Never thought I’d see a campaign where Dacia takes Crete and Rhodes. 😂 Certainly a big difference from their usual fate of being wiped out in the first 40 turns or so.
Same here, I agree. All armies change over time. Especially in this time and era. If you win a battle against hight tech weapons and armor. You can learn from it and examine the dead, in order to learn how to make better armor yourselves. Or make better bows that shoot farther, or shape your swords different to stab better and be lighter
Indubitably. I guess that's where the reforms tree in 3k shows a touch of that in modern total war. The game was very roman centric so it makes sense. But it's fun to fiddle with the old games.
Performace of AI factions on campaing map is more influenced by quirks of autoresolve rather than how good their roster is on the battlefield. Autoresolve overvalues charriots, but undervalues ranged (especially mounted) and phalanx. Brutii always smash through Greece. Computer see that roman infantry has higher numbers so it wins. Selucids have pikes. Egypt has chariots. Egypt wins. Late game Britain has both heavy infantry and chariots. Rome has infantry with lower stats but with ranged attack. Steamrolls Rome.
Exactly this, any idea how to balance chariots though? I remember when I did my overhaul mod I increased the recruitment times so they won't spam them as much but that doesn't fix the auto resolve problem.
Thank you! This is exactly what I’ve been wanting. It’s always bothered me never actually being able to use the pre Marian units before the reforms happen. Plus the reforms didn’t occur until 107 bc anyways
I agree. Especially since the various pre-Marian units are also locked behind the various tiers of the recruitment buildings. You can't exactly start with a vascimile of a pre-Marian army until you unlock them all which cuts down the time you have to make use of them before they are inevitably replaced. Of course that's a flaw in Rome's system just like how Carthage only gets elephants with higher tier stables.
Interesting video. What’s cool about some mods such as the classic extended Greek mod is that whilst they improve on all factions they slightly balance the Romans after the Marian reforms by getting rid of many ridiculous or in historic units e.g the urban cohort become what they really are , almost like police and the best unit is actually the praetorian cohort and there is only one legionary cohort you can get.
Nice! I haven't explored that mod to be honest. But I like the idea of making the praetorians et al more realistic. I guess it was just the way it was in terms of game function.
What about medieval 2? Can you add a similar event that upgrades your bodyguards? It always bothered me that you can only get the late bodyguards in custom battles
Also Vanilla Balance Mod might be something you want to look at. It balances the starting position and some of the stats of factions so that they're not too strong (Britain) or too weak (Carthage)
Hmmm. The idea of removing the reforms for a campaign playthrough is really intresting. Id be curious to see all the different outcomes now that the romans no longer have that op late game army
@@nokesysthoughts4293 Well Parthia did very well on Melkor's timelapse but as much as I love Armenia (favourite faction), they do normally get bashed by Egypt. I'll have to test more.
In my campaigns I rarely see the AI recruit large armies of late game units. So I'd imagine using this wouldn't make the game unwinnable by any means. Especially given the advantage a reasonably experienced player has over the AI. And the pre-Marian units aren't really bad as it is. I'm not sure I would use this when playing a non-Roman faction except maybe as Carthage who feel rather weak early on unless one is focusing on cavalry.. which always feels a bit like cheating to me (after playing Med 2 for a while I sort of ended up trying to use fewer and fewer cavalry). - edit - Oh and nice video. Glad this was recommended to me.
Seeing the timelapses reminds me that it's rather boring that Egypt is always (or most of the time, perhaps) the winner in the southeast (barring the player, of course). Outside of them and the Romans, the factions seem reasonably okay. I've seen the Thracians grow large, the Gauls, the Germans and the Britons. In my current campaign as Pontus the Britons have conquered all the way down to Iberia. The northeast and the southwest are usually fairly quiet. For example: I have seen the Numidians defeat Carthage but then they just sit there. Carthage could use an early/mid game boost, though. The mostly seem to survive by having part of their territory ignored. Obviously all these are with the Marian Reforms.
Cheers! Yeah you can definitely still beat everyone up with pre Marian armies, but it certainly adds a little handicap. And certainly it's interesting to see that the ai Romans tend to get pushed back without the reforms.
Yes... Egypt are an odd one. They seem to always dominate that region of the world and just keep pushing ever onwards (Briton tend to do this in my experience). And as you say, Numidia tend to just stop after taking North Africa. Why Egypt are so much more aggressive seemingly is a mystery. I might have to strengthen the Seleucid's next time I play, just to shake things up.
ı dont know u answer but there is any way we can start with reforms from beginning? I wanna play with SPQR and ı wanna take control of italy immediatly. But if ı do that there is no reform and ı have to play with principes forever
Interesting. So, can one alter the files to have multiple Marius type like events? That is, several roman military reforms that are triggered by dates or buildings like the Marius one is.
Is there a way to do this for the remastered version? I tried these steps and after I selected Julii from the imperial campaign screen it just didn't start
Whats a good minor mod to make barbarian factions more interesting? without changing the game too much from vanilla. I hate being stuck at "City" with barbarian factions, and some rosters like Spain's are super limited (Iberian infantry is absolute trash compared to most other early meele)
Do you know if anyone has ever come up with an autoresolve rebalancing script for the advantages of horse archers, etc? Maybe toning down the chariot factor a smidge?
*Wow, that's really neat way to make game more interesting. You really are The Great Equalizer , Thomas, thank you! :-)* *Now, when I think of it... maybe it would be even better if you could just make those units hard to get... like really, really EXPENSIVE! Could that be done?*
Thomas The Equaliser... a decent little epithet! 😅 Hmmm... A good idea... My brother suggested a similar thing where perhaps the senate mission rewards could be some legionaries. Like you, suggesting to make it tricky but possible to get them.
@@ToNerdistoHumanTNH *That's not a bad idea... but some of us don't like Senate to dictate the pace... better maybe to make them just too expensive to have in large quantity...* *I have another one: Thomas The Fixer! You fixed the game for Creative Assembly...you'll get many of those when your channel reaches deserved attention among RTW lovers!* *Keep on improving game for us little by little, we are gratefull to you, Thomas! Just few details more and we'll have PERFECT game to enjoy forever!!!*
the romans without the reforms look a bit underwhelming. I mean, Triarii are nice, but no competition for chosen swordsmen, chosen axemen, royal pikemen, sacred band, etc.
@@ToNerdistoHumanTNH but the romans are ment to be a tutorial to rtw.The romans are kinda bad now. I feel like triarri should either phalanx or get the eagle bonus that post marius troops get
Ivem always found the Marian reforms to be too much, too soon. Is there an easy way you could script the reforms to trigger at the soonest in a specific year, or for each of the Roman factions individually?
Thats a cool idea. I've never seen the exact script for the event. Presumably its hidden away or hard coded. I think some digging and investigating is needed
The britons do well in most campaign i play, the head hurlers will dominate the pricipes and hastati, chariots will beat the equites, my next time im gonna give this a try. britons gonna be a real challenge to beat
Indeed! Their untouched homelands always gives them a chance and their chariots really help the auto resolve. Playing as the Romans without the reforms could be an intriguing challenge.
The Marian reforms did nothing to the Republican army during the period of the game, the army we see coming with the Marian reforms are units of Augustus and later emperors.Marius just made the army a privilege of the general, he did not invent new units from zero...Though definitely we cannot see Triarii in the Marian army as they are wealthy militia troops, yet the rest are hastati velites and principes, it quite laughable to see the legionary cavalry of the Hunnic period in the Marian reforms of the Rome total war and not in the Barbarian Invasion...
History was imbalanced lol I love fighting rome with my barbarian hoards. I loose and loose and loose and loose then eventually I win. Maybe... sometimes. Iv lost 3 stacks of my best units to rome from 1 rome stack. U gotta wage total war to win :)
Why does this game need to be balanced, if you want a challenge upgrade the difficulty on the campaign. In very hard, your urban cohorts are equal to swordsmen and lose against the chosen swordsmen
It's not that it needs balancing per se. Rome is probably my favourite ever game. Taking on rome is always the ultimate challenge but I enjoy by removing the reforms, actually seeing other factions take on rome and win. I guess after 16 years I still want new ways to play this game!
@@ToNerdistoHumanTNH makes sense. I guess it's part of experimenting. I also experimented once by playing as Juli on very hard but only playing with town watch and velities. I only had 1 general unit per army so yeah, it was hell seeing army after army get routed and slowly expand and once the reforms happened. God it was hell. With my allies having the urbans and paterion cavalry when I had to face them. I think i spent 8 months on finally beating that campaign
This channel is the only reason I know how to mod this game
Thank you for the vote of confidence!
Never thought I’d see a campaign where Dacia takes Crete and Rhodes. 😂
Certainly a big difference from their usual fate of being wiped out in the first 40 turns or so.
Absolutely! I was more interested in finding out how dacia got on. In spite of rome being the whole point of the video. 😅
If I didn't know any better (and I don't) I'd say you were channeling Many a True Nerd :)
I think the other factions need their own reforms similarly to the various mods like Europa Barbaroum.
Same here, I agree. All armies change over time. Especially in this time and era.
If you win a battle against hight tech weapons and armor. You can learn from it and examine the dead, in order to learn how to make better armor yourselves. Or make better bows that shoot farther, or shape your swords different to stab better and be lighter
Indubitably. I guess that's where the reforms tree in 3k shows a touch of that in modern total war. The game was very roman centric so it makes sense. But it's fun to fiddle with the old games.
i agree
it would be interesting
Maybe it's good to restrict units such as the urban and pretorian cohorts, and legionary and pretorian cav, as they're extremely powerful.
Why has this guide not existed until now? Great stuff.
No idea... but it is here now!
This is just what I've been waiting for!
Pleased to hear it!
Performace of AI factions on campaing map is more influenced by quirks of autoresolve rather than how good their roster is on the battlefield. Autoresolve overvalues charriots, but undervalues ranged (especially mounted) and phalanx.
Brutii always smash through Greece. Computer see that roman infantry has higher numbers so it wins.
Selucids have pikes. Egypt has chariots. Egypt wins.
Late game Britain has both heavy infantry and chariots. Rome has infantry with lower stats but with ranged attack. Steamrolls Rome.
Indeed! It is a bit of an odd formula for sure! As you say, Chariots = auto resolve win. Sadly the Seleucid's never live long enough to utilise this.
Exactly this, any idea how to balance chariots though? I remember when I did my overhaul mod I increased the recruitment times so they won't spam them as much but that doesn't fix the auto resolve problem.
Thank you! This is exactly what I’ve been wanting. It’s always bothered me never actually being able to use the pre Marian units before the reforms happen. Plus the reforms didn’t occur until 107 bc anyways
Glad I could help! I too thought it was odd that nobody has done a guide to this before now...
I agree. Especially since the various pre-Marian units are also locked behind the various tiers of the recruitment buildings. You can't exactly start with a vascimile of a pre-Marian army until you unlock them all which cuts down the time you have to make use of them before they are inevitably replaced. Of course that's a flaw in Rome's system just like how Carthage only gets elephants with higher tier stables.
Interesting video. What’s cool about some mods such as the classic extended Greek mod is that whilst they improve on all factions they slightly balance the Romans after the Marian reforms by getting rid of many ridiculous or in historic units e.g the urban cohort become what they really are , almost like police and the best unit is actually the praetorian cohort and there is only one legionary cohort you can get.
Nice! I haven't explored that mod to be honest. But I like the idea of making the praetorians et al more realistic. I guess it was just the way it was in terms of game function.
Chariots are OP in autoresolve, which helps the Britons a lot
Absolutely! OP in human fought battles too.
breaking news: game titled rome: total war, accused of being rome-centric. lol
"Triari cant use phalanx"
Ok time to to do it manually (edit the script)
A good point. A simple little edit
@@ToNerdistoHumanTNH well, i had make triari nerf version equal hastati so i can use it(i like pikemen but hate samnite merc)
What about medieval 2? Can you add a similar event that upgrades your bodyguards? It always bothered me that you can only get the late bodyguards in custom battles
Perhaps... certainly the game unlocks units through the game, so I assume the bodyguard is just an oversight. I'll have a look into it!!
Also Vanilla Balance Mod might be something you want to look at. It balances the starting position and some of the stats of factions so that they're not too strong (Britain) or too weak (Carthage)
The Romans are actually beaten by the barbs now! Amazing.
A great result.
wow i am surprised
Hmmm. The idea of removing the reforms for a campaign playthrough is really intresting. Id be curious to see all the different outcomes now that the romans no longer have that op late game army
Indubitably. My test run saw the Britons take over Rome and win the game but I would have to play more to see if that's a common pattern.
@@ToNerdistoHumanTNH indeed. Id have a feeling more eastern factions would come out on top more often "Coughs" Armenia "coughs" Partha "coughs"
@@nokesysthoughts4293 Well Parthia did very well on Melkor's timelapse but as much as I love Armenia (favourite faction), they do normally get bashed by Egypt. I'll have to test more.
In my campaigns I rarely see the AI recruit large armies of late game units. So I'd imagine using this wouldn't make the game unwinnable by any means. Especially given the advantage a reasonably experienced player has over the AI. And the pre-Marian units aren't really bad as it is.
I'm not sure I would use this when playing a non-Roman faction except maybe as Carthage who feel rather weak early on unless one is focusing on cavalry.. which always feels a bit like cheating to me (after playing Med 2 for a while I sort of ended up trying to use fewer and fewer cavalry).
- edit - Oh and nice video. Glad this was recommended to me.
Seeing the timelapses reminds me that it's rather boring that Egypt is always (or most of the time, perhaps) the winner in the southeast (barring the player, of course). Outside of them and the Romans, the factions seem reasonably okay. I've seen the Thracians grow large, the Gauls, the Germans and the Britons.
In my current campaign as Pontus the Britons have conquered all the way down to Iberia. The northeast and the southwest are usually fairly quiet. For example: I have seen the Numidians defeat Carthage but then they just sit there. Carthage could use an early/mid game boost, though. The mostly seem to survive by having part of their territory ignored. Obviously all these are with the Marian Reforms.
Cheers! Yeah you can definitely still beat everyone up with pre Marian armies, but it certainly adds a little handicap. And certainly it's interesting to see that the ai Romans tend to get pushed back without the reforms.
Yes... Egypt are an odd one. They seem to always dominate that region of the world and just keep pushing ever onwards (Briton tend to do this in my experience). And as you say, Numidia tend to just stop after taking North Africa. Why Egypt are so much more aggressive seemingly is a mystery. I might have to strengthen the Seleucid's next time I play, just to shake things up.
rome 2 might be ancient, but its so gosh darn aesthetic.
Rome 2 is pretty new compared to Rome 1. Both are very pretty I think, in their own way of course.
ı dont know u answer but there is any way we can start with reforms from beginning? I wanna play with SPQR and ı wanna take control of italy immediatly. But if ı do that there is no reform and ı have to play with principes forever
Triarii principes and equites should be buffed a little in this case
That is absolutely fair!
Interesting. So, can one alter the files to have multiple Marius type like events? That is, several roman military reforms that are triggered by dates or buildings like the Marius one is.
How do i enable marian reforms by default?
Is there a way to do this for the remastered version? I tried these steps and after I selected Julii from the imperial campaign screen it just didn't start
Whats a good minor mod to make barbarian factions more interesting? without changing the game too much from vanilla. I hate being stuck at "City" with barbarian factions, and some rosters like Spain's are super limited (Iberian infantry is absolute trash compared to most other early meele)
Do you know if anyone has ever come up with an autoresolve rebalancing script for the advantages of horse archers, etc? Maybe toning down the chariot factor a smidge?
An interesting thought. Not that I'm aware of, but something to look into for sure!
Is it possible to have a Marian unit pre reform, for example, Roman Cavalry, whilst having the reforms disabled to compliment the Equites somewhat?
*Wow, that's really neat way to make game more interesting. You really are The Great Equalizer
, Thomas, thank you! :-)*
*Now, when I think of it... maybe it would be even better if you could just make those units hard to get... like really, really EXPENSIVE! Could that be done?*
Thomas The Equaliser... a decent little epithet! 😅
Hmmm... A good idea... My brother suggested a similar thing where perhaps the senate mission rewards could be some legionaries. Like you, suggesting to make it tricky but possible to get them.
@@ToNerdistoHumanTNH *That's not a bad idea... but some of us don't like Senate to dictate the pace... better maybe to make them just too expensive to have in large quantity...*
*I have another one: Thomas The Fixer! You fixed the game for Creative Assembly...you'll get many of those when your channel reaches deserved attention among RTW lovers!*
*Keep on improving game for us little by little, we are gratefull to you, Thomas! Just few details more and we'll have PERFECT game to enjoy forever!!!*
How on earth did you make parthia being agressive and actually conquer/attack anything?????
due to the chariots, and I believe the slingers as well, Britons are possibly the best faction in autoresolve
the romans without the reforms look a bit underwhelming. I mean, Triarii are nice, but no competition for chosen swordsmen, chosen axemen, royal pikemen, sacred band, etc.
Indubitably! Therein lies the challenge for the veteran general! ;)
@@ToNerdistoHumanTNH but the romans are ment to be a tutorial to rtw.The romans are kinda bad now. I feel like triarri should either phalanx or get the eagle bonus that post marius troops get
Would be cool if all the other factions had some kind of marian reform
One of the most militare reforms for the empire
"Aye mate get out of My PC"
Ivem always found the Marian reforms to be too much, too soon. Is there an easy way you could script the reforms to trigger at the soonest in a specific year, or for each of the Roman factions individually?
Thats a cool idea. I've never seen the exact script for the event. Presumably its hidden away or hard coded. I think some digging and investigating is needed
The britons do well in most campaign i play, the head hurlers will dominate the pricipes and hastati, chariots will beat the equites, my next time im gonna give this a try. britons gonna be a real challenge to beat
Indeed! Their untouched homelands always gives them a chance and their chariots really help the auto resolve. Playing as the Romans without the reforms could be an intriguing challenge.
The Britons and Egyptians take over because chariots are brutally overpowered in autoresolve.
That is certainly the case from what I can tell! If only the Seleucid's survived long enough...
@@ToNerdistoHumanTNH Try autoresolve against the Brits and Egyptians on Normal difficulty and brace yourself for the Crushing Defeat notifications.
i didn't know you could remove the Marian reforms
the more you know.
It really changes the game dynamics. It is worth a play this way!
@@ToNerdistoHumanTNH alright thanks for the info!
chartios are totally broken hahaha, looks, Britan and Egypt has generals with chariots, so GG ez game haha
nice video! :D
The Marian reforms did nothing to the Republican army during the period of the game, the army we see coming with the Marian reforms are units of Augustus and later emperors.Marius just made the army a privilege of the general, he did not invent new units from zero...Though definitely we cannot see Triarii in the Marian army as they are wealthy militia troops, yet the rest are hastati velites and principes, it quite laughable to see the legionary cavalry of the Hunnic period in the Marian reforms of the Rome total war and not in the Barbarian Invasion...
Perhaps stronger barbarian factions.
Indeed! Quite of a few of the other guides look at doing that too by adding buildings or units to their roster.
Triarii!!!
it seems that without the reforms...chariots are OP
They are brutally OP.
History was imbalanced lol
I love fighting rome with my barbarian hoards. I loose and loose and loose and loose then eventually I win. Maybe... sometimes. Iv lost 3 stacks of my best units to rome from 1 rome stack.
U gotta wage total war to win :)
History was indeed imbalanced. But you know, I like to tinker and fiddle with the game. 😁
@@ToNerdistoHumanTNH same i always mod out the damn diplomats
Why does this game need to be balanced, if you want a challenge upgrade the difficulty on the campaign. In very hard, your urban cohorts are equal to swordsmen and lose against the chosen swordsmen
It's not that it needs balancing per se. Rome is probably my favourite ever game. Taking on rome is always the ultimate challenge but I enjoy by removing the reforms, actually seeing other factions take on rome and win. I guess after 16 years I still want new ways to play this game!
@@ToNerdistoHumanTNH makes sense. I guess it's part of experimenting. I also experimented once by playing as Juli on very hard but only playing with town watch and velities. I only had 1 general unit per army so yeah, it was hell seeing army after army get routed and slowly expand and once the reforms happened. God it was hell. With my allies having the urbans and paterion cavalry when I had to face them. I think i spent 8 months on finally beating that campaign
Sounds like hell! I guess sheer numbers and flanking were your only reliable ploys there!
I actually want it but it won't initiate and I already have 3 imperial palaces (Capua+2 in Sicily), something is fked up.
No keep the post Marian army lol.
First 😁😁😁😁😁
Such pride 😅
Not first