Incredibly Broken

[Kamakazi]

I think I have mentioned this before but as im playing a campaign currently I am getting incredibly frustrated.

Does anyone else find skirmishing units to be incredibly broken?

Every time I use javelins/ slingers/ horse archers they do this crazy forward rush straight into the enemy and then get caught and die. Unless I sit there and micromanage every bow/javelin unit they all get in way to close and get owned.

Is anyone else seeing this? And if im not alone why hasn't this been fixed?

[Hooahguy]

Skirmishing isnt done too well in Rome 2. The main problem is that its way too easy to catch them. This is also why Im not too concerned about facing horse archer armies as they dont fall back fast enough or keep enough space like they did in previous TW games.

Though Ive never had them charge straight into the enemy formations unless I wanted them to.

[Slaists]

No, you're not alone. Skirmishers do tend to "run forward" when trying to skirmish...

I have seen this to be more pronounced for cavalry skirmishers, but even velites and their likes do this. I have reported this on the bug forum several months ago. Yes, this is nothing new.

By the way, this seems not to affect the AI foot skirmishers. They skirmish just fine (try to catch an AI levy skirmisher unit with your hastati, for example). Cavalry skirmishers is a different matter: usually they're easy to catch even if they are AI controlled.

This might be related to a different issue brought up by folks. Units often feel "having an exposed flank" when they are in the middle of a long line and their flanks are perfectly safe while the enemy is attacking frontally. I guess, something is messed up with detection of the direction an attack is coming from. So, in the case of skirmishers, the first thing they attempt is running towards the attacker...

p.s. CA supposedly increased skirmishing trigger distance in patch 13 (or 12). The net result of that is though that the AI skirmishers usually get close to zero kills in my battles.


Skirmishing isnt done too well in Rome 2. The main problem is that its way too easy to catch them. This is also why Im not too concerned about facing horse archer armies as they dont fall back fast enough or keep enough space like they did in previous TW games.

Not only Rome 2, auto skirmishing was a suicide occupation for player's troops at least since Empire.

[Hooahguy]

It seems like the best use of skirmishers for now is to wait until your forces are engaged, and then hit them in the flanks with the skirmishers. Thats what tends to cause the most casualties.

[Sp4]

I've not really seen it as an incredibly broken thing so far.. I do occasionally get to watch them charge right at stuff or run into units trying to run away and picking some odd way to do that, but it is usually very managable. I don't really do skirmishing though, unless there are small pockets of enemy reinforcements that I can harass with the very mobile skirmishers and perhaps kill off a unit or two or even the general. Other than that, I use javelinmen and I put them behind my infantry to create a killing zone or I use them to flank. I don't really use slingers and archers only very rarely.

[Hooahguy]

I find that fast horse archers are actually very valuable because its easy to speed them around to an enemy flank and start mowing them down with arrows.

[Kamakazi]

Even when engaging flanks a lot of the time my skirmishers get railed. The AI will send 1 unit off their main force and my skirmishers will wait till they are 5 feet away to skirmish.... its very annoying. I do like horse archers but the twi units I used recently were like the skirmishers but worse.... they just stood still the whole time and wouldn't even engage

[Sp4]

I find that fast horse archers are actually very valuable because its easy to speed them around to an enemy flank and start mowing them down with arrows.

Oh yes. Horse archers are an entirely different thing altogether. Playing as Sparta, I got to love Tarantine cav. There is no better unit in their roster to mop up everything once it's bunched up against their hoplite walls ^^

[Hooahguy]

Though as with skirmishers on foot if they arent micromanaged well they could also be attacked and easily destroyed.

[Sp4]

They are faster than foot skirmishers and have a much longer range, so they tend to be a bit better at automatically keeping range.

[Slaists]

Tarantine cavalry are not archers though. They're javelin cavalry.

As to archer cavalry, playing as Parthia I frequently ran into situations where my archer cavalry would charge directly into the attacker...

[Kamakazi]

it seems like something that would have been attended to by now honestly... I don't know how much we can do though