(Romani) What auxilia do you use?

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

Ah, that makes sense. I disagree, but I can see where you're coming from.

Out of curiosity, how do you deal with armies consisting almost entirely of phalangites (often with a few normal heavy infantry mixed in - say a bunch of pezhetairoi with those Ptolemaic galatians)? Those are the main motivation for skirmishers in my African armies. I find that the pila just don't have the ammo to do much, and I try very hard not to let a unit get stuck pinning a phalanx for very long (the good phalanxes can survive a "sandwich" long enough to do a lot of damage to the guys facing the spearpoints, in my battles). So mounted and foot skirmishers help me a lot; if I can get the foot skirmishers behind a phalanx, perhaps as it's first making contact with a unit, a couple of volleys of javelins absolutely devastates it.

I also find it satisfying and appropriate to clean up small phalanx detachments in the desert with pure Numidian groups (2 foot, 2 cav vs. 3 klerouchikoi phalangitai - that was fun).

Re: elephants, if I cared about money, I wouldn't have built them. Indeed the high cost is something of a feature, not a bug, much like my fleets of quinquiremes. Gotta at least try to avoid those Nota Censoria and related traits. As for actual usefulness, I think I'm running about 50/50 very effective/useless so far. Depends whether the AI has skirmishers, and whether I notice them if they do...

I never have much success with missiles against phalanxes. When I got up against phanlanxes, I use either a phanlax army, horse archers, or (for the Romans) mobility of units to encircle the enemies before they can setup properly. Then I hit them with cavarly, if I have it.

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For those of you that like setting up Type4, building up, then setting up Type2, there will be at least two new 'features' in the next release that will make this 'cheat' impossible. Enjoy it while you can.

[LordCurlyton]

I hardly see it as a "cheat". Its not like the Romans would have stopped using the available cavalry as they transitioned from allied state to mostly-Romanized province, no? That's the basis of the Marian cavalry auxillaries, no? Or am I totally missing the mark? In any case, I said I get rid of them come the Marians since those nobles would no longer be recruited as noble units but enlist in the Roman Auxilia. Or am I again severely mistaken?
As far as missiles vs phalanx backs: it works, really really well. Especially if its HA or slingers, but any decent missile unit will rip the backside of a phalanx up. Akonitostoi and Peltasts are terribly effective, especially the Akonitostoi since they have so many javelins.
EDIT: Again I posted before putting all I had down. I meant to mention that going from Type IV to Type II by way of building everything takes somwhere on the order of 2-3 generations. So say roughly 200-250 turns, depending on how much local infrastructure is irreplacable.

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

It's not exactly a cheat, but the team wants recruitment to be based on governments. Due to changes between 1.2 and 1.5, recruitment can no longer check if there are buildings present, so a workaround was made so that buildings that recruit check for governments. I don't think this is a major leak, so I'll just tell you. In the next release, if you have MICs that a certain government wouldn't be able to make, then you can't make that government.

[mcantu]

It's not exactly a cheat, but the team wants recruitment to be based on governments. Due to changes between 1.2 and 1.5, recruitment can no longer check if there are buildings present, so a workaround was made so that buildings that recruit check for governments. I don't think this is a major leak, so I'll just tell you. In the next release, if you have MICs that a certain government wouldn't be able to make, then you can't make that government.

I believe that RTRPE (which is for 1.5) has recruitment based on what buildings are present. Its been a while since I played it so I might be wrong

[bovi]

In the next release, if you have MICs that a certain government wouldn't be able to make, then you can't make that government.

Not precise. You will be able to make the government, but not the MIC. If you have a level 5 regional MIC and type I government, you cannot create a faction MIC of higher level than 1 unless you demolish the regional MIC.