Spain

[katank]

You mean with your units all clumped in a circle? That could be bad as morale decreases with being surrounded. Circle are unnecessary. The AI almost never gets to your rear.

A line with refused flanks or crescent is usually sufficient.

How late into the game is it? A Spanish army with scutarii and bulls don't break easily. The Romans are still PreMarius, right?

[Craterus]

233 bc. It was all going well until they piledrived into the centre, theybroke through but ere finished off by our 2nd line of Bull Warriors. I wasn't too satisfied with this battle and there has to be a way of taking on the Romans without sustaining that many casualties.

[katank]

That's pretty late. In that case, make a shorter line and buff up the center more. The AI doesn't flank that much. You are on defense, right?

[Craterus]

Right, we hold the Alps. We have full stacks or 2/3 stacks on the Italian coasts. We own Sicily. Ok, I think we will just have a strong centre and use horses to protect the flanks, And if we're lucky, the Romans will pi;ledrive the centre and we can encircle them. Well, this campaign will be continued tomorrow, hopefully.

[pezhetairoi]

mmm katank, morale would not decrease with being surrounded because while in a circle, all fronts would be facing outwards---there would be no way at all for the enemy to get into the rear, so it's not actually possible to be surrounded... and I'm sure the morale effect is counteracted by the general. I tested out my hypothesis in custom battle mode wit 6 bulls and 7 scutarii, against a republican army of 6 principes, 5 hastati and 4 generals. Worked like a charm, until my comp crashed because the graphics couldn't take the strain during the pursuit phase. -_-" As it was, though, I only lost about 4-5% of my force. 3 Scutarii units (those on the refused flanks) managed to be unengaged, so I used them as artillery support cum line-breakers.

But remember! Don't -attack- the Romans using this! Only use it on defensive! You can adapt it for attack, I guess, if you move in a line towards the Romans, Bulls only. Scutarii are in a second line, concentrated behind the flanks. Once you've got the Romans lured towards you, halt and deploy your Scutarii into the flanks of the circle and prepare for impact. Usually, if you're close enough the Romans will keep coming even if you're numerically way superior.

Oh, I just learnt something about my strategy from a Germanic-Greek battle. Don't use the circle strategy in a phalanx-phalanx struggle. You'll get the worst of it.

[crazybastard]

Playing on M/M, as of right now I own the whole Iberian pennisula and Narbo Martius (or something like that) but all of my cities have incredibly slow growth rate (2-3%) and I want to upgrade them to get the Bull warriors very badly...any suggestions?

[katank]

@pez, I recall the circle against HAs. I personally used HAs and always shot at the shieldless side by rotating, forcing the enemy to rotate. Eventually, their forces were all clumped in the very middle in a bit of a circle and still routed spontaneously. There may very well be morale penalties for macro surrounded.

@crazybastard, go into Italy and take nice big cities from the Romans. Or, build up lots of farming, drop taxes to lowest, and disband peasants into the target regions to boost pop.

Also, move governors out of cities except for the ones you want to grow right before you enslave. Then gift a city to an enemy and enslave it again.