force the composition of roman armies

[belliger]

hi all.
i write this both as a question, provocation, challenge etc.
about the composition of the republican roman armies, we all know that both the s.c. census & age were the main schemes to enlist a legion.
a republican legion couldn't have, let's say, 1200 triarii and 600 hastati.
there were cultural, political, and social reasons for that.
this is completely ignored by the RTW engine, as well as with EB.
i find funny that, if i have money and proper barracks i can, for example, enlist limitless cavalry units. or equites extraordinarii. guess that italy couldn't ever ground large cavalry armies....
as far as EB has the aim to represent the ancient watrfare as accurate as possible, i guess that the composition of the roman armies would be important.
so, is there /there will be the chance to inibite the enrolling of too many units of a single particular type? to make the enrolling more close to the social composition of the culture? the only way i found was to make the enrolling more difficult by giving more turns to enlist a unit. but still ...

cheers

[Skullheadhq]

hi all.
i write this both as a question, provocation, challenge etc.
about the composition of the republican roman armies, we all know that both the s.c. census & age were the main schemes to enlist a legion.
a republican legion couldn't have, let's say, 1200 triarii and 600 hastati.
there were cultural, political, and social reasons for that.
this is completely ignored by the RTW engine, as well as with EB.
i find funny that, if i have money and proper barracks i can, for example, enlist limitless cavalry units. or equites extraordinarii. guess that italy couldn't ever ground large cavalry armies....
as far as EB has the aim to represent the ancient watrfare as accurate as possible, i guess that the composition of the roman armies would be important.
so, is there /there will be the chance to inibite the enrolling of too many units of a single particular type? to make the enrolling more close to the social composition of the culture? the only way i found was to make the enrolling more difficult by giving more turns to enlist a unit. but still ...

cheers

It's possible with the M2TW engine.

[Ludens]

To give you the information Skullheadhq didn't, M2:TW uses recruitment pools: you can recruit multiple units of the same type in a single turn, but the pools require some time to replenish. The size and replenishment rate of the pool are determined by the buildings in a settlement and can be modified. Off course, this will not prevent a determined player from creating all-triarii armies, but it will make it more difficult. M2:TW also has the option to restrict the availability of unit types (say, elite phalanxes) to one per faction. I don't think the team will use this, though. If an empire gets big enough, it should be able to have multiple elite regiments.

[Mister V]

... And then there's the bit about EB being a game. There are different styles of play. Some people like to recreate history step by step, some (like me) prefer to take the given historical conditions and do whatever they want inside those rules (it's sort of an achievement in itself, surpassing the historical limitations). It is my belief (and surely not only mine) that in a game as open as TW the player should be given complete freedom inside the rigid structure of the mod.

Personally, I'm glad to hear the M2TW unit limitations will be used. For the team, it means representing historical conditions more accurately. For me, it means I'll feel a little more pride after making elite unit stacks and cherish my elites even more. For someone else, it means that they'll get their rules of historical reconstruction. Everybody wins, right? No need to force generic armies upon all players.

Since we're talking about this, just how flexible is that limit system? Does it put an overall unit cap, like in E:TW? Can you set in some file the number of turns it takes to replenish the unit pool? Does it work for the whole unit AoR at once? I'm sorry, didn't play M2 that much, didn't mod it at all, so I don't really know.

[antisocialmunky]

Do they have any practical artillery pieces this time around? :( It would be nice if the artillery meant for field deployment didn't slow the army down.