AI Rome Legion Recruitment Rate

[Octavius-Augustus]

Hey guys, hope some of you are playing this amazing mod in 2020!

I have a little question which popped up when I restarted an old Gallaeci campaign, and started a new one as Sparta. What I'm wondering is what is the rate of recruitment for spawned Legios of Rome. As Gallaeci I'm fighting both Rome and Carthage (who are allied against me, it seems!). Carthage sends quite a lot of stacks to Gibraltar which I easily beat off with a good defensive army, but that doesn't seem over the top because if I remove FOW I can see they have really no other front so they basically unload everything they have to achieve a breakthrough in Iberia. As I'm fighting Rome to the East, I'm satisfied just defending for now. I have 3 full stack armies all in all, two of them with 'elites'. I can't afford more if I want to keep ~15-20k income so I can still build in my cities. I control most of Iberia without Carthago Nova and the city northeast of it. Emporiae is swarming with Legions, which gets me to my point:

Rome is a different beast. I am well aware this is ROMA Surrectum and fighting Rome should be quite a challenge. For one, I am sure Roman Legios have significantly higher stats than in the Play_Rome campaign. That I can take, makes the campaign harder when playing Rome and against Rome. However, while the number of Legions I am facing on Hard campaign difficulty is not exactly excessive, I am very interested how is the Roman scripted recruitment working. There are the 'old' Republican Legions running around, all good. Then the 'named' Legions appeared ('Marian'). They are much stronger, seem to be more expensive but since they appear 'from thin air' I'm having difficulties, fighting off and completely annihilating 1-2 Legions per turn and Rome still has plenty. I know, I know, think Cannae etc., what I'm worried about is the potential 'endless stalemate' this might bring on. Since barbarian economy seems to be much worse than Roman (realistic, of course), I can never field enough armies, or of enough quality, to go on the offensive (while Rome will be getting stronger, I presume). While that might be very realistic, it wouldn't be much fun if I just keep fending off Roman Legios till eternity and never have the chance to actually fight back. Sure, I can, and do fight 'dirty', I even used the awful 'plagued spy' tactic to spread some chaos in Roman cities. Nothing works. Rome just chunks out armies like USSR during WWII. I have to add, they seem to be attacking only West (towards me). They haven't even taken Segestica/Salona yet. Some rotten luck there?

So the question is: what determines the rate of spawning Legios (and what type they are)? Not counting the garrison script, of course. Is this the result of playing 'Hard' (more $$ to the AI)? Maybe it does have an impact, but I'd still like to know what I'm facing before starting a new campaign.

[Morifea]

I´m also very interested in this question... Gonna read a litttle bit in the files this weekend, expect my answer in some days.

[_Tartaros_]

i take i look into RSII galaeci scripts:
rome has an emergency script if italy or sicily are invaded. this lead into autospawn of several legions. so i guess one of the two regions are at some point facing an invasion and this way the game reacts in autospawn the legions out of there ass.
the armies are created like this:

character GaiusA Verginius_Crispus, general, age 37, x 151, y 147
unit roman armoured general, exp 3 armour 2 weapon_lvl 2
unit roman praetorian cavalry, exp 3 armour 3 weapon_lvl 1
unit ala iv hispanorum, exp 3 armour 2 weapon_lvl 2
unit legio i germanica first, exp 3 armour 2 weapon_lvl 2
unit legio i germanica, exp 3 armour 2 weapon_lvl 2
unit legio i germanica, exp 3 armour 2 weapon_lvl 2
unit legio i germanica, exp 3 armour 2 weapon_lvl 2
unit legio i germanica, exp 3 armour 2 weapon_lvl 2
unit legio i germanica, exp 3 armour 2 weapon_lvl 2
unit legio i germanica, exp 3 armour 2 weapon_lvl 2
unit legio i germanica, exp 3 armour 2 weapon_lvl 2
unit legio i germanica, exp 3 armour 2 weapon_lvl 2
unit legio i germanica, exp 3 armour 2 weapon_lvl 2
unit cohors iii aegyptia, exp 3 armour 2 weapon_lvl 2
unit cohors iii aegyptia, exp 3 armour 2 weapon_lvl 2
unit roman antesignani, exp 3 armour 2 weapon_lvl 2
unit roman antesignani, exp 3 armour 2 weapon_lvl 2
unit roman cretan archer, exp 3 armour 2 weapon_lvl 2
unit roman cretan archer, exp 3 armour 2 weapon_lvl 2
unit scorpion, exp 3 armour 2 weapon_lvl 2

[Octavius-Augustus]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

i take i look into RSII galaeci scripts:
rome has an emergency script if italy or sicily are invaded. this lead into autospawn of several legions. so i guess one of the two regions are at some point facing an invasion and this way the game reacts in autospawn the legions out of there ass.
the armies are created like this:

character GaiusA Verginius_Crispus, general, age 37, x 151, y 147
unit roman armoured general, exp 3 armour 2 weapon_lvl 2
unit roman praetorian cavalry, exp 3 armour 3 weapon_lvl 1
unit ala iv hispanorum, exp 3 armour 2 weapon_lvl 2
unit legio i germanica first, exp 3 armour 2 weapon_lvl 2
unit legio i germanica, exp 3 armour 2 weapon_lvl 2
unit legio i germanica, exp 3 armour 2 weapon_lvl 2
unit legio i germanica, exp 3 armour 2 weapon_lvl 2
unit legio i germanica, exp 3 armour 2 weapon_lvl 2
unit legio i germanica, exp 3 armour 2 weapon_lvl 2
unit legio i germanica, exp 3 armour 2 weapon_lvl 2
unit legio i germanica, exp 3 armour 2 weapon_lvl 2
unit legio i germanica, exp 3 armour 2 weapon_lvl 2
unit legio i germanica, exp 3 armour 2 weapon_lvl 2
unit cohors iii aegyptia, exp 3 armour 2 weapon_lvl 2
unit cohors iii aegyptia, exp 3 armour 2 weapon_lvl 2
unit roman antesignani, exp 3 armour 2 weapon_lvl 2
unit roman antesignani, exp 3 armour 2 weapon_lvl 2
unit roman cretan archer, exp 3 armour 2 weapon_lvl 2
unit roman cretan archer, exp 3 armour 2 weapon_lvl 2
unit scorpion, exp 3 armour 2 weapon_lvl 2

That's really neat directly pointing at the script. I wouldn't even think about looking into it if I wasn't swarmed with Legios. TBH it's not that bad because all that Roman slaying has got my main general to 'Hannibal' level of skill and respectful bonuses. So one Gallaeci army can easily crush two named stacks per turn, if I'm really attentive in battle and some luck of course.

My point is having to defend against Carthage and Rome, and being a 'turtle' like player, I never even came close to Italy/Sicily. Does the trigger apply to all troops at all times? If so, then Hannibal being situated in Italy at the beginning of the game might be what's spawning those Legions. And while realistic and historical, it leaves little chance to the Barcid invasion if that's the case. I assume there is no 'rebellion' for Rome too, so these are ample reasons for Rome to not only bloom, logically dominate, but also seem unstoppable really. Last turn I played, I fought VII Augusta, XIII Gemina and there was at least one more named legion nearby. With those better Legion stats, these spawned Named Legions, probably the best Economy and starting position in the game... (Playing on Hard seems to matter too, more money to AI?)

I have to stress again that all this is in no way a criticism and I am well aware many battles with many stacks is essential to 0-turn gameplay. I'm just want to discuss the apparent balance of power between factions, and especially smaller/weaker factions vs. AI Rome. These days I was thinking of playing as Capua/Masillia but then I realised, if I can't handle the Romans with Gallaeci and have a very very tough time as Carthage while having a foothold in Italy and Hannibal to boot, what's the point of playing those mini-factions?

Anyway, in pure practical terms, it would be nice if we can figure out how to lower number of Legios spawned or eliminate them completely. That springs a related question: do Romans *ever* recruit named Legios ('properly' or most likely not) without these spawns? Like if they are never invaded in core territory they will recruit only Republican and then generic Legionaries I presume? Come to think of it, the 'garrison script' is not applied to the AI ever, right? I was wondering why Rome steamrolled every single faction every time

From my personal point of view, I believe there are three options to smooth the balance out:

1. Decrease rate of spawns to say, 50%;

2. Decrease stats of Roman legionaries, basically equal to the Play_Rome EDU stats;

3. Somehow edit the script to include Roman faction in garrison script. If they remain strong as they are now, this should not hamper AI Roman conquest at all, just slow it down a good amount.

Bear in mind these suggestions are all strictly gameplay related and I have no idea how they would affect the 'historical expansion' of Rome in the mod's timeframe (how many turns/years will Rome need to reach it's historic borders if they are reached at all)

[Morifea]

My point is having to defend against Carthage and Rome, and being a 'turtle' like player, I never even came close to Italy/Sicily. Does the trigger apply to all troops at all times? If so, then Hannibal being situated in Italy at the beginning of the game might be what's spawning those Legions.

I would look to Sicily.My bet is, that a Greek Army of Syracuse tries to siege some cities there, letting the script fire every couple of turns.....

[Octavius-Augustus]

That's a logical guess. Maybe 1-2 unit armies are being shipped by the Greeks (or other faction), laying siege, triggering the script then dying out leaving me to deal with more and more Legios. Now that's a sound RS strategy, provoke the Romans to crush all opposition Anyway, given the already mentioned stronger legion stats in non-Roman campaigns etc. I'd really go with removing that part of the script. I'll check it out for more detail and just edit it out, then test the effect. I probably need to start a new campaign just to be sure but it will be worth it I believe. Thanks for taking the time and effort to reply!

One last question:

Does AI Rome have a mechanic (and does it use one) to deploy named legions without the script? I presume one of the reasons to allow such spawns is to be able to spawn controlled, historically accurate legion compositions

[LoGaL]

Not really sure it is the emergency script spawning all the legions: sure, it's there, but i remember back in the days some discussion on the dev forum about scripting the legions spawn. The AI will never field a proper named legion so it has to be script based.

Quite sure it got somehow implemented, but I never took a look at it