Is it worth build early legions

[Wild_Nipples]

I am noob this game and playing as Epirus at this moment, because of that I have access to legions from the start of the game. At this moment I am controlling half of Greece and producing 7-10 gold per month so I can afford to have small army. On bad side, Rome has reached me from the north and I need to start war with this huge nation in near future. At this moment I am not sure if I need to develop professional army for this or just trust my levies. Based on economical difference Rome Republic is heavily superior comparing to me.
I would like to keep my economy alive and employ people, but more important - stay alive. Do I need to invest my money into professional army or spent my resources on motivating people to breed?

[spike86]

I think economy should go first, since you can hire mercenaries to supplement your levies and Legion with it.

also, wait for Rome to be distracted in some other wars and strike mercilessly, offese is the best defense against a stronger foe that you know for sure will come for you.
strategically placed forts can also help slowing them down while you take their less defended provinces.
when they'll split their armies to reply to all what you do, that's the moment to strike their troops

or you can try an alliance and then keeping them happy with you, you'll have a very strong pal then

[JancoBanco]

Legions is much better than levies, you can have 4 units of lead troops in one legion, just don't keep them sitting down. Keep them always trained and they kick ass when you wanna wage war. :) 4 heavy, 2 light and 2 light cavalry beat a hell out of my greek enemies as Sparta in early at the play when I kept my legions always as trained. :)

[VoiD]

Imperator is one of those rare games where you actually can play tall.

The single capital legion you can get fairly early, and if you build a LOT of cities on your capital you can raise so many troops with that single region that you probably will have a hard time paying for them alone for a long time, so you don't "have" to rush the other research.

In fact you can probably go against the biggest nations just fine with a single legion split into 4 armies+mercenaries if you want to.

Economy, however, makes a huge difference, you need it to pay for your armies, whether they are legions or mercenaries, also happiness buffs help a lot if you're planning on going nutts above 100 aggressive expansion.

And of course integration buffs, it's pointless to attempt to raise legions in other regions if they aren't assimilated or integrated.

[Zornvel]

In my opinion, yes.
Why? You will have to pay them this is clear. But when you rise the levies you also have to "pay" them, as long they are in the army you will not get any tax from them but also no research points.
The next, you always have to rise all levies, for some wars this is useless.
Losing levies means also loosing pops.

Legion - you have to pay them, you still get taxes from their homeland, no research lost. If they die you don't lose any pops.
You can choose what kind of troops you would like to have not like the levies -> big PLUS

You can train them to get less damage in battle + more military tradition points = more tradition = more buffs for you choosen kind of trops.

Legions can build roads, if they don't train = trade bonus + assimilation bonus.

[spike86]

building legions in general is worth.
imo however is not worth to beeline for them neglecting the all more important economy.

so legions yes, EARLY legions (beside the first) no

[David McMurdo]

Well I just built my first legion and screwed up by having the same mentality as pre-2.0, because I had it consist of 10,000 men (20 units) which gave me a massive cash loss immediately. It also meant that I needed to double the size of my fleet to take them anywhere, adding to the expense of making the legion useful. So I reduced the units by half, and I was in the green, but only barely. Lesson learned: have a decent economy in place first.

EDIT: Actually, while I'm here, any advice on how many engineers and supply trains a legion should have?

[VoiD]

Originally posted by King of the Celts:

Well I just built my first legion and screwed up by having the same mentality as pre-2.0, because I had it consist of 10,000 men (20 units) which gave me a massive cash loss immediately. It also meant that I needed to double the size of my fleet to take them anywhere, adding to the expense of making the legion useful. So I reduced the units by half, and I was in the green, but only barely. Lesson learned: have a decent economy in place first.

EDIT: Actually, while I'm here, any advice on how many engineers and supply trains a legion should have?

depends on the units, the light infantry/archer legion I use for sieges can stay in a province with 2 supply carts for over a year and not even get to the half of their supplies.

The heavy infantry ones eat a lot faster

Elephants run out in months.

I'm leaning towards 2-ish per legion, 0 pure cavalry (never siege with them)

Haven't seen any difference when I added more than 1 engineer.

[Rooter]

It sort of depends on your ruler to a degree.
If you have low mil ruler. he will be leading your largest levvies, ie home region.
If you have 2 mil leader against 8 mil leader you will often lose, even if outnumbering the enemy.
If you can up the levies in non leader region, it allows you to choose the military level for the governor and greatly increase the fighting ability of army.
You can also use levies to greatly increase military experience for sweet traditions.
I dont really use legions until I have maybe 20-30 gold income per month, and even then look at merc leader stats because 10k mercs with 12 mil leader will kick ass.

[Wild_Nipples]

Dont worry, I lost that game. Rome Republic came to my boarders with 5 legions and around 100k levies. I had only one legion :D

[spike86]

Originally posted by Garazas:

Dont worry, I lost that game. Rome Republic came to my boarders with 5 legions and around 100k levies. I had only one legion :D

no mercenaries, allies or client states to help? ;)

[Wild_Nipples]

they helped me with levies vs legions