Marian Madness?

[Cohors_Evocata]

First off, please forgive my choice for a title. I'm trying to loosen the mood a bit.

So as I mentioned over here, I've decided to open up a thread to ask some questions about the Romans, specifically about their military organisation after the so-called Marian reforms. Every once in a while, the following question is asked on this forum or any of the related social media: 'When can I expect to see Marian (and/or Imperial) units in my EB II game?' (Wording can vary, also no offence intended towards who ask said question; this isn't meant as a complaint about asking of the question.) The answer has been the same for basically as long as I can remember this question being asked: 'The Marian units aren't a priority at the moment, but will appear in the future.' (Again, wording can vary.) And yet this question keeps popping up and has (at least in my experience, which might be pretty biased) appeared since the first release of EB II. This has piqued my curiosity, because, quite frankly, I don’t understand what people find so appealing about them.

Perhaps I should give a little background first: Ever since I chose Latin (and Ancient Greek) as a subject in high school, I’ve been interested in all things related to the Romans and Greeks. The original Rome: Total War and the mods which sprang from it were quite ideal for me as a result (which is how and why I discovered the original EB). Over time, this interest has begun to shift however. Nowadays I’m much more interested in those cultures and peoples which weren’t so lucky as to have the historical spotlight shining on them all the time. I guess this is likely the effect of what can only be described as overexposure. Though this shift in interest has made me stop playing mods like RS II (which, for all its greatness, is too Romano-centric in my opinion), it hasn’t stopped me from remaining interested in mods like EB I and II. The more equal representation of peoples I previously hadn’t even heard about makes the game all the more fun for me. I therefore really have a hard time comprehending comments like this:

My personal opinion is that factions like the Romans should have priority over the small regional powers when it comes to fleshing out units.

(Again, no offence intended, I just needed an example of what I want to ask about.) I can’t understand why anyone would want to shift away from a rather equal view of all factions towards a (in my opinion) narrower view focusing on several well-known factions. I agree several factions were historically more influential as others, but for me personally a lot of the fun comes from playing with factions which aren’t as well-known. Let’s also not forget that EB II presents essentially an alternate history wherein peoples and nations can become prominent which historically didn’t reach a world-conquering scale. But I digress. Let me return to the question at hand. Why do people seem to like the Marian (and Imperial) Roman units this much?

As I noted above, I don’t get the appeal these units supposedly have. The previous stages of Roman military organisation were (in my opinion) more varied and interesting in that they represented several social classes of Roman society, each fighting slightly differently and with different qualities and quantities of equipment. To this we can add that the Pre-Marian Roman armies also had more varied components of socii fighting (to a debatable degree) in their native styles. After the consulships of Marius and the aftermath of the Social War most of this was replaced by (again, in my opinion and again, to a debatable degree) boring uniformity.

So this is why I have created the poll above. I’m curious to find out how many people have a certain stance on this issue (and are willing to cast their vote ). Also, if any of you reading this are willing and able to explain to me what is so special about the Mariani and Imperials, I’d be very grateful.

My thanks for taking your time to read all of this.

[QuintusSertorius]

I'm of a similar mindset. The Camillian and Polybian Rosters, with all their associated allies, are richer, more varied and more interesting than the Marian roster. Which is dull; not only does the basic unit become a Polybian Principes for all, but you lose all the Italian allies with their different armaments as well. You go from a proper, authentic army requiring something like eight different units, to requiring roughly three.

It might be uncharitable, but I can only assume it's a desire for the huge increase in efficiency of retraining/merging that makes them so appealing. Plus the ease of being able to recruit those same troops in a much wider range of places, rather than having to worry about supply lines to bring reinforcements to the fighting fronts.

Course as soon as we have the Polybian roster, anyone is able to stage their own Marian reform at will. Only recruit Polybian Principles. There you go, you have what is effectively a Marian legionary.

Don't get me started on how pointless the notion of an Imperial reform is, in my opinion...

[Primative1]

I voted for "Both are equally interesting to me." but its not showing.

Fix!

edit - Ah there it is.

[General WVPM]

I voted pre-marian as personally I really enjoy the local troops flavor, though I'm horrible with reinforcing them XD
If retraining wouldn't be such a problem, I'd probably use native garrisons everywhere.
Sadly there are only two types of allied states (democracy and oligarchy), personally I'd prefer to install a tyrant of some kind, but I don't think it would make any difference in the game anyway :p

[merc234]

I agree that EB should focus on each faction equally, I tend to prefer playing as more exotic factions or ones with interesting start positions myself, so more units for them is always a good thing.

Though I think you're being slightly unfair really. The Marian units appeal because they are THE iconic roman soldier, and serried, uniform ranks of soldiers with those large shields are always going to look cool. It strikes me as being deliberately obtuse to claim that the only reason you can think for people to like them is because it makes recruitment a bit more simple. I'm playing the devil's advocate here though really, as although I'd like to see them in game, they are not a huge deal to me, especially considering that it will take hundreds of turns for them to appear.

[QuintusSertorius]

Just to be absolutely and completely clear: no one is advocating removing the Marian reform and it's associated roster, that's not on the table.

[Tantum eruditi sunt liberi]

I'm no dirty Pythagorean, so I chose beans

[Tantum eruditi sunt liberi]

That is, I will once I can vote...and edit posts...

[b0Gia de Bodemloze]

I vote "I don't care about Romans either way" because that's it: i don't care. I am Greek Makedonian and thus a big fan of hellenistic factions with my favourite the Seleukids. I hate early romans, they were worse than the barbarians at this time and stop the Greeks from re conquer the world. First with Pyrrhos, Philip V, Antiochus III, the Epeirotai, the Makedonians, the Seleukids. I love the Seleukids because they were the last major hellenistic power that could stop roman expansionism.

[Shadowwalker]

Good post and question, Cohors_Evocata.

I chose "both".

I guess the general "hype" about the Marian troops has several reasons, some ingame, some not.

Ingame reasons include the already mentioned much wider range of recruitment and the easier troop management. Reasons that are not related to the game are for example the focus on Rome and especially (post) Marian troops in movies and books (to prove this point: name the Hollywood movies that are about pre-marian times and therefore feature Camillan or Polybian soldiers, and then in comparison do the same for later stages of Roman history ).
If one says "Antiquity" the chance is almost 100% that the one hearing it instantly thinks "ah, Rome." or "ah, Caesar" or "ah, Augustus".

In school and highschool and university there is a strong focus on imperial Rome, too.

To me, personally, the roman history is most interesting up until 146 BC (when they destroyed both Korinth and Carthage), to be honest. After that comes a long period of "yawn" (huge exaggeration!) until finally the Empire begins to fall apart and to struggle (since 3rd/4th century AD).

On the other hand, playing a Rome campaign in EB (talking about EB I here, haven't played prolonged SPQR campaigns in EB II yet, waiting for the Polybian roster before I do so) always had this very motivating "you'll be eventually able to field a really professional and professional-looking army" thought. That thought kept me playing them for hundreds of turns.
Although I have to admit that my anticipation had more to do with the Imperial army than the Marian one. The Imperial Archers were one of the most beautiful units in EB I and over the years I became quite obsessed with reaching the point where I could field them. That I only managed to get the Imperial reform once in about 15+ campaigns with them, only added to the thrill. (On the other hand I liked the marian line troops much more than the Cohors Imperatoria so that in my ideal game we would have Marian troops + Imperial archers and no Imperial reform at all ).

If the EB team decided to drop the whole Marian reform it would be a minor blow to me, only. If they chose to never implement Iberian Assault Infatry, Pontic Thorakitai or Hayasdans Cataphract Archers/Persian Hoplites I'd be a lot more disappointed.

A few words about the Greeks: I consider their later developments equally boring (and/or frustrating). The Greeks were one of the main causes for the destruction of Carthage (just because their hawkish attitude towards them they heavily influenced the romans who were desperately trying to be seen as "equals" by the greeks in a cultural way) and they were the Antiquity racists ("barbaroi" vs "proper greeks", anyone?) at least since 480BC. And they seem to spur nationalism and hate towards other ancient peoples even today. Not my cup of tea, thank you very much.

This is very generic, I know. I just don't have 2 hours to write a proper post at the moment. Sorry.

[QuintusSertorius]

If the EB team decided to drop the whole Marian reform it would be a minor blow to me, only. If they chose to never implement Iberian Assault Infatry, Pontic Thorakitai or Hayasdans Cataphract Archers/Persian Hoplites I'd be a lot more disappointed.

Again, no one is even considering dropping the Marian reform. Not going to happen, before anyone panics.

Most of those other units you mention are planned, though if by "Persian Hoplites" you mean the Kardakes, they're not hoplites any more, but Thureophoroi.

[Roma_Victrix]

I'm of a similar mindset. The Camillian and Polybian Rosters, with all their associated allies, are richer, more varied and more interesting than the Marian roster. Which is dull; not only does the basic unit become a Polybian Principes for all, but you lose all the Italian allies with their different armaments as well. You go from a proper, authentic army requiring something like eight different units, to requiring roughly three.

Aren't we forgetting the auxiliary troops, like the Romano-Celtic cavalry, Romano-Iberian cavalry, and various "Romanized" regional infantry in the first EB? If anything the Marian reform in the first EB expanded the overall unit roster significantly thanks to auxiliaries. As a bonus, you also got a way cooler looking legionary infantryman with better shields.

Don't get me started on how pointless the notion of an Imperial reform is, in my opinion...

Pointless? How so? Especially when considering the expanded roster of the first EB when one managed to trigger the Imperial reform, including elite Syrian archers (very useful considering the limited amount of native missile troops). For that matter, the main line native infantry, the Imperial legionary, looked like an absolute beast. That was by far one of my favorite units from the first EB. Although not featured in the first EB, mods like Roma Surrectum II had heavily-armored Roman cataphract units by the Imperial period, to counteract the Parthian (and, theoretically, later Sassanian) cataphracts. That's quite a difference from the Republican-era units.

I think you're letting your bias color your analysis here a bit too strongly, to the point where you are willingly forgetting or deliberately omitting comparisons with the first EB (which, as far as I can tell at the moment, is a mirror and direction inspiration for EB II). Not that I care much, though, because I'll be playing with Koinon Hellenon first before I play as the Romans.

Koinon Hellenon FTW!

[Titus le Chmakus]

They find it pointless as the EB period ends in 14AD (why the hell didn't it go to the end of Rome in 476 ?) ... So it is just at Augustus' death, the first Roman emperor ... A bit early for Imperial troops ...

[QuintusSertorius]

Aren't we forgetting the auxiliary troops, like the Romano-Celtic cavalry, Romano-Iberian cavalry, and various "Romanized" regional infantry in the first EB? If anything the Marian reform in the first EB expanded the overall unit roster significantly thanks to auxiliaries. As a bonus, you also got a way cooler looking legionary infantryman with better shields.

I wasn't even including cavalry in that analysis, just thinking about infantry. It goes thus:

Pre-Marian: Leves/Velites, Hastati, Principes, Triarii, Samnite Spearmen, Etruscan Spearmen, one other regional Italian unit, regional archers/slingers, Equites, regional cavalry.
Marian: Marian legionaries, Elite legionaries, auxiliary spearmen, auxiliary cavalry, auxiliary skirmisher.

Look which list has more variety in it as standard.

To be honest, for the most part I don't really care what the units look like, as long as they don't look silly.

Pointless? How so? Especially when considering the expanded roster of the first EB when one managed to trigger the Imperial reform, including elite Syrian archers (very useful considering the limited amount of native missile troops). For that matter, the main line native infantry, the Imperial legionary, looked like an absolute beast. That was by far one of my favorite units from the first EB. Although not featured in the first EB, mods like Roma Surrectum II had heavily-armored Roman cataphract units by the Imperial period, to counteract the Parthian (and, theoretically, later Sassanian) cataphracts. That's quite a difference from the Republican-era units.

I think you're letting your bias color your analysis here a bit too strongly, to the point where you are willingly forgetting or deliberately omitting comparisons with the first EB (which, as far as I can tell at the moment, is a mirror and direction inspiration for EB II). Not that I care much, though, because I'll be playing with Koinon Hellenon first before I play as the Romans.

Koinon Hellenon FTW!

Pointless because it takes up valuable and finite unit slots for something over 1000 turns into the game, only of interest to one faction, which will almost never be seen. Frankly, it if were up to me, I'd just pull the end date back to 6AD and drop the notion altogether. The 1st century AD is as good as a completely different mod to where EBII starts.

What we did in EB1 isn't persuasive or suggestive of what is intended for EBII. There are a lot of things which were either wrong, or we've changed since then.

[Barnabas]

something over 1000 turns into the game, only of interest to one faction, which will almost never be seen.

This alone should be a reason enough to even if it's not dropped altogether, should make it move to the very end or very close to the end of the list of priorities. I know there is a lot of pro reaction for this late reforms but considering the progress time of EBII and the lack of missing starting roosters, early reforms, trait system, mercenary pools, region spesific units etc, I fail to see any reason for pushing this (no offense intended)

[Thuycidides]

Funny to see my words in the OP. Let me explain:

I don't play as the Romans very much. I'm usually playing as something hellenic, asiatic, or even barbarian. I also understand that the original motivation for EB was to give a more just treatment of other nations besides Rome, and I approve of it.

That said, with limited resources it is logical to me that a faction like the Romans receive the goods before others. First, it would make many people happy because the Romans are one of the most popular factions. Second, Rome is an important faction for the study of military history. Third, it is one of the few nations that actually persevered all the way from 272 BCE to 14 AD, the years that EBII represents.

If I were to compare things to some kind of WW2 game, right now we're making sure that Finland and Croatia have all their military equipment before we get to the T-34.

[Satapatiš]

Can't say if I'm terribly interested in how Romans are dressed when I'm killing them.


However, what is better for Romans to perform as an AI faction? For now I see they have problems expanding in my playthroughs.

From EB1 I can recall Romans building an empire a few times and when my Parthians were finally moving into Asia Minor Romans were, most of the time, at least seriously endangering Macedonians if not already moving into Asia. So it was a kind of an interesting race, to have a solid grasp on the East and move into Greece before I'll have a serious Latin problem there.

Once I had to pour some excess money into my Carthage allies just to give them a standing chance at engaging both Romans and Ptolemies and buy me some time for reaction.

In EB2, however, seems like Rome has troubles even wrestling control over Sicily or getting rid of Epirus.

[Cohors_Evocata]

First off, my thanks to all those who have voted in and responded to this thread so far. It has been very interesting to see the (preliminary) results and to read the comments so far.

Secondly, some points I wanted to respond to personally. I apologize in advance to those of whom I've cut out parts of their posts, but my response will most likely be long enough as it is.

Good post and question, Cohors_Evocata.

Thanks, your post was great as well. (Also, if that's a short and generic post to you, I'm not sure I would want to see an one that's not generic. )

I guess the general "hype" about the Marian troops has several reasons, some ingame, some not.

Ingame reasons include the already mentioned much wider range of recruitment and the easier troop management. Reasons that are not related to the game are for example the focus on Rome and especially (post) Marian troops in movies and books (to prove this point: name the Hollywood movies that are about pre-marian times and therefore feature Camillan or Polybian soldiers, and then in comparison do the same for later stages of Roman history ).
If one says "Antiquity" the chance is almost 100% that the one hearing it instantly thinks "ah, Rome." or "ah, Caesar" or "ah, Augustus".

In school and highschool and university there is a strong focus on imperial Rome, too.

To me, personally, the roman history is most interesting up until 146 BC (when they destroyed both Korinth and Carthage), to be honest. After that comes a long period of "yawn" (huge exaggeration!) until finally the Empire begins to fall apart and to struggle (since 3rd/4th century AD).

On the other hand, playing a Rome campaign in EB (talking about EB I here, haven't played prolonged SPQR campaigns in EB II yet, waiting for the Polybian roster before I do so) always had this very motivating "you'll be eventually able to field a really professional and professional-looking army" thought. That thought kept me playing them for hundreds of turns.
Although I have to admit that my anticipation had more to do with the Imperial army than the Marian one. The Imperial Archers were one of the most beautiful units in EB I and over the years I became quite obsessed with reaching the point where I could field them. That I only managed to get the Imperial reform once in about 15+ campaigns with them, only added to the thrill. (On the other hand I liked the marian line troops much more than the Cohors Imperatoria so that in my ideal game we would have Marian troops + Imperial archers and no Imperial reform at all ).

It might be uncharitable, but I can only assume it's a desire for the huge increase in efficiency of retraining/merging that makes them so appealing. Plus the ease of being able to recruit those same troops in a much wider range of places, rather than having to worry about supply lines to bring reinforcements to the fighting fronts.

Though I think you're being slightly unfair really. The Marian units appeal because they are THE iconic roman soldier, and serried, uniform ranks of soldiers with those large shields are always going to look cool. It strikes me as being deliberately obtuse to claim that the only reason you can think for people to like them is because it makes recruitment a bit more simple. I'm playing the devil's advocate here though really, as although I'd like to see them in game, they are not a huge deal to me, especially considering that it will take hundreds of turns for them to appear.

Aren't we forgetting the auxiliary troops, like the Romano-Celtic cavalry, Romano-Iberian cavalry, and various "Romanized" regional infantry in the first EB? If anything the Marian reform in the first EB expanded the overall unit roster significantly thanks to auxiliaries. As a bonus, you also got a way cooler looking legionary infantryman with better shields.

Pointless? How so? Especially when considering the expanded roster of the first EB when one managed to trigger the Imperial reform, including elite Syrian archers (very useful considering the limited amount of native missile troops). For that matter, the main line native infantry, the Imperial legionary, looked like an absolute beast. That was by far one of my favorite units from the first EB. Although not featured in the first EB, mods like Roma Surrectum II had heavily-armored Roman cataphract units by the Imperial period, to counteract the Parthian (and, theoretically, later Sassanian) cataphracts. That's quite a difference from the Republican-era units.

My thanks for your replies; there are some excellent arguments and viewpoints in here I hadn't considered before. I think y'all deserve some +rep. (I'm sorry for not responding to each of you in person, but like Shadowwalker pointed above, "fugit inreparabile tempus".)

Pointless because it takes up valuable and finite unit slots for something over 1000 turns into the game, only of interest to one faction, which will almost never be seen. Frankly, it if were up to me, I'd just pull the end date back to 6AD and drop the notion altogether. The 1st century AD is as good as a completely different mod to where EBII starts.

Just so we're all on the same page here: what are the engine limits on units, unit models and skins? Because if (and I repeat, if) the Imperial reforms were to be scrapped and there is no limit on the number of unit skins, I would suggest creating a separate armour upgrade by way of skin to the Marian legionaries to represent those of the early empire. I believe the differences between them are small enough to allow such a solution and I think this would still give those players who would want to see early imperial legionaries some consolation without taking up a valuable extra unit slot. All of this, once the other factions have received their early rosters of course.

Funny to see my words in the OP.

Once again, no offence or calling out intended by this. I was just looking for an example to illustrate what I meant to say (and your post was quite recent, thus saving me time I should otherwise spent browsing / searching for another suitable one). In hindsight I may have gotten away with not including the whole part of my post that I designated as background information, though.

Let me explain:

I don't play as the Romans very much. I'm usually playing as something hellenic, asiatic, or even barbarian. I also understand that the original motivation for EB was to give a more just treatment of other nations besides Rome, and I approve of it.

That said, with limited resources it is logical to me that a faction like the Romans receive the goods before others. First, it would make many people happy because the Romans are one of the most popular factions. Second, Rome is an important faction for the study of military history. Third, it is one of the few nations that actually persevered all the way from 272 BCE to 14 AD, the years that EBII represents.

With this I still (partially) disagree. While I can understand where you're coming from, I still hold the position that it's best to first create those units whose existence benefits as many factions as once. With several factions still having unfinished starting rosters and Rome most likely already having one (partially) reformed roster, I think the focus should be on those unfinished factions and widespread regionals first. Once that process has been finished, however, I can understand having the Romans be the first to get some extra love.

With your second and third point I mostly agree, though I'd like to add that the Romans weren't the only ones to have a lasting influence on military history (In fact, I'd probably argue the steppe nomads and Germanic tribes were more influential on western European military history during the mediaeval period) and that the Romans weren't the only ones who remained in existence as a political entity during the time frame of EB II (the Parthians, Nabateans, Lugii, Britons and several others all made it through as well). As to how popular several factions are: I guess we should try to find one of the old EB popularity polls to find out.

If I were to compare things to some kind of WW2 game, right now we're making sure that Finland and Croatia have all their military equipment before we get to the T-34.

This kind of comparison seems to be getting more popular on this forum more recently. (I didn't include you with the other four above as well, because the point we're arguing here is different, but +rep to you as well.)

However, what is better for Romans to perform as an AI faction?

Does the state of Roman reforms impact their performance on the campaign map significantly? Again, question for the devs here.

They find it pointless as the EB period ends in 14AD (why the hell didn't it go to the end of Rome in 476 ?) ... So it is just at Augustus' death, the first Roman emperor ... A bit early for Imperial troops ...

Since the question of when, how and even if the Western Empire fell is still very much up for debate (I personally support 480 A.D. as a date), I'd like to disregard that aspect and just note that creating a mod that accurately represent around 750 years of history on the geographic scale of EB is most likely impossible within the limits of the M2:TW engine (not to mention the time and effort such an undertaking would require).

I'm gonna leave it at this for now, because any more 'thanks' might get me registered as a spambot.

[Shadowwalker]

Again, no one is even considering dropping the Marian reform. Not going to happen, before anyone panics.

I know it's not on the table, I just used it as a hypothetical example. I still hope, though, that the EB team decides to completely drop the Imperial reforms. I'm dead serious here. As much as I like playing EB SPQR campaigns - playing for (real life) months to perhaps (a "perhaps" with a probability of ~1%, thanks to the incredible difficulty of getting the reforms) have the imperial troops for a couple of turns then .... not worth the immense workload which is the creation of MIITW units that meet the standards of the EB team. Not to mention the fact that they would block unit slots much better used for one of the 10 new factions, not to mention either that very few players even reach turn 500 in their campaigns .... there are dozens of things that need the teams' attention much more than a bunch of arrogant italian snobs, appearing at turn 988.

Most of those other units you mention are planned, though if by "Persian Hoplites" you mean the Kardakes, they're not hoplites any more, but Thureophoroi.

I browsed the EDU, so I know the mentioned units are planned, don't worry. It just was the other half of the hypothetical example.
And the Kardakes - you were right, that's the unit I meant - being a Thureophoroi-style unit is a good thing in my book, as they were depicted as somewhat light troops in EB I, anyway. It's not the stats or unit class I'm looking forward to, after all, it's the "meaning behind".

This alone should be a reason enough to even if it's not dropped altogether, should make it move to the very end or very close to the end of the list of priorities. I know there is a lot of pro reaction for this late reforms but considering the progress time of EBII and the lack of missing starting roosters, early reforms, trait system, mercenary pools, region spesific units etc, I fail to see any reason for pushing this (no offense intended)

This. With the slight addition of "more buildings". I still am somewhat baffled everytime I hit the "nothing to build, just wait for the next settlement level" moment in allied provinces. It may be me misunderstanding (and/or misusing) the new building trees, especially the governments, but I can't help the impression that in EB I you had more to build, more variation and more long-term decisions to make in regards to settlement development. It's neither entirely true nor can I claim to have fully explored every building tree of every faction, admittedly. And I - as usual - don't mean to complain. But I'd love to see more options that lead to way more different settlements. But that's something for another topic, I suppose.

If I were to compare things to some kind of WW2 game, right now we're making sure that Finland and Croatia have all their military equipment before we get to the T-34.

I do get your point but I'm not sure you're using a fitting example. WW2: 1939-1945. T-34: built 1940-1958, being the russian tank for almost the complete war. Which is something the Imperial units hardly can compare with in the time frame of EB.

Additionally - if we indeed use your example for a comparison: The EB team doesn't "make sure that Finland and Croatia have all their military equipment" but is rather aiming at giving every faction access to the units they had at 272BC. They are not completely consistent in that approach, granted - the Thorakitai and Heavy Thorakitai are hardly a "start unit" - but these units are used by a large number of factions.

First, it would make many people happy because the Romans are one of the most popular factions. Second, Rome is an important faction for the study of military history. Third, it is one of the few nations that actually persevered all the way from 272 BCE to 14 AD, the years that EBII represents.

These points are valid, I agree - but do they justify to have crippled (unit-wise) Hayasdan, Saba, Nabataea, Pontos etc?

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Since I have been terribly misunderstood by Moros over at the org with a similar statement, a misunderstanding that made me regret posting it in the first place, I'd like to add here that all of these factions are fun to play and that this is not meant as in any way disrespecting the hard work that went into these factions. It's just that I am still spoiled by the diversity and the options especially Hayasdan, Sab'yn and Pontos offered to the player in EB I. And only in comparison to EBI they feel "crippled" (which is not even the correct term but I can't find a better translation for what I mean), unit-wise. In comparison to every other TW game/mod I know they are still more than just "fleshed out".

And here our opinion probably differs because my answer to this question is a definite "No." The Romans have a full Camillan roster currently, at some point in summer they will have a full Polybian roster, too. They are set for more than half of the 1000+ turns of EB II.

Some comparisons:

The Sab'yn lack any cavalry, except the nabatean horse archer mercs, which are nice but have a complete different role than the cavalry I mean. In EBI you had Sabaean Cavalry and the awesome Ehtiopian Cavalry.
Both were no match for the heavy cavalry of the dreaded Ptolemies but used in conjunction with other units they could protect your flanks and hunt down skirmishers. Sab'yn have no access to armour-piercing units which means that everything armoured that any of their neighbours throw at them is nigh-unstoppable. They don't even have their javelineers yet, which means that there is little they can do about elephants.

Hayasdan has since EB 2.03 at least a place-holder unit for the factional horsearchers, but neither cataphracts nor cataphract HAs nor the palace guard.

The Saka have no "real" bodyguard yet.

The Getai use the lowest-tier spearman unit (Getic light "phalanx" aka levy spearmen) as bodyguards.

I could go on for some time, but since this is just meant to give you an example I'll stop here. I'm sure you've gotten my point already, anyway.

Just so we're all on the same page here: what are the engine limits on units, unit models and skins?

I only know the definite answer for the units - it`s the same 500 slots as in RTW. Just for 30 factions instead of 20.

[QuintusSertorius]

Just so we're all on the same page here: what are the engine limits on units, unit models and skins? Because if (and I repeat, if) the Imperial reforms were to be scrapped and there is no limit on the number of unit skins, I would suggest creating a separate armour upgrade by way of skin to the Marian legionaries to represent those of the early empire. I believe the differences between them are small enough to allow such a solution and I think this would still give those players who would want to see early imperial legionaries some consolation without taking up a valuable extra unit slot. All of this, once the other factions have received their early rosters of course.

There are hardcoded limits of 500 units. That means 500 slots in the EDU, rather than 500 skins or models or anything else. We can only have 500 actually-different, rather than cosmetically-different units in the game. In terms of the planned roster, 95% of that is filled. While that will change as our ideas evolve, the bulk of what is going to be in the game is already planned. Currently, the Imperial roster is 8 units.

I have to say, the only solution I would personally be in favour of, for representing Imperial legionaries, is an armour upgrade for Marian legionaries. Anything else is a waste of units slots. I don't see any justification for them being so different to Marian legionaries that they require completely new unit slots with different stats.