Proposal Roman Empire client states

[juanplay]

Given that right now the romans do not have a Foederati roster it has ocurred to me this can be partially solved by increasing both the amount of troops and its types (say about 12 types of troops avaliable in a single turn) that can be recruited from a client state in a single turn. This way if for example the player gives land to the visigoths and then conquers it turning them into a client state, one can levy an entire and diverse visigothic army, simulating the Federates policies of the late roman empire, this feature would also make hordes passing through roman territory actually useful giving the player the choice whether to destroy them, eliminating the adverse effects of their raiding or letting them stay and gaining recruiting grounds for the army. These changes would make the campaign more enjoyable and would help to diversify the roman army in late game so that we do not have to depend entirely on legions of Comitatenses and Palatina troops.


Here is mod that does something like this and that actually work well with Fote, however due to the amount of new units in the mods is not possible to levy them all (the mod limits the types of units that can be recruited to a max number of seven attached to the roman technology tree): http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfile.../?id=455516409

[MajorTom]

The issue I see about having recruitable Foederati is that it isn't quite how they functioned. They were kind of more like mercenaries than fully recruited troops (making internal rosters somewhat innacurate). The current system of recruiting from passing hoards is pretty good, but, negates the fact that these foederati troops could relatively quickly decide to no longer fight, or to even join the enemy. I believe that Foederati would be more a treaty relationship between the WRE/ERE and either roaming hoards (Visigoths) or settled migrators (Franks), something currently missing from the game (more than a non-aggression pact, less than an alliance, where they will fight with you, but not necessarily love you).

[juanplay]

Not exactly, the Foederati were part of long standing roman policy of "barbarian integration" that goes back to the time of Augustus. Before Adrianople the Foederati were to be led by roman officers and slowly integrated in roman society and thus be romanized, however because the visigothic victory at the end of the 4th century allowed them a great deal of autonomy never seen before (for example having their own officersw), the roman system of barbarian recruitment was severly affected. Maybe recruiting a Foederati army could be tied to your generals loyalty, as in the sense that it would increase the chances of rebellion, but i doubt this is possible.