A Realistic Guide to playing the Romans realistically

**Il_Duce** · 02-15-2008, 03:57

Ave! I remember seeing an extremely detailed guide a long time ago which talked about the history of Rome's military, the structure of a Roman legion, battle formations, tactics, but more importantly a guide on how to historically play as the Roman faction (who you should attack, how far you should advance each year, etc etc).

I have done a quite a bit of sleuthing at twcenter.net but have yielded no results. The only thing I know is it has something to do with "Quintus Setorius". It was a wonderful guide (I think it was especially useful for mods like RTR and EB) and I would LOVE to get my hands on it again.

Thanks for the help, and happy Valentines day!

**The Wandering Scholar** · 02-15-2008, 12:26

*on the lookout*

**Good Ship Chuckle** · 02-17-2008, 20:02

The roman infantry were historically set up like so:
~Velites to pepper the enemy before combat.
~Hastati were the newer recruits and acted as the first line against the attack.
~Principes were the second line and had more grizzled veterans.
~Triarii was the third line (hence the name) and were the elite spearmen that were used to break the back of the enemy.

That's an oversimplified version of legion tactics, but I gives a general overview.

**The Wandering Scholar** · 02-17-2008, 20:46

I see this is starting to digress into "how to play the Romans realistically" therefore as the Romans you have to givwe the enemy no other options except to lose

**Paradox** · 02-18-2008, 18:12

Start off your campaign by taking Sardinia, Palma, Carthage, Thapsus, and Cordoba along with the rest of Spain. After that, eliminate the Greek Cities and advance north to defeat the Macedonians. Focus south and conquer northern Africa, excluding Egypt. Forge an alliance with Egypt to secure the southern part of your empire and attack the Gauls from Spain and Italy.

I think this is how it went historically, your faction has to be quick enough to interfere with the other families' objectives.

**The Wandering Scholar** · 02-19-2008, 12:05

Follow this link for exact dates of Roman conquests:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:R...ire_Phases.png

If you try to be too quick then it will not be realistic. I say let the brutii and scipp extend as they will slowly but the land will still be Roman.

**Flying Pig** · 02-19-2008, 21:37

You would also have to recruit no legion troops until marius from outside Italia as only then were non-italians allowed to join the legions.

**Spartan198** · 02-25-2008, 12:47

Originally Posted by Good Ship Chuckle

The roman infantry were historically set up like so:
~Velites to pepper the enemy before combat.
~Hastati were the newer recruits and acted as the first line against the attack.
~Principes were the second line and had more grizzled veterans.
~Triarii was the third line (hence the name) and were the elite spearmen that were used to break the back of the enemy.

That's an oversimplified version of legion tactics, but I gives a general overview.

Triarii were also phalanx troops,but actually they only fought in last ditch situations (hence the phrase,"falling back to the triarii",or something like that).

**Spartan198** · 02-25-2008, 12:49

Originally Posted by Fahad I

Start off your campaign by taking Sardinia, Palma, Carthage, Thapsus, and Cordoba along with the rest of Spain. After that, eliminate the Greek Cities and advance north to defeat the Macedonians. Focus south and conquer northern Africa, excluding Egypt. Forge an alliance with Egypt to secure the southern part of your empire and attack the Gauls from Spain and Italy.

I think this is how it went historically, your faction has to be quick enough to interfere with the other families' objectives.

Corinth was the last Greek settlement conquered by the Romans,I believe,so leave it to last.

**Quintus.JC** · 02-25-2008, 22:42

"It had come to the Triarii".
I believe the Romans also had some Meceneary Cavalry as well.

**Taedius** · 02-26-2008, 03:38

Indeed, most cavalry units were auxilliaries. So playing 'realistically', you should focus on mercenary cavalry, and train few of your own. If one game army is a legion, then you should never have more than three cavalry units, including the general. The Romans focused heavilly on infantry.

Hm. In-game, all this seems very impractical. I usually have five units of horse, frequently more.

**Quirinus** · 02-26-2008, 14:28

I don't suppose it's really possible to play 'realistically'. The way the game portrays the Romans is highly inaccurate in the first place.

Recruiting 'accurately' wouldn't be even remotely possible-- legionaries can only be drawn from the Roman propertied class-- meaning, for the most part, Rome, which doesn't belong to you at the start of the game. Even if you get past that, you don't have the infrastructure to build principes, let alone triarii at the start of the game. =(

It's just not possible to recruit lke the Romans actually did-- in the game, you can only train two units a year from a city, whereas in reality I'd say that entire legions would have been raised in that time.

Hate to be the spot of rain, but....

**o_loompah_the_delayer** · 02-26-2008, 16:06

Has anyone tried to use a quincunx setup witht he infantry units to see how it would work in pra ctice in the game?

In terms of realism is there any mod that models the change from maniples to cohorst after Marius, and such that thrree (or six) units can be grouped together and work together?