Point of the Socii

[canadian]

Hey

I was just wondering what everyone's opinion was on the early auxiliary infantry and socii hastati for Rome. I would like to play historically and have my legions with some socii support but considering that their only benefit is a slight discount compared to hastati and a bit more armour, I just can't seem to justify it to myself.

[krisslanza]

Playing the game historically doesn't really make sense from an entirely meta-game POV. It's just something to do because you, personally, find it enjoyable.

On paper, I can't think of any reason to use Socii over proper Roman soldiers. Only to add some spice and variety to your legions, as the Socii's superior armor is kind of negated by their overall worst stats. Socii do make some pretty good cavalry though.

I think. It's been a while since I did the Grand Campaign.

[Richard III]

Hey

I was just wondering what everyone's opinion was on the early auxiliary infantry and socii hastati for Rome. I would like to play historically and have my legions with some socii support but considering that their only benefit is a slight discount compared to hastati and a bit more armour, I just can't seem to justify it to myself.

Hi, cool to see someone interested in historical gameplay like myself!

The Socii were allied peoples of Rome. I believe they supplied half of Rome's military power when called upon. So to reflect this, I've set up my Legion as so:
1 General, Mounted
3 Hastati/3 Socii Hastati
3 Principes/2 Socii Extraordinarii
3 Triarrii
3 Velites
1 Equites/1 Socii Equites

Balanced Army that'll provide a challenge, though might not be possible until you can the necessary auxiliary barracks. Again, it's a handicap that is realistic but can be a little much for some people. THe Auxiliary infantry/Cavalry I don't use. For some reason, they strike me as the types of units that were auxiliaries for the Imperial Legions 200 something years later.

I got ALOT of the information from a guide written on Steam. I'd definately reccomend giving it a read if you want to add some historical flavor. Cheers!

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfile.../?id=176116862 (For Pre Marian Reforms Rome)
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfile...9883264#140901 (For Post Marian Reforms + Imperial Legions)

Cheers my friend.

[Tyso3]

They provide far superior cavalry until your late tech cav for the romans, other then that, they are pretty much useless. Though i usually keep an army of them as a borderguard for the north while i am concentrating on Carthage.

[Kraut]

I use them for "historically correct" armies only - roughly half of any army in the early game being Socii.

[canadian]

Ha ha cool, I think I use them as a bit of a personal challenge and give it that historical flare I love. It will at least give the early game a bit more excitement, I find if you go the basic kill Etruscans, Carthage, Ligurans etc kind of strategy it gets bland

[DarrenTotalWar]

best to play it with a mod aiming for historical accuracy then I would assume.

[Jean=A=Luc]

Playing the game historically doesn't really make sense from an entirely meta-game POV. It's just something to do because you, personally, find it enjoyable.

It's almost as if this game was supposed to have a population/manpower resource and/or some kind of recruitment "cooldown" a la Medieval 2.

[♘Top Hat Zebra]

This applies to all allied troops, really. There is no reason to get Celtic infantry, because your basic infantry is better.

For that matter, there's really no reason to get Hastati, because Principes are better.

[AgentGB]

I must say, i remember a while back, people, including myself were asking that recruitment of units should have been done on a ratio of culture population, in order to force a mixture of build in stacks, such as cretan archers only being able to be built from crete, etc, but only X amount of units depending on the population of crete, so they couldn't be spammed, and was hoping the same method would have been applied to the roman like standing/citizenship, its only later that the roman legions started taking non latin/roman into the legions, and only then, were they allowed to join the legions after X amount of service in the auxiliaries and upon earning citizenship. Which could have given more meaning to the advancement in military tech's aswell as more reasoning for fielding auxiliaries or allied states in your army early game.

As mentioned by JAL, a more advanced system of ME:TW2.

But yeah atm, they are mostly inferior units to field with no real reason to build them.

Perhaps for building such units like legionaries, there should have been a system for spending culture points, that slowly accumulated over time depending on the amount of latin held territories you held that had been given citizenship or seen as equals to those of rome. So one could pass laws giving provinces citizenship that allow your culture points to grow in order to spend on better units at the price of such provinces paying lower tax. While units of Socii could have eventually been naturally upgraded at a lower culture point cost due to long service.

[Errabundi]

If there was some recruitment cap it would have made sense. But without it it's better to use Roman soldiers

[Swamidude]

If population was in this game and it would limit you in a way that Auxiliary units would be a must, because you couldn't train more roman units. Sort of a cap, but a cap that would grow ones you population grows, a cap like: you can have only that many of those units and there is no way to get more of them in your army is even a greater horror I think...

[Errabundi]

It also would help to reduce those three-stack armies of one province tribes.

[Sherm]

If there was some recruitment cap it would have made sense. But without it it's better to use Roman soldiers

Exactly, there should be something similar to Med II

[krisslanza]

It's almost as if this game was supposed to have a population/manpower resource and/or some kind of recruitment "cooldown" a la Medieval 2.

Not really, all it proves is CA was willing to give people the option to use these units. It's not too unusual from some modders either, i.e. Radious Unit Packs in Shogun 2

Nice packs, adds a lot of units. This also makes every vanilla unit useless because any unit he's added (and you can probably recruit some of them right away) are far superior to any vanilla unit. It isn't like TW hasn't had "inferior" units you can recruit just to give your armies more flavor. You can also get Traditions for Legions to make Auxillia far cheaper to recruit then proper Roman infantry.

But from a metagame POV, as Rome, there's really no reason to use anything but Roman infantry. Just how it is.

[legate]

If there was forced units limits in game (like some mods) then they become useful and force the player into building a balanced army.

[Jean=A=Luc]

But from a metagame POV, as Rome, there's really no reason to use anything but Roman infantry. Just how it is.

Which is pretty .

I remember playing Stainless Steel with RC/RR. At one point in the early game I actually recruited peasants (to fight, not just push rams) because my other recruitment options were depleted and I needed men. Professional soldiers were uncommon and mostly formed a strong center supported by lesser units. Once your empire grew to a significant size you could finally afford fully professional armies but certain elites were still rare, slow to recruit/replenish and often restricted by AoR. It felt so good.

It's not good design imo when something is "just for flavor" (especially in a strategy game) unless we're talking about a story driven game like a point & click adventure or something. It's a lot of units to have "just because".

[AgentGB]

Which is pretty .

I remember playing Stainless Steel with RC/RR. At one point in the early game I actually recruited peasants (to fight, not just push rams) because my other recruitment options were depleted and I needed men. Professional soldiers were uncommon and mostly formed a strong center supported by lesser units. Once your empire grew to a significant size you could finally afford fully professional armies but certain elites were still rare, slow to recruit/replenish and often restricted by AoR. It felt so good.

It's not good design imo when something is "just for flavor" (especially in a strategy game) unless we're talking about a story driven game like a point & click adventure or something. It's a lot of units to have "just because".

spot on!

[antred]

It's almost as if this game was supposed to have a population/manpower resource ...

That is something that the game badly needs anyway. I hate how all those OPMs send stack after stack after stack only to get obliterated over and over again.

[ScytheRayne]

Which is pretty .

I remember playing Stainless Steel with RC/RR. At one point in the early game I actually recruited peasants (to fight, not just push rams) because my other recruitment options were depleted and I needed men. Professional soldiers were uncommon and mostly formed a strong center supported by lesser units. Once your empire grew to a significant size you could finally afford fully professional armies but certain elites were still rare, slow to recruit/replenish and often restricted by AoR. It felt so good.

It's not good design imo when something is "just for flavor" (especially i.n a strategy game) unless we're talking about a story driven game like a point & click adventure or something. It's a lot of units to have "just because"

Agree, wholeheartedly. Playing Portugal felt like torture for some people because of the lack of recruitment options, but I felt so much better winning a battle with well-placed peasantry than a whole stack of noble units.