MKSheppard wrote:Have they even fixed the damn squalor bugs?
Dude, it's not that bad.
Silver Shield legionaires aren't worth the bother IMO. They take 2 turns to build, like Roman Praetorian cohort or Urban cohort, but in an even-numbers situation they get totally 0wned by either. In fact, I tried some unit comparisons by using two computers in a LAN battle, and found that a regular Roman legionary cohort will easily defeat Saleucid silver shield legionaires despite the greater cost and build time of the silver shield legionaires. If you were to put two fully optioned-out huge cities together, one Roman and one Seleucid, and let the two go at it, I honestly don't see how the Seleucid city could avoid being ass-raped by the Romans in short order.
Yeah, that's to be expected I guess- the Silver Shield Legionaries are only equivalent to post-Marian standard legionary cohorts, even though they require Royal Barracks to build, so the buck is a bit too much for the bang.
What I really wanted in my army was some increased tactical flexibility that my Pikemen just couldn't offer- in my previous Seleucid game, I almost always relied on mercenary infantry (some sort of fast infantry- Eastern Mercenaries in the East, Thracian mercenaries in the Balkans, etc) to guard the flanks of my phalangites against faster enemy units, either to pin them in place to bring the phalanx to bear, or to hold the enemy for a cavalry charge into their rear with Cataphracts (or Companions, in the
really late game). Sometimes, when mercenaries weren't available, the phalanx just had to cope by wheeling about and taking a few casualties from an annoying flanking attack in the meantime. Especially troubling in Thrace, with their mean arse falxmen.
At best, I would've had my Army equipped with two or three of them to displace the mercenary units (partly because they're more reliable and partly because a shining silver legionary cohort looks cool), but never would've gone toe to toe with a post-Marian Roman Army with them making up the backbone. The Seleucids in the late game rely on their cavalry much as Alexander's army did- both pre and post Marian legions have really inadequate defence from elite cavalry- so sweeping them off the battlefield time and again with cavalry attacks as they tried to penetrate the pike phalanx was simple
