Fired up Farthest Frontier, apparently you can get items that give buffs. Not sure if I like that, but whatever, Caesar had the gods buffing you why is some merchant selling you a magical wreath any different. Game's come a long way since I first played the EA build, lot more stuff at tier 3 and there's even a tier 4 apparently.
Soldiers are annoyingly expensive, I kitted out a bunch best I could and a raider camp still killed most.