In your OPINION, what are the three strongest rosters?

[♔Greek Strategos♔]

It's a turn of phrase over here. Basically meaning we have reached an agreement in our discussion and can cease the argument.

You know I'm just pulling your leg right ?

[Ivan_Moscavich]

You know I'm just pulling your leg right ?

Please be patient, I have autism.

[♔Greek Strategos♔]

Please be patient, I have autism.

We love you anyways...

[Damocles]

Any/all reform level, including AOR/auxillia to supplement you as needed. Which factions do you think have the best roster and why?

Parthia has an extremely strong roster. In addition to their excellent cavalry, they also get easy access to ahistorically great infantry. They get great axeman units, which are cheap, and with stacks of them, can win any auto-resolve. Historically, Parthia didn't even use infantry.

Then again, part of the problem with DeI's unit rosters, is the exceedingly generous AOR system, which means that you never really have to rely on a racial roster.

Playing as the Parthians, I was able to recruit Indo-Greek heavy infantry a century earlier than they ever existed, and I was able to recruit the nonsensical unit 'Akkadian Hoplites', a millenia after they existed (and they wouldn't have been Greek-style hoplites anyways).

Basically, DeI unit rosters seem to insist on cramming medium-to-heavy infantry units into every roster, even where the very absence of such units was a major part of their historical identity. For example, Greeks were pretty much the only source of heavy infantry to the Persian Empire, for reasons explored by Azor Gat in his War & Civilization book. Yet the AOR gives them 'Akkadian hoplites'.

The Seleucid Empire's unit roster is undermined by its Cilician AOR units. They are the most cost-effective unit, so I was spamming hordes of them. But the Seleucids never used them. By the time the game starts, they should be a strictly phalanx-based army.

Epirus should be phalanx based, but they start the game with access to better sword-and-javelin infantry than the Romans.

There's lots that I like about DeI, but their AOR and unit rosters are pretty much a source of bemusement to me. Most notoriously, the Romans are represented as a 4th Century BC army instead of a 3rd Century BC. All Roman historians/academics agree that they transitioned to the manipular legion formation during the 4th Century, just not when (the range of dates is 40-100 years prior to the Phyrric War).

Samnite mercenaries and other Italian auxiliaries are also portrayed as hoplites where they should be near identical to Roman infantry.

[Gyan avspar]

I can agree with some of the above, but Damocles i think we both know this is a free mod, offered by all those guys who are sparing their own free time.You are correct but, as long as I remeber, there is no way you can teach AI to make proper armies.It can't even disband units, so it is CA's fault... Some times in campaign I meet isolated factions and althought the turn is around 150+, they have levy armies because they have reached the army limit and can't replace levies with elites.

As for historical authenticity, Parthians can indeed field those axemen almost from the beginning and that's odd. They should have huge problem besieging but sadly, and yes unhistoricaly, they dont. But even if you field an army only with cavalry, auto resolve will always do the cheating for you in besiege. So it ends up again to CA's idiotic planing and managment of the campaign!!

Who knows, they maybe release a DLC in a couple of years for better autoresolve.

[Samos41]

1. Parthia, with an army of 12 horse archers 3 noble horse archers (including general with ammo and move speed upgrades) you can take on 2 armies relatively easily. Battles take 45-minutes to an hour and I usually play in slow motion because the level of micro required is that of a korean starcraft tournament. But I more often than not finish battles with less than 10 casualties if things went really well and if I happen to miss micro and eat a jav volley then its more like 50 casualties, still nothing really. I've found with the move speed upgrades you can bait out enemy arrows and javelins so easily and this makes fighting romans a blast. Once the enemy uses all their ammo, its just a matter of spreading out all over the map and then converging 4 units of horse archers on lone units and just decimating them very quickly. The 3 nobles enable you to smash enemy light cav and shoot to death any armoured cav, you can then use them to finish off any weak units with a charge. Usually only going after units that are 100 men or less that way your nobles charge will kill the unit on the charge or at least make them rout. For seiges you just wait the enemy out and then boom you have an easy field battle. Parthians by far are the strongest faction they have a great tech tree and buildings with near steppe quality cavalry. But you need to be very patient to use them effectively and efficiently.
2. Rome, versatility and strength in all areas of combat. Probably the easiest faction to play as overall in my opinion, they can buy loyalty, strong early game units and their start is really easy and you can take Italia, Makedonia, Illyria and Cisalpina all by turn 40 if you play your cards right.
3. Seleucids, They have armour for their armour, armoured archers, elephants, cataphracts, silvershields. They have some of the best top tier units in the game and start off near some of the richest provinces on the map

[Dresden]

I disagree about the AOR units. One of the strong points of the mod is coming up against varied army selection from factions across multiple campaigns. You can see where the faction has been and what regions they have owned in their armies. That adds depth to the campaign and variety to battles, but it also is realistic.

Thats fine that you want to pick out 5/2000 units that may not fit here and there. But, judging the entire system of auxiliaries and AOR units based on your opinion of a few units is a bit like throwing the baby out with the bath water.

[♔Greek Strategos♔]

@Damocles Well it's only fair to side with Dresden. You can't judge (negatively) an entire system for only a handful of units. Actually one of the best implemented and fleshed out system in Total War games. Have you ever played EB1 for example ?

[Garbad]

Personally I love the AOR/auxillia system and wish it could be expanded even more. I've love to see you for example able to access the full roster of client states/allies/subject kingdoms, get more morale on AOR units, etc. More variety, more interesting imo.

[meerkatology]

Rome lost many battles but the point ppl were making about legionaries is the population advantage, they are easy to train and replace. Losing battles dont make u stop existing. Combined arms hellniv army is strong but sifficult to both train and command so many types of units. Hard to recover from losing lege numbers.

rome is just stream lined, u do standardized training and gear for one unit type and add in some aor/aux and be done

[Fluke]

I love the AOR/AUX system and I too would love to see it expanded in any way possible.

One idea would be to have AOR/Aux and faction specific garrison units, perhaps as a first step implement them at the Special Capitals? I played Crete again using the AFP submod with the latest k version and had a terrific campaign, one of the best ever. But I sure wish the capital of Crete could have Cretan archers instead of regular Greek archers as garrison troops.

[♔Greek Strategos♔]

One idea would be to have AOR/Aux and faction specific garrison units, perhaps as a first step implement them at the Special Capitals? I played Crete again using the AFP submod with the latest k version and had a terrific campaign, one of the best ever. But I sure wish the capital of Crete could have Cretan archers instead of regular Greek archers as garrison troops.

Not sure about this, but I like the idea and I'll forward it.

[Ivan_Moscavich]

We discussed adding the unique units to garrisons, but in most cases it was more trouble that it was worth.

[Dresden]

I also like the idea of garrison commander units, that was something else we discussed. Maybe from the guard post type buildings, etc.

[Ivan_Moscavich]

More stuff for 1.3 when CA stops breaking stuff and stalling our progress.

[♔Greek Strategos♔]

More stuff for 1.3 when CA stops breaking stuff and stalling our progress.

We'll have another DLC with 1.3 though.