ExRM 4.0

[Carados]

Ooo you're on a role

Yeah they'll be gotten rid of in 4.0. Reason being we can truncate recruitment to largely a single building. This single building is good enough for our needs at the moment, there might be a few exceptions - but none to my knowledge so far.

[Sardaukar One]

What will you be replacing them with?


Is it possible to do away with needing the Marian reforms for units such as Cataphracts, imitation legionaires, Macedonian dart slingers(whatever they are called) etc.

The Marian reforms came sometime after all these 'innovations.'

[Caesar Augustus]

I know, strange isn't it?

My guess is that Marius is probably the trigger at the moment to save coding complications. I think there's a thread detailing the reform plans in 4.0 floating around somewhere.

To me it seems logical that imitation legionaries would only be available after Marius though? I hastily add that this isn't based on anything I've read.

[Carados]

They'll be replaced with nothing, in relation to units. Quinn is sorting out the government tree with help from a few people on the RTR team and beyond. I'm not completely in the known about it yet.

The "marian reforms" is the best method to getting reforms at the moment. The trigger is an imperial palace in Italy with the exception of Rome. So basically, if you manage to build an imperial palace in Capua in 255BC, then you will trigger the reforms. If you do that in 55BC, then you will trigger the reforms.

Caligula Ceasar is going to change the name of this event completely in his Fortuna Orbis mod and just have it were these reforms just happen. This seems to be the best bet at the moment because it's around 240-200BC when the Italic cities start getting to huge size. How do we introduce the Marian reforms? I suppose we could just script something based on time. I would like to have the actual allies revolt though - but this could happen naturally with the way the government tree is being planned.

What do you lot think we should do??

To me it seems logical that imitation legionaries would only be available after Marius though? I hastily add that this isn't based on anything I've read.

Not necessarily. The principles seem to be the most effectively fighting force in the Roman army. Thus, when they fight against phalanx based armies the tactically superior legions are going to leave an impression on the defeated generals, and they'll want to copy. Even the Marian reforms based the panoply off the princples.

[Caesar Augustus]

Logically yeah, I agree with you Carados.

Could you use the "shadow factions" from BI to represent the revolt of the Italian allies? Like how in vanilla BI if the Western Empire had rebels they would the the Western Empire Rebels? Though if you don't have the faction space I'd like to see several rebel full stacks spawn in Italy for the player to deal with. And reduce the revenue of the allied cities to 0 and disable production until the stacks had been dealt with.

As for the actual reform, I would link it to farm buildings. More than 6 latifundia or something to represent the erosion of the small holding farmers who originally made up the legions. Also perhaps link it to a number of defeats by German armies?

[Carados]

Could you use the "shadow factions" from BI to represent the revolt of the Italian allies? Like how in vanilla BI if the Western Empire had rebels they would the the Western Empire Rebels? Though if you don't have the faction space I'd like to see several rebel full stacks spawn in Italy for the player to deal with. And reduce the revenue of the allied cities to 0 and disable production until the stacks had been dealt with.

Nope. We'd have to remove a faction for that.

As for the actual reform, I would link it to farm buildings. More than 6 latifundia or something to represent the erosion of the small holding farmers who originally made up the legions. Also perhaps link it to a number of defeats by German armies?

Now that I like. Can't do the German idea though. For starters there is no reason for us to assume that Germans will randomly migrate around 100BC in this game. Secondly, the Germans merely hastened the event - it was probably going to happen anyway. The latifundia idea is sound though.

It will happen late in the game
We could trigger some rebels with the latifundia penalties, thus the potential for the social war
It gives the player some control over how their republic is run
It should be relatively easy to pull off I'd imagine

[JaNuZ99]

got a question how r the hidden resources being dealt with,to clarify, for me what comes to my mind is basically the who morale system... like italic r concsripted,romans for roman honor and all that.. just curious as to how that will work and all

[Carados]

Hidden resources and morale have nothing to do with each other. The Roman morale system is currently on-going. We were going to give the Romans a flat +3 morale bonus by way of ancillaries, however having read a bit more about the battles the Romans were engaged in, I wonder if it's actually better to give all Roman troops one or two extra points of morale. This way it's possible for the entire alae flanks to run away, but still leave the Roman core to fight on if need be - ala River Trebia. If, however, the rout is large enough then the Romans will run too - Arausio.

[Caesar Augustus]

Nope. We'd have to remove a faction for that.



Now that I like. Can't do the German idea though. For starters there is no reason for us to assume that Germans will randomly migrate around 100BC in this game. Secondly, the Germans merely hastened the event - it was probably going to happen anyway. The latifundia idea is sound though.

It will happen late in the game
We could trigger some rebels with the latifundia penalties, thus the potential for the social war
It gives the player some control over how their republic is run
It should be relatively easy to pull off I'd imagine

Ah well, I didn't think a faction slot would be free. I was just thinking it would be a way of exploring what would happen had Rome lost the social war.

I think defeats like Arausio pretty much rendered the reforms inevitable. Though property requirements were probably being winked at in times of extremis during the 2nd Punic War. I don't really know enough to back that up though.

But yeah, it would be good because if a player doesn't like the Marian legions the he (or she, just for political correctness ) doesn't have to use them.

[JaNuZ99]

I guess everyone plays their own way though i wouldn't see why anyone wouldn't want the marian reform to happen? and after all the process was already happening gradually as certain need needed to met with an expanding republic

[Carados]

I can.

Rebellion

We've got a similar thing planned for the Greeks. Basically, you get to choose whether to adopt new methods of war or not. Initially, the Greeks will only be able to recruit peltests and hoplites. You will get the option to construct buildings that give you access to the Theurophoroi. Later on, you'll have the option of "upgrading" further giving the Greeks phalangites, at the expense of losing their Hoplites.

The way it would work with Rome is that your buildings give you a lot more money, but at the expense of public order. Thus, you can upgrade all these buildings and get a serious cash income because of it, but you'll have to keep an eye on your public order. If you go too far, then the Marian reforms would occur and then later on the Social war. By the way, once the Marian reforms have come, you'll lose the HPT and gain the LL. LL because there will actually be two types of legionaires. The veterans, and the new recruits. They'll be armed and armoured the same, but have different base stats.

[Caesar Augustus]

Nice

Will thureokites (or whatever the more heavily armoured thureophoroi were called) also be in 4.0?

[Carados]

I believe so. Quinn and myself had a discussion about it a while ago, he isn't completely in favour of them but it might help the Greeks out with their unit line-up.

[JaNuZ99]

interesting..

[Mogan]

Just a quick question:

How will the power struggle between Ptolemy Keraunos and Antiognos Gonatas be reflected in ExRM 4? I presume the Galatians will start with hordes in both Macedon and Bithynia, but I'm still interested in the war between those two. Currently, this struggle is portrayed by playing as Antigonos when you select Macedon, which I find unsatisfactory (as I assume others do as well). So I'm very interested, what will the political situation of Macedon look like?

[Carados]

There is very little we can do about it. I have the Galatians as starting North-East and North of Pella - with a third army nearby Tylis. The problem I've got with these hordes is that they simply will not behave as the Galatians behaved. Thus I might have to put all 3 of them North-East of Pella - perhaps in one of the Illyrian regions (Moesia?). Whatever I do, they are a right pain. There might be need of a script to get them over to Bithynia if we so desire.

Ptolemy is just going to have to be a very strong rebel army. I'm not sure putting them into a minifaction is appropriate. I have two large armies in Macedon, with Keraunos's personal unit being elephants.

This is an on-going process mind. We're open to suggestions, as always, so fire some our way if you want
Ask yourself "what would I like to see in Macedon during the year 280BC?", and then tell us.

[Mogan]

Well, I don't know about 280 BC exactly, but is it possible to script the spawning of some rebel stacks linked to the death of Ptolemy Keuranos? Just to make it hard for both Gauls/Galatians to go far southwards, and to slow the growth of the Macedonian Antigonos? This would probably give the Greeks some time to build up so Macedon don't steamroll them within 275 BC...

[Carados]

I wouldn't worry about Antigonos steamrolling the Greeks. The Greeks have the powerful city-state hoplites at their disposal, with a cost and upkeep to prevent them from steamrolling Macedon in kind. Got a bit of time to elaborate what the current situation of the 4.0 development in the Balkans currently is, what seemed to happen, and what we could do about it.

At the moment we have the aforementioned Galatians in their dispersed locations. A large stack led by Ptolemy is situated North-West West of Pella. Another large army, which is going to be led by Sosthenes, can be found South-West of Pella. The Galatian horde North-West of Pella is large enough to defeat and kill Ptolemy, however it will be decimated by Sosthenes in return. The Galatian horde North of Pella is large enough to tackle Sosthenes.

Macedon has Larissa, Corinth and Chaldika. The Chremonidean league controls Sparta (Spartans), Athens (Athenians) and Kydonia (Cretans). The Greek minifaction holds Thermon. Epirus has Apollonia and also the new province with Ambrakia between Apollonia and Thermon. Elis has been swapped out for Ambrakia. Bylazora, Pella, Thessalonia and Phillipi all belong to the rebels.

Now. After the Celtic warlord Brennus had defeated Sosthenes, he carried on his raid deeper into Greece. He was eventually defeated by a combined army of Greeks (Greek minifaction & Chremonidean league should start off as allies??). The survivors fled and eventually settled in the Hellespont. The detachment that is to find itself in Thrace had already established a kingdom of sorts in the area. Thus, it may be all we need to do is have the Galatians cause massive damage to the Greek factions and hoping that, at one point, they find themselves near Tylis and/or Byzantium. Do we give the Galatians Thrace immediately, but keep Brennus and "Bolgios" North-West of Pella? Or should we perhaps try and create a script that forces a Galatian stack to attack Tylis and thus keep the Galatians in play before the inevitable demise of Brennus & Bolgios? Note: this has absolutely no bearing at all for human controlled Galatians.

Maronia. Currently in the hands of the Ptollies, but in 277BC, Antigonus defeated the Galatians in the same area. Therefore, should Macedon start with Maronia? This would help them in case they somehow lose Larissa early on, since Maronia isn't the easiest of places to attack. Macedon could prefer_navy?

If the Galatians have Tylis and/or Byzantium, they can take Nicomedia and later Ancyra without too much trouble. Macedon/Dacia can eventually take out the Gauls in Thrace thus furthering the creation of the Galatians as we typically know them in Asia Minor.

Should Thessalonica be removed?? From what I've heard, Thessalonica was the port for Pella. Thus, we could remove it in the same way Seleucia Piera was removed in previous versions as well as reduce the power of the Balkans in general which is already highy contested. It would also create a bit of space in the Macedonia area, which is difficult to move around due to the close proximity of Pella and Thessalonica.

[Caesar Augustus]

Scripting the Galatians to take Tylis would be an excellent idea to preserve them and make sure they reach their historical destination. I think as much as possible should be done to ensure they end up in Asia Minor. Could fiddling with the map help with this, similar to what you've done in 3.5 to guarantee at least 1 battle between Pyrrhus and Rome?

I've never quite understood why Maronia is in Ptolemaic hands at the beginning of the game, but if it's more historically accurate that way then it should remain with the Ptollies in my opinion. Would giving Macedon prefer_navy mean that they'd end up sending ridiculously small armies everywhere, like it did for Carthage?

I'd be inclined to agree with the removal of Thessalonica. Although, would it turn Pella into too much of a moneyspinner (500 mining income, plus land and sea trade)?

[Mogan]

Pella + Thessy gives more, so just Pella would be a good idea for a trade nerf early on.

But I was kinda hoping Elis would disappear and Argos pop up in stead. After all, Phyrrus died there. And it wasn't a completely insignificant city.