Seleucids got it all

i know something like this has been disscussed before but I wanted to bring it up to point something out. Name all the strengths of the civilized factions, then asked what is it of those factions that the seleucids don't have. Hopolites (and three different kinds no less), elephants (All three types), chariots, legionaries, COMPANION CAV, Militia Cav (which are almost the exact same thing as Numidian mercinaries) and Cataphracts. Rome has been compltely jipped on alot of this stuff, and the roman units are far weaker than expected. WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?

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Originally Posted by Kagetora

i know something like this has been disscussed before but I wanted to bring it up to point something out. Name all the strengths of the civilized factions, then asked what is it of those factions that the seleucids don't have. Hopolites (and three different kinds no less), elephants (All three types), chariots, legionaries, COMPANION CAV, Militia Cav (which are almost the exact same thing as Numidian mercinaries) and Cataphracts. Rome has been compltely jipped on alot of this stuff, and the roman units are far weaker than expected. WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?

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Yeah Selucids pwn - they have every fricking thing other factions have! I mean..... SERIOUSL!!HIOP

Maybe they'll hassve some kinf of loyalty penalty wehere theer have super disloyal generals ~:rolleyes:

Yup, I noticed the strength of the Seleucids. As an SP player, I don't see any reason for the factions to be balanced. One of the fun things about the MTW game is the variety of unit line ups and strategic positions - choosing certain factions is like varying the difficulty level. If the Seleucids had that line up historically, fine. But I agree it is hard to detect any weakness there.

I've always thought that it may be hard for TW to capture the strength of the Roman army, with its emphasis on the legionnaire. They risk resembling the Almohads in Total War - good sword armed infantry and little else.

Your other post about getting the double punch of the legionnaires is important point though.

I must agree with Simon, although I think it should be balanced in a way. I feel that their should be weaker and stronger factions but not to the point that it is impossibleto beat the strong ones, just alot harder.

A lot of the units you mention are further up the tech tree, and so compete with relatively tough roman units like the Principes and Triarii. The Roman weakness in terms of elephants is compensated by earlier access to siege artillery - ballistae and scorpions in particular, which have one-shot kills on most things on the battlefield, although they're a bit ponderous to use. But even so, the Roman factions are really on an even footing with the Greeks, Macedonians and Seleucids prior to the Marius event.

When Marius does come along and the Legionary units become available, Roman infantry starts to kick ass. They're not what you'd call one-sided though - there are decent missile and cavalry units available, although to get top quality in those departments you'll have to hire mercenaries in the right places, as you might expect looking at historical events.

Interestingly the Seleucids are one of the tougher factions to play at the start, because they are in contact with quite a few other factions and they hold some very desireable territory.

Thanks for the info Jerome :bow:

As far as I've seen there are some gamplay-wise very promising units beside the "mulii Mariani", especially the Aux Cav looks very good. I love javelin-throwing medium cavalry and they promise to be good indeed...

Infact all the Aux. range seems to support the Legions pretty well gameplay-wise; Artillery should help to increase the firepower of Rome, and some well-chosen mercs could give you some great options...

Cheers

OA

Yeah the Selcuids will probably be like the Germans in MTW, everyone attacking them at once. And all there units will probably be lesser versions, like their cataphracts are weaker than Parthians, their Companions worse than Macedonia, etc.

well i think the selucids well be the jack of all trades and master of none so i may well like them a lot.

Thanks for the info, Jerome.

Can you give us any insight on how Roman armies will be raised in different periods? Is it standard TW style or something novel: for instance, might you be able to raise an entire legion "at once" but over several turns? I could see this making some sense, so that we end up having balanced Roman style armies, with other auxilaries trained or hired separately (to get some archer support, or cavalry, etc.) Otherwise the tendency would to be build all triarii (or hastati, etc.) based armies. Individually the triarii could make for an interesting unit to train...since perhaps they should be produced only from veteran principes or something like that--maybe a principes unit that has been around for X turns could be retrained...or you could move troops from a veteran principes to a partial triarii to fill out the units. Same could be true for velites to hastati, and hastati to principes. It would make for an interesting way of "promoting" individuals in an historical sense.

Red Harvest, what you suggest sounds good but I suspect units will be built in the usual way - piecemeal.

Actually, it may work ok as it is - for example, from the demo, it looks like the hastati, principes and triari are nicely differentiated. The hastati are classified as "light" and as such seem to have an edge against elephants. The principes are a little bit better attack than the hastati, while the triari are worse at attacking but are better at holding off cav.

When we get to the Marian period, presumably spear armed auxiliaries of some sort will be required to replace the triari.

I wouldn't say the Triarii are worse. Because they use spears, they will have rank bonuses. The rank bonuses were significant in MTW and they will likely be significant as well in Rome given all the elite spear using units in Rome. Also, they have higher morale and we don't know how much higher.

On the other hand, the Roman stats look underpowered. The Poeni Infantry in the demo have better stats than the Triarii and I think the stats listed are the base stats. There might be something else we don't know but I was really underwhelmed by the stats of the Roman units.

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Originally Posted by Red Harvest

Can you give us any insight on how Roman armies will be raised in different periods?

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The training is done in the standard Total War style, and the tech trees are simpler than Medieval - generally troops are built by one building, although buildings do sometimes need more than one other building before they become available. We did experiment with plugins for buildings and unit inheritance chains, but it felt a little 'niggly' to play and meant you had to spend a lot of time micromanaging it, away from the meat-and-drink of the game - the battles - which meant it got dropped.

But the main thing preventing all-Triarii armies is the fact that they're not a good idea; as with most units in TW, they have their nemesis as well, in decent non-spear infantry. So in the end the best army makeup is one with a good mix of troop categories, with the highest quality you can manage in each category - pre-Marius that would be Velites for skirmishing, Archers and Ballistae for missiles, Princeps for main infantry and Triarii as spearmen, with some Equites to provide cavalry support.

The way the Marius event works is through a dual tech tree - when the event comes along, a whole bunch of units are made obsolete, and their places in the tech tree are taken by legionary ones instead. Legions are raised a cohort at a time, and first cohorts are awarded by the Senate as rewards for completing tasks.

I would have to note that the 'imitation legionary' unit should be available not only to the Seleucids, but also the Galatians (Asiatic Gauls), Illyrians, and generally every faction in the game which used these units historically. I beleive these imitations were used before the reforms, based on the hastati or princepes.



~Wiz

The seleucids are probably good at all master of non type of faction, they have all the units but most of them are lesser versions of other factions units.

@Wizard: I saw already Armenian "Legions" in an screenshot, an observation which is also underlined by the fact that I saw them enlisted in the unitfiles posted here some time ago...

Here is a link: http://www.mybistro.us/rtw/albums/us...nap0001198.jpg

Don't know about other "imitation legionary" in RTW, sorry;


@Jerome said: "Legions are raised a cohort at a time, and first cohorts are awarded by the Senate as rewards for completing tasks."

Good to know, I already wondered who would bother to recruit simple cohorts when the similar but better first cohorts have seemingly the same tech level. This solves it. BTW have this cohorts double-strengh? Wouldn't seem too OP, since they are a gift ~;)

Cheers

OA

Not sure if they're exactly double, but they're both tougher and larger, and also bestow a morale bonus on nearby troops.

JeromeGrasdyke: are the imitation legionaires weaker than the original or are they the same stats except for maybe slightly less morale?

To me, it seems the Seleucids will be somewhat like the HRE in M:TW. A mentioned above, the Seleucids come into contact with alot of other factions early on, which could make life difficult, esp. if they have the larger land-based empire that I've been told they have.

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Originally Posted by andrewt

I wouldn't say the Triarii are worse. Because they use spears, they will have rank bonuses. The rank bonuses were significant in MTW and they will likely be significant as well in Rome given all the elite spear using units in Rome. Also, they have higher morale and we don't know how much higher.

On the other hand, the Roman stats look underpowered. The Poeni Infantry in the demo have better stats than the Triarii and I think the stats listed are the base stats. There might be something else we don't know but I was really underwhelmed by the stats of the Roman units.

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I've tested the units in the demo with equivalent experience levels. The triarii were better than either the hastati or principes head to head. In fact, the triarii were roughly an even match with 60 men vs. 100 man hastati/principes units.

The poeni infantry are slightly better than triarii head to head with the same unit size (worse with the smaller poeni unit size in the demo.) This looks historically correct. Triarii have inferior weapons compared to a phalanx (shorter spears.) The phalanx has a longer spear point reach and therefore more punch. However, this is offset by the mobility and flanking problems of the phalanx. Hastati and principes are both noticeably weaker at the same settings--head to head, with same unit sizes. However, this also fits the historical interpretation I get from reading about battles. Phalanx did not suffer many casualties unless they were flanked or broken. Unfortunately for them, they were very vulnerable to being flanked, so while on paper they were stronger, their lack of flexibilty made them weaker in the field.

The Roman units are quite strong compared to other infantry, and they have good mobility and flexibility.

As has been pointed out in several threads, the stats shown in the unit display do not seem to match the base stats in the demo very well. For example, if you believed the stats for Roman units the principes would be strongest followed by hastati then triarii. In fact, when testing I found this to be 100% backward. The triarii were noticeably stronger, and the principes would break slightly before the hastati. We have no idea what the demo stats refer to, but I'm absolutely convinced they are not the base stats of the units in the demo (unless the attack figure is really a reciprocal figure...because the effect is inverted.)

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Originally Posted by JeromeGrasdyke

The training is done in the standard Total War style, and the tech trees are simpler than Medieval - generally troops are built by one building, although buildings do sometimes need more than one other building before they become available. We did experiment with plugins for buildings and unit inheritance chains, but it felt a little 'niggly' to play and meant you had to spend a lot of time micromanaging it, away from the meat-and-drink of the game - the battles - which meant it got dropped.

But the main thing preventing all-Triarii armies is the fact that they're not a good idea; as with most units in TW, they have their nemesis as well, in decent non-spear infantry. So in the end the best army makeup is one with a good mix of troop categories, with the highest quality you can manage in each category - pre-Marius that would be Velites for skirmishing, Archers and Ballistae for missiles, Princeps for main infantry and Triarii as spearmen, with some Equites to provide cavalry support.

The way the Marius event works is through a dual tech tree - when the event comes along, a whole bunch of units are made obsolete, and their places in the tech tree are taken by legionary ones instead. Legions are raised a cohort at a time, and first cohorts are awarded by the Senate as rewards for completing tasks.

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Thanks for the reply. I am pleased to hear that CA experimented with the unit inheritance a bit, even if it didn't fit into the eventual game model. Some of this could get rather complex, and I could see it being challenging to program a good rule set for the AI to manage it. (First thing I did in every campaign in MTW/VI was turn off the automatic re-organization of armies after battle so I could shuffle the remants to get the best armour/weapons and best commanders, while at the same time getting rid of individuals with bad vices.)

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Originally Posted by Red Harvest

As has been pointed out in several threads, the stats shown in the unit display do not seem to match the base stats in the demo very well. For example, if you believed the stats for Roman units the principes would be strongest followed by hastati then triarii. In fact, when testing I found this to be 100% backward. The triarii were noticeably stronger, and the principes would break slightly before the hastati.

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I tried 50 battles and princepes won 43 against the hastati. Thats done on medium difficulty. Triarii might have lower stats but there is some kind of rank support involved.


CBR

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Originally Posted by CBR

I tried 50 battles and princepes won 43 against the hastati. Thats done on medium difficulty. Triarii might have lower stats but there is some kind of rank support involved.


CBR

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Which mod did you try? Did you try it from both sides (for/against)? I used easymod and manually set things so that they should have been 1 experience, and 1 armour, 0 weapon. Every time I used principes I found them more prone to break early. Sometimes they were killing a bit better, but their morale seemed to fail just before the hastati (they might tire a bit more rapidly, that could cause it.) It was close, but the principes were less reliable. When I tried combo armies with 1 hastati, 1 principe, 1 triarii vs. various other armies, the principe was the "canary." If a unit failed, it was them. Same when I opposed them. It is possible that different armour or experience levels (or weapons) could move this around I suppose. I would rank both units very close in quality, but would pick the hastati.

I took 25 battles playing the Princepes and 25 with the Hastati. When I played the Hastati I won 4 and with the Princepes the Hastati won 3

I use ModRome to make the battles and gave no upgrades at all. Most battles had few survivors on the losing side so I didnt feel morale was a problem.


CBR

For the guys at CA:

After the Marius event, will you still be able to get the other pre marius units?

Also, how many provences are there?

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Originally Posted by JeromeGrasdyke

We did experiment with plugins for buildings and unit inheritance chains, but it felt a little 'niggly' to play and meant you had to spend a lot of time micromanaging it, away from the meat-and-drink of the game - the battles - which meant it got dropped.

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It worries me a bit. For me it´s more important the strategic layer than the battles. The tec tree is simpler than MTW, bad news. ~:(

Curious to see what will be available to Seleucids in MP...

Louis,

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Originally Posted by Caporegime1984

After the Marius event, will you still be able to get the other pre marius units? Also, how many provences are there?

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No, after the Marius event it becomes impossible to train old-style units. The Imperial Campaign is about 90 regions, while the Prologue is on a seperate campaign map with about 10 regions.

Prolouge????????? What do you mean by prolouge???? Its not like in MTW when 1230 comes around and everything goes from feudal to chivalric!!!

i think he is talking about the tutorial. the one that takes you through unification/conquest of italy

CONQUEST OF ITALY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OOOOOOOOOHH, that sounds like alot of fun.

What I want to know is if one can retrain the Hastati/Principes/Triarii legionaires into post-marian legionaires or if one is stuck with the old Legions once the Marian reform takes place.

It will probably be like what you did with royal knights in MTW when there was a period change,

e.x. with VI, by the year 1206, all the royal knight units were upgraded in the training parchment to their haevier while on the Camp map, I still had a bunch of the old ones, so all I did was retrain these units of Royal knights from the old Early Period, and they came out as royal knights of the High Period.

Now wait a minute.

In MTW, the Egyptians and Turks had so many more units between them, but this did not make them unstoppable. They were in fairly weak positions (maybe not the Turks, but the Egyptians definately were in no position for expansion) and since most of the Egyptian and Turkish provinces were in the desert, they were weak in terms of development.

In MTW, I particularly liked the thing that you have to work very hard to get a certain type of unit (i.e. I spent ages on Italians not for the conquest, but simply for Gothic Knights). I'm sure that CA haven't forgotten to do this in RTW. (this isn't the case in many mods either, so I don't like playing them much either) The Seleucids will have loads of cool stuff they have to work hard for, but they don't have any of the stuff the Parthians have (cataphract camels, horse archers with Parthian Shot). Don't judge how good the factions are just from unit profiles.

The faction with the best economy is always the one that is dangerous not the one that can build most diverse units, anyways thats how i see it ~;p

The Selucids just were smart. They copied the best military units and tactics, which obviously gave them a advantage. They're probably going to be like HRE. The HRE had access to the a lot of good units which others couldn't build and had rich provinces. But they had a lot of internal problems. It's probably going to be the same.

The Egyptians in MTW were easy to win with. They had superb provinces. Egypt/Flanders/Constantinople are the best individual provinces I can think of at the moment. The provinces along the mid-east coast were excellent, and Syria could bring in a very good income as well and Edessa was no slouch. All you really had to do was prevent early simultaneous war with BOTH Turks and Almohads, then crush one of the two. I always chose to crush the Turks first so that I could bet rid of the problem of Syria. I usually left the Almohads to fight the Spanish and suffer the pope's wrath. Once the Turks were gone, it was time for the Byz. With both Egypt and Constantinople, and being in the corner of the map, the Egyption faction was ready to roll. There were usually some set backs, but little real threat of losing.

Flanders? You missed out Aragon and Wessex, mate.

Venice and Genoa as well

Not all factions should be balanced equally, theres supposed to be stronger factions then others just like in MTW, its always a challenge to play with the weaker factions and its just as fun to play with a strong faction aswell.
I hope they didend make the seleucid units weaker then other just to balance the factions out, thats just lame.