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  1. #1
    The Idle Inquisitor Member rebelscum's Avatar
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    Default Any mods with correct sized units?

    I've been reading a bit about roman unit sizes.
    The basic fighting unit was a cohort, composed of six centuries (480 men plus 6 centurions)
    Even on huge unit sizes this can't be achived. And a legion was ten cohorts or 4800 men.
    So is there any way of modding the unit sizes to be larger and having more officer units in them?
    In BI you can have unit names I obviously want real sized units to go along with them.
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    Member Member Afro Thunder's Avatar
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    Default Re: Any mods with correct sized units?

    I think if you had real-sized units, most people's computers would blow up.
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    Magister Vitae Senior Member Kraxis's Avatar
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    Default Re: Any mods with correct sized units?

    I believe the enginge can't go past 255 men in a unit.

    You forget the upsized 1st cohort. So the engine would have to be able to go even further... I think you have to be patient and wait another few years.
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    Senior Member Senior Member Oaty's Avatar
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    Default Re: Any mods with correct sized units?

    Six centuries would be 6 units of 80 men totalling 480 men. So actually it's quite easy to make a cohort. Take 6 units(on large size) and the group them together, march em together fight em to together and if need be you can split the cohort up to handle multiple threats.

    Did the cohort historically fight in 1 big group or 6 different groups but within a very close proximity to each other.
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    The Idle Inquisitor Member rebelscum's Avatar
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    Default Re: Any mods with correct sized units?

    Oaty I suppose you are right, you have to use your imagination

    At the front the hastati and principes each formed a maniple of about 60 men, with 20 leves attached to each maniple of hastati.
    So the normal unit sizes are about right.
    leves are lightly armed 'velite' types but with spear. (So where are they in the game?)

    At the back the triarii rorarii and accensi were organized into a group of three maniples, about 180 men, called an ordo.
    As the historian Livy quotes the main fighting force, the principes and the hastati, at a strength of fifteen maniples then the following size could be assumed for a legion:
    15 groups of leves (attached to the hastati) 300
    15 hastati maniples 900
    15 principes maniples 900
    45 maniples (15 ordi) triarii, rorarii, accensi 2700
    Total fighting force (without horsemen) 4800

    What I'm saying is that you can't form a legion with the current unit sizes.
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    Clan Takiyama Senior Member CBR's Avatar
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    Default Re: Any mods with correct sized units?

    Hm thats a very early legion. The units in RTW are for the "Polybian" and Marian type of Legions.

    Most likely they fought with a small gap in between the units so they wouldnt get totally mixed up and disordered... a few meters perhaps.

    If your 20 units are to represent several legions you will also run into problems with number of men per unit anyway. Best way is just to look at it in an abstract way and think of each as 5-10 men or something like that.

    The individual Maniples were not that independent anyway. One example might be how the companies worked in battalions/regiments in musket warfare. IMO it would have been the same for the Romans.


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    Dux Nova Scotia Member lars573's Avatar
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    Default Re: Any mods with correct sized units?

    Quote Originally Posted by rebelscum
    What I'm saying is that you can't form a legion with the current unit sizes.
    And your not supposed to (not really). The units in RTW are abstracted representations of a legionary maniple or cohort. For the Marian (early legionary cohorts) and Augustine (legionary) cohorts they are shown at 1/3 (on huge) and 1/6 (on large) size. The Polybian legion is trickier as on huge the Maniples are proper sized (more or less) but an army can't field the proper amount of them. Now if you used multiple armies you could get an almost accurate sized legion. It would take about 2 or 3 armies to get a accurately sized Polybian legion. Using a rule of as close to 1200 as possible with out going over you'd need 7 units each of Velites, Hastati, and Princepes. Plus 5 Triarii and 2 equites

    On the Rorarii and Accensi they were folded into Velites years before even the first Punic war started. They were definatly part of the Camillan system. This is the Roman amry where Princepes and Triarii were still a phalanx. But they were armed with javelins and a large shield and no armour.

    To get an accurately sized Marian or Augustine legion you'd need 27 early/regular legionary cohorts plus 4 first cohorts, 2 units of roman cavalry plus what ever auxilia units you want, that's for huge unit sizes for large multiply by 2.
    Last edited by lars573; 09-22-2005 at 18:00.
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    Bibliophilic Member Atilius's Avatar
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    Default Re: Any mods with correct sized units?

    To address the question that started this thread:

    You can mod the game to put a full Polybian legion on the battle map, at least in terms of the number of men.

    First, you need to set the unit scale to "huge". Then set the number of men per unit in (Data\export_desc_unit.txt) to 60 for Velites, Hastati, and Principes. Set the Triarii to 50. We'll deal with the Equites later.

    What you need is 1200 Velites, 1200 Hastati, 1200 Principes, 600 Triarii, and 300 Equites.

    With these settings, you need 5 units each of Velites, Hastati, Principes. That corresponds to 2 maniples per unit; since the maniple was the basic tactical unit of the Polybian legion - centuries never operated independently - this works pretty well. For the Triarii, you need 3 units to get 600 men which means (OK, this is a weak point) 3 1/3 maniples per unit. But look, unless something bad happened, the Triarii mostly just stood around in the back cheering on the younger guys.

    So far we've used up 18 of the 20 units available for an army. There a couple of options for the cavalry:

    Set the number of men per unit for the Equites to 38 - this gives you 152 men per unit. Your remaining units are then 2 units of Equites (304 men) or 1 unit of Equites and 1 general unit (total of about 200 to 250 men).

    So, you have exactly the right number of infantry. The number of cavalry is also right unless you have a general, in which case you are 50-100 men short. This was common enough - Polybius mentions legions with 200 horse
    more than once.

    All you've sacrificed is some tactical unit granularity. For the Hastati and Principes, your smallest tactical unit is 2 maniples rather than 1. For the Triarii it's roughly 3 maniples, but normally they did little in most battles,
    at least until the innovations credited to Scipio Africanus. For the cavalry you have 2 wings rather than 10 turmae. This is a bit more serious perhaps, but controlling 10 independent units of light cavalry was likely impossible for a
    legion commander anyway.

    Hope you find this useful.
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  9. #9

    Default Re: Any mods with correct sized units?

    How I did it in SPQR was that every man on the field = 4 men in real life.

    This allows me to do a 120 man cohort and have the exact number of legionaries.

    Its about the only way unless you wish not to have a full legion on the battlefield.

    Lt
    LT_1956 Creator of SPQR: Total War


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