Unit numbers question

Hi,
Sorry if this has been addressed, and if it is idiotic, but has anyone done the research for how many men constituted a Roman Consular Legion (approx. 8000 by my reading) and whether this is accurately protrayed in EB?

If not, is the reason that the engine won't allow that many units to be rendered?

I seldom fight with full stacks, so is a full stack a consular legion? And if so, should house rules be that playing as ROmani, one should only play with two full stacks pretty much the entire game period (Except arguably during the Second Punic War, when the Senate raised 4 legions)?

Would love to know the answer and people's thoughts on the subject.

Thanks.

T

Depends on the time frame. The classical legion, described by Polybios, consisted of about 4500 men, 1200 velites, 1200 hastati, 1200 principes, 600 triarii and 300 equites. That is theory, in the field numbers were possibly always different. Sometimes the maniples of the hastati and principes could be raised up to about 160 instead of 120.

To the legion was always added a roughly similar number of allies (with more cavalry normally), forming the ala (wing). A normal two legion consular army consisted so of about 20000 men and formed battle order with the two legions in the centre and the two alae on the sides/wings.

The RTW/EB stacks are not made to simulate a legion or a consular army in numbers of men. No problem, use the adequate number of units.

In the second Punic war, the Romans did not raise 4 legions but different number over the years, for example about 25 legions for the year 211 BC.~;)

So basically, when we play RTW/EB, we are getting nowhere near the size of the units reported in history?

Is that correct? And if so, is that because of technological limitations (i.e. pc''s can't render that effectively yet) or because the game is hardcoded with certain limits?

Also, is this addressable in future versions of EB? Would EB 2.0 be able to correctly render the number of units in a Legion?

Its up to you to decide the size of the legions in EB, make it a 'house rule'. In the second Punic war the Roman senate raised six legions, which is quite impossible in EB to achieve, the best I can get is to raise a full Consular legion in 4 turns, thats a year in EB. If it helps you here are my house rules for the legions.

A Legion is composed of 3 Maniples of Hastati and Principe, two of Triari, 2 units velites, one Accensi and a cavalry ala, I use the Romani Equites.

A Consular army is bigger in size, we know that it was double the size of a standard legion, and that the Allies where equal or more than the Romans, so here how I solved the problem. Either raise the number of maniples of the above to 5,5,3, or add two maniples of Hastati Samnitici and two units of Samniti Milites, and take 3 manples of Triari. To them add 2 other units of Velites. That will raise the number of units to 17, the 3 free slots can be filled with cavalry. Two ale,Roman cavalry ( I am against using them against other cavalry, they are only good to pursuit), Campanian or the Extraordinarii. Don't forget the consul. Generally I take 3 characters, a Consul and two Legati, thats more fun.

I also like to substitute one Milites Samnitici unit with the Pedites Extraordinari, and when possible take a unit or two of Lucanian infantry. These lads are of great support to your cavalry against other cavalry.

Cheers.

What Reno Melitensis says about the number of units sounds good to me. Try to imitate the proportion of different units in the legion.

But: there was nothing like a "consular legion" and a "normal legion". If an army was led by a lesser magistrate the legions were normally the same as if led by a consul.

First the "legio" was the entire army of Rome. This coincides with the fact that in this early time there was presumably only one supreme magistrate (praetor). Later, when the two consules were established, the Roman army consisted of two legions (including always the allies), each led by a consul.

Soon the two legions were no longer enough. In the 3rd c. already a normal consular army consisted of two legions (always with the allies, so two legion army = two legiones and two alae). An army led by a praetor, proconsul or propraetor or a dictator could have the same form. Sometimes the consular army consisted also of 4 legions. This was the case for example at Telamon 225 BC, where the Celts were caught between two consular armies.

In the second Punic war a lot more than 6 legions a year were raised. At Cannae both consuls were present and each consul had a 4 legion army, together about 80000 men. But also for example in Spain and Illyria Roman troops were present at this time. In some years of the war 25 legions fought in different places against the Carthaginians, Greeks, Macedonians, Celtic and Iberian people.

First of all the thechnical size of a unit in RTW is hardcoded to be 240 soldiers + officers (max 3, if you count general/captain as one IIRC) at most.

And AFAIK similar (if not harsher) constraints apply to M2TW units, so probably no luck with EB2 either.

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That said, who's saying you need to use one unit as one unit? Why not consider to group two units and let them act as one? Or the other way around: consider one unit to be actually a group of multiple ones. Remember that city-population can't be portrayed accurately either: during the time-frame Rome for instance grows well-beyond what is possible to achieve in any (R)TW setting.

I use a 10:1 house rule and I think several others herein have come to the same conclusion. For every 10 men, one is represented in the game. Thus, a standard Camillan Era legion would consist of 3 units; roughly one 162 man unit of hastati, one 162 man unit of principes, and one 162 man unit of Triari.

For a consular legion add a 240 man unit of Rorarii. When using several legions in a stack add one general and one 100 man unit of Eqvites. Support troops for two or more legions can include whatever mix of slingers and/or archers and other native troops afoot and/or horse you think will do for the job at hand.

Using this math you can raise six Camillan Era legions within a year (18 units) from your five core cities. You should be able to double this output in the Polybian Era. I normally use two to three of these legions in each stack, but four or five are not out of the question. However, this is just the way I play, and of course, you'll have to find the way it works for.

From a technical point. i imagine it is hardcoded to no more than 243 men per unit as i havent seen any higher than that max. also even if it wasnt hardcoded no commercial computer could render 20000+ men. even SLI'ing two 8800 Ultras would not be enough to render so many men and the map and possibly a settlement and a forest at the same time. not to mention the cost of doing that would be too much for ordinary gamers to afford.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Blazing141

So basically, when we play RTW/EB, we are getting nowhere near the size of the units reported in history?

Is that correct? And if so, is that because of technological limitations (i.e. pc''s can't render that effectively yet) or because the game is hardcoded with certain limits?

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Partially hardcoded, partially for gameplay reasons. Computers at the time of RTW's release could not handle the amount of men required to represent accurate numbers, and beyond that there is no way the player could control 20,000 men at once without severe micromanagement.

Incidentally, the hardcoding is why you only get the "reinforcements delayed?" message if your computer can't handled all those additional units appearing on screen at once. Internally the game refers to that message as "computer_too_weak" or something like that.

That and when you would have more than 20 units in the commanded army. (If you choose your re-inforcements to be drip-fed, on a unit by unit basis.)

We've just been doing internal work on this for the Polybian era.

A Consular army can be represented thus:

4 Velites

4 Hastati

4 Princepes

2 Triarii

1 Pedites Extraordinarii

3 Equites

1 Equites Extraordinarii

1 General.

That's proportianally correct, more or less.

To accurately represent each one of my polybian legions, I use the following structure:

3 Velites
5 Hastati
5 Principes
3 Triarii
2 Pedites Extroidinarii
1 Equites
1 Itallic Cavalry


I only use three units of Velites because since they are in 200 man units, it gives a total of 600 men which is fairly close to the abount of Hastati and Principes fielded (810 Hastati/Principes versus 600 Velites)

For me, it seems the best way to represent a polybian legion while dealing with the constraints of the TW engine.

There were the same number of velites in a legion as Hastati or Princepes.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Philipvs Vallindervs Calicvla

There were the same number of velites in a legion as Hastati or Princepes.

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I simply use three units of Velites because it just works a little better for me. Considering the 20 unit slot limitations, I decided to get rid of one unit of Velites instead of my allied cavalry. I know I could use 4 units of Velites, Hastati, and Principes, but I find my battle line to be too short. How would you recomend overcoming this problem? Maybe Allied infantry?

I use a narrow battle line and strike hard at the enemy right flank while my velites and cavalry guard the left flank. You can also attack with a shallower 3-rank line because the second line is going in shortly after the first, which will give you mass.

Thanks