How should the Romans Play, by Era? TESTER OPINIONS WANTED

What I want to ask is, with what style of play and historical info in mind should I stat the Romans?

What do you mean exactly?

What I mean is, how do we want the Romans to play out in battle? What's the difference between marian and imperial legionaries qualitatively, etc.

Basically, the difference in performance should be almost non-existant between the 2. Altought the imperial could have a really small edge if we are talking about raw recruits; the marian system had it's flaws (small ones) that were fixed during the reing of Augustus (weight of equipment, perhaps slightly more experince by the training officers etc...)

We want the legions to be the BEST standar troop there is at the given price. Meaning that no faction should be able to defeat the legions head on with the same number of men with their non-elite units.

They should however have trouble against elites.

Augustan (Imperial) armies were better trained and disciplined than Marian and had some difference in equipment, like the shield (in Marian it is semi-oval/cylindrical and in Imperial it is rectangular/cylindrical). And some time later, they used different armor too (lorica segemenata and lorica squamata).

Megas Ycarus wrote:Augustan (Imperial) armies were better trained and disciplined than Marian

Really? I haven't read that anywhere. Could you post a source?

Megas Ycarus wrote: and had some difference in equipment, like the shield (in Marian it is semi-oval/cylindrical and in Imperial it is rectangular/cylindrical). And some time later, they used different armor too (lorica segemenata and lorica squamata).

But how would this translate to the game? I doubt that a different shild shape would make any difference at all

but hamata wasn't outdated by that time, and it was more widespread then squamata, and may be even more popular then LS

More significant armor change would be helmet - iron Gallic helmet with anti falx neck protection is much better then bronze montofortino or coloose. Shield coverage also matters. As well as weight of the equipment.

giving imperial legions more defense skills and morale will do, and make the marian legion at the same rate with thorakitai (but cheaper)

I really don't see why the Imperials would be better. Perhaps a +1 in armour. The morale is doubtfull. The republicans were extremly loyal to their commanders, since they were responsible for the soldiers pension.

So, how does 10 armour for Republicans and 11 for imperials, with +1 additional defense for Imperials, sound? Cost would be a good bit higher as well.

Also, do you want the Republicans to have 100 or 90 men? Thureophoroi Bareis currently have 90, Thorakitai 80, Agema units have 60.

I'll said let em stay at 100 men per century, but make their cost not so cheap, I know, their IRL centuria are 80 men, but 90 men just seem weird and 100 are the "old" centuria

P.S. giving Imperial cohort 80 men per century BUT much better stats maybe an interesting solutions

It seems like that would lead to ahistorical outnumberings, however, at least in some cases. Figures from noted battles + wars:

"Tigranocerta": 40,000 Romans + allies vs. estimated 50-80,000 Armenians + allies
Gergovia: 25,000 Romans vs. 30,000 Gauls
Battle of the Axona: 40,000 Romans vs. 50,000 Suessiones
Battle of the Nile: 20,000 Romans vs. 20,000 Egyptians
Teutoburg Forest: 20-36k Romans vs. numerically comparable or inferior Germanic force
Weser River: 71,000 Romans, Aux, Allies vs. 55,000 Germans-
Medway: 24,000 Romans vs. 17,000 Britons
Mons Graupius: 17k-30k romans vs. 15k-30k Caledonians
Second Dacian War: Romans muster 11 legions w. auxiliaries (a force of over 100,000) to defeat Decebalus

In EB both Reformata and Imperatora have same stats.

Compare

http://europabarbarorum.heimstatt.net/index.php?mp=unit&unit=roman%20infantry%20legionary%20cohort%20i&text=&ownership=seleucid&class=heavy&category=infantry

http://europabarbarorum.heimstatt.net/index.php?mp=unit&unit=roman%20infantry%20legionary%20cohort%20ii&text=&ownership=seleucid&class=heavy&category=infantry

And I think 80 men per centuria is very good. 90 is bad. It is neither historical 80 nor beautiful round 100. Thorakitai - hellenic variation of the reformata also have 80 men.

I think they should be the same. They absolutely same equipped. Both have bronze helmets, hamata. But Imperatora has a bit lesser lighter shield, that could lead to -1 to shield and +1 to defence skill. (less shield coverage -1, but less weight of shield leads to +1 defence coz it is easier to operate with it, faster defend from punch, and so on.)

If we are speaking about this one

he should have better armor not because of LS, but because of iron Gallic helmet. This helmet could protect even from falx (after some modifications), and this says alot.

As for morale depending on loyalty to the general, it might be solved on the campaign map via traits boosting morale. For example "imperator" - this people declared this men as imperator blah blah blah +3 morale, or smth like that.

80 men per unit is very small for a bread-and-butter unit. If we are to have no difference between Imperatoria and Reformata, can we just use one model for them?

I wouldn't like to do it because one of them should use merc slot, and it means merc officer skin and both Romans and Roman Rebels would have similar looking units.

Also, their stats are same, but their appearance is different and reflects the change in equipment during the time (another helmet type, another shield shape, perhaps another gladius shape).

I think 80 is enough. But as Anubis said they should bit any non elite unit. May be making them very hardy and very disciplined keeping same stats and 80 men.

Making them very hardy makes no sense. How wouuld a man with a big shield and chain mail have the same stamina as a guy with a light shield and no armour?

afaik, 80 men is not too small for bread and butter units, especially if they are well armoured and their stats are much better than 100 men units

Well, the standard for Nusantabera is 100 men even for excellent deathguard kujang, etc. Maybe I should just make unit numbers higher in general? For example:

120 man Germanic levies
110 man Thureophoroi
100 man legionaries + Thureophoroi Bareis
90 man Dugundiz, etc.

The question is, what size would we make Thorakitai and the various Agema units?

gamegeek2 wrote:Well, the standard for Nusantabera is 100 men even for excellent deathguard kujang, etc. Maybe I should just make unit numbers higher in general? For example:

120 man Germanic levies
110 man Thureophoroi
100 man legionaries + Thureophoroi Bareis
90 man Dugundiz, etc.

The question is, what size would we make Thorakitai and the various Agema units?

not because of that, but that's because in Nusantara.... duh, ask that guy who was in Jail nao...

all I can answer is what in NETW nao

Well downloading NETW takes two hours on slow DL from filefactory...I download full EB install in 10 minutes normally