I read from one of Adrian Goldsworthy's books, that the typical republican Roman army was half Roman and half allied troops. What do people recommend for the composition of those troops?
In Rome Total Realism, you have Italian skirmishers, spearmen, swordsmen and cavalry which nicely fit the bill. Plus you can recruit Gaulish & some other auxiliary type troops in the appropriate regions. All these units are typically weaker than Romans so using them makes the game a little harder, as well as making your true Romans seem a rather precious commodity on the battlefield.
In EB, there seem to be three possibilities:
(1) Just make do with the Romans. This may be my preferred approach. It means the army fights "in character". I think Qwerty said that the Italian allies would fight rather similarly to the Romans anyway. And in EB, early Roman units are not as uber as they are in RTR.
(2) Recruit whatever is locally available in towns. Very early in the game, I've noticed I can recruit Samnite Spearmen but I'm reluctant to take them because the Samnites look rather superior in stats to the Romans (except triarii). I'm not sure how EBs system of recruiting local troops works, but I can anticipate that when the army goes far afield, recruiting locally may become necessary and rather characterful.
(3) Hire mercenaries - I could flesh out the armies with lots of mercs - Samnites, Gaulish, Greek etc. This option seems expensive and I get queasy about fielding a Roman army with phalanxes etc. I'm tempted to leave recruitment of mercenaries for desperate situations. But hiring Gaulish mercs for wars in Gaul etc seems rather historical (basically like allying with local tribes in a divide and conquer sort of strategy).
Any thoughts? What do other people do who try to play Rome in a historical manner?
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