The entire gimmick is that the Legionary is good…supposedly. The campaign even says “train many of them they are powerful”…uh no…they get kited to death by composite bowman, they get destroyed by cataphracts and other horsemen, They are generally just shit and why the hell are they so SLOW? Like I thought that was the academy unit’s deal but honestly after you research speed for Academy units the Legionaries are about the same speed. What a complete shit civ makes their campaign not even fun to play. I expected the Romans, you know, the civ on the fuckin box. The civ that inspired the entire expansion…to not #### ##### but here we are.
Legionaries are so OP that they are actually getting nurfed from 160 HP to 140 HP.
Legionaries cost a fraction of a Cataphract.
Cataphracts cost 2x as much Food, 5.3x as much Gold and 2x as much population as Legionaries.
In late game you usually have a lot of food so the Gold cost is what matters the most.
Legionaries beat Cataphracts cost effectively.
But Centurions are better against other units in melee. The main disadvantage is that they die equally fast to archers despite costing more then twice the resources.
About archers, you just add some Helepolist to your army. Archer just melt from them.
If you research the shield upgrades the Legionaries can tank quit a lot of arrows. But if the archers can keep running away they will eventually kill them.
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I found them as good as advertised.
The Trajan campaign was the first time ever I didn’t rely on archer/cav archer + heavy cavalry combo to beat my enemies. I just massed Legionaries, making two groups to manage things easier: one to destroy the buildings, the other to counter any unit.
As @Skadidesu said, their cost effectiveness is the key. They’re very cheap for a elite unit.
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In campaign, just train some centurions and mass heliopolis.
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AFAIK, in rior and de, romans were considered top5 in 1v1s, in team games, and deathmatches.
I think they are at least top 50% in reor. But of course you need to play along their strengths: in late game they are more of a slow-push civ thanks to their siege and infantry. If you want to raid, you only have the FU scythe chariot, which is good already as it is a trash unit. But you miss the cav archer and chariot archer units.
When comparing the centurion to legionaries, they are very similar indeed.
- The centurion is better at tanking melee attacks and killing highly armored units
- The legionary is better at tanking ranged attacks and killing lowly armored units.
Which units compositions in aoe1 do you find fun to play ? So you like more the Yamato style ? (cav archers and knights)
I agree that this was a terrible hint. Even fully upgraded and with the Romans’ civ bonus, the Legionaries’ strengths are that they’re very cheap and only take half a population slot. You can make it work, but you have to build lots of Barracks and spam them constantly. In the Trajan campaign, I basically used Centurions and Ballistas for every scenario.
I think the title ‘Return of Rome’ is mostly intended to attract the Rome fanboy market (which still exists, despite it not being the 18th century anymore) – not an indication that Romans are particularly strong.
Also…
gotta love that the forum censor misfires constantly but doesn’t pick up on this!
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The Romans having ballista bonuses should’ve been a hint too. For all their infantry focus, here they are having the deadliest ranged unit in the entire game. I got immensely better at the Trajan campaign once I understood that Legionaries were actually just there to be the meat shield for an equally large army of Helepolists, introducing the poor Dacians to levels of artillery that wouldn’t be seen again until the industrial revolution.
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…while there is hardly one unit that looks Roman.
Wat…
Romans are one of the most OP civs, I think third behind Hittite/Choson.
I mean you get Helepolis with extra range and Legion with bonus attack, what else can you ask for. It’s a perfect composition.
Try Asyrians/ Babylon. Babylon has barely any units you can make, pretty much spam towers offensively and defensively.
And Assyrians have archer bonus, but in Iron age you don’t have any final upgrades besides… Cataphract which kinda sucks compared to the rest of elite units.
If classical studies is properly taught, you should leave with a deep admiration for the Romans, problems aside. Pyrrhus, perhaps the greatest general in all of antiquity, found them to be a terrifying foe on the battlefield.
It depends what you find admirable. I agree that there are some things to admire about them – but the idea that the Romans were superlatively admirable still seems surprisingly common to me. And I think that’s what the title ‘Return of Rome’ is targeting – in truth, it’s only slightly more about Romans than it is about any of the other civilisations.
They get fully upgraded siege weapons (or at least they will once the last round of AoE1 DE balance changes are added). But yes, Assyrians decline in the late Iron Age – just like the real Assyrians did!
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Look at the patch notes:
- Assyrian get Alchemy.
- Babylonian get Chain Mail Armors.
- Legion HP reduced to 140 (from 160).
- Stone Thrower, Catapult, Heavy Catapult projectile speed increased from 2.49 to 3.49
- Helepolis projectile speed reduced from 7.2 to 4.067
- Cataphract HP changed from 220 to 240
Helepolis and Legionary are a lot worse now.
That kinda hurts Assyrians (that have Helepolis) and Babylonians (that have Legionaries) too but they get important techs in return.
Assyrian Archer are a lot more deadly now and Babylonian Legionaries have all melee armour upgrades now which more then compensates for the 20 HP they lost.
Now Helepolis won’t easily be able to dodge Catapult projectiles any more while their projectiles are more delegable by most units in return.
And Cataphracts are more useful now. They might be able to cost effectively fight Legionaries now.
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I’m not sure about that, since helepolis also has a buff:
- Helepolis -300 F upgrade cost (now 1200 F, 1000 W), +5 attack (now 45).
I can’t decide how significant this is for Assyrians. The discount will allow them to get helepolis earlier, potentially giving them a greater early Iron Age power spike – but since they already have a substantial discount on the upgrade, I expect it won’t make much difference.
I think it will overall make Helepolis worse against anyone that micros their units, that includes the AI.
The +5 attack kinda compensates for that but the projectiles will be nearly as slow as the catapult ones now.
The idea of the superlative attribute came from many things, not the least of which is that much of Europe still has functioning Roman infrastructure and awestriking Roman buildings. Roman engineering and ingenuity is admired worldwide to this day, and it is really only westerners who try to downplay it. It is true that some romanticism was involved, and that the Romans had their holes (Ask any musician who knows what they are talking about), but they did not just innovate things and put it in one place, their work was spread throughout the region known as Rome and can be seen around the former empire to this day. We get anything from their words as cognates about Europe to the concept of a 365 day year. Furthermore for an Empire to last near as long as they did is unthinkable. Rome, even during the time of the Empire, became an idea.
Ignore campaign hint and train Centurions+Helepolis. Legionaries are crap. I’ve also fallen into the trap.
I’m not sure about that, Iron age began at about 1000BC in Mesopotamia and Assyria was at it’s peak at 640BC before it quickly dissapeared in 612… That’s Iron age territory IMO
I don’t know who told you much of Europe still has functioning Roman infrastructure, but you’ve been mislead. Functioning Roman roads, sewers and aqueducts do not exist in modern Europe, outside of the Acqua Vergine aqueduct in Rome.
There are certainly remains of Roman infrastructure, but to think they could accommodate modern civilization is wrong.
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I think that you overread what I was saying, or I may have been a bit hyperbolic. The Roman infrastructure would be unable to support the population of modern Europe, nor would it support modern sanitation needs. That said the infrastructure exists outside of Europe also.
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That said, look up Roman bridges still in use. Yes, some of them can be crossed by vehicle. And yes, many had to be renovated or repaired.