Enlighten me

[antisocialmunky]

Dayve has a point. He's not saying to convince but rather argue the point with exaggeration but don't let that get in the way. Phalangites in RTW are overpowered and Macedonia was gassed by all those wars and emigration of its people eastward. While they weren't 'pushed aside' or could 'only field rabble,' they weren't the crack troops of Alexander's army. At the end of the day, all he's saying is that the army compositions are too lavished for a realistic battle.

@Dayve. The Macedonian Army did manage to do well against the Romans in parts of battles. Usually they won part of the battle and lost somewhere else. Without heavy infantry support, the Macedonians couldn't check the Romans defeating part of the line while the Romans could move men to counter a breakthough.

[Βελισάριος]

One thing everyone needs to understand. Actually two things

1.) I am not denying Rome's (massive) impact on history, nor do I presume to deny their military prowess. Ave! They did a good job.
I am merely of the opinion that phalanx armies are superior.

2.) The most important thing one needs to understand is, as you stated in a way, Rome's victory over Macedonia was due to the fact that the Macedonians and the rest of the Greeks were tattered by so many wars among each other.

If you really want to see which faction could have been greater or is in the game, you need to pit each factions elite against the other's. It's the only way to settle this matter.

And the army posted above is not a-historical, let's get our semantics straight, it is, I will be the first to admit, anachronistic. But that is a different issue.
Now, antisocialmunky put it very well, the Macedonians that the Romans faced were no rabble, nor were they Alexander's finest.

On a sidenote (and back on topic). Maion's army is defeatable even with Polybian units, as the following experiment will show. 40.000 Mnai was the price. I was left with 3.000 and the AI, 300, and they had a 19-stack. 3200 Macedonians vs. 3000 Romans, roughly. Hard difficulty.
And the successor army was shamefully slaughtered. But hey, I think it was you Dayve who was quoted as saying "You're fighting the AI, how could you NOT win?"

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I didn't even need the Accensi, bloody useless. It was the Triarii that won the battle.

My first battle with the Romani, by the way... only noticed this after it was over.

[BurningEGO]

I'm not fishing for anything.

The point of this game is to settle the "Which army was better, Rome or Greece?" question. In history, we already know which one was better. In the game, it cannot be tested properly, because people will not use historical armies. The army posted a while ago with nothing but elites in it is simply not historical for the time this game is set in. A mix of any of those troops with a lot of levies is, but not a 100% elite army that never existed in this time frame.

Instead people should be picking individual battles between Rome and Greece/Macedonia/Seleukia and recreating those. That would be a much easier thing to test with the game.

Hellenic warfare would beat Roman warfare any day frankly. As it did.

Of course Rome won in the end due to sheer overwhelming numbers. How many times did Rome get their armies totaly destroyed, and still managed to raise new ones?

You can easily confirm what i am saying just by seeing what hapened to Pyrrhus and to Carthage. And you can of course say that Rome could beat Macedonia any day as it did, but, by the time they actually beated Macedonia, Greek warfare had returned to the stone age, for it was mostly only a clash of phalanx.

[Dayve]

How many times did Rome get their armies totaly destroyed, and still managed to raise new ones?

Against the KH or Macedonia? A grand total of none.

Pyrrhus had some success and so did Carthage, but a little success is worthless if you still eventually get conquered and don't see independence for another 1,400 years.

[BurningEGO]

"Some sucesses"? He never got defeated by the romans! (Pyrrhus)

little success is worthless if you still eventually get conquered and don't see independence for another 1,400 years.

The results arent the point. The point is, that the roman war machine wasnt that "awesome". After all their warfare was based on what? Sending wave after wave. Overwhelming numbers over and over again instead of using their brain.

Even despite the countless fiascos Rome suffered, for example, during the 2nd Punic war, they managed to win in the end. That just shows how big their manpower pool/economy was. And that yes, was Rome's greatest strength.

Whenever facing someone who used some sort of "hellenic warfare", in equal grounds (and sometimes even with a vast superiority), they lost. Rome always lacked proper cavalry, and given the fact that heavy infantry units are slow, their enemies always exploited that weakness to deliver a blow either on the flanks or in the rear.

You can easily see that in Cannae, for example. Although in that battle the carthaginian infantry also had an important role.

[Husker98]

A typical diadochi/ macedonian army would be fairly large and heavily reliant on infantry and cavalry.
the composition of my seleucid AAR army is comprised of....

6-9 Pikemen
4 cavalry usually medium
2 skirmishers
1-2 archers
1 general


this was a more common "field" army makeup of the time

[Husker98]

"Some sucesses"? He never got defeated by the romans! (Pyrrhus)



The results arent the point. The point is, that the roman war machine wasnt that "awesome". After all their warfare was based on what? Sending wave after wave. Overwhelming numbers over and over again instead of using their brain.

Even despite the countless fiascos Rome suffered, for example, during the 2nd Punic war, they managed to win in the end. That just shows how big their manpower pool/economy was. And that yes, was Rome's greatest strength.

Whenever facing someone who used some sort of "hellenic warfare", in equal grounds (and sometimes even with a vast superiority), they lost. Rome always lacked proper cavalry, and given the fact that heavy infantry units are slow, their enemies always exploited that weakness to deliver a blow either on the flanks or in the rear.

You can easily see that in Cannae, for example. Although in that battle the carthaginian infantry also had an important role.

something you will have to accept though is that Rome developed a strategy that EB cant replicate. when roman legions where faced with Hellenic/Macedonian style warfare they tossed their pila and well see for your self...



The Phalanx was not an all terrain battle formation either unless you were on flat level ground the following happens.... the image and excerpt below or from the website http://warandgame.wordpress.com/2008...-pike-phalanx/

Regarding the causes of the Roman victories, Polybius wrote in his classical comment on Macedonian and Roman tactics that nothing could withstand the frontal charge of the phalanx as long as it preserved its characteristic formation.22 However, ‘ … it is acknowledged that the phalanx requires level and clear ground with no obstacles such as ditches, clefts, clumps of trees, ridges and water courses, all of which are sufficient to impede and break up such a formation …. the Romans do not make their line equal in force to the enemy and expose all the legions to a frontal attack by the phalanx, but part of their forces remain in reserve and the rest engage the enemy. Afterwards whether the phalanx drives back by its charge the force opposed to it or is repulsed by this force, its own peculiar formation is broken up. For either in following a retreating foe or in flying before an attacking foe, they leave behind the other parts of their own army, upon which the enemy’s reserve have room enough in the space formerly held by the phalanx to attack no longer in front but appearing by a lateral movement on the flank and rear of the phalanx …. the Macedonian formation is at times of little use and at times of no use at all, because the phalanx soldier can be of service neither in detachments nor singly, while the Roman formation is efficient. For every Roman soldier, once he is armed and sets about his business, can adapt himself equally well to every place and time and can meet attack from every quarter . He is likewise equally prepared and equally in condition whether he has to fight together with the whole army or with a part of it or in maniples or singly
In this way Polybius clearly presented what was most likely to happen in every encounter between phalanx and legion.

The point is that the Phalanx was not flexible and its soldiers when forced into man on man combat where inferior to better trained roman legionaries. the Phalanx was great but the problem was that you had to be on flat ground with out any stumps large rocks or any other formation to screw up the formation. and more often than not you are fighting in or on terrain not favorable to this formation. Great Generals like alexander and phillip made this formation work only because on top of being geniuses they wouldn't let their men chase retreating troops and chose their battlefields and didn't let their men leave the area for fear of exposing or breaking up the formation. so in the end the phalanx was out dated by a style of warfare that was more flexible and could be executed in almost any terrain. sory for the long post guys lol

[Dayve]

Whenever facing someone who used some sort of "hellenic warfare", in equal grounds (and sometimes even with a vast superiority), they lost.

I love how you're forgetting to mention the battles where Rome fought against Hellenic enemies with vastly superior armies and won with little casualties.

[Macilrille]

"2.) The most important thing one needs to understand is, as you stated in a way, Rome's victory over Macedonia was due to the fact that the Macedonians and the rest of the Greeks were tattered by so many wars among each other."

And Rome was not by the 2nd Punic when they took on Macedonia and defeated them in 2nd macedonian? Have you any idea how much Italy had suffered from the Punic wars? If not Brunt's "Italian manpower" will give you a good idea.


Edit, I have some musings on legion Vs Phalanx in this thread, I simply am too lazy to repost something debated 2 weeks ago ;-) sorry for that https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...25#post2123625

[BurningEGO]

Thing is, i am not speaking of Phalanx to Legion battles. But hellenic warfare as a whole - which means, that infantry has a defensive role, and will hold the enemy, while cavalry or some other elite troops will conduct deadly flank/rear attacks. In a short resume, the cavalry or whatever elite troops used to perform such actions were the real killers.

Roman warfare was the opposite - infantry was the main killer while cavalry had a supportive role. Whenever these 2 type of warfares collided, Rome was usually badly beaten.

I love how you're forgetting to mention the battles where Rome fought against Hellenic enemies with vastly superior armies and won with little casualties.

I already said - when Rome fought any greeks or macedonia, the greeks or the macedons obviously were badly beaten because they limited themselves in using only phalanx formations. That is not Hellenic warfare. Or at least not the latest form of it.

If you check Cynoscephalae or Pydna, you will see that Macedonia barely even bothered using cavalry.