Realisitc use of auxiliaries

[Visitor13]

Three related questions:

1. Whenever I raise auxiliary units, I try not to use them against the culture they hail from, so, for example, I avoid using Boii Gauls against the Aedui/Arverni, or Numidians against other Numidians (mercenaries are a different matter). I do it on the assumption that this way they're less likely to join their brethren and turn against me (as if that could happen in RTW), but I guess that's not really realistic, is it now?

Should I just forget all about it and use Gauls vs Gauls, Numidians vs Numidians, Germans vs Germans etc.as I see fit?

I guess the Boii would hate other Gauls as much as they would hate any other enemy, so they most likely wouldn't try to join them. Ditto the Hellenes and others. And no matter where you are fighting, the fastest and easiest way to bring up reinforcements is simply to recruit the locals and get them to fight against other locals. I guess this is what the Romans and Carthage did when fighting in Iberia, isn't it? Never mind the Persian empire and other earlier powers...

2. Would it be realistic to build an auxiliary-only army, a full stack, even? Ignoring issues of tactical viability, are there accounts of generals leading armies composed almost exlusively of their 'enemies'?

3. Following on that idea, would it be plausible to construct an auxilia-only full legion in post-Augustan times? Rome used auxiliaries aplenty, organised into cohorts. Did they create auxilia-only legions, even ad hoc ones? Obviously I'm talking about times preceding the third century AD.

[Tiberius Nero]

Three related questions:

I do it on the assumption that this way they're less likely to join their brethren and turn against me (as if that could happen in RTW), but I guess that's not really realistic, is it now?

Not really, you probably give those people a chance to fight against their enemies by recruiting them in your armies.


2. Would it be realistic to build an auxiliary-only army, a full stack, even? Ignoring issues of tactical viability, are there accounts of generals leading armies composed almost exlusively of their 'enemies'?

Not for Rome, unless you say this is the army of a client state/kingdom and you restrict its movement in its particular province of origin. You could still take bits of this army to swell your ranks, but an auxiliary army acting independently, no.


3. Following on that idea, would it be plausible to construct an auxilia-only full legion in post-Augustan times? Rome used auxiliaries aplenty, organised into cohorts. Did they create auxilia-only legions, even ad hoc ones? Obviously I'm talking about times preceding the third century AD.

Not afaik; "auxilia" means "help", "subsidiaries", their very name suggests they are used to fill in gaps in a main army, not act on their own.

[Visitor13]

Thanks for the help.

Concerning questions number 2 and 3 - Obviously you're describing a more or less stable military situation here, but if the times are desperate? Yes, 'auxilia'
means 'subsidiary', and they're meant to fill gaps in a main army - but what if the gap is legion/full army-sized?

Mind you, I could be contradicting myself here. Pre- 3rd century AD Rome was relatively stable, and such drastic measures would probably not have been needed. And if they weren't needed, they weren't undertaken, so there would be no historical basis for my idea. And a historical basis is what I'm looking for here, really.

So let me rephrase my question - suppose an empire suffers a serious defeat somewhere along the border, there is danger of a major enemy incursion, and the nearest regular army is weeks, if not months away. Would the empire hastily put together a major auxiliary force from the border regions to prepare against the attack? It's risky, I know, but sometimes there's no other way.

[Tiberius Nero]

If this army represents an army of an allied/client city state, yes, but then it wouldn't really be led by a Roman general I guess, and the Romans would be rather cautious or very proud to allow such an army to enter their territory unsupervised or fight their battles for them. And it is possible the leader of the allied force would simply not wish to take the risk to help Rome, if they were losing that badly.

The point: if you do raise such an army, it isn't essentially yours (in roleplaying terms), it is an allied one and can act as it chooses in any given situation.

[Visitor13]

Yeah, thought so. Now to find an appropriate set of house rules:

- the auxiliary army can only move within the borders of its home province;

- if you have to raise one, you also have to transform the local government into a level 4 government;

Anything else?

BTW, is there a cheat to make one of your armies rebel ? :yes:

[Tiberius Nero]

BTW, is there a cheat to make one of your armies rebel ? :yes:

Generals can rebel along with their armies if you play with the BI .exe, but I don't really think it works in EB, because there is no slot left for a counter-faction.

As for a cheat, I don't think so, never heard of one which does this.

[Visitor13]

Hmm, isn't it possible to give one of your armies to a different faction via console? Because that's what making your army rebel would basically entail.
And if the AI can bribe your armies, then I suppose it must be somehow possible.

[KhaziOfKalabara]

1. Whenever I raise auxiliary units, I try not to use them against the culture they hail from, so, for example, I avoid using Boii Gauls against the Aedui/Arverni, or Numidians against other Numidians (mercenaries are a different matter). I do it on the assumption that this way they're less likely to join their brethren and turn against me (as if that could happen in RTW), but I guess that's not really realistic, is it now?

Should I just forget all about it and use Gauls vs Gauls, Numidians vs Numidians, Germans vs Germans etc.as I see fit?



I would actually almost encourage the opposite, i.e., mainly use regional troops against others of the same culture. If you think about the speed of communications at the time and the distances involved, the majority of rivalries would be local, and in a largely monarchical / oligarchical society there would also be pretenders, the disenfranchised or sidelined heirs for an greater power to use as an excuse for intervening.

Some factions might be expected to be naturally fissiparous (oh, I love that word), for instance Rome (think of the Social War, and revolts of the Italian allies during the Punic wars) and the Seleucids (breaking up into various mini-kingdoms and a rump state). Others, including most of the barbarians plus the KH, represent federations where political tensions may also come to the fore. And a further set (e.g., Pahlava, Ptolemaioi, Carthage in Spain, Epirus and Rome in the mid-later game) represent a ruling class imposing themselves on subject people of a different cultures - depending on the regions where the conflicts happen - and those subject peoples might be more than happy to support an invader on the assumption they might achieve more autonomy under new rulers.

So all in I'd positively recommend throwing auxiliaries of any stripe against troops of their own culture, as an abstraction of all the above.

[Centurion Crastinus]

Since the Romans used auxilary troops during the era after the Marian Reforms, why are their not Eastern and Western Auxilia after the Marian Reforms? I know that any levy infantry can be used after the Marian Reforms, so why not keep it the same during the Imperial era? I do prefer the imperial auxillia though.

[Watchman]

AFAIK those represent specifically the post-Augustinian reorganisation of the Auxilia into similar standardised patterns as the Legions proper; until then the auxiliaries had pretty much just been fighting in their "native" fashion aside Roman troops, although in some cases at least the Romans had made a point of supplying and requiring better armour (to give their mates an edge over the natives, usually) - see for example the regional cavalry auxilia types.

[Centurion Crastinus]

Thanks Watchman.