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Thread: Barracks or Auxiliaries?

  1. #21

    Default Re: Barracks or Auxiliaries?

    Quote Originally Posted by thesmoosh View Post
    You can do this with any faction really, just replace aux with AoR/Merc.

    I tend to do that anyway because it's always easier to replenish foreigners that citizens.
    Same here. Only my home province gets a barracks. There are 6-18 AOR units in each province. Now if you ever declare Empire, then you can have a recruitment center in a couple other regions. That's how I play anyway.

  2. #22

    Default Re: Barracks or Auxiliaries?

    I've never switched to empire. What does it do to your recruitment?

  3. #23

    Default Re: Barracks or Auxiliaries?

    It does nothing, he's just sharing his way of roleplaying a more challenging / realistic recruitment.

  4. #24

    Default Re: Barracks or Auxiliaries?

    I didn't know that the Marian reforms led to the recruitment of soldiers outside of Italy into the legions - I thought the difference was just that the poorer Romans, rather than any foreigners, could fight as Legionaries.

    In my last Rome campaign, I found this strategy to be impractical because culture would convert so quickly (and it would be entirely necessary for it to do so to quell rebellions) that soon enough you would end up with many, many more plebes and proletarii in your conqured provinces than Peregrini. However now I've started my second playthrough with the cultural tensions and DEI Arbitriis sub-mods, this strategy will likely be necessary, as well as flavoursome and fun.

    I intend to use the Socii units from Latium and Italia as the Allied heavy infantry and cavalry, along with Cretan archers as soon as I can get them. Other cavalry units - such as Numidians from Africa, which I have found extremely useful in the past - and light infantry will also be mixed in.

    In my last game, my army composition was more or less standardised after the Marian reforms to include 1 cavalry general, 2 veteran legionaries, 8 legionaries, 2 spear auxiliaries drawn from the local region, 3 - 4 cavalry units, 2 - 3 cretans, and one ballista. The Marian reforms give a bunch of variety when it comes to sword infantry and it all looked very interesting, but because population in foreign regions increased so quickly, I never felt the need to supplement the legionaries.

    When it comes to auxiliary units available to the Romans in the early game - does anybody have some suggestions for me to try out?

  5. #25

    Default Re: Barracks or Auxiliaries?

    I tend to expand beyond Cisalpina pretty slowly, however I usually aim to get an aux barracks in Cisalpina or ehm, Switzerland, Cisalpina and Narbonensis gives you the mercenary heavy cavalry, the barracks gives you several celtic and massalian troops like their hoplites, after the thorax reforms you'll also get the romanized thorakitai, which are near legionnairy level, recruitable from the foreigner class, which is pretty impressive if it's going to take a while to get to the marian reforms. Southern Italy also has some excellent ranged units with the aux barracks i believe, although I'm not sure if they're available before the marian reforms.

  6. #26

    Default Re: Barracks or Auxiliaries?

    Quote Originally Posted by HarkonRules View Post
    For RP / historical purposes, I don't build Barracks at all until the Marian reforms (Rome has built-in barracks), as Roman soldiers (Hastati, Principes, etc) were only levied from Rome until that reform, and I build Auxiliary Barracks in pretty much every other province, which is where I draw the Roman Allied contingents of a legion from. This also allows you to sample the very nice variety of custom, regional units in DeI, half of my army is Roman, the other half regional. Adds a bit of challenge and realism in the aspect that I have to create reinforcing units and ship them to the frontlines somehow all the way from back home, sending the General back to Latium to recruit. After all, until the Marian reforms, Romans weren't professional soldiers, they were levied citizens, and many of them had businesses and farms to tend to, so military campaigns weren't meant to last for too long, as they had to get back to their homes, so it also makes sense that this process is cumbersome.

    For me the biggest thrill in expanding is thinking of the new units I can start using to complement my legions, because every province is special in its own way like that.
    Thanks for that comment- I hadn't realized until I read it that Rome has built in barracks. I have both auxillary and a barracks in Rome for over 100 turns. Really a waste of a building slot.

    Overall I usually only build 1 or 2 training centers on the entire map. Starting with 1 central location and eventually converting that to other buildings and making two new centers equidistant from the edges of the empire. Having all infantry trained in 1 region, all cavalry in another, and any artillery in 3rd to maximize bonuses though that usually isn't possible until around turn 150 when most campaigns are pretty much over.

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