Some suggestions
Development - Celtic factions having base Celtic units, tiers 1 - 3. Very general and identical at first until more attention can be brought to them. This was an example. For over a hundred factions, most of those will have similar culture. They will be the same peoples. They will have many of the same tactics and unit structures. They will even look very similar. This would help flesh out large swathes of the map. The Greeks are very similar in everything they did. The Illyrians are very similar to the greeks as well but slightly different. There are Greco Celtic. Most factions outside of empires would have similar units to nearby counterparts.
Unit class - Instead of the Tier 1, 2, 3 that Atilla has, which is actually terrible, go the route that there are 3 types of unit types. I will use Roman in vanilla Atilla for a base example. You had the Border guards, the Comitesensi, and the Palatini. Essentially you had cheap garrison, standing army, elite units. Screw that. Have Tier 1 for all factions being your militia garrison units, the building for it could be like (For the sake of example and simplicity)
Militia barracks - Limitai spears, arrows, horses, swords, and throw in a standard main legio infantry in there. To bring it to AE
Barracks 1 - Hastati, Rorarii, Velites, Italian Spears, AOR units like Latin, Etruscan, Greekish, and other peoples. Divide ET Impera is great with those AOR, you get a bunch of units in Italia and Magna Graecia. These could be recruited from there. It could be your general AOR recruitment barracks. (Southern cavalry, your auxillary barracks to summerize)
Barracks 2 - Hastati, Principes, Triarrii, Equites, those other units. Basically your manipulator barracks. These are your main fighting units. The backbone of your army.
Barracks 3 - These are your elite units. The 1st Cohort, the generals body guards, the standard bearers. They are your best, most expensive units.
You shouldn't need technology to recruit these different units unless they are under a new barracks. Recruitment options should become available. I don't imagine with the timeline in 202BC there will be the Early Republic units, as well as no more hoplites (They died out around 300 I believe along with Citizen armies) it could really thin the ranks of the units.
So to summarize all of this ^
Your 3 tiers are now under three barracks and do denote a better unit, but they do not exist within different barracks. You muster each part of your military in a barracks, it contains your Melee, Range, Cavalry units under each barrack. Each Barrack is not neccessarily better than the other, they each fill a certain role. The first is essentially your militia, just nobodies you can throw away or put down insurrection. The cheapest, least trained, least armored units reside here. It could also provide AOR recruitment for units as well to keep it viable into later games.
The second is your military line. They have some of your most trained units. They are too good at their job and cost too much to keep in a town to subdue the populace. You go to war with these soldiers. Alternatively it could also yield the best trained Auxillary troops, though that might put the first one to be redundant.
The third is your highly trained units. These would include units that give off bonuses such as a 1st Cohort, Eagle Cohort, Heavily armored units, Body guard type units. Things like the Praetorians, and just those units that help with moral or anything else. Not neccessarily better than the best main line units but gives something better. Make it so it is far too wealthy to maintain stacks of these. Maybe even have a limit of types of units in an army if that is still possible!
This makes it so the gameplay is not "I GOTTA GET THAT TECH SO I CAN GET BETTER UNITS" but it's based on reforms. Technology shouldn't be something relied on for better units, unless it is in the way that it unlocks buildings that produce new units. There really shouldn't be any sort of replacement or research of any type of unit, they should just reside in their barracks. This would give you flexibility in your provinces because you only need one type of barracks to build all types of units, and each barracks has a specific role. The first one could give a better public order bonus, the 3rd could give you faction influence. The tier system that tier 3>2>1 is ridiculous. It should just be the type of unit.
Also Romans would shield wall or Testudo when engaged in combat and when the enemy has tired they would form into a wedge which pretty much double the amount of attacking people as well as helps push a line back. This should be on pretty much every unit in the game that uses shields and swords.
You can imagine late into the Roman Empire you would be seeing things like
Barracks 1 Cohors vigilum, Bunch of AOR people, volunteer units,
Barracks 2 Cohorts, Veteran Cohorts, reenlisted veteran cohorts, Cavalry, archers
Barracks 2 1st Cohort, Eagle Cohort, Praetorians, Praetorian cavalry, Armored Legionaries, etc
It is just such a brilliant idea instead of
Infantry barracks - 4 units
Archer barracks - 3 units
Cavalry barracks 5 units
It just makes that completely redundant. A barracks is a barracks. It houses a military unit. It has everything. The Vanilla way also destroys your ability to specialize a province.
You should be able to say oh, this border province? Well I am gonna build that 1st level barracks with all the militia and AOR units and make a stack of not so good but can hold off attacks or put down a rebellion until one of my much better trained stacks can get up here. It wouldn't tie your hands, everything is at your disposal. Giving each type a different set of bonuses would also promote a type of gameplay building certain items. Do you want happy people? militia barracks. You want heavily trained units? Military barracks. You want that prestigious, moral supporting for your military? To spread your influence? Praetorian barracks (Just an example)
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