Roman troops are too strong at the beginning.

[pezhetairoi]

Livius Andronicus, I wish to say that any and every faction can be overpowered or underpowered depending on what skill you have as a player to handle its challenges. The Romani are neither overpowered, nor underpowered. I have come close to defeat many times before the enemy routed first, by a hair. I have actually had to refight battles because if I had played it out to the end I would have lost the entire legion, or more than half of it. They are most certainly not overpowered, not if they are faced with determined opponents, like that fullstack and a half of Arverni I fought as the Romani who came at me with 8 Gaesatae and no unit less than 2 chevrons against my completely green and newly-recruited legion. And at the same time I have won battles with the same inexperienced legions with a single line charge well-coordinated enough that they crumpled the flanks even as the fronts and rears caved in. Anything is possible, the challenges can be met with practice.

As to why you are on the brink of getting hammered (you aren't yet because we're making the allowance that you're new, if you want to see hammering, go read Rycalawre's threads, now that's hammering) is because you haven't been reading the older threads in the forum and immersing yourself in the culture. It's always wiser to send in your agents to illuminate unfamiliar territory before moving in, get what i mean? When I first came across the RTW forums (not even EB yet) I spent two months just reading threads daily before even registering myself and commenting on the faction threads.

If you would just see the sheer amount of this overpowered, that underpowered, sometimes even this same faction-overpowered-and-underpowered-at-the-same-time threads, and if you've seen the effort those of us who've been with EB from the start have put in trying to get it across to people who posted like you that EB is already as balanced as it can be and definitely far more balanced than any other mod, then you would understand why we respond the way we do. It isn't for no reason, or because we're a bunch of unfriendly, stuck-up, snobbish louts who prefer the company of our papyrus scrolls and dusty shelves and tweed coats to real life society. It's because ironically for a historically-grounded forum, newcomers don't learn from past history and the mistakes which their predecessors made. Which, I guess, is why they make the same mistakes, over and over again, with the same responses, predictable to us, but seemingly totally unwarranted to the newcomers.

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

From you: '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.'

You responded to a polite post with a lashing out to retaliate against no affront at all, but you also generalised and called by implication all posters here condescending. If Boyar called you 'sir', maybe that's the way he speaks. You're being selfish and judging people by your own standards here. And besides, forums are about responses. People -will- respond in different ways to what you say. It's a risk you took by registering and posting. And if I really wanted to get personal, you called my personal favourite faction condescending too, but that would be being very silly. :P

You're new here, so this is just a heads-up. Don't get me wrong, it's good to see a new face presenting some cogent arguments in a civilised manner, and I welcome you most heartily to the Org. I'm looking forward to seeing you post more on the forums. But don't be so quick to anger. Yup.