What are the best Roman units in Rome: Total War?

In this video I present my opinion of Roman factions' roster in Rome: Total War in campaign setting. What are the good units and what are trash? The units are not measured only based on their fighting capabilities but also on how easy it is to recruit them, how easily you can retrain them and so on. (And the color is of course, Roman red ;)
What do you think? Should a unit be higher or lower in the tier list and why. Share your opinion in the comments!
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Contents of this video:
00:00 - Intoduction
00:26 - Cavalry units
04:53 - Infantry units
16:42 - Missile units
21:27 - Siege units
26:05 - Special units
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#RomeTotalWar #tierlist #RTW #TotalWar

[@dxq3647]

Town watch is a bit underrated. They are the only spear unit that is readily available pre Marian reform. They can take a cav charge for your ranged and deal a good amount of damage before shattering. If you have them assist other melee units deal with cav, they do surprisingly well.

[@qualityoldgames7721]

Thanks for the comment. I agree that spear availability for Romans is pretty much town watch and mercs in the early game. I don't usually make town watches too much, so I don't have much experience with them. However, usually in my battles they break annoyingly quickly :)

[@dxq3647]

@@qualityoldgames7721 They are the sidekick unit in a way haha. I might have overstated their usefulness in taking a charge, but if the enemy cav is already fighting your melee infantry, the town watch will make sure to finish the cav off and your infantry will be free for other duties.

[@qualityoldgames7721]

@@dxq3647 Agreed on that :) Thanks for the comment.

[@steffens260]

Unfortunately, even though the Town Watch is visibly holding a spear, they do not get a bonus against Calvary.

[@dxq3647]

@@steffens260 Nah they have that +4 bonus vs cav. They are like an additional hastatii with 7 attack

[@ankka1222]

You forgot warships. This was fun to watch and interesting. Good video as always :)

[@qualityoldgames7721]

Thanks. A good point those ships. I thought that since there are so few, that they are not needed. But you are right, they would have complemented the tier list nicely.

[@sahinyilmaz6331]

Also, Legionary cohort is also easy S tier. They only need lvl 4 barracks. They have the same defence as praetorian cohort and have better stamina. So if you fight a praetorian cohort in guard mode, the praetorians will get tired very fast and then legionary cohort will eat them for breakfast.

[@qualityoldgames7721]

Thanks for the comment. I agree that Legionaries are good. However, in a campaign against barbarians it may be difficult to replenish them, as barb factions usually have only tier 3 barracks. Then again, the same could be said about Praetorian Cohorts. The problem with rating Roman factions is that they have so many good units :D

[@onlyws6810]

Just saw this today! So cool!

[@qualityoldgames7721]

Thank You! I am glad you liked it :)

[@danielbalderrama4137]

I would have put legionary cavalry in A in front of general bodyguard. Despite the higher stables and recruitment. Once you have it. It literally is a moving tank. The armour value increases it's charge effectiveness. In campaign, it literally smashes through any sword or non phalanx spear unit. You could actually have 6 of them in a line and charge an AI front line and instantly rout them.

[@qualityoldgames7721]

Thanks for the comment. I guess it shows that I favor mostly infantry :) But valid point.

[@AK-vs9bz]

Nice list. I would have put urban cohort higher. And the slaves at S are hilarious 😀

[@qualityoldgames7721]

Thanks. I thought both a bit weird too :D

[@Vandelberger]

I always spam the Triarii before the reforms. Lack of spearmen really are the only only issue for the Roman army.

[@qualityoldgames7721]

Looks like a good tactic. In my experience Auxilia breaks too easily in cav attack, and thus Legionaries are better than Auxilia against cav. Thanks for the comment.

[@nickrael5693]

Omg I do the same thing, I always hated that feature that after the reforms the best Roman Spearman can't be recruited anymore ever again

[@Sparticulous]

@@nickrael5693shame total war doesnt simulate how the pilum made a great anti cavalry spear

[@VonKrauzer]

Equites are a really good unit on so many levels. Basically, they are better than any trained cavalry than any neighbouring faction can muster. Greeks, Carthage, Macedons, barbarians - all they can train is a very light armored and weak cav that cannot stand the ground. Equites have better defense and armor and come from the very first tier of stable. It gives a lot of opportunity to amass them early and use predominaly equites and generals in your army, making them quick, hard hitting, cheap and easily retrained. Cav is King in RTW, and equites are kings of early game. Once Marian reforms kick in you can easily replace them with better cavalry, although you will probably have so many of them that they will be in use for quite some time before retiring completely. The problem with triarii is that they come very late. By the time you've built barracks for them you'll have to upgrade your city center and once that is done you won't be able to train them. So the window when you can use them is very limited. You could of course try and stall the growth of your cities, but why would you do that? Principes are better than hastati all around. It's better to not build those at all and let town grow to tier and after building new barracks build principes. Their upkeep is the same as hastati, but their defense is better. Especially good when playing as Brutii, as Greek cities they conquer grow much faster than, say, Gaul or Germanic villages. Spear throwers have their use in late game - they have a large bonus against elephants. If you go to war against late Carthage army or late Seleucids or Parthians, if they survive the slaughter, that is, then you really want to have a few missle throwing cav or spearthrowers. By the way, you can use missile cav to pepper up general unit and provoke it to follow you quick cavalry, leading them into trap. Very useful thing if you can pull it off. Overall, their use is situational, but when in those situations, they shine.

[@qualityoldgames7721]

Thank you for your analysis. :) Personally, I have always preferred infantry, which likely shows in the list here. I guess Carhage has access to some long shield cavalry pretty early, and they may cause difficulties for equites. I agree with your view about triarii. Early game I think it is much easier to retrain hastatis, especially against barbarians but if you attack East I agree about principes. About velites or light auxilia, I think I would rather have a unit of archer auxilia instead of javelin throwers even against elephants because of the very low number of missiles they carry.

[@VonKrauzer]

@@qualityoldgames7721 yeah, that's fair. All comes down to individual style of play. I prefer fast paced, very aggressive game with cavalry as main force in my army. With all-cav army you move much faster and crushing enemy armies is a fair bit easier. Plus, training cavalry lets cities grow faster than with infantry. Taking towns with such army, however, can be a problem, but I make AI sally out and defeat them in open field. This tactic us especially good with Parthia and Scyphians, which is expected as they are designed to be cav-only factions.

[@qualityoldgames7721]

@@VonKrauzer I can see your reasoning and looks like a sound strategy. :) Thanks for the comment.

[@duck6369]

Honestly the early roman General I think it deserves s tier because: you get plenty of generals in early game and all those generals can pretty be much used as heavy cav and counter anything anyone else has in early game

[@qualityoldgames7721]

A good point. I have perhaps lost too many generals that way, so I have become a bit too cautious with the :D Thanks for the comment.

[@carlosfurtado1164]

But you still have to be careful how you use generals though. I have seen youtube videos of players needlessly wasting their general units by sending them into a mass of enemy units, despite winning the battle. It was quite painful to watch

[@sahinyilmaz6331]

Good video. But you are absolutely wrong about Auxilia inf. They are one of the best infantry in the entire game vs. any heavy cavalry. A common misconception is that spear phalanxes destroy cavalry but they don't, they suck against cavalry because they have shorter spears so they immediately switch to they crappy swords and get annihilated. What you want to use is regular spearmen against cavalry like Auxilia who are one of the best vs cavalry (along with Libyan spearmen and Triarii) so Auxilia is easy S tier.

[@qualityoldgames7721]

Thank You. I agree that Auxilia is best used against enemy cav. However, I disagree about its usefulness against the cav, compared to e.g. legionary cohort. But perhaps I should do a bit of testing :)

[@sahinyilmaz6331]

@@qualityoldgames7721 yes. Do testing with spear units. There are many hidden attributes with spear units that CA is hiding from the player (for some stupid reason) for example: even crappy Iberian infantry eat up Auxilia even tho it has better stats, because "combat bonus vs cavalry" units get a massive -6 defense penalty (if i remember correctly) if they are fighting sword infantry. But they get a +6 defense buff in addition to +8 attack buff against cavalry. So an upgraded Auxilia has: 5 att 16 total defence. But against cavalry it becomes something like 13 attack 23 defence. A few armor and exp upgrades and one unit of Auxilia can chew up 2 eastern cataphract bodyguard with 2 hitpoints. Altho not many will survive that's probably the most cost effective way to take down super heavy cavalry

[@qualityoldgames7721]

@@sahinyilmaz6331 Yea, there are some strange mechanics in that rock-paper-scissors system :)

[@Dan-uf2vh]

You keep hearing about this ridiculous unit that only requires a tier 3 barracks, doesn't require Marian Reforms and narrowly beats the Legionaries from tier 4 barracks in a straight fight on manual combat? That's right, the Armored Hoplites. You can have your first one on turn 5 😀 Watch Norovo's Greek campaign as he wins the Very Hard campaign within 30-35 turns (a couple of years ago on KZbin). Even he was surprised of how quickly it was all finished. The Greeks also have a much better starting position with the opportunity to win a lot of territories fast starting from the very best regions. The Roman factions can't compare.

[@qualityoldgames7721]

Thanks for the comment. Agreed that Armoured Hoplites are the best infantry in the game :) And the Greek starting position (for player) is quite rich as well.

[@Rubafix989]

I do believe that you didn't try full peasant army. You can throw enemy moral so low units can flee without contact.

[@qualityoldgames7721]

Thanks for the comment. My experience with peasants in battle is that often they flee without enemy contact :D. However, in the city center you can do something with them. But I think their main value comes from managing public order in cities. That is why I put them in S tier.

[@Rubafix989]

@@qualityoldgames7721 As I was moving populations from one city to the next I maxed a few armies of peasant, and in battle against rebels I would stack all the peasants in one spot during deployment and as the enemy closed in I would use spread formation and form a huge line, it would trigger the flanked status on the enemies troops and make them route with barely any fighting. I believe it was with the largest unit size in default difficulty. I don't remember if I had a dedicated general unit or not.

[@qualityoldgames7721]

@@Rubafix989 Okay. Thanks for sharing this. I need to try that out sometime.

[@keeshans5768]

@@Rubafix989probably has to do with the difficulty, as it directly influences morale of enemy and your own troops.

[@tomasplanicka2539]

siege is so bad in rome total war, I am happy for warhammer total war, which made siege units real fun to play with Doesn't siege in rome total war also slow down your army? Really makes it unpleasant to use them

[@qualityoldgames7721]

Thanks for the comment. In Rome siege units slow down army which I find annoying too. Then again mass onager firing flaming shots on tight enemy ranks can give you some of the same vibes as a bunch of Helstorm rocket batteries :D

[@martijn0797]

Lol.. upkeep is way more important then recruitment costs.. legionairy cav is way better on a campaign then pretorian cav... Early legionairy is not good at all. You shouldve already conquered most of west Europe when you can build them. Maybe 1 army with them for northern europe. Legionnaires are the best units in the roman campaign long term You obviously to focused on the barbarian factions, which isnt needed. They can be killed with anything.. good luck in the civil war with your early legionairres An army of 8/10 legionairres cohort 4/6 onagers and 4/6 legionarry cav can destroy any army with ease

[@qualityoldgames7721]

I guess we all have our preferred playstyles. I just abhor Onagers because of their slowness and slowing down the army in campaign map as well :) But I agree that vs. "civilized factions" Legionaries or even Urbans are better. Instead of Onagers, I would take Archer Auxilias. Thanks for the comment.