoring training and rushing with melee units. Their Paragons are versatile generalists, their Hoplites are excellent at engagements with melee units, and their Hippeis are resistant to arrowfire and work as damage sponges. All of them are also boosted by a nearby Polemarch. While they have atrocious archers and cavalry in the late game, they have most options for a versatile Classical Age play. They have serviceable siege, despite lacking Siege Engineers and Heavy Scorpions. They also have poor defenses, lacking not only Stone Walls and Bastions, but also many key Academy technologies. They also miss many important upgrades for Priestesses. Their navy is decent, lacking Shipwright and the final Galley upgrade, but getting the unique technology Peloponnesian League to improve production speed.

Changelog[]

Battle for Greece[]

The Spartans share their Fort model with the Athenians.
One of their Imperial Age unique technologies is Krypteia.
They do not have access to Siege Engineers.
The interaction of this team bonus with the bonuses of civilizations such as Bulgarians, Slavs, etc. which grant certain Barracks technologies or upgrades for free is bugged. Those technologies are still free, but no longer instantly researched upon attaining the requisite Age. The player needs to research them manually at the Barracks and they require the default research time.
With update 153015:
- Krypteia was replaced by Agoge and the Spartans can now research Siege Engineers.
- The team bonus bugs with the free technologies of the Bulgarians and Slavs was fixed.

Alexander the Great[]

With update 158041, the Spartans have a unique model for the Fort.

Campaign appearances[]

The Spartans are playable in the last six (16–21) scenarios of the Battle for Greece grand campaign.

Battle for Greece[]

Prologue: Gates of the Gods
- Mercenaries (as Mercenaries) - Ally
Chasing Smoke
- Bandits (as Ionians) - Enemy
Death to Traitors
- Ionian Fleet (as Ionians) - Enemy
Raise the Sails
- Corinth (as Corinthians) - Neutral → Potential ally
- Pirates (as Greeks) - Enemy
- Aegina (as Aeginetans) - Enemy
The Hot Gates
- Leonidas → Themistocles - Ally
Across the Wine-Dark Sea
- Pausanias - Ally
- Ledrai (as Cypriots) - Neutral
Wrath of the Regent
- Pausanias - Ally → Potential enemy → Ally
The Fruits of Empire
- Keos (as Greeks) - Ally → Potential enemy
- Paros (as Greeks) - Ally → Potential enemy
Within the Long Walls
- Spartans - Enemy
- Corinthian Navy (as Greeks) - Enemy
I am Brasidas
- Helots - Ally
- Methone - Ally
Pyres on the Coast
- Helots - Ally
- Perioikoi - Ally
Speeches and Spears
- Potidaea (as Greeks) - Enemy → Ally → Potential enemy
To the Wall!
- Player - Player
- Syracuse (as Sicilians) - Ally
Blood and Gold
- Ephesus (as Ionians) - Ally
The Fall of Athens
- King Agis - Ally

Alexander the Great[]

Unto the Breach
- Greek Mercenaries (as Greeks) - Enemy
The Cilician Gates
- Pirates (as Pirates) - Enemy → Potential Ally

In-game dialogue language[]

Instead of the historical Doric-Laconian Greek, the Spartans' voice lines are spoken in somewhat reconstructed Classical Attic pronunciation with aspirated plosives /tʰ/, /kʰ/ pronounced as fricatives /θ/, /x/ in some lines, just as the Athenians do with a different voice, but with a few words pronounced differently. An example is that the long vowel in "η" can be pronounced as /ɛː/ in Attic (e.g. Θηρῶ/Thērō̂) and /aː/ in Doric (e.g. Θηρῶ/Thārō̂). Note that "ει" is incorrectly pronounced as as a diphthong, rather than as the long vowel /eː/, likely due to the influence of the erroneous Erasmian pronunciation.

Villager

Military

Priestess: Note: The Spartan and Athenian Priestesses shares their voice files.

AI player names[]

When playing a random map game against the computer, the player may encounter any of the following Spartan AI characters.

Leonidas: The renowned king of the Spartans who made a heroic last stand against the Persians at the Battle of Thermopylae
Lysander: Leader of the Spartans during the later part of the Peloponnesian Wars.
Brasidas: Leader of the Spartans during the early part of the Peloponnesian Wars.
Pausanias: Spartan regent and commander of the allied Greek forces during the final stage of the Graeco-Persian Wars.
Agis: Known as Agis II, 18th Eurypontid king of Sparta during the later part of the Peloponnesian Wars.
Gylippus: Spartan general who led the defense of Syracuse, during the failed Athenian expedition against the city.
Archidamus: Known as Archidamus II, 17th Eurypontid king of Sparta during the Peloponnesian Wars.
Cleomenes: Known as Cleomenes I, 16th Agiad king of Sparta, who helped organize Greek resistance to Darius' invasion of Greece in the early 5th Century BC.
Pleistoanax: 19th Agiad king of Sparta during the Peloponnesian Wars.

Portrayal[]

“	The defining event of Spartan history took place in the seventh century BCE, when the Spartans marched into the neighboring territory of Messenia and enslaved its people en masse. These people subsequently became known as helots and were forced into perpetual service to the Spartans. On the one hand, this enormous population of serfs freed the Spartans from the need to work for themselves, enabling them to devote themselves entirely to military exercises – a tremendous military advantage when most of their foes were armed farmers rather than professional soldiers. On the other hand, the presence of this hostile helot population, always looking for opportunities to rebel against their enslavers, made the Spartans paranoid, cautious, and cruel. They were reluctant ever to travel too far from the Peloponnese for fear of the enemy back home, and they constantly culled and humiliated the helots to keep them suppressed. For such a famous society, historians know very little about the Spartans and use the term ‘the Spartan mirage’ to refer to the fact that historical record is drawn from non Spartan sources looking in on a society deeply hostile to outsiders, whose strange institutions spawned more imaginative speculation than studied observations. Yet one fact seems hard to dispute: on the battlefield, the Spartans were unmatched.	”
—^[1]

Trivia[]

The icon and emblem of the Spartans is an aspis (Greek hoplite shield) with the Greek letter Lambda "Λ" emblazoned on it, as was the case in many real-life Spartan shields and stood for Lacedaemon, the ancient Greek word for the town and the polis.
In many ways, they are similar to the Goths in Age of Empires II. They both have multiple bonuses to their infantry, generally poor non-infantry military units, a food-related economic bonus where more food can be extracted from a source, poor defenses, lack Stone Walls entirely, and have a dearth of University/Academy and religious technologies. Departing from their themes, the Spartans have decent navy, while the Goths have certain gunpowder options.
The untrainable hero units in the game themed on the Spartans are Brasidas, Leonidas, and Lysander.

Gallery[]

Spartans overview (AoE2)

Notes[]

↑ The effect on the Paragon upgrade is a reduction by 23.33 seconds resulting in 61.67 seconds (37.83% faster), rather than the expected reduction by 28.33 seconds which would have resulted in 56.67 seconds (50% faster). Due to not being described in the in-game team bonus as such, this is likely a bug.