Roman troops are too strong at the beginning.

[Livius Andronicus]

I think Roman troops should be of a lesser quality in the beginning of the game. During the 1st Punic war Rome continued to send soldiers to Sicily and eventually removed Carthage, but it took 23 years and coming back from many set backs to do it. It isn't until the end of the 2nd Punic war that Rome starts to show military superiority over Carthage. In the 2nd Punic war Hannibal repeatedly defeats the Romans. His brothers Mago and Hadsrubal even defeated the Scipio brothers in Spain in 212 or 211. The major reason that Rome persevered through the 2nd Punic war was her ability to continue to raise new armies after defeats and to learn from those defeats. I wish the EB campaign would reflect this a little bit better. It would make the Romani more difficult to play until the Polybian Reform, which would be more historically accurate. Once Rome took Sicily and defeated Hannibal, she exploded with expansion both to the East and West.

Any thoughts?

[TWFanatic]

Wow...is this a Roman overpowered thread I see?

EB has the best balance of any mod there is IMHO. The Roman units are far stronger in all other mods I've ever played. It's your choice though, of course, and so you can always edit unit stats in the export_descr_unit file.

[Boyar Son]

Sir, if you had joied a couple months ago you would never want to post another "over powered/underpowered" thread EVER again.

[TWFanatic]

OOh, another Floridian.

[Livius Andronicus]

Well I did just join the forums, although I have been playing EB for awhile.

I apologize for my ignorance, but acting like condescending Romans doesn't increase your E-reputation. If you don't want to respond, then don't.

[Geoffrey S]

One thing that strikes me from your opening post is the implication that the reforms should make the troops stronger, or better. This is not necessarily true: their main boon is logistical in nature, allowing recruitment of core troops over a wider area. You'll find that playing Rome in EB, a major problem at the start is expansion outside the Italian peninsula until reforms kick in. The troops are fine, but if the army suffers losses they'll have to be replaced in Roman heartlands, if you're playing with accurate armies. The Polybian reforms, partially triggered by expansion, alleviate this.

Hope this explains things a bit, Livius Andronicus.

As to other responses, why not keep things polite? Livius Andronicus asked a polite question and is new here. It took me less than a couple of minutes to type this, and if you can't even raise that effort then why bother posting in this topic? Doesn't give a good first impression to people who are possibly interested, does it?

[Boyar Son]

Well I did just join the forums, although I have been playing EB for awhile.

I apologize for my ignorance, but acting like condescending Romans doesn't increase your E-reputation. If you don't want to respond, then don't.

Sir, if you have joined months ago, you would've known never to start a flame war with flame war loving people.

Besides, Rome was a rising power in italy..who else was there to challange them other than Phyrus (SP?!?), who was already caught up in affairs in Greece.

[konny]

Any thoughts?

Please compare the early Romans with the early Makedonian, Karthage, Sweboz, Greek, or what ever you like. They have some fine average units but are defintily not the army with the high-end elites.

[Xehh II]

It all depends on how good you are on the battlefield. I am damn awful, so they don't seem that overpowered to me.

The same with me, I am absolutely crap at fighting battles, so Camillian Romans don't seem that strong to me.

[anubis88]

I know... I think we actually agree, although it doesn't look like that.
My point was that rome isn't too strong at the begining. But i don't agree that roman troops where massacred after hannibal many times. During EB's timeframe I believe such battles include ONLY carrhae and teutoberg forest. And that's a long way up the campaign

[Centurion Crastinus]

Don't forget about the Battle of Arausio in 105 B.C. The Romans got their asses handed to them by the Cimbri and the Teutones.

[delablake]

Don't forget about the Battle of Arausio in 105 B.C. The Romans got their asses handed to them by the Cimbri and the Teutones.

mhm and Rome learned how to stop worrying and love the bomb...lol
now, 3 years later Marius wiped out these two Germanic tribes consisting of about 400.000 people at Aqua Sextiae (102BC) and Vercellae (101BC) suffering less than marginal losses. Now, that's getting your asses handed...

[The General]

mhm and Rome learned how to stop worrying and love the bomb...lol
now, 3 years later Marius wiped out these two Germanic tribes consisting of about 400.000 people at Aqua Sextiae (102BC) and Vercellae (101BC) suffering less than marginal losses. Now, that's getting your asses handed...

The tribes had splitted, and it would be interesting to know the actual fighting numbers of the tribes in those battles.

Considering they were entire tribes on the move, a large amount of the people would be women, children, elderly or men unfit to fight I'd reckon, AND the rest would be men with no professional training or good, uniform armours, who then get pitted against 40 000 - 50 000 legionnaries & auxilia, led by none other than Gaius Marius himself.

And, of course, attacking the opponent before they were ready at Vercellae did kind of help. Naturally, there's no need to follow the honour codes of the "barbarians", but it does take quite a bit of the glory away from the victory.

[Senatus Populusque Romanus]

It is not strong.

Manybe you are playing on Easy or Medium battle setting.

It is miserably balanced and not that strong before Marian Reform!!

[blank]

Manybe you are playing on Easy or Medium battle setting.

er... Medium is the recommended battle difficulty setting
On Hard and VH the AI will get stat bonuses so your units won't be as effective

[Senatus Populusque Romanus]

er... Medium is the recommended battle difficulty setting
On Hard and VH the AI will get stat bonuses so your units won't be as effective

Medium is "RECOMMENDED" battle difficulty setting, but actually Medium is easy.

Think about it.

Players of course use more strategies than AI and how to use terrain better than AI does. Also Veteran players know some "tricks" or "techniques" to win a battle easily.

If you sum those factors up, actually choosing "Hard" difficulty is appropriate setting for EB battle campaigns.

[mrtwisties]

The problem with "Hard" is that it reduces the historical accuracy of the battle simulation. Let's face it, beating the AI is never going to be an impressive achievement. That's why most of us are just role-playing.

[TWFanatic]

Medium is "RECOMMENDED" battle difficulty setting, but actually Medium is easy.

Think about it.

Players of course use more strategies than AI and how to use terrain better than AI does. Also Veteran players know some "tricks" or "techniques" to win a battle easily.

If you sum those factors up, actually choosing "Hard" difficulty is appropriate setting for EB battle campaigns.

Agreed. Medium is far too easy, and the bonuses of very hard make it too unrealistic. Hard is the perfect balance.

[Pharnakes]

Yes, hard/hard with fatigue off.

[The Celtic Viking]

Medium is "RECOMMENDED" battle difficulty setting, but actually Medium is easy.

Think about it.

Players of course use more strategies than AI and how to use terrain better than AI does. Also Veteran players know some "tricks" or "techniques" to win a battle easily.

If you sum those factors up, actually choosing "Hard" difficulty is appropriate setting for EB battle campaigns.

Medium is recommended for a reason, you know. The unit stats are made for that difficulty level, meaning that it's how the units perform in medium difficulty that's interesting.

So your argument that "it's not too strong on hard difficulty" is kind of worthless, and how a player uses unit X better than the AI is irrelevant to the question of whether that unit is over- or underpowered.

[Danest]

I'm playing Hayasdan, fighting Pontos, Ptolies, and Seleukids all at once -- all three stack spamming me each turn. If I survive (even at medium battle difficulty), well, I'll feel quite an achievement. And I think the sauromatae are eyeing my northing cities too... ugh.