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When you recruit a new legion or order a replacement for the Legatus Legionis element you loose 2 National Moral. I was wondering why is this - what does this represent historically?

That represents the lose of the Eagle of the legion, i think.

But by recruiting a new legion your gaining an eagle not loosing one.

The initial reason was that there was no penalty for having a legion wiped out. The NM cost was used so actually rebuilding a legion had a NM cost. Of course, this explantion does not apply to legions built for the first time, but the game has no way to make the difference between "new" and "rebuilt" legions.

It was also added for balance.

I suppose you can rationalize it by saying that 1) no one likes seeing people drafted into service (I suppose they were drafted, but I know little of Roman history), 2) building legions also means commandering mules, troops, etc, which people don't like, and 3) creating more legions increase the power of their generals and the number of soldiers, which create all sorts of disorders.

JamesL wrote:But by recruiting a new legion your gaining an eagle not loosing one.

if you loose 1000 Romans you loose 1 NM, how happy your people will be, if you losses are that high that you even levy new legions?

the Legatus Legionis is the dead-end-point, if migh memory is right, its somehowpossible to reconstruct the legion around him, receiving elements from the replacements pool.
if he and the eagle are gone, the Legion is totally gone.

even if my observation was false, the Legatus Legionis is a SUPPORT unit, it is the last one killed/harmed, for not actively fighting. If this detachment is gone, far higher looses can be expected.


next try, they were often members of the cursus honorem, thus popular or in civil service. there loss will be known, the loss of their men not always (in real life)


the shortest explanation, balance!

Well, i have Legatus hit losses in the recruitment screen without losing any legion. Not sure if its a good idea to recruit a 2 NM cost unit for replacing some small losses inside the legatus unit.

" even if my observation was false, the Legatus Legionis is a SUPPORT unit, it is the last one killed/harmed, for not actively fighting. If this detachment is gone, far higher looses can be expected."

Actually the legatus can be destroyed before all cohorts and thus is not the last destroyed unit of a legion.
It is important to buy replacements for the legatis in case you lose one because once gone and all cohorts are destroyed you can't rebuild the legion in some scenarios but not all. Just take care !!!!... and verify after each battle which elements are missing !!!

Florent wrote:" even if my observation was false, the Legatus Legionis is a SUPPORT unit, it is the last one killed/harmed, for not actively fighting. If this detachment is gone, far higher looses can be expected."

Actually the legatus can be destroyed before all cohorts and thus is not the last destroyed unit of a legion.
It is important to buy replacements for the legatis in case you lose one because once gone and all cohorts are destroyed you can't rebuild the legion in some scenarios but not all. Just take care !!!!... and verify after each battle which elements are missing !!!

only if the battle is large and long enough. as support unit it doesnt take hits the first rounds, not even cohesion in my games.

Thanks i will verify, do you know the number of rounds ? I lost regularly Legatis but didn't take care of the number of rounds.

Interesting stuff.....but

You can recruit any other type of unit without NM loss so the idea that NM is being affected through conscription & more power to the generals doesnt explain the NM loss in recruiting Legions. In fact enlisting in the Legions was more like a pledge of support to Rome - after a your term of service you got Roman citizenship + a plot of land. More legions = more opportunity for anyone from the provences to better themselfs - so a loss of NM on forming a new legion does'nt make sense.

I can see the point about the effect on NM by the loss of a legion being simulated by the need to order Legatis replacements - but it is rather counter intuitive - you could order Legatis replacements when no Legions have been lost & still loose NM - so why bother to simulate it when you could just have a 2NM hit when you loose a legion in the first place.

In short - the 2NM loss should only apply when a Legion is [color="#FFFF00"]LOST[/color] - that is the disaterous newsworthy event that causes the public dismay!

your point is valid, but see it the other wise around:

[color="#FFFF00"]the lost of a legion in the field SIX NM[/color] 6x1000 when 1000==1NM
while you pay no NM for cohorts/elements replaced

practically you loose it several times if playing with the legions of the original setup and just buying replacements and have the only cost of LEGATUS UNITS. (regarding attrition, for battles you will earn more than you will loose)
now lets look on the impact. if i play on highest difficulty level, but no historical attrition, the MS87 scenario can be played with Sullas troops from North Spain, to all Asia minor with paying TEN NM to Legatus replacements for battle AND attrition.


Now go for a stronger force like Caesar, playing with historical attrition, you will be able to rely on the first legions and maybe POW legions and troops from events etc, but barely have the money to build many NEW legions (2 NM).
[color="#FFFF00"]then you pay nearly nothing but the NM for Legatus units.[/color]

so, if the Legatus units replacement wouldnt be payed on a comparable low level (speaking in yxz-times-bought, not NM per single element), then in Battles of Romans vs Romans the NM would be "skyrocketing" for one side, suddendeath would be reached too soon

This way of balance they used here, gives us:

a.) a gap between the cost paid and the new troops available for legions
b.) a constant drain of NM when marching around to aggressively, attrition of Legatus

and this has to be seen as follows:

the NM from options cannot be raised after a certain time and NM jumps by events and Options, sometimes means up to 20 NM fluctuation in a turn.

now please remember that NM has an [color="#FFFF00"]impact on Cohesion at least,[/color], too high NM would accelerate the game even more. while the loosing side would not be able to recover on the battle field.
so you pay additional troops not only with NM, but also if building many legions at the same time, by loss of cohesion for the next turns, making it harming both sides, not only the one with fewer money...

its a complicate thing to be balanced, but for it is in game, its close to perfect to build further scenarios on it (opinion)

JamesL wrote:Interesting stuff.....but

In short - the 2NM loss should only apply when a Legion is [color="#FFFF00"]LOST[/color] - that is the disaterous newsworthy event that causes the public dismay!

All your points are indeed valid ; this last solution unfortunately was I believe more complex than the current solution. In your proposal, one would need to create a "special" trait for legions that makes them lose NM when destroyed (no other "trait" of this kind exist, so it would need coding + testing - what happen if a legion surrenders for instance) while adding a NM cost to legion production was extremely easy. The "NM lost when building legions" was added late during beta testing, hence the second solution was prefered. That's why, I think, the dev did not choose it. Arbitration.

As a last rationalisation, could I propose that creating Legion HQ also mean drafting / recruiting "elites", and specially order-keeping elites, and thus the disorder in the society increases as all the leaders are on the battlefield ? Not excellent as a rationalisation, but good enough ?

I had no idea game balencing & coding was so complex! From my players perspective I would envision the loss of a legion triggering a descriptive event box & a loss of 2NM in a similer manner to other events. Anyway enough debate from me, I need to defeat Ceaser!

(Augustus: "Quintus Varius - Where are my eagles!!!")