Cèsar de Quart said:
No "nobles" in the Roman Empire armies. They integrate into the structure of the army.
Hmm, so what would the pronoiars be? Top-tier professionals? I've included them in the Bulgarian tree as first tier nobles (they are, after all, similar to a degree to the knights, though, on the other hand, they are to a degree also similar to the old stratiotes), but if the Byzantines have no noble tree, I think the Bulgarians shouldn't either and I'd have to re-edit it again.
mefaba said:
I am not really sure about the sources right now but there were accounts of Anatolian natives being relocated in Balkan lands by the Byzantine rule which also caused the population decrease in Anatolia. This was probably done to prevent the natives to convert to Islam and join the Turkish manpower pool.
That would be interesting indeed. The only cases of people from Asia Minor being relocated to the Balkans, that I can remember, are the Armenian Paulicians being relocated to Thrace (after Basil I conqered Tafriqa in 872) and, eventually, some Turks being relocated to modern Macedonia to form the Vardariotai (though it's debatable if those were only Turks or also Magyars, Pechenegs etc). Of course, on the other hand, Balkaners have also been relocated to Asia Minor several times - first case I can remember is from the end of the 7th century (I think it was Justinian II who captured a large number of free Slavs from Macedonia and settled them in Asia Minor, there's also the somewhat famous episode with the Slavic troops there joining the Arabs etc), after 1018 many Bulgarians were also sent to Armenia etc. etc. So, both regions were somewhat similar melting pots, which is why the situations there are rather messy, as previously said.
mefaba said:
Of course an ethnic identity back then is out of question.
I call bull**** on this one (not against you or Cesar, but against the myth in general).
The lack of ethnic identity is out of the question, as that is ridiculously absurd. And even the lack of national identity (which is different from ethnic one) can, IMO, be attributed only to some regions of Europe, most notably the highly feudalised ones. After all, being a Roman (or Byzantine in modern terms) is exactly a nationality, not an ethnicity. The situation in Bulgaria is potentially similar, btw, which is why Norman Davies does say that Bulgaria (and later Serbia, as well as Portugal and Denmark, for reasons unknown and unremembered by me) can be said to have established a sense of nationality, in the case of Bulgaria thanks to its earlier imperial policy (during the FBE) and independent national church (Patriarchate, though I'd also add its own official and liturgical language etc. etc.). In any case, the existence of ethnicities is indeed out of any dispute, especially when we're talking about the East (including the Turkic world). Furthermore, the clan structure doesn't exclude the notion of ethnicity. On the contrary - it's often the basis of it.
mefaba said:
Anyway, I don't really want to turn this into a historical discussion or tell you modders how to do things. I merely ask you modding people to consider the Byzantine influence on troops only to a certain limit, not as a major effect. But in the end, it's your mod and your rules. As it's a fantastic mod even it's not finished yet, I will play it no matter how you decide to do it.
Oh, don't worry - we (or at least I) love a good historical discussion. Though I don't think we've been talking about the troops recruitable from the Turkish cities - as far as I understand it, the question was about the settlements' names themselves - would it be the Greek spelling (as you said, f.e. Ikonium) or the Turkish spelling (in that case, Konya). Respectively, in the Byzantine-controlled Balkans - would it be the Greek spelling (as I said, Achrida) or the local peoples' spelling (in that case, Ohrid).
Otherwise, the question about the Byzantine troops was brought up, I think, not about whether the Turkish controlled settlements in Asia Minor should produce Byzantine or Turkish troops (though, of course, if we have a good enough info about which areas were more Turkicized and which weren't, it could allow to add a greater ethnic diversity in the village recruitment there), but about how the Byzantine recruitment system itself should work, considering Byzantium is not as feudalised as most countries we already have and has a more centralised and even professional army (i.e. should it have a separate noble troop tree, vilage/town troop trees etc). And that question is, of course, valid for other not-so-feudal countries as well.
mefaba said:
Addendum: That information about the Anatolian native population to be relocated in Balkans and Greece was written in Michael the Syrian's The Chronicle. He blames the emperor Manuel Komnenos(1143-1180) for helping Turks settle in empty lands because of this relocation policy. While I was checking this book in my bookshelf, I also noticed him writing his famous remark "Even the earth couldn't weigh all those Turks moving into Anatolia."
Interesting. Did it mention from which area they were taken (and why) and to which area they were relocated?
Btw, about that number of 1 million Turks migrating to Anatolia before the 1st crusade, is that from contemporary or modern sources? Because if it's the former, I should point out that a similar number was f.e. given to the Pechenegs who settled in the Balkans (800 000), which most modern historians believe to be a "typical" medieval exaggeration. And, at the very least, when studying large migrational movements (no matter if it's about the Eurasian nomads or the Vikings f.e.) and giving specific numbers, historians have to show the ability to gather and move the said number of people from the previous land (i.e. how the previous land sustained that number of people) and the reasons why such a move happened (overpopulation f.e.) and in what scale (it's extremely rare for a whole full "nation" to move, even among the nomads - usually it's just some of the tribes that moved, while others stayed behind).
