Seleucids got it all

[Red Harvest]

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.

[econ21]

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.

[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.

[Red Harvest]

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.

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.)

[CBR]

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.

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

[Red Harvest]

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

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.

[CBR]

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

[JeromeGrasdyke]

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

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.

[The Wizard]

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

[Leet Eriksson]

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.

[Oleander Ardens]

@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

[JeromeGrasdyke]

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

[ShadesPanther]

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

[AssasinsShadow]

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.

[Red Harvest]

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.

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.)

[Díaz de Vivar]

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.

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.

[Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe]

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

Louis,