Roman late pro units on early campaign?

[napoleonic]

O.o

they attacked me with such units (based on description -like scutatoi spearmen, then uber bodyguard or whatever it spelled ), I'm still using April 11 RR/RC

is that normal? why bother called them late pro units then?

[meese]

I believe the unit classification is not dependent on the actual time frame they're recruitable in, but the recrutiment system and thus unit type. In this case, scoutatoi spearmen were recruited and trained just as other factions would have later on, and armies were professionalised rather than a mixture of levies, feudal troops and the men at arms. A more accurate description is in the real recruitment guide. But the description from the guide, for late professionals, says:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Contrary to their early counterparts late professionals have much clearer dependencies, which come
along with the development of the stronger central powers of the medieval states. Instead of being
assigned for service for a specific campaign the crown now tended to keep a significant amount of
those full-time soldiers in regular pay and founded something similar to a standing army, which
encompassed the most reliable (which means loyal to the realm´s gouverment, not well behaving)
companies of armed men, whose core stayed the same for a considerable amount of time, even as
still a good part them had a fluctuating staff. They have a specially trained officer corps (in which,
as a novelty, even some minor nobles make career) and the more advanced states even sport regular
recruitment institutions (like the military academy). Their equipment is usually among the best
available, as the states wanted to profit from their considerable investment they put into their
training and more often used the threat of the power, which they represented, to ensure the loyality
of the major nobles of the realm, than in actual battles against foreign powers. Going along with this
and the technological development the kings of europe made sure that almost every tactical role on
the battlefield (especially that of the heavy cavalry) now could be brought to bear by a class, whose
primary dependency was to the crown, instead of local nobles. This is represented by units as
Lancers, Demi-Lancers, Pikemen and Arquebusiers, which are all part of this category. Due to the
infrastructure and training time required to field units in this category, recruiting cost is increased.

So basically the Byzantine troops are largely late professionals because their entire military force was largely recruited and trained in the aforementioned way. i.e. they were a bit ahead of the times.


Another example would be scots guard who are early professionals yet aren't available for recruitment until much later.

[napoleonic]

I see, I thought it was referring to time based availability... man, the roman is so powerful early on....

[meese]

Haha yeah. They are But they get somewhat weaker later on, but I wouldnt' call them weak

[smitty]

I see, I thought it was referring to time based availability... man, the roman is so powerful early on....

They sure are. Consider though that most of their professional units take three turns to train and only scoutatoi are available in castles and at somewhat reduced quantities. Fortresses take quite a while to ascend to in the early era campaign so its quite a while before you have to deal with their fully dreadful professional armies. For the first 30-40 turns in my Roman campaign I was learning how to effectively manage Kontaratoi, Akritae, Acontistae, and Ippoakritae as the basis of my armies. Only every once in a while did I get to throw in 2 or 3 Skoutatoi as a main infantry line.

And don't worry, once everybody else starts getting halberd units the Romans will become very sad, because they will get none. Although their pike unit is still pretty amazing. Oh and so are Varrangoi. And Siphonotores too. And Archontopoulai.

Tremble before the might of Rome reborn!

[Gogolometro]

If the face the colonial armys of venice, romans are in pretty bad situation. But I love their rooster and the RP feeling.

[napoleonic]

They sure are. Consider though that most of their professional units take three turns to train and only scoutatoi are available in castles and at somewhat reduced quantities. Fortresses take quite a while to ascend to in the early era campaign so its quite a while before you have to deal with their fully dreadful professional armies. For the first 30-40 turns in my Roman campaign I was learning how to effectively manage Kontaratoi, Akritae, Acontistae, and Ippoakritae as the basis of my armies. Only every once in a while did I get to throw in 2 or 3 Skoutatoi as a main infantry line.

And don't worry, once everybody else starts getting halberd units the Romans will become very sad, because they will get none. Although their pike unit is still pretty amazing. Oh and so are Varrangoi. And Siphonotores too. And Archontopoulai.

Tremble before the might of Rome reborn!

well this is quite extreme lol, but somehow the roman has been throwing their pro units to me almost every turns so I can't believe if their units take 3 turns to train.... while my units are mostly spear militias, croat axemen, magyar cavalries... sometimes I get light men at arms, hungarian nobles and pavise spearmen... obviously not really a match.

[crossjon]

If the face the colonial armys of venice, romans are in pretty bad situation. But I love their rooster and the RP feeling.

Hmm I didn't know roosters were in game . I think you mean roster, not rooster.

[Gogolometro]

Yes. Sorry for spelling.

Napoleonic, I suggested like magyar to atack Venice and HRE, because the magyar cavalry and nobles have weapons what european armys, candt deal easy. If you use your strenght put romans at bay, make peace with them and espect the bulgarian revolt. In this time steal Venice and Vienna.

[Ichon]

Yes. Sorry for spelling.

Napoleonic, I suggested like magyar to atack Venice and HRE, because the magyar cavalry and nobles have weapons what european armys, candt deal easy. If you use your strenght put romans at bay, make peace with them and espect the bulgarian revolt. In this time steal Venice and Vienna.

I agree.... easiest target and make most sense for Magyars is Italy and southern/central Europe. If you look at paths of actual invasions that is also most often what they did. If you want tougher fights then go after Byzantines right away... you could probably still capture Constantinople but that is a long supply line to there and still many battles to come. If you capture Venice the supply line is shorter and often you can get Ragusa shortly after if you want it and Venice is done... move to the next victim.

[napoleonic]

yep, I took the toughest route first, especially after they demanded me to be their vassals more than once, Hungarian was very offended with the Roman

[PerXX]

Conquering the Byzantines also bring one nice advantage: Access to Mourtotai archers, which will be a great addition to the hungarian armies that usually lacks any sort of useful foot archers.

[Gogolometro]

For murtadoi yes deserve the balkans. But you can get bulgarian brigands who are not bad at all.

[napoleonic]

Conquering the Byzantines also bring one nice advantage: Access to Mourtotai archers, which will be a great addition to the hungarian armies that usually lacks any sort of useful foot archers.

I've just took adrianople with the remains of a crusading armies that failed to reach the destination -forgot the damn crusader states always get crusade target on holy land first -

I had 3700 soldier tried to assault 1300ish roman, all went fine until the superhuman bodyguard came and begun decimating 5-6 of ny units

I'm curious as to where and how come the roman got such heavy armored bodyguard? and why only them had it at that time? in real history I mean, since the mod is about realism in units...

now I has access to these mourtatoi, it's great indeed; but lead me to my 2nd question :

is there a list on where to get such trainable units with all factions? are they faction based (had to capture from certain factions) or region based (no matter who owned the region)? does castle or city matter too (ex : couldn't get mourtatoi if adrianople changed to city)?

thanks for the help

[meese]

I can't answer your question about the bodyguards.

The list can't really be found except if you look through the EDB for the units which have exceptionally long faction lists. They're region based and castle/city does matter.

An incomplete list would be: mourtatoi, longbowmen, viking raiders, hobilars, alforrats, muslim archers (I think), cossack gunners, baltic spearmen (I think), desert cavalry, desert archers (I think)

[Caesar Clivus]

I'm curious as to where and how come the roman got such heavy armored bodyguard? and why only them had it at that time? in real history I mean, since the mod is about realism in units...

Because the Romans were a well established power with a long military history. They had a long tradition of very heavy cavalry even before western powers developed heavy cavalry. The Klibanaphoroi for example.

[napoleonic]

what about the technology needed to built heavy armor? was it available on the 12th century? if so why others couldn't build it?

[Caesar Clivus]

The heavy armour we're talking about here is lamellar and scale, not plate. So yes the technology was available. The Romans used multiple layers of armour: chainmail, lamellar and padded were all worn by the same soldier, providing excellent protection. They also armoured their horses as shown below:



This wasn't done in the west until much later.

if so why others couldn't build it?

It's not a matter of whether or not they could make it, but whether or not they needed to. In the west, chainmail provided adequate protection for soldiers until later in the medieval period.

Lets also not forget that mounted combat was not as prevalent in the west as it was in the east in the early medieval period. The Romans often fought mounted foes in the east and so they continued their tradition of heavy cavalry. In the west, infantry was more important than cavalry (think of the battle of Hastings, the vikings etc) until the Normans changed the focus to mounted knights.

[Ichon]

Also the political and economic organization of the western European kingdoms couldn't support the infrastructure that Byzantines could. It wasn't until Normans showed what even a poor kingdom which was strongly centralized could accomplish that other western kingdoms began to develop the infrastructure.

[napoleonic]

ah, many thanks for clearing my confusion