do you rush the reforms? how often do you auto resolve?

[z28man]

Just curious on everyones playstyle. Do you get to the reforms as fast as you can or do you stick with the pre-marian units for a long time? Also when and how do you decide when to auto resolve and when to fight? personally I auto resolve if it's a clear victory. My first Roman campaign I rushed the reforms, I think this time I'll stick pre reforms for a bit longer.

[tungri_centurio]

I auto resolve only small battles with 4 units or so.and try to have a General in it 4 against 2or3 of my units.they tend to get more exp wen auto resolve. On the reforms it depends on the money i have,im not invest all of it in acragas(or whatever the name is)only the first tear of rural Community Control and better fields.so not realy rushing.beter to get other citys prepared for the reforms.

[Ovidius Empiricus]

The first campaign I rushed it as much as possible. I didn't recruit from Akragas at all, constructed all of the growth-related buildings as quickly as I could, and kept its taxes at low. But I didn't know what I was doing, which was a bad idea.... Around the time it happened, I only had maybe half of Iberia, Carthage proper and a few towns near it, some of Greece/Macedonia; and I was basically at war with everyone around me in every direction. It was a total mess. That's typical for Rome I guess, but the kicker was that I hadn't built up the barracks enough in most of my territories, so there were several years when I couldn't recruit or retrain anything. I had thought the phase-out would happen one region at a time by making a new barracks available to do the phasing-out, not make the republican/allied cohorts obsolete everywhere all at once. I also didn't realize how much more I needed to build after the "provincial" oppidum: there was also citizenship and army rations and a campus martius and a fortress and hostilia, all of which take precious, precious time. Considering how much I rushed it that time with Akragas, I probably wouldn't have been in good shape even if I had spent more time building all of the barracks I needed, since that would've been time I hadn't spent improving so many of those cities' economic buildings which is what had allowed me to expand as much as I did. Fortunately, 2.5 came along (and now 2.6), so I dropped that campaign. I wanted to try some more of the factions anyway.

Now I don't rush it quite so much, although I don't exactly take it slow either. Once it's a large city, I make sure several cities are about as ready as they can be to pump out some shiny new legions. If they have a good start with foundries and economic/fortified too, even better. The problem is that until then you need to be recruiting from somewhere, which cuts back on growth a lot. And a lot of those buildings don't come cheap either, so I keep it fairly defensive by not recruiting or expanding too much early on. It does help to get an early start in some of the bigger cities like Carthage, Carthago Nova, Massalia, Syracuse, etc. -- they'll already have the population and the basic infrastructure, so it's mainly just about building the barracks. I'd say Carthage is always top priority, and the Greeks always betray me very quickly, so Syracuse after that. In my 2.6 campaign, I've already lost Emporiae (although Scipio did wonders holding off the Gallaeci and Carthaginians with his tiny little garrison!), but I'm thinking I'll take most Africa before I invade Iberia via Carthago Nova. I don't plan to expand much into Greece for a while, so hopefully Pergamon and Sparta and Dacia will keep the Greeks and Macedonians busy for me.

Also, I don't auto-resolve very much. Against some micro-armies of brigands or whatever, assuming I'm in a situation where I just don't care much what happens to any of my units because everything's basically under control and they can be retrained or replaced easily, I'll auto-resolve. If it's a siege battle with half a stack of levy clubmen guarding the town, auto-resolve. I play 1-turn, so I guess that might reduce the need for it a bit.

[z28man]

Ok so now I've been wondering about something else. I'm making all of my cities allied clients so they can recruit units, except for in Italy. When I get close to the reforms should I go ahead and build the Roman barracks up even though it's still a client city, because of the loss of happiness? Last time I waited and when I reformed I started to demolish my allied barracks and then build the Roman barracks but was unable to recruit for a while.

[Silius Saurus]

I auto resolve large multi stack battles where I have a better than 50% chance of success. I have fought too many big battles with a CTD afterward to risk wasting an hour of real time.

I tend to delay the reforms until after the majority of my Italian cities have fortresses.

[ur-Lord Tedric]

Getting several of Area 6's settlements to Oppidum L3 is advised before the Reforms - around 40yrs is a good idea. Then a further 40yrs to the Augustan Reforms. Considering that historically it was 100 and 100; then that's not too bad. It certainly was manageable and the sensible fastest way to get to the 'pretty legions'. :-)

I never auto-resolve (unless I find the odd problem); it's a shame it does result in extra experience, but also I tend to get less casualties. Battling at all levels is the best way to see battles in all their glory (let alone hunting for any bugged map squares).

[Ovidius Empiricus]

Ok so now I've been wondering about something else. I'm making all of my cities allied clients so they can recruit units, except for in Italy. When I get close to the reforms should I go ahead and build the Roman barracks up even though it's still a client city, because of the loss of happiness? Last time I waited and when I reformed I started to demolish my allied barracks and then build the Roman barracks but was unable to recruit for a while.

You really, sincerely, undoubtedly do not need that many units all once -- not in any conceivable situation at that stage in the game. Not in 1-turn or 0-turn. If you made all your Italian cities like that, no other faction would come anywhere close to having that kind of output of high-quality heavy infantry, so yours would go to waste or you wouldn't bother to recruit them in the first place since you'd realize they weren't needed. Thus you shouldn't bother to make that many client states. In addition to the greater expense, it also takes longer to build all of it (i.e., you're adding both levels of client-state barracks) which I'm fairly sure in 2.6 still needs to be done all of the way through before those regions will be ready for the reforms. What you get with annexation is a better economy, and you can still recruit various units in different areas when you grant citizenship which also makes them happier without the negative effects from the oppidum/barracks! In Italy, you get the standard republican cohorts along with a few handy ones like Cretan archers, and in other places like Greece there are slingers, hoplites, pikemen, horse archers, etc. Just not the "allied" units and a random assortment of some others. You can check the in the building tree to see what the client state offers in the way of recruitment, and you might want to take that route sometimes, but generally it isn't worth it.

[z28man]

You really, sincerely, undoubtedly do not need that many units all once -- not in any conceivable situation at that stage in the game. Not in 1-turn or 0-turn. If you made all your Italian cities like that, no other faction would come anywhere close to having that kind of output of high-quality heavy infantry, so yours would go to waste or you wouldn't bother to recruit them in the first place since you'd realize they weren't needed. Thus you shouldn't bother to make that many client states. In addition to the greater expense, it also takes longer to build all of it (i.e., you're adding both levels of client-state barracks) which I'm fairly sure in 2.6 still needs to be done all of the way through before those regions will be ready for the reforms. What you get with annexation is a better economy, and you can still recruit various units in different areas when you grant citizenship which also makes them happier without the negative effects from the oppidum/barracks! In Italy, you get the standard republican cohorts along with a few handy ones like Cretan archers, and in other places like Greece there are slingers, hoplites, pikemen, horse archers, etc. Just not the "allied" units and a random assortment of some others. You can check the in the building tree to see what the client state offers in the way of recruitment, and you might want to take that route sometimes, but generally it isn't worth it.

The only reason I was making them all client was as I was conquering slowly so I could retrain units. I suppose I'll calm it down with the client states and see what happens

[Sertorio]

Autoresolving and retraining is a better way for your units to acquire experience. Check my thread regarding what has changed in 2.6 to see when i use it or not. Simply put, i use autoresolve to manage the number of battles i fight each turn.
Regarding the reforms as others have posted, when you hit the Marian you won't be able to train your Polybians anymore. The good news are that you can use allied units while you train new legions, but it's best that you develop the infrastructure to train the new legions first or you can find yourself overwhelmed in North Italy and from Gaul by the Boii and Arveni. But you will have less trouble with the imperial reforms because you only loose the ability to train Marian where you train Imperial Legions, and can still train Evocati.

[Ballacraine]

To answer the OP, I seldom auto resolve unless it is an overpowering situation in my favour.

Sertorio's point about auto-resolving to gain experience is an interesting idea though.

As regards the reforms, no I do not rush to them....

I like to turtle.

Balla.