Roman Auxiliary Units, opinions?

[NYG 5]

so the more cultures I conquer, i notice different unit names pop up when i hover over the option to build an auxiliary barracks. what do you guys think of them? are they worth it?

i did use some veneti mercs and was surprised how many kills they inflicted with not too many casualties. i'm thinking the roman units might still be the best, but if the auxiliaries are cheaper but still productive, it will make things a little more diversified/fun/historical.

[Iron_Duke]

I think you've hit the proverbial nail on the head. As far as winning battles heavy/elite infantry seems to be dominant, but variety is the spice of DeI and diversity should be encouraged by making other units more practical. My most successful armies are formed around as many of the best infantry I can get and then padded out with a few medium spear troops and optionally a unit or two of any type of cavalry. I often don't even bother with missile troops, although they have their place, surrounding the enemy with melee troops seems to be far more effective.

I'd like to see further reduced caps on heavy/elite infantry and much higher upkeep. Lowering upkeep on auxiliaries & levies is the way to make them much more appealing.

[LawL_LawL]

My opinion on auxiliaries and all kinds of other non-line troops varies based on opposition and units in question. I think all in all spear auxiliaries when playing as Rome are something that your army doesn't need if you can do a good job of using pila volleys and quickly following up into Fulcrum for anti-cavalry needs (though this requires you to face the unit in the right direction or you'll feel more of the charge's effects I think). However against cavalry-heavy factions I would be inclined to bring real spears due to the necessity of regularly engaging cavalry, where I would otherwise not bring spears as the stop-gap measures legionnaries can employ are usually good enough to rout if not annihilate oncoming melee cavalry.

The same can be said for my assessment of most other non-core faction units or mercenaries. Pretty generally speaking most armies are best suited to producing a core of strong infantry and then bolstering it with the qualities found in substitute units based on circumstantial needs. Most units can be found to have a place in your army, though they'll inevitably vary in mileage and resulting net worth as a whole. An example being mercenary missile troops, with Balearic slingers, Cretan and Germanic archers, and the likes taking the cake for most effective irregular missile troops. Of course hiring mercenaries like Dacian bowmen or Egyptian bowmen can provide the same support to infantry but with less effect.

Then there's a special rung on the ladder reserved for the most useless of units. Things like Illyrian auxiliary infantry (Paratikoi or something), Egyptian auxiliary infantry, and a ton of mercenary/auxiliary melee infantry in general fall far short of what else can be purchased for equal or slightly more to produce much better results. Key problems with crappy units like these are that, unlike spear units of the same quality, these units cannot stand cavalry for a second and will be flattened in a few charges. Coupled with pretty garbage morale values around 40 (just to put things in perspective Mob morale is 30, average morale of factional line-troops varies around 55-65) these simply do not have a place, in my opinion, unless you're really up against the wall and short on options. For example being forced to raise a mercenary army to hold or otherwise fight on very short notice where you don't have the luxury of choice. Living bodies that cost the enemy resources and time to reduce to dead or fleeing bodies is always a benefit when you're stuck defending a town or city against a merciless horde with little more than a skeleton garrison.

I think you've hit the proverbial nail on the head. As far as winning battles heavy/elite infantry seems to be dominant, but variety is the spice of DeI and diversity should be encouraged by making other units more practical. My most successful armies are formed around as many of the best infantry I can get and then padded out with a few medium spear troops and optionally a unit or two of any type of cavalry. I often don't even bother with missile troops, although they have their place, surrounding the enemy with melee troops seems to be far more effective.

I'd like to see further reduced caps on heavy/elite infantry and much higher upkeep. Lowering upkeep on auxiliaries & levies is the way to make them much more appealing.

I agree. At the moment the upkeep and costs system is balanced with a stats being priced in a linear manner for effectiveness of troops. The problem being that troops are not actually performing pound-for-pound equivalent to direct stat comparisons, but exponentially better due to having a collection of higher 'equal value' stats. This is why equal costs of levies versus elites will ALWAYS see the elites win unless it's player vs AI with the levies in the player's hands.

The only option for lower quality armies is to spam cheap spear anvils and micro javelin spam to the rear of higher quality armies, and even then they pay more in recruitment and upkeep costs for worse battlefield performance. Of course this is possible for the player to manage so it's not too much worse than just a method of making the game challenging, but the AI sure as hell can't do it. They just swarm their units forward and watch them die by the hundreds. Part of the problem lies in the crappy AI, but the units themselves need to stack up reasonably against each other where quality and related costs are concerned.

The only other explanation I could come up for it is to keep an incentive for people to develop their military in order to get access to troops who are both better and cost disproportionately more, making them a better investment over all than cheaper troops. (Like the current situation with Epistratoi Phalangitai and Hoplitai compared to their non-militia equivalents) If this is the case, some confirmation would be nice as I could understand this as a game mechanic encouraging military reform and development as opposed to staying with the minimum in military due to the lack of necessity in progressing if you're a heavy-infantry faction to begin with. Though it still means factions that start with lacklustre or no heavy infantry at all are still getting the short end of the stick.