Cromag's DeI 1.X Strategy Tips

[wrcromartie]

I'm a pretty experienced TW player and thought I'd share some tips - focused on DeI's different playstyle from my vanilla R2 experience. Some tips are pretty basic, some a little more advanced.

This will (hopefully) be an eternal WIP that I use to occupy my loading screens, long battle marches, and AI turns, so please feel free to check back for updates :



Campaign Tips:

“If your enemy is secure at all points, be prepared for him. If he is in superior strength, evade him. If your opponent is temperamental, seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant. If he is taking his ease, give him no rest. If his forces are united, separate them. If sovereign and subject are in accord, put division between them. Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected .” ― Sun Tzu, The Art of War


Slow the pace:
In DeI, buildings and research take longer and armies are more expensive to maintain and build. Provinces are harder to control and take longer to convert. This means you should take longer to build up infrastructure before embarking on an offensive campaign - slow your roll and it will pay off. Take a few turns after knocking off a faction to consolidate before attacking the next.

Allow yourself to hit the 'end turn' button...it's ok, really.

“He will win who, prepared himself, waits to take the enemy unprepared.” ― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

War Chest:

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"The sinews of war are infinite money." Marcus Tullius Cicero.

Do not declare war unless you have 10,000+ in the bank for early game, 25,000-50,000+ for midgame, 100,000+ for late game. If you need to save up and do nothing for a few turns, do it. Don't rush going to war. Unlike vanilla, you can't just capture a few settlements and count on the extra income to bail you out. Because of the major public order issues, new territories are a liability for a while before they become an asset and not only do you have to beat the opponent's armies, you need to plan on how to manage your winnings.

Good commanders won't raise troops until they are necessary and may stack cash until its time for war & then run a deficit. You often need the reserve $$$ for troops, mercs and upkeep. If you do succeed in taking over settlements, you will want to immediately convert buildings to your culture. All this requires $$$. And don't forget, other nations may calculate that your new enemies will keep you busy enough that they get bold and declare war on you. Keep $$ in reserve so you can deal with unknowns.

War Targets:

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A good commander should not start a war without a strategy to achieve a dominating victory. If your plan is to take 1-2 regions off a major power and sue for peace, you might consider a different target. I'll let some smarter men than I provide some enlightening quotes -

"...Men must either be flattered or crushed; for they will revenge themselves for slight wrongs, whilst for grave ones they cannot. The injury therefore that you do to a man should be such that you need not fear his revenge." - Machiavelli, The Prince

“...in war, the way is to avoid what is strong, and strike at what is weak.” ― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

“If his forces are united, separate them.” ― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Client States:

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In DeI, using client states can be very beneficial. Early on, you will have problems maintaining public order and conquering new territories usually means you need an army staying behind to defend against rebellion.

If you establish some client states in the area, your client states will often attack rebels in your territories. This allows you to have them actually defend border territories for you - sometimes even territories you took from them! Be aware, on higher difficulty levels your vassal may betray you if they feel they are close to your strength or if you are at war with too many other powers. Pay close attention to devious vassals.

I also find this to be cool & historically accurate - the Romans often used allied tribes to 'enforce the peace' among the territories.

Once your empire has grown in power, you may actually find yourself able to broker client state agreements with states you aren't at war with by offering some gold. This can be a very powerful way to expand your empire through economic means. Typically this will be possible with factions that are 'on the ropes' - at war with multiple enemies and losing. The best part about this is you will gain access to new territory with military access, no public order management issues, and you actually gain both $$ and new armies.

Again, this is historically accurate as oftentimes Rome first expanded into new territories through allied tribes appealing to Rome for 'protection' against their enemies.

Public Order:

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In DeI, public order becomes a big consideration. Make sure that your main provinces are able to maintain a neutral or (ideally) positive public order rating without any garrisoned or patroling troops. You will need these armies to defend your periphery, so the core should be solid on its own. This is the basis of my builds for core provinces, where I favor temple buildings that give public order bonuses and economic % bonuses.

In the periphery, you may simply have to plan for prolonged cyclical rebellions - these can actually be turned to your advantage. As referenced above, these periodic rebellions will provide client states with something to do and they will often put these rebellions down before they begin. This will provide you with a steady stream of slaves should you need them.

*this is historically accurate, you can read about periodic rebellions throughout the roman periphery that needed to be out down either by legions or by getting allies to deal with the problem.

Slaves

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*** Slavery is awful, abhorrent and terrible but as far as I know in game in R2 / DeI there is little benefit to eliminating / working to eliminate slavery. I might be wrong or that might be an interesting script/tech possibility? It would be cool IMO to have more benefits for no / low slavery in game.


[bold] In the video game Rome 2[/bold] , Slaves are leverage for your economy and making use of slaves is key to keeping your empire humming. Check slave population levels in the province detail tab - unless you have a ton of extra public order, I recommend around 25-30% slave population. Use the sell slaves and commercial stimulation edicts to manage your slave population levels. Slave trader buildings are a great income augment in your commerce centers if you are managing this properly.

Diplomacy:

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Sometimes it pays to be the nice guy for a while - of course we all plan to crush everyone eventually but it's much easier to go from trusted to loathed than vice versa.

I recommend adopting a defensive / trade oriented attitude for the first 20-30 turns of play. Make use of the fact that you start out small & non-threatening to get as many trade agreements as you can. Try for non-aggression pacts with every faction you don't plan to incorporate in your first wave of conquest. Later you may grow these relations into alliances - I prefer to avoid military alliances as they lead to entanglements and limit defensive allies mostly to 'cooperative' cultures EG Hellenic cultures if I'm Roma.

Look at the value of potential trade value (in diplomacy window by holding the mouse over it) and you can comfortably offer 10x that value and know you will be repaid with interest for your investment. You can always burn bridges if you want, but after your empire has grown, expansionism penalties will make it much harder to achieve these diplomatic goals.

Army Maintenance:

Don't hesitate to disband your armies if you don't have a plan for the units. It's not that hard to grind unit experience & most units purchase price is only 4-5 turns of upkeep. So in general, if you don't need the units in the next 4-5 turns, you shouldn't have them active unless they are extremely valuable elite units you just refuse to let go. You can apply the same calculations to moving armies extremely long distances - if it is going to take >5 turns & you have the option, you may be better off disbanding the whole stack and raising a new one on the other side of your empire.

Politics:

If playing as a multi-party faction like Rome, there are some definite benefits to keeping your influence at around 40% - you get +8% research rate, +5 public order, +1 tax, and +5 morale.

Some special events like infamy actually decrease influence each turn if ignored. By ignoring them for several turns, you can intentionally reduce your influence without doing anything dramatic like fratricide.

Mercenaries:

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Most of the time in vanilla mercenaries are too expensive relative to cost to comprise much of your strategy...however in DeI there are some mercenaries that are worth the price of admission during different stages of your game. With almost all mercenaries, you ideally want to recruit them in the same turn as you are going to fight and disband them immediately.

Mercenaries should be the first into the melee as you are paying them for the privilege to die first. You don't mind them taking lots of casualties as you are going to disband anyway or if not - the more that are dead, the less you have to pay while they replenish. As such, if you have enough mercenaries to form a front, let them fight for a while to increase enemy fatigue before even sending in other troops whose lives actually matter to you.

Balearic Slingers are one of the deadliest ranged units in the game - I have had them rack up 500+ kills in a normal field battle. *This does conform to their historic legendary deadliness. Honestly these units are worth the upkeep to have in your army and keep upgrading with experience - 1-2 per stack will make dealing enemy skirmishers a breeze. Just remember that these aren't fodder skirmishers to be sacrificed easily, keep a unit of spearmen to back them up (or hastati ready to resist cavalry).

Goidilic Berserkers are like a swarm of angry wolverines - a unit you just smash right into the center of the enemy in advance of all your troops. If they take casualties? Who cares - less upkeep to pay next turn. They are extremely powerful and inflict a morale penalty on all nearby enemy units.

Put them right in front center, 10m in front of your main line and have them lead the charge for maximum effect.

Defense Cheese Tactics -

Some players may be having trouble & need some help, some are like me and sometimes don't feel like having to retake a province from a slave revolt - the result is inevitable but the process is time consuming. For such situations, a few methods of easily defending against much larger armies using only the garrison:

#1 Cheesiest - set battle time limit to 20:00. In DeI, it is very easy to force the battle length to drag out longer than 20:00 resulting in a victory for the defense. This is the ultimate cheese method.

[wrcromartie]

Battle Tips:


All Factions:

Position > mass.

The obvious goal of battle is always pin & encircle. The best units for pinning are heavy infantry and the best units for encircle are cavalry and anything that kills quickly.

Skirmishers and light infantry are very effective at "screening" or playing the flanks along with your cavalry. Heavy infantry are very effective at killing if you can get them into flanking position, but this will require more precision as they are slow and take a while to arrive.


Reserves -

More than ever, it is critical in DeI to keep a portion of your force in reserve during the initial engagement.

Reserves provide commanders with the ability to do three critical things: maneuver to flank the enemy, manage your own battle fatigue, and react to enemy maneuvers.

Assuming 5-5, if you can engage 5 enemy units with 3 of your first line units, the remaining 2 of your units will be free to encircle and charge the flank. As the Romans, you can virtually assure dominance in this scenario by using square formation if/when your front 3 become encircled.


Fatigue -

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In DeI, fatigue is MUCH more important for a units battle performance. Exhausted units will die much faster, kill much more slowly, and are much more likely to rout. An exhausted unit is actually a liability, because their reduced morale makes them liable to rout which can actually panic your other troops. As such, the commander needs to be much more active in management of battle fatigue then ever before. Reserves are critical for engaging in fatigue management.

Good battle commanders will work both sides of the fatigue equation. Use multiple lines of your own melee troops so that you can have the first line engage the enemy. When your forces begin to tire, use reserves to relieve your first line.

The best way to cycle lines without taking large casualties is to attack with the reserves, wait until they have actually engaged in combat with the enemy (sometimes you have to manually 'push' them closer with right click + drag formation movement).

The best commanders will combine fatigue management with flanking attacks to achieve the best results - landing a strong flanking attack while the enemy is tired will have extremely powerful effects. Even significantly weaker fresh units can rout stronger tired opponents with a flanking or rear charge. Flanking units can also more easily dis-engage and reform for a 2nd charge (ofc works best with cavalry or light infantry).

Unit Spacing / Manipular Formation

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Fight as the Romans did! In DeI, unit movement is more restricted and moving your units through other friendly units will be slower and disruptive to both formations. Slow is dead when units are getting hit from the rear, so make use of gaps in your formation to maneuver quickly.

Gaps in the front line will also allow you to create "kinks" that can be exploited by your 2nd line reserve to expose eager enemies to 2on1 situations.

eg charge in against enemy front with units of hastati, backed in reserve by a units of principes 25m to the rear. After charge from hastati, more concentrated opponent first line begins to wrap and pish through the gaps (if Romans, now can take advantage of square ability in front lines for added profit). Once first line gap is being pushed, charge with the second line for a flanking bonus.

In this manner, you can blunt the enemy charge by encouraging them to run into each other trying to take out your first line. Once their charge has been spent, you can charge with a second line that also gets a flanking bonus.

If you have front line troops that can employ the square formation or other anti flanking abilities, it pays off to delay until enemy has tired before charging the gaps with reserves. Also feel free to cycle charge the reserves and make liberal use of missiles.

*For fun and profit, read about historic Roman manipular tactics which are more viable and useful than ever in DeI 1.x.

Gaps in the line also allow you to more easily maneuver reserves to flanking positions, which should always be the primary goal.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_i...he_triple_line

Oblique or unbalanced attack -

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The oblique attack was employed successfully countless times across the ancient world and is a very viable strategy in DeI.

The unbalanced attack is setup by starting with your strongest infantry all on one side of the formation.

Once you are closing towards the enemy in March, begin moving the heavy side of your formation faster while the light side remains lagging behind. Throw the weight of your reserves around the heavy side and you will be able to quickly put your heavy infantry into flanking position. For best effect, use the highest melee attack units in reserve on the edge of your heavy side.

The cavalry wraps to smash the rear while supported by your skirmishers also pushing around on the strong side and screening to harass on the week side.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oblique_order

War Dogs-

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If you can manage it, try to keep 1 unit of war dogs in each army. For one, dogs are awesome and all of your soldiers deserve puppy companions while on the march.

Primary usage is to chase fleeing enemies - hold your pups in reserve until the enemy is breaking/routed. If you wait until near the end of the battle to unleash them, they will be able to cause massive casualties on the fleeing enemy.

Secondary usage - dogs are actually also very good at killing enemy cavalry IF that cavalry has been held in place for a moment by another unit.

To achieve these dual purposes, I recommend doggies in the rear center well behind all other troops - if an enemy breaks containment and has successfully flanked me with cavalry, I will charge their cav with my general unit and hit them with the dogs at the same time. Otherwise I will just let them hang out until the battle is nearly complete, and then unleash them at the largest concentration of enemy units wavering / about to rout.

*For reference, these are all pretty historically accurate uses of actual war dogs in battle - chasing fleeing troops and dragging cavalrymen from the saddle.

Roman Line Cycling -

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One way to very effectively cycle your lines with the Romans is to have the retreating unit form square formation. This creates space for your reserves, so attack the enemy with your reserve unit, and push the reserve unit forward until it is engaged. Last, remove your first line units from square & retreat.

[wrcromartie]

Province Build Suggestions:

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Was going to wait until I had really min/maxed to post anything but figured this was going pretty well - this is where I have my game in turn 150, with a few slots still to unlock in most regions.

Italia -

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Currently ~9683 wealth income, + 40 PO, food -30. Stable easy core province build for Italy that can still field great numbers of troops and also has more than 2.5x income of almost any foreign region I've found in the world.

Level 10 dignitary

Roma -
Trade Municipium
Manipular Barracks (can be removed for more $)
Wine Trader lvl 3
Slave Trader

Ariminum-
Lvl 3 town
Lvl 3 trading port
LVL 3 temple o mercury
Lvl 3 farm (can swap out when you have substantial enough food for more $, I kept for a while as a hedge)

Arretium-
Lvl 3 town
Lvl 3 temple o mercury
Lvl 3 temple o neptune

Neapolis-
Lvl 3 town
Lvl 3 port
Lvl 3 temple o mercury

Slaves are currently at 75%, but economic effect is up to 122% because of bonus from buildings, characters, etc.

Magna Graecia

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I have just reunited in my 2nd Punic War, have been using for food production. [will wait a few turns for conversions to complete and repost stats]
+21 food, 3724 income, -4 PO

Brundisium -
Lvl 3 Trade
Lvl 3 Fish port
Lvl 3 Nymph Grove
Lvl 3 Deli
Lvl 2 Latrines (until unlock final slot)

Consentia-
Lvl 2 Grove
Lvl 2 farm

Lilybaeum-
Lvl 3 fish
Lvl 2 farm
Lvl 3 nymph temple (I left this as the carthage stadia)

Syracusae-
Lvl 3 fish
Lvl 3 farm
Lvl 2 cows

Faction Specific Grand Strategy:



Roma:

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Early Game:

Rome starts with probably the strongest position in the early game, and your main weakness is probably your over-eagerness to get on with the whole Rome-takes-over the world thing. As stated earlier, the best advice (in my opinion) is to wait at least a few turns before going straight to war.

**this is in contrast to vanilla Rome2, where its easy to immediately blitzkrieg with whatever scraps you get at the start turn and continue to snowball until credits roll**

#1 once you have a little war chest, Cisaplina is always #1 on my list of war targets & little needs to be said about it other than take them over in whatever order seems easiest at the time. I typically like to wait until one of the cisalpina factions inevitably leaves their city undefended and take a free city win to start things off. Early on, public order and managing new territories will be an adjustment, so if you can wait a few turns between declaring war, that's great.

#2 you basically need to decide if you are going to continue north & take raetia or move elsewhere. Cisalpina is very defensible, as one stack can basically cover the entrance to all three territories from the north - so leaving it alone is a perfectly fine option.

Raetia is a nice candidate for an early set of client states, which should require a time commitment of ~5-10 turns to completely subdue.

#2a if you'd prefer to take other easy options, Provincia is a nice option, but you may find yourself dragged into conflict with Arveni and co, which can prove messier than desired early on.

Illyria is another option, but you will be rubbing up against the Greeks early and that may cramp you in the midgame. I'd prefer to maintain my distance until I'm strong enough to sweep all the way from the Illyrian coast to Athens.

#2b you can go after Syracuse, but be aware this will immediately accelerate your conflict with Carthage. This can definitely make for a fun and interesting campaign, but it will not be the easiest route to go.
#3 Eventually you will


In my current game, the Arverni sacked Massilia while I was deciding which way to go at #2. As the Romans, you can't allow barbarians to be knocking off your civilized neighbors and camping at your doorstep, so that made my decision fairly simple. Provincia immediately became the newest Roman conquest, and I spent the next several turns beating down the Arverni, Pictones, and Aedui. Upon request, I settled for peace + tribute from the Aedui basically right away and used the advantage to force the other 2 into submission, keeping a little hunk of Aquitania as my insurance. My client states have been appropriately keeping the peace in my little province since, putting down the periodic rebellions as per my instructions.

With my northern borders relatively secure, I decided to try to take as much of Iberia as possible before confronting the quickly expanding Carthage.



Mid Game:

Late Game:


Auxiliary's:

Keltohellenikoi Thorakitai (say that 5x fast) - very tough, better melee attack and charge than Principes although not quite as good in extended fights. These can be had early on with an Aux camp in Cisalpinia.

Massilian Hoplites - A Hoplite Phalanx Front + Center means your center is very very tough to move. I found hoplites to be a great compliment to my legions - acting as the anvil. These guys can buy you a TON of time to maneuver and rotate fresh units in and out around them while your enemy tires.

White Shield Pikemen - Legions with pikemen you say? Yes please! I use these the same way as hoplites - these just make for a very, very tough center of my manipular formation...only my center has no gaps and has 25 foot teeth. Legions flank the pikemen and javelin throwers go in front, always keep your pikes moving forward until they hit the enemy center mass.

[Icceman]

nice guide Im thinking of starting as Sparta however they cant trade unless I take over athens, what would be the penalties of attacking athens as they are allied to sparta ?

[wrcromartie]

If you betray allies you will incur diplomatic penalties that make your life tough in the short term. But there isn't much diplomacy you can do without trade relations. I haven't played a Sparta campaign on DeI yet but I can imagine taking a port would be my first priority. In most of my campaigns, Sparta and Athens actually usually gang up on Macedonia early on which seems like a good move to me. Backstabbing Athens or bullying them into a confederacy seems like a smart next move after the Antigonids have been dealt with.

The independent minor factions in Asia Minor are good early game targets as well. For me, I'd try to cozy up with the Egyptians and Romans in the early game. They are natural mid or late game rivals but great early game trading partners. I think most of the Spartan early game is spent fighting barbarians and other Greeks.


I plan to add some grand strategy faction specific tips to my guide which hopefully will remain an eternal WIP to occupy me between loading screens and end turn waits [emoji1]

[Dresden]

Thanks for posting this, going to sticky it.

[Richard III]

Some great information so far, definitely deserves the sticky.

+rep!

[Krasnaïa Zvezda]

Interesting read even if I knew some of those tricks already, some were new to me

Can't wait to read your post about province build management

[molenmer]

This is great!!! A simple but great guide! One question; When conquering settlements, is it not better to raze than to occupy? It seems as if public order is less of a hit when razing, also you can destroy their settlements in one turn...

[Richard III]

This is great!!! A simple but great guide! One question; When conquering settlements, is it not better to raze than to occupy? It seems as if public order is less of a hit when razing, also you can destroy their settlements in one turn...

I think the problem with that (And the sack/loot stratagem in general) is that it brings about such massive diplomacy hits. For one region factions it's no issue, but for larger factions it makes any chance for peace a pipe dream. I know that making carthage hate me so much screwed my last roman campaign!

[wrcromartie]

This is great!!! A simple but great guide! One question; When conquering settlements, is it not better to raze than to occupy? It seems as if public order is less of a hit when razing, also you can destroy their settlements in one turn...

*I don't raze much - so someone please correct me if I'm mistaken*. Razing should be much more of a public order hit than occupying (unless I'm mistaken) - you are pillaging, burning, murderin etc all the countryside. Those people are gonna be angry to say the least.

Razing also damages all the existing structures, forcing you to repair or dismantle them before converting - this is much more expensive than culturally converting a level 2 or higher building.

Razing is definitely a great strategy if you find yourself in a position to easily conquer an enemy settlement, but you have no intention of trying to hold it (& can't/don't want to subjugate/liberate). In that case, razing and walking away is a great technique - you get $$$, you enemy loses income and unit production, and often a rebel stack will spawn before your enemy recaptures the city. This leaves them with an extra problem to deal with.

The main reason I typically don't loot is that I plan with the objective to immediately conquer and convert buildings throughout an entire region within 2-3 turns. Ideally I will have a governor (dignitary) unit and super ideally also a governor (general) unit with culture conversion and public order bonuses. The objective is to eliminate resistance and stabilize the region as quickly as possible.

*note - I will say that if you are swimming in client states, they can be very active in putting down rebellions, and as such looting might be a more profitable option...I am just a fairly conservative planner by nature and I prefer limiting my possible outcomes.

RE: diplomacy hits, Richard III makes a good point - but I will say this -

A good commander should not start a war without a strategy to achieve a dominating victory. If your plan is to take 1-2 regions off a major power and sue for peace, I'd suggest you might consider a different target.

[Dresden]

Razing actually has less public order negative currently. The thought process being - you wipe out the current inhabitants and bring in your own people. It is expensive, though, due to losing the buildings and the damage.

I did that to have some reason to raze, before there was really no reason to do so.

[wrcromartie]

Razing actually has less public order negative currently. The thought process being - you wipe out the current inhabitants and bring in your own people. It is expensive, though, due to losing the buildings and the damage.

I did that to have some reason to raze, before there was really no reason to do so.

Hey Dresden - thanks for the feedback! I see what you are going for and agree there must be some gameplay mechanic to encourage raze...IMO razing a city is a devastating act that should have severe consequences. I imagine the Mongols sacking Baghdad, etc.

A few ideas/comments:

Would it be possible to script a MASSIVE negative to economy and recruitment / replenishment for say 10 turns after a raze? (Pardon if this is already included, I have yet to raze myself in DeI 1.0)

On the pro side, there is the public order bonus we've talked about and perhaps also could provide a cultural conversion bonus?

[RollingWave]

Generally, if you are attacking a province that you already have some control over public order (like uniting your home province) then looting is suggested as it gets you rolling much faster and chances are those other small towns have replicate buildings or buildings you simply don't want anyway. it also makes early expansion require a bit less of a war chest.

In taking new province, especially difficult once with different culture etc, you may want to exterminate the first town you capture. that is probably the easiest way to make sure it doesn't rebel, though obviously takes longer to get thing back up running.

[Dresden]

There are limitations to what can be done with the occupation decision ramifactions. I am not sure if scripting is an option for them

[Krixux]

There is a great gain in razing. imho that is.

Ex:
Nori conquered by Genua then was Massalia then Nori again then Suebi , Luigi, Nori, Averni, Nori again (lol) etc. while I was busy in the south.
The moment I torn to them had all but one building at level 4.
Then had to pull back to Luigi (or something) then took it back ; lost it next turn, they rebelled and become Nori again till in anger I conquered them the 3rd time and razed the city.

Then silence ...no one was interested in That city anymore...
Plus almost no negative PO.
Which is logic...
"People will rebel because all the "rape" stealing etc..."
What people ?
I just killed everybody !
lol

[wrcromartie]

Some battle screens showing local unit superiority, use of the square formation, and other fun stuff:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[wrcromartie]

Updated with build suggestion for Italia - I have decided I am going to post the builds I do without worrying if they are perfectly min/maxed. If you guys have your own province builds that you like alot, please post them and I will incorporate into the main guide!!

[meerkatology]

want to add for rome start - pay attention to cathage vs. syracuse, if syracuse wins over sicily, immediately give up whatever your doing to counter it so you can control all of magna gracia for much better PO control while keeping good relations with carthage. magna gracia also has iron for free upgrades if you turn into into a main miltiary center.

also notable AoR units esp. for rome - cretan archers / sarmatia cataphracts, both types of units that the rome army severely lacks early on.

[Krixux]

want to add for rome start - pay attention to cathage vs. syracuse, if syracuse wins over sicily, immediately give up whatever your doing to counter it so you can control all of magna gracia for much better PO control while keeping good relations with carthage. magna gracia also has iron for free upgrades if you turn into into a main miltiary center.

also notable AoR units esp. for rome - cretan archers / sarmatia cataphracts, both types of units that the rome army severely lacks early on.

"sarmatia cataphracts"
???

In Syracuse / Lilybaeum (Sicily) auxiliary camp ?
Have one in Syracuse but at level 2 and I'm well past Marian reforms...
Shall I upgrade that to level 3?
Well I guess I'll upgrade it anyway.

But Sarmatian Cav. in Sicily?
If it is so that would be cool and weird...
But cool nonetheless