Roman Line won't hold...what am I doing wrong.

[Red Harvest]

In RTW the charge is very powerful and speed is king. The Gaul units will hit you en masse and cause units to rout in seconds. You can't present a long enough front using traditional Roman methods in RTW. Better to put tougher units on the ends, weaker in the center and present a long line. Otherwise you have two units hitting each of yours and they won't last long.

What you really need is for the line to hold long enough that cav can decide things on the flanks. You are giving up +4 attack to the AI on hard. Cav is overly powerful in RTW.

[ToranagaSama]

What you're doing wrong is continuing to play this lame game the way CA has set it up.

Do the right thing and d/l theTotal Realism Mod 2.2

Red Harvest, have you tried this mod?

[Red Harvest]

What you're doing wrong is continuing to play this lame game the way CA has set it up.

Do the right thing and d/l theTotal Realism Mod 2.2

Red Harvest, have you tried this mod?

No, I haven't tried it yet. I've really been trying to absorb as much as I can before I try modifying it or using a mod. I'm getting a really bad itch to fix it though...

[Sin Qua Non]

You may also want to see if you are inflicting a high number of friendly casualties with your missile units behind the front line. If that's the case, then there is one more thing that may be affecting your lines right before the gallic charge.

[soibean]

You may also want to see if you are inflicting a high number of friendly casualties with your missile units behind the front line. If that's the case, then there is one more thing that may be affecting your lines right before the gallic charge.

I noticed that archers (on low exp atleast) tend to cut down their own men alot more if placed behind them, have problems hitting men on the sameelevation as them, and dont shoot very high anymore
An example of this is when I did as you said, placed archers behind a column of principales and the result was less than satisfactory. The archers took out about 5 Ps on the first shot and didnt even hit the computer (I was attacking the town square and I wanted some men infront of my archers to stop the cavalry charge) Then once I moved my Ps out of the way I unloaded volley after volley of arrows on the cavalry until they finally got the altitude right... it took about 6 or 7 volleys until they even began hitting the enemy. But I guess that is experience for you.

[d6veteran]

I'm using the realism mod and it's pretty good. I did throttle the speed back up a little.

Really the next level for these games is to either make some groundbreaking development in the AI or plugin a multiplayer option. The current AI capabilities are just to shallow and you can only compensate so much by giving the computer 'player' enhanced stats, before that starts unravelling game play itself.

[Servius]

the problem may also be that your front is only 4 units wide. What I mean by that is that the game puts an artificial limit on the number of units you can control, so in order to field the 3 ranks, you use a 4-unit front. That's fine, so long as the terrain covers your flanks (ravine) or your enemy only has a few units. If the nme has a front line 10 units long, the Romans would have deployed 10 of each unit maybe.

Given how the barbarian AI lines up, even anciet Roman commanders would have sacrificed the 3-lines in order to avoid being outflanked. I think the trick is to fight like anciet Romans, but when deciding your formaiton...

FIRST: ensure you have the same frontage of the nme. Only after the frontage is about even should you worry about maintaining that front in the traditional 3-rank style.

One last thing, try not to have forest on your flanks. While it may have been preferable in reality, in RTW it doesn't mask cavalry, and it also strengthens the barbarians, which is doubly-bad

[Parmenio]

Historically one half of a Pre-Marian army would be composed of allied troops, who are assumed to fought in the Roman manner but were consisted second rate compared to the Latin troops. (Unfortunately not much is written about them.) Additionally, The Triarii maniples were half the depth of the other maniples.

This being the case you may want to use more Hastati or even Town Watch to represent allied troops and use less Triarii to better represent their comparative numbers.

I think The Velite maniples were of the same strength as the main battle lines so you may want to use more light troops.

In terms of cavalry the Romans generally didn’t field much (until they fought Hannibal) unless they were hired troops such as Numidians or Gallic Cavalry.

With 20 boxes for an army composition, I would suggest:

Skirmish Line: (Roman: 2 Velites) + (Allied: 2 Velites or Mercenary Skirmishers)
1st Battle Line: (Roman: 2 Hastati) + (Allied: 2 Hastati or Town Watch or Mercenary Infantry)
2nd Battle Line: (Roman: 2 Hastati or Principes) + (Allied: 2 Hastati or Town Watch or Mercenary Infantry)
The Thin Line: (Roman: 1 Triarii) + (Allied: 1 Triarii or Town Watch or Mercenary Infantry)
Cavalry Wings: (Roman and Allied: 2 Equites or Roman Generals) + Any number of Mercenary Cavalry

Traditionally the Roman troops should form the centre with Allies to either flank. The key to fighting Barbarians is to blunt their intial attack with the lighter troops and then counter attack. On medium battle difficulty - normal size units this works (so far) so long as I stretch the Roman battle lines quite thin to almost 2 ranks deep and am willing to let the skirmish line take a beating sometimes. (Light troops tend to heal up quite well after battles for some reason.)

[ToranagaSama]

'm using the realism mod and it's pretty good. I did throttle the speed back up a little.

Ahhhhh...... Why would you do that? ;)

Personally, I was thinking maybe the speed s/b notched back, just a little more. It's still *slightly* faster than MTW/STW speed.

I agree CA should put their focus upon the AI of both the Battle Engine and the Strategy/Campaign Map. It's well past time for some MAJOR improvements!

Also, IMVUHO, they need to cut the crap and release a Campaign Multiplay version. I'd gladly pay for it, as a separate expansion pak. At this point, I'm, personally, tired of the excuses.

---

Red Harvest,

I too had the intention of getting thru a vanilla campaign, before switching to a mod, but....I just couldn't hack it anymore!

I got totally fed up and *bored* with the March of the Mini Gaul Armies, playing as the Juii. It just wasn't fun being compelled to fight a battle every 5-10 minutes. So, I decided to make a second installation and copy the TR mod 2.0.

Hmmm.... I just wrote up a rather long thread giving my impression of the Total Realism mod, but rather than hijack this thread, later today I'll start a new one.

[Mori Gabriel Syme]

Don't give up just yet. There seem to be a number of tweaks you can make.

Someone has already suggested a screening force of skirmishers to take the edge off the charge & putting the hastati & principes on "fire at will". I would not have the archers on "fire at will" so they don't fire into the hastati; that would be very bad for morale.

Another possibility, though maybe not historical, is to place a unit on either side close to the flank of the hastati & angled back to prevent the enemy from wrapping around.

From a tactical point of view, you could bring the principes forward on either side after or during the charge if the flanks need to be supported & to prevent the enemy from wrapping around. Don't wait to see if the line holds; support the flanks before the line wavers.

You don't mention what the Romans did in such situations. If you don't know, you could try researching how they used the formation you are using to counter the problems you're having. Then try what the books say & see if the game supports the solution.

[Oaty]

I'm totally opposed to the people that say stretching your line to match the opponents line but that is there style.

My reccomendation is a deep formation (note must be on normal or huge unit sizes) You ca'nt really toy with depth with anything smaller.

The comp always stretches there lines for all factions as far as I can tell, although they do seem to give some depth for phalanx units regardless if it is full or not.

All I do when facing a stretched army is box all units up, makes them very maneuverable and able to absorb a charge. Now that I've been playing for a good bit I have yet to have a unit route form getting charged while in deep formation.

Heres what I do I box all my units up and if its a long enemy line I reduce the reserves. I advance the units into javelin throwing range unless they have misslesuperioty wich provokes me into an immediate charge. Also put them in guard mode so that units do'nt advance ahead of your line. Once you've depleted your javelins or have decided it's time to charge advacne close to the unit and then charge it. The reason for not charging at a unit from a distance is they aim for the center of the unit so you could have 2 units bunched together and would make big gaps in your line then again when the enemy is stretched they do'nt have reserves.

So heres what happens when the A.I does this they have a long line that is 3 deep and maybe cavalry in reserve. I gut there center quickly because 10 deep will quickly break up and punch through 3 deep units. If cavalry does charge in they will not have enough power to break up a 10 deep formation it just prolongs winning the center. Once the center is won your free to flank out. And since the units are coming in 1 at a time from the flanks they are pretty much piecmeal. Even now that I'm using the kill rate mod I still win the center quick enough before I have a barbarian horde flooding my flanks.

[Mikemyers64]

i find sending every unit in the middle will destroy them. not only does it kill their general, but it also splits the enemy into two. the enemy routes in seconds when you single them out. also your going to need some good cav to break them into two on the first charge.