Fabius

Well they did conquer all the civs in question so um yeah lol But in all seriousness I do take your point, though I do not think having multiple roman civs is a good idea, it is better as they have done with the reforms technology that more or less sets up the late republic/early imperial era within the current early republic style Roman civ

True, though they do lack the siege tower for some reason, bit of an odd one that. Definitely agree here, the legionary and his donkey was a very iconic entity back in A23, probably the most Roman thing back then lol Was sad they changed it for a more generic looking sprite.

There are in fact battles that Rome won because of Elephants, maybe not many of them given the shortish time frame, but they are there. As for why or why not, I think its cool enough to be worthwhile, not everything has to be legionary focused in Roman civs.

A merc elephant would be great As a thought experiment I would assume a full metal cost, which going off the smaller African elephant would be 450 metal in total after converting food cost to metal. Given training is faster, and also knowing the limited acquisition that Rome has from Numidia, I would run with the elephant stables but cap it at 1 or maybe 2 buildings, that way production should be slower than other civs who could spam like four or five elephant stables so they can mass them fast. A cool side affect would be that now a Roman player could use captured elephant stables, which would be a fun niche feature.

Six to be exact. unit focus is fine but does not have to dictate everything. Not sure what exactly you mean by additional unit roster, their roster is still the same after the reforms tech.

This would be pretty epic, I always wished we could build the bridges from the scenario editor is Age II. Roads would be an interesting feature, most useful I think for shifting forces around your territory I would think, though aggressively building a road into your opponents land would be terribly funny as well

Sure, this is the best source I have been able to find so far, if anyone has a better source please post it. Putting it as a mercenary unit could definitely be one way of doing things https://warhistory.org/@msw/article/war-elephants-in-the-roman-army

The Imperial Era does not feature here, we talking about the time frame from the Second Punic War up to the first century BC. I believe there are enough wars in that time frame to make the justification.

Honestly I would love to see a limited option for roman war elephants, sadly few if any games let them have them in any shape or form. I read up on it and they apparently were supplied from Numidian allies for most of the second century BC, until Rome fell out with them which pretty much ended things, and that they were used in most of the Roman campaigns during that time frame. I don't suppose Delende Est has this option does it?

While the idea of putting troops behind walls is both historical and interesting, in the context of current gameplay it is not nearly as efficient as simply breaking the walls with catapults or rams, however there is the other usage of siege towers which is fire superiority, being able to overlook enemy fortifications and essentially clear them or support an assault on them. It is not like we can map an exact historical battlefield anyway. We do not build siege towers on site and then roll them up to the walls, and we also roll them over terrains they historically cannot go over, their very movement is largely ahistorical, so frankly I say add interesting features with the understanding that yes players will probably use it as an infantry carrier/tank or something equally amusing, but that is ok

That is fair, though I am not suggesting my idea because they are weak, but rather because I think it is interesting and a way to add some nuance to them

Thats all I play

Can be applied to a lot of things, like lacking catapults, or champion spears for dealing with champion cavalry, or x with insert appropriate missing unit that any one civ lacks. I do not think your siege tower idea is that strong because siege towers function like regular towers in terms of shooting, and I can simply swarm them with any combination of X melee troops and knock them out with cold steel, aside from the obvious usage of catapults and rams. Every civ gets rams and the majority have catapults. Oh and elephants if available, even champion cavalry if one is wealthy. Ultimately every civ has a counter to this in some shape or form

Why not? there is adequate historical precedent to shove a bolter on a siege tower, it would be epic and maybe encourage their use a little more

Ok, then for simplicity sake one would have to just add the bolt to the regular attack, I think its about a 3s interval and we do have the Ptolemaic bolters that are roughly that, so it shouldn't be that game breaking, also towers are 3 pop anyway and suitably expensive

I had an idea for siege tower enhancement A technology that adds a small bolt thrower to it, or conversely a small stone thrower, not sure if it would be possible to have two separate attacks on the same unit at different intervals, but it would add some more flavour to them,. Then the ram team bonus that foot soldiers have could be expanded to include siege towers since not all of the 20 man crew are going to be shooting arrows from the tower And lastly I was wondering why kushites have siege towers and Rome does not?

Awesome

Will the missing legionary keyword for first cohort legionaries also be fixed ?

Cool, a question on that though, do we have to wait till the next release for that fix to take effect or how does it work?

What about expanding the Reforms tech to unlock a champion skirmisher though? Currently you get the legionary swordsmen and skirmisher, but only the first cohort swordsmen, it seems like a first cohort skirmisher would complete the roster as then you can either have a complete first cohort force or a regular one. Centurions I was thinking it would be great if they could swap between javelin and sword so they could lead either unit type without getting left behind by the skirmishers when they do so.

Afternoon folks, I had an interesting idea to share, its a unique tech for Rome called Spoils of the Punic Wars and would allow training of a limited number of elephants from the fortress. These could be regular war elephants or perhaps champion/citizen elephant archers but with javelins instead of bows. Cost wise it could be a reasonable chunk of food and some metal or just food like the regular champion unlocking tech, or something else like wood and stone, to represent the addition of elephant stables in the fortress. While Rome did not make extensive use of war elephants they did capture them and did use them on several occasions, in the Macedonian wars for instance. Seeing as we have options to create limited troop types, the Centurion for instance, this seems a reasonable way to add some limited nuance and interesting tactical options, and certainly could be applied to other civs as well in the future if a suitable option comes up for them.

Is there scope for having the javelin thrower as a technology for increasing infantry skirmisher range?

It should potentially apply by splash, though I am unsure on the exact splash radius, its not something included in the unit details. That being said it does feel a bit to generic for a faction specific tech. Currently those who have bolters are Carthage, Athens, Sparta, Ptolomies, Macedonia and of course Rome. Macedonia is already strong so definitely not them. Ptolomies have machine gun level bolters(Cleopatra boosts fire rate even more) so not them either. Athens I am unsure where they are at, but they have a bunch of ranged options already. Carthage is very much in the same vein too, albeit weaker. That leaves just Rome and Sparta, two strong infantry civs with very lacklustre ranged capabilities outside of siege units which Rome has a significant advantage on. Sparta would certainly benefit the most from it given they have no catapults, flaming bolts on their bolters would certainly be an interesting alternative for building breaking. Rome already has the onagar, but the scorpio is also very iconic to them and they do go hand in hand I would say. They now have a strong theme of manoeuvrability which is cool, so that could be utilised instead. Given their known siege prowess one can definitely still make a case for flaming bolts or something though.

Also Ptolomies should not have access to this tech on the grounds that their bolt shooter is not designed for incendiary projectiles and for potential balance purposes given their rapid fire bonus

That would also be the burning damage application, but yes