Request for assistance and a commentary on Rome Total War.

[Korlon]

There are a number of mods that slow down a battle by lowering the lethality of weapons. Men kill each other slower, meaning fatigue can really show itself. Fighting just a little while will drop it to winded and tired.

You should be joyful that a game such as this is so long! Rarely can you find a game that you only spend a few bucks on but has such high replayability. Also, don't feel compelled to finish your faction's victory conditions, go try out a new campaign with a different faction. Heck, I never even won a game before.

You're right about forests not having any sort of effect on chariots, but there's also a hidden trait associated with losing combat effectiveness in said battles. Mounted troops lose either attack or defense, I'm not sure, when fighting in forests. Certainly you'll see that archers simply hit trees with their arrows rather than the enemy fifty meters away. So there is something to be said for forests.

[RLucid]

You should be joyful that a game such as this is so long! Rarely can you find a game that you only spend a few bucks on but has such high replayability....

You're right about forests not having any sort of effect on chariots, but there's also a hidden trait associated with losing combat effectiveness in said battles. Mounted troops lose either attack or defense, I'm not sure, when fighting in forests. Certainly you'll see that archers simply hit trees with their arrows rather than the enemy fifty meters away. So there is something to be said for forests.

Well said!!

On 2nd point, I'm surprised. I had this battle, where I had Town Watch re-inforcements near a wood, who were in danger of attack by Britons, before my main force could get over the hill. The rub was, they were in great spot to ambush routing Briton troops, fleeing the field as my army took effect. So I didn't want to withdraw them immediately but try to learn how to use them.

It was one of those battles, which was interesting enough to repeat from save game feature.

To my surprise, grouping the TW and running them into the wood at maps edge, turned the normally timid into heroes! Before battle engaged, the Britons attacked them with Peasants, who got seen off, and then sent in a chariot unit.

To my surprise, the battle squares held in the wood, and actually routed the "feared" chariot unit. I'm sure Hastati would generally have failed out in the open.

My theory was that the wood, was preventing proper maneuver, so the desperate TW were able to hold out long enough, and inflict enough kills to see off the chariots.

But now reading this, unless it was due to a reduced attack/defense bonus (implying Wood does effect things), I'm short of an explanation for this heroic feat by the militiamen.

Perhaps the grouping, meant that when the "General" was being attacked, the 2nd unit in hiding effectively ambushed the chariots, on flank or rear, enabling them to see off the other units whilst losing about 25% of their force in total.

As they then went unmolested and were able to bag routers later on, it was amusing seeing the stats and seeing their amazingly good kill ratio!

[Mek Simmur al Ragaski]

Most of my battles are 'mopping up actions', like the one i just fought, i was outnumbered, but i had managed to bring in some of my generals from other towns to fight off the gauls light cavalry, as soon as the light cavalry flankers died, the light infantry of mine decimated their light infantry, and pretty soon the battle was just a 'mopping up action' The battles do take a while, i would be suprised if i had taken 30 hours kicking the AI's backside, its worth it in the end...