Zatoichi
11-01-2004, 14:50
I'm currently playing as the Carthaginians (H/H), and having taken all of the Italian mainland, I'm running into some problems from the last remaining Roman faction, the Brutii (?) - anyway, they weren't much of a threat until they had the Marian reforms, now they're constantly sieging my cities in the north of Italy with centurions and the like. So, that's the history out the way, bring on the cheese!
Now that they can field decent units, my only successful counter tactic when defending is to let them take the walls virtually unopposed (apart from a couple of slinger units to soften them up). I then have a unit of Sacred band and a couple of Poeni (?) infantry in phalanx formation in the streets in front of my town square, with some cav and Libyan spearmen behind them to plug any gaps/charge down routers. The basic effect is to channel them into my phalanx for some meat grinding fun. I've done this 3 times now, and although my supply of phalanx infantry is dwindling (the town I'm defending can't retrain them), I've killed more than I've lost. I may be able to reinforce them, depends if I can get the troops in before the next stack of Romans beseige me. My point being, if I'd left these troops on the walls to defend the towers/ladders, I'd have been wiped out.
So - is this a gamey exploit, or a valid tactic? Cheese or best use of available units? You decide...
(sorry for the poor historical unit/faction spellings!)
Now that they can field decent units, my only successful counter tactic when defending is to let them take the walls virtually unopposed (apart from a couple of slinger units to soften them up). I then have a unit of Sacred band and a couple of Poeni (?) infantry in phalanx formation in the streets in front of my town square, with some cav and Libyan spearmen behind them to plug any gaps/charge down routers. The basic effect is to channel them into my phalanx for some meat grinding fun. I've done this 3 times now, and although my supply of phalanx infantry is dwindling (the town I'm defending can't retrain them), I've killed more than I've lost. I may be able to reinforce them, depends if I can get the troops in before the next stack of Romans beseige me. My point being, if I'd left these troops on the walls to defend the towers/ladders, I'd have been wiped out.
So - is this a gamey exploit, or a valid tactic? Cheese or best use of available units? You decide...
(sorry for the poor historical unit/faction spellings!)