Easy Wins In Rome Total War

[mrmarques]

Tactic means nothing in Rome Total War.
Graphics are perfect,but it's fun...
It's almost backwords from Medieval Total War.
Primary School students can easily successful in this game.(Rome)
You don't need any tactics.

Just do this:
Make a army only with cavalry.
In battle screen,make all forces an union,get the general on middle or back,make your army walk,when getting closer,go a bit of right or left and then charge the enemy.That's it.
Usually enemies deploy right to left,so when the cavalries charge,they can easily eradicate the enemy.Their winning chance is %95.You can lose your forces about 1-20 between 1-3.
That's it.
Just try and see...

An easy way in siege:
Get onagers by the city.Target them on just one place.Fire them.An hole will be opened.Get the whole army from that hole.You'll win if your forces are good.
It's only about this.
And a very very easy way to get lot of provinces.If you have a good economy,just bribe all armies in your way.

I'M LOOKING FORWARD FOR YOUR REPLIES

[Crownsteler]

or, you could just not do any of this :P

[Sethik]

What unit size are you playing on? I remember everyone complaining when the game first came out that cavalry was overpowered. But if you put unit size on HUGE, that effect is disabled. I've seen heavy cavalry get shredded by infantry after losing momentum. Sure you'll loose a dozen or so men (out of 160, depends on the size of the cav too) with the first charge, but afterwards their effectiveness really diminishes.

So put unit sizes up to HUGE and see how well that all cav army tactic does. Especially against Phalanx.

[Didz]

I really fail to understand this, certainly with huge units cavalry get shredded by heavy infantry.

But I suspect we are not being told the whole story.

What cavalry?
What infantry?
What armour class?
What weapon class?
What unit size?

For example I have just fought two battles in Libya with a cavalry heavy Egyptian Mercenary Army v full stack Roman Army's.

I began the first battle with 2 x Arab cavalry, 2 x Bedoiun Horse Archers, 1 x Bedoiun Warriors, 2 x Numidian Light Cavalry, 72 Elephants and a chariot unit.

I fought both battles on exactly the same battlefield, my right flank resting on a newly constructed Watch Tower and my exposed left protected by the massed cavalry.

The Romans attacked and the Numidians and Horse Archers were sent forwarded to harrass them as they came on. As soon as they were in range the Romans began bombarding my Elephants with fire arrows and so I sent my Arab Cavalry forward to drive them off. Moving round the Roman right flank the Arab Cavalry charged down on the archers and after a tough fight routed them and began to chase them off the field. I ordered them to halt and reform planning to hurl them into the rear of the Roman battle line once it had closed with my Mercenary Hoplites and Eastern Infantry. However the Romans turned on them and trapped them in place with two legionary cohorts. The Arab cavalry were forced to charge in order to break through back to my own lines and took heavy casulaties only 25 out over 200 making it back.

The second battle saw an almost identical replay only this time I had to use my Bedoiun Camel warriors to chase down the archers (as my Arab Cavalry was now gone) and because they were slower they actually got intercepted enroute by a Roman Cohort and had to fight their way through it to reach the archers. Only 8 survived.

By comparison my Libyan Skirmishers and Mercenary infantry hardly suffered any casualties at all, so I fail to understand how having more cavalry would have made my life easier.

I also have to say that in town assaults nothing pleases me more than to see an enemy cavalry unit impale itself on one of my phalanx units in a narrow street. We are literally talking seconds before they are all dead.

Is it true that cavalry are the key to victory?

Just out of interest I thought I would test this suggestion out in a couple of custom battles.


The first two tests pitched Desert Cavalry against an all infantry enemy the 3rd Test used lighter barbarian cavalry instead and in all three I aimed my first charge against the enemy infantry lines left most unit and then attempted to roll up their line from one flank to the other.

1st Test
3200 Desert cavalry v 3200 Iberian Infantry (sword armed)
This battle was a convincing victory for the cavalry. The three Iberian left flank units routed very quickly and I then simply rolled up the entire enemy line. Losses: 651 Cavalry, 3047 Infantry)

2nd Test
Conscious that the 1st Test had pitched unequal forces against each other in that the infantry were significantly cheaper than the cavalry this test sought to match infantry of equal value against the cavalry.

2881 Desert Cavalry v 2899 Poeni Infantry (Pike Armed)
The cavalry hit the enemy left flank units hard and at first it looked like a repeat of test 1 as the two left flank units disolved and were wpied out. However, as the cavalry turned and began to work their way along the enemy line it was clear that they were finding it hard going. I found the cavalry continually routing and having to be reformed and sent back into the fight. Enemy units would appear to be swamped only to rise from the mass of swirling cavalry virtually unscathed as the cavalry attacking them routed.

In the end my entire army routed from the field leaving the infantry victorious.
Losses: 1773 Cavalry v 1342 Infantry

Not quite so convincing a victory but nevertheless a victory.

3rd Test

3200 Barbarian Cavalry v 2899 Poeni Infantry
Hardly a contest. The first two infantry units were swamped and routed as were a couple more as the barbarians worked their way up the enemy line but as the enemy moved more units to face the barbarian horse they began to take very heavy losses and finally paniced routing off the field en-mass.
Defeat: Losses: 1003 Cavalry v 947 Infantry

Conclusion

Its certainly possible for a cavalry army to win a battle against infantry but only because the AI doesn't understand gamesmanship.

Victory with cavalry depends on the type of cavalry being used and the mix of infantry they are up against. If enemy was player controlled it would be simple to counter a cavalry army strategy by deploying pike or spear armed infantry.

[Uesugi Kenshin]

Cavalry are powerful and were extremely powerful during the time period covered by thew game. However, using just cavalry is usually impractical, it makes a battle much harder than it needs to be. Grab a few cheap infantry units for the enemy to roll up on and then flank them. I used militia hoplites paired with companions to demolish a full post marius Scipii stack of legionnaries, onagers, legionnary cavalry and auxilia. I attacked the onagers with one group of companions and then rushed them back to my line. The romans then charged my cavalry with theirs. Mine won without major losses, still had at least half of each unit. The roman infantry charged my hoplites who were formed up so that there were no gaps between spears. I then flanked the infantry with companions and lost less than a third of what the enemy lost because I added a splash of infantry. The cheapest non peasant infantry at my disposal...


BTW phalanxes can destroy cavalry when formed up properly and the game does a decent job of forming their phalanxes up.