Marian reforms

[pirro]

In my little to no existant free time I'm playing a quick campaign as Rome.
I've conquered all of Greece and Italy, part of North Africa and Hispania, it is the year 201 BCE. I have two metropolis in Italy and one in Africa. At least 4 latifundiae. When am I going to get the reforms?
Having to move my troops from Rome to all the fronts is quite annoying (only in Rome can I recruit polybian soldiers)

[Quinn Inuit]

Here are the conditions:
Own >21 regions
Year 180 B.C. or later
Have latifundiae in Rome and at least 4 of Ariminum, Arretium, Maleventum, Capua, Corfinium, Bononia.

Realistically, that may be too difficult, but I did want the Marian Reforms to come late in the game, as in IRL. Would you recommend changing that? If so, how?

Oh, and I know it's a pain to move your legions, but that's why we made the Polybian units 0 recruitment time. We were trying to show Rome's massive manpower reserves and allow players to overcome the difficulty of having to recruit legions in only one place. Also, are you making sure to complement them with alae legions as Candel's Ultimate Guide recommends? That will save you some effort.


It's been ages since I played a game as Rome. Do you have any suggestions for that faction or neck of the woods?

[pirro]

I can't recruit alae. I can recruit hoplites and such in Italy, but no Alae armed-like-roman soldiers, so if I want to have a somewhat roman army, I can only recruit in Rome (wich is a little bit of a pain).
I'd remove the year condition, it makes no sense IMO. If I own 50 provinces (which I do, btw) it is unplayable if I have to move armies from Rome to Pergame. And, if Rome had conquered all that fast enough, we'd have seen earlier reforms. At least, in the sense of arming or letting the natives arm themselves à la romain.

[Quinn Inuit]

That's reasonable. OK, I'll remove the year condition from the situation in which the player completes the rest of the requirements. I may add a few regions to the areas in which one can build latifundiae and have them count, too.

I think you're misunderstanding the alae to which I'm referring, and I recommend glancing back over Candel's guide, specifically, the portion entitled "Visual Companion to Quintus' Roman Gameplay Guide". (It's in the historical docs in the ExRM download.) For example, to build a pre-Marian ala legion in Umbria/Picenum, you'll want Umbrian Skirmishers in place of velites, Umbrian Swordsmen in place of hastati, and Umbrian Hoplites in place of principes. Other areas will give you slightly different combinations.

[sere]

I have not yet played a Roman campaign, but from my understanding there might be some trouble with the marian reforms: building latifundiae is only possible if a region has a "base farming level" of 3. And from the regions you listed above and which count towards the reform counter, only a fraction has level 3 (from my memory: Rome, Capua, Bononia); f.e. Lucania (Maleventum?) has a base level of 1!

sorry for double post I forgot to add...

The question is: Are there enough regions in Italy where it is possible to build latifundiae in order to trigger the reform?

[Quinn Inuit]

I just noticed that. I've added a ton of high-fertility provinces to the list of triggers, so hopefully that'll avoid that problem.

No worries about the double-post. I took care of it.

[pirro]

Could you please upload the patch/tell me how to mod it?
I don't want to restart my campaign

[sere]

Well, I'd argue in favor of changing the counter in a way so that the player would have to have every possible latifundiae in Italy, but only there (maybe (an) optional region(s) in Sicily). It might be an option to increase the base farming in 1 or max. 2 regions, but only where it makes sense, as the base farming level ought to be correlated to a regions fertility/climate in real life. Giving level 3 to every region in Italy is no solution in my eyes. Also keep in mind that for the Romans in Republican times, the Cisalpina (the whole Po valley, Liguria, Venetia) was no part if Italy.

The economic and societal changes, which occurred over the course of the 2nd century BC, took place in Italy only (although there were the Sicilian Slave Wars, which could hint at related processes). By this time the Romans had stopped establishing new colonies (so there were hardly any Roman (and Latin) citizens outside of Italy) and the aggregation of farm land by rich land owners slowly eradicated the position of small farmers, for whom serving as soldiers became more and more difficult, as they had to bring their own equipment. And, of course, this did not happen in all of Italy in the same pace and magnitude (so there is a reason for different base farming levels).
I highly simplified this process, but it was one of the factors that brought about the military change we use to call "Marian reforms". I think the reform counter -- as it is laid out -- points at just this process and that makes a lot of sense, imho ... In contrast to triggering the Marian reforms by just some kind of technological advance!

And to balance out the removal of the year condition you could increase the number of provinces needed.
Btw, have the Polybian reforms still a year condition? It was 255 BC from what I remember... (Also, imho, in case of the Polybian reforms, the year condition makes less sense than for the Marian )

[pannonian]

The RL Marian reforms happened because it was getting more difficult to recruit troops of a standard that earlier recruiters would have considered adequate.

[Quinn Inuit]

Could you please upload the patch/tell me how to mod it?
I don't want to restart my campaign

I'm sorry, but I don't think it's possible. The year is in the script, and I don't think you can change the script for an existing game without modifying the save file. And the command to create a building no longer works from the console.

Well, I'd argue in favor of changing the counter in a way so that the player would have to have every possible latifundiae in Italy, but only there (maybe (an) optional region(s) in Sicily). It might be an option to increase the base farming in 1 or max. 2 regions, but only where it makes sense, as the base farming level ought to be correlated to a regions fertility/climate in real life. Giving level 3 to every region in Italy is no solution in my eyes. Also keep in mind that for the Romans in Republican times, the Cisalpina (the whole Po valley, Liguria, Venetia) was no part if Italy.

The economic and societal changes, which occurred over the course of the 2nd century BC, took place in Italy only (although there were the Sicilian Slave Wars, which could hint at related processes). By this time the Romans had stopped establishing new colonies (so there were hardly any Roman (and Latin) citizens outside of Italy) and the aggregation of farm land by rich land owners slowly eradicated the position of small farmers, for whom serving as soldiers became more and more difficult, as they had to bring their own equipment. And, of course, this did not happen in all of Italy in the same pace and magnitude (so there is a reason for different base farming levels).
I highly simplified this process, but it was one of the factors that brought about the military change we use to call "Marian reforms". I think the reform counter -- as it is laid out -- points at just this process and that makes a lot of sense, imho ... In contrast to triggering the Marian reforms by just some kind of technological advance!

And to balance out the removal of the year condition you could increase the number of provinces needed.

That's a sensible plan, but I'm concerned it makes it a little too easy to get the reforms, even if you required max farms at all the L3 farmland in Italy+Sicily.

Btw, have the Polybian reforms still a year condition? It was 255 BC from what I remember... (Also, imho, in case of the Polybian reforms, the year condition makes less sense than for the Marian )

Nope, the Polybian Reforms require the control of a certain number of regions, primarily in Gallic areas.

The RL Marian reforms happened because it was getting more difficult to recruit troops of a standard that earlier recruiters would have considered adequate.

Pannonian! It's good to see you.

I think you're strictly correct, but that Sere's summary of why there was a dearth of troops is spot-on.

[sere]

Nope, the Polybian Reforms require the control of a certain number of regions, primarily in Gallic areas.

Are you sure that there is no year condition? Maybe you've already changed it... Though I'm afraid to beat a dead horse, I looked up the "script_4tpy_dates.txt" and for the Polybian reforms it reads:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

declare_counter PolybianCondition

[...] [checking, if reform buildings already exist]

monitor_event FactionTurnStart FactionType romans_julii
and I_TurnNumber > 99

if I_CompareCounter Roman_Reforms > 0
terminate_monitor
end_if

[next come the aotumatic triggers 200 BC and 238 BC, then the actual triggers for players]

But I might have also looked at the completely wrong file never mind then!

That's a sensible plan, but I'm concerned it makes it a little too easy to get the reforms, even if you required max farms at all the L3 farmland in Italy+Sicily.

I thought about this and came up with another idea, although I have no clue if it is possible to implement.
In addition to having to build all the latifundiae in Italy (and Sicily (?)), the player would need to have a certain (high) number of settlements AND certain factions need to be destroyed (ideally by the player; there's no script for checking which faction destroyed another faction, is there?): Carthage, Epirus, Macedon; plus 1 of 2 optional factions: Chremonidean League, Celtiberia (or something like that) AND/OR the player would have to have certain provinces in these areas: Carthage, Lilybaion, Syracuse, Osca, Carthago Nova, Appollonia, Pella, Corinth etc.

My idea is to bring in the "Roman Imperialism", which correlated the processes of the 2nd century... it brought about the extended wealths of the nobility with which they bought up the farmland and it kept more and more small farmers overseas as soldiers. After all, simulating "Imperialism", no matter what reasons spawned it and how contingent it actually was in RL, is the nature of RTW. Gaining wealth from expansion cetainly is

... Add options for Gaul and the northern Balcan as well, so the player does not need to focus his expansion in a predetermined direction.

[Quinn Inuit]

Are you sure that there is no year condition? Maybe you've already changed it... Though I'm afraid to beat a dead horse, I looked up the "script_4tpy_dates.txt" and for the Polybian reforms it reads:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

declare_counter PolybianCondition

[...] [checking, if reform buildings already exist]

monitor_event FactionTurnStart FactionType romans_julii
and I_TurnNumber > 99

if I_CompareCounter Roman_Reforms > 0
terminate_monitor
end_if

[next come the aotumatic triggers 200 BC and 238 BC, then the actual triggers for players]

But I might have also looked at the completely wrong file never mind then!

Nope, you're quite right. I put the year trigger in a different spot for the Marian Reforms, and when I went back and checked the Polybian Reforms it didn't occur to me to check elsewhere in the script. Poor practice on my part, which I suppose shows how much of an amateur I am at this. (Almost everything I know about coding I've taught myself so I could work on RTW.) I've commented out the year line...and also fixed the region number trigger, which I'd accidentally left at >0 from when I was testing it.

I thought about this and came up with another idea, although I have no clue if it is possible to implement.
In addition to having to build all the latifundiae in Italy (and Sicily (?)), the player would need to have a certain (high) number of settlements AND certain factions need to be destroyed (ideally by the player; there's no script for checking which faction destroyed another faction, is there?): Carthage, Epirus, Macedon; plus 1 of 2 optional factions: Chremonidean League, Celtiberia (or something like that) AND/OR the player would have to have certain provinces in these areas: Carthage, Lilybaion, Syracuse, Osca, Carthago Nova, Appollonia, Pella, Corinth etc.

My idea is to bring in the "Roman Imperialism", which correlated the processes of the 2nd century... it brought about the extended wealths of the nobility with which they bought up the farmland and it kept more and more small farmers overseas as soldiers. After all, simulating "Imperialism", no matter what reasons spawned it and how contingent it actually was in RL, is the nature of RTW. Gaining wealth from expansion cetainly is

... Add options for Gaul and the northern Balcan as well, so the player does not need to focus his expansion in a predetermined direction.

Hmmm...I don't think that's possible without changing the way PeaceWithTheDead operates and making it a lot more complicated. It might be easier to look for the latter condition of controlling lots of major provinces. You have a good point about imperialism, and it also neatly solves the issue that was bugging Pirro at the start of this thread. I'll add that in dev and give it a try in the next beta release.

[sere]

Hmmm...I don't think that's possible without changing the way PeaceWithTheDead operates and making it a lot more complicated.

Do you refer to checking if a faction was destroyed or if it was destroyed by the player? If only the former could be implemented, I'd consider it a good solution, because it is likely that the player would have actually destroyed them as far as I can tell. From my experiences, Carthage does not dominate the western Mediterranean in all scenarios, but they always survive, as the 'Ippeidemos in Numidia don't seem to pose an existential threat to them. Only Epirus loses Italy to Rome at some point and gets then wiped out by Macedon. Up to now, the latter always came out on top in Greece, overcoming the Chremonidean League and the Galatians.
So, since the major powers tend to survive--if not for the intervention of the player--this condition for triggering the reforms could still be an option imho.

As for "predetermining a direction for expansion", it is of course already predetermined to a certain degree by the victory condition of the campaign

[Quinn Inuit]

Do you refer to checking if a faction was destroyed or if it was destroyed by the player? If only the former could be implemented, I'd consider it a good solution, because it is likely that the player would have actually destroyed them as far as I can tell. From my experiences, Carthage does not dominate the western Mediterranean in all scenarios, but they always survive, as the 'Ippeidemos in Numidia don't seem to pose an existential threat to them. Only Epirus loses Italy to Rome at some point and gets then wiped out by Macedon. Up to now, the latter always came out on top in Greece, overcoming the Chremonidean League and the Galatians.
So, since the major powers tend to survive--if not for the intervention of the player--this condition for triggering the reforms could still be an option imho.

As for "predetermining a direction for expansion", it is of course already predetermined to a certain degree by the victory condition of the campaign

OK, let me play around with this in dev and see how it works.

[sere]

It appears to me that in its existing form the Marian Reforms script still suffers from its fundamental weakness.

Originally, in order to trigger the reforms, Latifundiae were to be built in Rome and 4 other settlements of the Italian peninsula. The last point was recently changed to 4 settlements in a broader zone of possible expansion.
Here's the problem: a) There were no Latifundiae outside of the Italian peninsula during that time period (with the exception of Sicily, maybe). b) Ingame, only regions with a base farming level of 3 have the option to build a Latifundia (farms+4).

The following settlements/regions have base farming level 3:
ITALY

• Rome
• Capua

CISALPINA

• Mediolanium
• Patavium

SICILY

• Syracuse

C'est tout.

Since Latifundiae are only available to such a small number of settlements and not every region can and should have base farming level 3, I'd imagined to edit the reform script so that it takes into account maximum level farm buildings in relation to a region's base farming level (level 2 -> farms+3). It forces the player to build these in every region of Italy, except for Maleventum (base farming level 1). Additionally, the player must build to the highest level in certain regions of the Cisalpina, to represent a progress in 'Romanization' over the course of an ongoing campaign. Finally, a Latifundia has to be completed in either Patavium or Syracuse.

Furthermore, I think it would make sense to increase the base farming level of Arretium from 2 to 3. Italy would gain a third level 3 region (still not very much) and, if it's not for subsistence agriculture, it would represent the region's huge potential for commercial crops. (Wine and olive oil were the main products of most--if not all--Latifundiae, anyway.)