Roman Line won't hold...what am I doing wrong.

I try to build my armies as close to hsitory as possible and play it that way so I do not always win, but I have detected a terrible weakness in my Army. I am still Republican and my Army is composed of 4 units Hastati (1st rank), 4 Units of Principes (2nd Rank), 2 Units Velites (Behind 1st Rank or 2nd), 4 units (Triarri) 3rd Rank). General in middle 2nd or 3rd Rank, Unit of Elite sto Protect 1 Flank and Barb Cav on the other. 1 Unit of Archers in rear to shoot over everyone and 2 Units BArb Merc usually Spear Warband to cover Flanks. It seems to work well against Rebels and Even Gaul Armies, but thos eguys mostly come in 2 -1 ratio in their favor.....lots of them and I have no ide ahow they breed so fast, but surprisingly in 5 plus battles the Gaul Warbands/Swordsmen crashed my 1st Line and break 2 or 3 units within seconds! They just crumple them even with upgrades Armor/Weapon and some experience. My Merc BArb spear take the charge sbetter it seems so I am thinking o fmaking them the 1st wall. I usually move my Principes up as I notice my Hastati wavering or taking 25% casualties, but I thought the Roman Line would hold better on thos echarges. Do not get me wrong! It is fun and exciting an dthrilling especiallly to zoom in and watch. I realize tha the Warband charge is the key to winning and maybe I need to acccept those losses as when the line holds I win, but it never holds, but anyone have any other ideas? It seems the rout starts an d then 1 by 1 the rest follow as ther eflanks get exposed. I am playing Med or HArd I cannot remember. I am also not complaining just looking for a tactical tip without skewing to an unhistorical army...then again maybe the weakness I see helped the MArian Reforms. This is even worse when a Warlords Cav Hits!..Ouch!

Well, if you are indeed playing on hard, the computer isn't necessarily smarter, but it does receive a moral and attack rating boost (I'm not certain if your troops receive a moral hit though), but that could explain why your guys are taking such a beating and routing somewhat easily.

Another point is that you mentioned most of your battles are two-to-one in favor of the Gauls. That means if you're setting up your battle lines in the traditional Republic army fashion (Hastati in front, Principes next, etc.), then the Gaul line (which the AI ALWAYS lays out in one reeeeeeally long line, one unit deep generally) will most likely totally envelope and flank your front line, causing massive moral damage to your Hastati.

I've found, to be most effective against the Gauls, it's best to stretch my line to match (or at least come close) theirs, and let the superiority of Roman training show those Gallic monsters who's boss, and a couple of Equites flanking the line to seal the deal.

Hope that helped.

Yes, against the "barbarian" factions you have to bring along Numbers as much as training, and spread your line, or they'll overwhelm you. I finished off a campaign as the Brutii where I simply avoided fighting the Gauls and Germans because they would field so many troops.

Now, as the Brits, I'm using that tactic against Roman armies. It's been interesting to see that the AI spreads the Roman line out as wide as it can when facing my hairy woad-painted hoards.

Yes, I think, the explanation is the difficulty level. On hard +4 attack bonus to the AI side (on very-hard +7 attack bonus). On very hard, a gaul warband/chosen sword-men charge would send my hastati routing in no time. On normal difficulty, my hastati would throw their pila, the lines would clash, the second line would throw their pila into the thick of it (killing off some of my own troops) and the barbarians would rout on the sight of my general flanking their army.

stretching out the roman battle-line does not solve the topic issue: the author wants to fight in the historical roman way... in rtw, it does not really work :(

2 more tips -
1- always put your hastati and principes on fire at will mode. when fighting barbarian armies, they will charge and suffer major losses before they hit your line.
2- you can stretch your line, but always keep spare units on both flanks because AI tends to focus on flanks and if they are able to smash and overrun 1 of your flanks its a domino effect to your other troops when they attacked from the side they will start to rout.

In RTW the charge is very powerful and speed is king. The Gaul units will hit you en masse and cause units to rout in seconds. You can't present a long enough front using traditional Roman methods in RTW. Better to put tougher units on the ends, weaker in the center and present a long line. Otherwise you have two units hitting each of yours and they won't last long.

What you really need is for the line to hold long enough that cav can decide things on the flanks. You are giving up +4 attack to the AI on hard. Cav is overly powerful in RTW.

What you're doing wrong is continuing to play this lame game the way CA has set it up.

Do the right thing and d/l theTotal Realism Mod 2.2

Red Harvest, have you tried this mod?

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Originally Posted by ToranagaSama

What you're doing wrong is continuing to play this lame game the way CA has set it up.

Do the right thing and d/l theTotal Realism Mod 2.2

Red Harvest, have you tried this mod?

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No, I haven't tried it yet. I've really been trying to absorb as much as I can before I try modifying it or using a mod. I'm getting a really bad itch to fix it though...

You may also want to see if you are inflicting a high number of friendly casualties with your missile units behind the front line. If that's the case, then there is one more thing that may be affecting your lines right before the gallic charge.

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Originally Posted by Sin Qua Non

You may also want to see if you are inflicting a high number of friendly casualties with your missile units behind the front line. If that's the case, then there is one more thing that may be affecting your lines right before the gallic charge.

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I noticed that archers (on low exp atleast) tend to cut down their own men alot more if placed behind them, have problems hitting men on the sameelevation as them, and dont shoot very high anymore
An example of this is when I did as you said, placed archers behind a column of principales and the result was less than satisfactory. The archers took out about 5 Ps on the first shot and didnt even hit the computer (I was attacking the town square and I wanted some men infront of my archers to stop the cavalry charge) Then once I moved my Ps out of the way I unloaded volley after volley of arrows on the cavalry until they finally got the altitude right... it took about 6 or 7 volleys until they even began hitting the enemy. But I guess that is experience for you.

I'm totally opposed to the people that say stretching your line to match the opponents line but that is there style.

My reccomendation is a deep formation (note must be on normal or huge unit sizes) You ca'nt really toy with depth with anything smaller.

The comp always stretches there lines for all factions as far as I can tell, although they do seem to give some depth for phalanx units regardless if it is full or not.

All I do when facing a stretched army is box all units up, makes them very maneuverable and able to absorb a charge. Now that I've been playing for a good bit I have yet to have a unit route form getting charged while in deep formation.

Heres what I do I box all my units up and if its a long enemy line I reduce the reserves. I advance the units into javelin throwing range unless they have misslesuperioty wich provokes me into an immediate charge. Also put them in guard mode so that units do'nt advance ahead of your line. Once you've depleted your javelins or have decided it's time to charge advacne close to the unit and then charge it. The reason for not charging at a unit from a distance is they aim for the center of the unit so you could have 2 units bunched together and would make big gaps in your line then again when the enemy is stretched they do'nt have reserves.

So heres what happens when the A.I does this they have a long line that is 3 deep and maybe cavalry in reserve. I gut there center quickly because 10 deep will quickly break up and punch through 3 deep units. If cavalry does charge in they will not have enough power to break up a 10 deep formation it just prolongs winning the center. Once the center is won your free to flank out. And since the units are coming in 1 at a time from the flanks they are pretty much piecmeal. Even now that I'm using the kill rate mod I still win the center quick enough before I have a barbarian horde flooding my flanks.

i find sending every unit in the middle will destroy them. not only does it kill their general, but it also splits the enemy into two. the enemy routes in seconds when you single them out. also your going to need some good cav to break them into two on the first charge.

I'm using the realism mod and it's pretty good. I did throttle the speed back up a little.

Really the next level for these games is to either make some groundbreaking development in the AI or plugin a multiplayer option. The current AI capabilities are just to shallow and you can only compensate so much by giving the computer 'player' enhanced stats, before that starts unravelling game play itself.

the problem may also be that your front is only 4 units wide. What I mean by that is that the game puts an artificial limit on the number of units you can control, so in order to field the 3 ranks, you use a 4-unit front. That's fine, so long as the terrain covers your flanks (ravine) or your enemy only has a few units. If the nme has a front line 10 units long, the Romans would have deployed 10 of each unit maybe.

Given how the barbarian AI lines up, even anciet Roman commanders would have sacrificed the 3-lines in order to avoid being outflanked. I think the trick is to fight like anciet Romans, but when deciding your formaiton...

FIRST: ensure you have the same frontage of the nme. Only after the frontage is about even should you worry about maintaining that front in the traditional 3-rank style.

One last thing, try not to have forest on your flanks. While it may have been preferable in reality, in RTW it doesn't mask cavalry, and it also strengthens the barbarians, which is doubly-bad

Historically one half of a Pre-Marian army would be composed of allied troops, who are assumed to fought in the Roman manner but were consisted second rate compared to the Latin troops. (Unfortunately not much is written about them.) Additionally, The Triarii maniples were half the depth of the other maniples.

This being the case you may want to use more Hastati or even Town Watch to represent allied troops and use less Triarii to better represent their comparative numbers.

I think The Velite maniples were of the same strength as the main battle lines so you may want to use more light troops.

In terms of cavalry the Romans generally didn’t field much (until they fought Hannibal) unless they were hired troops such as Numidians or Gallic Cavalry.

With 20 boxes for an army composition, I would suggest:

Skirmish Line: (Roman: 2 Velites) + (Allied: 2 Velites or Mercenary Skirmishers)
1st Battle Line: (Roman: 2 Hastati) + (Allied: 2 Hastati or Town Watch or Mercenary Infantry)
2nd Battle Line: (Roman: 2 Hastati or Principes) + (Allied: 2 Hastati or Town Watch or Mercenary Infantry)
The Thin Line: (Roman: 1 Triarii) + (Allied: 1 Triarii or Town Watch or Mercenary Infantry)
Cavalry Wings: (Roman and Allied: 2 Equites or Roman Generals) + Any number of Mercenary Cavalry

Traditionally the Roman troops should form the centre with Allies to either flank. The key to fighting Barbarians is to blunt their intial attack with the lighter troops and then counter attack. On medium battle difficulty - normal size units this works (so far) so long as I stretch the Roman battle lines quite thin to almost 2 ranks deep and am willing to let the skirmish line take a beating sometimes. (Light troops tend to heal up quite well after battles for some reason.)

As others have implied, I would give up the three (or four) ranks deep battle formation. It may be historical, but it does not suit the game. The games are very much scaled down versions of historical battles (2000 men battles not 40,000 etc.). If battles lasted their true length and units got exhausted (and casualties/moral were lost more slowly), then I could see having depth would be useful - to rotate out men etc. But it really serves very little function in Total War games to have several melee units standing one in front of the other. If having depth means you are getting flanked then it is absolutely imperative you surrender depth - flanking is king in RTW.

Once you have abandoned that, your problem seems to be that the hastati don't perform as well as you thought. Looking at the unit stats, even with the +4 to the AI attack on hard, I find it hard to understand. Hastati are good early troops, with a very nice defence. You should have higher command generals that offset the AI +4 bonus, with each star giving you +1 to your attack.

A few things might help:

- screen with velites and archers, ie put them before, not behind your hastati. Surely that is the historical deployment? Friendly fire is horrible in RTW. Now, the velites may not do much directly against a barbarian infantry charge but I believe in TW, charge bonuses only work against the unit charged. The barbs charge your velites; they have to redirect to hit the hastati as the velites pull back. On medium, I have found the barbs sometimes halt in confusion and even retire under terrible fire when the velites give way to serried rows of hastati.

- put the hastati on fire at will (some folk say "guard" as well). That way they should get off a pila volley before impact and maybe a second after. The pila are great weapons but you tend not to have time to get a volley off if you try to manage it manually. The velite screening may help here - if it causes the barbs to slow down or withdraw, it gives more time for the pila. Don't worry about not charging - the hastati charge bonus is only +2; it's definitely worth surrendering to get the pila volley. When they are out of pila, alt+left click to charge with sword is of course sensible.

- forgive me for saying it, but your tactics sound a little passive. I would have thought that the Romans, through better discipline, were more able to outmaneouvre barbarians - so rather than just trying Saxon shieldwall tactics, holding with your hastati and then doing something more interesting (infantry or cav charge on the flanks, rely on archers from the flanks, lure away some of the enemy, spring an ambush etc) would seem to be called for. Contrary to what you are saying, the hastati are a decent anvil - but you do need a hammer (even if it is just more hastati coming in from the flanks).

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'm using the realism mod and it's pretty good. I did throttle the speed back up a little.

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Ahhhhh...... Why would you do that? ;)

Personally, I was thinking maybe the speed s/b notched back, just a little more. It's still *slightly* faster than MTW/STW speed.

I agree CA should put their focus upon the AI of both the Battle Engine and the Strategy/Campaign Map. It's well past time for some MAJOR improvements!

Also, IMVUHO, they need to cut the crap and release a Campaign Multiplay version. I'd gladly pay for it, as a separate expansion pak. At this point, I'm, personally, tired of the excuses.

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Red Harvest,

I too had the intention of getting thru a vanilla campaign, before switching to a mod, but....I just couldn't hack it anymore!

I got totally fed up and *bored* with the March of the Mini Gaul Armies, playing as the Juii. It just wasn't fun being compelled to fight a battle every 5-10 minutes. So, I decided to make a second installation and copy the TR mod 2.0.

Hmmm.... I just wrote up a rather long thread giving my impression of the Total Realism mod, but rather than hijack this thread, later today I'll start a new one.

Don't give up just yet. There seem to be a number of tweaks you can make.

Someone has already suggested a screening force of skirmishers to take the edge off the charge & putting the hastati & principes on "fire at will". I would not have the archers on "fire at will" so they don't fire into the hastati; that would be very bad for morale.

Another possibility, though maybe not historical, is to place a unit on either side close to the flank of the hastati & angled back to prevent the enemy from wrapping around.

From a tactical point of view, you could bring the principes forward on either side after or during the charge if the flanks need to be supported & to prevent the enemy from wrapping around. Don't wait to see if the line holds; support the flanks before the line wavers.

You don't mention what the Romans did in such situations. If you don't know, you could try researching how they used the formation you are using to counter the problems you're having. Then try what the books say & see if the game supports the solution.

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Originally Posted by Simon Appleton

- screen with velites and archers, ie put them before, not behind your hastati. Surely that is the historical deployment? Friendly fire is horrible in RTW. Now, the velites may not do much directly against a barbarian infantry charge but I believe in TW, charge bonuses only work against the unit charged. The barbs charge your velites; they have to redirect to hit the hastati as the velites pull back. On medium, I have found the barbs sometimes halt in confusion and even retire under terrible fire when the velites give way to serried rows of hastati.

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That's the way I do it.
My formation for offense and defense is basically the same -
Heavy Infantry in the center - lines expanded in ranks of 5-6 deep (large unit size), with the General right behind them.
Way out on my flank, effectively detached from my main force is my calvary. If I can hide them behind a hill, even better.
In between my main Infantry force and my calvary are my 'spec ops' units (dogs, pigs, gladiators).
On my other flank I'll usually have one or two units of infantry (closer to my main force that my clavary flank).
Both flanks are deployed slightly forward of my center in a semi-flattened 'U'.
Velites up front and center, with archers right behind them.
On offense, move the whole lot forward slowly until your velites are in range; usually the enemy will react in some fashion and that's typically the que to pull your flanks in.
On defense, kick back and watch the bloodbath (again, your flanks are key here).

Ok, lets clear one thing up.

There is no 'proper historical formation' per se. I agree that when it was convenient the 3 line formation was respected. But most generals that were at least 'ok' decided on frontage based on what they were seeing on the battlefield. There was great concern on ancient battlefields of getting the 'flank turned'. So frontage was always of primary consideration. And there are frequent historical references to deploying troops so as to prevent just such an occurrence. Even with Roman articulated-manipular infantry, fighting in more than one direction was just bad.

It also seems that different generals had different opinions about where their more questionably mercenary auxiliaries should go, so that isn't even clear cut.

What was 'preferred' is not always what was 'used'. Its all about practical application.

So adjust your frontage so that the Gauls can't turn your flank, and use a reserve of one or two cohorts to plug the gaps. You can revert to 3 lines when your frontage allows that (just like most Roman generals did) and still respect history.

Given the very slight difference in Hastati and Principes in the game, I tend to run w/ 8 Hastati and 4 Spear Mercs then Triarii afterwards. I play just as you do, but adjust frontage accordingly (just like ancient generals), and find my guys do fine. The game's mechanics even supports identifying the 'veterans' (since they show up as 'chevroned' hastati infantry). So when deploying in 3 line formation, I put my more experienced guys to the rear as my battle reserve. This works really well because they provide just the right amount of shock at typically the pivotal moment in a battle (when all lines are fully engaged).

The truly great generals of ancient times showed one quality above others which made them successful. They adapted to what they saw.

And there are historical examples of this 'flexibility'.
First one that comes to mind is the battle of Marathon.
Although it took place 200 years prior to the Punic Wars and involved the Greeks and Persians, it's a classic example of a general adapting to the situation.
First off, instead of the Hoplites advancing in slow tightly, packed Phalanx formation, Miltiades (I think) ordered his men to spread their formations and charge.
Seeing a Greek Hoplite army running towards them scared the bejesus out of the Persians, who quickly tried to reform a rear guard as the rest of their troops scattered back to their boats.
Miltiades then put his weaker troops in the center and fanned his flanks out in a very risky attempt to match the Persians. As the Persian engaged the center, he brought his flanks in and drove the Persians from the beach (and into a swap).
If you think about it, Marathon really was the first Cannae.

Firstly I highly recommend the 75% kill rate mod and the ~80% move rate mod. That helps a lot.

Secondly, once you get a few bars of experience on your men, or a good general, they will be much less likely to route.

Oh, and play on medium for sure. I'd rather play on medium and just build smaller armies than the computer than play on very hard and have unit balance all out of whack.

I usually deploy my hastati in a wide formation, 2 deep, to cover as much frontage as possible. It's not terribly historical perhaps, but though they will give ground under a charge from barbarians they won't break and run with a good general. I had one unit cut down to 3 men in a fight in a forest vs gauls and they still didn't run.

The barbarian noble cavalry will, however, go right through 2 ranks of men so you have to watch out for that.

At the flanks, I put a unit of hastati in deep column formation, slightly deeper than it is wide, but pretty much square. Cavalry charging into that inevitably get bogged down and killed.

I have maybe one unit of equites to chase routers, other than that I rely on the infantry and my velites + archers. Put the skirmishers in front of your men, and have them fire away till the last possible second then run behind. (You will need to turn off fire at will or your archers will happily just shoot your own men in the back).

Leave hastati on fire at will as the enemy charges. Javelin throws, especially once you get a few weapons upgrades and exp chevrons, can by themselves send a gaul unit fleeing temporarily.