Marian reform workaround

**Ac3** · September 12, 2011, 02:31 PM

Hey guys, Ac3 here. I was really frustrated with the Marian reforms occuring TOO soon, throwing major monkey wrenches in my plans over and over. So, I've developed a workaround that fixes that just fine.
Now, the Marian reforms will still occur WAY too early, but here is what I have. Your unit recruitment will be dependent upon the type of barracks you build. So, for the famous 3-line Roman formation, you will be able to build a polybian army center. Here, you will be able to recruit your hastati, etc, as the title implies.

A quick rundown of the system:
Barracks upgrades to militia barracks. Militia barracks upgrades to ONE of your TWO choices (stables and practice range required as a minimum for both army centers):

The Polybian Army center enables you to recruit polybian units.
Cost: 1 turn, 200 denarii

The City Barracks (Legion Barracks) enables you to recruit marian units once the reforms occur, but the settlement must at least be a large town.
Cost: 1 turn, 400 denarii

Now here is the limit. The polybian center does not upgrade and you will NOT be able to get marian units from it.
The reverse is true for city barracks, army barracks, or royal barracks: you cannot recruit polybian units from them.

After the program 'officially' declares the reforms to occur, to get your marian units at the time of YOUR choosing, or historically for those more scholarly-minded, break down the center when you're ready, and build up to your city barrracks. Be sure you have a big enough army to hold the territory you've got for at least 4 turns if you can build a city barracks there.

Again, BOTH will require a stables and practice field BEFORE they can be constructed. However, I fixed the stables and practice field to take 1 turn and cost 200 denarii.
For the sake of speed and simplicity, this is how I have things set up.

If you capture a settlement and it has a city barracks (legion barracks) or greater but you're still in the polybian system, you'll have to tear it down and rebuild the barracks from scratch to the polybian center, effectively taking three turns to get polybian units from a settlement (or you can process_cq the settlement it if you're impatient. This doesn't work in all settlements, though. I speak for RTW Vanilla 1.5 Gold Edition).

However, for the marian system, you'll be able to get units right away. That's pretty fair, seeing as how in RTRPE 1.9 (at least what I have) it'll take over 8 turns before you can recruit units from a conquered province.
I'm tweaking the buildings now to see how things go. If you put your settlements on automanage, watch your settlements like a hawk where there is not polybian center if you're still in the polybian system. It is highly suggested that you recruit 0 turn peasants and disband them near a small settlement to hurry up and boost its population. MANUALLY building the polybian center for consistency is STRONGLY recommended, otherwise your governor might build a city barracks, and you'll have to do it all over again.

Once the reforms occur either historically or at your convenience, you're good to go.
Be sure to combine this system with the unified italy mod around here somewhere that combines all the familes into one, and you've got ROME: TOTAL WAR!!

Ac3

Note: This download will be for Gold Edition patched to 1.5. When I have finished perfecting the system, I'll post the link directly in this forum post.

**Tehmuffin19** · September 12, 2011, 03:02 PM

Wait, is this a program you came up with? It sounds pretty cool.

**Ac3** · September 12, 2011, 05:47 PM

No, this is not a program. :-)
It is simple textual changes that you just copy and paste into your total war folders. It's quick and painless.
Sit tight, my friend, since you're the first person to respond, you'll be the first person to get the file. Be sure to spread the word to help the community out. :-)

Ac3