Recruit other factions units
This mod allows you to recruit other factions’ units in the auxiliary military building as Rome. The units benefit from buffs and upkeep reduction on auxiliary units, so playing as House of Cornelia is advised.
This mod changes the startpos, so starting a new campaign is needed to take its full effects. But it should still work partially if you load a pre-existing save, you just won’t have full access to every faction’s units. That is due to the new Areas of Recruitment, coined by Magnar I believe, which are like Hellenic or Celtic Auxilia that you can see on the Rome 2 Auxiliary Map on Honga. Also, it is not compatible with other mods that change the startpos.
Here are some examples of how the Areas of Recruitment are added or changed in this mod. For example, the Arverni units are added to the Gallic Auxilia, the Boii units to the Celtic Auxilia and so on. These are vanilla auxilia, and can be used in pre-existing saves. Some vanilla Areas of Recruitment cover multiple playable factions, like both Nervii and Suebi starting areas give Germanic Auxilia. In this case, Suebi units are added to the Germanic Auxilia, while the province Nervii starts in, and a province nearby are given Nervii units.
This mod doesn’t offer every single unit that other factions have, because having playtested it slightly, I found the recruitment panel too cluttered up. There are many units that serve the same function, namely the missile units. So which ones made it in? All elite units are in, meaning tier 3 and 4 units are all in. Most tier 2 units are in. Most tier 1 units are not in. All special units, like war hounds, beasts artillery, and unique missile units such as the highly armoured ones and the ones with the highest damage among their weapon types, made it in as well.
This mod is inspired by the J4AC – Expanded Auxiliaries mod, but there are a number of key differences.
1. J4AC does not include the Desert Kingdoms DLC units. This mod does.
2. J4AC has "Auxiliary" in the names of the units it adds like vanilla. This mod does not.
3. J4AC does not include all elite units, so units like Oathsworn are not in it. This mod includes all elite units.
4. J4AC has a self-made archer unit, while all units in this mod are vanilla units.
5. J4AC adds the auxiliary units to all factions, so the Mercenary Camp military buildings for Greek factions finally have a use. This mod doesn’t do that.
6. J4AC provides an additional level of experience for units in the previous tier of the auxiliary building every time you upgrade it. This mod like vanilla doesn’t do that.
7. J4AC does not change the startpos, so it is compatible with other mods. This mod isn’t.
I wish I had time to add "Auxiliary" to the unit names to be more faithful to the vanilla game, but that requires a lot more editing for a small change, sorry.
I playtested this mod for a little bit, and I really enjoyed it. I highly recommend historical roleplaying, and building your armies with half roman units and half auxiliary units. This mod isn’t balanced by that you have access to every unit, so it is up to you to restrict yourself in order to make battles a bit less steamrolling.
Unfortunately, I don’t have time to playtest this thoroughly before uploading it, so please try it out and tell me if there are changes you would like.
