Quote Originally Posted by Brave Brave Sir Robin View Post
I actually have a suggestion that will likely incite some argument. We all know that there has been a lot of complaining about Rome, both by Roman players and the opponents of said faction. The other day when Vega was raging about something, I made up some army comps to try to help him out. Most things were more or less fine, but I did notice one thing.

There is absolutely no reason for a player to select Marian Roman armies. Why? Well the main infantry contingent will be statistically identical to Imperials but they have no access to factional missile units like Imperials do. In fact, the only unit they have which Imperials do not is the Cohorts Evocata which are basically a redundant unit anyway with little use. Since both Marian and Imperial armies lack decent factional heavy cav (ridiculously crappy and overpriced Praetorians not counting), it is difficult for Marians to field a balanced army with the 5 merc limit. In fact, this sort of explains why many Roman players spam cohorts, simply because if they are taking Post-Marian or Imperial armies, they are somewhat forced to. The factional list for Rome is very small in these time periods.

Therefore, my proposal is that Marian Roman armies be given an additional 3 merc limit, up to 8. Historically, Rome relied a lot on auxiliaries which are personified in Imperial armies through the two spear units. However, Marian armies have no such unit while also lacking factional missiles, but still have the same merc limit as Imperials making them much less flexible. I feel as if this would add a bit of diversity to Roman armies and make people more willing to field Marian armies which I have never seen in tournament iirc. Also, the Samnite spearmen should be factional for Polybian Romans as they are for Camillan (this is the way campaign represents it), while the Samnite heavy infantry should be made available in the roster once again.
I was talking about this with gamegeek2 the other day. Or rather, messaged him about it. One thing you forget is that the Polybian SPQR also needs more mercs. They lack good fire support. So gg2 and I thought of 6 for Polyb/Marian. Now I'm thinking that one extra merc won't cut it.