Quote Originally Posted by Ragabash
I think you are correct for the cavarly part, that most Roman cavarly were mercenaries from north. I just find it too "hard" to run one hero to north( rebel terrain in beginning of the game), recruiting all cavarly, bring em back to southern armies for fighting for sicily,southern part of Italy and some Carthagian cities.
So the Romans used mercenaries from northen Italy and Samnites as "elite" swordsmen and spearmen for their army correct?

I just always tought that before Marian reforms Rome didn't trust so much of their army to mercenaries/auxilaries as they did after reform.
Not at this time, only after they had begun to fight wars across the alps in the late Republic. In a standard army of the middle republic around 1/3 of the cavarly were Roman 2/3s from the Socii, other italian people subdued by Rome, that also provided 50 % of the infantry. Their troops were not mercenaries and had to be enrolled whenever the consuls demanded it from them, and received less pay than citizen troops.

Later we will have some Pre Marian units to represent them.