Why call it Legion?

[PrimoXanthous]

Isn't Legion a name for the combined formation of Roman Units? (Equites, Hastati, Triarii, Principe and Auxilliary Units) Calling it Legion is like calling Napoleon's UU Grande Armée.
Also Legion is Infantry in-game but historically it's not all Infantry. Two of its component units, Equites are Cavalry and Velites are Javelin throwers.

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[Noble Zarkon]

Because Roman Legion is what 99% of the audience would recognise.

 

[Dale]

Isn't Legion a name for the combined formation of Roman Units? (Equites, Hastati, Triarii, Principe and Auxilliary Units) Calling it Legion is like calling Napoleon's UU Grande Armée.
Also Legion is Infantry in-game but historically it's not all Infantry. Two of its component units, Equites are Cavalry and Velites are Javelin throwers.

View attachment 703536

A Roman Legion was ~5000 men. Napoleon's La Grande Armee was anything from 600,000 to a million men.

Not compatible.

It would be more appropriate to compare a Legion to a Division in the La Grande Armee.

 

[AriochIV]

And that's appropriate, I think, because I have always felt that Civ units are roughly division-sized.

 

[N35t0r]

Legions were not roman armies. Roman armies were made up of legions. Early-mid republic consular armies had two Roman and two Socii legions, which were mainly heavy infantry with some light infantry velites, plus extra cavalry alae and possible mercenaries (auxilia).
By the late republic and early empire, the legions had mostly dropped the light infantry skirmishers and the associated cavalry alae, and the cavalry and skirmisher roles were mostly fulfilled by non-roman auxilia.

 

[Drakan]

Isn't Legion a name for the combined formation of Roman Units? (Equites, Hastati, Triarii, Principe and Auxilliary Units) Calling it Legion is like calling Napoleon's UU Grande Armée.
Also Legion is Infantry in-game but historically it's not all Infantry. Two of its component units, Equites are Cavalry and Velites are Javelin throwers.

View attachment 703536

Most people, as in 99%, are not as knowledgeable as you.
Legion is instantly recognizable by most.
Makes sense.

 

[criZp]

A Roman Legion was ~5000 men. Napoleon's La Grande Armee was anything from 600,000 to a million men.

Not compatible.

But he wasn't comparing the sizes of the organizations, he was comparing the variety of the combatants included.

 

[PrimoXanthous]

Sorry, but my point here is.
Legion is a name for the combined formation of several Roman Units. It's not a specific unit like other UUs in the Civ series.
For those saying "99%, are not as knowledgeable as me" well, how many here actually know what is Voi Chiến, Oromo Cavalry, or a Mamluk until Firaxis Introduced them to us in Civ 6. This could be a good time to change the name of Legion to a more Specific Roman Unit like Hastati, Principe, or maybe the Praetorian Guard as these are all Heavy Infantry units.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

You are correct. A Roman legion is like an army division. It is the name for a combined formation of different unit types, not the name of a single unit. So yes, it is inappropriate to call a Roman unit, a legion. This is another case of gameplay over historical accuracy. The word "roman legion" is very common in pop culture. So it is a more "sexy" name for the UU. The devs go with what the general public will find more appealing. If we wanted to be more historically accurate, Roman units should be called equites, Hastati, Triarii, Principe and Auxilliary. But most people would not know what those are. In games, it is important for players to instantly recognize what units are and not be confused.

 

[JNR13]

I feel like people are having tunnel vision for Rome: Total War, focusing exclusively on the pre-Marian organization of the Roman military.

Velites or the Hastati are nothing special. It's the entire social, military, political, and economic organization of the legion that made the Roman military exceptional. And there are plenty of centuries where a legion consisted almost entirely of fairly standardized heavy infantrists. The bit of cavalry was mainly for recon. Units in civ also don't include the baggage train and other supportive elements, they just show the main fighting force. For later Roman legions, that was the heavy infantry. Skirmishers, battle cavalry, etc. were usually auxiliar units fighting alongside the legions without being merged into them organizationally. The Praetorian Guard wasn't even a battle unit.

If you really wanted to change the name for the sake of novelty, you could call the individual unit a "Legionary Cohort" I guess.

 

[Kev1916]

Sorry, but my point here is.
Legion is a name for the combined formation of several Roman Units. It's not a specific unit like other UUs in the Civ series.
For those saying "99%, are not as knowledgeable as me" well, how many here actually know what is Voi Chiến, Oromo Cavalry, or a Mamluk until Firaxis Introduced them to us in Civ 6. This could be a good time to change the name of Legion to a more Specific Roman Unit like Hastati, Principe, or maybe the Praetorian Guard as these are all Heavy Infantry units.

Na a "Legion" is made up of "Legionaries" much as a unit of Swordsmen are made up of , well swordsmen , I think civkind has more than enough problems without getting rid of a most iconic unit

 

[AntSou]

I feel like people are having tunnel vision for Rome: Total War, focusing exclusively on the pre-Marian organization of the Roman military.

Velites or the Hastati are nothing special. It's the entire social, military, political, and economic organization of the legion that made the Roman military exceptional. And there are plenty of centuries where a legion consisted almost entirely of fairly standardized heavy infantrists. The bit of cavalry was mainly for recon. Units in civ also don't include the baggage train and other supportive elements, they just show the main fighting force. For later Roman legions, that was the heavy infantry. Skirmishers, battle cavalry, etc. were usually auxiliar units fighting alongside the legions without being merged into them organizationally. The Praetorian Guard wasn't even a battle unit.

If you really wanted to change the name for the sake of novelty, you could call the individual unit a "Legionary Cohort" I guess.

But then, why Hoplites, not Phalanx?

I think Noble Zarkon's simpler answer is better. It's just a recognizable convention that has been there from the start. Voi Chien and Oromo Cavalry are fairly recent additions to the game.

 

[Leyrann]

Units in civ also don't include the baggage train and other supportive elements, they just show the main fighting force.

Also a good point.

I believe that in like, medieval/renaissance times, the civilians traveling with the armies to provide various services would often outnumber the actual soldiers, and I would assume that would have held for most of the rest of history too until long-distance supplies and travel became a thing with modern technology.

I think Noble Zarkon's simpler answer is better. It's just a recognizable convention that has been there from the start. Voi Chien and Oromo Cavalry are fairly recent additions to the game.

Good point (I know, I'm repeating myself). Even Civ 2, which didn't even have unique units for civs, already had the Legion unit.

 

[JNR13]

But then, why Hoplites, not Phalanx?

I think to highlight the kind of phalanx? Like, a phalanx was used by a lot more soldiers than hoplites. I think Sumer sometimes has a unit called that in various games. Macedonian hypaspists also fought as part of a Phalanx. The Roman unit could be called "Legionnaire", I suppose, for consistency with Hoplites. Then again, the cultures civ covers are too diverse to ever get a single consistent naming convention across them all anyway.

And yes, I'm not denying that familiarity and "legion" just being iconic also plays a role. I just meant to highlight that going that route is not historically *wrong*.

I believe that in like, medieval/renaissance times, the civilians traveling with the armies to provide various services would often outnumber the actual soldiers, and I would assume that would have held for most of the rest of history too until long-distance supplies and travel became a thing with modern technology.

Right, our units can heal so they must have a supply train with them. They can see a couple of tiles away so it's fair to assume they have their own integrated recon support (which is the role the few wings of cavalry performed that were integrated into a legion directly). They can accept your commands so they must have some command structure and signaling units with them. They can fortify so they might have some engineers with them, too.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Sorry, but my point here is.
Legion is a name for the combined formation of several Roman Units. It's not a specific unit like other UUs in the Civ series.
For those saying "99%, are not as knowledgeable as me" well, how many here actually know what is Voi Chiến, Oromo Cavalry, or a Mamluk until Firaxis Introduced them to us in Civ 6. This could be a good time to change the name of Legion to a more Specific Roman Unit like Hastati, Principe, or maybe the Praetorian Guard as these are all Heavy Infantry units.

You could also just call them Legionaries, the soldiers that make up a Legion.
But it's all just semantics because at the end of the day the Legion unit, in game, are visually those soldiers.

As for Voi Chien, I'm pretty sure they just googled the term "War Elephant" in Vietnamese, which in my opinion is less specific than a legion considering many other cultures rode War Elephants.

 

[Quintillus]

A variant of what Dale/AriochIV said, but also because of the scope of what a Civ unit represents. The Legion is the basic heavy infantry/sword unit, unique to Rome. You could still build Horsemen or whatever the cavalry-focused unit of the time will be called in VII, should you want a cavalry-focused army. But consider a generic Swordsman unit for civs that don't have a unique unit to replace it. Does that imply those swordsmen fight without any skirmisher or light cavalry support? No, it's just an abstraction to say, "this is a primarily sword-infantry-focused division".

Whereas in a game like Rome: Total War, you're building units up from smaller blocks of 80-160 units, roughly the size of a Roman century. That gives you the ability to have that level of detail that you are describing.

If there happens to be a Rome-focused scenario, there will probably be more flavor and detail in that scenario. But for the epic campaign, I think "Legion" is the way to go, and much better than the over-specific "Praetorian" in Civ IV.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

maybe the Praetorian Guard

People complained that was inaccurate in Civ IV .....

 

[Tanel]

Unless you give Rome multiple UUs I don't mind it being called a Legion because infantry was the bread and butter of Roman Legions and is iconic by being the first thing that comes to mind with the word Legion.

 

[BackseatTyrant]

People complained that was inaccurate in Civ IV .....

I feel like there are always going to be some people displeased with what the UU would be called, as everyone seems to have an (at least slightly) different idea of what makes for a tasteful abstraction

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

Well now Legate is a field commander. this would fit well with the 'Legion' concept as an organization.

the better term to use for infantry members would be 'Legionairy'.