Auxilia

[DemonArchangel]

Roman Auxilia in RTW are definitely underpowered. They can't really stand against anything heavy and are too slow to be effective against fast infantry.

How will Auxilia be implemented in EB?
Light Auxilia?
Cavalry Auxilia?
Historically Roman specialists?

[Goatsong]

I am also interested about this. I understood that in some of the battles (Mons Grapius) and hill fort sieges during the conquest of Britain the Auxilliary infantry did most of the fighting, with the legionaries standing back and cheering them on.

On a similar subject, would also be interested if EB are doing anything to make battlefield artillery (ballista's etc) worthwhile. The Romans seemd to put great faith in these devices when fighting in Northern Europe, but in RTW they are next to useless.

[DukeofSerbia]

You guys have wright. In Republic every legion (3600 men standard) have support from 500 to 1000 Auxilia troops and was given by Italian allied cities.

[Mammut]

Hmmm...I have read in a old book that the allied states supplied rome with legions of the same size and equipment as the roman legions. The auxilia was localy recruited people who whiched to get roman citizenship.

Okay I might mix thing up and the book might be wrong.

[Randal]

You're absolutely right as far as the Principate is concerned. In the republic, things were done differently.

In the republic, there were both regular allied units raised and funded by the Italian peoples, mercenary troops and allies from other nations. The Italian troops were equipped much like the romans, but had more horse and some appear to have been skirmishers. The other allies could be all kinds of troops. They were usually raised for specific campaigns and disbanded afterwards.

On another note, the allied troops (socii) were not granted citizenship after their discharge. Quarrels over grants of citizenship even led to the Social Wars in the first centure BC which pitted Rome against its allies.

After the social wars, the Italians were granted citizenship rights and ceased to act as allies. They were proper legions from that time on, and all auxilia henceforth came from outside Italy.

Oh, and as this is my first post here, greetings to you all. I am mightily impressed with the work being done here, and look forward to playing a more accurate version of Rome TW. [/totally off topic]

[DemonArchangel]

I'm specifically making reference to Post Marian Auxilia.

[Randal]

Historically, the "marian reforms" did not affect the auxilia. There were changes in recruitment, changes in equipment, but I've never heard anything about any changes in the auxilia in this time.

The social wars, which occurred near the end of Marius' life, did change some things. There no longer were italian allied troops, only normal legions raised in italy, since all italians had civic rights after the war.

The most famous kind of auxilia, the professional kind organised in regular units, the soldiers who fought at mons Graupius, who served 25 years after which they got the roman citizenship, those only came into existence around Augustus' time, by which time Rome TW is mostly done.

I don't know what the EB team will do. I'd say these professional auxilia should only come into existence around the time you get the "late cohorts", the guys wearing Lorica Segmentata. Then again, I neither know whether this is possible to implement, nor whether the late legionaries will be included at all.