As a Carthaginian, Romans to weak in manpower and too passive

I've tried playing EB as Carthaginians on RTW 1.5, on BI and on Alexander.

In general i like the mod a lot.

However the Romans are too weak and too passive in it. Historically the Romans had massively greater manpower than most of their enemies due to their system of conscription and allied legions. They beat the Gauls not because Roman armies were superior, but because they outnumbered them by a factor of at least 5 to 1 in the Telamon campaign and at least 2 to 1 in the battle of Telamon (according to WRG Armies of the Macedonian and Punic Wars).

They beat the Carthaginians for a similar reason - they could field armies simultaneously in Northern Italy, Southern Italy, Spain, Sicily and Africa.

Because of this making the Romans' cities just proportional to the population of Italy massively under represents their actual military manpower, which was out of all proportion to Italy's population.

It would make the mod more historically accurate and more fun to play to increase the number of cities in Italy and under Roman control at the start of the game in order to represent this.

(I say that as someone who never plays as the Romans, but as Carthaginians or Dacians)

Then Roman forces could fight in several countries at once (as they often did) and it would be a challenge to fight against them, rather than a bit dull.

The problem may be partly the Alexander engine here, but the trouble is that only Alexander has half-decent battlefield AI. BI and RTW 1.5 have aggressive naval invasions but very poor battlefield AI (in 1.5 especially generals often just kamikaze into the middle of my army just to kill some skirmishers).

Some of the AI problems could be fixed in EBII if Medevial II AI is moddable (?) , but more cities in Italy to represent Roman military manpower might be the best solution (that or having more than one allied Roman faction as in RTW vanilla)

Bad idea. More cities in Italy would horribly unbalance the game. It would lead to Rome stampeding the Gauls. Have you ever noticed how the roman armies tend to go not south, but north. More cities would just lead to rome destroying the Gauls and Germans.

It might have some historical accuracy, but due to the unbalanced AI, it would do more harm than good.

Then the solution might be to make the Gauls North of the Alps stronger, to make the Romans go South to conquer Southern Italy and intervene in Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica first, as they did historically.

Instead, why not make the Romans have like 0 turn recruitment? :smash:

Not sure if there is a way to force the roman AI to go south though. Game engine limitations. The Romans also never invade Sardinia and Corsica as soldiers have an odd tendency to avoid getting on ships. Stupid AI.

They do on EB on BI with ferromancer's installer. They invaded Corsica quite early in the game, though only with 2 units. I didnt see how much they did it later as i switched to EB on Alexander as the battlefield AI on it is a bit better. If you could just combine BI campaign AI with Alexander battlefield AI that would be nice - maybe in EBII it'd be possible with modded Medieval II AI - i don't know (not a modder or even close to understanding it)

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Originally Posted by Kevin

Instead, why not make the Romans have like 0 turn recruitment? :smash:

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'Cause it's insanely historically innacurate. Armies took several years to raise. It would solve the problem of passive Romans though.

@Dunadd-Lets hope that there is a good AI for EB 2.

eh, pretend they aren't getting trained but instead getting prepared. Didn't Romans already have to server in the military for a certain number of years? They would have already trained before you recruit them :/

The Romans woudn't know how to fight before being trained. Just because you have to serve in the military before being a politician doesn't mean you already know how to fight before joining the army.

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Originally Posted by Kevin

Instead, why not make the Romans have like 0 turn recruitment? :smash:

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Regardless of historical accuracy, I don't believe this is possible because the AI queues only one unit at a time. Or so I read in another thread on zero-turn recruitment.

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Originally Posted by Dunadd

I've tried playing EB as Carthaginians on RTW 1.5, on BI and on Alexander.

In general i like the mod a lot.

However the Romans are too weak and too passive in it. Historically the Romans had massively greater manpower than most of their enemies due to their system of conscription and allied legions. They beat the Gauls not because Roman armies were superior, but because they outnumbered them by a factor of at least 5 to 1 in the Telamon campaign and at least 2 to 1 in the battle of Telamon (according to WRG Armies of the Macedonian and Punic Wars).

They beat the Carthaginians for a similar reason - they could field armies simultaneously in Northern Italy, Southern Italy, Spain, Sicily and Africa.

Because of this making the Romans' cities just proportional to the population of Italy massively under represents their actual military manpower, which was out of all proportion to Italy's population.

It would make the mod more historically accurate and more fun to play to increase the number of cities in Italy and under Roman control at the start of the game in order to represent this.

(I say that as someone who never plays as the Romans, but as Carthaginians or Dacians)

Then Roman forces could fight in several countries at once (as they often did) and it would be a challenge to fight against them, rather than a bit dull.

The problem may be partly the Alexander engine here, but the trouble is that only Alexander has half-decent battlefield AI. BI and RTW 1.5 have aggressive naval invasions but very poor battlefield AI (in 1.5 especially generals often just kamikaze into the middle of my army just to kill some skirmishers).

Some of the AI problems could be fixed in EBII if Medevial II AI is moddable (?) , but more cities in Italy to represent Roman military manpower might be the best solution (that or having more than one allied Roman faction as in RTW vanilla)

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The Romans have a perfectly fine ability to muster man power. Its just that all of it is being thrown at the massive naked garrisons of the Po River Vally...:sweatdrop

Well, I have the same complaint about the Carthies as the OP has about the Romans. In my Romani games, Qarthadastim are beaten in a giffy, with maximum ease.

In my EB w/ alex.exe campaigns, the Romans have always spammed the hell out of principes and pedites extraordinarii, then headed north as others have said.

One thing you could try is use the "toggle_fow" cheat, find a Romani family member with an army, then try to use the "move_character" cheat to stick him in sicily or N. Africa or wherever you want him that the AI is too dumb to ship him to.

If they're too weak overall, use the "add_money" cheat to pour cash into the Romans so they can spam principes and pedites.

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Originally Posted by Julius Augustus

Bad idea. More cities in Italy would horribly unbalance the game. It would lead to Rome stampeding the Gauls. Have you ever noticed how the roman armies tend to go not south, but north. More cities would just lead to rome destroying the Gauls and Germans.

It might have some historical accuracy, but due to the unbalanced AI, it would do more harm than good.

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well to be fair rome was a strong country. i think it would be fair for the romans to have multiple romes.

Read your statement again. Consider the reason why the EB team does not have multiple Roman factions. If you mean to suggest having multiple copies of the same city, I implore you to read your statement with exceeding scrutiny.

According to the in game graphs Rome is already provided plenty of money which they use to train the largest army in the world.

There is a win conditions mod which alters descr win conditions .txt and is useful for directing AI expansion priorities. BI and Alex.exe have naval invasions, although KH seemed to capture Helicarnassus more often under vanilla RTW in my experience; not sure if it is rebelling to them.

one could make the alps uncrossable, that would forse the romans to expand southwards :clown:

Helicarnassus rebels to KH, at least that's what happend everytime I played KH.

hey Dunadd what difficulty are you playing??? If you fix campaign difficulty at Hard or Very Hard the AI is going to shell you with stacks ... the majority of these will be mercenaries but you'll get to fight some core Roman infantry too i guess :yes:

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Originally Posted by A Very Super Market

Read your statement again. Consider the reason why the EB team does not have multiple Roman factions. If you mean to suggest having multiple copies of the same city, I implore you to read your statement with exceeding scrutiny.

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to represent all factions fairly. yeah i dont know what i was thinking when i suggested that, but i still think that rome is just a bit too...errr pussy, to say the least, for my tastes. historical rome was a beast. they waged war constantly for centuries. they fought and won against massive odds. EB rome is a shadow of its real self.

The EB Rome with the tendency to swallow up Gaul and Iberia within 50 years? (Whilst leaving Taras and Rhegion completely alone.)

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Originally Posted by fleaza

to represent all factions fairly. yeah i dont know what i was thinking when i suggested that, but i still think that rome is just a bit too...errr pussy, to say the least, for my tastes. historical rome was a beast. they waged war constantly for centuries. they fought and won against massive odds. EB rome is a shadow of its real self.

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Rome does always take Taras right away in my campaigns and most of the times Rhegion is next. And they expand into Gauls and Illirya, then into coastal Iberia rather fast. After that they are pain to deal with it, so i don't see that they are underpowered at all.Recruiting part is not that brilliant though, mostly mercenaries, triarii and PE.

There are some weird things that happen in rare occasions(i just posted another thread about that ), but if i play anyone in west , i end up dealing with them way before i would like to(early in campaign).

Archippos wrote

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hey Dunadd what difficulty are you playing??? If you fix campaign difficulty at Hard or Very Hard the AI is going to shell you with stacks ... the majority of these will be mercenaries but you'll get to fight some core Roman infantry too i guess

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I've been playing on Very Hard. The Romans fight me when i'm in mainland Italy, but they never invade Sicily or Spain or North Africa by sea, which makes it pretty easy and predictable to fight them.

They did take Tarentum from the Epirotes, before i took it from them, but made no attempt on Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily or anywhere else overseas, even after they've had massive naval superiority for a decade (they have quadriremes and triremes, i only have pentekonters - and they have 4 or 5 times as many fleets as i do)

Could be due to playing on the Alexander engine, i'm not sure.

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Originally Posted by Dunadd

Archippos wrote



I've been playing on Very Hard. The Romans fight me when i'm in mainland Italy, but they never invade Sicily or Spain or North Africa by sea, which makes it pretty easy and predictable to fight them.

They did take Tarentum from the Epirotes, before i took it from them, but made no attempt on Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily or anywhere else overseas, even after they've had massive naval superiority for a decade (they have quadriremes and triremes, i only have pentekonters - and they have 4 or 5 times as many fleets as i do)

Could be due to playing on the Alexander engine, i'm not sure.

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You are going to see that very , very rarely with ALX.exe, not at all with RTW.exe. Only time you can be sure that they will do it (as well everyone else) is if you play with BI.exe. I did have QH and KH doing naval invasions of Italy with ALX, but never vice versa.

And even that is going to be ,most likely, small detachments , 1-5 units ,and not full fledged invasion. Best bet is , like someone mention to use move_character and move some stacks in Africa proper.

As for Sicily, take Messana and if that doesn't work, attack Rhegion(you don't have to take it). That usually gets their attention and they will turn south.

The solution that worked in vanilla Rome Total War was to have more than one Roman faction, allied to each other, so the Southern faction went South, the Northern faction went North and the Eastern faction went East, as those were the only borders they had with the enemy and they all had different victory conditions.

I'd like to see something like that in EBII as currently in EB the Romans' behaviour is just not historical and they are not nearly militarily strong enough compared to the historical situation.

Since the EB Team knows the names of the starting Roman FMs, they should auto-teleport them outside of Rhegion or Messana if they make aggressive moves North instead of South to more historically direct their aggression.

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Originally Posted by Dunadd

The solution that worked in vanilla Rome Total War was to have more than one Roman faction, allied to each other, so the Southern faction went South, the Northern faction went North and the Eastern faction went East, as those were the only borders they had with the enemy and they all had different victory conditions.

I'd like to see something like that in EBII as currently in EB the Romans' behaviour is just not historical and they are not nearly militarily strong enough compared to the historical situation.

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I believe that it will be much easier to recreate Romani behavior in M2TW. For one you don't have senate and 3 roman factions , that most likely have some hardcoded behavior in RTW(Romani in EB are original Seleucid faction , btw).

AFAIK, original RTW city of Rome is located on that tiny island of the Scandinavia, and that can explain factions desire to move Northwards first.Again, in my campaigns , Romani always got south, even in present QH campaign. Only problem that they have was not being able to conquer it in several dozen of tries.

Either way, EB is about all 16 factions and Romans are only one of them. Some mods are dedicated strictly to Rome (SPQR mod , RS) , but this one is not.From what i have read on these forums , they are proud of treating all the factions as equal.

So making EBII revolving around Rome is not something that they are interested , i believe.

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From what i have read on these forums , they are proud of treating all the factions as equal.

So making EBII revolving around Rome is not something that they are interested , i believe.

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You're misunderstanding me. I never play as Romans - I play as Carthaginians or Dacians, but the Romans not carrying out major invasions of Carthaginian territory, including by sea, is simply unhistorical.

Treating all factions as equal is also unhistorical and they dont really treat them all as equal in EB at all. Baktria is not equal in power to the Seleucid Empire in EB for instance and if it was it would be ridiculous and not historically accurate. Similarly not making the Romans have far more armies available to them than other factions is simply unhistorical. I'm all for not under-rating other cultures and not over-rating the Romans (who picked up many of their 'inventions' from other cultures), but making Roman manpower the same as other factions' is taking avoiding Romano-centrism to an extreme that becomes historically inaccurate.

The mod doesnt need to recreate exactly what happened historically - Rome could fail to conquer the Mediterranean in the end and be replaced by Carthage or a Celtic kingdom or someone else, but it should have at least one major war with the Carthaginians, which should include it shipping troops all over the Western Mediterranean. If it isnt a major struggle against the odds to beat the Romans as Carthaginians, with only the players' better intelligence against the AI making it even vaguely possible, it's not historically accurate. If the Romans don't have twice the number of men in the field Carthage has while they control most of Italy, it's not historically accurate.

According to what I read in Livy's History of Rome, at least it didn't take the Romans years to raise a new army. In those years, Rome didn't have a standing army at all. Romans are citizen soldiers, not veteran mercenaries.
For example, only a few months after the conclusion of second Punic war, when the Romans determined to march against Philip, king of Macedon, and at the same time chastise the Gauls who ravaged northern frontiers, they first disbanded all their armies which had served in the former war, and authorized the two newly elected consuls to raise six new legions, two for Macedonian war, two to Gaul, and two as reserves. At the same time, several secondary officers such as praetors and propraetors were to raise a few small armies of several thousand men to act as garrison in several important provinces such Sicily.
All the deliberations, debations, prepararions were done in merely several months, and then the Romans were defeating Gauls and Macedonians at the same time.
So I really believe if we give at least the Romans in their Latin cities the ability of 0 turn recruitment, it will only be more historical. So the player will be able to raise a huge army in no time when face a serious war, and disband them as soon as the crisis is over, as the Romans did in history.

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Originally Posted by Julius Augustus

'Cause it's insanely historically innacurate. Armies took several years to raise. It would solve the problem of passive Romans though.

@Dunadd-Lets hope that there is a good AI for EB 2.

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Originally Posted by Kasperl

So I really believe if we give at least the Romans in their Latin cities the ability of 0 turn recruitment, it will only be more historical. So the player will be able to raise a huge army in no time when face a serious war, and disband them as soon as the crisis is over, as the Romans did in history.

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The problem is that the AI won't recruit more than one unit per turn, so this amounts to a vey significant (and unnecessary) advantage for the player.

On the general subject of increasing the number of Roman settlements at game start:

The Romans already get a large discount on recruitment costs, which was intended to represent to some degree the Roman ability to raise large armies. We already take a number of steps to strengthen the Romans when controlled by the AI, such as increasing the size of the army and placing a type 1 government in Umbria.

The suggestion of the original poster to increase the number of settlements controlled by the Romans at game start would certainly make the AI Romans tougher. But it would also make the game even easier when the Romans are player-controlled. That's one of the biggest gripes we see on this forum.

I'm afraid the OP's real complaint is against the game's AI. We have devoted a great deal of effort to circumvent undesirable AI behavior, but it's not clear we made much progress.

We ought to have more tools for influencing AI behavior in EB2.

Ok - maybe more cities isnt the solution. As i said above maybe the easiest way would be to use the solution vanilla RTW used - more than one Roman faction. Have two Roman factions, so at the start one goes North and the other goes South and they're allied to each other.

As a Roman player you can only control one of them - and the other will have the same poor AI the other computer player factions have, so it won't make it too easy.

No, the EB Team has made it clear that doing something like that would be favoring the Roman faction. Besides, they're not in the business of making factions that aren't playable.

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Originally Posted by Dunadd

You're misunderstanding me. I never play as Romans - I play as Carthaginians or Dacians, but the Romans not carrying out major invasions of Carthaginian territory, including by sea, is simply unhistorical.

Treating all factions as equal is also unhistorical and they dont really treat them all as equal in EB at all. Baktria is not equal in power to the Seleucid Empire in EB for instance and if it was it would be ridiculous and not historically accurate. Similarly not making the Romans have far more armies available to them than other factions is simply unhistorical. I'm all for not under-rating other cultures and not over-rating the Romans (who picked up many of their 'inventions' from other cultures), but making Roman manpower the same as other factions' is taking avoiding Romano-centrism to an extreme that becomes historically inaccurate.

The mod doesnt need to recreate exactly what happened historically - Rome could fail to conquer the Mediterranean in the end and be replaced by Carthage or a Celtic kingdom or someone else, but it should have at least one major war with the Carthaginians, which should include it shipping troops all over the Western Mediterranean. If it isnt a major struggle against the odds to beat the Romans as Carthaginians, with only the players' better intelligence against the AI making it even vaguely possible, it's not historically accurate. If the Romans don't have twice the number of men in the field Carthage has while they control most of Italy, it's not historically accurate.

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The AI in EB never invade by sea. However, if you install Alex.exe it does. I have not, for I am not certain of how to go about it.

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Originally Posted by Macilrille

The AI in EB never invade by sea. However, if you install Alex.exe it does. I have not, for I am not certain of how to go about it.

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The AI does naval invasions with BI exe too, search EB Unofficial Modding Projects for information how to get those working.

The General's right - It definitely invades by sea on BI. I played on Alex.exe from 272BC to 245BC - not one sea invasion.

I'm much less far into an EB for BI campaign and the Romans have already invaded Corsica by sea twice and the Epeirots have just landed an army in Sicily (historical accuracy ftw :wink:)

The AI in Alex does invade. It especially likes to ferry troops around, though. I've only been invaded once by sea, but the AI do it to each other all the time - Rome was once captured by a Carthaginian fullstack in a Sweboz game.

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Originally Posted by Kevin

Yea, I've been playing Alex.exe and I haven't been invaded by ships at all (235BC)..but on BI I heard they do invade but only with 2 or 3 units.

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Odd that you have not. Well, the AI is probably busy elsewhere. In my games, the AI is always launching see invasions (alex.exe). As for BI, yeah, naval invasions are brainless in that .exe.

I love the fact how the posts are mixed up :laugh4:

One of the main problems in EB is that many faction cant build ships, because the k.i. rarely builds any military harbours or their are none availlable. THe koinon hellenon in my game is my ally since 70 years and they still have a fullstack on Rhodos. Why? They controll minor asia, but minor asia nearly has no options for a port. WTF?
The seleucs rarely build ships, because they are expensive and their invasions are mainly focussed to the east. Only around egypt you encounter enemy ships sometims because the ptollis got bored.
And of course the useless roman level 1 ships and carthagian weak ships... :(

Yea, I've been playing Alex.exe and I haven't been invaded by ships at all (235BC)..but on BI I heard they do invade but only with 2 or 3 units.

Personally, I'm a bit surprised about the discussion regarding too little manpower for the Romani. In my experience in most games they are the faction that amasses the most armies (which are of decent quality, too). Granted, they often don't use them too well.

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Originally Posted by Kevin

Yea, I've been playing Alex.exe and I haven't been invaded by ships at all (235BC)..but on BI I heard they do invade but only with 2 or 3 units.

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Sometimes the AI does invade with 2-3 units, but more often than not, with half-stacks and larger armies, from what I've seen, for example, with two three-quarters-stacks, or a smaller army of 2-4 units and a larger with 8-15 units.

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Originally Posted by Lysimachos

Personally, I'm a bit surprised about the discussion regarding too little manpower for the Romani. In my experience in most games they are the faction that amasses the most armies (which are of decent quality, too). Granted, they often don't use them too well.

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Indeed, SPQR is very rich and often sports several fullstacks, but sometimes seems all too passive. There's just something deterring them from crossing the strait into Sicily even if they're at war with the Qarthadastim...

(*Does a theatrical facepalm as he realizes he could've edited this answer into the previous post*)

The first couple of armies the Romans landed in Corsica on my EB on BI game were very small - but after that they landed a big army on it and the Epeirots landed another big army in Sicily - and have another one ready to land.

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Originally Posted by Dunadd

Ok - maybe more cities isnt the solution. As i said above maybe the easiest way would be to use the solution vanilla RTW used - more than one Roman faction. Have two Roman factions, so at the start one goes North and the other goes South and they're allied to each other.

As a Roman player you can only control one of them - and the other will have the same poor AI the other computer player factions have, so it won't make it too easy.

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Not sure if you realize. Apart from favouring roman's too much, or in your case favouring the human player challenge for the Carthies. There are no more faction slots available in EBI. In order to create an evil twin of the romans you would have to completly remove another faction. (And if I had my way it would unfortuanetly be your damn carthies.)

As for manpower, I think you might mean population that can be used for making armies. The AI factions have UNLIMITED manpower. Everytime they recruit a unit they get somewhere around 200 or so people added to their city. If your unit size settings are really low then the cities can actually grow much faster than is normal.

Everything you have suggested to fix it is impossible or has already been dealt with in another way. Its unfortunate, but the AI is being asked to do something way more complex and out of its league than what it was programmed for. And sadly cannot be modded to fix this. Keep in mind that some AI modding is possible in M2TW. i recommend you have a look at Broken Crecent for some pretty decent diplomacy AI especially in regards to alliances. EB2 is being made now and hopefully the team will do everything they can to get the AI working the way they want for that mod. We can only wait and see.

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Originally Posted by Blxz

As for manpower, I think you might mean population that can be used for making armies. The AI factions have UNLIMITED manpower. Everytime they recruit a unit they get somewhere around 200 or so people added to their city. If your unit size settings are really low then the cities can actually grow much faster than is normal.

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Very good post. I am surprised that nobody mentioned that.

The only problem remains AI and that cannot be solved. RTW AI tends to prefer northern direction of invasions. If you want to have some challenge against Romans, pick a Gallic faction. In all campaigns I played as Aedui or Arverni, Romani were the worst nightmare, they sent stack after stack especially after I took some city in Italy. My defenders there were the most experienced soldiers commanded by the most experienced generals of my faction thanks to all battles they had to fight.

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Originally Posted by Andronikos

The only problem remains AI and that cannot be solved. RTW AI tends to prefer northern direction of invasions.

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It's true that the A.I. favours a northern direction of expansion (maybe because the EB team located the original Roman province in the north?), but its first priority seems to be to go after the player. Worse than that, factions that are at war with the player tend to get cease-fires far more easily.

Bet that Romans get many enemies against them, so they must divide their force....

using alex.exe ,have had several full stack sea invasions from carth when playing as KH in my invasion of magna grecia.

I've had Macedon conquered Rhodos and even Pergamon by boat though it took them a while. They seemed to forget what they were doing and sieged the city like couple years after they landed. I've had an AI Aedui lifted a siege at Vienne once. I'm just gonna speculate that it was because I destroyed every building as the city was falling to them. Clearly it wasn't because they had to attend a wedding of some Arvernian relatives! As for Pergamon, I think it's because Byzantium was owned by someone else allied to Macedon, kinda like vanilla Roman families "blocking" each other. So in conclusion, I think the AI is a lot smarter than we think. It's just sometimes they know too much and we don't.

edit- Has anyone tried putting a land bridge connecting Sicily and Africa? Well no one builds ships anyway and the pros might outweigh the cons here. Honestly who here bought RTW for naval battles? Also I'm not sure if the "warning you're entering Sicily" script deters Rome AI from crossing but it should be looked at if we haven't.

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Originally Posted by Kevin

Instead, why not make the Romans have like 0 turn recruitment? :smash:

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It wouldn't help much from my experience (in my mod :laugh4:) :no: AI only schedules at most 3 units into the queue at the same time, and for some reason the queue is not always in use... The recruitment speed thus depends on the number of settlements, if money and populations are unlimited.


So they cannot be aggressive unless you give them like 20 regions..... :clown:

I've nary seen a ship as the Arche Seleukeia under alex. I have the run of the Eastern Mediterranean. Back in the day as Getai under BI iirc I saw fleets with massive armies ravaging the coasts of Italy and Greece. That said, in the AS alex campaign Epirus did reinvade Taras (and Romans reconquered) a while back, and Carthage is now currently in southern Italy.

As Romani, the 1st Punic War got pretty bloody with the Carthiginians ferrying full stacks of reformed units into Sicily one turn after another to contain me to Messana as I was iron-manning with high taxes only 10 unit size legions.

Funnily enough they also accepted peace after I took Sicily and Sardinia and Corsica away. :-D

I've seen a the Romans a bit weak playing as Carthage as well (BI .exe) but I can see how improving them would make them less interesting as a player faction...playing as Rome they have great manpower.

An aggressive Rome doesn't seem to be a problem for me. In all my four games they've steamrollered the Gauls by 35 years and have chased the Quarthadastim out of Iberia by 50.

I'm playing as Getai and as of right now I'm watching 6 almost full stacks march towards me.

I now must face them with Doryphoroi, Drapanai and Komatai (and a smattering of others).

I'm looking forward to the challenge but am annoyed at the recruitment methods of the AI. I find it hard to believe that the most common troops in the Roman army are the Pedites Extraordinarii and yet playing this game you'd assume that was the case.

Are there any mods that are out there doing as much historical accuracy (and game balance be damned) as possible? I'd rather face armies that matched history rather than had the elites forming the bulk of the forces.

In most games I played, Romans were recruiting armies that had 40% PE and 30% Triarii. I don't know why, because apparently no other faction saturates their armies with elites to such extent.

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Originally Posted by Marcus Ulpius

In most games I played, Romans were recruiting armies that had 40% PE and 30% Triarii. I don't know why, because apparently no other faction saturates their armies with elites to such extent.

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No the Romans are crazy in that respect, and annoying. But AS is almost as bad in my Roman games with many stacks being 50% leets.

Meh, the Qarthadastim are just as bad, if not worse.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

https://i131.photobucket.com/albums/...e1944/6072.jpg

They've been spamming full-stacks of Elite African Pikeman, Sacred Band Infantry/Cavalry, Elite Liby-Phoenician Infantry, Elite African Infantry, Iberian Assault Infantry, Iberian Heavy Infantry and elephants for nigh onto a decade now. They wiped out the Romani before I even conquered Ak-Ink, so I can't comment on Roman elite-spam.

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Originally Posted by Frontline1944

Meh, the Qarthadastim are just as bad, if not worse.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

https://i131.photobucket.com/albums/...e1944/6072.jpg

They've been spamming full-stacks of Elite African Pikeman, Sacred Band Infantry/Cavalry, Elite Liby-Phoenician Infantry, Elite African Infantry, Iberian Assault Infantry, Iberian Heavy Infantry and elephants for nigh onto a decade now. They wiped out the Romani before I even conquered Ak-Ink, so I can't comment on Roman elite-spam.

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Wow, quite insane Karthadast AI expansion by 186 BC