Marian Reforms

[m4rt14n]

Anyone succesfully get the Marian Reforms yet?
I have no idea when the date for it post patch. It's been really painful slogging away in Egypt with Hastatis/Principes....

[vs the world]

I believe the 1.2 date is 220bc?

[fret]

The earliest they can happen is 220BC, I think the requirement for triggering is now to build an Imp Palace on the Italian Peninsular - although I havent confirmed that yet myself, i just read it somewhere.

[Catiline]

Anyone succesfully get the Marian Reforms yet?
I have no idea when the date for it post patch. It's been really painful slogging away in Egypt with Hastatis/Principes....

Sounds like a great improvement. My triarii took a real battering against the Greeks last night

[Akka]

Yep, had it.

Around 210-200 BC.

[Flatulus Maximus]

Hello guys, I just thought I'd jump in here if you don't mind the intrusion. The Marian reforms are tied to development of your largest city and not to any time period specifically, though I suppose that growth would coincide with the approximate time periods you suggested.

Being the curious soul that I am, I've used the population, money & build cheat to discover the temple benefits for the various cultures. I was doing this with the Scippio when on the (first) turn I got the Marius reform, just after I built the largest Scriptorium. I'm not sure if it was the Scriptorium or the number of advanced buildings in the city but I rang the bell on turn one...

[Ellesthyan]

Flatulus, was this before or after the patch? It shouldn't happen before 220 BC...

[Claudius Maniacus Sextus]

this is A hard blow to romans!!!

it happens at 220BC

[Old Celt]

I found in a response from CA staff on another website, the required conditions for the Marius reforms:

Build an Imperial Palace on the Italian Peninsula.

The reform cannot take place until at least 220 BC.


That's it.

[fret]

Regarding those conditions, does anyone know if Patavium s considered to be on the peninsular?

[Akka]

What does happen if all the italian cities already have an imperial palace by 220 ?

[Flatulus Maximus]

Ellesthyan, I found this to be the case before the 1.2 patch. In truth I haven't even patched yet. From all I'm reading I should though.

[hundurinn]

Strange. I built an Imperial Palace around 220 BC. in Italia as Bruti and the reform didn't happed until 196 BC.

[NightStar]

I'm playing as the Julii and I just got the Marian reforms 220 bc. I hadn't even built the imperial palace yet....some other fellow roman helped me with that. I am having great fun playing with the 1.2 patch, the romans don't steamroller everyone now. The Brutii are taking a beating and the Thracians and Macedonians have been slowly taking over their cities, the Scipii have just taken Carthage but haven't advanced further into africa.

As the Julii I have been fighting against the Spanish, Britons and Gauls and it has been kind of a stalemate. The Marius reforms will help me get on the offensive again. It has been fun fighting stacks of chosen swordsmen, bull warriors and chariots with mostly Hastati and Principes, especially now after the secondary weapon bug has been fixed.

[m4rt14n]

Sometimes I want my old uber legions back....

ah well. They should at least come up with different time periods. I hate to wait until 220 BC to do some serious ass kicking.

Anyone finds that Britain is now impossible to beat with auto-solving? I had to lead all my battles now as the Scipii to gain any of their cities... even with 10:1 advantage and on M/M.

[Octavius Julius]

I think the idea of building an imperial palace to trigger a Marian reform is stupid. In reality, the Marian reforms happened about 100 bc.

I think the trigger should be that if one of your family (or other Roman family) is called Marius, and he has won a few "epic" battles, then there should be a Marian reform. What's the point having a Marian reform if you have a huge temple?

[Kaldhore]

Maybe it was in the halls a a huge temple or walking the corridors of the imperial palace that he found the inspiration (or the courage) to propose the changes.....

[Sinner]

Octavius, judging by a commented out entry in the events file it seems that the original intention was that the Reforms would be date triggered, just like the plagues in Macedon, etc.

I would presume that playtesting showed that campaigns were often being finished long before the required trigger date, so they had to come up with a new idea, one that would allow the player to experience the benefits of the reform without being too easy to acquire.

Unfortunately - or fortunately, depending upon your point of view - the use of the Imperial Palace as the trigger is open to what some might consider abuse of the spirit of the game. I've read strategies that will boost the population of a city to the required 24000 in just 8 or 9 turns as an extreme example.

The idea of linking the reforms to battle results is a good one . I wouldn't require it to be a leader with the surname of Marius, but any that had achieved a certain status, whether it be number of heroic victories, epic battles and/or command stars. Personally, I think it'd be a nice touch to see the Reforms event crediting your general after some massive victory, I'd find it would really add to the immersion factor.

While I like the post-patch method of limiting the reforms to being triggered only at an Italian city, I would have prefered to have the earliest date configurable rather than being fixed at 220BC. Extending that, I would have added a latest date as well, which forces the event even if the Romans haven't been able to build an Imperial Palace, and perhaps even being able to set what building or buildings are the trigger, including allowing none at all so that only the date has an effect.

Unfortunately, the game is written and we won't be seeing anymore changes. The expansion will likely concentrate on the new setting, presumably long after the historical reforms, so we'll just have to play with what we've got.

[Akka]

The date is NOT fixed at 220 BC. I had my Marius reform some years later. It's most probably fixed at a certain event, with 220 BC being the SOONEST it can happens.

[Sinner]

Umm, that's why I said 'earliest date'. Post-patch the requirements for the reforms are to build an Imperial Palace in an Italian, with the date 220BC or later. So the earliest allowable date is 220BC, and it is fixed since we cannot mod that date.

[Akka]

Sorry, I mis-read your previous post into something quite different. Consider I've said nothing ^^

[Quillan]

If you dig into the data files, you'll find there is now a "hidden resources italy". All the provinces on the Italian peninsula have this resource, and yes, that includes Mediolanium and Patavium. Since no units require that resource to be built, I assume it's there for the Reforms trigger. There's also a "hidden resources rome", but it's in there for the First Cohorts. They can now be built at a barracks, one size greater than the regular legionary cohort could be, but only in Rome.

[Spino]

I hate that the Marian reforms trigger date is so early (220 BC). I understand that the reason for this is because most campaigns are over long before the Marian reforms actually took place but CA should have seen this coming. CA should have taken a page from their Medieval playbook and incorporated eras into Rome or in the very least included a variation of Rome's provincial campaign, one that starts sometime after the Second Punic War.

This is the one area where Medieval shines over Rome. Because of the lack of eras and Glorious Achievement goals in RTW's campaign game few gamers will see their campaigns progress beyond 150 BC and even fewer to 100 BC or beyond. There's simply no incentive to keep playing other than to see if you can conquer more than 50 provinces.

Well, the good news is at least we can mod the game so that the Marian reforms do not affect gameplay. Thanks to the available options in the text files we can it so that Republic era troops are unaffected by the Marian reforms and remove Marian reform units from the game competely. I'm sure numerous solutions will become available over time thanks to the TW modding community.

However, I don't think it's asking too much for CA to make it so we can change the Marian reform trigger date via a simple change in the descr_strat.txt file. This would be a welcome addition for the expansion pack.

[Barbarossa82]

Oh, this is very, very lame - just built an Imperial Palace as Macedon, and there is no sign of the upgraded armoured generals' bodyguards. New generals, and old generals retrained at the city with the Imperial palace, come out with the crappy old bodyguards. So it looks as if other factions' development in generals' bodyguards is dependent on SOMEONE ELSE (i.e. the Romans) building an Imperial palace in Italy. And since I've conquered the whole of Italy, they ain't going to do it.
Has anyone experienced any different?

[Khorak]

Maybe the Reforms could be linked to popularity with the people as well. So you'd need an Imperial Palace, be past 220, but you'd also need the support of the people in order to push the reforms past the Senate.

[Lord Ovaat]

I, too, would like to see a definative answer to the reform "turn-on". I am currently in a Julii "test" campaign to see what's new & what's not. As it now stands I have Imp Palaces and Urban Bar in both Mediolanium and Patavium, and the date is 211. Still no reform. So if it's tied to the peninisula, then the above two cities aren't considered part of it. However, the real reason I'm posting is concerning what I CAN produce--Pratorian Guards! Yup. No legionaires, no heavy cav, but the guards are buildable after the Palace. This is a glitch I'm sure I can fix on my own, but the typical buyer has no concept of altering the stats. Almost seems like a "cheat" to build them. But then, Macedon has been really arrogant of late, what with their whinny "Give us 10,000 den or we'll attack." HuH! Reminds me of the old Peter Seller's movie, "The Mouse That Roared." Jeese.

[Jonny Dangerously]

I didn't think I'd say this but I'm now actually pleased that the Marian event has been delayed. Being forced to get by with Pre Marian troops has resulted in me concentrating much more on their qualities and also hardening them up by repeated battles. I never used to care much about them because because I knew I'd sack the lot the moment post Marian troops became available. Now I know why so many people love Triari.

So yeah.....postponing the event, I think, is a cool idea.

[Jonny Dangerously]

I didn't think I'd say this but I'm now actually pleased that the Marian event has been delayed. Being forced to get by with Pre Marian troops has resulted in me concentrating much more on their qualities and also hardening them up by repeated battles. I never used to care much about them because because I knew I'd sack the lot the moment post Marian troops became available. Now I know why so many people love Triari.

So yeah, I think postponing the reform is an excellent plan.

[aw89]

i love the pre-marian troops, they may not be as good, but they... i just like them i guess.

And i love the triarii, WAY better then auxillia

[Kaldhore]

Well one thing is for sure - thats Early legionaires are pointless. By the time the reform comes I can produce not only proper legionaires - but Praetorian legions.....

Early legions are now useless.