Quote Originally Posted by Red Harvest
Recruit representative armies, not units
Ditto. This is at the at the top of my list. It would be nice if this also enforced some sort of army coherency, requiring a general to actually move an army. You would need to have an option to promote a captain to a general (without adopting him, mind) but with a limit on the number of non-family generals (say 1 pr. army barracks + 1 for the capital).

Also, give the player some measure of control over army reforms. Say, whenever you get a family member elected as consul, or have a particularly nice string of victories, you could try to change the "standard" army and re-equip your troops, with the senate's approval of course. A reform along the lines of "yeah, all ownagers, all the time, baby!" should of course have a smaller chance of being approved than a less radical proposal. Yes, I know this is hard to implement, but I think the game should have more politics in general. It's frustrating to see your family members rise in the senatorial ranks, without getting to use their newfound powers for anything.

Also, it should be possible to raise a full army in 6 months, within the usual constraints of man-power and funds. The romans did it, so why can't we?

Of course, such an army would be completely green and much less effective than veterans. I think the whole experience system needs re-jigging too. As it is, troop type is much more important than experience, and this didn't seem to be the case historically. Veterans should be more flexible in between the different roles, cf. the carthaginians re-arming their more experienced troops in legionary style and the macedonians using the argyraspids for more than simply better phalangites.

Also, give armies the ability to march along roads in friendly territory, and between friendly ports, without using movement points. It is unrealistic that it takes several years to shift your forces from one theater to another.
You could separate such "instant" marches into a separate movement phase, taking place after normal movement, to prevent players from invading enemy lands with an army from across the empire. Forcing "instant" marches to stop at borders would give the enemy some time to prepare against hostile build-up of forces, if they paid attention to their borders. Alternatively, you could allow armies to "teleport" between forts, cities and ports in friendly territory, as long as you could draw an uninterrupted line between the two, and let a "teleport" cost 100% movement points.

Finally, draw a line between field armies and garrisons. Historically, armies didn't hang around long in cities, as the generals didn't trust the soldiers to keep their hands off the civilians and their goods. Instead, they manned forts out in the sticks, where the battles were actually fought. Garrisons should be a city upgrade, like walls and other defensive structures.

All these changes to armies only apply to roman factions and others who actually had standing armies. It would be nice to see a levy system in place for the barbarian factions. Each warlord could have a small number of "chosen" units as a sort of retinue. You could then choose to levy more troops by choosing that warlord, paying a raising fee and clicking a button. What you get when you click that button depends on the v&v's of the warlord and the upgrades in the province he's in. Take your chance!
Such levied armies would probably disintegrate again on defeat (or complete success!) but particularly charismatic and powerful warlords would be able to maintain their armies for longer before they had to click the "levy" button again, and their retinue would of course increase in size with victory and success.

Just a few suggestions. Sorry about the length.