Army Formations

[Cambyses]

They didn't wait for the Hastati to break. They waited for the enemy to become tired and worn out and for enemy morale to weaken.

Many enemy armies like Celts would arrange their best, bravest, strongest and most heavily armed warriors up front. These were the leaders, the nobles who led by example and inspired the lesser levies to bravery. Once these became tired and dispirited as the enemy refused to give way after a longish slog, they would be much more vulnerable to renewed attack than they would be at the start of the battle.

Holding large parts of their army in reserve probably allowed the Romans to mount aggressive charges and continued attacks for far longer than forces who simply arranged their armies in a big block. In a big block the rear ranks provide cohesion and boost morale, but as Cannae and other battles demonstrated they did not exactly make the formation that much stronger. (Pike phalanxes aside) Even though it's mostly the front-ranks fighting, the rear ranks would tire out physically and psychologically from incessantly being under threat of (missile) attack and uncertain of what is happening up front. A fresh line would not suffer from these issues.

All these reserves must also have allowed far greater tactical flexibility. Weaker points can more easily be reinforced, breakthroughs exploited, etc. Keeping three lines seems like an insanely large quantity of reserves, but if we accept the school of thought that said battles for the most part were rather tentative affairs with fierce hand-to-hand combat occurring only in shorter bursts or locally, until one side gained the advantage and the other broke, then it becomes far more believable.

In the game engine it doesn't work like exactly like this, but fresh troops do have a huge advantage in killing rates. If you deploy your army in a thinner line on guard-mode, fight until the enemy gets tired and then move your fresh second line in, you can get the advantage a deeper single-line would not have gotten.

Admittedly, in my Roman armies I mostly use the third line to intercept cavalry attacks. And I don't play multiplayer, I don't know if historical Roman tactics stand any chance there. I suspect not.

Exactly. Also quite often troops would not be continuously engaged for hours fighting the same enemy, The enemy would withdraw and attack again. Clearly this kind of fighting was more common in certain cultures than other however. Remember that the Romans "three" lines were just the heavy infantry, all the other support troops that were brought to battle were designed to tire the enemy out before even the hastati were engaged. (Although this was rarely successful). Many of Hannibal's greatest triumphs against the Romans early on in his campaign were because he was able to engage the Romans so fast that they had not got themselves set to fight a patient battle. He could attack and defeat the Romans as they arrived and they did not have the advantage of being fresh.

Cannae and Zama are of course exceptions to this, each in their own different way.

In game Ive found it best to let the velites fill the gaps between the Hastati maniples and hold their ground. The Principes are close behind. Certainly not behind the back ranks of the Hastati. When the battle has progressed a little and the enemy is tiring, then I charge the principes in and then withdraw the velites and use them to harrass the flanks.

Starting with your cavalry behind your lines rather than deployed on the flanks means the AI makes less effort to send troops to chase them around the battlefield in an annoying and unrealistic manner. Instead he will come at you much more head on - his flanking forces will fall on your second line (often allied spearmen on the edges for me). At about this stage it is a good idea to send the cavalry out to do their job. Often in history the cavalry fought first, but this is never a good idea in EB.

[ChingizLink]

Exactly. Also quite often troops would not be continuously engaged for hours fighting the same enemy, The enemy would withdraw and attack again. Clearly this kind of fighting was more common in certain cultures than other however.

Since I'm a huge fight fan (I was even a wannabe UFC/MMA fighter from high school until a few years ago), I picture this process (where each side in a pitched battle would basically make an on-the-spot gentleman's agreement to break off and stop fighting in order to take a little time to catch their breath) by remembering pretty much every fistfight I've witnessed (well, those that weren't over realy quick or broken up, anyway), whether from when I was a kid, in high school, college, or those I've seen as an adult. They're usually 2 chest pounding idiots swinging wildly at each other, rolling around on the ground, etc, for a maximum of a minute or two before both are obviously so exhausted they can barely lift their arms up and/or look like they might vomit any second.

At this point, it is not uncommon to see two people, in a fist fight, either agree to call it even, and act all buddy buddy (the level of buddy buddyness is inverse to how drunk they are), or to take a break (which is also something that never stops being hilarious) before they make asses out of themselves again for a few minutes.

Now, imagine that you're a hoplite, legionarius, or any other infantryman in ancient or medieval times--you have 30-50 lbs of armor on, it's pretty hot out, you're holding a large, awkwardly shaped shield that probably weighs 5-10 lbs (and an awkward shape or large volume makes something seem like it's oh, I don't know, about A ZILLION TIMES HEAVIER than it really is!), and you and another guy have been hacking away at each other in vain for a good part of 15-20 minutes. Agreeing to a little truce, or maybe even taking a break AND trying to find a weaker dance partner, seems totally plausible...