principes have no experience restriction?

[guard123]

i noticed when i was playing the republic of rome faction that you can amass an principe and or triarii army without having the hastati gain experience and becoming either of the two. I mean isnt rtr suppose to be realistic enough that you have to allow your hastati gain experience before theyre turned into principes then triarii?

[Maurits]

Welcome to the forums!

Although we'd love to do that, you must understand that we can't change every part of the game. Some things are ''hard-coded'' and therefore can't be changed or introduced by us modders. That's the way it is in this case. Too poor, imo, for that would add a lot to the gameplay in the late republican armies!

[Caesar Augustus]

It would be fantastic if we could do that, but alas, as Maurits has said it's impossible

[Caligula Caesar]

Besides the fact that then you would have far too many Hastati. There were as many Principes as Hastati in the legion. I'm not sure how exactly it worked, but I suspect it was based on class as well as age. Of course, age doesn't necessarily mean years in army, as conscription wasn't compulsory most of the time.

[Maurits]

Well, in the early republic you served in your social class. The higher your class, the wealthier you were and therefore you'd be able to pay more for your weapons and armour. In this model the hastati were the poorer, principes more wealthy, triari wealthy and equites noble classes.

In the late republic this system was changed by Marius, and for some time you still had the three classes but now ranked by experience.

(correct me if I'm wrong)

[Bull3pr00f de Bodemloze]

Well, what you said started earlier, after the 2nd Punic war. The difference between the Hastati and the Principes started to blur (probably because most of them got grinded into the dust because of the countless wars). This saw people leaving the land they worked on the fight all the time, leading to completely ruined farmland. This land was bought by large estate owners who made Latifundiae out of them. This left the Roman Society with a very large poor lower class. Marius made sure these people could make a living by doing what they already had been doing: serve in the army, only now as professionals with equipment afforded by the state; or more directly, by the recruiting general.

[Maurits]

That's pretty much what I meant. Thanks for placing the dots on the i's

(I love translated Dutch expressions! )

[Bull3pr00f de Bodemloze]

That's pretty much what I mend

That's pretty much what you....repaired?
http://www.mijnwoordenboek.nl/vertaal/EN/NL/mend
lol, I know what you meant

And yeah, "stonecoal english" for the win!

RTR is totally you of it these days, but there sits no dry bread in helping develop it xD

[Iguanaonastick]

I don't have any actual sources for this, but I've long suspected that the reason younger soldiers fought in the velites was that their fathers were still fit and alive and fighting in the ranks of the principes or triarii... and therefore the youngsters hadn't inherited the family panoply yet. After all, it would be a rare family that could afford two full sets of equipment.

The fact that this way the younger men could gain experience of battle in a relatively risk-free way (in the velites, just doing some skirmishing rather than stand in the main battle line) would then be a helpful but possibly unintentional bonus.