One of the features of Roman Legions is that they were the prime unit for building those famous Roman roads. They also typically constructed their own seige equipment, and, for swordsmen, had a level of organization comparable to that of a Greek phalanx. Their main weakness was poor-to-nonexistent cavalry. Their missile units also leaned heavily to spears and slings, and were hence relatively short range. This suggests an interesting variant. Allow Roman Praetorians to also function as engineers, though they should probably be more expensive than now to allow or the considerable expense and training they required. Roman missile and cavalry units should not be as good as their contemporary counterparts. In fact, since Romans adopted the stirrup very late, horse archers should also come very late for them... but I'll address that in another post.

One of the features of Roman Legions is that they were the prime unit for building those famous Roman roads. They also typically constructed their own seige equipment, and, for swordsmen, had a level of organization comparable to that of a Greek phalanx. Their main weakness was poor-to-nonexistent cavalry. Their missile units also leaned heavily to spears and slings, and were hence relatively short range. This suggests an interesting variant. Allow Roman Praetorians to also function as engineers, though they should probably be more expensive than now to allow or the considerable expense and training they required. Roman missile and cavalry units should not be as good as their contemporary counterparts. In fact, since Romans adopted the stirrup very late, horse archers should also come very late for them... but I'll address that in another post.

I like the idea, but since the Pretorians are somewhat overpowered already, it might be better to give all swordsmen this capacity, and see to it that they works slower than regular workers.

Leave the prets alone, they are annoying enough as it is without them marching into your land build roads behind them for the seigery to 'speed' along..

The roman cavalry was not too good admitted, but they did have archers.

Also the beauty of the Roman war machine was that it took the best from each nation it conquered. Cavalry made up of Numidians or Gauls. Horse archers from Scythia, archers from Arabia.

They were Roman soldiers though they were not Romans. Since you cannot hire other units to fight in this game i think its best left as it is. Yes Roman cavalry was not the best being headstrong nobles. But the drafted cavalry they got in to fight for them often was the best.

In CivIII's Rise and Fall of Rome scenarios the legion units could perform a subset of worker tasks. Actually, you could build your own mod that focused on the hayday of the Romans and set up the Legions, Centuries, Praetorians or Velites any way you like.

In CivIII's Rise and Fall of Rome scenarios the legion units could perform a subset of worker tasks. Actually, you could build your own mod that focused on the hayday of the Romans and set up the Legions, Centuries, Praetorians or Velites any way you like.


I'd like to... it used to be a simple matter to mod an existing unit. I haven't figured out how to do that yet. I'd like to play around with Roman legion/engineers.

Leave the prets alone, they are annoying enough as it is without them marching into your land build roads behind them for the seigery to 'speed' along..

But that's EXACTLY the sort of things the Romans did!

The roman cavalry was not too good admitted, but they did have archers.

Also the beauty of the Roman war machine was that it took the best from each nation it conquered. Cavalry made up of Numidians or Gauls. Horse archers from Scythia, archers from Arabia.

They were Roman soldiers though they were not Romans. Since you cannot hire other units to fight in this game i think its best left as it is. Yes Roman cavalry was not the best being headstrong nobles. But the drafted cavalry they got in to fight for them often was the best.

Good point. Mercenaries probably go beyond a mere mod, but maybe Civ5....

Lordclane, you just hit a nerve in my head.

Rather than 8 strength, could we make legions 6 strength, with an additional 50% against melee, and the ability to build roads? That should make them very useful but not broken.

This is logical, but I don't think we should change the game to reflect any civilizations special relations to cavalry, archers, roads, whatever. Think of the Meso-american teams - sorry lads, no horses for you - at all.

Infact, it's like saying that you shouldn't allow romans mass media or electricity because they did not use these techs. Duh :rolleyes: