Worst Defeat

[Guyus Germanicus]

I can't recall any specific defeat as being the worst. Any time I lose a battle playing with a large army is a hard moment, to be sure. There are certain conditions that can develop in the course of a battle that can almost guarantee defeat if you don't counter them. Charging uphill into an enemy line is a bad move in almost any circumstance, even if you have the better troops. It's important to get the high ground on an opponent, or to do the best you can to neutralize their high ground advantage in some way. It allows your missile troops to fire for better effect. And it gives your line more weight of effect charging into an enemy.

Probably my most disheartening defeats come when I'm fighting with a large army and am badly outnumbered by an enemy who has some long range missile troops, chariots and masses of infantry. The trick to surviving is to try to keep some sort of line cohesion, protect your flanks and rear from enemy units getting in behind you to disrupt your archers or slam into the rear of your infantry. If you let your units chase after individual enemy units, or routing enemy troops, you will leave gaps in your defense that the AI will exploit. Your units giving chase will also get surrounded and destroyed. Inevitably my worse defeats come when I lose line cohesion and the battle becomes chaos. Or, I let my cavalry get too far afield from my infantry, so that my infantry become vulnerable to flank and rear attacks.

I've found that it also helps to keep your cavalry all together, or at least in groups of two and three units, so you can bring a weight of charge against the rear of the enemy units engaging your infantry. If you can neutralize the enemy cavalry early be ganging up on them with multiple cavalry units, it leaves the enemy infantry more exposed to your counter punches with cavalry as the battle progresses. Their flank protection has been destroyed!

I guess the key is - line cohesion! Don't let your units get spread out all over the field. If they start moving off, bring them back quickly to your original position if possible, and then reset your line as best you can. It doesn't have to be perfect. Your units just need to be close enough to provide some kind of 'shield' to parry an enemy strike and/or give some kind of mutual support to each other. Also, I tend to turn off skirmish mode on my archers, slingers and peltasts that are stationed behind my main line. I don't want them fleeing away when the enemy approaches. I may suffer a few casualties because they're standing under some enemy missile fire, etc. But it could be much worse. They could be fleeing away behind my line and get zapped by roaming enemy cavalry units or generals. Best keep them close to the line where your infantry can shield them from enemy cavalry and you can bring you own cavalry into close support. Just a thought.

Make the enemy come back to you rather than you running off after them. Eventually, they will get worn out running all over the field. Tired troops are much more vulnerable and will rout more easily. If I let my cavalry get too far away from my infantry, I'm asking for trouble. Once the last enemy unit has routed you can turn loose a fullscale pursuit. But if enemy units are still regrouping and returning to the fray. You need to protect your infantry. The less you move around the field, the less tired your own troops will be. The AI can control its units better than you can control yours.

I fault myself in most battle losses to one or both of those issues - poor choice of ground to fight or allowing my line to disintegrate into a bunch of single unit chases. In that, RTW combat is more true to life than one might expect from a game.