Dumb Romans in BI?

[Lochar]

I am no expert but finally picked up BI and of course had to play the romans, hehe after watching Rome on HBO how could I not?..:) Anyways I noticed my starting troops didnt have any type of shield wall and after looking at the tech tree will any roman troops get it.

So I ask, how does a culture and unit in a previous game go from the only type of shield wall (turtle) to now being one of the few cultures who doesnt use it anymore? I always figured the Romans just got complacent but didnt realize they forgot their own inventions/tactics.

[Barbarossa82]

A true shield wall was never (AFAIK) a part of the Romans' battlefield repertoire. The Testudo formation was designed to resist missile fire and was therefore employed mostly during sieges, when approaching defended gates etc. It would have been virtually impossible to fight at close quarters in this formation. The shieldwall on the other hand involves smaller shields which do not tesselate in the same way that the Roman shields do in the Testudo, and are not held over the head either. It can therefore be used both to deflect missile fire and in hand-to-hand.
It's therefore somewhat doubtful that Testudo would have been used in open battle anyway (although it's possible, especially if facing heavy missile fire without imminent danger of close quarter assault). So probably it wasn't a high priority to keep when the Roman army went into decline.
Having said that I'm only moderately historically informed, so someone else might be able to shed more light on it.

[antisocialmunky]

That is true, though they did employ a fairly tight formation which got them in trouble at Adrianople or whenever they got squeezed, but they never used any form of overlapping shield. Though, I wouldn't put it past the empire to adopt Germanized tactics at the end of the day.

[cunctator]

This article might be interesting for your discussion:

The Fulcum, the Late Roman and Byzantine Testudo: the Germanization of Roman Infantry Tactics?
by Philip Rance

http://www.duke.edu/web/classics/grbs/FTexts/44/Rance2.pdf

[Lochar]

Interesting article, and if I understand it correctly they did have advanced tactics, not only against arrows but vs cavalry as well.

It was always my understanding that the roman decline wasnt due to out of date forces, just no more ambitious leaders or generals with great skill. But then I am no history buff.

Also it is strange that the romans on the eastern empire did adopt camel riders and other units to fight a desert warfare, yet have no real special abilities vs archers to storm strongholds. But I do notice that arrows arent as effective against a enemy facing them with shields, just it is always kinda cool to watch those special abilities form up...:) So was this just a balancing issue for romans or did they model them the best they were aware of at that time.