As you all know the legion and centurion units are available to quite a lot of civs in the original AoE ROR, even if historically they were exclusively roman.
Now i’ve always wondered: if they were to make them available only to romans and plamyrans in the DE, would this hurt the game balance too much?
You know seeing yamato legions did never feel right, even though i understand that they did it for the sake of balance between the civs. Could improving the long swordsmen be a possible solution?
share your thoughts 
It would be better if it were an exclusive Roman unit, but we do not know to what extent the developers will change the game. You are right to find it strange that this unit is available for Asian civilizations, however I do not know to tell you if making this change would result in an imbalance in the game and as already said by the developers here in the forum they do not want to tinker so much in the modifications of the game for exactly preserve that sense of nostalgia that the game can bring to several longtime players.
Good question, I hope some developer sees and responds!
No way will they limit them, they are underutilised as it is. It would also require an overhaul of lots of civs (think Carth and Greek with that line of bonuses). Its just a name for the best guy with a sword on the battlefield and the guy with a long spear and armour. You could call them something different but would be crazy taking them off civs.
@“Mystic Taboo” said:
No way will they limit them, they are underutilised as it is. It would also require an overhaul of lots of civs (think Carth and Greek with that line of bonuses). Its just a name for the best guy with a sword on the battlefield and the guy with a long spear and armour. You could call them something different but would be crazy taking them off civs.
Yes these are the main problems of limiting them. If i was a developer i would certainly buff all inf melee units, which are VERY underused for a period in which infantry was the main battle force.
The easiest solution would be,as you say, to just change the umit names.
maybe “armoured long swordsman” for legion and “elite guard” for centurion?
Helepolis is a bad name for a Bolt shooter, Oxybeles is better or Scorpion.
Centurion isn’t a spearman after some Roman reforms.
Some changes that I think to deslocalize cultural units into a more generic names. But I think that devs won’t change that.
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Legion: could be Armoured swordman, Elite Swordman, Chosen Swordman, Elite Guard
Have you think that the longswordman upgrades into a shortswordman? (legionaries used a short sword) 
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Ballista could upgrade into a Field Ballista, instead of Helepolis (improving siege weapons into a more mobile versions was a huge step)
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Hoplite/Phalanx/Centurio could be something like Spearman, Phalanx and Pikeman
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Cataphract could change to a Armoured cavalry, although it could feel a little bit redundant with Armoured Elephants.
That changes would be cool with a skins civs pack or expansion, but I hardly see them working on that, and they never did it with Aoe 2. And would be a huge departure with the original, and precisely they are trying to stick with the original feel (Think that they have confirmed that it won’t be women villagers.)
You have to understand, that there are no unique units in AOE. So they needed to name the ultimate infantry units in the game, and they simply chose the name of the most successful/remarkable ancient infantry units known, the Roman legions. I completely agree that the Centurion is a somewhat innapropiate name though, as it was just a Roman officer (individual) IIRC.
@Aspaviento said:
You have to understand, that there are no unique units in AOE. So they needed to name the ultimate infantry units in the game, and they simply chose the name of the most successful/remarkable ancient infantry units known, the Roman legions. I completely agree that the Centurion is a somewhat innapropiate name though, as it was just a Roman officer (individual) IIRC.
Yes can be more ########## Hyspaspistes ( they using a dory spare)
