Roman Legions seem too weak

[HopliteElite]

I'm not sure if this has been brought up and if so, there is probably a reason for it, as the EB team is great when it comes to accuracy but in my Roman campaign I've noticed on every occasion, my Augustan legionaries are being cut to ribbons by light iberian skirmishers, Caetratti light infantry might be their name. It is so bad that I lost an entire unit of legionaries to one unit of these seemingly inhuman light infantry while only killing about 17 of them, during a city siege. Both my legionaries and the enemy had no chevrons of experience. I also lost an entire unit of legionaries, excepting 5 men, fighting hand to hand on a wall against a unit of peltastai, although at least in this case I did manage to wipe the peltastai out.

I try to play somewhat true to how the Romans really fought, using only nominal amounts of cavalry and archers, while relying instead on legionaries and allied infantry but I've been horrifed to see my legions get decimated by unarmored and medium skirmishers in hand to hand combat. I'm finding that I might have to employ hammer and anvil tactics in order to not lose entire units to skirmishers but I know the Romans never really employed such cavalry tactics, so I feel ingenuine doing so. Is this historical? Did the Romans truly lose a great deal many men even when fighting what should be highly inferior troops? I do not mind, in fact, I love it when I have to fight a unit of true elites, like Spartans, and I see my Romans biting the dust but against skirmishers?

This is less a criticism and more a question about the motives behind making the legionaries seemingly so weak. I am not, by the way, expecting my legions to be superhuman at all, I am just confused to see them wrecked by skirmishers. I'm sure there is a good reason behind the weakening of the legions, since, as I mentioned above, you guys are great with the accuracy, I would just be interested in hearing the reasoning, even if only for my own educational purposes. Thanks in advance and great job with 1.0, I'm enjoying it immensely. Keep up the excellent work.

[abou]

Iberia was a major problem for the Romans, and remained so for a very long time. You will notice that many Iberian troops wield the falcata - a weapon with AP power. Therein lies your problem.

Roman troops were hardly the end-all of infantry. In fact, they only became the tremendous fighting force we know them as under a few select generals. Most of the time their victories came from the use of sheer force, an unrelenting drive, and a nearly complete lack of care for casualties.

[Diamondj]

Iberia was a major problem for the Romans, and remained so for a very long time. You will notice that many Iberian troops wield the falcata - a weapon with AP power. Therein lies your problem.

Roman troops were hardly the end-all of infantry. In fact, they only became the tremendous fighting force we know them as under a few select generals. Most of the time their victories came from the use of sheer force, an unrelenting drive, and a nearly complete lack of care for casualties.

I'd hate to say it but the truth is closer to the opposite of everything you just said. During the prime of both the Roman republic and the Roman empire, their soldiers were superior to just about every army they faced. You might be confused because of the fact that the Roman army as a whole was generally many times larger than any of their enemies. However, on any given battlefield it was pretty much a given that they would be outnumbered (of course this all comes from Roman sources so perhaps it should be taken with a grain of salt). Only rarely would the Romans face an opponent that could use their strengths to take advantage of the traditional weaknesses of the Roman army (near total lack of non-auxilary cavalry, light infantry, missile troops, and scouts).

[Pharnakes]

Well, both the units you mentioned are hardly exactly your steriotypical skirmisher, the peltastai are just about "legionaries" in their own right, plus the defenders of walls get a bonus when figthing on them, and the caetratai are notorius (in both real life and ingame) for butchering large quantaties of over armoured heavy infantry - thats what they are for.

[Sakkura]

Iberi Caetrati are a prime target for a good cavalry charge. Of course, that doesn't work too well when assaulting cities...
Plus, it seems that fighting on walls gives lopsided results in general.

[mcantu]

Doesn't sound like you have battle difficulty set to medium...

[CaesarAugustus]

Never use wall fights as in indicator of how good a unit is,... besides taking forever the attacker usually takes many more casulaties than usual... I prefer to sap myself.

[konny]

A unit of Camillan Hastati will cut a unit Peltastai to pieces (suffering many loses for sure), so that should be true for Imperial Legions as well. Wall fights have their own rules.

Amongst the Iberi units, there are some that look like nothing but have AP swords. I had really started to fear these guys and prefer to encounter any stack of Carthagian heavy spearmen with Sacred Band cavalry than facing one of these units Iberi holding a gate, or simillar situations with them.

[Parkev]

Ran a few tests a while ago as the Casse in custom battle.
Cohors Reformata beat Rycalawre
Polybian Principes beat Rycalawre unless you get lucky (3 deep seemed to work only if you busted the middle of the Roman line).

And then look at the cost ratios; something like 1:2 per man (Roman:Casse) and after that conclude that Roman troops are pretty good.

[Frostwulf]

Roman troops were hardly the end-all of infantry. In fact, they only became the tremendous fighting force we know them as under a few select generals. Most of the time their victories came from the use of sheer force, an unrelenting drive, and a nearly complete lack of care for casualties.

The Roman infantry was among the best in the world, especially by the time Marius made his changes(most likely started prior to Marius). A combination of arms,armor,training,discipline and triplex acies made them very formidable.