Pulling units out of combat, rotating units in and out of combat

[gollum]

Hello perplexedone and welcome to the org, enjoy your stay

In RTW units can get in and out of melee with surprising speed and so relatively few if any casualties. This is particularly so for cavalry units and so "rotary" charges (ie having a melee pocket that you charge in sequence with 2 or more or even just one cav units that you pull out after the charge to charge again) is a tactic that is particularly feasible.

Regarding infantry melee units that you seem to be asking about, they can be "blobbed" together ie they can occupy the same space and still fight at the same strength. This is actually not very good for gameplay as; some people even made a very big blob of units that was beating and routing each enemy unit in turn. This works paricularly well also with cavalry again, as cavalry is fast enough not to be bogged down from all sides so the flanking penalties can't become higher than the rate of loss and local outnumbering penalties the enemy of the cavalry is facing. Against the AI it is a tactic that can be pulled easily even with infantry melee units, i'd say.
Older incarnations of the game (STW and MTW) had in their engine a penalty for units that were fighting blobbed. Two units would fight at half strength and more i think wold fight at even less strength. This was precisely to prevent people from stacking their units and defeat the enemy army one by one unit that kills tactical gameplay.

In answer to your quetion, you can advance another of your units to the exact place the unit you want to substitute is and then, once the new unit is in and fights, you can just pull the first one out. This is feasible due to the blobbing being allowed. In that way, when the leaving unit turns its back it won;t receive casualties from the unit it was fighting it before.

In terms of tactics, the historical Roman tactic of tiring the enemy units with hastati then principes, then triarii, is not something that always works in the game. The reason this is not so, is because units fight better if you outnumber the enemy (there are morale and combat penalties associated with morale when your units fight outnumbered). This means that if you sacrifice your hastati line, your principes will be fighting outnumbered potentially and that puts you in danger due to both flanking possibilities the enemy has as well as morale penalties as mentioned.

Its better to actually use your best units up front in a melee fight. In this way you can rout the enemy's first wave of melee units that gives you a considerable advantage in battle. The only exception to this rule is when the enemyoutguns you (he has more missiles). In that case either use your missiles (javelineers and archers) or some fodder unit (town watch peasants etc) to receive the damage and then proceed with your melee units quickly to engage in between enemy volleys (or after the missile duel has ended if you can keep that for long ie you have equal missiles to the enemy).

There was a very instructive video of a battle where a Roman player defended a bridge against another Roman faction that he outnumbered and it was posted here in the collosseum, where you could see what happens when you engage the weak units first (the link is now deleted by the moderator unfortunately). The player in the video has some elite legionaires and lots of barbarian mercs and he put the barbarian mercs to fight at the bridgehead against the enemy legionaire melee units while keeping his own elites as reserves. The result was that predictably his weak barbarian mercs eventually routed and that made even his legionaires rout due to the outnumbering penalties.
The right way was to put the legions up front to fight and only replace them with the barbarian mercs as they got whttled down too much and to rest them. In a picthed battle exactly the same would apply, with the mercs being used to guard flanks, plug gaps in the line and also perform flank attacks.

Similary with early roman armies, use the principes or principes/triarii as your main battle line and use the Hastati to guard flanks, perform flank attacks and as reserves.

[perplexedone]

Hi Gollum, thank you for your welcome and post.

Interesting factoid about the game's mechanics. One thing about your strategy about using best units upfront, what if opposing army has good units and they are in reserve. You don't want to tire your best out. Then again, this is the AI and it isn't that bright.

[gollum]

Hello perplexedone,
it depends how much fatigue affects the gameplay. This varies from TW game to TW game.

Unlike in previous incarnations (STW and MTW), teh RTW battle AI does not understand fatigue. In effect he has no clue that his units get tired. To counteract this, unit marching and running speeds were increased by the developer, as, increased speeds incur smaller fatigue on a unit over a certain distance. This was also in conjuction with bringing TW in the mainstream market and hence making it accessible to a far wider audience. Hence having more action oriented gameplay with faster pace and less parameters to coordinate and consider was thought apparently ideal to sell the game in a younger audience and make it a mainstream hit. As it happened, it worked exactly like that.

In terms of tactics, this means that aiming to rest your units matters far less than winning the main engagement. This is made all the more so due to the introduction of high morale penalties from frightening units, artillery and perhaps cavalry charges and losses rates due to melee. In effect, the action in vanilla RTW battles is so fast that wearing down the enemy works mostly in few static situations that are dictated by the terrain as say bridge assaults. In such cases, it is indeed worth sending in your weakest melee troops, especially if you have a strong missile arm (archers, scorpions, ballistas). The AI melee units make a blob at the other end to resist them without much consideration of how many units or with how good units you attack. This is a universal feature of TW games by the way. You can then, tire that blob while reducing it (also reducing its morale) by firing at it with your archers and potentially anti-personel artillery if having a clear line of sight before sending in your fresh elites to crush the whittled down enemy.

The same tactic can be applied if you can pull it off in picthed battles. In order to do so, you can use medium melee units of relatively decent defence and put them in "defensive mode"ie hold formation/hold position. Remember to also make them of large depth (5 to 6 ranks deep) as that will make them last even more. Guard their flanks and have another melee line behind them, and once the enemy engages them in a blob, shoot in that blob with all your missiles (archers and javelins). If you use few units for the pinning effect and if the rest of your army is relatively high level or of equal numbers more or less to the enemy, then that tactic can pay off.
This tactic can be used in slight slopes particularly well at the point where the terrain makes a sag; if you put your pinning units at the end of a slope on oneside of the sag so they can fight downhill, then the incoming enemy units will be fighting slightly uphill while your missiles from behind your melee troops will have increadibly good sight of the enemy and can rake in lots of kills (as the oppposite slope of the sag will "lift them" to the eyesight of your archers and javs).

In other TW games, where fatigue is more of a factor, resting your men and tiring the enemy can be more significant tactically than vanilla (unmodded) RTW. In some of those games, even marching routes can make lots of difference in the outcome of battles. Unmodded RTW gameplay however isn't that sophisticated due to fatigue being too small and having hence a small effect for the vast majority of battles. There are many mods for RTW that improve the battlefield gameplay by decreasing speeds and so increasing fatigue. None of them dares to do it too much, however as the AI is oblivoius as mentoined. They do it just about to make the pace more meaningful (allow more control of your army at the height of the action) and also make ftigue a bit more important.

[Jaguara]

Hmmm...I have been thinking about Gollum's posts, and while he has many excellent points, and I have the utmost respect for him, I cannot agree with everything.

After reading this, I realized that I myself often deploy my weak units up front...but I do not have the problems he describes. I would argue that other bonuses can far outweigh the "outnumber penalties". The key one being a flanking charge. I let my weak infantry take the initial casualties from archers and such. While they pin the enemy, I use flanking charges to break the enemy.

In the video in question, it is an oversimplification to blame his loss on having weak units in front. The player made every possible mistake, and it was his utter incompetence that caused his demise...not just having his weaker troops in the front. For example, he lost his General in an ill-fated charge on the opposite river-bank. I would advance that this had a lot more to do with his whole army collapsing than the "outnumber penalty".

I would also add the caveat in fatigue that fatigue does effect the ability of a cavalry charge to break an enemy. Once your heavy cavalry are very-tired or exhauseted, they won't be breaking anything even when charging engaged infantry from the rear.

I would agree that it is possible to withdraw units from combat without many casualties, even without using the technique he describes - not using the white flag, but just clicking for your unit to run away from the fight. This is easiest with cavalry, but can be done with infantry - especially if the enemy unit is engaged by other forces at the same time. The risk is that the unit may break in attempting this (mostly an issue with infantry, but sometimes with cav as well). In time you will get a good feeling about when this is likely or not. I would say that the more intact the formation, the better the chance of withdrawl - whereas if it is infantry completely immersed in the enemy, you will likely not be successful in withdrawl without routing. I know people who use this tactic to enable a second warcry from barbarian units. Personally I don't bother.

I do have a question for Gollum as well...you point out that individual soldirs fight just as well in a blob...are there not penalties for a unit not being "tight" (not just unit overlap, but a particular unit being in disarray)? I have noted for example that a cavalry charge against an infantry unit that is in disarray is more likely to break it than when it is in good formation. I do not have the engine experience to know if this is just my imagination or not.

I have several examples I can quote that would seem to back this argument that a unit "spread out" - including spread-out in a blob - is not performing as well as usual. Again, this could be misinterpretation of circumstantial evidence, but it would take some work to convince me I am totally off on this.

[ReluctantSamurai]

I have noted for example that a cavalry charge against an infantry unit that is in disarray is more likely to break it than when it is in good formation.

This is something that I have noticed, as well. While I haven't done any concrete testing, my standard Seleucid line-buster consists of Scythed Chariots on the flanks and Ellie's in the center of my line. I echelon my heavy cav to hit the enemy lines after the initial strike.

Insta-rout.

I believe it's due more to unit disruption than to the morale factors of facing an elephant/chariot charge...but, without testing, it's only a theory.

[gollum]

Hello Jaquara,
blobbing penalties do not exist in RTW as far as i know. A large blob may break from outflanking penalties but it has to be outflanked with a more or less equal number of units or units of vastly superior quality for it to happen.

What you describe with a unit being easier to break if out of formation is true and not just in RTW, but in all other TW games i know of. It has nothing to do with the blobbing during melee bit though. Blobbing does not mean dissaray, but many units fighting one on top of the other. I am not talking about dissaray that comes about when units run up and down or left and right and not during the melee. There was indeed a penalty for it in STW and MTW, but in RTW it is sadly nonexistent. If you check the mp tournament for EB, you'll see that wisely the organisers prohibit cavalry charge through friendly units and blobbing of units. This is because blobbing works, and so it kills the tactical game in an mp context (you can see their rules here: http://www.ebonline.tk/rules.html).

As far as putting your weak units first to outflank, you can pull it off with cavalry no doubt, but its also because the AI comes peace meal to engage and also does not guard his flanks rather than anything else. Generally speaking, if you engage with your weak units first in the main melee engagement you are running the risk of them running away before you can flank or do anything else, and then its all down hill from there as you'll be outnumbered. This is true against the AI of course, but its all the more true online where you are fighting opponents taht are generally just as intend to win the main melee as you and do not come to you peace meal to be flanked as the AI. I have fought battles online where elite units of mine routed on the spot without having any effect on the battle simply because i went against the enemy battles line peace meal as the AI does. After a while one gets the hang of it though and stops engaging peace meal or with the weakest units first :) Local outnumbering (a unit being outnumbered in its vicinity) exists in TW.

There are however cases where its best to use the weak units up front. One as i mentioned is to receive missile punishment if you can;t reciprocate. Another is if you are facing mass heavy cavalry enemies in open terrain (without phalanxes or spears with schiltrom etc), that needs to be bogged down and can do lots of damage on the charge. In that case, a few fodder units are perfect to receive and break the charge. That is also the case in M2TW that cavalry is absolutely king and missiles are pretty weak. All this by the way is testimony of how bad RTW gameplay really is. Essentially this is rush on rush gameplay :)

Its true that fatigue does affect unit performance in RTW but fatigue rates are simply too low in RTW to do that except for snowed terrain. If you look at the terain modifiers in the txt files of the game, you'll see that all terrain types have a 1.0 modifier for unit speeds (ie 100% speed). The only two iirc are for ice and snow in vanilla. Snow is if memory serves 0.5 ie 50%. This is why it does affect battles that are fought in the north of the map in winter (barbarian lands) if they take a while to resolve. In other maps and seasons though fatigue has little effect in battles unless there are very steep cliffs etc - a relative rarity in teh engine generated maps of RTW. In STW and MTW the terrain was hand made (all maps were) and so they were more looked after for gameplay. Of course they also took longer to make :)

In the video mentioned, the general's death was indeed of effect, and the player did many other mistakes as well as you say, including not using his missiles properly to fire in the enemy blob on top of the ones you mention. The keystone of the route though was engaging with the weak barbarian infantry that was fighting at close quarters enemy legionaires. Even with the general's death, his legionaires would have stayed there to fight in the bridge head, but of course the barbarian mercs left - first the ones up front and then one by one all the rest.
The only way that (andby that i mean engaging with the barbarian mercs first) could have been pulled off imo, was to leave a space in the bridgehead for the enemy to land and then charge from three directions routing them due to the flanking penalties (also use warcry etc); then regroup, rinse and repeat, which would have meant that essentially you are chewing the enemy assaulters one bite at teh time, a tactic that works from STW bridge battles already. Still it would have been best to use the strongest units first or at least some of them, as the frontal assaulter on the enemy, while the barbs could be used for the flanking.

[Gothicus]

This is something that I have noticed, as well. While I haven't done any concrete testing, my standard Seleucid line-buster consists of Scythed Chariots on the flanks and Ellie's in the center of my line. I echelon my heavy cav to hit the enemy lines after the initial strike.

Insta-rout.

I believe it's due more to unit disruption than to the morale factors of facing an elephant/chariot charge...but, without testing, it's only a theory.

From my experience charging Roman armies with 5 units of Carthaginian war elephants backed with cavalry I can confirm your experiences. The elephants break the troops up and, if they're not already routing, the cavalry finishes them off.

To the OP: If the battle allows you, you could try attacking the particular enemy unit from the rear or flank, and then disengage the first unit that fights.

[MasterFitz]

"In terms of tactics, the historical Roman tactic of tiring the enemy units with hastati then principes, then triarii, is not something that always works in the game. "

I have had success using the hastati as the first line backed up with principes in pila mode to be affective. I just had to make sure I protected there flanks with cav and I used velites for extra javelin support

[gollum]

Hello masterfitz and welcome to the org, enjoy your stay

I have had success too - hence why i said that its not something that always works :)

It does work sometimes, and sometimes its also the better plan. Just not for the most part imo.

[MajorFreak]

well, historically the romans would fight in a checkered formation. The historians would say that once the hastati were exhausted they'd pull back...but the reference i read didn't exactly point to the "how" as much as implied the checkered formation is the reason for the how. personally, having played the vanilla version of most of the series (just singleplayer) i fail to see the use of a checkered formation...i've tried it, and yes it's nice for pila/javelin equipped troops...but i've never successfully disengaged echelons this way once they became "tired"
fatigue in RTW is something i only count on if i'm desperately outnumbered and need to get all the morale edge i can muster (AI tends to rout quicker if exhausted)

retreating? i don't really consider retreating any infantry unit - or even cavalry - from enemy contact since if i'm doing my job right my weakest link is SUPPOSED to rout and draw the enemy into a box where they'll rout themselves in turn. I find the best way to do the "charge, rinse, repeat" tactic is to charge them THROUGH the enemy unit, otherwise the act of turning around to go back is liable to cause more fatalities than simply continuing on through.

hmmmm...as for stuff like getting units like velite gladiators back from combat is simply relying upon a general's charge to hopefully break said enemy unit...personally, anything you really need to retreat out of melee is something you need to preposition and micromanage (personally i find it easier to put stuff like that on 'guard' mode)
yeah...after thinking for a bit, i remember the times i retreat units is when whatever they're attacking has routed.
so, i guess Gollum is correct...in hindsight fatigue (resting units) takes much lesser priority than morale. Checkered formations looks cool (and fun if you use pila equipped units alot) but really, i tend to prefer situations where i have hoplites protecting elite archers. Best place to buy hoplite mercs is sparta province (lvl3 veterans. 950 gp)

i dunno...honestly, i'm really lazy when it comes to checkered...it works really well for alot of things - it's just way easier to formation drag similar units in a long line. =)
As for how to do checkered i have found this to be easiest: use 'loose formation' to get a line, while setting up, then click 'tight' to contract...leaving space between. i then do the same for the next echelon, except displace the center arrow to align over on of the middle units of the 1st echelon. voila you've created the checkered formation seen used by the AI alot.
*frowns* I don't play alot with the traditional skirmishers...i'm a real whore when it comes to elite archers chewing things up from a hill behind rows of hoplites...oh, and elephants on the flanks. haha.

*hmmmm* i think the only unit i'm really concerned about are velite gladiators and keeping them around to engage chariot charges (they ABSOLUTELY ROCK) but tend to fall during attrition battles with melee units.
So any tips on how to utilize velites without getting them bogged down in combat (i hate retreating when engaged), other than sending in my 'hale and hearty' general to rescue them, would be welcome.

[Dagonet]

The practicability of retreating units is obviously contextual, but Guard mode will help you out. IIRC, [it's been years since I played much, too poor, can't even run rtw on this pc ;)] the shortcut for guard mode is 'D'

Guard mode compels sprites within a formation to keep formation as much as possible and for the unit as a whole to follow user-given or 'active' orders rather than use the tactical ai responses.

So, it offers an aid to clean withdrawals, very useful for cycling cavalry for charges and pulling back units to reduce the effect of enemy units being positioned to catch the engaged units in a rear charge.

Bear in mind ofcourse that the enemy unit engaged with the unit you're trying to withdraw is very unlikely to be using guard mode and will seek to chase.

This brings up some other factors. Firstly, that withdrawing from combat with a unit that has nothing else to keep it occupied is generally a bad idea. To counteract this in the given scenario of retreating gladiators one can line up in the initial melee engagement such that atleast one friendly unit is covering part of the front of the unit the gladiators are planned to engage with, such that upon the withdrawal of the gladiators, chasing opponents will be distracted by the pre-engaged unit. Testing this will show you that the sprites from the chasing unit wrap, they chase for a bit then return to melee, normally on the flank of the pre-engaged unit, but not, often against preengaged sprites. This offers the option of immediately recharging the gladiators into the same melee, but now against a disorganised and partially flank engaged unit.


Another example of this is to imagine lines of...principe lined up against.. say some barb swordsmen.. both faction's cav behind it's infantry. Nobody yet engaged, except perhaps some archers. Your principe set to fire at will and guard mode, your cav set to guard mode. Run your cavalry through [*don't charge cav through] your own units in a line spread across the enemy front line, using a drag move+R, as the cav make contact drag move them back to their original positions, keeping ready to 'R'(Ctrl+R = run?) them or repeat the order to any that get too engaged and decide to refuse the order. The enemy infantry & possibly cavalry has targetted your cav and charges, chasing into your waiting infantry, but your cav, who've lost 1 or 2 men are now free and able to hit the enemy wherever you like. (remember to take guard mode off once infantry pila are used, and on the cav once the original maneuver is completed.)

The use of drag move is important to stop the units moving laterally during the attack

Actually, come to think of it, somebody said their units were arriving piecemeal so may not know about formation/drag moves, select unit(s) and click and drag at destination. Tbh my memory is so foggy, you may need to use shift or control or something aswell.