Troop types and how to use them?

[SoNiCbOoM4321]

Hey all, in my current campaign as Rome. I've triggered the marian reforms, and also built up my barracks. Now that I've done that I'm able to recruit auxiliaries, and my question is HOW DO I EFFECTIVELY MAKE AN ARMY WITH THEM?

I know they are supposed to support your legions, and in battle I've been successful with them. When I auto resolve though, my armies get crushed, or win and take heavy loses.
Is there any specific combination of troops to make an army extremely effective against various faction's troop types, or do I really have to tailor an army specifically to another factions troop types.

ex. Greeks, Barbarians, Carthage etc.

[Tar-Elendil]

Clicky

Clicky

Clicky

You're welcome! Haha, just do what feels natural. There's no right composition

[Braeburn]

Whatever you do don't hit the Auto-Resolve button the AI cheats that way. Best to play on the Battle on your own that way the AI can't cheat by deleting a number of men . Apart from that knowledge of tactics used in the era also help in winning battles with lesser casualties.

As for composition (as you said of Auxiliaries) It is often best to have a mix of units from the standard aux. inf to your archers and cav units.

What I use (pretty close to my non-aux composition)
1 General
10 Aux inf
4 aux archers
4 aux cavalry
1 (extra for any merc unit or siege weapon)

You could also have.
1 General
11 Aux inf
4 Aux archers
4 aux cav

Whichever you prefer. But as Tar said there is no best or right composition.

[General Sultan V]

Auto resolve is supposed to make accurate losses and casualties for both sides I Thought

I Merge auxilia with my Legions, For example, 11+ Legionary cohorts, 4 Auxillary infantry, 2-4 Auxilliary cavalry, and a Legate, No Auxillairy archers, they are inaccurate (until you conquer a land in thrace and syria, lol)

[Dramatic Cat]

Lol you say that using archer auxillia is inaccurate and yet you use 11 legionary cohorts.

Just saying.

And no, Auto-res doesn't make accurate loses, it just calculates stats and can sometimes bring up the silliest results.

[Tar-Elendil]

LOL, that's why I was having a hard time understanding what Sultan said. At first I thought he meant they didn't have accuracy, as in not being able to hit their targets. I thought he was making a joke,

[General Sultan V]

legionary citizens formed the core and majority of legions, so I Don't know why it is'n accurate

recruiting Syrian archers from a curia Hositilia in The middle of italy is'n accurate either. nor recruiting Hispanic Alae in Africa & Italy, nor recruiting thracian archers in Italy.

so yeah. I Know what I'm talking about, the recruitment system is 'somewhat' messed up

[Tar-Elendil]

Hey, whatever works for you is great

I think what Dramatic Cat meant is that the standard legion consisted of 9 cohorts and a 1st cohort, so you saying that you didn't recruit archers to remain historically accurate, but then recruit legions of 11 cohorts is kind of an oxymoron.

But I personally agree that recruiting the syrian archers from Rome is a bit silly, so I see what you mean.

[ur-Lord Tedric]

.............
so yeah. I Know what I'm talking about, the recruitment system is 'somewhat' messed up

If you did it might actually be worth a discussion.........

[Dramatic Cat]

I Know what I'm talking about

I really have nothing to say to that.

[Tar-Elendil]

If you did it might actually be worth a discussion.........

Ouch That's gotta hurt!

[General Sultan V]

If you did it might actually be worth a discussion

ok I Don't know what I'm talking about, I Should shut up and believe it that the romans built a second curia hositillia in all of their cities and exported syrian & Foriegn immigrants from distant lands and then trained them in italy and Merged them with their early legions. and recruiting Spanish auxillary cavalry and gallic auxilia spearmen in A fortress in the middle of italy? It must be me, I Don't know what Im talking about. look man the recruitment rosters for each city Is messed up. check it yourself

[Gotterdammerung]

ok I Don't know what I'm talking about, I Should shut up and believe it that the romans built a second curia hositillia in all of their cities and exported syrian & Foriegn immigrants from distant lands and then trained them in italy and Merged them with their early legions. and recruiting Spanish auxillary cavalry and gallic auxilia spearmen in A fortress in the middle of italy? It must be me, I Don't know what Im talking about. look man the recruitment rosters for each city Is messed up. check it yourself

The point that they are making is that each legion famously had nine cohorts and then one cohort of double the normal size of men. Recruiting 11 or more cohorts per legion is historically inaccurate (unless you are doubling up to represent the size of the First Cohort, although that doesn't seem to be what you said), and yet you are worried about the inaccuracy of using archer auxiliaries from Rome.

[General Sultan V]

lol duh. I Know that the Roman legion was composed of 10 Cohors, But I'm shooting for numbers here (trying to make battles as large as possible as they were in real life. plus the fact that legionary cohorts count 203 men here)

archer auxillaries hailing from all the way to syria being readily avilable straight after the marian reforms, before you even control syria IS not accurate, because the roman legions made very rare use of archer auxillaries anyway.

I Do wish if they could size up Units even more (Making them larger than 200 men + 1/2/3 officers / 240 men + 1/2/3 Officers). It would be great for realism

[LoGaL]

archer auxillaries hailing from all the way to syria being readily avilable straight after the marian reforms, before you even control syria IS not accurate, because the roman legions made very rare use of archer auxillaries anyway.

Don't you say???
Better ideas to allow archers to be recruited in almost every settlement as all the factions can do?
Provide maybe a never existed "roman archer legionary cohort"?

[General Sultan V]

and what the hell is a legionary archer cohort?

better Idea to make those units recruitable in their accurate regions, Thracian archers in Thrace, Syrian auxilia in middle-eastern Regions (and those syrian archers, they were raised in The Roman territory of Damascus, so only there) Iberian Auxilia from Their home region. in here you can recruit those guys anywhere and IDK why you even want to argue against what I'm saying, because its obviously defiant to logic to recruit Ala I Asturum (Which was raised in Spain) in southern italy.

Provide your proof against this.

[Spartan999]

Their being exported to Italy? Since you know they don't have their own good cavalry or archers. Yes I am aware you can hire the Syrian/Crete Thracian archers almost . You can also mod it to fit your needs.

[Dramatic Cat]

[Tar-Elendil]

Guys, I think it's obvious there are two different ways of approaching this situation. One is simply logistical in terms of recognizing this is a game afterall and the ability to recruit archers, even if they are from Syria, or Thrace, before actually owning those areas helps the player to form balanced armies and have the choice of what the player wants to have in those armies. The other approach, of trying to remain as historical as possible is simply player preference and everyone is entitled to play how they wish. If it is inaccurate to have archer auxilia from Syria before owning Syria then don't recruit them. If you want to recruit them anyways, then do so. Now one is entitled to say it is better to say one way over the other. The game is unbiased and simply provides the player with the preference. If it is such a bother to see them in the recruitment q in every Hostilia, then simply open up the EDB and add an AOR line for the Thracian archers to only be recruitable in an area of your choosing, and same for Syrian ones. Of course you have to declare the hidden_resource, but really it's simple stuff. I can do it for you Sultan if you would like, or need help with it.

But, let's all agree that arguing this is pointless. No one here is going to change their mind over it, and all it can lead to is more furrowed brows and heated comments.

[ur-Lord Tedric]

..............
But, let's all agree that arguing this is pointless. No one here is going to change their mind over it, and all it can lead to is more furrowed brows and heated comments.

Perhaps - which is why I wanted to see General Sultan's reply(s) and then see if it could be developed.

@ General Sultan' - you are obviously bright and intelligent and reasonably well read; but you are not thinking and applying that knowledge in a way that can help.

Let's take this 'Archer' issue as merely one and part of the whole AOR issue I am also reviewing and commenting on with the Team....

We can have just 500 units in the game and the Romans get a fair chunk of them allocated to them, and therefore there are limitations. So, the Team have made 2 units available as a choice - one Western and one Eastern. Both unit types served in all regions that the Romans 'conquered' and thus are available in all (that I have determined so far anyway) late barracks (named Curia Hostilia for convenience, not trying to say anything about the name.....).

The choice of which to recruit to give their armies 'flavour' is then up to the player. Therefore, in all honesty, the issue I would like to see discussed about the archers is not the tight and very limited focused likely initial recruitment location of the named unit used, which is really not a problem - but the fact that there really is not much choice.

If you look at the stats of the units in question, you will see that they are almost identical - the only difference being the tiny shield (historical) that the Western unit has - and thus they cost a little more. On the battlefield, therefore, it would be a player that limits himself that would use the Eastern in preference.

What I would like to see is a genuine choice. The Eastern units were famed for their ability, so I would rather the units were different and presented a real choice to the player; perhaps the Western better at defence and perhaps close combat, whilst the Eastern was better at ranged combat - then the player has a choice to make.

So, please use your knowledge and interest to enhance the simulation, rather than simply criticise and almost troll with silly issues that take no account of the game's limitations - but choose to work with us to make it even better.

Engaging on Roman Cavalry and join with me to get nearly all of them equipped with javelins for a start - and perhaps with similar stats to the Paleovenetii - and then we'll get somewhere. Use our knowledge to improve; but with thought.