AOR systems, and the historical vs the realistic

[Morte66]

There is a thing that bothers me about EB1: the recruitment system seems to be historical (based on what happened) rather than realistic (based on what might reasonably have happened). The seems contrary to the spirit of "it's historical up to the start date, after that the player takes over and makes alternate history". I must insert the disclaimer that I'm no historian or modder, and I may have gotten the wrong end of the stick, and EB1 may be doing things for reasons other than those I'm assuming. But assuming I'm on vaguely the right wavelength...

Here are a couple of examples:

1. The romans can't recruit legionaries in Scotland, or most of Mesopotamia, or Persia. I can't see why not. They are allowed to in the Alps/Pyrenees, North Africa, Egypt, Spain... which seem (to my non-expert mind) to be pretty similar sorts of terrain. The only explanation I can see is that they're being allowed to recruit in the places they conquered, not in the places suitable for raising troops.
2. The Saka Rauka can recruit heavy Hellenic hoplites in Bactria, a post-Alexander semi-Greek area they conquered. Yet they can't recruit them in other similar areas, which featured an equally good supply of Greeks. I don't see why they couldn't have recruited them in, say, Byzantion if they'd conquered it and made the effort.

It seems to me that if a faction showed an inclination to export their recruiting/training to places they'd conquered in history, they should be able to do it in the game too. The only restrictions that make sense to me are:

1. Fundamental restrictions on resources. If an area doesn't have horses, no cavalry. If it's too damp for composite bows, no horse archers. If it's Eremos, no troops at all.
2. Historical attitude. If a faction showed a definite disinclination to train locals in their own methods, e.g. because they preferred to pick up on existing native approaches (e.g. Carthage in Spain), then that's how they should be in the game.

Well, I hope I'm not barking up the wrong tree. I would be grateful to hear the team's thoughts on this, and anything they're prepared to share about what EB2 will do.

[Morte66]

I should add the obvious qualification that it might take a very long time to build the infrastructure/institutions/way of life required for some troops. An expert slinger is not made in 3 months...

[d'Arthez]

It is always tricky to find a balance; conquest may well lead to social and political transformation (Pahlava, SPQR).

It is perfectly possible that if the Saka had taken over Persia, that they'd become another version of the Pahlava, but can you imagine having to write a script to check for such a thing (NOT based on conquest of provinces)? Who is to say they would settle down? They might, they might not.

There are no national policies, to actually guide such a script, let alone an easy way to dynamically set recruitment options in a province. What if say the Epeirotes would have massacred the Celtic populations of the Po basin? Can happen in alternate history, but one cannot alter recruitment scripts on such a basis.

[Tuuvi]

I'm no historian either but I get the impression from playing EB that it was rare for a state to export it's fighting style to far-away conquered lands, usually they just recruited from the local culture. The Romans were one of the exceptions, so it does make sense for them to recruit legionaries in more provinces, I'm interested to see if their recruitment will change in EB II. As far as the Saka Rauka are concerned, remember that the Saka hoplites wear Saka style armor, and I doubt you would find many Saka armor smiths in Byzantion.

[Brave Brave Sir Robin]

I'm no historian either but I get the impression from playing EB that it was rare for a state to export it's fighting style to far-away conquered lands, usually they just recruited from the local culture. The Romans were one of the exceptions, so it does make sense for them to recruit legionaries in more provinces, I'm interested to see if their recruitment will change in EB II. As far as the Saka Rauka are concerned, remember that the Saka hoplites wear Saka style armor, and I doubt you would find many Saka armor smiths in Byzantion.

The Klerouch system springs to mind.

[Ca Putt]

Well Imho one has to differenciate here between Equipment, Population and Tradition as units often(almost exclusively) represent a fixed setting of the three.

A good example here is the Hoplites: A guy in hellenic equipment, of hellenic orgin fighting in the traditional Hoplitai way. If you interchange one of these you get a different unit - Saka HH, Kardaka(pl?), Thureophoros (in EB terms)
As the Equipment is not really hard to get (not made from special material or smithed in a funny way) and Tradition often travels along the people, you can train Hoplitai In regions that had a significant Hellenic population - thus Hellas, Successor states and old colonies all around the mediterranean(and Black sea). To train Hoplitai in .... Scotland. You'd have to migrate a large chunk of hellens to Caledonia let them settle(and breed) there for some time and finaly build a level 3 MIC^^. It's hard to simulate such a Migration in TW games yet I think It'd be cool to make a building(line) availible that unlocks recruitment of units like Hoplitai everywhere a Hellenic Power settles for a Generation or the like.
For population this process is rather "simple"(if you consider relocating whole peoples simple), Tradition and Equipment are a bit more tricky, Either they go without saying or they simply don't, at all.
Tradition for example, you can teach every populance how to fight in a phalanx, some may be better at it some may suck at it but basically it's not that big a problem, turning a bunch of shepard into skilled archers takes far too long for any politician to grasp, infact it takes about the lifespan of one and thus is not an option for TW.
Equipment fares similar, if provided with the tools your civilisation brings with it and maybe 10 imported specialists you can just aswell make Aspis Dory and linothorax in Gaul or anywhere else they have the basic raw materials or suitable replacements. But if you need something more unique, like ... Yew bows, Meteor iron swords or simply put Elephants you are reliant on Imports. So you may field a unit of ... Gaut Elephant Bamboo longbowmen with Silk tunics in Sweden but It'd cost you a heck lot of extra money to get all the stuff, IF you get it at all. In some cases it may actually be possible to build up certain industries that did not exist in an area before.

In the End The EB policy "no fantasy units" is a main restricting factor. And every unit that did not exist in a certain region IS a fantasy unit, the Saka hoplites eg did not exist on the Peleponnes, for the simple reason that the sakans did not conquer the peleponnes. IF they did they might have used units like that, they might have used Hoplitai of this Type but they might aswell not for various reasons. In a way a unit is a different unit when it was trained in a different region, so scottish Hoplitai ARE fantasy units. I think the EB team wants to be on the safe side without loosing all the fun that reforms and expanded AoRs bring. That's why they only added units that actually existed(at least as far as I know) or are a safe bet. Personally I think that there should be more optional reforms with expanded AoR or enhanced units - It's not like the Germanics would have sticked to guys in shirts with spears when they'd have conquered the area of Charlemagne's empire and relocated themselves so that you can train Factional troops in northern Italy. But as this did not happen and is open to specualtion on how it would have worked you can only train Germanic troops in, well germania.
Secretly I hope that through more room for scripts the EB team will add some enhanced units and expanded AoR reforms to EB2 tho^^

[Brave Brave Sir Robin]

Thats the best part of playing the Hai. They are really the only ones with reforms like this.

[Hernan Cortles]

In Roma Surrectum 2 to recruit legionaries in conquered provinces you must give the civitas right which takes time

[Kuningaz]

As far as I recall, you can actually recruit Klerouchoi Phalangitai in some of Carthage's starting positions when playing as the Ptolies, but not when playing Macedonia for example. Obviously I'm not an expert, but I don't think eiter of them ever conquered these regions... Also playing as the Sweboz you can recruit your awesome German-Celtic spearmen in almost any region with celtic population, even though they were never under Sweboz controll. There are actually tons of examples like these. I never really understood why some peoples seem to have the possibility of recruiting 'fantasy units' while others don't.

[aristotlol]

RE: An Idealistic EBII Community

The thing with all these threads is that the first version of the mod isn't even out yet and everybody is already making idealistic demands which, if reasonably possible (usually not so), would be something that the team might focus on as pollish later on... Once they've, you know, worked out the modelling, skinning and animations of the mod.

I guess my point is that the sheer workload of modeling/skinning a bunch of Medieval Age warriors, settlements, siege-eqp. and boats from their MIITW base into their historical Iron Age predecessors is impressive enough that we should be happy to even look forward to playing MIITW skinned for the Hellenistic era. This is a total modification, it takes a lot of time to even get the base finished, let alone to somehow reinvent the entire game like some are proposing.

Although having a TW game that behaves exactly like you believe history could have reasonably unfolded sounds appealing in theory, in practice it is impossible. This is a creation by humans, not the real world itself which we live in, and we will never be able to simulate the impossible chaos that has shaped our world through history in an accurate and believable way--because the world isn't accurate and believable. It's chaos!

TL;DR version: OMG EB DEVS I HAVE AN tOtAl C0oL IDEA-- YOU CANCREATE YOUR OWN FACTION! YOU CAN DESIGN THEIR CULTURAL BUILDINGS AND ARMOR ETC. IN A FACTION EDITTER, KINDA LIKE SPORE! ALSO, UNLIMITED FACTION SLOTS AND EVERY FACTION HAVE 8 MIRROR FACTIONS THEY CAN DISSOLVE INTO! WE HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY! LET US REINVENT REINVENTION!

[Blxz]

Your point was better made without the caps at the end. Now I just want to dismiss what you say because of that (poor) attempt at humour.

[aristotlol]

At least my last post had a point at all, I suppose.


Unlike these last two...



Edit: Would like to clarify that my previous comments on back-seat modding were not directed at any one person in particular, but instead were more or less a lamentation based on my observations lurking this forum.

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

1. The romans can't recruit legionaries in Scotland, or most of Mesopotamia, or Persia. I can't see why not. They are allowed to in the Alps/Pyrenees, North Africa, Egypt, Spain... which seem (to my non-expert mind) to be pretty similar sorts of terrain. The only explanation I can see is that they're being allowed to recruit in the places they conquered, not in the places suitable for raising troops.
2. The Saka Rauka can recruit heavy Hellenic hoplites in Bactria, a post-Alexander semi-Greek area they conquered. Yet they can't recruit them in other similar areas, which featured an equally good supply of Greeks. I don't see why they couldn't have recruited them in, say, Byzantion if they'd conquered it and made the effort.

How about this for 'role-playing' explanations?

1. The Romans can't recruit legionaries in Scotland, or most of Mesopotamia, or Persia because the populations living there are different in some way to the populations in the Alps/Pyrenees, North Africa, Egypt, Spain... despite having pretty similar sorts of terrain. Maybe the Caledonians, Mesopotamians and Persians don't make good legionaries. Why? Maybe because they are too proud of their own culture to fully integrate Roman ideas, and thus they can only be auxiliaries retaining elements of their own culture. Or maybe they are only loyal to local Roman governors and not the Emperor in Rome, and thus would make untrustworthy legionaries. Or maybe like the Persians, they were slave/conquered peoples for too many generations and have become too soft to make tough legionaries, or maybe the Roman method of fighting is just too different from their own to allow them to be fully retrained. Maybe you can't make good legionaries out of people who have devoted themselves to archery for centuries, their nature makes them prefer to shoot arrows and run away instead of fighting hand to hand.
   
2. The Saka Rauka can recruit heavy Hellenic hoplites in Bactria, a post-Alexander semi-Greek area they conquered. But not in Byzantion because the Bactrians are only half-Greek while the Byzantians are fully Greek, thus their integration into the Saka culture is too difficult. Maybe having proud Hellenic hoplites raised in Byzantion would be too politically dangerous, either because the troops would be disloyal, untrustworthy and rebellious, or the Saka nobles would become jealous of them, thinking the king likes the Greeks more than them, making the Saka empire unstable.

[Tellos Athenaios]

But assuming I'm on vaguely the right wavelength...

In any case I would not say you are too far off. We've formulated ideas along the same line, especially on #2; though partially for different reasons.


With EB1 there are many reasons for things being the way they are, and in case of recruitment a major reason is that each line of recruitment code carries a cost. Unless it is possible to generalise multiple lines of recruitment into one (and there probably is such possibility, subject to engine bugs in the way it evaluates logical operators) each new region costs 1 line of code per building per level per province.

So a unit like akontistai which is available right from level 1 thru 5 (IIRC) on 3 building complexes carries a cost of some 15 lines of code per province in EB1 as it stands today. Now you know why that export_descr_building is so huge and also one of the reasons why it takes so much time to load EB1. (I think each line of EDB is evaluated by the engine at the game's start, based on M2TW's error logging behaviour even if you don't actually launch campaigns or battles.)

As a result there's a very real drag on entertaining what-if scenario's, especially for highly speculative behaviour in game. For instance while it is quite possible for the Saka to expand to Byzantion when controlled by a player, it is highly improbable. (After all: by that time you would've completed your campaign objectives already which most people don't do for the sheer amount of time and the somewhat repetitive gameplay after you become a giant.) Next to impossible for the AI. So unlikely in fact, that as far as I know nobody on the team ever entertained this specific example.

Then, without a more general approach to expressing cultural osmosis which can yield benefits in other scenario's, the next good question is: why bother?

[Julianus]

Well Imho one has to differenciate here between Equipment, Population and Tradition as units often(almost exclusively) represent a fixed setting of the three.

Well, this reminds me of an ancient but really great game, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, in which you can research different branches of technology, e.g. chassis, engine, weapon, armor, etc., then create your own unit from your technology pool at your disposal. Maybe we should develop an EB mod on Alpha Centauri...

[Blxz]

Well, this reminds me of an ancient but really great game, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, in which you can research different branches of technology, e.g. chassis, engine, weapon, armor, etc., then create your own unit from your technology pool at your disposal. Maybe we should develop an EB mod on Alpha Centauri...

Hahaha.

[Cute Wolf]

this reminds me on current XGM and XC interactive recruitment system, pretty doable, but rather different than EB playstyle

[stratigos vasilios]

What if the Romans controlled Scotland? Then maybe they would have recruited units from there, maybe they would have never truely quelled the region, who knows.

It's easy to speculate but with EBs service to history I'm not sure they can always be applied. Maybe a fan based script or addon can be created one day to expand the AOR for EB2, but again I'm just speculating...

[Arjos]

What if the Romans controlled Scotland?

Agricola won there or at least marched quite north, but just like Germania, there wasn't urbanization and the Romani would have had to build most from scratch: just not worth it, not to mention the locals didn't "understand" such a society and would rebel 24/7...

Beyond Dacia, simply could have never happened; the Kimmerios Bosporos would be just too isolated and culturally developed to be romanized; in Arabia and Mesopotamia the Romani tried and tried, but I don't see how anything other than local rulers could be implemented...

[bobbin]

From what I can tell the recruitment limits for the Romans was a product of having to draw a line somewhere to prevent (like Tellos said) the EDB code ballooning to unworkable sizes. It would have been perfectly possible for the Romans to raise legions in Scotland (excluding the highlands and west coast which were just too sparsely populated for that) and Mesoptamia, it was just that historically they never were never in control of those regions for long enough to do so.

Beyond Dacia, simply could have never happened; the Kimmerios Bosporos would be just too isolated and culturally developed to be romanized; in Arabia and Mesopotamia the Romani tried and tried, but I don't see how anything other than local rulers could be implemented...

The Bosporos area did become Romanised eventually and was even a Roman province for a short time. Its status as a client kingdom for most of its time under Rome was more down to the whim of the Emperor's than any real barrier to incorporation.

[Arjos]

Scotland (excluding the highlands and west coast which were just too sparsely populated for that)

That's like 30% of what Scotland is?
Works with the roman nomenclature though :P

The Bosporos area did become Romanised eventually and was even a Roman province for a short time.

I thought was nominally incorporated into Moesia and five years later was left to local elite...

In overall, since romanization required at first settling of roman citizens, the whole process had a geographical and cultural limit...
The eastern mediterranean was "romanized", if we can call it that, due to leadership succession and kept in place with extensive military presence...

[bobbin]

That's like 30% of what Scotland is?
Works with the roman nomenclature though :P

That still leaves 70% was just as controllable by Rome as the rest of Britain was. The point still stands.

I thought was nominally incorporated into Moesia and five years later was left to local elite...

Nero intended to conquer the northern coast of the black sea but died before he could carry it out, the incorporation of the Bosporan Kingdom was the first step in that plan. My point was that there was nothing stopping the Romans doing it other than the personal preference of the current emperor, it had nothing to do with the area being too remote or culturally developed. It was also later a ERE (Byzantine) province which further demonstrated my point.

In overall, since romanization required at first settling of roman citizens, the whole process had a geographical and cultural limit...
The eastern mediterranean was "romanized", if we can call it that, due to leadership succession and kept in place with extensive military presence...

Romanisation did not require that, it means the adoption of Roman customs and culture. It has nothing to do with whether Rome could raise legions in the area, plenty of areas in the empire were decidedly un-Roman in culture and yet still furnished them with troops.

Anyway there we're plenty of Roman citizens and soldiers in the Crimea, hell even one of the Bosporan kings was a Roman citizen.

[Ludens]

In overall, since romanization required at first settling of roman citizens, the whole process had a geographical and cultural limit...

I don't know of any settling of Roman citizens in Gaul, though, which was thoroughly Romanized. Romanization had more to do with the local elite becoming part of the Roman system.

[Arjos]

That still leaves 70% was just as controllable by Rome as the rest of Britain was. The point still stands.

If it's true that the east and south was as populated to provide for urbanization...
Also I wouldn't count too much on that coast controlling the rest, it would be right under the highlands, with natives easily harrassing and retreating...
It's the cost/gain decision all over again, for sure would required soldiers from many provinces and to secure a small amount of settlers...

Nero intended to conquer the northern coast of the black sea but died before he could carry it out

That doesn't mean he was going to achieve that...

plenty of areas in the empire were decidedly un-Roman in culture and yet still furnished them with troops.

Yes, but the OP was speaking of roman legionaries (at least I think so) and not auxiliares, that's why I was saying for that you needed few roman settlers at the beginning, who would take care of the administration and provide for the officers training the locals...

I don't know of any settling of Roman citizens in Gaul, though, which was thoroughly Romanized.

Yes, that was too vague, but beside nobles, there were latin colonies, which provided the first step toward citizenship...
That's why I said both geographical and cultural: if the natives weren't willing to join, even if relatively close in distance, it wasn't going to happen...

It was also later a ERE (Byzantine) province which further demonstrated my point.

That's not completely true, the region was under the protection of Bulgars and Khazars, the former initially allied to the Byzantines and the latter being a major player in interal politics of the imperial court...
It was their officers who reside in the Crimea, not the other way around, maybe only religious officials came from Constantinople...
Plus, yes there were more contacts between the Bosporos and Romaioi, but the new capital and its vicinity was a crucial part of it...

Roman citizens and soldiers in the Crimea, hell even one of the Bosporan kings was a Roman citizen.

Honourary grants are just that, doesn't speak for any bigger social picture, other than an increase in status for the king and an alliance or mutual interests...

All in all, for the very southern coast of the kimmerios bosporos, yes it would be possible, as the area was already hellenized, but not any further inland...
And being a boundary it would require a huge military presence or complexes of fortifications, most likely costing more than the region's income; so leaving the area under locals, who acknowledge or ally with Roma, was the best and feasible solution...

In the west you had cultures with some groups willing to become provincials and interested in the economic growth coming with it, but that "common ground" was within reach in an urbanized society...
In the east, Roma was increasingly becoming hellenized in the first place, and the locals' acceptance was a matter of military protection, rather than cultural importation...

[samba_liten]

What if the Romans controlled Scotland? Then maybe they would have recruited units from there, maybe they would have never truely quelled the region, who knows.

It's easy to speculate but with EBs service to history I'm not sure they can always be applied. Maybe a fan based script or addon can be created one day to expand the AOR for EB2, but again I'm just speculating...

The Romans probably could have conquered Scotland, and held it, had they set their minds to it. That they didn't was because they saw no return on their investment. Scotland didn't have any obvious resources to make it worth while. In EB the fact that the player gets no cool units to recruit there, to me, simulates the same factor. No cool units = i don't make the place a priority.

[bobbin]

If it's true that the east and south was as populated to provide for urbanization...

They were as populated as plenty of other parts of Roman Britain, the south east has some of the highest concentrations of hill forts in the UK.

Also I wouldn't count too much on that coast controlling the rest, it would be right under the highlands, with natives easily harrassing and retreating...
It's the cost/gain decision all over again, for sure would required soldiers from many provinces and to secure a small amount of settlers...

So how does that make it any different from any other frontier of the empire? And the east coast is a wide area of very fertile land (some of the best in the UK), not some tiny sliver overshadowed by the wild highlands.

That doesn't mean he was going to achieve that...

Given that he was able to take control of the Bosporos effortlessly to provide a base for those plans, shows the Romans were more than capable of ruling the region if they so wished.

Yes, but the OP was speaking of roman legionaries (at least I think so) and not auxiliares, that's why I was saying for that you needed few roman settlers at the beginning, who would take care of the administration and provide for the officers training the locals...

Nope actual legions were raised from places like Gaul and Spain while they were still very native in culture, one would imagine that this was actually part of the Romanisation process, not dependent on it.

That's not completely true, the region was under the protection of Bulgars and Khazars, the former initially allied to the Byzantines and the latter being a major player in interal politics of the imperial court...
It was their officers who reside in the Crimea, not the other way around, maybe only religious officials came from Constantinople...
Plus, yes there were more contacts between the Bosporos and Romaioi, but the new capital and its vicinity was a crucial part of it...

No, the ERE directly ruled parts of the Crimea throughout history.

Honourary grants are just that, doesn't speak for any bigger social picture, other than an increase in status for the king and an alliance or mutual interests...

The were part of the Roman world, they were about as linked up to the Empire as a client state could get without actually being part of it. There was a Roman colony there, Roman forts, Roman garrisons in various cities, Chersonesos was the base for a Roman fleet, need I go on?

All in all, for the very southern coast of the kimmerios bosporos, yes it would be possible, as the area was already hellenized, but not any further inland...

Nope, most of the Crimea with the exception of the Tauric highlands would have easily incorporated, plus the Taman peninsula and probably the coast up to the mouth of the Tanias (Don). Neither was Hellenisation was to a prerequisite of Roman control.

And being a boundary it would require a huge military presence or complexes of fortifications, most likely costing more than the region's income; so leaving the area under locals, who acknowledge or ally with Roma, was the best and feasible solution...

Again how is this any different than to say the Rhine frontier? If fact the Crimea was a major grain producing region of the ancient world, far more productive than many of Romes interior provinces let alone its border ones. At the end of the day it came down to political will and a bit of chance, not some inherent aspect of the region, that stopped the Romans from fully incorporating it into their empire.

[Arjos]

No, the ERE directly ruled parts of the Crimea throughout history.
There was a Roman colony there, Roman forts, Roman garrisons in various cities, Chersonesos was the base for a Roman fleet, need I go on?

That's the coast with its ports, contemporary to that there were iranian or turkic parts: it was a buffer zone...
With, in the case of the Romani, a military presence to protect the emporia, making sure trading routes were safe...
Having a base, within a state that relies on your protection, doesn't make it a direct possession, they were simply controlling commercial exportations...

Again how is this any different than to say the Rhine frontier?

For the Crimea, you have extremely active and united military entities right at its border, getting assimilated by even larger ones...
When there was a similar situation at the Rhine, the limes collapsed...
As for Scotland, the hill forts are below the antonine wall, above there was little arable land...

Nope actual legions were raised from places like Gaul and Spain while they were still very native in culture

They ceased to be native and yet they weren't roman: they were romanized into a new cultural synthesis...
My point isn't that Roma could have never controlled specific areas, but that the training of legionaries couldn't have happened in such places...

[bobbin]

That's the coast with its ports, contemporary to that there were iranian or turkic parts: it was a buffer zone...
With, in the case of the Romani, a military presence to protect the emporia, making sure trading routes were safe...
Having a base, within a state that relies on your protection, doesn't make it a direct possession, they were simply controlling commercial exportations...

You have quoted my replies to two completely different time periods as one, the first is about the Byzantines influence in the Crimea and the second is about the Roman Empires influence in the Bosporan Kingdom, its needlessly confusing matters.
I wasn't saying that it made it a direct possession, but the sheer level of Roman presence in the Bosporan Kingdom, for such an extended period of time, with the acquiescence of the locals, makes the idea that the Bosporans were somehow incompatible with Roman culture a bit ridiculous.

For the Crimea, you have extremely active and united military entities right at its border, getting assimilated by even larger ones...
When there was a similar situation at the Rhine, the limes collapsed...

And the Rhine and Danube frontiers had exactly the same situation for centuries before the Limes collapsed, not to mention the eastern frontier with the Parthians/Sassanids.

As for Scotland, the hill forts are below the Antonine wall, above there was little arable land...

Untrue, like I said before some of the most fertile land in the UK is Scotland, above the Antonine wall, Perthshire, Tayside and Aberdeenshire have always been major food production areas. I'm not sure what you are trying to get at with that hillfort statement, firstly its wrong, there are quite a few hillforts north of the wall ( I should know, there were at least two within a couple of miles of my house). And secondly quite a lot of Scotland was below that wall, so to say that Scotland was too sparsely populated for the Romans to control and raise troops from but imply that the signs of high population densities were only found south of a wall that runs right through Central Scotland doesn't make any sense.

They ceased to be native and yet they weren't roman: they were romanized into a new cultural synthesis...
My point isn't that Roma could have never controlled specific areas, but that the training of legionaries couldn't have happened in such places...

No they were very much native in culture, it was only later that they became Romanised, my point being that Rome was perfectly able to recruit soldiers from non Roman cultures. A good example was the Legio V Alaudae, which was raised from the native population of Gaul in 52BC and was used to fight Vercingetorix during the Gallic Wars.

[Arjos]

makes the idea that the Bosporans were somehow incompatible with Roman culture a bit ridiculous.

I didn't say they were incompatible, the opposite, since they were already hellenized, just had to accept roman overlordship, which they did...
Can't see them recruiting legionaries among the locals, that's all...

And the Rhine and Danube frontiers had exactly the same situation for centuries before the Limes collapsed, not to mention the eastern frontier with the Parthians/Sassanids.

The Rhine held until the situation changed; the Danube and the eastern frontiers were at constant war, with few diplomatic breaks, both sides coming and going in the other's territory...

Scotland, above the Antonine wall

That I didn't know, thanks...

A good example was the Legio V Alaudae, which was raised from the native population of Gaul in 52BC and was used to fight Vercingetorix during the Gallic Wars.

This I strongly disagree, both sides fought in a very similar manner, in the east and steppe it would be quite difficult and in a very limited number, actually more about whether the professional troops decide to side with Roma...

[bobbin]

I didn't say they were incompatible, the opposite, since they were already hellenized, just had to accept roman overlordship, which they did...
Can't see them recruiting legionaries among the locals, that's all...

The Bosporans were the locals, they were a mix of Greeks, Tauricans, Cimmerians, Maeotae, Scythians etc, even the ones that weren't Hellenised would have been no more difficult to recruit than Gauls or Germans were, they still had the same concept of rulership as anyone else did.

The Rhine held until the situation changed; the Danube and the eastern frontiers were at constant war, with few diplomatic breaks, both sides coming and going in the other's territory...

And these are more feasible frontiers how exactly?

This I strongly disagree, both sides fought in a very similar manner, in the east and steppe it would be quite difficult and in a very limited number, actually more about whether the professional troops decide to side with Roma...

The Bosporos isn't the true steppe, most of the soldiers in the region fought as infantry, usually spearmen or archers. This is entirely compatible with the Roman mode of fighting. The same goes for the east where again the majority of soldiers were melee infantry or archers, Rome had already successfully recruited from such martial traditions in its eastern regions like Syria so I don't see how they would fail to do so in Mesopotamia or even Iran.