Pitched Battles

[amoebe]

Hi all,


Now that my winter break has started, I'm downloading EB I to play it once more. And there is something that has always been irking me ever since I've been playing these TW games.

I always preferred the idea of a single, large, pitched battle over numerous small encounters. Especially because going into battle for the umpteenth time with an enemy captain gets boring after a while - even though you need to often do so in order to weaken them and progress your game. Autoresolve is an option, but quite costly for your fancy units.
Additionally, siege battles are kind of easy and boring as well, but they seem dictate a major part of wars too.


Now, it's been a while since I played EB, so I don't remember this balance that well. I do remember fighting large battles, but also a lot of smaller battles. My question is, what are your experiences in this, and do you know any way to increase this kind of behaviour by the AI (ie. stacking their armies rather than dividing it, and meeting out in the field) ?


Thanks,
Titus

[Duguntz]

honestly, i'm not an expert on that matter, but I think it depends more on the faction than on the beheaviour. as I experianced it, the roman have the habbits to send decisive full stack over an ennemy, so instead of 120467 small quater stack battle, you might have to fight 3 or 4 major main battle, then, when you get into their territories, some smaller one as they send their garrison at you... i'm playing mostly as Sweboz and those are the only example I have for big pitched battl;e, as my other neighbour the Kelts are rather a guerrilla type.

Well, this is talking by gaming experiance, and maybe it's not ''official'' but he! i hope i didn't confused you too much!

[anubis88]

a funny thing just happened i my pahlava campaign.
I had a spy near Massalia and rome and Lusotanna were fighting over it.
The Lusos had a half stack while the Romans had a huge stack nearby. And the romans attacked the Lusotana stack 7 times!!!! with small armies in the same AI turn. The Lusotana stack got a tiny bit smaller after every battle, but won all 7 of them, while the huge stack did not move.
If this happened to me, I would be angry as hell.

[Duguntz]

a funny thing just happened i my pahlava campaign.
I had a spy near Massalia and rome and Lusotanna were fighting over it.
The Lusos had a half stack while the Romans had a huge stack nearby. And the romans attacked the Lusotana stack 7 times!!!! with small armies in the same AI turn. The Lusotana stack got a tiny bit smaller after every battle, but won all 7 of them, while the huge stack did not move.
If this happened to me, I would be angry as hell.

That is the definition of : really stupid way to make a war of attrition by sending men to the choppa! anyway, after if they send there full stack, they've chance to be victors... at the cost of twice more men... perhaps a kind of phirric victory :)

[Vilkku92]

I quite seldom have those "small" battles (those that count as small to me, anyway), but rather many large/medium-sized battles. The AI often has funds to raise many large armies (all hail those scripted bonuses! ), and sometimes I have had to defeat 2-3 fullstacks in a single turn. This depends on campaign difficulty, though, AI armies are much smaller on medium than on hard.

honestly, i'm not an expert on that matter, but I think it depends more on the faction than on the beheaviour. as I experianced it, the roman have the habbits to send decisive full stack over an ennemy, so instead of 120467 small quater stack battle, you might have to fight 3 or 4 major main battle, then, when you get into their territories, some smaller one as they send their garrison at you... i'm playing mostly as Sweboz and those are the only example I have for big pitched battl;e, as my other neighbour the Kelts are rather a guerrilla type.

Should I be worried? I'm on year 227 bc with Sweboz, and not yet in war with romans, I'm in fact allied with them. I have mostly fought against celts, and those battles have been mostly quite large, in fact what I wrote above comes from my experinces against them. Then again, I've quite actively been waging war on them and I control those belgae regions. But still, is something wrong with my game?

[Duguntz]

I don't think so, it must depend how you conduct your campain. for me for example, i went rather to the south, to catch their rich region, and only defending against the celts who topught they could enter germany. as roleplay, once every year I send a stack to raid a city or two, then comeback in Germany leaving destruction behind me... it'ts keep them weak and they still struggle in their civil war. then as I'm conquering more south, the Roman seems to start to worry when i reach vilendicopolis (i think, where they train helvet phalanx and alpine phalanx), if they're not at war with Epeiros, they usualy come within a couple of years... now, If you extand mostly toward the Atlantic, i can understand that the Celt get pretty bothered about it and send you couple of Full stack! So my guess is that it depends how you conduct your campain...

[satalexton]

I prefer ambushes when using factions like Sweboz. The effectiveness of engaging in pitch battles are somewhat dependent on the faction's units armour level =/ Healers help a lot tho.

p.s. as sweboz, alpine troops are your friend. Axes and actual armour.

[WinsingtonIII]

honestly, i'm not an expert on that matter, but I think it depends more on the faction than on the beheaviour. as I experianced it, the roman have the habbits to send decisive full stack over an ennemy, so instead of 120467 small quater stack battle, you might have to fight 3 or 4 major main battle, then, when you get into their territories, some smaller one as they send their garrison at you... i'm playing mostly as Sweboz and those are the only example I have for big pitched battl;e, as my other neighbour the Kelts are rather a guerrilla type.

Well, this is talking by gaming experiance, and maybe it's not ''official'' but he! i hope i didn't confused you too much!

I sincerely doubt that the AI behaves differently based on what faction it is playing. My guess is that the Romani tend to send bigger stacks against you because they have a better economy than the Gallic factions. I'm not certain on this, but I just really doubt that the AI actually has a different campaign map behavior depending on which faction it is playing.

[artavazd]

Hi all,


Now that my winter break has started, I'm downloading EB I to play it once more. And there is something that has always been irking me ever since I've been playing these TW games.

I always preferred the idea of a single, large, pitched battle over numerous small encounters. Especially because going into battle for the umpteenth time with an enemy captain gets boring after a while - even though you need to often do so in order to weaken them and progress your game. Autoresolve is an option, but quite costly for your fancy units.
Additionally, siege battles are kind of easy and boring as well, but they seem dictate a major part of wars too.


Now, it's been a while since I played EB, so I don't remember this balance that well. I do remember fighting large battles, but also a lot of smaller battles. My question is, what are your experiences in this, and do you know any way to increase this kind of behaviour by the AI (ie. stacking their armies rather than dividing it, and meeting out in the field) ?


Thanks,
Titus

change unit recrutment from 1 turn to 2 turns, and you will get the type of battles your looking for (well itll be close to what you want)

[olly]

Just choose a Selucid Satrap. Whenever I've been Baktria, Pontus or Hay I always end up with stack after stack of Selucid and then Ptolemaic (is that a word?) armies coming at me.

It will take a long time to wear them down but you get a lot of big batlles.

Actually I need to do a Baktrian campaign again as they are fun. And you get some big old Indian cities and armies to fight which do give a real sense of accomplishment when you beat them.