Preview: The Suevi (v0.8) news - Divide et Impera mod for Total War: Rome II

Overview

The Suebi or Suevi were a large group of Germanic peoples who were first mentioned by Julius Caesar in connection with Ariovistus' campaign in Gaul, c. 58 BC. While Caesar treated them as one Germanic tribe, though the largest and most warlike, later authors such as Tacitus, Pliny and Strabo specified that the Suevi do not, like the Chatti or Tencteri, constitute a single nation. They actually occupy more than half of Germany, and are divided into a number of distinct tribes under distinct names, though all generally are called Suebi". At one time, classical ethnography had applied the name "Suebi" to so many Germanic tribes that it appeared as though in the first centuries C.E. this native name would replace the foreign name "Germans".

Classical authors noted that the Suebic tribes, compared to other Germanic tribes, were very mobile, and not reliant upon agriculture. Various Suebic groups moved from the direction of the Baltic sea and river Elbe, becoming a periodic threat to the Roman empire on their Rhine and Danube frontiers. Toward the end of the empire, the Alamanni, also referred to as Suebi, first settled in the Agri Decumates and then crossed the Rhine and occupied Alsace. A pocket remained in the region now still called Swabia, an area in southwest Germany whose modern name derives from the Suebi. Others moved as far as Gallaecia (modern Galicia, in Spain, and Northern Portugal) and established a Suebic Kingdom of Galicia there which lasted for 170 years until its integration into the Visigothic Kingdom.

The name is believed to come from Proto-Germanic swēbaz, either based on the Proto-Germanic root swē- meaning "one's own" people, the third person reflexive pronoun.
Strabo describes the Suebi and people from their part of the world as highly mobile and nomadic, unlike more settled and agricultural tribes such as the Chatti and Cherusci:

...they do not till the soil or even store up food, but live in small huts that are merely temporary structures; and they live for the most part off their flocks, as the Nomads do, so that, in imitation of the Nomads, they load their household belongings on their wagons and with their beasts turn whithersoever they think best.

Notable in classical sources, the Suebi can be identified by their hair style called the "Suebian knot", which "distinguishes the freeman from the slave"; or in other words served as a badge of social rank. The same passage points out that chiefs "use an even more elaborate style".

Units

This faction overhaul is a complete revamp and changes the appearance of all Suebi units, and adds 18 new units to the Suebi. Here are pictures of some of the new and remade units:

Melee infantry

Spear infantry

Pike infantry

Missile infantry

Cavalry