idea about a new unit

[goscho]

Sory forget about this.
There is no need of roman deserters, because every nation could hire a units from the other nations.

[Hakonarson]

Presumably if you have deserters then you're at war with Roma, and they're not likely to hire you any legions http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

It's a good idea - there were Roman deserters fighting for a number of Romes enemies at various times - especially Carthage and Numidia. Always in quite small numbers of course.

IIRC peace treaties normally included the requirement to return all deserters to Rome, but usually not the other way around

[goscho]

Thanks Hakonarson
Do you really think it is OK to have them?
Now in MTW you can always hire a mercs units from a special enemy units. If we say we can make the same with the roman legioners, there is not special need from this unit.
I don't know.

I'm sure, Caesar writes in his own books, that he was besieged in Alexandria from a 20 000 egiptian army, the main power in this army were roman deserters.

By the way have anybody reades the books of Caesar. There is a good description of his gaelian and civilian wars (maby a little bit in the favour of Caesar, but it's still a very good source about the roman army strategy and tactic).
The name was something like

"Notices about the gallic and civilian wars"

[goscho]

And why don't we have deserters from the army, not only from the romans?
If an army is long time in enemy teritory, the warriors will try to deserts. Then they could be hired as mercs from other factions. The number could depends from the discipline of the unit, the time being in war operations, from the generals stats and vices etc.

What would you say?

[Hakonarson]

Gosho by the time ofhte civil wars the Ebyptian army did have a lot of "Romans" in it - there'd been Gabinius, Pompey's lieutenant in the East 66-63BC who had left troops there, plus of course Mark Anthony's troops too later on.

Caesar's works are available in translation from Penguin - the titles are "The gallic War", and "The Civil Wars" - this last one includes the Alexandrian war, the Spanish war and the African War

[goscho]

Yes right, that was the true name.
I readed them before years, but in bulgarian translation (I'm bulgarian)
That's because I wasn't sure how is the english name.