Triarii = pointless? (no pun intended)

Last roman game I played I didnt get to use them cause the reforms happend around 240. I tried my best this time on Very Hard to develope my citys slowly except for the army barracks, balancing population growth to my barracks growth. I got the reforms this time around 220 but I still only had triarii on the battlefield around 20 turns or so. By the time you build them up and get them going into your front line armys, the reforms happen. Whats the point? I think its stupid you cant build them sooner cause it makes them kinda moot. Anyone else feel that way too?

yes, i think, their building requirements should be lowered (maybe, the price should be raised). or, alternatively, the reforms should happen later (different trigger?)... probably, "as is", rome is the only province where someone can build them early enough to actually field them...

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Originally Posted by King Azzole

Last roman game I played I didnt get to use them cause the reforms happend around 240. I tried my best this time on Very Hard to develope my citys slowly except for the army barracks, balancing population growth to my barracks growth. I got the reforms this time around 220 but I still only had triarii on the battlefield around 20 turns or so. By the time you build them up and get them going into your front line armys, the reforms happen. Whats the point? I think its stupid you cant build them sooner cause it makes them kinda moot. Anyone else feel that way too?

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FYI, whenever any faction completes the equivalent of an Imperial Palace the Marian reforms are triggered.

There is a silver lining to this cloud. The devs have stated that this will be fixed in an upcoming patch by preventing the reforms from happening prior to a certain date, regardless of whether an Imperial Palace level building has been built.

i feel you K.A. Triarii were my favorite unit of the game but i get them for about 5 turns and then they become obsolete and i can't make 'em any more.

In my Scipii game, I took Carthage straight off the bat, and had access to Triarii way before the reforms.

I just made my faction the only ones able to build the Imperial Palace.

Once I've gotten to break in my triarii a bit and feel ready, I build it and trigger the reforms. Then I re-edit the file to allow everyone else to build it too.

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Originally Posted by Spino

FYI, whenever any faction completes the equivalent of an Imperial Palace the Marian reforms are triggered.

There is a silver lining to this cloud. The devs have stated that this will be fixed in an upcoming patch by preventing the reforms from happening prior to a certain date, regardless of whether an Imperial Palace level building has been built.

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Thanks Spino thats very useful info! ~:cheers:

I'd prefer to see retraining being the mechanism for maniple advancement, as this would reflect the age advancement from young limber Velites to wiry veteran Triarii.

Thus:
Retrained Velites become Hastati.
Retrained Hastati become Principes.
Retrained Principes become Triarii.

Failing that, swapping the Principes build option to the Army Barracks in return for moving the Triarii option at the Legion Barracks would better suit the historical shift Rome made from greek-like spear armies to legionari swordsmen. That said I can't remember exactly when the Roman 2nd Line swapped their thrusting spears for pilum, by the time the RTW campaign starts they may already be pilum equipped.

Hoplite Phalanx was gone by 390b.c

I noticed that rome triggers marius too unless u play very hard campaign.
Also Rome seems to get a portion of every "enslave populaton", wich makes rome the most growing city even with negative 5% growth.
I had marius in 251 once wich was pre princps for me wich was kinda silly...

If u play julii hastati are all u need + equites +archers
easy to retrain in the low pop towns in gaul

Maybe they should give you a few years after building the Imperial Palace before the Marian reforms are triggerred. Maybe 5-10. I still like the idea of the player affecting when the Marian reforms are triggered.

My biggest problem with Triarii is that Cavalry seem to roll over them every time and its pissing me off, I thought they were a spearman unit...besides that my Brutii campaign went smoothly as well as soon as Athens is taken Triarii as well as a menagerie of other more advanced troops become available there.

I prefer a hard date marian reform. I liked the old compass etc announcements in MTW, I wish it was the same for RTW. Marion reform set sayyyy 150 bc give or take 20 years for randomness. Its not like the Romans dont pwn without the damn legions anyway.

actually I hope they don't move the Marius reforms to a fixed date, and if they do, it should not be too late. I finished both campaigns I played around 220 BC. WIth a date like 170BC, I'll never see legionnaires.

That was one of my main issues with MTW. You never get to play with the high/late units much if you started on early

In mtw i got to use the high units, but not the late, and i see your point.

One option would be to switch the reform trigger to when ROME got an imperial palace, as this would be more historically accurate and would let you use triarii for a bit longer.

Not really.. They got it pretty quick in the games I played.

How about allowing it to NOT be hardcoded? So we can edit the files accordingly and change the date ourselves according to our tastes?

The reason I like it to be determined by the player and not hard-coded is that too early/too late depends on your playstyle. Some people play fast and some people take their time. I take my time playing each turn. I end up taking a lot of real time playing the game but don't necessarily have that many turns. I finished my Rome campaign around 170 B.C. and that's with a lot of screwing up trying to figure stuff.

I agree with Afrit. If the Marian reforms happen closer to when it historically happened (even a century off), I'll never see it.

For a short campaign the imperial palace should be the trigger but for an imperial campaign it should be set different.

hey, just captured carthage as ordered by the senate (playing julii) and, voila, triarii can be built there... it is 255 BC. i guess carthage starts as a very large city so the prerequisites are there.