Capped to 1 legion until 500 provinces?

[pinacallada1]

im playing as a syracuse with alot of the research tree completed but im still stuck with a 6k max legion.

half the world could be living in my metropolis' and cities yet id still be capped to 1 legion and some levies

i want to use more than just the one small legion and a mess of levies/mecernaries that are unnecessarily hard to micro when i try to expand, is there no way to get more than legion before i get 500 provinces or a way to split mercenaries in a siege for example?

[Gabi]

There are some events which can unlock the law for you ahead of time. For example invading Carthage as Rome seems to cause this to fire, though I have not researched this, just from my experience.

[Feng Huang]

But early game legions are simply too expensive. You're better off with sticking with levies and mercs.

A Legion is 7 times more expensive than a levy army. Its better to stick with levies until around 100 years into the game.

[Zornvel]

Max size of the legion is the max size of the levies of the home area. You can split the legion in more then one army, I had 4 armies every with 15k and still only one legion.
The first legion I only use to get more exp in military tradition and to build roads in the begin.
Legions costs only money levies will also cost your research points (because when the pop are in the army, they don't pay tax or reseach stuff) Also loosing Levies in battles leads also to loosing pops .
And to get money is not a big problem for the legions.

[Petrovich2049]

Originally posted by Feng Huang:

But early game legions are simply too expensive. You're better off with sticking with levies and mercs.

A Legion is 7 times more expensive than a levy army. Its better to stick with levies until around 100 years into the game.

the point is that it denies playing tall. You can have 2 regions and not have 500 territories, but do slave raids a lot combining it with high land development (civilization) and have a lot of pops, and not be able to make a second legion

[sammwich]

Originally posted by Petrovich2049:

Originally posted by Feng Huang:

But early game legions are simply too expensive. You're better off with sticking with levies and mercs.

A Legion is 7 times more expensive than a levy army. Its better to stick with levies until around 100 years into the game.

the point is that it denies playing tall. You can have 2 regions and not have 500 territories, but do slave raids a lot combining it with high land development (civilization) and have a lot of pops, and not be able to make a second legion

The levy calculation does more to prevent playing tall, at least without relying on mercenaries. It works out to something like 50 non-slave pops to get more than the minimum 2,000 soldiers per region.

[pinacallada1]

Originally posted by sammwich:

Originally posted by Petrovich2049:

the point is that it denies playing tall. You can have 2 regions and not have 500 territories, but do slave raids a lot combining it with high land development (civilization) and have a lot of pops, and not be able to make a second legion

The levy calculation does more to prevent playing tall, at least without relying on mercenaries. It works out to something like 50 non-slave pops to get more than the minimum 2,000 soldiers per region.

and still even if you had 3 billion citizens in your mega city youd still have 1 legion

[aaror]

Um, there is an idea (or whatever you call the things you pick in the researches) that allows you to have multiple legions, until you get it, only one.
It is one of the bottom items on the military tree, towards the left side.

Edit, then you need to change the laws...

[Cold_Spartan]

Originally posted by aaror:

Um, there is an idea (or whatever you call the things you pick in the researches) that allows you to have multiple legions, until you get it, only one.
It is one of the bottom items on the military tree, towards the left side.

Edit, then you need to change the laws...

That's the law he's writing about, without special events (such as invading Carthage as Rome) it does not seem to be possible to pass the law before having 500 territories.

[Rooter]

I think your problem is culture then?
If you have lots of pops of correct culture you will have more than a 6k legion.
You can get more than a 6k legion out of one province

[spike86]

playing tall doesn't means not having client states, feudataries or tribal subjects.
They help in wars in different ways.

mercenaries are the norm for small countries across all human history...

as for playing tall, you can even be only in one region, yes levy far more troops than a lot of other countries, depending on the population and how much it is assimilated/integrated.

having more legions DOESN'T MEAN having more troops!

for instance, as Rome, cisalpine gaul population is not integrated, so right now I can get only 2k troops of levy (the bare minimum)
even if I would create a Legion from this region, the maximum size of it WILL STILL BE 2000 soldiers, that cost much more than levies, since they are paid in peace times too (morover I never rise 2k levies anyways, they're useless)

for comparison, by the same time, I can rise around 20k levies/Legion from my home region.
magna Grecia would be the same, if I wouldn't have integrated italiotans pops. still even like this it's only 8k troops there.

so playing tall (and smart) is very viable

[makromate]

Originally posted by spike86:

having more legions DOESN'T MEAN having more troops!

This is all everybody needs to know.

[Razor Feather]

Having one legion just limits you to having 4 commanders for your legion stacks. You can make as many stacks as you want, and if you have loads of pops in your capital region, it will be able to raise a massive legion. Heck, having all of your troops in one legion can even be fairly handy since that means whatever honors the legion gets will apply to more of your troops.

[spike86]

Originally posted by Razor Feather:

Having one legion just limits you to having 4 commanders for your legion stacks. You can make as many stacks as you want, and if you have loads of pops in your capital region, it will be able to raise a massive legion. Heck, having all of your troops in one legion can even be fairly handy since that means whatever honors the legion gets will apply to more of your troops.

You're totally right, I don't know why people want several 2k legions that cost a ton, when your most powerful one (save for end-game, due to assimilation, or mid-game, due to integration) is the one from the home region 90% of the times.

FWIW it seems to me always better to have one legion and the rest levies, unless your empire is extremely large. Even then though, you'll just have 4 or 5 permanent legions that will perform just slightly better than levies...
The only real advantage I see is that you can choose very high finesse governors with crappy martial in those regions from where legions are made.

[Gabi]

Originally posted by spike86:

Originally posted by Razor Feather:

Having one legion just limits you to having 4 commanders for your legion stacks. You can make as many stacks as you want, and if you have loads of pops in your capital region, it will be able to raise a massive legion. Heck, having all of your troops in one legion can even be fairly handy since that means whatever honors the legion gets will apply to more of your troops.

You're totally right, I don't know why people want several 2k legions that cost a ton, when your most powerful one (save for end-game, due to assimilation, or mid-game, due to integration) is the one from the home region 90% of the times.

FWIW it seems to me always better to have one legion and the rest levies, unless your empire is extremely large. Even then though, you'll just have 4 or 5 permanent legions that will perform just slightly better than levies...
The only real advantage I see is that you can choose very high finesse governors with crappy martial in those regions from where legions are made.

Once you get large I found 5-7 legions where beneficial and I was still making 100+ gold a month, it all depends on how much you want to make sure your generals get replaced when needed and continue to like you, and how strong of an economy you have created.

[Rooter]

Im a merc man to be honest, similiar costs to legions, get huge mil stats.
Build a bank, hire mercs, take land, drop mercs.
I mean what is a 15 legion stack worth? A constant 10-20 gold per month,
Late game, yes get legions, early to mid game dont bother.
How often do you have 10 -15 mil generals leading your legions.