With the trend of more unique castle appearances for newer dlc civs, I'd love to see the dev artists go back and revise a number of the original civs' castles too
This. The only thing that sets same-region civs' apart visually is the wonder, which there is no reason to ever build. While it is unreasonable to ask for entire unique architecture sets for each and every civ, having at least unique castle designs is a good middle line between readability and designer effort, and having a little bit of visual flair.
Yes, that is my hope too. Every civ having unique castle and old models kept only for one civ. I also hope for one more architecture style, a "Central European" one. Eastern, Orthodox looking style does not really fit civs like Poles, Bohemians and Magyars. Huns could be included in that new style too.
Not to mention how raiding hurts them more than most other civilizations. They’re powerful only if they’re allowed to develop their strengths and left to their own devices.
@@asmallchicken5836 - You could say that’s reflected by the cheaper Ballistas, more efficient villagers, and faster creation times from the UT. Logistics can only do so much when you’re lacking local civilians for conscription to field the equipment and needing to pay extra for mercs.
It's ironic considering that early empire was infamous for how expendable roman soldiers was. They could routinely lost entire armies and then send new one, again and again. In fact, their lack of "Supplies" is unhistorical, since even in this period they usually had numerical advantage over decentralised tribes (histarians long ago rejected ridiculously unrealistic numbers from roman chronicles). It's their armor bonus that's completely wrong.
@@deathmaster38 11 Well a Champion would suggest they are the best of everyone but if your whole army is champions then none of them are really champions because they can't all be the best, there can only be one Champion.
@@gmat4380 The counterpoint to that is the scope of where they are a champion. If you send out word for every town and village to send you their champions, then you do have a massive army of champions.
Its probably worth noting that the classical roman steel plated armour (lorica segemntata) isn’t really comparable to the steel plate armour warn during the late middle ages, so Roman's not having access to the final armour upgrade does kinda make sense. The lorica segamntate was really made of serval small strips of steel tied together and they were unable to make solid larger plates like those used by late medieval knights.
" it's really comparable to the steel plate armour warn during the late middle ages" i would disagree. Solid plate are much better at distributing force of impact, and medieval plate usually had better coverage. +as far as we know, roman plate armor was made from low quality steel - mass production by unmotivated slaves has disadvantages...
They dont have access to plate because roman lvl2 armor is already stronger than plate armor. Their civ bonus already reglects their SUPERIOR armor, not the lack of
@@AttiliusRex still, right before the downfall of Rome, their troopers were equipped in chainmails. Lorica Segmentata got phased out due to its mass, and replaced by chain or scale mail.
The "classic" Roman legionary depiction with lorica segmentata and rectangular shield, was actually only used for a relatively short time in the Roman state's history.
I believe its also somewhat undecided just how wide spread usage of the lorica segmentata's were. Its possible only a few legions were issued with them or at least we know that the chain mail armour was never completely phased out in favour of it.
@@zaleostOne of the things not often mentioned, but is an important part of military equipment is ease of maintenance. Lorica Segmentata frequently rusts if not oiled frequently (it involves taking the segments off, rubbing it with lard and putting it back together). The Lorica Hamata doesn’t rust as easily due to the nature of chain links rubbing. The Lorica Hamata is often preferred by those who can afford it due to the ease of maintenance and “good enough protection” with padded shirt.
Another fun little detail you might have missed with the unique Roman castle: If you zoom riiiiight in, between the arches under the double-gated, just below the banner, you can see a little plaque labelled 'CASTVM', or Castrum-- the term for the standardized fort that legionnaires would build to encamp. Personally, I think it would have been cool to see the legionaries for the Romans have some sort of dynamic not unlike the Sicilan Serjeant, where they can build defensive fortifications as part of their core functionality. But the devs did a great job with what they've done here IMO :)
@@onebigfatguy If militia could build palisades, then a drush would be too overpowered. But limiting it to feudal or above, might work without destroying balance.
I like that they added Romans. Now, when you play the Hun or Alaric campaign, you actually fight Romans now. If anything should have been controversial, it should have been those campaigns. But since we already crossed the pre-500 ad line as early as the Conquerors, I'm happy to have Romans officially as a civ.
@@Black.Templar_002 Part of the Hun campaign takes place in the Eastern Empire, so Byzantines are appropriate, but another half takes place in the Western Empire, so I'm happy they replaced Byzantines with the new Roman civ for those missions. Also, the Alaric missions are really cool facing wave after wave of legionary when you sack Rome.
I completely agree, that was my first thought when they were revealed. Rome had always been in the game, just not as a proper civ, being byzantine instead
@@Black.Templar_002everyone knows that eastern and western romans aren't the same thing. You could say by the same logic that age2 always had portugueses because it had spain.
10:41 that actually sounds like a cool idea, instead of 5%, give them an insane 15% or even 20% in dark age, but as you advance you lose 10% each age up encouraging you to stay an age lower for a longer period of time and suffering in late game if you weren't aggressive enough
Spears are also easier to manufacture, requiring just a point of metal, rather than… a whole swords-worth. Being able to out-range other, sword-based infantry is also a big plus.
Spears are better at penetrating armor, you can use it as halfstaff to beat the crap out or armored opponents, spears are cheap to produce, fighting with a spear is easy to learn, spears are very close to the ultimate weapon: stick... Honestly, swords are mostly last resort / bravado
@@Sonlirain Right, the Gladius was the Plan-β for if you couldn't adequately explain your _point_ to the other guy; it gave you an extra little edge in the debate.
@@griffin1299likely because most of the soldiers were barbarians and it takes more time and resources to train a swordsman than a spearman which the Roman Empire, at the time, couldn't afford to do.
One thing that you should've mentioned under the Architecture section is that the preexisting Mediterranean Watch and Guard Towers are based on real-life Roman observation towers, adding an extra layer of authenticity whenever you play the Romans and build towers. Sometimes I refuse to upgrade to Keeps just to keep (hah) the immersion going. That being said, the Romans really should've had a tower bonus like their counterpart in AoE1...
Another factor that might have contributed to the use of oval shields was that swords had gotten longer, and rounded shields are easier for long blades to maneuver around.
Remember that in The Conquerors the developers added Huns as a playable civ. Along with a playable campaign, focusing on their invasion on Europe. They invaded when Western Roman Empire was still existing, albeit on its last legs. Then I guess that devs have already messed up the game's storyline way before the appearance of Romans.
it's always important to note that strategy games highly rely on readability of units, even if you might not be perfectly familiar with them, so giving the legionaries a spear might mislead people that they directly counter cavalry rather than being a strong (anti) infantry unit
Another touch I like when it comes to the gameplay of the Romans is how they can get screwed if they experience even moderate amounts of raiding. Raids affecting their already vulnerable economy was one of the major factors leading to their downfall, so I do like that touch a lot (even if it might not have been intentional).
How is that western roman related though? Khmer aside, raids are lethal to every civ. In fact, I'd argue the opposite, as the westernerns have a solid and consistent eco bonus, they can actually tank minor raids better than most civs.
@@Toonrick12 I might be missing something very obvious here, so excuse me if that's the case. But what makes it hard to reboom with romans compared to goths, byzantines, ethiopians, turks, etc.?
@@Dr.Happy11 your units in-game are expensive, especially your core infantry. Trying to clean a raid takes a lot of resources out of the potential you'd have to reboom after the raid has been dealt with. Each extra 20 food you have to spend on a legionary is 20 less food you can spend replacing villagers after a big raid. Also, although you're also more efficient on everything, some other civs with stronger bonuses can immediately replace buildings lost in a raid, or quickly get the resources (mainly wood) to do so. At high level killing farms is an important part of the game late castle age/early imp; a Teuton or a Celt player gonna reseed farm much easier than you, for example.
@@thatnerdcalledzanni3957 The initial point is potentially valid, I agree. However, it is important to point out that you would have both more res to deal with the raid, and more efficient units. For feudal/early castle raids, I find romans' options actually splendid, as they have pointy boys that give splendid value against scouts and budget scorps+generic skirms for the errant Archer. For late game raiding, their unga production bonus to key powerunits can easily aid in preventing loses and match the raiding force. They may not be the best, but they certainly do not particularly suffer. As for the whole "rebuilding" argument, let's be honest. You're not losing more than a couple farms or a palisade in a raid, unless you've already lost the game, or it's not a raid you're dealing with, but a proper rush/mango/ram push. Having cheaper universities or markets is negligible in a raid, especially next to a 5% villager working speed and strong unit options.
That's a solid sponsor for this video. The Centurion being on Horse is an obvious inconsistency, but then, there's so many of them in the game, it feels like a small thing.
yeah but including such an iconic unit and not implementing it correctly. i mean they couldve just called it eques or just give them the cataphracts aswell. that would have made more sense
@@Black.Templar_002 I dunno; Given we have the Woad Raider and War Wagon, and several Unique Units that were just a sort of noble or weapon, having a unit that just has a horse it shouldn't doesn't really tickle. I assume they've done it mostly to fit that one ancient scenario long before rome became an actual faction. They also had to make it clearly distinct from the legionare, at player view distance. It might have just beeen the easiest way to go about it.
The late empire legionaries were called comitatenses which is deprived from company and while you are mostly correct, their main weapon wasn't spear but it still was a sword, shield and two pilum. Spear infantry mainly consisted of Auxillia, continuing the tradition of mid empire. There is also another misconception about lorca segmentata, because considering its structure, it was definately faster to manufacture, thus cheaper to produce overall as the armor consisted of small sheets of iron linked with leather straps while mail needs many hundreds if not thousands of iron rings put together by hand. It is believed that segmentata was actually a stop gap for constantly increasing numbers of a roman army.
I see their bonuses to the knight line, and the Centurio being on a horse, as the romans slipping into and addapting feudalism and the medivals. Or more, adapting what medival feudal nations were appearing in the once roman lands
@@cognitivedisability9864 that's literally what I said. I said it really only came into prominence in the medieval period. The late antiquity cataphractoi of the east your referring to were the prototypes for the medieval heavy cavalry of the eastern Roman empire
I did hear Centurions sometimes rode on horseback. While they did not fight on them, they used them for non-fighting purposes. The higher position makes the easier to be seen, makes it easier for them to see the battlefield. And gave them mobility, to chase down fleeing soldiers or to form a line while on the march. Also, I do remember a "all Centurion" unit from history. They were snuck into a enemy camp and lit it on fire.
They did a great job. I like that they didn't just copy aspects of AOE1 ( Except, of course, the infantry theme) They somehow managed to renew the civ. I just wished they had done it sooner, it would have been awesome to play
Romans having Scale and Chain Mail armors only but them giving +2 armor is also a nice nod to Age of Empires 1 where these armors were also present and with +2 armor upgrade. Plus the last armor upgrade was Chain Mail hence no Plate Mail for the Romans. The fact that it keeps AoE2 balance at the same time is brilliant!
As someone who knows about history, I can tell you that the design of the Centurion unit is not bad, what is wrong is the name they chose for the unit and that it actually seems to represent the late Roman cavalry (those who were can be seen represented in other RTS games such as Attila: Total War, especially those that appear in the Belisarius campaign), this cavalry was the direct ancestor of the Cataphracts of the Byzantine civilization, which are much later between the years 800 A.D. to 1200 A.D., while the Late Roman is from 300 B.C. to 600 A.D. (the wrongly called Centurions). Having settled that, it must be taken into account that the majority of Roman commanders and officers of these times (those that represent the Civilization of the Romans), were armed similarly to the cataphracts (at least the ranks above the centurion), therefore It is not unreasonable that the unit performs the function of Centurion, but it should not have that name, but rather another name that is in accordance with that cavalry, such as a "Decurion" (they were on horseback).
I guess a more realistic mechanism for the centurion would be if you don't recruit them separately, but just every 10th or such recruited soldier becomes one. (And it's still a foot unit.) To represent the actual legionaries using spears, I guess you just need to set up a mixed group of pikemen and legionaries.
15:15 - *Chi Rho* (☧) symbol combines the first two letters of the name of Christ in Greek actually (ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ), not Latin. PS: *Chi Rho* also appears on Cataphract shield, of the Byzantines.
Isn't the same in Latin ? Edit: oh, you mean the "font", so to speak, not the letters themselves. Somehow I didn't even realize the mistake, I knew it's greek.
@@Winnetou17 while both Χ and Ρ found their way in the latin alphabet, they sound completely different than in greek, so no, it would be completely different in latin. The greek XP would sound like CR/CHR (as in cristus/christus, not sure how the latin folks would actually say it tbh)
@@Dr.Happy11 It's CR. The same are you pronounce Kr from Kratos. Yeah, initially I thought that Manouil wanted to say that the first two letters of Christ in latin are not C and R, that's why I was confused. But you're all correct, SotL was wrong in saying it's in latin.
@@Winnetou17 Yeah, it's not actually the "kr" sound I'm looking for. It's more like saying "he", but with an R in-between. The X letter itself is literally pronounced as "he", not "kai".
@@Dr.Happy11 Oh, I see what you mean, perfecty so. I'm Romanian, and in our language it's both Iisus (Jesus) Cristos or Iisus Hristos. And the latter is indeed pronounced like you said. Never thought of it. So it cames from how the "X" is pronounced in greek ?
The thing about the late roman navy is that they had moments of powerfulness, or potential, before some backstabbing shenanigans screwed everything up... but then, that describes the entire time period right up even a bit after the end.
I actually really appreciate the history about the Late Roman Empire. It feels like all I ever hear about the latter years of the empire was "oh they were getting sacked by the Germanic tribes, everything was on fire and everything sucks", and people rarely talk about how the empire actually responded in those final years and how much society has changed by then compared to earlier eras
As for the second hypothesis on the Legionnaire you have to consider that the Romans themselves became less roman over time, as more and more Auxilia were given Roman citizenship for their service. Also the Auxillia were given the same training and equipment as the legionaries so it might have been logistically more feasible.
Romanity has nothing to do with the ethnic origins of the people under the power of Rome. An Auxiliary who has completed his 25 years of service and is rewarded with Roman citizenship, becomes a full Roman citizen like his descendants. Since being a Roman citizen implies a legal link between the individual and his city, which has nothing to do with the ethnic origin of the individual. What you are possibly referring to is the foederatii troops, which are allied barbarian troops that do not have citizenship and that operate almost autonomously in the empire, but without being linked by citizenship to Rome, the only thing that unites them to Rome is the pact ("foedus") with the empire
@@Aioradeleo27 Briton was so Roman that Rome abandoned it without a fight. The East was so Roman that it reverted to a Greek monarchy while the West's corpse was still warm.
@@Kidneyjoe42 You are completely wrong and confused about this, the fact that the empire abandoned Britain post 406 has nothing to do with whether or not it was completely Romanized. Since it was due to many factors why the empire evacuated Britain, which were the inability to send reinforcements to the islands since most of the forces of the western empire were busy expelling and stopping the avalanche of barbarian peoples that had entered. to Gaul. In addition, the last official troops of the empire in Britain were used by the usurper Constantine in his attempt to proclaim himself emperor in Gaul. Even in the absence of a de facto government in Britain, the Roman Britons continued to consider themselves and govern as Romans, facing waves of Angles, Saxons and Jutes until at least the beginning of the 6th century. On the other hand, the eastern empire did not revert to a "Greek monarchy" at all and under no circumstances. The eastern empire maintained the same political, administrative and institutional structure of Diocletian and Constantine in some aspects until the 7th century and in others until the 10th-11th century, not to mention that the empire, the emperor and its inhabitants were always identified as Romans, although Pragmatically, Latin was abandoned in favor of Greek starting in the 7th century. This fact is not even a valid argument to question the Romanity of the Eastern Empire. Rather, it is the classic argument of some Western historians from the 16th century to deny that the Eastern Roman Empire was not the Roman Empire, and to affirm that the only "successor of Rome" was the Holy Roman Empire.
Hello! It's not connecting to this video, but could be an interesting concept for you in the future. It's about which units count as light cavalry in terms of the Hindustani team bonus. To me it seems it effects steppe lancers and shrivamsha riders. It may also apply to certain unique units. I don't have the nerves and patience to test it, nor do I have a channel for video publishing, but for a person like you it might serve well.
I think that, in addition to the obvious balance choice (can you imagine roman infantry with +6/+6 armor?) their infantry armor line stopping at chain mail is also a nod the Aoe1, since that was the last level of armor for all units there and the aoe1 romans do have access to it for their infantry
historically armor of late roman legionaries was inferior to later medieval armor. Even some barbarians (mostly warchiefs and elite bodyguards) had better gear that legionnaire during decline.
@@sirtaelellevalerie1056 yeah ik but it would capture the spirit of roman heavy inf better. and later roman inf had really good armour, but that would belong to the eastern romans aka byzantines in aoe
I feel like the shingles on the Mediterranean set for Romans should be much brighter than they are for other Mediterranean civs to give them a "fresher" look, whereas the other Mediterranean sets should look more worn like the architecture has been there for centuries. Plus the Roman buildings should not have domes (unless the building in question is the Pantheon, which would've made a good Wonder for the Romans too)
I love idea of adding specifically late Roman Empire, that set fraction apart from default golden age Roman Empire of many RTS including Age of Empires 1
Honestly, the 3rd and 4th century Rome is compleatly underrepresented in media. And while I agree that the medivals didnt realy start till the western romans truely fell, I think the type of romans depicted in aoe2 is still fitting enough to be included. Similar to how the Spanish that are depicted, are technically just after the fall of eastern rome / byzantine.
10:39 Balance matters notwithstanding, this could have been implemented, in the form of making the bonus depend on the amount of Town Centers you have.
Just to add something to your analysis regarding the weapons used by legionnaries : in fact they did use mainly spears. Everyone did. Since prehistoric times up to the end of Renaissance. And the reason is pretty simple : it is the most effective, simple, cheap, and dissuasive weapon you can produce (let's remind that it's a range weapon), the only one you could mass produce at the time (it's an arrow, but bigger and simpler), and it was very easy to manipulate, there was not much to learn : you thrust, you can throw sometimes. Broadswords were used mainly by Celts and later Germans (but again, a lot less than spears), who were far superior to Romans in mettalurgy, and Romans adapted it to their legions to improve their fighting in close combats such as sieges, or melee fighting. But it was, indeed, a secondary weapon, and it was closer to a big knife than to a medieval sword. And it never was mass produced as spears did : it was a lot more expensive, and the quality wasn't always good (a bad sword can break like glass, a bad spear is still a dangerous spear). During the Middle Ages, weapons such as swords were almost never used in battles. They were a noble weapon, very expensive, very rare, a remarkable sign of craftsmanship, but more of a parade weapon. The reason why we believed that it was so commonly used is because we found a lot of them in tombs, but didn't find that much spears or axes, because people were not burried with them (and of course metal resists time far better than wood). And of course swords are a lot more graceful than spears, so Hollywood used them a lot. Concerning axes, they were commonly used, much more than swords. All tools in fact were commonly used during Medieval wars, for men at arms had to equip themselves. Last but not least, armors evolved with weapons : first they consisted in thick clothes such as fur, but as weapons became sharper, with the use of bows and spears mainly, people started to use leather scale armors and chainmails, which block the penetration, making pointy things almost useless. Their only downside is that they don't "absord" the shock. Plates were introduced to do that : no more swords, axes or maces of any kind could go through. Arbalests were designed to pierce armors of any kind, but plate armors at their best could withstand a bolt easily. That's the reason why gunpower was introduced, and armors started to shrink, until now, when bodyarmors still exist, but are limited. That's all for today, see you next time 🙂
At first I shared the initial skepsis against Romans as their own thing in this game. I quite like the overall depiction of the late western empire however, quite solid job on the historical team. Perhaps a bit too powerful, and perhaps a bit too synergistic civilization bonuses. And as the Byzantines got the new Dromon instead of the old Cannon Galleon; I must raise the question whether they should get the Legionary as well. Without the Centurion, Comitatenses and the doubled armour bonus they would be considerably weaker; as such they would mostly be a matter of style and accuracy. Not sure if the eastern Romans ever got plate armoured greatsword infantry, they ceetainly did have sword and shield infantry. I for one would be delighted.
Yeah even if it isn't all unique units for everyone I think we're well past the point where at least each culture should have its own skins for each unit. Seeing Asian nations with French paladins or European men at arms fighting for the aztecs is weird let's not kid ourselves here. Hell it could even be a clientside option so hardcore multiplayer people could turn it back to default for ease of unit identification and so forth
They could just named them tribunes instead of centurions and that would fix the problem... and gave them Vth century helmets. I also wished they could have used something closer to the Late Empire than a Colloseum.
Nice video. I think they should make Romans fall off in strength towards imperial age. Since they might need a nerf anyway, why not make their villager work bonus regress, like +7% in dark age, +2% in feudal, -2% in castle and -7% in imperial age.
the only thing that bothers me about romans is their wonder, that tiny coliseum recycled from AoE 1 (where all buildings are small compared to AoE 2), could be update/replaced for one of the assets from the campaigns, like the arch of constantine or the big coliseum, to fit better with the rest of the building size
I stand by the fact that, if the Huns were okay to have in AoE2, then the WRE is not a problem to have whatsoever either. Though they really shouldn't have used Republic and Early Empire names for the units.
I understand the arguments that people make against adding new civs, but as far as campaigns go, it is so much nicer to see the Romans or the Italians or the Sicilians instead of just "The Byzantines".
One thing to consider is their campaign appearances for possible infractions. For instance, while the Romans are used to represent the Western Roman Empire primarily, the Eastern Roman Empire until the 7th-8th century was primarily Roman rather than Greek, culturally. So the Eastern Roman Empire in Attila and Alaric could've used the Roman civ rather than Byzantine one, to showcase these early stages of Eastern Rome's culture. In addition, the Italians in the Tariq campaign are actually supposed to be Hispano-Romans, which continued to populate Iberia well until the Muslim conquests in the region. Yet in-game they are represented as Italians. While it might seem weird to have Romans running around in the time period, it is true that Romans as a culture did persevere even under Gothic occupation, as the Goths had quite a lot of respect for Roman culture. The same is true in Italy, where Italians as a defined culture wouldn't emerge until late Langobard rule and the Frankish conquest of Italy, with the formation of the Kingdom of Italy within the East Frankia.
an interesting thing they could've done is giving the Legionaries the ability to switch weapon like the Rathas. They could switch between a short sword (faster and higher base attack, perfect against infantry) and a spear (slower, weaker base attack but with a massive bonus against cavalry). Halberdiers could be removed if necessary for balance purposes
13:20 I disagree. Byzantines should keep cannon galleys and the other civs get dromones (huns, Goths, Romans). I mean Byzantines were actually in the time when cannons got introduced. 13:49 I think the golden cav unit should be the centurion, only recruitable 1-3 times per castle. the normal Cav units could be the Equites which get the attack buff through comitatenses
Yeah. Shame the corvus made ships top-heavy and caused massive chunks of Roman fleets to capsize in storms, but they served an immediate purpose of catching the Carthaginians off guard. A nice stop-gap for Romans to build more agile ships and train sailors more effectively, somewhat catching up to the thousand plus years of seafaring mastery their enemies had.
I've been following your channel for a couple of years now 😅 and absolutely dig it. Do you have any intentions on maybe doing something similar for other strategy games? I've been playing a lot of Dune Spice Wars lately and I figured it needs such a creator like you 😅
Not sure if this is true, but given the change from tall/long shields to oval shields it made sense to me. I say this because in close combat, if you were fixated on attacking or defending, you'd be looking up or ahead and not down at the enemies feet. So in theory, if you looked down, you'd get hit, so it can make sense that because the legs were not aimed at, you didn't need to protect it? On top of easier production and reduced materials use for the shields.
They should give every civ and unique castle, with all the new ones doing that I wish they could show castles being more specific to how it really would look
Legionaries hadn't spears because it could confuse players, due to using spears could mean bonuses to cavalry. I think that's why they chose swords instead.
I think reason why they didn't give Legionary a spear lies in familiarity. Because player association with spear is different in AOE2 and Legionary isn't anti cavalry. So to make quick association of what unit is supposed to be easier, sword makes more sense, even if not completely accurate. I think similar is true with buildings. Since being able to tell them apart is easier when things are somewhat familiar is better. Though having few different designs in between is fine, where it makes sense. Like castle despite looking different is easy to recognize. Navy likely was pure gameply decision. Probably a little bit also marketing one, since you do want new civilization to be good enough to sell DLC. Like there were worse offenders in it in gaming than Romans here though, DLC adding overpowered thing that is overpowered for little while before they slowly start nerfing it to where it is supposed to be, but not too fast, because people bought DLC... :-D
I'm fairly certain that the argument that mail was more expensive to make than segmentata is actually completely wrong. That was certainly true for the later period of the middle ages, but certainly not in classical or late antiquity. Large-plate iron armour is actually more or less completely unknown in that time period as far as I know. At least in the Roman-adjacent world. The only real exception being, well, the Romans, who did not only use the Segmentata, but also had helmets made from only one or two large pieces of iron. I believe the reason for this is quite simple: metallurgy. In this period, the only means of producing iron we know they had access to was bloomery, which is a process that doesn't produce uniform ingots, but instead produces large clumps, or blooms, of smaller iron bits, of varying carbon content and purity, interspersed with slag and impurities. Refining this lump into usable ingots is a laborious process, where several smiths spend hours or even days hammering out the impurities and homogenising the material to the point where it doesn't have any critical weak spots. And, naturally, the larger the final ingot, the more work is required and the more material is lost along the way. This is relevant because you need metal of pretty good quality to make large-plate armour, because poor-quality metal will be liable to crack or even shatter when hit in battle, and so you need relatively large ingots of a reasonably homogeneous material. Conversely, to make mail you still need decent quality metal, but you can draw rings from pretty small ingots and you can also make a mail shirt from rings of different quality. This is likely the reason why bronze remained a popular metal for helmets, greaves and so on even when mail was the common body armour, and why iron helmets were usually made from small riveted plates even as late as the viking age. Because refining iron ingots of that size was ruinously expensive. Meaning that being able to equip tens of thousands of soldiers with Segmentata and single-sheet helmets was a MASSIVE flex of economic muscle.
Could be interesting for the economic bonus to decline as they age up. +10% to everything in Dark Age, reduced to +5% in Feudal, +0% in Castle, and (-5)% in Imperial Age
Before the single plates the roman already had mail in most of the army. The lamella plates were only in usage very short and made popular by the Asterix comics because they were easier to draw. (The very first comic had mail because it was more hisorical. )
Also now that unique castles are slowly becoming the norm, I wish they'd also give unique castles to all pre-LotW civs. Maybe unique monasteries as well.
Time to think again about the Roman Empire, third time this week
Average Roman Enjoyer: “Yah I’ve been thinking about them the 5th time this week, how about you?”
Third time? I haven't stopped!
@@scintillam_deidude the British are not looking at your maps 😅😅😅 thank me later when you get the joke
Rookie numbers
*day
With the trend of more unique castle appearances for newer dlc civs, I'd love to see the dev artists go back and revise a number of the original civs' castles too
I've been hoping for that for such a long time...
This. The only thing that sets same-region civs' apart visually is the wonder, which there is no reason to ever build. While it is unreasonable to ask for entire unique architecture sets for each and every civ, having at least unique castle designs is a good middle line between readability and designer effort, and having a little bit of visual flair.
@@LotsOfSSkins would be a good alternative for monetization to not have to endlessly add new civs
Yes, that is my hope too. Every civ having unique castle and old models kept only for one civ. I also hope for one more architecture style, a "Central European" one. Eastern, Orthodox looking style does not really fit civs like Poles, Bohemians and Magyars. Huns could be included in that new style too.
@@TheConnoiseurofTheArtofSnort no
One good nod is lack of Supplies. Showing the Romans difficulty in replacing lost soldiers.
On the other hand, the Romans were famous for their excellent logistics system.
Not to mention how raiding hurts them more than most other civilizations. They’re powerful only if they’re allowed to develop their strengths and left to their own devices.
@@asmallchicken5836 - You could say that’s reflected by the cheaper Ballistas, more efficient villagers, and faster creation times from the UT. Logistics can only do so much when you’re lacking local civilians for conscription to field the equipment and needing to pay extra for mercs.
@@asmallchicken5836 while true, by the end of the Empire, they were really struggling.
It's ironic considering that early empire was infamous for how expendable roman soldiers was. They could routinely lost entire armies and then send new one, again and again.
In fact, their lack of "Supplies" is unhistorical, since even in this period they usually had numerical advantage over decentralised tribes (histarians long ago rejected ridiculously unrealistic numbers from roman chronicles). It's their armor bonus that's completely wrong.
7:27 Spirit just casually blowing my mind, I had never thought about an entire army of 'champions' not making any sense XD
lol same
I still dont understand 🤣🤣
@@deathmaster38 11 Well a Champion would suggest they are the best of everyone but if your whole army is champions then none of them are really champions because they can't all be the best, there can only be one Champion.
@@gmat4380 The counterpoint to that is the scope of where they are a champion. If you send out word for every town and village to send you their champions, then you do have a massive army of champions.
@@gmat4380 "When everyone's super.... No one will be." - Syndrome
Its probably worth noting that the classical roman steel plated armour (lorica segemntata) isn’t really comparable to the steel plate armour warn during the late middle ages, so Roman's not having access to the final armour upgrade does kinda make sense. The lorica segamntate was really made of serval small strips of steel tied together and they were unable to make solid larger plates like those used by late medieval knights.
" it's really comparable to the steel plate armour warn during the late middle ages" i would disagree. Solid plate are much better at distributing force of impact, and medieval plate usually had better coverage. +as far as we know, roman plate armor was made from low quality steel - mass production by unmotivated slaves has disadvantages...
@@sirtaelellevalerie1056 that was a typo, I meant to say that they weren’t comparable.
They dont have access to plate because roman lvl2 armor is already stronger than plate armor.
Their civ bonus already reglects their SUPERIOR armor, not the lack of
@@AttiliusRex still, right before the downfall of Rome, their troopers were equipped in chainmails. Lorica Segmentata got phased out due to its mass, and replaced by chain or scale mail.
I think people forget how difficult it actually is to cast metal and how many advancements in metallurgy have happened.
The "classic" Roman legionary depiction with lorica segmentata and rectangular shield, was actually only used for a relatively short time in the Roman state's history.
I believe its also somewhat undecided just how wide spread usage of the lorica segmentata's were. Its possible only a few legions were issued with them or at least we know that the chain mail armour was never completely phased out in favour of it.
@@zaleostOne of the things not often mentioned, but is an important part of military equipment is ease of maintenance. Lorica Segmentata frequently rusts if not oiled frequently (it involves taking the segments off, rubbing it with lard and putting it back together). The Lorica Hamata doesn’t rust as easily due to the nature of chain links rubbing.
The Lorica Hamata is often preferred by those who can afford it due to the ease of maintenance and “good enough protection” with padded shirt.
yeah, but its in Asterix comics and that is most relevant.
@@RudOndAnd they used it in Jesus's time, so there are plenty of paintings and later movies set in that time period.
@@RudOnd That's the "classic" depiction I was referring to.
Another fun little detail you might have missed with the unique Roman castle:
If you zoom riiiiight in, between the arches under the double-gated, just below the banner, you can see a little plaque labelled 'CASTVM', or Castrum-- the term for the standardized fort that legionnaires would build to encamp.
Personally, I think it would have been cool to see the legionaries for the Romans have some sort of dynamic not unlike the Sicilan Serjeant, where they can build defensive fortifications as part of their core functionality. But the devs did a great job with what they've done here IMO :)
I wonder how it would affect balance if the militia line could be able to build palisade walls...
@@praevasc4299 I honestly don't think it would be that bad. Palisades are useful but flimsy and it would be a nice nod to Roman history.
@@onebigfatguy If militia could build palisades, then a drush would be too overpowered. But limiting it to feudal or above, might work without destroying balance.
@@praevasc4299 well yeah that's what I'm saying. Make it a skill that's tied with getting the MAA upgrade.
I like that they added Romans. Now, when you play the Hun or Alaric campaign, you actually fight Romans now. If anything should have been controversial, it should have been those campaigns. But since we already crossed the pre-500 ad line as early as the Conquerors, I'm happy to have Romans officially as a civ.
Byzantines are also Romans 😉
you did before? just eastern romans
@@Black.Templar_002 Part of the Hun campaign takes place in the Eastern Empire, so Byzantines are appropriate, but another half takes place in the Western Empire, so I'm happy they replaced Byzantines with the new Roman civ for those missions.
Also, the Alaric missions are really cool facing wave after wave of legionary when you sack Rome.
I completely agree, that was my first thought when they were revealed. Rome had always been in the game, just not as a proper civ, being byzantine instead
@@Black.Templar_002everyone knows that eastern and western romans aren't the same thing. You could say by the same logic that age2 always had portugueses because it had spain.
10:41 that actually sounds like a cool idea, instead of 5%, give them an insane 15% or even 20% in dark age, but as you advance you lose 10% each age up encouraging you to stay an age lower for a longer period of time and suffering in late game if you weren't aggressive enough
Spears are also easier to manufacture, requiring just a point of metal, rather than… a whole swords-worth. Being able to out-range other, sword-based infantry is also a big plus.
Well they still had a sword, but it was mainly used as a sidearm.
Spears are better at penetrating armor, you can use it as halfstaff to beat the crap out or armored opponents, spears are cheap to produce, fighting with a spear is easy to learn, spears are very close to the ultimate weapon: stick... Honestly, swords are mostly last resort / bravado
@@Sonlirain Right, the Gladius was the Plan-β for if you couldn't adequately explain your _point_ to the other guy; it gave you an extra little edge in the debate.
This still doesn't fully explain why the Romans suddenly made the switch from the gladius being their main weapon.
@@griffin1299likely because most of the soldiers were barbarians and it takes more time and resources to train a swordsman than a spearman which the Roman Empire, at the time, couldn't afford to do.
One thing that you should've mentioned under the Architecture section is that the preexisting Mediterranean Watch and Guard Towers are based on real-life Roman observation towers, adding an extra layer of authenticity whenever you play the Romans and build towers. Sometimes I refuse to upgrade to Keeps just to keep (hah) the immersion going.
That being said, the Romans really should've had a tower bonus like their counterpart in AoE1...
Note that the Lorica Segmentata "IS NOT" Plate Armor but more of a Banded Armor similar to the ones used by the Historical Samurai and Winged Hussars.
Another factor that might have contributed to the use of oval shields was that swords had gotten longer, and rounded shields are easier for long blades to maneuver around.
So would you say the switch back to rounded shields was to cut corners?
damn
Get out.
Would be great to have some more campaign history videos 😊
Remember that in The Conquerors the developers added Huns as a playable civ. Along with a playable campaign, focusing on their invasion on Europe. They invaded when Western Roman Empire was still existing, albeit on its last legs. Then I guess that devs have already messed up the game's storyline way before the appearance of Romans.
it's always important to note that strategy games highly rely on readability of units, even if you might not be perfectly familiar with them, so giving the legionaries a spear might mislead people that they directly counter cavalry rather than being a strong (anti) infantry unit
Skirmishers be like:
Fair, skirmishers would historically be more of an anti-infantry unit.
Another touch I like when it comes to the gameplay of the Romans is how they can get screwed if they experience even moderate amounts of raiding. Raids affecting their already vulnerable economy was one of the major factors leading to their downfall, so I do like that touch a lot (even if it might not have been intentional).
How is that western roman related though? Khmer aside, raids are lethal to every civ.
In fact, I'd argue the opposite, as the westernerns have a solid and consistent eco bonus, they can actually tank minor raids better than most civs.
@@Dr.Happy11Mostly because of how it's hard to re-boom as the Romans.
@@Toonrick12 I might be missing something very obvious here, so excuse me if that's the case.
But what makes it hard to reboom with romans compared to goths, byzantines, ethiopians, turks, etc.?
@@Dr.Happy11 your units in-game are expensive, especially your core infantry. Trying to clean a raid takes a lot of resources out of the potential you'd have to reboom after the raid has been dealt with. Each extra 20 food you have to spend on a legionary is 20 less food you can spend replacing villagers after a big raid.
Also, although you're also more efficient on everything, some other civs with stronger bonuses can immediately replace buildings lost in a raid, or quickly get the resources (mainly wood) to do so. At high level killing farms is an important part of the game late castle age/early imp; a Teuton or a Celt player gonna reseed farm much easier than you, for example.
@@thatnerdcalledzanni3957 The initial point is potentially valid, I agree.
However, it is important to point out that you would have both more res to deal with the raid, and more efficient units.
For feudal/early castle raids, I find romans' options actually splendid, as they have pointy boys that give splendid value against scouts and budget scorps+generic skirms for the errant Archer.
For late game raiding, their unga production bonus to key powerunits can easily aid in preventing loses and match the raiding force. They may not be the best, but they certainly do not particularly suffer.
As for the whole "rebuilding" argument, let's be honest. You're not losing more than a couple farms or a palisade in a raid, unless you've already lost the game, or it's not a raid you're dealing with, but a proper rush/mango/ram push.
Having cheaper universities or markets is negligible in a raid, especially next to a 5% villager working speed and strong unit options.
I wish they had square shields, but I'm glad you talked about it, because until now I had no idea why they decided to go for the oval shields.
I am so glad you brought this series back, great video.
That's a solid sponsor for this video.
The Centurion being on Horse is an obvious inconsistency, but then, there's so many of them in the game, it feels like a small thing.
yeah but including such an iconic unit and not implementing it correctly. i mean they couldve just called it eques or just give them the cataphracts aswell. that would have made more sense
@@Black.Templar_002 I dunno; Given we have the Woad Raider and War Wagon, and several Unique Units that were just a sort of noble or weapon, having a unit that just has a horse it shouldn't doesn't really tickle.
I assume they've done it mostly to fit that one ancient scenario long before rome became an actual faction.
They also had to make it clearly distinct from the legionare, at player view distance. It might have just beeen the easiest way to go about it.
Love the history vids. Keep it up!
The late empire legionaries were called comitatenses which is deprived from company and while you are mostly correct, their main weapon wasn't spear but it still was a sword, shield and two pilum. Spear infantry mainly consisted of Auxillia, continuing the tradition of mid empire. There is also another misconception about lorca segmentata, because considering its structure, it was definately faster to manufacture, thus cheaper to produce overall as the armor consisted of small sheets of iron linked with leather straps while mail needs many hundreds if not thousands of iron rings put together by hand. It is believed that segmentata was actually a stop gap for constantly increasing numbers of a roman army.
I see their bonuses to the knight line, and the Centurio being on a horse, as the romans slipping into and addapting feudalism and the medivals. Or more, adapting what medival feudal nations were appearing in the once roman lands
they never adapted feudalism and roman cavalry stayed underappreciated until the middle ages
@@Black.Templar_002 No, romans had quite a bit of cavalry in late antiquity. But they were mostly stationed in the eastern part of the empire.
@@cognitivedisability9864 that's literally what I said. I said it really only came into prominence in the medieval period. The late antiquity cataphractoi of the east your referring to were the prototypes for the medieval heavy cavalry of the eastern Roman empire
I missed this series 👍 Great to see it again
I did hear Centurions sometimes rode on horseback. While they did not fight on them, they used them for non-fighting purposes.
The higher position makes the easier to be seen, makes it easier for them to see the battlefield. And gave them mobility, to chase down fleeing soldiers or to form a line while on the march.
Also, I do remember a "all Centurion" unit from history. They were snuck into a enemy camp and lit it on fire.
They did a great job. I like that they didn't just copy aspects of AOE1 ( Except, of course, the infantry theme) They somehow managed to renew the civ. I just wished they had done it sooner, it would have been awesome to play
Romans having Scale and Chain Mail armors only but them giving +2 armor is also a nice nod to Age of Empires 1 where these armors were also present and with +2 armor upgrade. Plus the last armor upgrade was Chain Mail hence no Plate Mail for the Romans.
The fact that it keeps AoE2 balance at the same time is brilliant!
Finally! Been waiting for more episodes in this series
You don't often make these kinds of videos but when yu do, it's great.
Always hyped for SoTL content!
As someone who knows about history, I can tell you that the design of the Centurion unit is not bad, what is wrong is the name they chose for the unit and that it actually seems to represent the late Roman cavalry (those who were can be seen represented in other RTS games such as Attila: Total War, especially those that appear in the Belisarius campaign), this cavalry was the direct ancestor of the Cataphracts of the Byzantine civilization, which are much later between the years 800 A.D. to 1200 A.D., while the Late Roman is from 300 B.C. to 600 A.D. (the wrongly called Centurions). Having settled that, it must be taken into account that the majority of Roman commanders and officers of these times (those that represent the Civilization of the Romans), were armed similarly to the cataphracts (at least the ranks above the centurion), therefore It is not unreasonable that the unit performs the function of Centurion, but it should not have that name, but rather another name that is in accordance with that cavalry, such as a "Decurion" (they were on horseback).
When you watch Roman Galleons + Dromons fighting other Galleons + Dromons it looks pretty much exactly like a naval fight in AoE1.
I guess a more realistic mechanism for the centurion would be if you don't recruit them separately, but just every 10th or such recruited soldier becomes one. (And it's still a foot unit.)
To represent the actual legionaries using spears, I guess you just need to set up a mixed group of pikemen and legionaries.
15:15 - *Chi Rho* (☧) symbol combines the first two letters of the name of Christ in Greek actually (ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ), not Latin.
PS: *Chi Rho* also appears on Cataphract shield, of the Byzantines.
Isn't the same in Latin ? Edit: oh, you mean the "font", so to speak, not the letters themselves. Somehow I didn't even realize the mistake, I knew it's greek.
@@Winnetou17 while both Χ and Ρ found their way in the latin alphabet, they sound completely different than in greek, so no, it would be completely different in latin.
The greek XP would sound like CR/CHR (as in cristus/christus, not sure how the latin folks would actually say it tbh)
@@Dr.Happy11 It's CR. The same are you pronounce Kr from Kratos.
Yeah, initially I thought that Manouil wanted to say that the first two letters of Christ in latin are not C and R, that's why I was confused. But you're all correct, SotL was wrong in saying it's in latin.
@@Winnetou17 Yeah, it's not actually the "kr" sound I'm looking for.
It's more like saying "he", but with an R in-between.
The X letter itself is literally pronounced as "he", not "kai".
@@Dr.Happy11 Oh, I see what you mean, perfecty so. I'm Romanian, and in our language it's both Iisus (Jesus) Cristos or Iisus Hristos. And the latter is indeed pronounced like you said. Never thought of it. So it cames from how the "X" is pronounced in greek ?
The thing about the late roman navy is that they had moments of powerfulness, or potential, before some backstabbing shenanigans screwed everything up... but then, that describes the entire time period right up even a bit after the end.
An actually good sponsor thank you spirit
I actually really appreciate the history about the Late Roman Empire. It feels like all I ever hear about the latter years of the empire was "oh they were getting sacked by the Germanic tribes, everything was on fire and everything sucks", and people rarely talk about how the empire actually responded in those final years and how much society has changed by then compared to earlier eras
As for the second hypothesis on the Legionnaire you have to consider that the Romans themselves became less roman over time, as more and more Auxilia were given Roman citizenship for their service. Also the Auxillia were given the same training and equipment as the legionaries so it might have been logistically more feasible.
I'm becoming less me..
Romanity has nothing to do with the ethnic origins of the people under the power of Rome. An Auxiliary who has completed his 25 years of service and is rewarded with Roman citizenship, becomes a full Roman citizen like his descendants. Since being a Roman citizen implies a legal link between the individual and his city, which has nothing to do with the ethnic origin of the individual. What you are possibly referring to is the foederatii troops, which are allied barbarian troops that do not have citizenship and that operate almost autonomously in the empire, but without being linked by citizenship to Rome, the only thing that unites them to Rome is the pact ("foedus") with the empire
@@Aioradeleo27 Briton was so Roman that Rome abandoned it without a fight. The East was so Roman that it reverted to a Greek monarchy while the West's corpse was still warm.
@@Kidneyjoe42 You are completely wrong and confused about this, the fact that the empire abandoned Britain post 406 has nothing to do with whether or not it was completely Romanized. Since it was due to many factors why the empire evacuated Britain, which were the inability to send reinforcements to the islands since most of the forces of the western empire were busy expelling and stopping the avalanche of barbarian peoples that had entered. to Gaul. In addition, the last official troops of the empire in Britain were used by the usurper Constantine in his attempt to proclaim himself emperor in Gaul. Even in the absence of a de facto government in Britain, the Roman Britons continued to consider themselves and govern as Romans, facing waves of Angles, Saxons and Jutes until at least the beginning of the 6th century.
On the other hand, the eastern empire did not revert to a "Greek monarchy" at all and under no circumstances. The eastern empire maintained the same political, administrative and institutional structure of Diocletian and Constantine in some aspects until the 7th century and in others until the 10th-11th century, not to mention that the empire, the emperor and its inhabitants were always identified as Romans, although Pragmatically, Latin was abandoned in favor of Greek starting in the 7th century. This fact is not even a valid argument to question the Romanity of the Eastern Empire. Rather, it is the classic argument of some Western historians from the 16th century to deny that the Eastern Roman Empire was not the Roman Empire, and to affirm that the only "successor of Rome" was the Holy Roman Empire.
You're such a nerd. I love that a video game caused you to want to learn and share all this stuff.
I can only imagine how difficult it could've been but there should've been a Historia Civilis cameo appearance in this vid😪
They have such similar voices
Hello! It's not connecting to this video, but could be an interesting concept for you in the future. It's about which units count as light cavalry in terms of the Hindustani team bonus. To me it seems it effects steppe lancers and shrivamsha riders. It may also apply to certain unique units. I don't have the nerves and patience to test it, nor do I have a channel for video publishing, but for a person like you it might serve well.
Can we just take a moment to appreciate the developers doing such good research and still making it fit into a game. It is really impressive.
I think that, in addition to the obvious balance choice (can you imagine roman infantry with +6/+6 armor?) their infantry armor line stopping at chain mail is also a nod the Aoe1, since that was the last level of armor for all units there and the aoe1 romans do have access to it for their infantry
i can imagine romans with max armour. i played rome tw. and they should have it. roman inf should beat any other inf 1v1 or 1v2
historically armor of late roman legionaries was inferior to later medieval armor. Even some barbarians (mostly warchiefs and elite bodyguards) had better gear that legionnaire during decline.
@@Black.Templar_002 rome tw was harshly criticized by historians for how badly it portrayed this period.
@@sirtaelellevalerie1056 yeah but let's be real, is aoe any better?
@@sirtaelellevalerie1056 yeah ik but it would capture the spirit of roman heavy inf better. and later roman inf had really good armour, but that would belong to the eastern romans aka byzantines in aoe
I feel like the shingles on the Mediterranean set for Romans should be much brighter than they are for other Mediterranean civs to give them a "fresher" look, whereas the other Mediterranean sets should look more worn like the architecture has been there for centuries. Plus the Roman buildings should not have domes (unless the building in question is the Pantheon, which would've made a good Wonder for the Romans too)
I guess I would have been better in history class when listening to you as my teacher…
Keep going this awesome quality!❤
I love idea of adding specifically late Roman Empire, that set fraction apart from default golden age Roman Empire of many RTS including Age of Empires 1
15:20 - that's Greek, not Latin.
Was gonna say
Honestly, the 3rd and 4th century Rome is compleatly underrepresented in media.
And while I agree that the medivals didnt realy start till the western romans truely fell, I think the type of romans depicted in aoe2 is still fitting enough to be included.
Similar to how the Spanish that are depicted, are technically just after the fall of eastern rome / byzantine.
tbf with Celts being a faction in game, I don't really think you can argue they can be in game but not the Romans.
FINALLY, I love this series and its finally continuing. Cant wait to see more of this.
Not only are the Centurions on horseback, they're using stirrups, which weren't in use in Europe yet.
Don't know anything about the sponsor but dudes already got a new customer...
10:39 Balance matters notwithstanding, this could have been implemented, in the form of making the bonus depend on the amount of Town Centers you have.
Yes!!! I’ve been wanting a AoE2 vs history
Just to add something to your analysis regarding the weapons used by legionnaries : in fact they did use mainly spears. Everyone did. Since prehistoric times up to the end of Renaissance. And the reason is pretty simple : it is the most effective, simple, cheap, and dissuasive weapon you can produce (let's remind that it's a range weapon), the only one you could mass produce at the time (it's an arrow, but bigger and simpler), and it was very easy to manipulate, there was not much to learn : you thrust, you can throw sometimes.
Broadswords were used mainly by Celts and later Germans (but again, a lot less than spears), who were far superior to Romans in mettalurgy, and Romans adapted it to their legions to improve their fighting in close combats such as sieges, or melee fighting. But it was, indeed, a secondary weapon, and it was closer to a big knife than to a medieval sword. And it never was mass produced as spears did : it was a lot more expensive, and the quality wasn't always good (a bad sword can break like glass, a bad spear is still a dangerous spear).
During the Middle Ages, weapons such as swords were almost never used in battles. They were a noble weapon, very expensive, very rare, a remarkable sign of craftsmanship, but more of a parade weapon. The reason why we believed that it was so commonly used is because we found a lot of them in tombs, but didn't find that much spears or axes, because people were not burried with them (and of course metal resists time far better than wood). And of course swords are a lot more graceful than spears, so Hollywood used them a lot.
Concerning axes, they were commonly used, much more than swords. All tools in fact were commonly used during Medieval wars, for men at arms had to equip themselves.
Last but not least, armors evolved with weapons : first they consisted in thick clothes such as fur, but as weapons became sharper, with the use of bows and spears mainly, people started to use leather scale armors and chainmails, which block the penetration, making pointy things almost useless. Their only downside is that they don't "absord" the shock. Plates were introduced to do that : no more swords, axes or maces of any kind could go through. Arbalests were designed to pierce armors of any kind, but plate armors at their best could withstand a bolt easily. That's the reason why gunpower was introduced, and armors started to shrink, until now, when bodyarmors still exist, but are limited.
That's all for today, see you next time 🙂
At first I shared the initial skepsis against Romans as their own thing in this game. I quite like the overall depiction of the late western empire however, quite solid job on the historical team.
Perhaps a bit too powerful, and perhaps a bit too synergistic civilization bonuses.
And as the Byzantines got the new Dromon instead of the old Cannon Galleon; I must raise the question whether they should get the Legionary as well.
Without the Centurion, Comitatenses and the doubled armour bonus they would be considerably weaker; as such they would mostly be a matter of style and accuracy. Not sure if the eastern Romans ever got plate armoured greatsword infantry, they ceetainly did have sword and shield infantry.
I for one would be delighted.
At this point I think every Civ in the game needs thier own unique looking castle.
A spear-armed legionary on the end of the spear line would be cool
yeah but it would go too far towards the aoe3 doctrine of all unique units and not be aoe2 style anymore
@@Black.Templar_002I am waiting for the day that AOE2 civs finally get their own unit skins. I'll probably be in my grave by the time it happens.
Yeah even if it isn't all unique units for everyone I think we're well past the point where at least each culture should have its own skins for each unit. Seeing Asian nations with French paladins or European men at arms fighting for the aztecs is weird let's not kid ourselves here. Hell it could even be a clientside option so hardcore multiplayer people could turn it back to default for ease of unit identification and so forth
I think that the bits about the Centurion are especially right. Maybe renaming them to Clibanarius or something might make them better?
I think that charge attack can be interpreted as javelins/darts thrown right before the melee fight.
They could just named them tribunes instead of centurions and that would fix the problem... and gave them Vth century helmets. I also wished they could have used something closer to the Late Empire than a Colloseum.
Nice video. I think they should make Romans fall off in strength towards imperial age. Since they might need a nerf anyway, why not make their villager work bonus regress, like +7% in dark age, +2% in feudal, -2% in castle and -7% in imperial age.
I have been asked four times this week how often I think about the Roman Empire
So here I am, thinking about the Roman Empire
the only thing that bothers me about romans is their wonder, that tiny coliseum recycled from AoE 1 (where all buildings are small compared to AoE 2), could be update/replaced for one of the assets from the campaigns, like the arch of constantine or the big coliseum, to fit better with the rest of the building size
AoE2 adding civs that already collapsed, AoE3 adding civs that didn't exist yet... just combine all the games into one already.
I stand by the fact that, if the Huns were okay to have in AoE2, then the WRE is not a problem to have whatsoever either.
Though they really shouldn't have used Republic and Early Empire names for the units.
I understand the arguments that people make against adding new civs, but as far as campaigns go, it is so much nicer to see the Romans or the Italians or the Sicilians instead of just "The Byzantines".
One thing to consider is their campaign appearances for possible infractions. For instance, while the Romans are used to represent the Western Roman Empire primarily, the Eastern Roman Empire until the 7th-8th century was primarily Roman rather than Greek, culturally. So the Eastern Roman Empire in Attila and Alaric could've used the Roman civ rather than Byzantine one, to showcase these early stages of Eastern Rome's culture.
In addition, the Italians in the Tariq campaign are actually supposed to be Hispano-Romans, which continued to populate Iberia well until the Muslim conquests in the region. Yet in-game they are represented as Italians. While it might seem weird to have Romans running around in the time period, it is true that Romans as a culture did persevere even under Gothic occupation, as the Goths had quite a lot of respect for Roman culture. The same is true in Italy, where Italians as a defined culture wouldn't emerge until late Langobard rule and the Frankish conquest of Italy, with the formation of the Kingdom of Italy within the East Frankia.
an interesting thing they could've done is giving the Legionaries the ability to switch weapon like the Rathas. They could switch between a short sword (faster and higher base attack, perfect against infantry) and a spear (slower, weaker base attack but with a massive bonus against cavalry). Halberdiers could be removed if necessary for balance purposes
Gameplay wise feels like a mix of a 15th Century Rome + 3th Century Rome. Weird but i approve
13:20 I disagree. Byzantines should keep cannon galleys and the other civs get dromones (huns, Goths, Romans).
I mean Byzantines were actually in the time when cannons got introduced.
13:49 I think the golden cav unit should be the centurion, only recruitable 1-3 times per castle.
the normal Cav units could be the Equites which get the attack buff through comitatenses
Great work as always
12:39: The Romans were also very innovative particularly with the use of the Corvus.
Yeah. Shame the corvus made ships top-heavy and caused massive chunks of Roman fleets to capsize in storms, but they served an immediate purpose of catching the Carthaginians off guard. A nice stop-gap for Romans to build more agile ships and train sailors more effectively, somewhat catching up to the thousand plus years of seafaring mastery their enemies had.
A few centuries off admittedly.
LOLOLOL the sponsor was genius xD SOTL as usual.
And now I'm probably going to end up buying loads of their merch, just like I did with Epic Loot Shop...
12:00: also the nobilty of the Roman horsemen was one of the main inspirations for the knight as an honourbound warrior.
I've been following your channel for a couple of years now 😅 and absolutely dig it. Do you have any intentions on maybe doing something similar for other strategy games? I've been playing a lot of Dune Spice Wars lately and I figured it needs such a creator like you 😅
Sadly, no. SoTL is 98% AOE2.
Liking this if for no other reason than the “full circle” joke
Not sure if this is true, but given the change from tall/long shields to oval shields it made sense to me. I say this because in close combat, if you were fixated on attacking or defending, you'd be looking up or ahead and not down at the enemies feet. So in theory, if you looked down, you'd get hit, so it can make sense that because the legs were not aimed at, you didn't need to protect it? On top of easier production and reduced materials use for the shields.
love the history stuff, would definitely be interested in more of this sereis!
They should give every civ and unique castle, with all the new ones doing that I wish they could show castles being more specific to how it really would look
I was so close to going a whole day without thinking about the Roman Empire.
dude you are legend, thanks for the content
I love the history videos! Great job!
Always love the history videos!
Legionaries hadn't spears because it could confuse players, due to using spears could mean bonuses to cavalry. I think that's why they chose swords instead.
just put them in the spear line then?
@@Black.Templar_002 O mean I just wanted to try and understand why , I don't know if that was The intention original whatever You know
Fun stuff dood!
The channel "Mairoianus" has a lot of good roman content
I think reason why they didn't give Legionary a spear lies in familiarity. Because player association with spear is different in AOE2 and Legionary isn't anti cavalry. So to make quick association of what unit is supposed to be easier, sword makes more sense, even if not completely accurate. I think similar is true with buildings. Since being able to tell them apart is easier when things are somewhat familiar is better. Though having few different designs in between is fine, where it makes sense. Like castle despite looking different is easy to recognize.
Navy likely was pure gameply decision. Probably a little bit also marketing one, since you do want new civilization to be good enough to sell DLC. Like there were worse offenders in it in gaming than Romans here though, DLC adding overpowered thing that is overpowered for little while before they slowly start nerfing it to where it is supposed to be, but not too fast, because people bought DLC... :-D
I'm fairly certain that the argument that mail was more expensive to make than segmentata is actually completely wrong.
That was certainly true for the later period of the middle ages, but certainly not in classical or late antiquity.
Large-plate iron armour is actually more or less completely unknown in that time period as far as I know. At least in the Roman-adjacent world.
The only real exception being, well, the Romans, who did not only use the Segmentata, but also had helmets made from only one or two large pieces of iron.
I believe the reason for this is quite simple: metallurgy.
In this period, the only means of producing iron we know they had access to was bloomery, which is a process that doesn't produce uniform ingots, but instead produces large clumps, or blooms, of smaller iron bits, of varying carbon content and purity, interspersed with slag and impurities.
Refining this lump into usable ingots is a laborious process, where several smiths spend hours or even days hammering out the impurities and homogenising the material to the point where it doesn't have any critical weak spots. And, naturally, the larger the final ingot, the more work is required and the more material is lost along the way.
This is relevant because you need metal of pretty good quality to make large-plate armour, because poor-quality metal will be liable to crack or even shatter when hit in battle, and so you need relatively large ingots of a reasonably homogeneous material.
Conversely, to make mail you still need decent quality metal, but you can draw rings from pretty small ingots and you can also make a mail shirt from rings of different quality.
This is likely the reason why bronze remained a popular metal for helmets, greaves and so on even when mail was the common body armour, and why iron helmets were usually made from small riveted plates even as late as the viking age. Because refining iron ingots of that size was ruinously expensive.
Meaning that being able to equip tens of thousands of soldiers with Segmentata and single-sheet helmets was a MASSIVE flex of economic muscle.
Could be interesting for the economic bonus to decline as they age up. +10% to everything in Dark Age, reduced to +5% in Feudal, +0% in Castle, and (-5)% in Imperial Age
Disagree. That would make them way too OP in the early game. Especially with the professionals taking issue with it.
At 9:45 Amazing how the early Frisians already took Flevoland from the sea back in Roman times and build a giant dam.
what can i say, the dutch are good.
The Romans actually could not create plate armor a la a medieval knight, that took advances in metallurgy. Good video overall!
Before the single plates the roman already had mail in most of the army. The lamella plates were only in usage very short and made popular by the Asterix comics because they were easier to draw. (The very first comic had mail because it was more hisorical. )
oh man I can't wait for them to add Biggus Dickus as a hero unit
Metatron! I call upon you! Would love to see review/reaction to this video
I think it would have been hilarious, albeit a bit confusing, if you referred to the historical late Roman Empire as „the weak late game“
Rome Vs middle ages Europe civs be like
Rome : who are you
Franks,teutons,Britons,Spanish, portuguese and italian:
Oh HI DAD
Another Video YEA!
SPQR Emporium could have alternatively been called Emporium Romanum
Also now that unique castles are slowly becoming the norm, I wish they'd also give unique castles to all pre-LotW civs. Maybe unique monasteries as well.