What does it honestly take?

[Long lost Caesar]

*FYI this is quite a long description, brace yourselves*



Ah, good old Greece. A land of philosophers, warriors and poets. But for me, right now its my bank account, jump-pad and general slaughterhouse.
So heres the story-after securing italy, i turned my attention to greece: everyone knows greece is a great way to get cash, and right now i control all of greece as well as the adriatic. but when it came to contact with the ptolemys, my fears were recognised: the ptolemys had replaced the AS as the dominant power in the east, and they were in turkey, fighting against a couple of mak settlements, a couple of KH and living peacefully with my ally pontos. i took the mak settlements, and allied with the ptolemys in a hope to keep on living. but as usual the AI betrayed me, and now the ptolemys control most of the east. even when pontos attacked me and i took nikaia, the ptolemys simply stole it from me! every siege or battle i win is quickly followed by the swift annhilation of my soldiers.
on a brighter note the polybian reforms have happened, and im hoping that itll give me a new edge against the ptolemys. all the same, i wanna know what a historical roman army is to see if it might improve my own, and what your suggested tactics are. keeping in mind that the ptolemys control their starting lands, plus the entire east from the AS and the lands south of the Nile, i need EXPERT advice.
and if it helps, i currently outfit my armies with 6 principes, 2 hoplitai, 2 hippeis, 1 general and either 2 toxotai or 4 peltastai. some also have thracian spearmen and galatian swordsmen, but only if theyre in the east. hope it helps,
cheers

[Pharnakes]

You need to axe those hippeis pronto.

Replace with theslians, mercs untill you can build up the right mic. If the romans can't have them stick with mercs. Also, you need to be using thracians to their full potential- thracian peltast, are as the romans the best shock infantry you will ever have acces to, alebiet only in merc form, but hey, who cares they're as cheap as dirt and nearly as numerous in thrakia and anatolia.

Also, you must use the thrakian prodromoi to their equally impresive potential, they are the best value cavalry in the game, IMHO

[Olaf The Great]

Wait, what was the question...


I think you ended up in a tangent about nothing again :P

[Shifty_GMH]

"Republican era Legion
At optimum strength the legion of the Republic had 4,200 men. Each legio was made up of ten subdivisions of 420 men, known as a cohors ("cohort" in English). Each cohors consisted of one maniple of 60 triari, one of 120 princips, one of 120 hastati, and one of 120 velites."

From: http://www.redrampant.com/roma/legiounit.html

Also a good site for legion composition: http://www.roman-empire.net/army/army.html

For Polybian Legions I've always taken that as:

Real Life

Unit % per Legion| Men Per Legion (Real)
Velites 28.57%| Velites 1200
Hastati 28.57%| Hastati 1200
Princips 28.57%| Princips 1200
Triari 14.29%| Triari 600

Total 100.00%| Total 4200

Game

Unit % per Legion| Men Per Legion (Game)
Velites 26.79%| Velites 300 (100x3)
Hastati 29.29% | Hastati 328 (82x4)
Princips 29.29%| Princips 328 (82x4)
Triari 14.64% | Triari 164 (82x2)

Total 100.00% | Total 1120

Tried to keep the % as close to the real life % as I could.

So, 3 units of velites, 4 units of hastati, 4 units of princips, and 2 units of triari. Add a unit of Equites Romani and a General. So a total of 15 units per legion on large unit settings.

Anyway, that is my model for the "core" of a legion. Add extra regional units only as needed.

A large discussion was once held about this topic. It can be found here: https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=87658 and https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=79935

[Poulp']

First things first,
secure your western and northern borders; you don't want to get distracted when you're waging war against the yellow death. Make sure you can welcome warmly any uninvited guest showing up (guard river fords, mountain passes, etc)

Then,
do you control Cyprus ?
If not, take it. That's the best base for operation you'll ever dream of when you need to make war in Asia Minor/Near East.
From the island you'll be able to support your land army fighting in Asia Minor by disrupting the Ptolemee's (sp?) rear lines. A dirty trick I use is to ship a general on the main land in Syria, recruit all the mercs available there and shipped the whole company back on Cyprus, from there I dispatch them to refill the ranks of my depleted armies. Sure, you need money to do this. I use my "death squad" (my veteran stack who served in basically every war so far) to raise the funds, directly from my enemy's cities.

[Long lost Caesar]

all good advice, and olaf, good point as i never really asked a question. please would you guys give advice to help me against the yellow death? :P
as for the idea of cyprus, ill give it a shot. considering how from there i can launch invasions on all mediteranean-coastal cities, i should make some good raiding cash. time to spam spies and check out what the tolies are really made of....

[L.C.Cinna]

if you control italy and greece you should actually have more money than you ever need. build roads everywhere plus type 2 governments and all economic buildings you can build. take the islands crete, rhodos and cyprus. oh and check your garrisons, it's worth takeing the time to check them. I usually send some akontistai or some other cheap unit with lots of soldiers intot he towns (2 are usually enough for most towns, make sure to build all the quick and cheap happyness buildings) and use some of the expensive troops you find in your towns to protect important boarder ettlements, disband the rest.

now raise 6 legions (should be enough), my basic setup is the same as Shifty_GMH's 4 hastati, 4 principes, 2 triarii, general, 2 slingers, 2 merc spearunits to protect my flanks, thracian peltasts on the flanks as well, plus heavy cavalry. now invade. 4 legions attacking one town each immediately, 2 to move to keypoints like one at a bridge to pontos, one at the cillician gates so that any ptolemy reinforcements have to pass you and fight you in an unfavourable position. like this you get all of asia minor within a few turns.

one more thing I usually do is, have 2 extra units of each class in a stack behind the lines to refill my frontline losses quickly and build 2 or 3 stacks of akontistai in the meantime so you can use those guys in your newlyx conquered towns immediately and can move on with the legions (I just wait till the government building is done and move on).

hope this helps

[Ketchup]

Cinna that sounds like a good strategy for Long Lost Caesar but I have one question for you; how is he going to build and support 6 legions!? With even the hastati costing 1500 each with trairii over 2000 each.

I might be missing something but I could never support that army: I'm struggling with 2 legions although I only have all of italy and sicily.

Another questions- Long Lost Caeser states that Greece is a great way to get money but could someone explain why this is for me?

Cheers

[Dayve]

Because every single city in Greece can build a port and they have lots of resources and mines and whatnot.

[Long lost Caesar]

thanks cinna ill be sure to try that out, as iv got enough money to raise a few more armies. and yes, greece is my leprechaun gold pot cos it has ports all over, and can trade with europe AND asia, where all the real golds at. soon, all mine....

[L.C.Cinna]

Cinna that sounds like a good strategy for Long Lost Caesar but I have one question for you; how is he going to build and support 6 legions!? With even the hastati costing 1500 each with trairii over 2000 each.

I might be missing something but I could never support that army: I'm struggling with 2 legions although I only have all of italy and sicily.

Another questions- Long Lost Caeser states that Greece is a great way to get money but could someone explain why this is for me?

Cheers

you can make money quickly and easily, usually you'll have problems only in the beginning. some hints:

don't waste money on expensive garrisons. if you have a type 2 government plus a governor in the newly conquered areas, 2 to 3 units of skirmishers is cheap and more than enough (except places like Syracuse for example)


after building the government, don't waste money, think what to build. i build roads, traders, harbours as quickly as possible, in between some of the quick to build cheap 5% happiness buildings if needed. don't waste money on walls (i hardly ever need any) or military buildings in newly conquered areas, build roads first, then trade stuff. this will give you the money you need (and enslave the population. gives you more money and less riots)


check for areas with mines. if you have Dalminion, Pella and Tylis for example you should make enough money to build up all other towns and still make huge plus.

[Ketchup]

All right, thanks for the help Cinna I'll try some of your tips!

[Olaf The Great]

all good advice, and olaf, good point as i never really asked a question. please would you guys give advice to help me against the yellow death? :P
as for the idea of cyprus, ill give it a shot. considering how from there i can launch invasions on all mediteranean-coastal cities, i should make some good raiding cash. time to spam spies and check out what the tolies are really made of....

Weird thing is, I was replying to another thread, which I now have forgotten what is, it was *my* mistake :(
Weird, huh?

[Emperor Burakuku]

In my roman campaign (roleplay - historical) I had the exact same problem. I was fighting them both in Greece and Lepcis Magna ( N Africa). What I did in order to resist 'till the Marian Reforms in 172 B.C was building fleets in order to suply my polybians. In both Greece and Carthage I had 2 armies which I was fighting successively; after 2 or 3 battles I was taking one army home in Italy to replace the casualties. 'Till you get that army back in field the other one will need replacements. And so on. In my game the Ptolies had all cities in Middle East except Arabia up to Seleukia and Babylon, all Anatolia and their half of Africa (without 2-3 cities in Nubia). They could bring in field up to 6-7 armies. 2-3 in N africa and 3-4 in Makedonia. So, my advice is not to lose faith :P. Use logistics and work on a strategy to rout the enemy every battle so they won't be able to retrain. Also for the Amicus Populus half of your army I advice you to use units that you have acces on. Like hoplite in greece, in order to be able to retrain them. For the cavalry I say the best option is to use greek calv which you can retrain and to try to get them upgraded (probably from Pella or Demetrios/ and they are pretty decent in my opinion). The rest it's up to you. Good luck.

P.S Sorry for my bad english. No excuse but I'm not a native speaker plus that I'm in a hurry.

2nd P.S If you wanna give them a devastating blow I say you should go for an invasion of Egypt itself. With at lest 2 veteran armies. Though I would advice you to weather wait 'till Marian Reforms or to go for a sack/ baracks destruction campagn. Yes, from Cyprus. Jupiterspeed.

[tapanojum]

Great Ideas. I'm playing Pontus on VH/M, and I am at war with both the AS and Ptolies, there was even a point where they allied against me. Maks, Epirus and KH both randomly land small forces on my coastline and attack me as well.

I now have all of Anatolia except for Sinope, and am trying to recapture Antiocha. Tolies seem to have nonstop stacks though. I just defeated 2 2250+ stacks (On Huge Settings) on my way to Antioch and they keep coming. Any way I can force them into peace and focus on invading Greece without using force diplomacy mod?

Maybe I'll just build a fort leading from Cilicia to Antioch, and hold them off while I send a force into Greece.

[Pharnakes]

Jupiterspeed.

Surely the appropriate god to invoke here is Mercury? Or maybe Neptune.

[Emperor Burakuku]

Success in busyness is talking directly with the boss or so they say.