Spain

[pezhetairoi]

ah... i see what you mean. I did that in my opening Scythian turns, too. I don't believe I built a single new unit until turn 10+...

[Craterus]

Ok, the (mine and Littlegannon's) Spanish was resumed last weekend. Sorry, updates were put on hold due to schoolwork.

Right, we own all of Iberia, Narbo Martius, Massilia, all of Sicily and Sardinia.

We have a full stack waiting outside Rome, about to be attacked by their "wandering" full-stack. And we have just pounced upon Julii. Unfortunately Julii have 3 full stacks. Now I know why they haven't been expanding, too busy building up army upon army.

We are about to attack Brutii, and Scipii are already severely crippled. Their main forces are wiping out Numidia.

What I really want to know is: How do you take on Romans in battlefield? We played once vs. Julii and it was a phyyric victory, to say the least. They just broke through our main line.The flanks held well, but the centre collapsed.

Our strategy was Scutarii in front line. Bull Warriors second line. And 2 cav on each flank. General behind Bull Warriors.

[pezhetairoi]

If your strategy against Romans is to wait for them to attack you, then perhaps this will help in your defensive battles.

I've found that fighting defensive, it always pays to minimise the distance between your troops and the general, since no unit ever routs when the general is behind them. Take Germania, for example--I combine barb mercs and spear warbands into a semicircle (or a full circle if I have enough of them) of spears, with all cavalry and ranged units in the centre of the circle. Thus general is equidistant to all the troops and you get maximum morale boost for your troops.

Bull Warriors ought to be superior in holding power, so the part of the semicircle etc directly facing the line of enemy advance should be made up of them. Then protect your flanks with Scutarii, curving backwards as much as you have units, and then dump cavalry in the middle. Keep a spare unit or two of Bulls or something to use as a stopgap reserve should any disasters happen. Then just sit and wait.

When the enemy comes close, they will tend to charge obliquely at your flanks (since your Scutarii aren't facing them headon), so you actually outflank them a little. This will offset to some extent the fact that your Scutarii are inferior to your Bulls. With melee infantry such as yours they will be sure to flow around the flanks and take maximum advantage of that. As the Romans charge, you charge as well, so your Bulls' charge is used to the max and so you get the chance to break through -their- line, taking care to make sure your formation is still vaguely circular (or square, whichever you choose) and that your general is at the centre of it. Use your cavalry to counter any enemy cavalry charge into your circle.

It's the strategy of interior lines that Frederick the Great used on a grander scale--your cavalry and Bull reserve will be available to shore up any point on the circle in the same span of time as compared to the enemy who essentially can't march around your circle once he's engaged. Also, if you had 2 Bull reserves and 4 cav you could hurl 6 units into a line breach as compared to a full line where all you might have on hand of your 6 units' reserve was 2 units in immediate vicinity of the crisis point.

If you were feeling confident, you could leave your infantry to sink or swim and take your cavalry out the rear of the circle (there would be a gap at the rear that the AI never exploits unless it's a reinforcement coming from that direction), around the edge, and you can nicely flank and rear any unit you meet on the way, routing the enemy along the circumference of the circle. This is especially useful against enemy ranged units as soon as their melee are all engaged. They will be defenceless--especially Roman Archers. And all this while, your units at any point on the circle are much more accessible by your cav than in a full straight line.

Endgame: Assuming your cav has not been committed outside the circle, the endgame is simply when the first unit breaks after all enemy units have been committed--simply do a concentrated charge at the unit next to that sector and bingo, you'll be seeing blinking white flags everywhere you turn in no time at all. Your cavalry will be fresh and unharmed and ready for the pursuit. If you do it right, you can pursue those that hit the bulls (the frontline), cut them down and turn back to hit those that ran from the flanks, since they'd necessarily be further behind. If you do it right, you can end up with none escaping, and none even coming close to the edge of the map. Enemy routing cavalry not included, however.

Note though that this strategy is pure theory, I have never played the Spanish, nor have I ever faced them in field battle, so I don't know how well this works. But in short, the advantages: 1) Morale. Your general's morale bonus benefits all units instead of just the segment of line infront of the general. Your circle will never break as long as your general is there. 2) Interior lines. Reserves take less time to arrive, and the circle will grow stronger as it shrinks, like the British square. 3) Maximum utility of reserves. Reserves can reinforce any segment of the line in an equally short time, and they can all be concentrated instead of dispersed at either flank where they are not mutually supporting. 4) Mutual support. Especially for melee troops, if one unit is broken through, the enemy will be sufficiently close to other melee infantry in the circle (or alternatively, reserves) that they will take up the slack and contain the breach until you have time to respond.

Weaknesses: 1) This tactic only works on defensive when your troops are standing their ground and waiting for the enemy to come to you, and reminds me a lot of the Gothic laager at Adrianople... the cavalry were sheltered amidst the wagons until the time came to charge out from the gaps in between. It can win some massive victories, but can also become catastrophic defeats if all the enemy does is potter around shooting your shock troops to bits. 2) As mentioned before, if the enemy is range-heavy. For practical reasons (friendly fire) it is almost impossible to fit ranged units into the cramped conditions within the circle without shooting the heads off other nearby units unless you have a full stack, and the circle/square/polygon is very large, or you have very little reserves as a tradeoff for the usage of flaming arrows. 3) If you're using hoplites, it can get annoying since the phalanx rightward shift may open your circle up. Germanic phalanxes have a nasty habit of moving forward, also opening gaps in the circle. But using melee infantry you should have no problem.

Okayokay that's really enough. I shall stop now to avoid rambling on further. I should reckon this takes the record for the longest post--hope you had the patience to read it, Craterus and littlegannon, and sorry for the length :) Hope it's useful.

[Craterus]

No problem about the length - full of tips. Thanks!

Circle, Bulls centre, Scutarii flanks.

Got it! Hope it works against those Romans. Marian Reforms will be along in 25 turns or so.. A big defeat in the North will halt my advance terribly.

[katank]

Their republican units should not be able to stand up to bull warriors.

I frankly think that you should employ weak center strategy of Hannibal. Let the scutarii slowly cave and the bulls can autoflank. Your long shield horde can smash any point on the line you want. You general should be behind the scutarii always rallying and joining the fray if it looks ugly.

Always add some baeleric slingers and put them on the flanks. Run them forward to bypass enemy shields. A single unit of these boys esp. from Palma, can cut up a unit from no time.

If the enemy has little cav, you can use the slingers to rear attack with their shots and really drop enemy troops like flies.

[Craterus]

I don't think Spain gets Long Shields in campaign mode.

Warlord's Stables gives Warhounds and Round Shields. This is the same as the stable before it though.

[katank]

They have ownership of longshields and onagers. They are supposed to get them just like how the spanish generals shouldn't look like british ones.

Just mod in longshield and onagers. There is otherwise no point to giving Spain warlord stables.

[Craterus]

How do I mod them in? Will I need to restart my campaign for it to take effect?

[katank]

check the descr buildings file. look for stables buildings. For all the stables levels higher than level 2 (warlord or cavalry stables), look for the recruit longshield cav line or catharginian medium cav or whatever the heck they are called. It says requires faction {ct_carthage,} change that to {ct_carthage, spain,}

Do the same for onagers.

I don't think you need to restart your campaign for this to work.

[katank]

BTW, the general rule of thumb is that any changes to the campaign map requires scrapping the campaign but other changes don't.

An example of this is the adding of a region specific resource. Perhaps you want Forester Warbands to only be recruitable in Gaul and thus add a Gaul resource to their starting territories and requires the Gaul resource for recruitment.

Since this requires deleting the map files and regenerating the map, it requires a new campaign. In addition, the conditions at the start of the game as specified in the descr_strat file are only in effect at the beginning and needs a new campaign to reflect the changes.

[cunobelinus]

in my and craterus campaign we attacked the romans and he said that we should do it in s circle but our lines will still break i think we need to try and ambush them with a group of horses or something because we are defeating some of the julli btu 3 full stacks is ganna weaken our armys!

[katank]

You mean with your units all clumped in a circle? That could be bad as morale decreases with being surrounded. Circle are unnecessary. The AI almost never gets to your rear.

A line with refused flanks or crescent is usually sufficient.

How late into the game is it? A Spanish army with scutarii and bulls don't break easily. The Romans are still PreMarius, right?

[Craterus]

233 bc. It was all going well until they piledrived into the centre, theybroke through but ere finished off by our 2nd line of Bull Warriors. I wasn't too satisfied with this battle and there has to be a way of taking on the Romans without sustaining that many casualties.

[katank]

That's pretty late. In that case, make a shorter line and buff up the center more. The AI doesn't flank that much. You are on defense, right?

[Craterus]

Right, we hold the Alps. We have full stacks or 2/3 stacks on the Italian coasts. We own Sicily. Ok, I think we will just have a strong centre and use horses to protect the flanks, And if we're lucky, the Romans will pi;ledrive the centre and we can encircle them. Well, this campaign will be continued tomorrow, hopefully.

[pezhetairoi]

mmm katank, morale would not decrease with being surrounded because while in a circle, all fronts would be facing outwards---there would be no way at all for the enemy to get into the rear, so it's not actually possible to be surrounded... and I'm sure the morale effect is counteracted by the general. I tested out my hypothesis in custom battle mode wit 6 bulls and 7 scutarii, against a republican army of 6 principes, 5 hastati and 4 generals. Worked like a charm, until my comp crashed because the graphics couldn't take the strain during the pursuit phase. -_-" As it was, though, I only lost about 4-5% of my force. 3 Scutarii units (those on the refused flanks) managed to be unengaged, so I used them as artillery support cum line-breakers.

But remember! Don't -attack- the Romans using this! Only use it on defensive! You can adapt it for attack, I guess, if you move in a line towards the Romans, Bulls only. Scutarii are in a second line, concentrated behind the flanks. Once you've got the Romans lured towards you, halt and deploy your Scutarii into the flanks of the circle and prepare for impact. Usually, if you're close enough the Romans will keep coming even if you're numerically way superior.

Oh, I just learnt something about my strategy from a Germanic-Greek battle. Don't use the circle strategy in a phalanx-phalanx struggle. You'll get the worst of it.

[crazybastard]

Playing on M/M, as of right now I own the whole Iberian pennisula and Narbo Martius (or something like that) but all of my cities have incredibly slow growth rate (2-3%) and I want to upgrade them to get the Bull warriors very badly...any suggestions?

[katank]

@pez, I recall the circle against HAs. I personally used HAs and always shot at the shieldless side by rotating, forcing the enemy to rotate. Eventually, their forces were all clumped in the very middle in a bit of a circle and still routed spontaneously. There may very well be morale penalties for macro surrounded.

@crazybastard, go into Italy and take nice big cities from the Romans. Or, build up lots of farming, drop taxes to lowest, and disband peasants into the target regions to boost pop.

Also, move governors out of cities except for the ones you want to grow right before you enslave. Then gift a city to an enemy and enslave it again.

[antisocialmunky]

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=48770

@

El Bastardo Loco

[pezhetairoi]

crazybastard, I'm playing Spain now and I'm making 10k a turn in profit. What I did was, after unifying the peninsula, build one ship at carthago nova port and just move straightaway to the Julii territory and beat them to pieces. Ignore Narbo Martius. After taking Numantia, send Segovax to Gaul and sell them map info for big big tribute, they will ask you to become a protectorate in return for even bigger bigger tribute. The fools. Agree, and immediately cancel military access. Clever you :-) Then, build forts at the approaches from Gaul into Spain (there are 4 of them, two right next to one another in the north, one next to Osca, and one on the south coast). Garrison each with one town militia and bingo, the gauls'll never bother you again. Then, have fun with the Romans :-) In quick succession I took down the Julii (who hadn't even had time yet to send their first invasion of Osca, or their invasion of Caralis) and then Rome after a brilliant battle in which I forced the Senate grand army to fight a river crossing battle against me ^_^. Took a breath while building sacred circles of Esus in Rome, then pushed on to Capua and Croton. Not Tarentum, because in my game the Brutii had a nasty 19 unit garrison, so I hit poorly defended Croton and they predictably came out of Tarentum so I could trash them in the field. Then it was Tarentum, and now I have the biggest army in the Italian Peninsula about to cross to Greece, a three-quarter size crossing Palma-Caralis-Sicily to wipe out the Scipii, and another one of the same size advancing on Carthage to annihilate it. If I play it right in another 10 turns at most I will have taken down Carthage and all the Romans. But it's slow going, I'm almost at turn 30 already. Still remember at this time as the Greeks I already had 40 provinces. Oh well. I've come up with a more open formation of Spanish deployment for attacking Romans with as little as Iberians--will share it next time I have time! It's worked like a charm, so i daresay it works for any occasion.

[katank]

That is great speed. Did you go after Numidia?

[pezhetairoi]

I immediately raced for Cirta after Tingi, then took a detour to down Carthage and Thapsus. Now I have an army headed for Dimmidi, and nicely bribed another Carthaginian one consisting mainly of Iberians and Roundshields headed for Leptis Magna

[katank]

That's the expansion route I took.

Dimmidi isn't worth much and can wait. I ended up taking Siwa before Dimmidi.

[Garvanko]

You truly are a Legendary Commander, pez.

[pezhetairoi]

why thank you for the compliment. :-) I've ended my spanish game (burnout, my game crashed (see thread in Colosseum) and I want to try Egypt once I get it restarted) with about 30+ provinces. I own all Italy thanks to that preemptive strike, I've annihilated the Brutii, having had to chase them with two armies and two diplomats all the way from Apollonia to Vicus Marcomannii to down the last factioner. I own all lower Greece (Sparta, Athens, Corinth). This was due to a stroke of luck as my spanish swordsmen are incredibly crappy against hoplites, so I used diplomats as the shock troops. I managed to bribe 4 greek factioners (IN ONE ARMY) to my side, and recruited enough mercenaries to lay siege to and storm Sparta with their own greek troops. Now preparing to crush Macedonia in 3 turns flat. In the west, the Gauls have fought 3 major 20 vs 20 stack battles with me, and gotten trashed. I now own all western Gaul up to Condate Redonum, as well as southern Germania. In the south, I own all western Africa, and Cyrene. In the east, I own Kydonia and Rhodes and I actually owned Pergamum but gave it away to Pontus in return for alliance and an attack on Seleucids. The Pergamum army is now en route by ship to Antioch, which is the real prize. I've an army on the sea on a 20-large-boat-navy that surrounds and trashes any any in its way en route to Alexandria while the Cyrene army heads for Siwwa and Thebes. Altogether now army deployment are as follows, 3rd Army currently recuperating in Athens, 4th Army at Nepte en route to Lepcis Magna tp take ship to Chersonesos (I know, it's quite a long way), 5th Army en route to Antioch, 6th Army at Trier about to descend on Alesia and the two Gaulish rebel provinces, 7th Army at the border of Armorica (so much for indomitable Gauls) moving for Samarobriva, 8th army at Vicus Gothi laying siege, 9th Army at Cyrene, 10th army moving by ship to land near Thessalonica from Sparta... btw the numbers of my armies tells you the order of their formation.

[katank]

Are you playing 1.2? Using diplomats as shock troops, lol.

I did that a lot in 1.0 and 1.1 but not so any more. The hapless AI often have nearly full captain-led stacks running around which are perfect prey.

That's a lot of armies. Guess you must have conquered fast and furious. How much upkeep does all of that cost?

I've never maintained more than 5 armies in my games but then again, I don't go for much of a blazing speed endgame.

[Craterus]

Ok. We got going again. About to assault Rome, we were attacked by the massive Roman force. Tried Hannibal's "weak-centre tactic" and we deployed as far back as possible, it didn't work too well. Then we re-loaded and tried a three-line tactic. This worked. But our depleted force was attacked the next turn by half-Roman stack, with Scipii and Julii reinforcements. Needless to say, being attacked by 3 different directions meant that we lost.

That force is now almost dead.

It is a short campaign so only one more region is needed and then we win. We are hoping to breed a force in Italy, and attack Croton. It would be nice to take Rome for the final settlement, but the army is almost dead and it is v ery well protected (4 armies).

[pezhetairoi]

Ho hum, nice to know it's gotten going again :-) Hurray!

Katank, it probably cost me about 10k in upkeep, but I still made 10-20k a turn, because I captured some really good trade pairs and developed port cities. And I fully developed those that weren't. Quite a comfortable margin even with 7 armies, 5 of them full-stack, running around like loose cannons.

[Garvanko]

Wow, Spain is fun. Especially, if you do them right.

I just started a campaign after a month off from RTW and BI. Took Corduba, Tingi, Numantia, Palma, Cirtis, Carthage and Thapsus in that order. The key of course is to get the economics right in the first ten turns or so. Corduba got me Bull Warriors (though I havent used them yet!) before I even captured Palma!

I like the Scutarii and Spanish Mercs though. A poor man's Plumbatarii, but effective nonetheless. Really flexible unit roster.

And those temples!!

The only problem you'll have is chronic alcoholism!

[Patriarch of Constantinople]

Hi all im a new guy and I need some help playing Spain
I modded the descr_strt to make it playable but when i click on it to play the game crashes. Ive been looking forward to Spain but I cant play it.
Can someone help?