Quote Originally Posted by tommh
Apparently someone sold him on the idea that Roman Generals shouldnt have cavalry bodyguards.

Its really a baseless opinion and all it does is serve to make the Roman generals less mobile than other factions.

Generals are of the Equestrian class after all. Some of the other changes are pretty dubious


This irks me. Your opinion, being based on as stated nil experience with the mod and a complet adsence of knowlege as to the arguments involved is the one that is baseless.

Very briefly:

Roman armies did not feild effective Heavy cavalry throughout this period. At the approx rate of 1 man in the game being approx 15 men in reality the ROman General units represent complety unrealistic masses of HC and give the ROmans a completly unrealistic force structure.

Roman Generals (acually consuls and proconsuls with the occasional legate) were not of the Equestrian class but were of the Senatorial class. They were not placed at the head of cavalry forces ( a role filled by the Equestrian prefects) and did not lead massive cavalry charges (this was the Macedonian tradition). TO have them in this role is very unrealistic.

To the extent that Roman generals had a 'official' bodyguard unit, that unit was infantry. Their are numerous examples of this. Thier is no examples from history of Roman companion style HC charges by Roman Generals from this period.

Roman commanders only rarely engaged inc combat themselves. When they did they frequently engaged on foot (for example J. Ceasar) although their a few examples of them engaging on foot (although these are almost always examples of Devotio).

A case could be made for making the Generals equites and reducing or eliminating the production of equites in the early game. This would be a reasonable approach as well but runs into the "suicide General" problem. One advantage of infantry generals is that they do not suicide charge. This also means that attempts to make the General purely a command unit will also fall.

Overall, the Generals unit has to serve too competing purposes, a actual command unit, rallying troops etc, and a effective battlefield unit. While having them be cav served the first moderatly well it made Roman play unrealistic and less fun. Having to acctually play with the historic Roman weakness in cavalry makes the game both more realist and more challenging.
I would think that having an infantry general would increase the chances of the general being killed during a rout. The AI routs a lot, so the attrition on its generals would be very heavy.