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View Full Version : What's a historical roman army for EB now?



JNR
01-25-2009, 13:42
First I have to say that I know there are many threads about it. However there are also many opinions how to build a historical roman army. The problem is not the relation between Hastati - Principes and Triarii.
I think a roman legion consisted of:
10 cohorts - 30 maniples - 60 centurias, each 100 [80;60] soldiers

10 of these maniples are hastati, 10 principes and 10 triarii, with only have the usual size. So we have:
2000 Hastati, 2000 Principes and 1w000 Triarii.

But how to realize this in EB?
If you play on huge-sized units, one maniple has 160 soldiers + centrion + antesignatus (?)
This would correspond to a historical maniple with 2 centurias, each 80 soldiers (common for a long time I think)
The only problem now is, that a stack in RTW has a maximum capacity of 20 units...
At the moment my complete army consists of:
1 legion for every province (not cities, for example Sicily is only one province, not 3) and one Ala for every legion.
My legions are made up of:
1 General, + 1 spy and 1 dimplomat
1 hastati maniple
1 principes maniple
1 half-sized (EDU) triarii maniple
1 unit Velites

The Alae are made up of:
2 local infantry units
1 local skirmisher unit
1 local elite unit
1 local cavalry unit

If possible, a recruited general replaces one of these units (for example the Celtic Lesser King replaces the Neitos, the elite unit in my gallic alae)

If I want to conquer lands, I build up a full consular army of 2 legions and their alae


How historical is this army system? And is there a way to use the tactics the romans used? I don't have 10 whole cohorts which can operate seperatly, in fact every legion has only 1 cohors...

antisocialmunky
01-25-2009, 14:33
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=101787

Scroll down a little bit.

JNR
01-25-2009, 16:21
Yes, this is what I'm actually doing, the problem is, that in this constellation the legions are very small. So they are not as maneuverable as they were in reality...

In Vanilla it was easier after the Marian reforms :D After conquering Greece I had so much money that an army was made up of the 1st cohors, 8 other cohortes and one praetorian cohors, all together 10 cohors (though one of them had just 160 men like a maniple [a third of a cohort]). To this legion I added 1 Ala of Legion-cavalry, 2 alae of auxilia cavalry, 2 units of auxilia archers and 4 units of auxilia infantry...
But I think in EB this will be too expensive and also a little bit to overpowered :D

Macilrille
01-25-2009, 17:42
I would say, do not think about the proportion of scale for units, it is one of the places where game mechanics/engine dictates that we can not do exact historical. Have instead the right proportion of units (yours seem fine enough) and pretend that they are right size. Consider also that IRL many generals led armies of more than one or two legions, you cannot do this either, pretend that you do, suspend your disbelief...

For comparison in a much-beloved boardgame of mine, World in Flames the plane counters start off as symbolising 200- 250 planes in 1939, ending at representing 400- 500 in 1945. See the analogy?