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Understanding The Legions
We're far enough in now that there's beginning to be a greater range of experience and equipment among the ranks, including our own soldiers. Because of this I'm going to start adding a little more detail to the army part of the briefings for those who might be interested in it -- it has been asked about from time to time already.
Each of these elements adds to fighting effectiveness, experience gives a small boost across the board and has a ten-point scale(I'll just use 1-10 to keep it simple), weapons and armor add to the effectiveness of attack or defense and have four levels, which I'll interpret as Basic, Fair, Good, or Excellent as the case may be.
The first battle at Herakleia for example featured Roman units at the lowest level across the board, green with no equipment upgrades, while most of Pyrrhos' army had 5-6 experience and were a mix between Fair and Good quality equipment. By comparison, most of the units we can recruit are between 0-2 experience with Fair weapons/shields. A few unit types, like the Funditores, will eventually be phased out since as slingers their weapon is rocks -- these cannot be upgraded. The quality of new units is determined by the facilities in the province they come from, which can be upgraded(at a significant cost).
Experienced line infantry is particularly difficult to achieve, since they tend to die and need replacing before they have enough combat success to significantly improve. It tends to happen more often with cavalry/missile troops which in favorable engagements don't lose nearly as many men.
I'll add this blurb to the OP and try to clarify any questions there might be. The basics of it are pretty straightforward, but as with all things the consequences can be more complex.
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