Romani: Too many mercs to choose from?

[Bullman]

It probably is histroic that all the mercenary units I see available to a Romani general in northern Italy were at some stage available to the Romani but allof them at the same time?

I have a general in northern Italy and every available slot on the mercenary hire screeen is filled with some kind of unit. There is so much variety. Is this intentional? It seems excessive.

I am starting to make so much money, do I need to rely on troops other than mercenaries?

[machinor]

Merc units are equally available to all factions so it's no Romani thing. And yes, other merc regions have all slots filled with recruitable units at some points, especially later on as factions rely more and more on their own elites.
Well you certainly can go on warpath with merc units only, but keep in mind that merc units can't be retrained. It's a matter of money. You have enough of it, then do it the Carthaginian way.

[Dayve]

There are definitely more than there needs to be, but then you don't have to hire them. Look at it this way... Rome makes way too much money once you take Italy and mercenaries are expensive. Your generals are dimwits and morons as it is, even more-so if your treasury sites above 50,000 every turn, so use that money to hire mercenaries instead of recruiting allies from other cities.

I definitely think there needs to be less mercenaries though, or at least a much longer respawn rate on them, especially in Seleukid lands and lands close to it, or if not then stop giving them so much money every turn so that they can recruit a unit from every single city AND hire every single mercenary available every single turn... it's ridiculous trying to play as Armenia or Pontus... just when you think you're making progress they show up with a full stack of Misthophoroi Phalangitai and Thureophoroi, with a 10-star general leading them no less.

[antisocialmunky]

Alex is better. It usually smacks me with full stacks of pandas with some merc pez and one or two elite units.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

There are definitely more than there needs to be, but then you don't have to hire them. Look at it this way... Rome makes way too much money once you take Italy and mercenaries are expensive. Your generals are dimwits and morons as it is, even more-so if your treasury sites above 50,000 every turn, so use that money to hire mercenaries instead of recruiting allies from other cities.

I definitely think there needs to be less mercenaries though, or at least a much longer respawn rate on them, especially in Seleukid lands and lands close to it, or if not then stop giving them so much money every turn so that they can recruit a unit from every single city AND hire every single mercenary available every single turn... it's ridiculous trying to play as Armenia or Pontus... just when you think you're making progress they show up with a full stack of Misthophoroi Phalangitai and Thureophoroi, with a 10-star general leading them no less.

This is all fairly historical though, mercenaries were doing good buisness in the Med in this period, and many Hellenic states used extensive mercenaries forces.

[Tiberius Claudius Marcellus]

Rome makes way too much money once you take Italy............ even more-so if your treasury sites above 50,000 every turn.

Rome does make lots of money; but I've over 30 regions with taxes maxed out on all but the three that I am still installing the governments into and all of my towns (save those three) also have fully developed economies. I'm losing money while fielding 6 full stack legions. So, I wouldn't say that we make too much money.

[Dayve]

Everytime i play as Rome i end up funding the enemies of my enemies 30k a turn or something just to keep my treasury down.

Plus Roman legions are very powerful tools... 14 units in each is enough to defeat anything.

Literally. Anything more than 14 units in each legion is overkill.

[Aemilius Paulus]

Literally. Anything more than 14 units in each legion is overkill.

But what if you are fighting a pike phalanx spam with little cavalry? Or if your try to go against the Central European behemoths?

BTW, are you talking about Marian legions?

[Sagittarius]

I believe mercenaries is and exelent source of troops when your supply lines are extremely long. Mercenary hired in the land where war is being done is CHEAPER, than bringing your own unit for lets say 5 turns to combat zone ;) Playing as romani, 115 regions controlled so far with huge income, and still I use mercenaries a lot, but only to support and reinforce the legions. The lands where war is done are usually stripped out of mercenaries. And yes, when I will play for example as carthage - haveing ability to recruit mercenaries in roman heartland is exellent thing. Playing versus romani would need tons of reinforcements.

Btw - how can some people fund enemy with 30000 per turn? I am constantly low on money. I end turn with up to 2000 in treasury only... EACH TURN. The army and mercenaries is the best way to keep treasury down.
And the last - how can 14 units of legionaries can be overkill? I play VH/VH, there were really lots of situations were full legion of heavy infantry commanded by a good general was simply destroyed by smaller gallic, german, greek elite forces commanded by exellent generals. Of course when enemy comes with low cost and quality units - legions are deadly. And plus - enemy runs out of elites quite quickly, while romans never run out of legions ;)

[A Terribly Harmful Name]

I believe that Romani should be really tweaked down in EB II. The lack of challenge and the way you can simply overwhelm your enemy with gold and soldiers is astounding.

[Silence Hunter]

The main problem I found while facing romans was that usually 50 or even more percent of the armies were composed of mercenaries. Romans simply stopped recruiting their factional troops, which I find highly ahistorical as romans had alae auxiliaries but not mercs. I also noticed that the percentage slightly depended on campaign difficulty. On VH it was higher than on H.

[antisocialmunky]

That is the Roman way, throw money and men at it until you win. Besides in EBII, we have recruitment pools.

[SwissBarbar]

What's that?

[bovi]

Romans simply stopped recruiting their factional troops, which I find highly ahistorical as romans had alae auxiliaries but not mercs.

No mercs ?

The ratio may be imprecise (and probably is for all AI factions, not least the Carthaginians), but we cannot control how the AI chooses to spend his money.

[mlp071]

AI mercs (over)recruitment is a plague of RTW.

There is several ways to "tone" down AI recruitment. However it requires lot of tweaking+ testing and can seriously imbalance whole campaign and it's definitely not perfect or historical.

As for Romani AI , if they don't have enough mercenaries available, they usually spam lower lvl regionals instead, so there is no good solution for them, or they will mass recruit Triarii and Pedites E.Some other factions do benefit from it though , like Pahlava, which tends to recruit more of their HA units that way.

If you are not happy with amounts of AI recruited mercs , you can(as quick semi-solution) :

- raise their prices significantly(at least 3-4x) in comparison to equal faction units
- lower number of units in Descr_mercenaries to 1 each and maybe(not to efficient) increase their respawn time.
- remove them all and give AI even more money to compensate for lack of mercs

Just be aware that any of those change could make AI campaign very different and can "nerf" AI's ability to counter human or other factions effectively.And i personally don't suggest any of them as great.

M2TW Kingdoms has recruitment pools and option of limiting numbers of units recruited, so that will hopefully resolve this issue.

[Dayve]

But what if you are fighting a pike phalanx spam with little cavalry? Or if your try to go against the Central European behemoths?

BTW, are you talking about Marian legions?

I'm talking about all 3 Roman legions. Camillian, Polybian and Marian. 4 hastati, 4 principes, 2 triarii, leves, rorari, general, cavalry. This army will defeat anything.

Btw - how can some people fund enemy with 30000 per turn? I am constantly low on money. I end turn with up to 2000 in treasury only... EACH TURN. The army and mercenaries is the best way to keep treasury down.

I'm playing as Rome now... I started the game, took Taras and Rhegion, created my 14 unit legion you see above, put taxes to high in 3 cities, normal in the rest, and i'm already pulling in 15,000 a turn. The only economic buildings i put up were roads in Rome and Capua, so i haven't been pumping up my economy or anything.

Rome simply makes a buttload of cash...

And the last - how can 14 units of legionaries can be overkill? I play VH/VH, there were really lots of situations were full legion of heavy infantry commanded by a good general was simply destroyed by smaller gallic, german, greek elite forces commanded by exellent generals. Of course when enemy comes with low cost and quality units - legions are deadly. And plus - enemy runs out of elites quite quickly, while romans never run out of legions ;)

On VH/VH the AI get unreasonable bonuses. On VH/VH, a unit of Akontistai will defeat a unit of reformed veteran cohorts. H/M is the way to play. They say play VH/M, but VH campaign difficulty frustrates the hell out of me.

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

Playing Rome, or Carthage, and want a way to use up your excess gold?

Do what Rome and Carthage did historically, in the First Punic War.

Build a fleet. A GIGANTIC fleet! Of the largest and most expensive ships available!

Then, if you are still making a profit, build several more gigantic fleets.

Soon you will be broke!

[IrishHitman]

I believe that Romani should be really tweaked down in EB II. The lack of challenge and the way you can simply overwhelm your enemy with gold and soldiers is astounding.

I don't find them too hard to overcome really.
The Alexandrian "Hammer and Anvil" tactic crushes them like any other army really.

[Ibrahim]

The main problem I found while facing romans was that usually 50 or even more percent of the armies were composed of mercenaries. Romans simply stopped recruiting their factional troops, which I find highly ahistorical as romans had alae auxiliaries but not mercs. I also noticed that the percentage slightly depended on campaign difficulty. On VH it was higher than on H.

honestly, some of those alae, (especially foederati) were a form of mercenary wing of the army (serve part time(ish), when needed, and so forth.)

and honestly, the romans are not that difficult to beat: any well used and professionalized army, with the right tactics and experiance, can, just as Irish hitman made clear.

[Cbvani]

Too much money? Forget ships - what you want is siege equipment. It moves slowly, you probably won't ever use it, and you can only ever build it in the center of your empire. Go for it.

[A Very Super Market]

Hell, how about those extensive trading ports?

[machinor]

The problem with those is that you cannot build anything else in that city for about 60 turns. Fleets and siege equipments are much better. I prefer fleets though; after all they were THE inferiority complex compensation of antiquity.

[desert]

The thing with fleets is, they could be used for some time, and then decommissioned in the docks until they needed to be used again. Unfortunately, you can't simulate this with the RTW engine, so you end up either rebuilding over and over again, which is retarded, or you end up with hundreds of ships perpetually floating in the sea, which is incredibly expensive.

[machinor]

Well, that's the reason in the first place. Using up money.

[desert]

As Koinon Hellenon, what you should do is use the console to create 1,000 Pentekonteroi, board your armies on them, and conquer Troy Pergamon. Now THAT is an economy-breaker.

[A Very Super Market]

Why don't you just give yourself a bunch of Elephants in console. Don't see why you have to take Pergamon...

[Nachtmeister]

Nah, if we're doing console we might as well just "add_money -100000".
Instead, you could at some point begin to build up home-armies; a full field army in every city is sure to take care of any superfluous cash problems *and* it will prevent any nasty surprises occurring in your hinterland.

[Dayve]

Nah, if we're doing console we might as well just "add_money -100000".
Instead, you could at some point begin to build up home-armies; a full field army in every city is sure to take care of any superfluous cash problems *and* it will prevent any nasty surprises occurring in your hinterland.

On the contrary, what if the army itself rebelled, and another joined forces, and another, and another!?

Oh wait... this is the RTW engine... fun stuff like that could only happen in the first (and best) medieval total war.

[Ca Putt]

what i did to drain some money: built a fleet of strong ships loaded a FM+ some elites(as KH- 2*Spatans 1*Cretans, 1*rhodians and 1*tracian prodromoi^^) on it and sailed to Persepolis(of cource you can take evry other far away city but this one had a) a weak garrison and b) at least a litte strategical value) :D there i recruited all availible mercenaries and started to bite the AS in the behind :D, neither the smatest nor the dubest thing to do but once i've arrived a great load of fun and a drain for those pesky armies they like to send towards me^^ oh and yes it is utterly ahistoric, but still fun once the main army reached him and he yelled: "what took you so long?"

[desert]

Wow, you conquered Egypt as the KH?