Roman Republic

[BlackDeathLegion]

after the Marian Reforms, is ther anymor unit recruitment changes? im pretty upset about the extremely low diversity of recruitable units in the Roman Republic faction... also, werent the legionares supposed to be able to form testudo, or was i reading wrong?

[Herpes]

The marian reforms was the unification and standardization of the military by recruiting from the head count and using state equipment. The advantage is in the uniformity and avalibility of high quality troops. RTRPE didnt touch this IIRC.

If you want diversity, use the AOR/merc system. Its the main feature of RTR Gold/Platinum.

[limes]

That's why i disabled scripted Marian reforms in Ancient Empires Elysium. With buildable reforms you decide about recruitment.

limes

[Herpes]

The reforms should really only come when the Roman military starts falling apart due to an inability to recruit hastati, principes etc because they are all dead. In game its the opposite; you get the reforms because you have an abundance of "population".

The M2TW recruitment "recharge" system came a game too late.

[Darviathar]

I generally trigger the reforms in my games around the time that my wars have pushed past Greece. Training up H/P/T core armies in Italy and shipping them that far to the east puts even the superior Roman armies at a severe disadvantage when it comes to confronting in super power (in my games its usually Pontus) that controls Asia minor. You simply cannot sustain an advance against the computer because he fields constant armies (I might point out that I play on VH/VH; this might not be the case on lower difficulty levels). I refrain from building the imperial palace in Italy until this point. Not only does it make you really appreciate the ease of the post-Marian armies, but it gives the computer a better chance to "make a game of it". As for the lack of diversity in the units...this is just a sacrifice that you'll have to get used to. You can still train up different units in non Italian cities. For example, I have my four former Gallic cities (Bonnia, Mediolanium, Patavium, Jeunesis) cranking out Sagitarri Archers, that I will link up with legionary cohorts trained in my core Italian cities. Fielding a more uniform army has the great advantage of letting you combine battered stacks and keeping experience high. This is far more difficult to do when you have 5 or 6 separate unit types in your stacks.