ExRM 4.0

[Juan_de_Marco]

Well I agree. Some paradox games also have this problem: of course this game should be realistic -and we're here because we want it as realistic as possible-, but that does not mean that it should be fixed in every way. If you know Carthage will attack in 272 bC by event, you'll be preparing for war years before that. What you want in this game is to be uncertain -to a certain extent- who will attack you. You should see some armies massing one year before they do, of course, but there is no blitzkrieg of surprise.
So I agree with Mogan that if you make the set-up really balanced (even if that is a bit more unhistorical), the random generated outcome of battles may be different, and every game will play out different, making it interesting for the player. What this mod adds (to me it seems at least) is historical accuracy, not historical determinism.

[Caesar Augustus]

But for a historically realistic game, there is always some sort of predetermination.

So the problem is how the team will approach history repeating itself in game. Personally I think great work on this has been done so far.

As an aside, does anybody know if EXRM includes a way to get around the crashes that usually occur around 66 BC?

[Carados]

If we were to bring the start date forward, I would be in favour of bringing it to ~240BC. The Eastern factions don't change a great deal in the preceding 40 years and so bringing it forward would help in providing more realistic events in the East. In terms of Western events, the first punic war is the only major occurence and yet this was primarily for Sicily and took some 20 or years before it was finally concluded. Although a significant event, I think it is safe to skip the war and prepare Rome and Carthage for the 2nd punic war. Of immediate concern for both of these factions though are the Illyrians and mercenaries respectively. Since Italy is effectively secured, some settlements could be removed (perhaps so Italy looks similar to vanilla?) and placed somewhere else (Spain? That will get fair important during this time period). Since Epirus and Galatia are no longer powers, they can be put into their respective minifaction and Pergamon and the Mauryans or other significant factions could be put in instead. One very important thing is to make sure Rome doesn't become all powerful and steamrolls everything. With the removal of a few cities in Italy however, and the rebalancing of stats that I've done, they should hopefully not be too powerful. With that said, there is absolutely nothing that is in a viable position to wreck havoc on Italy with the exception of the Illyrian raids, but these are raids and nothing too significant.

There are two problems with changing the date though.
a) the amount of work involved
b) the amount of work lost with the removal of Epirus/Galatia


Juan_de_Marco is correct, we don't want everything to play out exactly as happened in history, otherwise what is the point in even playing? With that said, Ceasar Augustus is also correct in that there needs to be at least some predetermination. At game start you have no time to prepare well in advance and so forcing some confrontation between certain factions is, rather... should, happen. Also, it is important to make sure that factions that in reality had absolutely no chance of being global powers, don't ever become global powers!


CA:
No, I think 66BC is the absolute turn limit or something as a result of the 4tpy script. Not completely sure about that to be honest though.

[AtlasGR]

If we were to bring the start date forward, I would be in favour of bringing it to ~240BC. The Eastern factions don't change a great deal in the preceding 40 years and so bringing it forward would help in providing more realistic events in the East. In terms of Western events, the first punic war is the only major occurence and yet this was primarily for Sicily and took some 20 or years before it was finally concluded. Although a significant event, I think it is safe to skip the war and prepare Rome and Carthage for the 2nd punic war. Of immediate concern for both of these factions though are the Illyrians and mercenaries respectively. Since Italy is effectively secured, some settlements could be removed (perhaps so Italy looks similar to vanilla?) and placed somewhere else (Spain? That will get fair important during this time period). Since Epirus and Galatia are no longer powers, they can be put into their respective minifaction and Pergamon and the Mauryans or other significant factions could be put in instead. One very important thing is to make sure Rome doesn't become all powerful and steamrolls everything. With the removal of a few cities in Italy however, and the rebalancing of stats that I've done, they should hopefully not be too powerful. With that said, there is absolutely nothing that is in a viable position to wreck havoc on Italy with the exception of the Illyrian raids, but these are raids and nothing too significant.

There are two problems with changing the date though.
a) the amount of work involved
b) the amount of work lost with the removal of Epirus/Galatia


Juan_de_Marco is correct, we don't want everything to play out exactly as happened in history, otherwise what is the point in even playing? With that said, Ceasar Augustus is also correct in that there needs to be at least some predetermination. At game start you have no time to prepare well in advance and so forcing some confrontation between certain factions is, rather... should, happen. Also, it is important to make sure that factions that in reality had absolutely no chance of being global powers, don't ever become global powers!


CA:
No, I think 66BC is the absolute turn limit or something as a result of the 4tpy script. Not completely sure about that to be honest though.

How about making 2 campaigns one starting in 280 BC and one in 240 BC ? Why not ?

[Carados]

It has crossed my mind and I'd love to be able to do that however it would require even more work. I'm also not sure how the DMB would work out.

It might be a possibility in the future, though.

[Quinn Inuit]

Sorry, I was in the process of responding to this and the power went out. It's been an interesting week.

Anyway, two campaigns would be a substantial amount of work. Not just "pain in the neck," but "see you next year." We'd like to focus on just one for the moment. If someone else wants to use our developments, though, they'd be welcome (with attribution, of course). I think the setup we create will lend itself to use as a good platform for further development.

66 B.C. is the result of a hard limit in the number of turns allowed in one game.

Honestly, a 240 B.C. campaign would be fun, but I like our current timeline. I think it allows us to show an interesting period in history and show it well. My position is that I think we can create something really good based on the 280 start date, and then maybe if we feel like it do a new version for 240. It would need to be a separate mod, though, due to DMB issues.

[Sardaukar One]

I don't mind Rome becoming the strongest in the west. My problem is that they do it so fast.
Before you know it, Gaul is gone and Spain's finished too. Though Spain sometimes gets done in by Carthage. Numidia rarely does anything.
And we all know about Macedon.

Is there anyway to script what and where factions go?
Like keeping Macedon south of the Danube for example.

I think it was Antonov who told me that if a faction comes down to its last city, it could be scripted for a number of armies to appear if that last city is attacked.
I think it should be done of Egypt if anyone breaches the Nile.
I might have gotten this wrong though. If its possible, I think it could be useful for keeping some factions in the game.

Why do all the Successor states have two pike units that basically are the same?
The Seleucids certainly had a proffesional phalanx in addition to the Silver Shields and Hypaspists.
Then there were the levy phalanx, for lack of a better description. Plus persian troops etc.
There is a case that the Macedonians had a similar system. They certainly could call up the national levy in addition to whatever standing units they had.
The Ptolemies never had a pool of Greeks and Macedonians to have two different types of regular phalanx troops.
I don't know about Bactria, but I doubt they had the same.

The point i'm trying to make is that one of these units should be better than the other. Reflecting the regular troops in regards to the levy phalanx units. Presumably thats the unit that takes two turns to recruit?

Seleucids also should have access to Horse Archers and the Silk road.

Rome needs Praetorians. Plus urban militia, cohorts etc.
I know people's aversion to the Praetorians, but they were a unit that existed and was part of the Roman military. The urban cohorts etc are just for garrison units.
Make em recruitable in Rome only? Maybe that could work?

Just my two cents!

[Quinn Inuit]

I don't mind Rome becoming the strongest in the west. My problem is that they do it so fast.
Before you know it, Gaul is gone and Spain's finished too. Though Spain sometimes gets done in by Carthage. Numidia rarely does anything.
And we all know about Macedon.

Is there anyway to script what and where factions go?
Like keeping Macedon south of the Danube for example.

Macedon's really not a problem now. And Rome won't become powerful quite so fast anymore.

I think it was Antonov who told me that if a faction comes down to its last city, it could be scripted for a number of armies to appear if that last city is attacked.
I think it should be done of Egypt if anyone breaches the Nile.
I might have gotten this wrong though. If its possible, I think it could be useful for keeping some factions in the game.

That's do-able, but I think it's rather inelegant. I've tried to get away from requiring such scripts.

Why do all the Successor states have two pike units that basically are the same?
The Seleucids certainly had a proffesional phalanx in addition to the Silver Shields and Hypaspists.
Then there were the levy phalanx, for lack of a better description. Plus persian troops etc.
There is a case that the Macedonians had a similar system. They certainly could call up the national levy in addition to whatever standing units they had.

Did you not read the unit description?

One is the phalanx you're training, and one is recalled kleroi (or katoikoi). The professional phalanx of which you speak is the agema.

The Ptolemies never had a pool of Greeks and Macedonians to have two different types of regular phalanx troops.
I don't know about Bactria, but I doubt they had the same.

Are you sure about that? The Ptolies had fewer Hellenes on whom to call, but they could certainly field a sizable phalanx. Bactria seems to have been able to do so, too, at least for a little while.

Seleucids also should have access to Horse Archers and the Silk road.

Hmmm...I think you're right about the former (we can give them access to some AOR horse archers), not sure about the latter. How should we handle those trade routes? And remember that we don't want to strengthen Hellenic factions relative to eastern ones.

Rome needs Praetorians. Plus urban militia, cohorts etc.
I know people's aversion to the Praetorians, but they were a unit that existed and was part of the Roman military. The urban cohorts etc are just for garrison units.
Make em recruitable in Rome only? Maybe that could work?

Just my two cents!

Praetorians weren't used in sufficient numbers during our time period to be worth including, IMO. Veteran legionnaires are sufficient to replicate them.

As for urban cohorts, I don't know much about them. What was their use like during our period?

[AtlasGR]

I am currently playing the 3.5.3 version and I noticed that selecuids are too powerful. Parthia really needs a boost ! ( It was destroyed in 265 BC in my campaign!!!)
Now the selecuids are finishing of Bactria...

[Fridericus Rex]

I would like to know whether there are any plans to change the current Roman recruiting system to make it more realistic.
Currently, at the beginning of the game, although indicated as under Roman influence, most cities are completely useless; one can not even recruit a militias to keep order as it was possible during the Roman Republic.
Recruiting Roman Republican Armies should be only possible in the cities as it is set up right now; however, Rome became only so successful because of it's larger male pool that could be utilized to create armies. Take for instance Cannae; the loss was of little consequences to the Romans because they could immediately replace that loss from their manpower pool in the Italian cities.

Suggestion: Make the Italian cities capable of recruiting cheat peasants (very low stats, large numbers) and release them in Rome (reduce Rome's population growth accordingly to avoid to rapid growth). Create a city militia to guard the cities (low stats).

You may have to set up a sub-mod for the people who play as Rome, otherwise the AI will build to many cheap peasant units to fight in wars.

[Quinn Inuit]

The Seleucids don't always win out. They often do, but often don't.

We actually do intend to replicate that manpower pool by making legionnaires 0-turn recruitment units.

As for the militia, could you tell me more about them? What should they look like?

I can use a script to create a building in your starting Roman cities that will allow only a player to recruit militia units, but I'm hesitant to give a player an advantage not possessed by the computer. Why not just use your allies to garrison cities? That's how I play.

[GraaEminense]

The Seleucids don't always win out. They often do, but often don't.

Yep, about half the time it's the Ptollies.

I'm sure I'm not the only one to see this pattern: sometime between 260-250, the Ptollies or the Seleucids have pushed the other to insignificance and probably removed a few minors from the map. At this point the survivor is the preeminent power in the world, and it really is very little the AI can do about it as the Lords of the Near East pump out full stack after full stack. Even the player will have trouble once they reach this level (which they tend to do unless you play a faction that borders the region early on).

From this period on, the game tends to become an endless grind of yellow or blue stacks just to keep them out of Civilization. Unless you're prepared to use gamey strategies (for the first time ever I'm building a sea raider force of excess family members and artillery to take and burn coastal cities!) or just go for these two at once, this gets boring fast.

The main reason as I see it is that the minor AI factions pose no threat to the two juggernaughts, and can't take the attrition -they tend to fold really fast unless the major they're fighting is getting it's butt handed to it by the other major.

Added to wishlist: a longer period of conflict and suspense in the East!

[Carados]

I don't often play long enough to see a superpower from the East. What I do tend to see though is the Seleucids getting hammered and with one of Galatia, Pontus, Armenia, Parthia and Bactria becoming an Eastern power along with the Ptollies.

Hopefully the combination of heightened unit costs, changes in stats, changes in recruitment and the addition of the third minifaction should result in a far more interesting eastern conflict. I think one of the problems is the amount of high quality infantry both the ptollies and seleucids can pump out. If these can be restricted then the smaller powers have a much greater chance of taking them on. The seleucids should also be losing the vast majority of it's starting gold shields. It's too easy for them to take them out of settlements and put them all into a single gigantic army of SAPSWODs (Shiny Armoured, Pointy Stick Wielders Of Death - let's see if it catches on ). This inevitably leads to the demise of one of the smaller powers if they get the seleucids attention too early on.

[Caesar Augustus]

66 B.C. is the result of a hard limit in the number of turns allowed in one game.

Oh right I see. I just wasn't sure as I came across a thread by florin80 in the Platinum version saying he'd found a way to get around 66BC by changing the year system to AUC (Ab Urba Condita)(sp?) so that there won't be CTD's around then?

[Fridericus Rex]

Quinn - to be recruited into the Roman Republican Army one had to be a citizen. There were four citizenships ( full citizenship and 3 half-citizenship which could be converted to full citizenship when they went to Rome); only people with full citizenship were included into the army and trained at the Mars field in Rome.
For the game it would be very realistic to copy that - make it to recruit a large number of peasants (300 or 500, limit it to 5 or 10 drawings, very low stats (citizens) with o-recruiting time and move them to Rome, Capua and a third Italian city of your choice and delete them there that would increase the population in these 3 cities. Set the normal population increase in these 3 cities to low to avoid fast overpopulation.
I do this in my current game setup by using the Funditores in the mod; they add little to the Roman infantry roster and there are still the skirmisher and more importantly Velites for the Romans.

In regards to the militias (vanilla RTW rightly had them), I will try to find a picture but may not be able to, historian just mention them. They were recruitable in each city from the local population, even occupied cities.

The Germanic tribes may also need some revision: for instant, contrary to the Celtic tribes (they had appida) the Germanic tribes did not have any cities in 200 BC into AD (mentioned as a peculiarity and difficulty by J. Caesar). There were only constantly moving tribes in search of fertile land and food.
For the game, I have no idea on how to implement this?

[Mogan]

There were only constantly moving tribes in search of fertile land and food.
For the game, I have no idea on how to implement this?

Horde-mode, anyone?

[Carados]

Horde-mode, anyone?

I was wondering whether to restrict the Germans to a single starting settlement and have them as a horde. We can sort of pull off that migration this way too.

A slightly different building tree which emphasizes warfare would be neat too.

[Sardaukar One]

Praetorians weren't used in sufficient numbers during our time period to be worth including, IMO. Veteran legionnaires are sufficient to replicate them.

As for urban cohorts, I don't know much about them. What was their use like during our period?

For me the Praetorians are one of the things that makes playing as Rome enjoyable.
They were used both before and after the Marian reforms. They seem to have reached their peak from Caesar's murder down to Actium as far as really fighting wars goes.
The Praetorians of Anthony and Lepidus annhilated Octavian's Praetorians at Mutina.
Octavian lost his Praetorians with legio martia while crossing the adriatic before the battle of Philippi.
After Philippi, Anthony and Octavian used 11,000 veterans to make up Praetorian cohorts that they divided between them.
I believe they were also in the thick of things during 69 AD(year of the four emperors), participating at the battle of Cremona.
They were certainly far more in service than say, the Sacred Band. At least as far as I am aware.

RE Urban cohorts, the Romans need a garrison unit. Leaving cohorts there is too expensive and a waste.

Hmmm...I think you're right about the former (we can give them access to some AOR horse archers), not sure about the latter. How should we handle those trade routes? And remember that we don't want to strengthen Hellenic factions relative to eastern ones.

I don't think that HA's were that prevalent in Seleucid armies, but used they were. Seleucus had a number of them at Ipsus. And I would imagine they were far more prevalent out in the east than in the western part of the Seleucid empire.

Apparently trade was not effected between the Seleucids and India. Nor, despite the independence of Parthia and Bactria, was trade really effected between the Seleucids and their former dependencies.
Got this tidbit from "From Samarkhand to Sardis : A new approach to the Seleucid Empire".
They were also quite big into trade from Arabia.

Are you sure about that? The Ptolies had fewer Hellenes on whom to call, but they could certainly field a sizable phalanx. Bactria seems to have been able to do so, too, at least for a little while.

The Ptolemies could field a sizeable phalanx. But many of them would have been Libyans, Egyptians and Greeks. Many of the Greeks would actually have been mercs. I know the Ptolemies did settle some of their mercs.
Like I said, I don't really know about Bactria. I would imagine though, that they were much more like the Seleucid empire than Egypt. They had potential enemies all around them. And were fighting all over the place. Not really the case for Egypt, who basically had one main enemy as far as land engagements went. And from one direction only.

Did you not read the unit description?

One is the phalanx you're training, and one is recalled kleroi (or katoikoi). The professional phalanx of which you speak is the agema.

I'm not disputing that there should be different types of phalanx units. Just that there is no real difference between the units available.
I've looked through all the stuff I have on the Seleucids and its not very clear if there was a standing phalanx apart from the Silver Shields/Argyraspides.
There is certainly evidence to support that there could have been.

Antiochus III field army comprised of 30-35,000 men. The one he used on his eastern anabis.
Got this number from Grainger's "The Roman War of Antiochus the Great".
And I've read this somewhere else too. Can't find any other number for this though.
Anyway, Antiochus certainly cannot have called out the levy for this campaign as he spent something like six or seven years out in the wilderness (212-205BC I think). The effect on the economy would have been too much. And he certainly would not have had them campaigning so far from home. Very unpopular move. Plus, I doubt there were that many 'hellenes' he could call upon in the east.
This makes sense to me. Therefore, it seems unlikely to me that of those 30-35,000 men who made up the field army, that only 10,000 would be the heavy infantry i.e. the Silver Shields.

The army Antiochus III took to Greece was most likely part of his regular army. The intial plan was for the invasion and colonization of Thrace. So to take away the levy from other areas seems a stretch to me. Taking Thrace would take some time.
The ultimate loss of the bulk of these troops seems to be reflected in the troop numbers for Magnesia.

The Daphne parade lists there being some 25,000 heavy infantry. 10,000 gold shields(chrysaspides?), 5,000 bronze shields(chalkaspides) and 5,000 silver shields(argrayspides). In addition, there is the 5,000 soldiers trained in the roman fashion.
The Hypaspists and Silver Shields were 5,000 each. Apparently the Hypaspists were now trained in the Roman fashion. But the 10,000 men for the Silver shields stays the same.

I'd also add that the Daphne parade also list far fewer cataphracts and other cavalry types that fought at Magnesia for instance. To me, this suggests that this was the field army on parade.
I'm not even sure you would call up the national levy for a parade? Who knows?

Using the 30-35,000 men number for the field army, this still leaves sufficient space to be filled out by the cavalry and light troops. Also, depending on where the King was campaigning, he would most likely augment his army with mercs and local troops.
When you consider the numbers at Raphia and Panion, where the Seleucids had well over 50,000 and 70,000 men respectively, this number for the standing army seems very plausible.

I'd also add that recruitment into the Silver Shields and Hypaspists would surely come from a pool of recruits that is actually serving in the army. I can't imagine them being recruited from people who spend one weekend a month drilling with a sarrissa.

Again, this is far from concrete. But it doesn't make sense that the only standing heavy infantry were the silver shields.


RE Scripting armies to help defend a factions last city.

Perhaps this should only be done for a few factions? Egypt, Parthia and Armenia say?
They can still be overcome. But its just a lot harder now.
Just a thought.

[Caesar Augustus]

For me the Praetorians are one of the things that makes playing as Rome enjoyable.
They were used both before and after the Marian reforms. They seem to have reached their peak from Caesar's murder down to Actium as far as really fighting wars goes.
The Praetorians of Anthony and Lepidus annhilated Octavian's Praetorians at Mutina.
Octavian lost his Praetorians with legio martia while crossing the adriatic before the battle of Philippi.
After Philippi, Anthony and Octavian used 11,000 veterans to make up Praetorian cohorts that they divided between them.
I believe they were also in the thick of things during 69 AD(year of the four emperors), participating at the battle of Cremona.
They were certainly far more in service than say, the Sacred Band. At least as far as I am aware.

RE Urban cohorts, the Romans need a garrison unit. Leaving cohorts there is too expensive and a waste.

I thought that the Praetorians were largely a ceremonial bodyguard for the Emperor? Yes, they had a lot to do with who became emperor, but I assumed that this was because of the influence they wielded more than anything else.

I also think that the urban cohorts were created as a counterbalance to the Praetorians, and were not a common garrison unit. I assumed that the hierarchy was Praetorians - Urban Cohort - Vigiles (these being firemen basically).

The Urban Cohort didn't exist anywhere else in the empire, garrison duties elsewhere were performed by the legions. This then led to Constantine's reformation of the army.

[Sardaukar One]

I thought that the Praetorians were largely a ceremonial bodyguard for the Emperor? Yes, they had a lot to do with who became emperor, but I assumed that this was because of the influence they wielded more than anything else.

Praetorians were originally crack units. The triumvirs recruited them from veteran legionairies.
Octavian gave Anthony 2,000 Praetorians instead of 4 legions as he was supposed to do.
For the era we are concerned with, the Praetorians are a unit that ought to be in the game.
In my opinion. They did more than the imitation legionaires of Egypt for instance. Same goes for the Seleucid imitations. I'm sure the Seleucid ones actually fought somewhere, but I don't know of any sources saying as such.

I also think that the urban cohorts were created as a counterbalance to the Praetorians, and were not a common garrison unit. I assumed that the hierarchy was Praetorians - Urban Cohort - Vigiles (these being firemen basically).

Urban cohorts did more police work etc. I don't know that they were a counterbalance. They never did anything to stop the Praetorians later on in Roman history. Not that I know of.

The Urban Cohort didn't exist anywhere else in the empire, garrison duties elsewhere were performed by the legions. This then led to Constantine's reformation of the army.

Under Augustus, and many Emperor's afterwards, the Legions gaurded the frontiers. You had thirteen legions on the Rhine and Danube alone. Many of them were stationed in permanent camps. Towns formed around these camps. Thats not the same as garrisoning cities.
I'm sure that some of the legions did garrison some cities here and there. Out in the east for sure.
But the Legions cannot have been solely responsible for this. There would have been some kind of town watch or something.
Town watch are the units I think the Romans need to be put back in the game.

I'd add that Constantine's reformation of the army actually was the death knell for the Roman army. Diocletian was the one who gave the Empire life. Constantine sucked that life out. Though it was not to be apparent for another 30 years or so.