New Thoughts and New Questions

So, I realized that for the most part, my battlefield skills suck.../bad/, so I decided to play around with the custom battles. And I realize that almost always(I give both sides 100k, that way I can get the troops I want) the AI will go for insane bonuses, Gold or Silver chevrons(?) in experience, weapons /and/ armour. Which gives all kind of insane bonuses. But, this is just a regular whine, so don't give it much thought.

What I wanted to know is how can I improve my tactical ability beyond 'absolute basic'? Beside trial and error, and trial and error, and so on, and so forth?

As for the strategy map. I really do detest not having enough loyal, even if my cities are raking in a lot of cash. Also, why can't a general gain a triumph against the /Epeirotes/, I mean, the Epeirotes for god sake. :D

And finally, by 232bc, I've taken all of Italy up to Massalia in the west, Patavium(I think) in the east and Mediolanum in the north, and all of sicily. As well, basically everything from Sparta all the way up to Pella. Is this good progress?

For custom battles, you don't have to let the computer generate it's own army. You can instead pick it's units yourself.

As regards your tactical question. If you want to get better read, the Art of War for a start, read Caesar's Commentaries, read Polybius. Read all those guys.

What you'll rapidly realise is that every battle between relatively matched forces works on the same principles. A Line on infantry with cavalry on the flanks, an infantry and cavalry reserve and skirmishers to soften them up.

Your infantry should be in a single line, your whole army needs to stay together and you have to stop yourself from getting out-flanked, thats what cavalry is for. Aside from that you just need to learn to control your army and learn the proper uses and tactics for different unit types.

Find a way of fighting that suits you, then fight everyone else on your terms.

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Originally Posted by aleh

And finally, by 232bc, I've taken all of Italy up to Massalia in the west, Patavium(I think) in the east and Mediolanum in the north, and all of sicily. As well, basically everything from Sparta all the way up to Pella. Is this good progress?

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I use this website when playing as the Romans. It shows you where the Romans had conquered by what date. Good website. http://www.personal.kent.edu/~bkharv...ion/expans.htm

By 232BC you should only have conquered Northern Italy, Sicily and Sardinia and Corsica. Naughty boy!

But as the EB team says, you don't have to follow anything, just play however you like.. Forge your own history.

Start small. Don't go for large, 20-unit armies immediately: they cost too much attention to manage. Instead, try out different tactics with a small number of units (6-10) with little or no upgrades. And remember: the central point of all battle tactics is to focus your strength as effectivily as possible on a small section of the enemy army, while at the same time preventing the enemy from doing the same to you.

You shouldn't use full stack armies anyway... It gives you an unfair advantage over the AI because even when they use a full stack, they don't know what they're doing... They suicide their general straight away, charge their cavalry head on into your front line and get slaughtered, and most of the time 70% of their full stack is made up of skirmishers and other cheap rabble... I always stick to 15 or less unit armies, this also gives you the ability to create as near as possible accurate Roman legion...

I have 2 hastati, 2 principes, 1 triarii and 2 leves which makes 7 Roman units... Then you add your 7 allied units which aren't in the game yet and a general and hey presto... Accurate legion.

Most of the "allied" units in a pre-marian legion would look and fight exactly like the roman troops, they'd just be latins or, later, other italians. There are of course notable exceptions.

So, the allies that fought alongside, for example, the frontline of Hastati, would themselves be hastati?

The basic thing to remember is that, for the most part, warfare in this period is like a game of scissors-paper-rock: each troop type is good at a certain and is, in turn, poor at another. Finding what your faction is good at (i.e. the Romani who have strong infantry but fairly weak cavalry and missile troops and basically no fast light cavalry) and then base your tactical choices on exploiting those advantages and minimising those weaknesses.

If you want to make "historical legions" then you can, but it might be tricky for (and seem weird to) a beginner to artificially restrict the army's strengths. If you want to make an all-principe force and think it might work, then try it! Once you have the basic idea about how to use your chosen army you can start looking for more challenges. :)

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Originally Posted by Dayve

You shouldn't use full stack armies anyway... It gives you an unfair advantage over the AI because even when they use a full stack, they don't know what they're doing... They suicide their general straight away, charge their cavalry head on into your front line and get slaughtered, and most of the time 70% of their full stack is made up of skirmishers and other cheap rabble... I always stick to 15 or less unit armies, this also gives you the ability to create as near as possible accurate Roman legion...

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Sometimes that "rabble" are those damn peltastai though! They can be surprisingly tough!

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Originally Posted by Trithemius

The basic thing to remember is that, for the most part, warfare in this period is like a game of scissors-paper-rock: each troop type is good at a certain and is, in turn, poor at another. Finding what your faction is good at (i.e. the Romani who have strong infantry but fairly weak cavalry and missile troops and basically no fast light cavalry) and then base your tactical choices on exploiting those advantages and minimising those weaknesses.

If you want to make "historical legions" then you can, but it might be tricky for (and seem weird to) a beginner to artificially restrict the army's strengths. If you want to make an all-principe force and think it might work, then try it! Once you have the basic idea about how to use your chosen army you can start looking for more challenges. :)

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Yeah but i've been playing since it came out... I like playing as historically accurate as i can...

And yeah peltastai can be devestating... I haven't played EB for months, i'm waiting for a more complete version, but when i did play my heavy infantry and light infantry and cavalry and... Well, anything that wasn't a phalanx unit got decimated by one volley of peltasts.

...Actually you EB guys might wanna fix that. Frontally, peltasts shouldn't be all that damaging against guys with huge shields and a coat of mail behind it... Even against hastati... Frontally they shouldn't be so effective... Only against unarmoured and with small shields...

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Originally Posted by Dayve

Yeah but i've been playing since it came out... I like playing as historically accurate as i can...

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Me too! I even use the quincunx for big battles. :)

Although I do have small groups of equites as "police men" chasing down rebels... I use it to train my younger family members although I am not sure how historical it really is...

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Originally Posted by Dayve

And yeah peltastai can be devestating... I haven't played EB for months, i'm waiting for a more complete version, but when i did play my heavy infantry and light infantry and cavalry and... Well, anything that wasn't a phalanx unit got decimated by one volley of peltasts.

...Actually you EB guys might wanna fix that. Frontally, peltasts shouldn't be all that damaging against guys with huge shields and a coat of mail behind it... Even against hastati... Frontally they shouldn't be so effective... Only against unarmoured and with small shields...

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They seem quite good in melee too; they were able to hold up against my Camillan Hastati for a while which seemed rather odd to me.

Yeah i use the quincunx(sp) for every battle basically... I'm playing RTR at the moment whilst waiting for a more finished version but that particular formation is all you really need. You end up with a small-ish front line, but you space the units out so usually the enemy army will all charge at the front line, so you'll be using a small amount of men to hold up a huge amount of the enemy, at which point your second line can come around and encircle them in a U shape, whilst your cavalry can smash into their rear closing the U off and trapping everybody inside...

It doesn't always work, but most of the time it does... Especially when you are the one attacking. But if you're fighting against phalanx armies, they usually split them up and attack individual units so the grand encirclement can't take place, although you can encircle each unit individually... It's not quite as fun as seeing 1000 men encircled, fighting to the death because there is no other option and hearing that 'squelch' of a sword entering the body... But it still does the job.

So this is why the Romans had so much success really... If you use the quincunx correctly then you can react to absolutely anything the enemy can do to you... Unless of course you are massively outnumbered, but even then you can pull it off.

As for peltastai in melee... Any unit in the game can hold up against Camillan hastati... They stink. ~D

The peltasts are bloody /murder/. I used the quinqux formation in all of my battles in Italy and the southern Alps. But as soon as I started seriously fighting the Epeirotes, I quickly learned to change that, else my hastati and principes would be cut down by volleys after volleys before the battle lines even met.

What I did was I completely reversed the quincux(I can never learn to spell it right). Where I placed the triarii in front(both because they are stable and won't be devastated by the peltasts), spaced out normally, with the second line occupied by the Principes. Basically, they're there for two reasons. First, to stop my phalanxes from being encircled, and secondly once the main lines have engaged to go through the holes and do just that to the engaged enemies. My hastati, I use as basically just reserves, and to turn the tide of battle once I feel it has reached, or reaching, that "critical point". The cavalry I use as cavalry-deterrents, skirmishers, to crash into the back of the enemy force once it's fully engaged, and to mop up the routing enemies. My allied forces are used as they are needed.

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Originally Posted by Dayve

I use this website when playing as the Romans. It shows you where the Romans had conquered by what date. Good website. http://www.personal.kent.edu/~bkharv...ion/expans.htm

By 232BC you should only have conquered Northern Italy, Sicily and Sardinia and Corsica. Naughty boy!

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HA. I use the exact same site to judge my Roman campaigns. I also use it for Carthage, as I like a historical game, at least until about 220 when I reenact Hannibal's march and completely destroy Roman infastructure. Usually not that fun after that happens though. But up until that point I pretty much gift them sicily and corsica and sardinia.

It's gonna be hard for me to follow that in EB though... With the 4 turns per year, there's going to be long instances of peace, and when there are those, i start to build up economy and expand my armies... Then i sort of get this massive uncontrollable urge to own my nearest neighbour... :wall:

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Originally Posted by Dayve

It's gonna be hard for me to follow that in EB though... With the 4 turns per year, there's going to be long instances of peace, and when there are those, i start to build up economy and expand my armies... Then i sort of get this massive uncontrollable urge to own my nearest neighbour... :wall:

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Me to......the urge!!!!!:laugh4:

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"I don't fear the dark side as you do Obi wan"
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Read up on Alexander and the Romans. Better yet, order the "Decisive Battles" series DVD's from The History Channel's website.

I'd hardly consider myself any battlefield expert, especially not in EB (I just downloaded it), but I'll offer these pointers:

1) Don't practice as Eastern factions, pre-Marian Romans, or barbarians (reasons being, respectively: mastery of tactics is absolutely crucial for these armies, and you need to walk before you can run; fighting pre-Marius is much more obtuse and potentially overwhelming than post-Marius; its trickier because barbarians seem to dislike fighting battles in any formal context).

2) Do start practicing as Hellenic factions - they're very straightforward: big phalanx line makes contact with and holds enemy in place ("shield" or "anvil" of your army), cavalry moves around the flanks of the enemy and hits them in their rear ("sword" or "hammer" of your army). You'll learn how to finesse your cavalry in this way, and how to exploit your enemy to gain the upper hand.

3) Don't practice against Eastern factions, as those are a whole different kind of warring altogether.

4) Do practice in this order:

Hellenic vs. Hellenic: learn how to use flanking maneuvers to your advantage

Hellenic vs. barbarian: learn how to control the battle so that the enemy cannot gain momentum

Hellenic vs. Pre-Marius Roman: learn more about controlling the battle, and make them fight on YOUR terms

Hellenic vs. Marian Roman: learn yet more about maintaining the initiative in battle

Barbarian vs. Hellenic: learn how to beat your own previous tactics, so you understand strengths and weaknesses better

Barbarian vs. Barbarian: learn how to exploit shock and mass

Barbarian vs. Pre-Marius: learn how to make your opponent try and do too many things and once and end up doing nothing

Barbarian vs. Marian: learn how to split up your opponents formation to divide and conquer

Marian vs. Hellenic: learn how to be flexible and maintain the initiative by first reacting to his moves, then changing the situation to force him to react in turn

Marian vs. Barbarian: learn how to force the enemy to engage, then use your reserves to push them back

Marian vs. Pre-Marius: learn more about critical use of reserves

Eastern vs. any: learn how to use mobility to turn set-piece battles into turkey shoots

Eastern vs. Eastern: learn how to fight an enemy who doesn't want to engage you and whom you don't want to engage

Any vs. Eastern: learn how to deal with extreme frustration :wall: :laugh4:

4) Don't take any of my advice ~:thumb: