which do you guys use as the backbone of your heavy infantry when fighting as romans?
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which do you guys use as the backbone of your heavy infantry when fighting as romans?
urbans all the time :bow: there slightly better ,by this stage in the game roman cavalry is hugely improved as well,, when attacking rome i have loads of greek hoplites retrained (foundry etc) & use them to bog down spqr cav while my urbans go about their bloody buisiness :duel:
I use Hastati. :P Seriously, I find that you it takes way too long to get to the Marian Reforms and have an Urban rax or even an Imperial Palace. The game's generally over by that point, and it takes way too long to send your main troops out at the enemy. Hastati are used against the first enemies you come across, where (especially as the Romans) you almost have to win every battle you face early on.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sam Adams
In the end, you can send wave after wave against your opponents, and every battle become much less.
Plus, I find the game much more annoying and boring after the first few invasions. Heh.
Well, the quickest way to the Marian reforms is to take Carthage or Egypt.Quote:
Originally Posted by randomn00b
Personally, once I get the Marian reforms, I find that two legionary cohorts take as long to build as one praetorian or urban cohort, and they should beat them.
Me, I am a turtler by disposition so like urbans as and qhen I can afford them though. I prefer 2 legionary cohorts as the person above does too
1) Go for whichever one is more expensive. My opinion on things is money (M)=Quality (Q). M=Q.
2) I usually go for legionary cohorts though, because in real history, that's what they would have been using.
I'd use Urbans over Praetorians obviously. They have the same upkeep and training time but Urbans are better. It's a no-brainer. It depends on my factiona s to what I use though. With Julii I use Cohorts. Haven't got the money. But as Brutii, you've got so much money you almost literally can't bloody spend enough of it!
I use the Praetorians for my city defenses, as they were used in real Roman times, at least for my Capital & Arminum (playing as Julii), I use I think its 15 Preatorians for both of my main cities, Aritum & Arminium. One Governor (not hard since their both right next to each other and the Capital gets all the family members!), and four units of archer auxilia. These two armies I never take out of my two main cities, their there for city defense for when they civil war begins. I dont plan on attacking any, so calvery I dont haver there, just 15 units of Preatorians, 4 archers, 1 calvery unit Governor, which is the LAST to run into battle, should the battle be lost, or if the battle is won, used to run down as many of those morons as he can. This took over 30 turns to build the Preatorians alone, so it is time consuming & boring, but the've paid off already, I'll show you below in screen shots.
For my main army, I like the Urban's, but in the time it takes to build 10 units of those (I craft all of my legions specifically), I could have 20 units of regular Legionary Cohorts, which means two more provinces I could take with two different legions instead of one. My standard craftmanship of my version of a legion is, 10 units of Legionary Cohorts, 4 units of Archer Auxilia's (very good number, and pack a powerful punch & deadly blow to the enemy army, and isnt too much or too little arrow's on most cass), 5 unites of Roman Calvery, and one General, or if no General, another unit for a Captain of Roman Calvery.
So my idea is, use the Preatorians for the defense of your main cities, as they were in Roman times, Legionary Cohorts for your primary legion foot solider, and Urban Cohorts for your specialized assault armies, not armies to take cities or towns with no, but to attack other enemy armies, and to come to the assistance of any of your seiged cities.
These are photo's of my first made Preatorians when the Gauls decided to try & take my Capital, for some strange reason... they've never done that before in past Campaigns. But luckly I had enough men, and I decided to assault them, and marched my men outside of my gates into formation, and then charged them, I lost a lot of men but still won pretty good. You can see the family members there sitting back in the city, I didnt want them to be killed lol! Their important!
I like the 2nd photo, very nice. I'd just sent out my first defense army of the city made up of Legionary Cohorts, etc, to take a province way up in the Germanic North, and had started the re-creation overhaul of my new defense Preatorian based army.
http://www.geocities.com/mac100mc/marchingarmy.JPG
http://www.geocities.com/mac100mc/marchingarmy2.JPG
Tres bien!! Very interesting screens. I also like your tactics of only having praets in your main cities. Very authentic.
I use legionary cohorts also. More realistic to use them as the front line, and it's more cost effective anyway. I prefer to use urbans and praetorian guard as the elite for spearheading my assaults (Urbans when I can get them). Usually have a few Praetorians in the capital, just because I can!
I usually have 2-3 unit producing cities other than my ports copntantly training 1 Urban Cohort and 2 Legionnaries. I usually also have 1 training cavalry unless I can find Sarmatian or other cavalry mercs in large supply. I have 1-2 ports building ships and usually do not run out of money.
BTW to all of you relying on infantry as the Seluecids I destroyed a huge Scipii army of 2.5 stacks of post marius reforms heavy infantry or so with 6 depleted militia hoplites and Companian Cavalry, the Scipii were of similar valor and equiptment as my troops but lacked cavalry. They did have artillery and were bombarding my men until I charged them. The lesson is though the computer is stupid if you play against a person use variety because if there is a line of trash infantry that you charge that holds Cavalry flanking can route your army in seconds and send the most modern amry on its heels!
Urban and Praetorian cohorts have the problem if being rather difficult to retrain on-the-move. They make great garrisons for your main cities, but for my mobile armies I prefer something I can maintain in foreign lands.
Against the AI I have a habit of having units of archer auxilia behind ranks of legionnaires and mostly arrowing the enemy to death anyway. Urban Cohorts, or even Praetorian ones, would pretty much be overkill considering they're meant to stand there on guard and laugh as the enemy try to kill them. Standard 'conquering' army of six cohorts and four archer auxilia with a family member is sent out to any city I covet, and double that if it's heavily defended (well mostly, that kind of ratio until all 20 slots are full, only one family member).
If something/one REALLY pisses me off, all my core cities which can't be attacked all donate four cohorts and two archers from their garrison. The resultant army (quite massive halfway through the game when you've developed), angrily crushes the irritation like a fly under a steamroller, using extermination as a preference and being sure to kill every man on the field of battle it possibly can. This generally happens when some mother****** bribes one of my cities. The city in question is crushed and exterminated, and the offending nation obliterated regardless of size. It's a shame AI is unable to relate this consequence to a specific act or even in general terms of angering a specific faction, because after seeing this no faction without a ginormous economy would ever think of messing with you in any way that could be deemed....irritating.
Urbans of praetorians? Neither, I only use them in their own special elite armies with praetorian cav and such and as city guards. They are too expensive and slow building to be part of line legions they guard the interior and the regular leigons guard the borders, just like it was in the real empire.
I don't have large city garrisons because nobody can touch me, if anyone comes close I either bribe them or merc them to death. To expand on the Archer Auxilia strategy you can also set all your cohorts to fire at will so that if the enemy gets close they are scattered by a massive volley of Pila. ~D
make sure you have a doctor or surgeon attached to your armies leader and you wont have nearly the same problem with attrition. Besides, urban cohorts ive noticed tend not to lose many men anyway. Especially when you soften the battlefield with archers first.