Principes, hastati and guard mode

[frogbeastegg]

According to the res Romanae putting your hastati and principes on guard mode is a good thing; "Order Roman hastati and principes to use guard and fire at will modes to make them behave historically and very effectively. Form them up in parallel lines for best effect."

Has anyone had any sucess with this? I tried it and I found units engaged in melee tended to slowly reform slightly out of the melee with their backs to the enemy. Very handy. That happened in two of my three quick test games; the Romans threw their pilums without trouble, then charged and started killing very nicely. Then the individual men slowly ebbed away and reformed the unit with the back to the enemy. With guard mode off they threw their pilums without trouble, charged and kept on killing until the enemy routed and I ordered a halt.

[Shahed]

In the demo I found that the units ordered to "guard" did a cool animation sometimes of putting up their shields, but they also did not chase off enemy units. Sometimes. Other times I noted that even though they are in "guard" mode, they DO chase off routing enemies and do fatally strange moves which involve shuffling about exposing their rear and flanks to the enemy. I've seen a lot of them die off uselessly in this fashion.

I would hope in the actual game it works better and the unit remains tight and pins itself down, for example: as if preparing to absorb a charge. This would not mean being totally stationary but "braced for impact" (perhaps that's what the shffle is meant to be about). I'd imagine the the Roman spearmen were good at that sort of thing ?

In the end I did not use guard much in the demo except if i wanted to see the shields up animation. Maybe I was missing something

Actually I noted some minor, but possibly bad bugs, in the demo which involved similar shuffle movements. In the tutorial battle, my Triari-ites would shuffle back and forth over the same position on the bridge, or even on flat land sometimes I'd have to reissue the command repeatedly for it to work. I did not notioce this in the Trebia battle...so I figured it (the bug ?) may have something to do with the AI (friendly) army in the tutorial.

[Hosakawa Tito]

I've used the guard mode, but not in conjuction with fire at will, with my Hastati & Principe. The problem I have with fire at will with these two units is that they charge after throwing just two pilum, and that they never charge together in one solid wall. Charging piecemeal leads to friendly fire accidents and getting outflanked, causing more casualties than it should.

They actually reform after engaging with their backs to the enemy?
Talk about turning your other cheek.

[Nelson]

I use guard mode and fire at will to make sure the men get their volleys off without charging prematurely. Once melee begins I turn off guard if they seem to be winning because I want them to press the enemy not return to their spot.

And yes, fire at will can be dangerous so you need to limit the chances of friendly fire kills by turning it off for some units near the action. Shogun used to stop opportunity fire into melees unless you specifically ordered the attack but Rome does not.

[King Azzole]

I just use fire at will and micro manage the initial battle line. If I notice some are gonna fire at an adjacent unit causing friendly fire I immediately take it off and tell them to halt. Its sad I have to do this from the buggy as AI which doesnt realize that volley will kill half my troops. But if you have 3-4 groups of archers behind your main line, and all the spear chuckers on fire at will, most armies will route at initial impact from all the missile fire. Its kinda cheap but kicks ass, and that is even on Very Hard difficulty. Romans are just ass kickers.

[Shahed]

I played the demo again to check this, and I'm now quite convinced that the problems I mentioned earlier are due to other friendly armies (in this case SPQR) being on the battle map at the same time.