Marian reforms in 1.2

[Barbarossa82]

Not necessarily a bug, but a suggestion for improvement.

As I understand it at the current time, the Marian reforms operate something like this.
Condition 1: An Imperial Palace must be built in Italy, by a Roman faction.
Condition 2: A certain date must have passed.
Condition 3: A random element decides the exact time for the reforms to be enacted after conditions 1 and 2 are fulfilled.

Effect 1: Pre-Marian Roman units are made obsolete and no longer producable/retrainiable. Post-Marian units become available.
Effect 2: Roman and non-Roman generals are upgraded to their "armoured" states.

All very well, but:

Problem aspect 1: The upgrading of non-Roman generals is completely dependent on the progress of the Roman faction. There is nothing that a non-Roman faction can do to cause its generals to become upgraded, other than leaving the Romans alone and hoping the reforms happen.
Problem aspect 2: If the Romans are taken out, or kicked out of Italy, the reforms won't happen and non-Roman generals won't be upgraded. The construction of a non-Roman Imperial/Royal Palace in Italy can't cause the upgrade in the same way that building a Roman Imperial Palace can. (I have tested this with Macedon).
Problem aspect 3: Even a really crappy non-Roman faction which is has only a couple of provinces and is totally backward in every way will get the bonus of upgraded generals when the reforms happen as a result of the Romans building their palace.

To my mind, it seems unfair that the fortunes of non-Roman generals are dependent on the progress of the Roman faction. An advanced and powerful non-Roman faction should not be held back from upgrading its generals by the fact that the Romans haven't got their act together (often because that non-Roman faction has given them a good kicking).

My suggested solution: decouple the general upgrade event from the Marian reforms. The Marian reforms for the Romans should operate exactly as they do now, but the upgrade of non-Roman generals should be a completely separate event. In my view it should occur when a non-Roman faction builds the highest level of governor's building/palace that they have access to. Then the generals of that faction, and ONLY that faction, would get the upgrade.

Like I say I don't think this is really a bug, just an aspect of the design which I think could be improved. It would be great if CA would consider doing something like this in the X-pack, as I can't imagine it would be too difficult to implement.

[Viking]

This was the original plan in ver 1.0, but it didn`t work.

So if this is changed in the xp, then CA have changed their minds twice!

[Barbarossa82]

Really? I knew the upgraded generals didn't appear in 1.1 but I didn't realise they weren't tied to the Marian reforms until 1.2... I hope that was a quick fix idea (i.e. upgraded generals at the wrong time are better than none at all) rather than a design decision?

It would be great if someone from CA could say whether this was deliberately chosen or just because the "proper" system didn't work under 1.1 (hint, hint). After all, I'm not complaining, just inquiring (suck up, suck up)

[Viking]

The game would be better if they went back to the old system (and made it work ) , I agree.

When playing as a barbarian faction, you would get the improved bodyguards before your civilized neighbours, a benefit that the barbarians would deserve.

[Magraev]

The game would be better if they went back to the old system (and made it work ) , I agree.

When playing as a barbarian faction, you would get the improved bodyguards before your civilized neighbours, a benefit that the barbarians would deserve.

Why on earth should the barbarians get high-tech armor before their more advanced civilized neighbours? That makes no sense to me.

In my latest game as the gauls I eliminated the romans before the marian reforms, but I'm not really missing the armored generals since it's equal for all.

I do agree, that they could set a date for those generals, or let each civilization get it when their first city gets above 12.000 inhabitants or something.

[Viking]

The barbarian generals don`t get high-tech armour, they get a carefully chosen unit with more armour as bodyguards.

The improved bodyguard unit is named "Chosen Warlord", not "Armoured General", wich make the great difference.
These bodyguards were the best armoured soldiers in the cavalry ranks.

[MajorFreak]

so to be the dissenter here, but i actually prefer having the ability to avoid marius' reforms and still be able to build imperial palace level support buildings. Not to mention the fact i've always preferred elite spear units like the Triarii over sword-class units, especially versus cavalry. (along with the mod for phalanx for triarii makes my game alot more enjoyable)

[Rodion Romanovich]

Yeah, you can still train the praetorians and hire sarmatians even if you don't get the marius reform... And if you have praetorians, what's the point of legionary cohorts and early legionary cohorts? Only if you get urban cohorts is there any difference, but that difference is not easy to spot because praetorians are already so much superior to all other sword armed units in the game.

[MajorFreak]

eggzactly! I've been holding off building that damn imperial palace for decades simply because of the old way. now i'm certainly going for the palaces outside italy! If i can get praetorians it'll make the game more interesting because it'll mean i have a unit that can't be easily retrained, without going with RTR.

course the damn senate's probably going to build an imperial palace at some point, and there's no way to sabotage it. rats.

FYI, the legions' tactics were eventually made obsolete by the heavy gothic cavalry of pre-darkage times. The fact is that i totally hate the sword biased roman legion and have always adored pike formations versus cavalry - why they never kept the triarii and had crappy cavalry i'll never know. How the HELL do you hold the line against cavalry armed with only a bloody short sword?

[player1]

Yeah, you can still train the praetorians and hire sarmatians even if you don't get the marius reform... And if you have praetorians, what's the point of legionary cohorts and early legionary cohorts? Only if you get urban cohorts is there any difference, but that difference is not easy to spot because praetorians are already so much superior to all other sword armed units in the game.

That's why I call pre-marian pretorians a bug.
They were ok, before 1.2, since you would get reforem after IP, but after 1.2 they are just weird.

[Barbarossa82]

Shall we contribute this to the thread about CA asking for bug reports? Perhaps on two grounds:

1) Inability of non-Roman factions to upgrade their own generals' bodyguards independently of the Romans
2) Praetorian availability before Reforms.

Arguably No. 1 isn't a bug but a very questionable design decision...nevertheless, shall we stick it in there?

[Viking]

There have allredy been anounced several issues there, so why not this one?

You got my support!

I`d really liked to have this in the expansion.