Are legions worth it at the start of the game for the small nations that start with them?

[Ellye]

The heirs of Alexander and a few other nations start the game with Legions, but I'm finding that they might not be worthwhile to maintain at that stage.

Dismissing them will triple or more the monthly income, and you still end up having the same amount of troops during war - just as Levies instead. And the advantages that Legions have over Levies don't seem to be enough to justify investing money at this stage, when money is so scarce.

 

[Rabid]

You can also change laws to one of the ones which don't allow legions - making your levies significantly larger in exchange for losing a small discipline bonus.

 

[Hemothep]

You can also change laws to one of the ones which don't allow legions - making your levies significantly larger in exchange for losing a small discipline bonus.

Or you could just dissolve your existing legions.

 

[Rabid]

Or you could just dissolve your existing legions.

Having the laws which allow legions gives a relative penalty to levy size. So not only do you gain more troops from disbanding the legions, you also gain additional extra levies by switching laws. I get the impression that a lot of people have overlooked this.

 

[Todie]

The fact that rulers cant be legates of Legions also make early Legions a potential pitfall, as it may appear intuitive to use your Legion only, but this makes you miss out on the very lucrative sacking events that are specific to ruler-generals.

 

[Argead33]

How do you recruit additional legions? Is it dependent on population? I saw there is a law where you can recruit legions in your capital province but the recruit option in the province is no longer there.

 

[Bovrick]

Having the laws which allow legions gives a relative penalty to levy size. So not only do you gain more troops from disbanding the legions, you also gain additional extra levies by switching laws. I get the impression that a lot of people have overlooked this.

Agreed, it's a significant difference. For example, Day1 Mesopotamia gives the Seleukids 30 units to divide between the Legion and the residual Levy. Going immediately to Military Service pumps that up to 61 units, albeit at the cost of having less control over composition/army sizes/no Legion boosts. Legions are a real Luxury.

 

[Todie]

How do you recruit additional legions? Is it dependent on population? I saw there is a law where you can recruit legions in your capital province but the recruit option in the province is no longer there.

You can have at most 3 legions, but the laws that you need to have 1 or 3 are unlocked later.

I suspect the countries that have a starting legion may not have the law to create a legion yet in case it gets disbanded (or destroyed by a stack-whipe?)

 

[Rabid]

Agreed, it's a significant difference. For example, Day1 Mesopotamia gives the Seleukids 30 units to divide between the Legion and the residual Levy. Going immediately to Military Service pumps that up to 61 units, albeit at the cost of having less control over composition/army sizes/no Legion boosts. Legions are a real Luxury.

To be honest, I like it this way. Levies don't give you more manpower, after all. And legions can get a significant boost in quality over levies with various bonuses and engineers. I like that there's a strong incentive to continue to use levies even if you can still afford to make a large legion.

 

[Synen]

Out of curiosity as Rome I went straight to unlocking the invention to raise a legion in my capital region, conquered the Etruscans and integrated them and now I can afford a legion with 24 HI, 10 LC and 6 supply trains (with room for 6 more cohorts if I had the income to maintain them). I have surplusses of salt and wine in my capital reducing my legion upkeep by 10% and 2 inventions that reduce the upkeep by another 10% making the total reduction for my legion 20%. It's costing 10.65 income a month.

 

[Will Steel]

So far I've generally seen 5 types of army laws. There may be many more, but these are the ones I noticed -

- quantity - a huge citizen levy, no legions
- quality - a smaller citzen levy but with some sort of decent bonus, no legions
- mercenary - no legions, no change to levies, but very cheap mercenaries
- retinue - one single capital legion + levy + some decent bonus
- professional army - infinite standing legions + some decent bonus, no changes to levies

From my experience, the one-legion are worth it if you are a small nation with big neighbours (like Epirus for an example, the only small-mid nation I have played since update), simply because a large number of heavy infantry have a better staying power early on. Levies become better later on when population grows.

 

[Baldamundo]

Yeah. Haven't played around with it much, but the impression I get is that legions aren't worth it until you've got plenty of money to throw around. Unless you can afford to make the legions disproportionately higher quality units, they won't necessarily be any stronger than a levy. Plus bonuses like the extra military experience you get from drilling are only available if you can afford to pay the extra maintenance costs.

I rushed legions on my Athens game, but actually I'm not sure it was worthwhile. Permanently taking up around 20% of my budget, even on reduced maintenance, and actually I've just checked and the composition's no stronger than what the levy would have been.

Plus there's the downsides others have noted of not having your faction leader in charge.

EDIT: On the other hand, while I've not done the numbers, if you can afford to keep them drilling, it seems like the experience bonuses might be quite significant?