Forums

I think you are using the words "LITERALLY" and "historically" a bit too generously. What even is a fighting class at that time? Ancient Greeks, at least until the end of the Classical period, didn’t practise hoplomachia (weapons training)*, thinking courage alone would carry the day. No, not even the Spartans, their training consisted mostly in improving their fitness, and for the other city-states, people just didn’t have that much free time. They would go from working to fighting and back to working, and only at most one third of those who were able to fight (randomly chosen per campaign, only the generals had a more fixed position). That’s maybe why they insisted on the belief that courage was enough, otherwise their impossible to train militias would be demoralised. Helots were good enough, to the point that both Thucydides and Diodoros Siculus state that those who served under Brasidas were "freed" (implying that they distinguished themselves), while the Spartans that surrendered at Sphacteria were disenfranchised (at least for a time). What is more, a helot farmer could have been more combat ready than an Athenian trader or potter. Diodoros Siculus also states that "since Brasidas had been joined by a thousand Helots and troops had been levied among the allies, a satisfactory force was assembled". Now, if you want to nerf them for some not-so-historical reason, you could think of an "enslaved" characteristic (imagining that their fear would have been greater than their courage, or something), although I don’t understand why you propose a penalty on speed and not, as I think would make more sense, a penalty on attack or defense. But still, they would have fought satisfactorily enough, their fate being tied to that of their masters in the battlefield, and although they revolted and were liberated by Sparta’s enemies at other points in time, a battle is quite a convoluted scenario for any of that to happen, and I’m not aware of any records of it happening.   *Certain ranged units like archers or slingers did have to practise, otherwise they’d be useless. Same with cavalry.  

'What ... actually looked like' and 'AI Reconstruction'

Just looking at the Cothon in the thumbnail makes me not click it.

Choose custom-made furniture frameless cabinets Tampa Bay