After playing a campaign with the Romans, I would like to discuss the reforms. I particularly like the way the Romans continuously change as you progress in the campaign but I'm not so sure about the requirements for the reforms (particularly in the AI's case). Now, don't get me wrong - I love EB - I'm not attacking it, I just want to try and improve it further.

It seems the team has approached the requirements asking themselves, "What was the state of the Republic/Empire at this time?", rather than, "What could cause these reforms?"

Looking at the Polybian reforms for example...

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 
at least year 242, either hold 2 of these cities (Segesta, Mediolanum, Patavium, Bononia) AND 2 of these (Lilibeo, Messana, Syracuse) OR wait until 210BC

Both require a specific year, which, personally I don't see the need for. To me, the year is irrelevant for reforms, it should focus on things like the military, political, financial and social situations. I realise you can't model these exactly but I feel using the year is a carry over from vanilla and not necessary. If the team is worried about reforms occurring too early it is still possible to raise the requirements to prolong the reforms without involving the year.

Now, for the first half, it requires the Romans controlling specific cities. As far as I can tell, the Polybian reforms represent a gradual evolution of the military in response to meeting new equipment and tactics. The team has chosen to represent this by requiring them to expand into the surrounding area. This makes sense but it causes a problem in that the AI does not necessarily try to expand with those cities in mind. This can result in the Romans expanding greatly, but not achieving the reforms until the unconditional in 210BC kicks in (often the AI expands northwards and neglects southern Italia). To me, a more suitable restriction would be based on the number of battles fought (representing their experience fighting against other equipment and tactics) or, perhaps, on the number of provinces controlled (but not specific ones).

Next, the marian reforms...

At least year 172BC, have 6 Latifundia built, hold at least 45 settlements, fight more than 250 battles and have a character that is:

Intelligent/Charismatic/Vigorous
Popularis
Consul or Ex-Consul
Has Influence and Command > 2

OR just conquer 90 settlements.

While Marius is responsible for the reforms, I don't see him as the underlying cause. From what I understand, it was due to the number of recruitable land owners dwindling both due to casualties and due to large agricultural estates taking over from smaller land owners. The team have represented this with the number of battles fought and the number of Latifundia built (large agricultural estates). This makes perfect sense to me. What I don't agree with, however, is the requirements for year (as I've already discussed), the number of settlements controlled and controlling a specific character (representing someone like Marius). If the Romans did not expand to such a large extent and yet still had a man power shortage, would they not seek a solution and thus reform the military? The Marius-esque character requirement, I'm not so sure about but I feel the senate would realise the need to institute the reforms eventually if such a man power problem occurred.

The Augustinian reforms seem to represent a simple reorganisation and standardisation of the military and I'm not entirely sure what the root cause of that was but I would be interested to hear about this.


Having said all that, I really like the idea of reforms and would love to see more added (though I know they're limited due to building spots).

Anyway, any thoughts on what I've said would be appreciated. I would like to thank the EB team for taking the time to develop this mod to the point where I own the next game in the series (Medieval 2) and I'm still playing EB :)