I thought I'd sling my pennies' worth in to the pot.

Yesterday I loaded the Total Realism 3.1 Mod by Gaius Julius. One of the changes it makes is to the size of archer units. (60 on Large instead of 80). When I read this it seemed to make more sense, particularly as this was the same in MTW. The other thing I realised was how dependent I had become on large numbers of archer units in my army creation. I had made a point of sending a spare family member to the greek city states to recruit 3-4 Cretan archers and then on to Scythia to grab a couple (at least) of horse archers.

I guess the point I am trying to make is this - if you are more into realism then drop the reliance on archer units. Combat in this time period was heavily reliant on infantry. Rome's military dominance was built on the effectiveness of her legions who were the best (overall!) heavy infantry of that period. It is really down to personal choice, so whatever tickles you is OK.

The size of archer units in Rome should be adjusted, in my opinion, to about two thirds, or smaller. A unit of 80 archers should not be able to destroy a 80 strong unit of say, armoured hoplites. It never happened back then. Missile troops played a supporting role to the real battle winners - the infantry. If archery units were really as effective as the game makes them do you think that Julius Ceasar, Pompeii, Marius and Sulla would not have adopted that into their military doctrine. These were the best Commanders of the First Republic and they relied on infantry, because that was how war was fought. Part of the reason was also because bow technology was not as advanced as some seem to think at that time.

Using the realism Mod 3.1 forced me to change my battle strategy. In this mod archer units are not available until after the Marian reforms. Instead, I have to make use of slingers which means putting them out in front of my main battle line (composed mostly, now, of Infantry cohorts) and relying on my infantry to slug it out. It is only my opinion, but I found it much more satisfying winning with infantry and not relying as heavily on archer units to shred advancing enemy formations. The other advantage to this new strategy is that I now rely much more on my cohorts to make better use of their pilum (again, this is far more historical). This mod has had tweaks to the effectiveness of javelin and other thrown missile stats making them more effective.

For anyone interested in a more historical battle experience, jog over to the TW Centre forum and have a peek at the R:TR Mod 3.1. I would recomend it.

However, realism is not everybody's style. If watching one of your archer units slaughter one of the AI's prime units toots your horn then that's fine. We all have our own playing styles. Me, I go for realism and that's because I have been a long time admirer of the Roman legions and this game is exactly what I've been waiting for since I first played games on a PC.