Army Formations

[Marcus Darkstar]

I would like to open up a discussion for people's favorite army formations they like to use in their games.

For example in my "attempt" to replicate Roman Manipular tactics and from what i could gather from the units ingame text I've created a nominal early roman legion in field formation.

Javelin throwers in the front, followed by Hastasti, Princeps, Ronarii then the Triari. Slingers firing in support from the rears while the Equites cover the flanks with the General in the very rear. This is what i typically use in a long military campaign push in the early roman campaign.

https://i266.photobucket.com/albums/ii262/Magus65/EB%20Photo%20album/EBEarlyRomanFieldArmyFormation.jpg

From what I've read from units ingame text it more like it seems early roman tactics were essentially early harrasment of enemy troops with skirmishers, then the infantry waves of the least experienced troops, then the princeps, then the most experienced the Trairi. Essentially tractics used to empathize the Republic's great reserves of fighting men than actuall tactics.

Though i do admit i have yet been able to actually impliment manipular tactics during the heat of battle (like for instance funneling the Hastasti through the gaps between the Princeps when they've taken signficant casualties). I tried to tmake bigger gaps to help this along but the enemy doesnt really help things lol...

Been playing a Macedon campaign prior to this one and have to say while unwieghly at points the hellenistic model makes a bit more sense to me (even if most units are a bit too dependent on others to function at full potential).

[BorgCoitus]

Draw your units of Principes on top of the unit of Hastati that you wish to replace. Once the Principes are in position, withdraw the Hastati, and give the Principes an attack order, so that they'll throw their Javelins. Make sure all your line infantry are in guard mode, as well.

Also, technically, your General would be right up behind the first battle line, surverying the action, bringing up reserves, encouraging the men (very important for the Hastati in the game, actually), and issuing direct orders to units that are being pressed hard by the enemy.

[NoHelmet]

Try this: triarii in the middle, tree men deep, only a phalanx can breach that line (they will hold on indefinitely), on their flanks rorarii (they can stand their ground surprisingly long) and put all your hastati and principes on the flanks (pretty much Cannae formation). It works with all factions. Thin line of spearmen in the middle, heavy & assault infantry to the flanks. One more thing: always try to ensure overwhelming cavalry superiority. With spearmen like triarii, you can anchor many more infantry than your own, and if you ensure that they are aligned without holes in the line, trust me, they wont break. Follow the teachings of Hannibal and Alexandros (with a fine combined army, for cavalry, go with Surenas, or Genghis!)

[Marcus Darkstar]

Well the enemy never give me too much trouble at this point. My armies tend to be larger or at the very least can stand more punishment than others.

I'm mostly ignoring Carthage becuase except a few strikes at Sardinia they havnt really done anything. They dont really have much of a standing armies anymore since i annilated their Siciliy one in my first punic war. They've begun recruiting African Pikemen and Libyian-Phoe elite infantry but they havnt been able to afford much. Last signficant Carthage attack involved 2 FM generals (so about 150 Sacred Band Heavy Calvary), 80 Numbian archers, 1 african pikemen and the elite libyan-phoe infantry. Killed them with 2 mercenary Greek Phalanx, 4 Sardian infantry and about a few slingers hired locally. Always been dissapointed in Carthage as an opponent more of an annoyance than a actuall challage. I think the worst spot i had with them in another champaign of them landing near Capua when the legions were elsewhere kicking their asses.

Actually fear the Gauls beyond the Alps more than I do Carthage they destroyed one of my allied celtic armies (2 Gaullic Heavy Swordsmen, 4 Celt Spearmen, 4 Celt archers, 2 Gaullic Noble Calvary, 1 Lesser Celtic King) with one of their armies filled with silver cheveron units (veterans of their continuing civil war) They even had a few of those Soldorus noble elite heavy infantry with them.

I dont think there are many Hoplite units that can match the Triari I have more problems with missile calvary and enemy heavy calvary. Only recently gotten my allied states producing some Gallic Noble and Liguarian Calvary (javlen throwers decent armor though not much staying power)

Only lost 200 men after the battle in the pic above (maybe due to the piss poor moral Hadruable's men had cause the enemy army was starving itself to death in rebel territory near Emporion), then i took Emporion from the rebels with a bit more casualties took the legion out of comission for a couple of years.

[Marcus Darkstar]

Try this: triarii in the middle, tree men deep, only a phalanx can breach that line (they will hold on indefinitely), on their flanks rorarii (they can stand their ground surprisingly long) and put all your hastati and principes on the flanks (pretty much Cannae formation). It works with all factions. Thin line of spearmen in the middle, heavy & assault infantry to the flanks. One more thing: always try to ensure overwhelming cavalry superiority. With spearmen like triarii, you can anchor many more infantry than your own, and if you ensure that they are aligned without holes in the line, trust me, they wont break. Follow the teachings of Hannibal and Alexandros (with a fine combined army, for cavalry, go with Surenas, or Genghis!

Ya know i actually used something similar to this in my MTW2 Stainless Steel Roman/Byzantine campaign. Scoutari spearmen in the middle, Swordsmen on the flanks, had like 6 units of Calvary 2 Light Calvary, 2 Calvari (Missile Calvary with compound bows) and 2 Cataphrants (heavies). with supporting archers behind the line infantry.

Getting good calavary reserves is a bit tricky in EB though lol.

[NoHelmet]

Ok, for the gauls, bring bunch of rorarii and triarii, and THE ENTIRE FAMILY. Stretch your line as much as you can, put them on stand ground, flank with your brother-in-law, nephew, uncle, roommate and slice them from behind.

And that pretty much solves the problem of cavalry reserve.

[Marcus Darkstar]

Ok, for the gauls, bring bunch of rorarii and triarii, and THE ENTIRE FAMILY. Stretch your line as much as you can, put them on stand ground, flank with your brother-in-law, nephew, uncle, roommate and slice them from behind.

I dont bring mulitple family members into my battles lol. Ever. I perfer FM use for Govenors and Generals. Though the would work for my old Seleucid campaign last i checked i had like 150 family members and only about 40ish settlements for some reason the AS family tend to pop out FM's by the but load.

[NoHelmet]

You will always have a bunch of pretty much incompetent governors or generals. So what, you are going to let them govern a city and lose money? It's ok if they are good governors, but don't let them rot in the city. Find a good general (morale stats make a good general, btw, not command stars) send some dumb cousins, and roll. It's another thing if you want to recreate roman tactics, but you still play against the AI, and after all, rome was always ready to adapt it's military.

[Ibrahim]

my method on the battlefield, when not using manipular, is simply that I place the triarii on the right, principes to the left, hastati and rorarii in the middle. leves are in front, accnesi to the rear.

polybian is similar, only there are 2 hastati instead of one, and two principes in place of one and accensi.

just throwing my :2cents:

[Marcus Darkstar]

my method on the battlefield, when not using manipular, is simply that I place the triarii on the right, principes to the left, hastati and rorarii in the middle. leves are in front, accnesi to the rear.

polybian is similar, only there are 2 hastati instead of one, and two principes in place of one and accensi.

just throwing my :2cents:

I never seem to use Hastati anymore in Polybian. The only difference in them in that reform is that Princeps wear chainmail. I typically just replace the hast with more principes.

[Ibrahim]

I never seem to use Hastati anymore in Polybian. The only difference in them in that reform is that Princeps wear chainmail. I typically just replace the hast with more principes.

if ye don't, then just arrange the principes according to seniority (i.e, experience). that is assuming you're interested.

in case you're wondering, the alternative formation is inspired by 18th century thinking more than anything. I found that linear tactics are, at least for me, pretty effective.

[Lazy O]

I acutally dont get it, if you have 3 lines, your getting much more depth then length, i.e possibilty of a repeat of Cannae,

Why the hell would you wait for the hastati to break? why not use all units together? Again Plain stupidity.

Someone please enlighten me, i can see the sense of 2 lines, but 3 just escape me.

[Mediolanicus]

2 lines refreshing each other

1 line in reserve

[Duguntz]

As sweboz, no army formation. i disperse mt troops in forests "randomly" (though not as randomly as it looks as each unit is set close to another one, though far enough not to get discovered if the unit closeby enters in combat) so that can create many "mini" ambushes in a more big planed one. surprise effect is devastating on anything but elite. even solduros rout sometime when they're entangled in a melee and warriors spring from two directions at the same time XD

[Randal]

They didn't wait for the Hastati to break. They waited for the enemy to become tired and worn out and for enemy morale to weaken.

Many enemy armies like Celts would arrange their best, bravest, strongest and most heavily armed warriors up front. These were the leaders, the nobles who led by example and inspired the lesser levies to bravery. Once these became tired and dispirited as the enemy refused to give way after a longish slog, they would be much more vulnerable to renewed attack than they would be at the start of the battle.

Holding large parts of their army in reserve probably allowed the Romans to mount aggressive charges and continued attacks for far longer than forces who simply arranged their armies in a big block. In a big block the rear ranks provide cohesion and boost morale, but as Cannae and other battles demonstrated they did not exactly make the formation that much stronger. (Pike phalanxes aside) Even though it's mostly the front-ranks fighting, the rear ranks would tire out physically and psychologically from incessantly being under threat of (missile) attack and uncertain of what is happening up front. A fresh line would not suffer from these issues.

All these reserves must also have allowed far greater tactical flexibility. Weaker points can more easily be reinforced, breakthroughs exploited, etc. Keeping three lines seems like an insanely large quantity of reserves, but if we accept the school of thought that said battles for the most part were rather tentative affairs with fierce hand-to-hand combat occurring only in shorter bursts or locally, until one side gained the advantage and the other broke, then it becomes far more believable.

In the game engine it doesn't work like exactly like this, but fresh troops do have a huge advantage in killing rates. If you deploy your army in a thinner line on guard-mode, fight until the enemy gets tired and then move your fresh second line in, you can get the advantage a deeper single-line would not have gotten.

Admittedly, in my Roman armies I mostly use the third line to intercept cavalry attacks. And I don't play multiplayer, I don't know if historical Roman tactics stand any chance there. I suspect not.

[NoHelmet]

I acutally dont get it, if you have 3 lines, your getting much more depth then length, i.e possibilty of a repeat of Cannae,

Why the hell would you wait for the hastati to break? why not use all units together? Again Plain stupidity.

Someone please enlighten me, i can see the sense of 2 lines, but 3 just escape me.

Indeed.

[ChingizLink]

Follow the teachings of Hannibal and Alexandros (with a fine combined army, for cavalry, go with Surenas, or Genghis!)

You know, in addition to being unfairly vilefied by EVERYONE, both Hannibal and Chingiz Han do not get anywhere near as much credit as they deserve for being great generals and great leaders. Chingiz's conquest of Khwarezm was brilliant, and the battles of which we have details demonstrate clear battlefield genius, far beyond the basic, practically foolproof template of the basic steppe nomad strategy (harrass, close, feign a retreat, whether to simply tire and break up the enemy or to lead them into an ambush, all the while firing volleys in arcade and taking the random "sniper" style shots as they come...lather, rinse, repeat).

And Hannibal deserves a lot more credit than for what he did at Cannae, Trasimene, Trebia, etc. Being able to maintain unit cohesion among a mostly mercenary army that was diverse in every conceivable way (language, ethnicity/origin, tribal identity, tactics, weapon and equipment...), and while being harrassed and chased around a land totally foreign to nearly all of them, while basically living off of the land and being totally uncertain re reinforcements is a massive achievement. Not to mention the way he seems to have changed his own armies' tactical and strategic doctrines, then continued to adapt them against the Romans...it really makes you wonder if he wasn't the equal, or maybe even superior to -- and please, no death threats -- Alexander.

And re the steppe generals, can we count the Mamluk and Ottomans, in particular, Babars al-Bunduqdari and Murad II? (Promoting Murad II's greatness has become one of my pet projects...)


Draw your units of Principes on top of the unit of Hastati that you wish to replace. Once the Principes are in position, withdraw the Hastati, and give the Principes an attack order, so that they'll throw their Javelins. Make sure all your line infantry are in guard mode, as well.

Also, technically, your General would be right up behind the first battle line, surverying the action, bringing up reserves, encouraging the men (very important for the Hastati in the game, actually), and issuing direct orders to units that are being pressed hard by the enemy.

Dude, you seriously just solved an issue I've had since I've been playing RTW!!! I've always been confused as to how best play the Romans as they actually fought in the third and early second centuries BC. I pretty much gave up a while ago.

I would add to that great advice (which was totally concise too, kudos my man!) to remember that the Triarii were pretty much mean to defend the camp, defend the army's rear from outflanking cavalry, and, in the event of a retreat, to "lead" (which is kinda funny, since they were in the rear during the battle, and the whole army would be walking backward) and guide everyone back to camp in an orderly fashion while also deterring any enemy cavalry from chasing any Roman/allies down. (some blame Cannae on the Triarii's position -- and I could be mixing some of this up -- guarding the camp instead of the rear flank)

It doesn't seem like they were used in battle very often--the Hastati and Principes rotated a few times, and the Principes usually closed the deal, just like Borg's post describes. I just wanted to offer some additional info for those of us who really want to play accurately and may not be aware of what the Triarii really did--I mean, they were half the size of the Principes/Hastati, so they really couldn't do much in battle.

God...imagine being a 50 year old guy with grandkids in that position...(let's not even get into Alexander's Argyraspidai, or whatever unit it was, that kept going back and forth between Successors during the Diadochi Wars when most were in their 70s or something!)

[Megas Methuselah]

As sweboz, no army formation. i disperse mt troops in forests "randomly" (though not as randomly as it looks as each unit is set close to another one, though far enough not to get discovered if the unit closeby enters in combat) so that can create many "mini" ambushes in a more big planed one. surprise effect is devastating on anything but elite. even solduros rout sometime when they're entangled in a melee and warriors spring from two directions at the same time XD

Wow.

[Duguntz]

Wow.

hmmm, it's quiet close to how our ancestor used to wage their battle also, well, at least in Quebec, due to our heavily forested geography! Mohawks were very fierce and indeed, invisible in their ambushes on french colonies and troops. Their only defect is that they were allied with those british. the algonquin were allied with the french, but were no match for the iroquois. They were more pacifists I guess :) At least they were allied with the right guys!

[Kikaz]

Recently, I've been using a "flower formation" that literally blooms. I haven't perfected it yet, but it allows me to basically phase out cavalry (for some reason I've developed a hatred for cavalry in EB). You'll have to see the formation..

[Cambyses]

They didn't wait for the Hastati to break. They waited for the enemy to become tired and worn out and for enemy morale to weaken.

Many enemy armies like Celts would arrange their best, bravest, strongest and most heavily armed warriors up front. These were the leaders, the nobles who led by example and inspired the lesser levies to bravery. Once these became tired and dispirited as the enemy refused to give way after a longish slog, they would be much more vulnerable to renewed attack than they would be at the start of the battle.

Holding large parts of their army in reserve probably allowed the Romans to mount aggressive charges and continued attacks for far longer than forces who simply arranged their armies in a big block. In a big block the rear ranks provide cohesion and boost morale, but as Cannae and other battles demonstrated they did not exactly make the formation that much stronger. (Pike phalanxes aside) Even though it's mostly the front-ranks fighting, the rear ranks would tire out physically and psychologically from incessantly being under threat of (missile) attack and uncertain of what is happening up front. A fresh line would not suffer from these issues.

All these reserves must also have allowed far greater tactical flexibility. Weaker points can more easily be reinforced, breakthroughs exploited, etc. Keeping three lines seems like an insanely large quantity of reserves, but if we accept the school of thought that said battles for the most part were rather tentative affairs with fierce hand-to-hand combat occurring only in shorter bursts or locally, until one side gained the advantage and the other broke, then it becomes far more believable.

In the game engine it doesn't work like exactly like this, but fresh troops do have a huge advantage in killing rates. If you deploy your army in a thinner line on guard-mode, fight until the enemy gets tired and then move your fresh second line in, you can get the advantage a deeper single-line would not have gotten.

Admittedly, in my Roman armies I mostly use the third line to intercept cavalry attacks. And I don't play multiplayer, I don't know if historical Roman tactics stand any chance there. I suspect not.

Exactly. Also quite often troops would not be continuously engaged for hours fighting the same enemy, The enemy would withdraw and attack again. Clearly this kind of fighting was more common in certain cultures than other however. Remember that the Romans "three" lines were just the heavy infantry, all the other support troops that were brought to battle were designed to tire the enemy out before even the hastati were engaged. (Although this was rarely successful). Many of Hannibal's greatest triumphs against the Romans early on in his campaign were because he was able to engage the Romans so fast that they had not got themselves set to fight a patient battle. He could attack and defeat the Romans as they arrived and they did not have the advantage of being fresh.

Cannae and Zama are of course exceptions to this, each in their own different way.

In game Ive found it best to let the velites fill the gaps between the Hastati maniples and hold their ground. The Principes are close behind. Certainly not behind the back ranks of the Hastati. When the battle has progressed a little and the enemy is tiring, then I charge the principes in and then withdraw the velites and use them to harrass the flanks.

Starting with your cavalry behind your lines rather than deployed on the flanks means the AI makes less effort to send troops to chase them around the battlefield in an annoying and unrealistic manner. Instead he will come at you much more head on - his flanking forces will fall on your second line (often allied spearmen on the edges for me). At about this stage it is a good idea to send the cavalry out to do their job. Often in history the cavalry fought first, but this is never a good idea in EB.

[ChingizLink]

Exactly. Also quite often troops would not be continuously engaged for hours fighting the same enemy, The enemy would withdraw and attack again. Clearly this kind of fighting was more common in certain cultures than other however.

Since I'm a huge fight fan (I was even a wannabe UFC/MMA fighter from high school until a few years ago), I picture this process (where each side in a pitched battle would basically make an on-the-spot gentleman's agreement to break off and stop fighting in order to take a little time to catch their breath) by remembering pretty much every fistfight I've witnessed (well, those that weren't over realy quick or broken up, anyway), whether from when I was a kid, in high school, college, or those I've seen as an adult. They're usually 2 chest pounding idiots swinging wildly at each other, rolling around on the ground, etc, for a maximum of a minute or two before both are obviously so exhausted they can barely lift their arms up and/or look like they might vomit any second.

At this point, it is not uncommon to see two people, in a fist fight, either agree to call it even, and act all buddy buddy (the level of buddy buddyness is inverse to how drunk they are), or to take a break (which is also something that never stops being hilarious) before they make asses out of themselves again for a few minutes.

Now, imagine that you're a hoplite, legionarius, or any other infantryman in ancient or medieval times--you have 30-50 lbs of armor on, it's pretty hot out, you're holding a large, awkwardly shaped shield that probably weighs 5-10 lbs (and an awkward shape or large volume makes something seem like it's oh, I don't know, about A ZILLION TIMES HEAVIER than it really is!), and you and another guy have been hacking away at each other in vain for a good part of 15-20 minutes. Agreeing to a little truce, or maybe even taking a break AND trying to find a weaker dance partner, seems totally plausible...

[Ibrahim]

Recently, I've been using a "flower formation" that literally blooms. I haven't perfected it yet, but it allows me to basically phase out cavalry (for some reason I've developed a hatred for cavalry in EB). You'll have to see the formation..

you can't say "for some reason". you have to explain why they-to you-are tactically annoying. I can learn from ye y'know :clown:

[NoHelmet]

..it really makes you wonder if he wasn't the equal, or maybe even superior to -- and please, no death threats -- Alexander.-


Of course he is a better general. Alexander had an inferior enemy at the tme of his wars, and rarely used creative tactics. Not that i say that he couldn't, but he didn't. I always perceived that his succeses were in a great extent due to his army. His courage and skill are unquestonable, but Hannibal still takes the day, as far as i'm concerned.

[Lazy O]

^Stop the alexander bashing/worship right now. Or else it will go to comparison and a useless 50 page debate.

[NoHelmet]

True. My bad.