Mid-republican romans may have up to 24 SUP but were the allied legions as good as the romans ? Would it not be more appropriate and historical  to have some mandatory allied legions as average ?

I have no records of the allies except the ones that were crushed at magnesia by the average cataphracts which is not in their favour. I know you can downgrade legions for reluctant allies but my questioning is more for the common allied legions ? should they all be able to upgrade to SUP or should there not be at least a part as mandatory average as there always were many allied legions with roman legions ( 2 out of 5 at zama for exemple )

If the allied legions were as good as the romans so be it

As far as I can see that in good well trained armies there is no material distinction made between the Roman and allied legions. Likewise in less well trained armies. It would suggest that the allies should have the same quality options as the Romans. I would remind you about the discussion on Pydna in Stockport and the allied cohorts fighting the Makedonian Agema.

FWIW the allies broken at Magnesian were defeated by Antiochos leading 1000 Agema and 3000 other catafracts which is about the same number of combat troops as in a legion of the period.

Quote from: badhabum on December 11, 2023, 08:07:35 PM
If the allied legions were as good as the romans so be it

TL:DR they were, live with it   

I was wondering whether there should be a slight tweak to the mid republican Roman cavalry.

Standard deployment was cavalry on both wings, but at the moment that means the only option is a TuG of 4 cav on each wing, and doesn't allow for those cases where the cavalry wings were not equal in numbers.

So to cover the cases where there was an asymmetric deployment, such as Cannae and Magnesia off the top of my head, one option would be to increase the maxima from 8 to 10.

Another left field possibility would be to reduce the minima in a TuG from 4 to 2. (But allow a maximum of 2 Tugs) Sometimes the cav wings were really quite small, such as at Bagradas where there was only a total of 500 cavalry divided between the two wings, and the left wing at Magnesia.

QuoteI would remind you about the discussion on Pydna in Stockport and the allied cohorts fighting the Makedonian Agema.

I was not there at the beginning of that discussion. I just added the truth that legions never defeated pikes frontally

As for Pydna, well what do we know about it except roman propaganda more than 2000 years old ..so clearly not much except that romans dreaded phalanxes if you put 3 historians around the table you will get 5 different opinions 

We do what we can with what we have