Province-specific recruiting

Alright, I am sure that this issue has been brought up before but...

For this mod , it would dramatically increase realism and add a new dimension to the strategic play if unit recruitment and weapons upgrades were limited to certain provinces.

Let's take Rome for example. For the period covered in the game, the Roman legionary cohorts were composed almost exclusively of Italians. There were some Celts and Iberians, but hardly in significant numbers. Would it not make sense then to limit the training and retraining of such units to the Italian Penninsula? For the heavy cavalry, these men come mainly from Northern Gaul, Germany and the Sarmatian lands (if I'm correct, Spain mostly produced lighter forms of melee cavalry). As for those auxilliary archers, they were trained from Greeks, Cretans, and other Eastern peoples, I doubt that there were too many of those superior archer units being trained in Gaul and Germany. The list goes on... I'm not a professional historian so I would not be the one to dictate which province recruits which unit, I'm just throwing this idea out there.

One last thing along the same lines. I have always thought that the inclusion of one type of melee auxilliary was a farce. I can see those types of mail-clad spearman being trained in the West, but units like that in the East? In Africa? I'd think that they're equipment and fighting style would be a little different.

On the subject of armor/weapons upgrades. I think the structures to make those possible should only be availble to certain provinces such as places in Iberia and parts of Gaul. The Celts were know for fine armor while the Iberians for fine weapons, perhaps that's how it should be set up so that the player really has to put some time and love into a unit before he can make it upgraded. I find that whenever, work and time is put into training a unit, that unit always feel more lifelike.

On recruiting - we're defining recruitment areas on a per-unit basis.

On the weapons upgrades, I don't think this is in our plans. I believe they will be rather ubiquitous.

Weapon upgrades are and should be universal. Provinces with iron usually trade it for food, wine what have you. Technical expertise was fairly widespread in the ancient world too. They weren't animals, peoples of different ethnicities got together all the time and did work, when there was profit in it. Celtic Druids often 'vacationed' in Athens to discuss philsophy, Phoenicians and Rhodians traded wine to the Britons in exchange for tin.

Weapon upgrades simply mean better quality steel and better forging processes, which can be learned through experiment or trade. Everyone has the potential.