Since Western Rome is confirmed to be playable in AoE2 setting, Should Legionary be a share UU for Eastern Rome aka Byzantine as well? Like Winged Hussar for Lithuanian and Pole. It would be kinda weird that Byzantine doesn’t have Legionary.
I’m fairly certain that the Legionary is the Castle UU for the Romans, and those are never shared.
1 Like
In my opinion it’s fine byzantines don’t have legionnaires now that there are middle ages Romans in the game. I would not confine Romans to the west like it’s common thinking, the eastern army was in fact Roman until the time of Heraclius at least. Wikipedia refers to the late Roman army as an army used by Romans between 284 and 640. After this date you can properly start speaking of byzantines and by this date all legions had already been destroyed (the last recorded one, the V macedonica, was probably stationed in Egypt when Muslims conquered it in 646 circa).
The byzantine army system was based on cataphracts and the themata system which was an invention of either Heraclius or Constans II that started to become functional at the end of the VII century in remaining byzantine territories (practically only Anatolia and the Balkans since the exarchate of Africa was de facto independent and conquered by Muslims shortly after while the exarchate of Ravenna and Italian remnants were governed by duces, magistri militum and other late Roman titles until their end). Themata fell out of use around X or XI century but at that point you already pretty much got the best of byzantines and the rest was just a series of greek duchies and rump states (after the fall of Constantinople in 1204).
Crazy idea: Late byzantines (from when Nicea reconquered Constantinople to Trebizond, Theodore and the last principalities) could be a civ for aoe3 if anything in the same vein late Romans are now a civ for aoe2.
But medieval/imperial Greeks/byzantines where a VII - XII century thing like classical Romans were done by the third century (specially in a militar sense).
If they really wanted to add unique units to byzantines you can go for stratioti, Varangians, optimatoi, tagmata… There are really a lot to choose but now that medieval Romans exist in aoe2 it doesn’t make sense to give legionnaires to byz too, it would just be a repetition and not even historically accurate.
The Romans get the Legionary and the Centurion.
Considering that the Centurion is clearly the more expensive and Elite unit I’m sure it’ll be trained at the Castle.
I kinda feel like the Legionary is a Champion replacement, because the Centurion buffs Militia Line units and there are no Militia Line units in the one scene where we see the Romans.
6 Likes
Lack of evidence is not evidence of lack.
I would guess that the Centurion is made from the stable, and the Legionary is from the castle. Romans will likely be an infantry civ, with the Centurions being support for that playstyle.
Yeah, that’s my guess as well. I hope Legionary replaces both THS and Champion with one upgrade.
One of the early leak had a unique castle with some Centurion around it. So there is not necessarily lack of evidence.
There is no evidence for that either.
We’ll have to wait and see.
But wouldn’t it be strange if the Centurion only buffs the Champion, then why would you build Legionaries?
Or if you build Legionaries instead of Champions then the Centurion is useless.
Unless the description is wrong and they buff both.
1 Like
What about the Dromon ship? Both Byzantines and Romans get it or just Byzantines?
1 Like
Yeah I was thinking the same. An early leak rumored a Dromon ship. Maybe it was just a fake. Or maybe scrapped.
Or it can be a regional unit for Romans and Byzantines. We don’t have any regional naval units in the game. So that will be very cool imo.
The DLC description said nothing about it, so I’m guessing it’s either fake or scrapped.
That would be a major let down.
yeah, replacing militia line with legionary makes more sense
I hope so too. I can’t explain why, but this feels better that legionaries replacing champions only
I think it feels that way mostly because the Two Handed Swordman is an upgrade ghat doesnt have a clwar reason to exist unlike stuff like Cavaliers
2 Likes
Aww, but the Two-Handed Swordsman looks much cooler than the Champion…
It would be kinda strange if the Legionary would be only available in the Imperial Age.
It’s basically a Dark Age unit.
Other Dark Age units like Throwing Axeman and Ratha are at last available in Castle Age already.
Maybe the Legionary will already replace the Militia Line in Castle Age and then have an Elite upgrade in Imperial Age.
I wonder what the unique traits of the Legionary will be.
“Sturdy Infantry” could mean a lot of things and just a second Serjeant would be boring.