Rome Total War: I miss my Hastati

This is Scipii Campaign part 1
Scipii Campaign Part 2
Scipii Campaign part 3
Scipii Campaign Part 4
Scipii Campaign Part 5 (Final Part)

Over a week since my last post so this is just a quick update to note that due to real life pressures my gaming has been fairly limited. I have rediscovered the joys of Rome Total War however. I find that after a long long day an hour's campaigning is the perfect de-stresser before heading off to bed.

I am playing as Scipii whose focus is on the South East of the Map. The empire of Carthage has already fallen to my legions and Spain and Numidia will soon to follow them to the scrapheap of history. Upgrading one of my towns to large city status has just triggered the Marius event which represents the transformation of the Roman army into a permanent professional fighting force following the reforms of Gaius Marius. For the most part this is a good thing - finally giving me access to the awesomely powerful late game Roman legions, but one disappointing aspect is the loss of my beloved Hastati. Hastati are Rome's basic infantry pre-Marius that can be trained from the first level of barracks. They are very useful because they can hold their own against the lower level infantries of every other faction and also because they are very cheap. The fact that they are available from the first level of barracks is very handy on a campaign because almost every one horse town you capture has such a barracks making it easy to replace losses as you go.  The post Marian replacement is the spear wielding Auxillia who is less powerful and generally less useful. Pity.

This is Scipii Campaign part 1
Scipii Campaign Part 2
Scipii Campaign part 3
Scipii Campaign Part 4
Scipii Campaign Part 5 (Final Part)