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.

[Magraev]

I just can't see the sense in the germans being more deserving of a better bodyguard unit (much of the improvement is tied to better armor and weapons) than say the macedonians.

The bodyguards of the barbarians are already better than the greek ones (at least I'm pretty sure), and I just cant see the reasoning for them getting improved faster.

[Viking]

First of all, the upgrade is not tied to weapons at all(unfortunately).

The barbarians are much more used to war and warfare(they go around and kill each other everyday), then the civilized people(therefore they are more advanced since they know how to co-operate).

Already, the barbarians get more advanced infantry and archers than the civilized factions(chosen swordsmen, chosen archer warband, berserkers++).

[player1]

Well, at what level barbs get thier good armored noble cavalry? At 3rd city level.

At what level macedons get their havy cavalry?
At 5th city level.

[Barbarossa82]

I think the bodyguards should be upgraded when the faction reaches the apogee of its development. For barbarians, that would be third city level, and fifth for civilised factions.
I can see the argument that there should be a level playing field. What really matters to me is that the upgrade should be triggered by that faction's level of development, not that of the Romans.

[Viking]

Well, at what level barbs get thier good armored noble cavalry? At 3rd city level.

At what level macedons get their havy cavalry?
At 5th city level.

My point!

[Beefy]

My Marius Reforms still havent happened yet.

I've got an Imperial Palace in Capua

Its past 220BC its now 194BC

Will it ever happen? i want some decent flippin cavlary!

[player1]

There is always radom factor involved.
But don't worry, it will happen eventually.

[Beefy]

it better had!

[Viking]

I always thought that the size of the roman empire had some influence on when the reforms occured, so try to expand your empire!

[Rodion Romanovich]

Yeah, the "random factor" is not necessarily random. It might be something we just haven't thought about, like empire size, or maybe total number of imperial palaces? etc. etc.

[Beefy]

i have shed loads of Imp palaces! 5 i think, and i have 30 states under my belf!

[Rodion Romanovich]

Is your capital one of the cities which have an imperial palace? Has Rome got an imperial palace? If your current capital is another than your starting capital, does the starting capital have an imperial palace? Have both your starting cities got imperial palaces? Etc. etc. As soon as you get the reform, try to see what other incidents happened at the same time, and we might be able to see if that random factor actually is something non-random. I haven't gotten reforms either in my julii campaign, so I'll have a look at all factors I can think of as soon as I get the reform. Maybe if we both check out several factors after we get the reform we'll find something interesting that can be connected to triggering the reforms.

[Beefy]

Well playing as Scippi I have Capua as my capital which does have an Imperial Palace, and Messana i think thats what its called on Sciliy as well as the other 2 cities on Sciliy and the all have IMP palaces

[player1]

Well my own testing showed that in order to get reforems you need to have at least 100 turns in the game (aka 220BC in unmoded games).

Also you, or any other roman non-senate faction, need IP in one of italian provinces. This includes starting provinces as nothern gaul italy and whole sicily.

After these two requirements are met, there is only random factor left, which will eventually trigger reforms.

[Viking]

What random factors are we talking about?
Any ideas what they are like?

I mean, could the total number of royal palaces or high kings halls be a such factor?

[Beefy]

maybe population ranking?

Military ranking?

It might just be purely Random!

[player1]

Well, in my tests, in appread that a radom factor was a trully random factor.

By the way here is how I did the tests:

I used small script I made to remove 220BC condition.

In imperial_campaign folder I made file called setdate.txt with only this info:

console_command date -220
end_script


Then in at the end of descr_strat.txt I added:

script
setdate.txt

If all is done well, campaign will start at 220BC, with date requirement for reforms removed so it is much easier to test other things.


P.S.
Note that just chaning starting date in descr_strat.txt, won't suffice, since game still requires to be at least 100turn from start. Only with scripting mentioned above I was able to bypass it.

[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.

[Fisherking]

Well I know I have not seen the reforms occur sense 1.2 came out when playing the Romans.... It has occurred a few times when I was playing a different faction but not often. It could be due to the way I play but they are a much tougher opponent with them... It might have been better to have left them alone LOL.