Training Good Units

**Veridious** · January 22, 2007, 01:18 PM

What's to stop me from training 30 triarii in my first turn? I start out with 70,000 denerii, so I can afford it, and unlike M2TW there's no recruitment pool. It seems overpowering, making Hastati seem useless

**Lusted** · January 22, 2007, 04:15 PM

Because triarii are spearmen. Hastati and principes both have pila which makes them much more effective against other infantry than triarii.

I generaly use a historical(ish) army mix of 5 hastati, 5 principes, 4 triarii, 2 equites, 3 archers and 1 general. Deployed with archers in front, then hastati, then principes, then triarii. General in reserve and equites on wings. Archers skirmish at first, then hastati engage enemy infantry after firing pila. The principes go into reinforce them and to push the infantry battle in my favour. The triarii can either be used to reinforce the main infantry battle, or to deal with any flanking manouvers in co-ordination with the Equites.

**FriendoftheDork** · February 20, 2007, 11:06 AM

Just to chime in, he has a point. Hastati are pretty much useless in this mod, and the only reason to add them to your army is to make it more historically correct.

Hastati upkeep is the same as principe, and the difference in cost is negligable (spelling). Principe's armor makes them much better anyhow. I use a couple of hastati here and there for fun, but I mainly just use principe supported by 2-3 triarii per stack.

The upkeep cost of hastati should be lowered, and the recruitment cost as well. Trarii seems expensive enough though.

Oh, and you can't train 30 triarii in the first turn as you have neither 30 cities nor enough milita barracks.

PS, while talking about units the velites (and all variants of peltasts) should be improved somehow. Archers are just too good in comparison. How about increasing their missile attack, and making it armor piercing like in SPQR? Or just lowering their cost substantially. After all, they are the youngest and lightest equipped romans. They shouldn't cost more than Rorarii IMO.

**Oxberger** · February 22, 2007, 03:23 PM

Training 30 triari would be a waste anyway because IMO a balanced army will always beat an army of spammed units. When I play with the Romans I use hastasii as my front line. They are perfect for taking the enemies missles and hold up the frontline while my better stuff flanks.

**FriendoftheDork** · February 23, 2007, 06:52 AM

Originally Posted by Oxberger

Training 30 triari would be a waste anyway because IMO a balanced army will always beat an army of spammed units. When I play with the Romans I use hastasii as my front line. They are perfect for taking the enemies missles and hold up the frontline while my better stuff flanks.

The point is, Principes would be even better because:

1. Same Speed.

2. Not better at dodging.

3. Better armor (meaning less casualties to missiles)

4. Almost same cost (20-30 denarii difference in cost, same upkeep)

5. Flanking with 2 good units is always better than flanking with 1 good and 1 cannon fodder.

Now while I agree Trarii are not worth spamming (alot more expensive, higher upkeep, no pila, spears not swords), balanced armies are not always the winners. An army of generals is actually able to take on anything but an army of hyspaspistoi in an unflankable position. This would be damned expensive though.

Atm my roman armies consist of 2-4 archers or slingers (preferably cretans), 1 velites (for chariots), 2 trarii (for enemy generals), 2 light cavalry (equites or mercs), 1 general, 1-2 hastati or melee mercs, and the rest principes.

In the last few battles my missile units have pretty much wasted the enemy, while only in a few ones (where I've been outnumbered heavily) have my heavy infantry had to fight much at all.

The AI, unfortunatly keeps spamming units like warband, eastern infantry, taxeis hoplitai, and iberian infantry. Most stacks have 1 archer at the most, only a few have any cavalry at all. The only challinging part has been the chariots of pontus, which causes alot of casualties when I can't panick them with fire early enough.

I've purposely avoided conflict with gauls, letting them keep northern italy so that they can get the required tech and wealth to support their better units, so that they will be some challenge when I get legionaries.

**Chicano** · February 23, 2007, 07:39 AM

Originally Posted by Oxberger

...When I play with the Romans I use hastasii as my front line. They are perfect for taking the enemies missles and hold up the frontline while my better stuff flanks.

weeeeeell ... the thing with the hastati is that they r faster than principes , coz of the lite armour of course, and i use principes in front then some hastati in the back (close) with "fire at will" ; then i switch lines; probably the enemy will flee some time after the line exchange soooo the hastati can pursuit them.
anyway if i play as the gauls i kicked their butts with or without hastati

**FriendoftheDork** · February 24, 2007, 04:00 AM

Originally Posted by Chicano

weeeeeell ... the thing with the hastati is that they r faster than principes , coz of the lite armour of course, and i use principes in front then some hastati in the back (close) with "fire at will" ; then i switch lines; probably the enemy will flee some time after the line exchange soooo the hastati can pursuit them.
anyway if i play as the gauls i kicked their butts with or without hastati

So you're saying that for every point of armor the speed of the unit decreases? Hmm, thought that was in medieval only. In any case, their speed is not significantly better (just like vanilla iberian infantry are not that much faster than principes, while skirmishers are). I use cavalry to chase down routers anyway so it's not a real loss for me. Still, I think they're too expensive.