THE MARIAN REFORMS - Game Guides - Rome: Total War

[@BlueMatona]

The Imperial Palace lets you train Praetorian Cohort infantry after the Marian Reforms as well

[@piegunman]

What are they

[@piegunman]

Can you explain how to take rome and become the emperor with full Senate and people support

[@danielbalderrama4137]

@@piegunman you can't

[@danielbalderrama4137]

@@piegunman once you take Rome, senate and people get erased from your campaign. Even if you let them take another city with a family member living. Once the senate loses Rome. There faction get eliminated

[@danielbalderrama4137]

@@piegunman paterion cohort are a roman unit

[@MarMar-zj8tf]

I've never been able to build up fast enough to train my own Triarii before the reform is triggered, which is shame because those two feathers on their helmet are very stylish. :(

[@BlueMatona]

I honestly don't think I've ever trained my own Triarii. Only ones I ever use are the senate mission reward units

[@MoGamal-jt7no]

you can train your Triarii by taking Sicily first before the Scipii at the early beginning of the game & then train your forces & prepare your self for taking Carthage

[@MarMar-zj8tf]

@@MoGamal-jt7no I've tried that before but somehow the other roman factions will still trigger it. Funnily enough though, since I've posted that I was able to get the triarii another way. It involved taking over much of Greece but managing to leave Sparta in the hands of the Greek Cities for a while. When I eventually took it over, the city had advanced far enough that it was just a matter up upgrading the barracks one more time to get to Triarii level. Admittedly though the campaign was weird. The Scipii had a really tough time dealing with the Carthage faction and Numidia managed to hold on to Carthage itself for a long time.

[@HouseOfAlastrian]

I never managed to train Triarii with enough time left for them to make a difference. So any I got as a Senate reward, or the ones you start with as the Julii were used to sparingly (if at all), knowing that by the time I can replace them and train more, I'll be moving on to another unit roster and using Auxilia as my spearmen instead. Makes it a bit trickier dealing with enemy generals and light cavalry, considering Rome's own pre-Marian cavalry are nothing special.

[@gabork5055]

Probably the best looking pre-Marian unit. Shame i lost the one i had in my current Julii campaign to Naval inferiority, had to unload them somewhere in Iberia, then a full stack army attacked, RIP! I also intended to use them, despite their historical role, in the first lines to defend my Hastati, Velites and Archers against cavalry and use them as a sort of proto-hoplites to cover my archer units while my Hastati/Principes flanks the enemy from the back and sides while cavalry attacks the units affected by War Dog debuffs. Might give this role to the Arcani, in a few turns i will be able to build them.

[@akinkinalexandr5672]

The bodyguard of all factions will be changed too. The exception is britons.

[@perrymeril]

Britons didnt need a change though. They're op already

[@perrymeril]

@SCN ai cant deal. Theyre op in the sense you have near infinite time due to them not being able to approach.

[@haldiroflorien6041]

I remember when I first got the game and i read the manual (back in the good old days) it said the marian reforms will be a random event later in the game and i remember being so excited waiting for it to happen and when it happened I was unbelievably happy

[@alejandrop.s.3942]

I thought my game was broken since I wanted to use legionaries and just those shitty hastati were available xD.

[@DutchTDK]

I got a new copy from the store but there was no manual in it :(

[@donterrenoalto4235]

same lmao , 3 years later​@@alejandrop.s.3942

[@davidallen2058]

You should have mentioned a trick for pre-Marian units after the Marian reforms occur. You can drag-drop damaged unit tiles over each other to effectively rebuild these older units until they are used up. So if you have 2x Hastati with 40 men each you can combine them into 1x Hastati with 80 men. Do this to get maximum value from your older units until they are gone or replaced by newer ones.

[@KaizokuSencho]

Or just select all units partially depleted units and press ctrl+m for automerge!

[@selder_7]

It’s such a well crafted game that while the Marian reforms strengthen the army later in the game, starting with Marian reforms would actually be a disadvantage. In the early games as the Romans you’ll be fighting barely armoured barbarians, lightly armoured and skirmisher happy Carthaginians or slow and tight formationed Greeks, and the Hastatii utterly obliterate all of those with their peela javelins. And you get them from milita barracks so you’ll pretty much always have them to hand and can just sweep the early game. But if you started with Marian reforms you’d have the Auxilla instead and they’re just defensive spearmen so you’d be really hurt by the Carthaginians skirmishing, the Greek phalanxes and fight barbarians would take far more casualties. Once you got legionaries you’d be fine but that takes a lot longer. Meanwhile come the later game, without the reforms you’d be sorely lacking in cavalry and spearmen and elite infantry to better tackle the Egyptians and the horse archer heavy factions. So it is perfectly plotted out how your army starts and finishes

[@gabork5055]

True, pre-Marian armies can fight these factions effectively, but so can a post-Marian one with the right unit composition. All it takes is a barrack of each type in one of the settlements to train a few units of Archer Auxilia, War Dogs, Cavalry Auxilia or hire some Cretan Archers in Greece, which will outrange their missile units, or Numidian/Libyan Mercenaries in Africa to skirmish. Gaul is the toughest one in this aspect as you will either need your own factions units or go to one of these areas. (or to the Northeast for Scythian Mercenary Horse Archers) I guess you can still hire Scutarii from Iberia after the Marian reforms as well and some of the post-Marian units still use pila iirc..

[@archiebellega956]

Yeah. Suffer a lot more doing fast marian trick as Julii, because I can't easily replenish my ELC. Hastati is more than enough, and by the time you got marian reform late in the game you might be fighting egypt, or even other roman, which is where Marian reform helps. Scipii might be the faction that enjoy early reform the most, but there's no city as sweet as patavium unless you rush all your army to get patavium before Julii. Or Carthage, then nile delta cities rush (Memphis and Alexandria) to get slaves.

[@doc7m71]

I’ve only been subscribed for about a week now and I regret not clicking on your videos prior to my subscription. Keep up the amazing work! 👍

[@noscope7809]

thanks man, I just started a macedon campaigh both hard difficultys. My first mission is to reclaim greece. Maintain it for some years build up the army and then destroy the roman empire. Wish me luck! i aint sleepong tonight!!!! hehe

[@august8696]

how’d it go

[@alfisyahr]

How's your campaign?

[@lovrolak4697]

i guess it did bad

[@Dan-uf2vh]

Greek States and their Armored Hoplites are far superior to the Macedonia phalanx; check it out in Custom Battles for proof, 1v1 units

[@peticadsa5297]

@@Dan-uf2vh that's why you have royal pikemen

[@Jordan67145]

So, if all Roman factions are destroyed before they get a huge city, the Marian Reforms won't happen, and the other factions won't get the improved general bodyguards? If that's the case, it seems to be a good idea to not destroy the Romans early.

[@sauromatae9728]

huge city or city for barbarians give upgraded bodyguards nonetheless.

[@jmk3723]

While true, the issue with letting the Roman’s get to that level is problematic as they then get the infantry boost. Having slightly better general bodyguards when you have to face a new and improved Roman republic is potentially problematic

[@nothing00164]

But what about greeks​@@sauromatae9728

[@leadjunkie5674]

The other factions can obviously trigger it, but when possible I always try to get to an army barracks in at least one city before this happens and churn out as many Triarii as possible before the reform, since they're the best spear unit the Romans have access to.

[@TheLanceUppercut]

I do the same. Auxilia are just pale imitations of Triarii.

[@allangillis9159]

I have LOVED this game for years now! I STILL play it!

[@lucasistrom]

I keep beating the campaign before the reforms trigger

[@KitchenFSink]

In ost marian army barracks you forgot the Praetorian Cohort

[@BlueMatona]

Oh true. Somehow missed that I must have edited it out by accident. I will add it to a pinned comment thank you for the heads up

[@MrStalcer]

@@BlueMatona you have not yet mentioned the eagle cohort that can be built in rome.

[@Dan-uf2vh]

meanwhile the Greek get Armored Hoplites within a few turns, who can beat even urban cohort head on; start as Greek, build up a few of these bois and keep spamming them as you steamroll the best provinces in the game

[@danielsauer1712]

Just tested to make sure, an Urban Cohort can take an Armoured hoplite unit.

[@Dan-uf2vh]

@@danielsauer1712 there is a huge difference if and which unit is fighting uphill; yea, the urban wins on flat ground; standard legion loses; however, legions are excellent on auto-resolve

[@danielsauer1712]

Thanks, forgot to take terrain into account.

[@Qladstone]

Imperial palace in Rome might not trigger the reforms. I remember sending a spy to Rome to check and seeing an imperial palace, before the reforms were triggered. As Brutii the moment Tarentum reached a huge city, the reforms triggered.

[@TheLanceUppercut]

I always thought Rome started as a Huge City and thus wouldn't count towards triggering the reforms.

[@Casketkrusher_]

Correct, Rome doesn't count.

[@IllyrianTiger99]

I don't think urban barracks give triarii +1exp because if you go in the settlement building detaila and right click on urban barracks, it will still train urban cohorts, so only change is that you get auxillia from militia barracks, early legionary cohort from legion barracks and legionary cohort from army barracks :)

[@el_vee_ee]

It wouldn't even be possible, since you can't have an urban barrack without an imperial palace, right? I was wondering that during the video and tried to find a related comment.

[@frisianmouve]

@@el_vee_ee I've had plenty of games where Carthage was the first with an imperial palace, which doesn't count

[@ПредрагСоколов]

Love your vid's! Keep up the good work :))

[@BoboDeTurno]

I think there is a slight difference between pre-Marian Reforms and post-Marian Reforms Town Watch

[@BlueMatona]

I just checked and the town watch before and after the Marian Reforms have the same stats

[@BoboDeTurno]

@@BlueMatona Ooops, sorry then. I don't know why, I just thought there was a difference, maybe it is in a mod called RTW-Enhanced. Nice video though! Subscribed for a week and expecting more RTW from you!

[@sjonnieplayfull5859]

@@BlueMatona i did miss a comparison of the stats tbh. Not in much detail, but like: around 50% more defence, archers get long range, stuff like that.

[@user-mp6qe7kk4e]

I might be wrong but even if no Imperial Palaces are built in the provinces mentioned they Marian Reform can still happen after a certain year correct?

[@Austin-sw3mf]

Patavium is awesome for rushing the reforms because of its ridiculous population growth. I always make a point to keep a governor there and make sure all the governors are out of the other cities before I do a siege battle, so when I enslave the population, Patavium gets the benefit. Even if you only have shitty barracks built, early legionary cohorts are still a ridiculous upgrade. I also try to make a point of rotating most of my pre-Marian troops towards armies in barbarian territory if it's convenient bc I feel the post-Marian troops are more valuable against the diadochi and Parthia. Carthage has almost always been wiped out by me at that point, so I don't think I've ever fought them with post-reform troops.

[@camerong3818]

Thanks for the info

[@BlueMatona]

Of course! Thank you for watching

[@lf2208]

2:55 I suppose you haven’t seen that video where this guy triggers the reforms by 257 BC ;)

[@dr_davinci]

enslaving and forcefully make them go patavium ,that was genius .

[@googleistdoof6656]

This is absolute standard among experienced players. Has been for, huh, 15 years. It's funny to see a second generation of players grow up and rediscover the game mechanics.

[@alexanderthegreat1356]

Which vid?

[@alejandroredpine]

@@googleistdoof6656 u trash

[@krisc4618]

I tried it that way and I have to say it's like a completely different campaign as the julii! It's over powered but great fun

[@binghuichen6256]

After the Marian reforms, the feeble Roman cavalry force will be much stronger with the cheap legionary cavalry and elite praetorian ones.Especially when you have the temples than gives you plus three unit experience effect.

[@tomasplanicka2539]

This is weird, anytime I have played before, I was able to get some better units before Marian Reform, like Legionary cav Maybe this was patched later and I had some old version, but the way it worked is that I captured carthagfe as Julii and there were T4 stables, so I had legionary cav for recruitment, but still triarii in barracks.

[@lutskinu1491]

No, it just your brain palys with memory

[@selder_7]

Usually it’s always Patavium that triggers it

[@joshuamccarthy3226]

Makes it too easy on Huge unit scales. Play Julii, take Patavium and Segestica, sit whole army in a fort by Mediolanium (Gauls will be too scared to attack), low tax rate Patavium, and then just shift peasants there from Arretium and Arinium, disbanding as they go. You can get the Marian reforms within about 20 years and then steamroll the map

[@MarcoAntonio-tb4gx]

@@joshuamccarthy3226 Even better if instead of sitting there, you Go for carthage, sicily, and greece. You get the 24k pop before even being able to build the barracks to produce legions

[@jonshive5482]

@@joshuamccarthy3226But if Marian Reforms affect ALL Roman factions what's the advantage?

[@BukanSatyaAlfiSyahr]

You should have more subscriber. Your content in good. I suggest make more game.. Any game that happened to be viral,

[@danvalente1102]

use scipii, very hard campaign difficulty i usually manage to have about 20 turns with triarii training :)

[@napoleoncomplex2712]

Are auxilia better than hastati? Just something to think about because if a player still has poor military infrastructure for whatever reason, losing hastati suddenly could be a real loss. It's fine if you're able to crank out those early legionary cohorts and legionary cavalry of course.

[@andremartins7601]

Its bad, because auxilia and hastati have diferent styles of combat, where auxilia is very defensive + anti cav, and the hastati are weaker legionaries, that is why the reforms happen at the imperial palace, where you have acess to all kinds of armies, but the proper response would be to replace the hastati with the early legionaries

[@alejandrop.s.3942]

Auxilia is the perfect add for the roman army. Pre Marian armies lack of spearmen, and the enemies' general bodyguards are a pain in the ass for hastati and princeps (obviously not for the triarii, but if you play well you had triggered the Marian Reform even before building Army Barracks). Samnite and Hoplite mercenaries are quite neccesary to cover this flaw before the event, however they are expensive units. The Auxilia fix it.

[@hernanreipp3321]

Hi Blue. An excellent video about how to get the Marian's Reforms and what change after happen. You know that the general's bodyguard from the other factios change too? (except the chariots one). Also can you make a video about the calamities like floods, earthquakes and plagues? Because I want to know is they are random or encripted to happen in some places after some time.

[@ryanc4033]

Where there sirens in the background at the end?

[@caper963]

Really good video, but there wasn't in history something like Gaius Marius reform. There are no informations, texts from ancient historician or any evidence. Roman proffesional army was created by Augustus in 27 BC. But yes, Gaius Marius recruited legionaries from poor citizens and they were paid for by senat. But exactly same thing happend for example during Second Punic War.

[@BlueMatona]

Thank you! Interesting about the Second Punic War. I admittedly don't know too much about ancient Rome, but when I search online for the Marius Reforms, there was a lot of information that came up on the subject. Seems like a pretty important event in Rome's history, but now that I look into it more I agree that I was wrong in saying that they were the creation of a professional army. The reforms definitely expanded and improved the existing army though

[@caper963]

@@BlueMatona Well yes, there are many informations about Marius reforms in internet, but It is 'cause all of them are old researches. German archeologist in around 1920 said there was 'Marius reforms', but they weren't really sure about it. However, historians agrees with them and started spreading in books about this 'reform'. To be honest I was really surprised when I heard first time that there wasn't any 'Marius reform'. But anyway, fact that this reform wasn't real, It does not change the fact that your video is really good, because in Rome TW we know that there is Marius reform and It's so important in gameplay :D

[@_-Wade-_]

What if the Romans never build an Imperial Palace? Will the reforms ever trigger?

[@tahahasan236]

Alright thanks for the good enlightenment man

[@aob3366]

does the town I will build the palace in has to be the capital? cause that's what the wiki says, and it doesn't mention that it has to be in the Italian Peninsula

[@BlueMatona]

It's admittedly been a while since I did the testing for this video, but I remember that I tested these two situations specifically when making this video. If I remember correctly, the palace DOES NOT have to be your capital and it must be on the Italian Peninsula. So it can be any one of your provinces as long as the province is in Italy When I'm back from work I'll do some digging through the code and see if I can find the exact info for you

[@aob3366]

@@BlueMatona thank you very much, appreciated

[@Meteor_pending]

Funny how I used to think that these things just happened for no particular reason other than passage of time

[@insch.9547]

Is Hastati's more Powerfull than Auxiliria ?

[@IceniTotalWar]

Hastati have jav/pilum usually 3 so yeah i consider them more powerful.

[@petrovepryk3786]

I firmly remember training Praetorians alongside Triarii&Principes. It happened only once, but I really remember it. It was both weird and exciting at the same time. After the Marian Reforms, I received all other new units.

[@TwpsynMawr]

Bullshit...

[@lutskinu1491]

No, it just your brain palys with memory

[@valipunctro]

Spqr buit the imperial palace but didnt trigger the reforms,im macedon

[@valipunctro]

Nvm.aparently the city of rome doesnt count for the reforms,at least if the senate has it

[@michaelstein7510]

valipunctro Yeah, the Senate faction plays by its own rules compared to the other Roman factions. I don’t think it can use post-Marian units in the campaign, even though those are available to them in a custom battle. I never see the Senate do anything with their armies until the civil war starts. They tend to just camp around Rome with their starting armies and a crazy number of generals.

[@sjonnieplayfull5859]

@@michaelstein7510 and they always have enough money for that...

[@alejandrop.s.3942]

@@michaelstein7510 I guess you play easy difficult. In Very Hard they come fast to support Capua, or any other roman province you are attacking (in Italy, obviously).

[@michaelstein7510]

Hector Torrealta No, I always play on Very Hard difficulty. When I said the SPQR doesn’t move until the civil war starts, I was talking about when you play as one of the three Roman factions. Obviously, when you play as a non-Roman faction, the SPQR will assist the other Roman factions when they get attacked in Italy.

[@Cal97g]

when it triggers does it affect all roman factions?

[@alejandroredpine]

Yes

[@jonshive5482]

@@alejandroredpineSo then there's no advantage to getting them first except maybe a head start on cranking out units?

[@PADONAGG]

you forgot about praetorian cohort and armored roman general

[@valentinotto88]

really useful thanks

[@TheTurbanatore]

Amazing video

[@Eng.osamaghanem1881]

Thanks !!

[@fabianustertius6460]

nice info

[@tanneraustin9071]

Still think you should be able to retrain pre marians

[@BlueMatona]

Agree with this

[@tanneraustin9071]

Worst part of the reforms. Basically means your armies will be incredibly understrength for 5-6 turns when you get new armies to the frontline of your wars

[@amuktadir1991]

Just open flexis guard.

[@NinjaSushi2]

I'm such a noob because I'm still running around after the Marian reforms using histati. Lol they won't die.

[@BlueMatona]

Nothing wrong with keeping a few old stalwarts

[@NinjaSushi2]

@@BlueMatona true. They have rank but can't be retrained. I have Urban Cohorts and praetorian cohorts now so I'm running through everything as Scipii. Lol

[@amuktadir1991]

Arabian superior conqured.and for something else.

[@alp.rahulbhandari99]

How does this reform happen

[@andoniarmentia1024]

Watch the video

[@spikethedragon341]

Playing with Romans in Vamilla, your best move is actually turtle up, build your farms, ignore the Senate most of the time except to enslave a handful of enemy settlements. Tech up Italy until you got Marian Reforms, and then, recriit Legionary Cohort, preferably the Segmentata ones. They're just a bit OP compared to everything else, but still weak enough to make their battle enjoyable. Yes you could do the Urban Spam, but that kind of Cheese is too easy, it becomes unenjoyable.

[@googleistdoof6656]

You're cute but have no understanding of game mechanics. Put a general in your biggest starting city but only that one. Enslave every city conquered. All slaves go to that city. Build peasants whereever you don't need to build troops and move them to that province. Dissolve them, they are added to the population. Hire cheap mercenaries, move them to that city, dissolve. You are at 24k in no time at all, depending on unit scale. On huge it gets ridiculous. Don't play on huge though, it cripples the daft AI. Well, even more than anyway. Now all you need to do is build the palace building which also takes only a few turns. Edit: If one of your general gets a slave trader move that ancilliary to the general in home city; even more growth.

[@BlueMatona]

Sounds like a cool way to get Marian Reforms quickly, but gotta stick with those Hastati for a little while lol!

[@Qladstone]

Yeah yeah let's break the game instead of playing it as was intended.

[@Greninjia]

Too many troops lol

[@daviddavidov8398]

The bad thing by the time you will be able to train those bad ass units map usually half conquered by gastaties. Ofcourse if you play normally like average enjoyer and not moving peasants around like tryhard virgin with sweaty armpits

[@DT-im1dp]

I couldn’t find this answer anywhere. But will this reform happen if I take out all roman factions before they can build any huge city?