Combating pikemen in Rome Remastered

[Hooahguy]

So something that I need to re-learn after being gone so long is how to defeat long lines of pikemen.

Here was the scenario: I had just easily taken Patavium from the Gauls a couple turns before as the Julii with a nearly full stack of mostly hastati, a couple skirmishers, a general, and three units of light cavalry. Then a full stack of Germans comes down through the pass and besieges the city. Their main unit was the spear warband which have long pikes. Had I remembered this, I probably would not have sallied out, but I did and I got absolutely slaughtered because unlike in Rome 2, pike formations can re-form even when they are in combat, so fighting them is really hard.

The RTW AI is notorious for constantly repositioning their units, so I figured if I could exploit this by splitting up their lines as they repositioned I could disrupt their formations and make them not fight in phalanxes, while the cavalry would run around and hit them from behind. Classic tactics, right? Except when I did that, they just repositioned, reformed the phalanx, and proceeded to slaughter my guys. Even when flanked they seem to hold really well. Unlike my hastati.

So now I am left wondering how the hell do I go about fighting large formations of these guys. I sent out my spies to other Germanic settlements and armies, and most of their armies and garrisons are made up of these pikemen which will pose a problem when I decide to go on the offensive (thankfully a few turns after this disaster they asked for a ceasefire). I know that my first order of business is to upgrade my hastati to principes (a process currently ongoing), but on the actual battlefield Im not entirely sure how to beat them unless I wanted to just autoresolved everything (I dont).

Clearly Im not as good at this total war thing as I remembered.

[ReluctantSamurai]

I haven't been following the RTW Remastered thread, so I don't know if stats have been tweaked...

Been a looong time since I've played RTW, but this is what I recall fighting against phalanx:

1. Phalanx greatest weakness is speed and mobility, so you need to take advantage of that. How? I used skirmishers, preferably on a flank. I didn't play a Roman faction much after the initial buzz, but Cavalry Auxilia are great for this because the AI sees spear vs cavalry and tries to exploit that matchup and will give chase. Tired phalanx are routers just waiting to happen. I don't recall when CA become available to the Romans, but Velite work pretty good...just not as mobile. In any case, skirmish the hell out of them. That early in a Roman campaign, you don't yet have access to archers, IIRC, so the traditional "whittle them down with archer fire" probably isn't available.

2. When flanking a phalanx unit, try to do it against their right side: this is especially true for ranged fire, whether javelin or arrow. IIRC, this negates their shield bonus. Germanic Spear doesn't have a high defense number anyway, their biggest strength is mass...120 men on normal unit size.

3. You need to pin them frontally before flanking so they can't reposition. When engaging with Hastaii (Principes will be much better at this), have them hold formation and walk, not charge, into their front. Yes, they'll take losses, but they're cheap...heartless...but you don't win by being nice Those Spear Warbands are expensive and it doesn't take but a few of them to denude the population of a Germanic village or town, which are small and slow to repopulate.

Germania was my favorite barbarian faction to play, so fighting Romans was my primary focus (after defeating Gaul and Britannia). I didn't use Spear Warband much early in a campaign for the reason I stated above...they quickly use up town and village population, and later were of little use against advanced Roman infantry. Barbarian Cavalry are just barely the equal of Equites, but as player vs AI you should be able to defeat what few cavalry units Germania, or Gaul for that matter, will field.

From memory, that's all I've got....

[Ibn-Khaldun]

I haven't been following the RTW Remastered thread, so I don't know if stats have been tweaked...

Been a looong time since I've played RTW, but this is what I recall fighting against phalanx:

1. Phalanx greatest weakness is speed and mobility, so you need to take advantage of that. How? I used skirmishers, preferably on a flank. I didn't play a Roman faction much after the initial buzz, but Cavalry Auxilia are great for this because the AI sees spear vs cavalry and tries to exploit that matchup and will give chase. Tired phalanx are routers just waiting to happen. I don't recall when CA become available to the Romans, but Velite work pretty good...just not as mobile. In any case, skirmish the hell out of them. That early in a Roman campaign, you don't yet have access to archers, IIRC, so the traditional "whittle them down with archer fire" probably isn't available.

2. When flanking a phalanx unit, try to do it against their right side: this is especially true for ranged fire, whether javelin or arrow. IIRC, this negates their shield bonus. Germanic Spear doesn't have a high defense number anyway, their biggest strength is mass...120 men on normal unit size.

3. You need to pin them frontally before flanking so they can't reposition. When engaging with Hastaii (Principes will be much better at this), have them hold formation and walk, not charge, into their front. Yes, they'll take losses, but they're cheap...heartless...but you don't win by being nice Those Spear Warbands are expensive and it doesn't take but a few of them to denude the population of a Germanic village or town, which are small and slow to repopulate.

Germania was my favorite barbarian faction to play, so fighting Romans was my primary focus (after defeating Gaul and Britannia). I didn't use Spear Warband much early in a campaign for the reason I stated above...they quickly use up town and village population, and later were of little use against advanced Roman infantry. Barbarian Cavalry are just barely the equal of Equites, but as player vs AI you should be able to defeat what few cavalry units Germania, or Gaul for that matter, will field.

From memory, that's all I've got....

I saw a video on Youtube where they listed few of the unit stat tweaks. IIRC, the Carthage got a buff and Egypt got nerfed and some other small changes. But the changes were really minuscule.

1 and 2 work in the Remastered as well.

However if you play with the Remastered settings then each time you recruit a unit only Normal unit size amount of population is removed from the settlement.
So, when the Warband has 120 units on Large unit size then only 60 population will be removed from the settlement.
I haven't played with Huge and Extreme unit sizes but I guess it's the same.
This should help the barbarian factions.

[Hooahguy]

Yeah, looks like I will need to significantly change the composition of my armies. Though we will see where the modding scene takes things as I cant imagine that they will have such units in unit reworks. Still handy information though as I probably need to add more ranged units to my armies. I got away with it in Rome 2 but I guess I cant here.