Rome versus RTW

Sulla was a general on account of Marius, they guy that reformed the armies. When the Samnites, or more correctly, the Italians, rebelled against Rome in 91 BC, Sulla commanded 13 legions! That's about 62,400 men, not to mention auxilliaries and support trains.

So, I figured that if you have a stack of 20 Hastati at large unit size (this is 80 men per unit which is historically correct if you consider 1 RTW unit equal to 1 Roman century) you have only 1/3 of a legion!

Multiply that by 39 to compare it with Sulla's army.

Note: This 13 legion force was only to expel a few rebels, imgaine waging war with Carthage!

I think it was more than "a few rebels" if 13 legions were needed to take them on. ~;)

I think the game would be worse off if it tried to recreate the numbers of troops used historically. I mean, the battles are pretty impressive with the numbers they have right now, if we had thousands upon thousands in every battle the FPS would be about 0.5. (PowerPoint battle, here we come!)

PowerPoint battle? You are saying that it would be so slow that the game would look like a slide show? Hahaha!

However, in time, there will be games that will be capable of having massive battles that emulate historic ones. If you look at computer games 10 years ago and compare them to RTW, look at the huge leap! It is only a matter of time.

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Originally Posted by Octavius Julius

PowerPoint battle? You are saying that it would be so slow that the game would look like a slide show? Hahaha!

However, in time, there will be games that will be capable of having massive battles that emulate historic ones. If you look at computer games 10 years ago and compare them to RTW, look at the huge leap! It is only a matter of time.

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Yes but you would need a super efficient Command and Control Interface as well as a more than Impressive battlefield AI. They don't exist at present - in any game

I find at present that 20 units in a big ol' melee with an equal number of enemy units requires all the attention I can muster to pull of a victory without suffering undue losses.

~:)

For example, a Gallic 20 unit force versus my Julii 20 unit force equates to say a 850 versus 650 troop battle respectively.

I can destroy their army with losing about 150 soldiers. I know the Romans were good, and I know that they did win battles that easy, however, there were battles where the Romans were annihilated. At the Caudine Forks, a rebel army of Samnite hillmen humiliated a Roman garrison styled force.

This doesn't happen in RTW. The only way of losing a battle is with intentionally stupid tactics or by pressing the AutoCalc button.

If the enemies would fight with more determination, then the game would be alot more realistic.

I fought a Germanic "horde" in an ambush against me where I was heavily outnumbered. They retreated very easily onve I could get in around their spearmen with my cavalry.

I think that the routing happens too easily. Germanic tribes in reality were notoriously tough and determined.

I hope CA solve this "routing" problem firstly, then we can look at epic sized battles as something to really get our thinking caps on and act like real tactical generals.

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Originally Posted by Octavius Julius

I hope CA solve this "routing" problem firstly, then we can look at epic sized battles as something to really get our thinking caps on and act like real tactical generals.

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Last night an small force of gauls ( mainly war bands a few swordman and a general ) sieged corduba, I attacked with mostly iberian infantry I outnumber gauls but my guys routed after the firts contact. So I think that the problem is not the AI. I think that some units has a very poor moral stat.

About the threat cuestion, I am playing mi second campaing and I only remember having a full stack only in 2 or 3 armies ... I don't think that more and more units means that the game is funniest

Ok, it certainly didn't happen to me! I was the Brutii and faced the dacians y many battles. Some of them I won easily, others take me effort and good luck and in many of them one of the two armies starting routing the minute they began combat.
Those falcatas (in spanish) and those chosen archers were always tough, even when I flanked them.
I remember one battle when I had more man than the Dacians (not so much as to make a real difference) and it didn't last a minute because when the two armies clashed (no cav in my force) my early legionaries and auxiliary were fleeing!!

Diego, from Argentina

PS: I would love that moral of units be better. Specially in Roman armies. The fought to the death as far as Adrianoplis and the Frigid River in late IV century!!

In most of my battles against the Germans, they hang tough till the end. I did rout a German army last night, but I managed to pull of a beauty of a battlefield ambush with hidden troops, and it really seemed to have a huge morale effect on them.

As far as troop numbers go, my own impression is that the units are scaled, much in the same way as tabletop miniature battles are. One figure represents a certain number of men. My feeling is that one unit of hastati represents one cohort, so 10 cohorts make up a legion. A 20 unit army would be 2 legions.

For the near future, putting an historical number of men on the field is not feasible if you want nice graphics and individual animation too. The battlefield AI is already fairly dumb compared with MTW. So if we get more men on the field it likely to get worse. What would the extra men add if historical tactics were not usable?

I was hoping for the ability to deploy and use legions in an historical fashion with RTW. That would require a lot: a strategic engine that encouraged/forced the building of legions, and a battlefield AI that had the capacity to wield legions in a historical fashion--definitely higher level AI programming.

I've already seen the Power Point slideshow battle in RTW...the Scythian AI decided to get happy with fire arrows in a large battle. That was the worst graphical experience I've had in any TW series battle (STW, MI, MTW, VI, and now RTW.)

I've also noted the rapid routing of units. Iberian infantry were utterly worthless in RTW on VH (most infantry are.) Morale falls rapidly and units chain rout--of course by using cavalry you can turn this against the AI. The kill rates are very high, especially on VH where the AI gets +7 attack. Why didn't they balance this by giving less attack and more defensive skill to the AI? That would reduce the effective kill rate and make the battles a bit more playable/immersive. It should also give the AI a chance to respond to cavalry rushes. As it is, adjacent units are often incapable of supporting their brethren before they rout.

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Originally Posted by Red Harvest

For the near future, putting an historical number of men on the field is not feasible if you want nice graphics and individual animation too. The battlefield AI is already fairly dumb compared with MTW. So if we get more men on the field it likely to get worse. What would the extra men add if historical tactics were not usable?

I was hoping for the ability to deploy and use legions in an historical fashion with RTW. That would require a lot: a strategic engine that encouraged/forced the building of legions, and a battlefield AI that had the capacity to wield legions in a historical fashion--definitely higher level AI programming.

I've already seen the Power Point slideshow battle in RTW...the Scythian AI decided to get happy with fire arrows in a large battle. That was the worst graphical experience I've had in any TW series battle (STW, MI, MTW, VI, and now RTW.)

I've also noted the rapid routing of units. Iberian infantry were utterly worthless in RTW on VH (most infantry are.) Morale falls rapidly and units chain rout--of course by using cavalry you can turn this against the AI. The kill rates are very high, especially on VH where the AI gets +7 attack. Why didn't they balance this by giving less attack and more defensive skill to the AI? That would reduce the effective kill rate and make the battles a bit more playable/immersive. It should also give the AI a chance to respond to cavalry rushes. As it is, adjacent units are often incapable of supporting their brethren before they rout.

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I totally agree with your comment about deploying proper legions.
I wa so dissappointed when I found out that I couldn't form fully organised legions. Why include legionary eagles and aim for realism in other areas of the game and ignore this fundamental need??? Pretty dumb given that I can't see any problems including this facilty into the game. Imagine being able to recreate the legions of old - Italia, Augusta, Germania, Hispana and Macedonia and all the others.

Most people want the facility to recruite First Cohorts and be able to retrain. (I have been playing this game constantly since its release. I've probably played at least ten campaigns and never yet been awarded a First Cohort).
To stop people raising First Cohort armies it could be made that First Cohort numbers relate to the number of Legionary cohorts the Player has raised, eg. 1 for every 10 as per historical. If you include the forming of proper cohorts into proper legions, recreating the old legion titles, it could be made so that the combat/morale bonuses only apply when the legion is fully formed.

There are a lot of possibilities here for expanding the gameplay interaction.

Could you not include a facility where un-named legions acquire a legionary title from some heroic victory or campaign?? Maybe the senate could award a title as a reward for fullfilling a hazardous mission??

Anyone agree?????

As for the rapid routing of units. I agree also. In the vanilla game I got very frustrated with my inabilty to beat some weaker armies because my units wouldn't follow my battle plan as they were already running from the field.

I started to look around the forums for something to make a difference and found it in Gauis Julius R:TR 3.1 Mod. It addresses many of the unbalanced combat issues as well as some very nice tweaks in the Campaign game.

For me the best feature of this Mod is the change to poulation growth.

I am currently at 203BC, playing Julii H/H level. Hastati, Principes, and Triarii are available from the off giving the Roman player to chance to field a balanced Early Republic army right away. These are graded into Early, Standard, and Late types fixed from Militia/Legion/Army Barracks with the Late types of each having the full unit stats as in the Vanilla game.

No archers are available until after Marius. Funditores(slingers) are know available instead.

Because of the changes to population growth and that all Buildings now take longer to build faction growth is much slower and IMHO, more balanced.

In my game I don't expect Marius to happen for about another 40-50 Years (about 160/150BC). I now have time to raise an army with good experience levels across all units and unit types. One of my armies has fought, I think, 38 battles. All of the units in this army, excepting full replacement units, have two experience stripes. Most have three and several have one or even two silver stripes. One of my two Funditores(slingers) has three silver stripes. I no longer have morale problems as long as I keep my young 28-y-o 8 star general out of combat.

Combat has become more of a slug fest where even my three bronze stripe Early Hastati can know fight, and at least hold there own long enough until support arrives, Gaulish Chosen Swordsmen. Thankfully these monsters are still quite rare.

If you are looking for a better all round game experience I would strongly reccomend Gauis Julius Mod over at the TotalWar Centre.