Stats of Cohors Evocata?

[Revenant]

So, I asked this question in FAQ section and because nobody answered me yet, maybe I will have more luck here:

Are the stats of Cohors Evocata still the same as of Cohors Reformata in EB 1.1, like it was in EB 1.0?

I am now in the middle of my 1.0 campaign, so I do not want to download and install the new version until I will finish this campaign.

[Watchman]

No.

[Revenant]

Thanks.

And how were their stats changed?

[Watchman]

Better armoured than the common Cohorts what with those greaves (although that's nothing new IIRC), and Veteran base scores instead of Regular.

[Revenant]

nice

[Lysimachos]

Don't know if this is a new idea:
The evocata are basically experienced Legionaries, they have no special training or something like that, right? How about giving them the same basic stats as the ordinary reformed cohort but give newly recruited units of cohors evocata some chevrons, so the real difference between the ordinary and the evocata will be the experience? As it is not possible to promote units to other types i think this would be the most authentic simulation, wouldn't it?

[Watchman]

Eh, they're not exactly just "experienced" - they're veterans who've completed the full "tour of duty" and been honorably discharged, and who have elected to re-enlist. Apparently their duties and so on also differed from the common troopers, partly on account of their age too of course.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Uh huh, your basic legionary is a grunt with about three months training, a Republican Veteran would have up to twenty years under his belt, which might only make him 38 or so. Republican legions weren't fixed formations though so that age of Evocatae and there evperience might differ quite a bit.

[Lysimachos]

Eh, they're not exactly just "experienced" - they're veterans who've completed the full "tour of duty" and been honorably discharged, and who have elected to re-enlist. Apparently their duties and so on also differed from the common troopers, partly on account of their age too of course.

I know the evocati had some additional duties and privileges, a higher chance of becoming a centurio and so on. By "basically experienced legionaries" i meant to say, in battle they fight in the same way as every other legionary did. They had no special combat training but the experience of those years in service.

Uh huh, your basic legionary is a grunt with about three months training, a Republican Veteran would have up to twenty years under his belt, which might only make him 38 or so. Republican legions weren't fixed formations though so that age of Evocatae and there evperience might differ quite a bit.

Every evocatus once has been such a "grunt with about three month training" you mention.
And still is he and his unit using the same style of fighting and tactics in combat. Because of this i supposed the difference of the combat value of an evocatus and an ordinary legionary would be the experience which in RTW is represented by the chevrons the unit gets. In this line of thought a cohors consisting only of evocati would be a cohors with several chevrons (and i'm quite sure a unit which can be recruited with some experience is technically possible in RTW).

It's just been an idea, but after all i don't know how you calculate the unit stats and i'm no one to tell somebody what to do with his mod so just forget this, if you want to

[stupac]

Sounds to me like the Cohors Evocata would be the closest thing to an elite unit in the republic in this time period. Shouldn't the stats reflect it, though I suppose age might cause a bit of balance in these stats (maybe just lower stamina)? But I guess the problem is balancing cost and ability, because realistically they wouldn't cost that much more, but their availability would certainly be limited. Didn't the marian reforms also include land grants to retired soldiers? So if I'm not mistaken the Evocata would have already received their land? Then couldn't the cost of that land grant factor into their recruitment and upkeep costs? In my opinion, I feel that the Evocata should have stats to reflect maybe a unit of Cohors Reformata with something like 3 chevrons, that would be 15 attack, 12 defense skill, versus 12 attack, 9 defense skill. But less stamina and much higher cost, maybe 1000 mnai more than Reformata to train. Just my dos centavos.

[Parallel Pain]

Wait did the Evocati get their own cohorts in history?

[Lysimachos]

Wait did the Evocati get their own cohorts in history?

I think they usually won't, but i remember that sometimes when a commander called to arms (for example in a civil war) huge numbers of evocati who have formerly served under his command joined his legions. I'd suspect that this could result in pure cohortes evocata.
But i know nothing for sure, i'm no expert on that, it's just what i can recall from something i once read.

[Darth Stalin]

Well, can anyone explain why there are Evocatae in Marian period, but there aren't Evocatae in Augustan period?
I think I know why, but just want to be sure... (IMHO 'cause the Augustan legions were proffessionalunits with fixed, long-term service of 16 up to 25 years, so the "ordinary" Augustan legionaries could be as trained and experienced as Evocati were... and Evocati apperaed during grim years of civil wars, when they provied quite substantial part of legions formed by the pretendents struggling for absolute powre over Roman Republic... - like Octavianus forming legions from Caesar's legionaries...

[Macilrille]

Uh huh, your basic legionary is a grunt with about three months training, a Republican Veteran would have up to twenty years under his belt, which might only make him 38 or so. Republican legions weren't fixed formations though so that age of Evocatae and there evperience might differ quite a bit.

This is not exactly right as far as I know.

In the Republic the army was a citizen militia, the average service time was 6 years in the last 100 or so years of the Republic (see Brunt, 1971), and often Legionaires would expect to be discharged after those six years. How that translates into an average Legionaire being a grunt with three months training I most respectfully cannot see.

Evocati were legionaires who re-enlisted in the Republic. When the Imperial army was established it would be a special corps of troops at each legion who had served their alloted 16/20 years (according to date) and who would then serve another 4/5 years at the legion (for a total of 20/25), but be extempt from camp duties (no digging latrines for veterans).

[jhhowell]

For those suggesting that the Evocata should just be Reformata with chevrons, I believe there are three reasons that's not what the EB team did. First - Evocata get more armor (the greaves), and experience chevrons only increase the skill component of defense. Second - region, Evocata are only available in Italy where they were granted land upon retirement. If they were just a type of Reformata, they could be retrained in Gaul or Asia or wherever, just like regular Reformata. Third, unit size. Evocata are 160 man cohorts, Reformata are 200 man cohorts. Presumably this is to partly reflect the much smaller recruitment pool, not all of whom would be willing to return to the legions.

Basically Cohors Evocata = Polybian Principes with one experience chevron. As such, that's exactly what I used for the Evocata slot in my first fifteen or so Marian legions.

In EB terms, the Antesignani are the most elite Roman unit in the Marian period. Evocata would be a fairly close second. My legions set up with those two and the Prima Cohors forming the reserve. Antesignani are the only reserve unit commonly committed to battle unless the fight is really difficult, though (Antesignani can retrain at the nearest MIC4, Prima Cohors and Evocati would have to go back to Rome or Italy instead).

Also, cost arguments are meaningless for Marian or Imperial Romans. You'd have to raise the recruitment and upkeep costs to artillery levels before the treasury would even notice.

[Lysimachos]

For those suggesting that the Evocata should just be Reformata with chevrons, I believe there are three reasons that's not what the EB team did. First - Evocata get more armor (the greaves), and experience chevrons only increase the skill component of defense. Second - region, Evocata are only available in Italy where they were granted land upon retirement. If they were just a type of Reformata, they could be retrained in Gaul or Asia or wherever, just like regular Reformata. Third, unit size. Evocata are 160 man cohorts, Reformata are 200 man cohorts. Presumably this is to partly reflect the much smaller recruitment pool, not all of whom would be willing to return to the legions.

Ah, those days, when this thread was still young!

I never suggested to use Cohors Reformata with Chevrons for Evocata, but to give the Evocata the skill values of the common cohort and make them recruitable with a few chevrons. Following my idea there still would be two different unit types, which could also use slightly different equipment, different AoR, different size, etc. It was just an idea to get their skill values in line with the regular cohorts, based on the assumption that - regarding their combat proficiency - evocata are just experienced legionaries.

Just to make that clear, not to revive the question.

[bobbin]

It's a good point, but why give them the extra chevrons to represent experience when you could just increase their attack, defence skill and morale stats in the EDU unit entry? It seems a rather long winded way to achieve the same result.

[Lysimachos]

It's a good point, but why give them the extra chevrons to represent experience when you could just increase their attack, defence skill and morale stats in the EDU unit entry? It seems a rather long winded way to achieve the same result.

Because I thought it would be appropriate if a regular legionary and an evocatus who both have seen everything possible (in a manner of speaking; i.e. 9 experience) have the same skill stats, considering that the evocatus doesn't have special "Evocati-training", but simply has more campaigns under his belt, while regular legionaries might "catch up" in experience through a more demanding tour of duty.
As it is now, the evocatus will stay superior when both reach the summit of their capability.
That applies to elite units too, of course, but these distinguish through actually having a different background in training and - not to forget - selection, which the evocati don't have compared to first time enlisted legionaries.

In reality, their fighting skill might even have deteriorated, not only because of leaving behind the flower of their years, but also because they had some privileges (e.g. having an own horse, etc.) that could result in "sissyfying" but that would go to far

[jhhowell]

Ah, sorry, I missed the necromancy! Just skimmed the earlier dates and saw they started with "04"...

That is an interesting point. Currently evocata have stats of 1xp reformata, plus the armor bonus for the greaves. So to make sense in the extremely unlikely event that units reach 9xp, evocata should lose one point of attack and defense skill, and have 1xp when recruited to keep the stats the same. Should be pretty easy to mod the EDU (or EDB?) for someone who knows what they're doing (not me). I know other mods sometimes start units with varying numbers of xp to reflect that elites have so much less room for improvement than barely trained militia.

Sort of a moot point though. IIRC I've only had generals reach the full 9xp, and the only regular units to see 8xp were horse archers, and I think a few foot archers in frequently attacked cities. Never got line infantry above 3-4xp.

[bobbin]

Yeah i rarely ever have gold chevron infantry, Missed the necromancy also, I was wondering what you were all on about till i realised the first post was nearly a year old!

Also regarding the sissyfying i wonder if the total war series will ever model experience realistically and have it decay over time to represent the old veterans retiring from the unit.

Perhaps you could have tiered system where it would take say 5-10 years of inactivity to drop down a chevron but longer (maybe 40-50) to drop a level from gold to silver or silver to bronze to model the fresh recruits benifiting from the advice of the older vets.

[Lysimachos]

Well, the 9 chevrons are rather an example, the principle of the idea was same number of chevrons = same experience level = same fighting skill. But it's not really that important

[Revenant]

You called me back from my grave !



What I did when I have played the previous version of EB as Romani, I simply upgraded Evocata to be trained with one chevron.

They still were the same unit, basically the same as Reformatae, but everywhere they were raised with more experience straight from the box.

I left the price and upkeep of course, so I had a supply of slightly better legionnaries in Italy.

It worked fine.

Rev

[Starforge]

You called me back from my grave !




Rev

Rather appropriate given the name I would say