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TosaInu
05-15-2003, 18:07
I wouldn't say that it was the only thing they had, but the discipline and formations made the Roman Legions a formidable foe (please correct me if I'm wrong).

Most opponents would be just birds for the cat (though the Romans lost a few times too).

How is this going to be addressed in RTW, and since it seems purely tactical there, especially in MP? Will Rome be the only viable faction (and thus only used faction) or will we see major differences between the factions?

Roman well organised and formation fighting (and thus only victory if the player manages to 'keep the units together' ) and Barbarians larger in numbers and more morale (more of a release the horde)?

Some tactics used by the Romans will be pretty complex to execute by one player, wouldn't the player need some assistance to execute those properly? A basic commandsystem using AI centurions to coordinate synchronous actions?

edit: smiley.

Galestrum
05-15-2003, 18:23
well, like in other total war games, you will probably have to fight your way not the roman way. most faction prby dont wanna have a pure infantry battle against rome - but cavalry and archers may be able to win the day.

Plus barbarian factions should be able to mass produce lighter forces at a cheaper cost. with bigger maps, barbarians should be able to do hit and runs and ambushes more effectively than in previous TW versions.

It will be up to the generals to deploy and utilize their forces in the best way. As in all military history choose the best ground and tactics for your forces, while forcing your opponent to not be under thier optimal conditions http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

Leet Eriksson
05-15-2003, 18:25
you have a point,commanding huge armies could be frustrating but instead of AI commands we could have co-operative play,like one handling the infantry and other cavalry...etc etc.

Knight_Yellow
05-15-2003, 18:49
thats simple then in a 3v3

one guy takes INF

the other CAV

and the last 1 takes Ranged


two massive armies.

Leet Eriksson
05-15-2003, 19:32
nice sig pic knight yellow http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif it fits the sig line in the bottom.

but anyways,i was talking about controlling huge armies,becuase CA said you'll have the ability to control upto 20,000 in a battle,wich is pretty intimidating and very hard and probably frustrating when controlling them alone,especially when your concetrating on your infantry for example and completly forgetting about cavalry.

TosaInu
05-15-2003, 19:48
Agree 100% with that. I'ld love 16v16 1 unit each games, but that'ld give syncing problems.

It seems that one player would still 'have' to take 16 units. How's that Roman infantry guy going to coordinate 16 units to simulate a Roman way of fighting? Or would the only possible way be what Galestrum says? And wouldn't that mean that all factions are going to be more or less the same? While a striking difference between Roman and Barbarian armies is discipline and formations.

AI commands should be pretty basic imho. Take for example 3 lines of 5 units of infantrymen. First line attacks, fights, orderly retreats and the second line moves forward and takes over. That sounds easy, but it will be hard to execute that in a battle. Wouldn't it be good to have an AI 'commander' for each line of 5 units and simply be able to say advance or fall back now and the 2nd moves forward? A lot of unexpected things will happen to require 'normal' activity from the Roman player, who'll also have full control over a unit to react at any time.

Knight-Yellow, we've tried those battles. One thing that should change to give that team a fair chance, is a common deployment zone (think castlebattle). It takes too much time to regroup units in such specialised armies (the missile guy will be rushed by enemy cav before the protecting spears are there).

Hakonarson
05-17-2003, 00:21
IMO it's be nice if "trained" armies did have some advantages of manouvre over masses of untrained tribesmen - perhaps tribesmen take twice as long to change formation (ie they move into new formations at half speed) - I think that would be reasonably historic - encouraging less well drilled armies to rely upon simpler tactics.

Papewaio
05-17-2003, 01:05
A tight formation should be able to bring to bear more guys to attack a point (higher density of men) then a loose formation.

So shields and stabbing swords should be able to have more guys at any given point then a loose bunch of club swingers.

Is it possible to:
1) Allow romans to gang up 3:1 instead of 2:1 due to their tight formation.
2) Get the equivalent of the spear bonus for ranks in order.

Hakonarson
05-17-2003, 01:09
Romans didn't have a tight formation - the ancient writes specifically note that Roman swordsmen needed 3 feet (about a metre) of space to use their weapons properly - compared to about 1/2 that for a spearman.

Roman swords were good for thrusting, but that wasn't the only thing they were used for - they were also apparently quite nicely balanced for slashing, and Roman training emphasised the edge as much as the point.

AvramL
05-17-2003, 02:22
The Roman gladius was worn on the right hip so as to limit the room one needs to draw it, by simply inverting your hand and pulling verticaly, this was due to the fact that their formations were very tight, any gaps at all, even small ones, could be exploited by the enemy to break their formation, and that would get ugly. The fact is, in melee combat people do not tend to mingle but instead herd together for protection, when they lose that, they can be easily set upon by multiple foes and taken down.

Hakonarson
05-17-2003, 03:51
That's one theory for the wearing of hte Gladius on the "wrong" hip - but it's a long shot to use that to contradict specific information about the nature of Roman formations by the people at the time. Polybious, Arrian, Vegetius, Livy, Tacitus, Sextus Julias Frontinus - all emphasis the looseness of the standard Roman formation - both in drill and in actual practice when talking about real battles.

Romans certainly could tighten up - their drill vs cavalry was to double ranks, lock shields and push.

But against infantry it was not a tight formation that enabled them to penetrate gaps in enemy foramtions (specifically the pike at pydna and cynocepahale) - it was their lose formation that allowed the individual soldiers room to move rather than just pushing them forwards without any opportunity to do anything else.

TosaInu
05-17-2003, 11:36
Allowing Romans to make formations faster than the enemy seems a fine solution (together with some specific formations). The benefit of such formations should be significant. Which pro should the 'barbarians' have if they lack this benefit: more morale, larger units, speed? Or would the Romans already be in trouble once their formation was broken?

Hakonarson, wasn't it so that Roman infantry had all kind of effective formations against enemy infantry: dense and loose?

Stormer
05-17-2003, 11:41
barbians should get EXTREME high morale as they didnt surrender did they really its was agaiant there ways. also they should have a special feature of maybe a bersker outbust because they charge to get them siked up and it raiseings all there morale.

Nowake
05-17-2003, 16:22
Quote[/b] (TosaInu @ May 15 2003,13:48)]Agree 100% with that. I'ld love 16v16 1 unit each games, but that'ld give syncing problems.

It seems that one player would still 'have' to take 16 units. How's that Roman infantry guy going to coordinate 16 units to simulate a Roman way of fighting? Or would the only possible way be what Galestrum says? And wouldn't that mean that all factions are going to be more or less the same? While a striking difference between Roman and Barbarian armies is discipline and formations.

AI commands should be pretty basic imho. Take for example 3 lines of 5 units of infantrymen. First line attacks, fights, orderly retreats and the second line moves forward and takes over. That sounds easy, but it will be hard to execute that in a battle. Wouldn't it be good to have an AI 'commander' for each line of 5 units and simply be able to say advance or fall back now and the 2nd moves forward? A lot of unexpected things will happen to require 'normal' activity from the Roman player, who'll also have full control over a unit to react at any time.

Knight-Yellow, we've tried those battles. One thing that should change to give that team a fair chance, is a common deployment zone (think castlebattle). It takes too much time to regroup units in such specialised armies (the missile guy will be rushed by enemy cav before the protecting spears are there).
You talk about 16v16 as impossible. I have a sugestion: why not choose a commander? he would have no units at his disposal, just coordiante the others, telling them where the HOT ZONES are and what should they do. After that, it up to the unit leader to decide how to best engage it's troops. It would be like in a real battle, no?

Hakonarson
05-18-2003, 03:08
Tosa - yes they had various densities, just like the Grek phalanxes (both hoplite and pike), but the densities were for specific circumstances - doubled up was to create a shield wall - only useful on hte defence and essentially vs cavalry.

There was also a halved density - twice as much frontage per man - when in difficult going IIRC.

But like the spearmen they probably fought in the "standard" one most of the time.

Stormer I have no idea why you think barbarians should have great morale - often as not they were hurriedly levied tribesmen with little or no military experience and subject to rather low morale

If Romans manouvred faster then I'd expect tribesmen to come in larger units and/or to be cheaper to make up for it.

Oddly enough 60 is a pretty good size for a century, while most tribes seem to have used decimal numbers for units, so 100 would be pretty good for them - not only that but the larger numbers would make them even slower to manouvre

Nowake
05-18-2003, 10:45
The romans keeped a tight formation untill the power of the enemy charge was consumed, after that they engaged in one to one combat.


The barbarians were simply tribesmen, their power resided in ferocity, but the morale was poor when compared to romans. Think about it: it is one thing to know that you have a drilled army behind you, with a general that you know that plans his moves, with a military tradition etc., and it is a completely other thing when your chief is just the first between equals, his strengh resides in his arms, and his men are the ones that yesterday were improving their crops or were hunting alongside with you.

some_totalwar_dude
05-18-2003, 17:14
Well if barbarians had low morale they wouldn't charge the enemy naked http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif

also don't forget that celtic/german society was usualy build around war, great warriors received great status and dying in battle was considert very honerable.

Leet Eriksson
05-18-2003, 19:21
speaking of formations will each faction get special(unique) formations of its own?(ie:Romans=Tortoise,Greeks=Phalanx...etc etc)

RisingSun
05-18-2003, 20:07
If you look at this screenie,some of those units o legionarres seem well over 100 men, m8.

screenie (http://pcmedia.ign.com/pc/image/romeTW_e32003_line4.jpg)

some_totalwar_dude
05-18-2003, 21:27
well I counted them (the lines and files, I'm not that bored).
and I counted something like 7x30 man + half a line at the back. that makes units of more than 250 man, real real big in other words http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

Lehesu
05-18-2003, 22:18
I think that the "barbarian" hordes are not getting enough credit. They were not merely a bunch of topless loons without any sense of strategy or tactics. A common misconception is to relegate a whole group of people's to "inferior." Anyhoo. I think that the tribesman will/should have the advantage of somewhat faster infantry, very good attack, and some units, such as the woad warriors should have excellent morale and perhaps cause fear? I do believe that it was many a roman army that was caught in an ambush by "barbarians" and slaughtered by an "inferior" fighting force. But don't quote me on that. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cool.gif

RisingSun
05-18-2003, 22:27
I think barbarians should have an advantage in a large charge bonus, and should be fast, but should falter if in continued battle against an organized force. Likewise, cohorts/phaanxes should have special "Charge-absorbing" qualites, but if their formation is broken, they should become quite vulnerable through the gaps.

Hakonarson
05-19-2003, 03:16
Quote[/b] (some_totalwar_dude @ May 18 2003,11:14)]Well if barbarians had low morale they wouldn't charge the enemy naked http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif
Few of them did so - and they were reggarded as especially brave/looney even in their own societies. Gauls were pretty much the most common - the Galatians were known for fighting naked as a whole nation, and yet that didnt' MAKE them btrave - they they were defeated in 189BC we so no savage charges, no fighting to the death - we see men scarred by skirmishers and breaking before hte legions even attack


Quote[/b] ]also don't forget that celtic/german society was usualy build around war, great warriors received great status and dying in battle was considert very honerable.

I disagree - Celtic society was built around single combats - not war. You gained considerable prestige by having hte heads of a few enemies hanging around, but that's not the same as warfare.

Germans were different - AFAIK they didn't have the ethos of single combat.

But even then fighting is and was still scarey business - you get great kudos in this day and age by winning a Victoria Cross or congressional medal of honour - but most soldiers are happy to keep themselves alive, and there's no reason to expect the ancients were any different.

Indeed there's every reason to KNOW they were exatly the same - the elite were just that - the elite. Most soldiers fought in rear ranks, most soldiers were not Chatti Iropn Collar wearers or naked Celts. If they did well in battle hten yep - they'd be elevated in status, but hteir first concern was staying alive.

That's why, in hteend, they all break and run when things are going badly - even in full view of their families such as the Cimbri, Teutons, Helvetii and Buodaciea's Britons.

Longshanks
05-19-2003, 05:43
Barbarians should have advantages in forested terrain over the Romans and Greeks. Barbarian units should also be cheaper to produce than units from more civilized factions, as well as having bigger units. Perhaps they should also have a charge bonus. The key to beating the Romans and Greeks as the barbarians should be smart use of terrain, i.e. luring them into ambushes, and hitting them with superior numbers.

The more civilized forces(Greeks,Romans ect) should have formation bonuses, as well as better morale(a reflection of their discipline) and higher attack. Their units should be smaller and more expensive than the barbarian units.

Hakonarson
05-19-2003, 06:31
I don't think barbarians should do better in rough terrain - rather the "regular" civilised troops should lose the bonuses they get for being trained and operating in formation - and those bonuses should be quite important.

Certainly though the net effect should be the same - do try to overwhelm the regulars using terrain and anything else

TosaInu
05-19-2003, 10:18
I remember reading somewhere that some tribes used wardogs (mastif likes). It read that the barbarians were already chased off while the dogs still continued fighting.

I read this once and I don't claim any authenticity here.

I would like to see some serious differences too: formations and discipline very important for Romans, and something like large numbers/speed/beserkers/charge for the tribes.