Antesignani, cohors evocata and vigiles

**LegVIIGemina-Tarraconense** · 09-14-2005, 08:36

I would like to ask a few questions and make some suggestions about these three roman units.
1) Antesignani. Where did you get that antesignani were elite legionaries armed with spears and javelins? I am not an expertise in ancient warfare or roman army, but according to what I have read the term "antesignani" made reference to a picked group of men -possibly hastati, who fought in the front ranks of the legion and who were ordered specific duties. Some historians believe antesignani were just velites or hastati and that they did not form a combat unit like it is shown in EB.
2) Cohors evocata. The presence of evocatii is well documented and there is no doubt about the existence of this kind of legionaries. Most of them came from the praetorian cohors. However, I would point up that if you create an elite legionary unit like these evocatii, many EB players will have the "temptation" to create roman staks only with these kind of troops. It is wise to believe that evocatii were a minority within the legionaries. So, could it be possible for the game to only have the possibility to recruit one or two evocati units only in Rome and only once every 15-20 turns? This is my suggestion.
3) Vigiles. Another suggestion quite similar to the previous one. Vigiles were not expected to enter in campaing battles. So, they should be prevented, somehow, to get out of cities. Is that possible? Otherwise, you may came across vigiles attacking and conquering land thousand of miles away from the roman borders.
That is all I wanted to say. For the rest of the preview, great job!!!

**Urnamma** · 09-14-2005, 09:08

1) Several journal articles, and some painstaking research. Remember, some of us are professiona historians, so in EB, you may get a very educated opinion in regards to some units.

I'm going to use some modern terms, but don't think of them as green berets or anything. Just think military terminology applied to the ancient world.

Here is our layout: After the Social War, the Roman Army had a significant problem on its hands. The Extraordinarii, so long an effective and reliable 'special operations' unit (armed recon, fortress assault, rearguard action, guerilla warfare, you get the idea). The solution was to create/hire a new group for the same action. The name antesignani (literally, 'before' or 'forward of' the standard) is used, because it tells us that they are not a battle-line formation at all times. They operate within their own command and control nexus, though linked with an army's. In Polybian times, the Antesignani were simply picked hastati (and velites) that performed a reconissance role. Later, during Caesar's time and slightly before (post-marian, in other words), they took on the role of the now defunct extraordinarii, albeit not quite as well.

There are several reasons to think this way. I'll list them for you:

a) They are described as operating in all these roles
b) the linguistics of the name would suggest the usage
c) assault troops in the greek world are described similarly
d) some authors refer to them as hypaspists (obviously greek authors), and we know that the hypaspists also carried out this role to a more limited extent (as assault infantry, but also as line infantry when the time called for it).

2) Trust me, creating stacks of them will be impossible if you don't cheat. Costs in EB for elite units are exhorbitant, to force players to use 'regular' troops in the battle line, and augment them with elites (like real ancient armies).

3) Vigiles are essentially militia. Think of them, not necessarily as augustus's vigiles, but rather 'city guards', though obviously associated with the aforementioned group.

**Shigawire** · 09-14-2005, 14:16

2) Trust me, creating stacks of them will be impossible if you don't cheat. Costs in EB for elite units are exhorbitant, to force players to use 'regular' troops in the battle line, and augment them with elites (like real ancient armies).

Yay!

**econ21** · 09-14-2005, 22:38

Double yay!

I was wondering how EB was going to ration out the elites. The best system I've encountered is in the Panzer General 2 mods, where there are "high prestige" equipment costs that make it impossible for the player to fill out an army with Tiger tanks etc. This is in contrast to conventional equipment files were cost is some simple function of stats, but somehow the player can always max out on the elite stuff. With high prestige equipment files, the Tigers are still good enough that you want to to scrimp and save for them, but you just can't get everything you want. I'm glad to hear EB is thinking on the same lines. I think that this will work better than just lengthening building times or restricting them to one or two cities.

**Steppe Merc** · 09-14-2005, 23:09

Agreed. Unit training is a very poor abstraction anyway, since no town would be only training one unit of soldiers at a time.
Many nation's elites were trained from birth anyway, and it wasn't so much of a concieus design of the state but as a social institution as well.