Scipii defeated in Egypt

[Metatrone]

Finally got around to start playing RTW since I had been awaiting my new computer, and I enjoyed it from the start. After doing some custom –and historical battles, I start the Imperial Campaign. I chose Scipii as faction, and set the game options on Hard/Hard, unitsize Huge, and also max out all other options feeling quite confident that my new computer will be more than enough to handle the game – which it does without any problems. Great feeling! Now you know the background and the conditions I am playing under.

Now, allow me to set the scene for my problem. Bare with me for a while, cause I have to provide you with some background.

As I said, I start out as Scipii and do without any problems clear Sicily and seize the three cities there. This naturally leads me to war against the Greek cities as well as Carthage. The Greeks I handle trough negotiating a cease fire. I now turn against Carthage, and land just outside Thapsus which after a siege fall to my arms. I march north, storm the walls of Carthage and seize the city, but to the price of my best General who fall in battle within the city. Things are looking well as I transfer more troops over the sea and mark down Carthage as my African “powerbase”. Seeing that Numibia is just around the corner, I try to establish good relations with them, but are only able to get trade rights, but do on a general basis seek to better the relations – without success…

Having shipped over a new commanding General, I strengthen my forces in Africa and march on Lepsus Magna, which is the last Carthage stronghold in “Africa”. After putting up a siege for a couple of turns, I storm the walls and the city is taken without really breaking a sweat. Excellent! I now have a strongpoint to the east, and I garrison the city with quite good troops.

Numibia now declare war on me and attack Carthage. This needs to be dealt with, so I move my “southern armies” up to the city, defeat their army in battle using an infantry-core made up by Principes and archers, and light Cavalry which I sweep around their left flank which cause them to route. An reinforcement army have entered the battle from almost behind of the Numibian army, which is caught in the middle of my two quite substantional armies and it is more or less wiped out. Roma Victoria! Eager to punish my enemy, I send one army against Circa which quickly fall. My other army is send to Lepsus Magna in order to counter and deal with an Egypian invasion and siege. The Egyptians are beaten off, and utterly crushed. My best General (5 stars) are in charge and set up “camp” outside the city, waiting for reinforcements to arrive. My other army continue to move west and capture Tengi after a long march. Seeing no enemy armies around, I put all forces into garrisons with the exception of the calvary units which is sent to Lepsus Magna. The Marius reforms happen during this period, so the forces arriving from Capua, Sicily and Carthage are composed of such units (Early cohorts, Pretorian cohorts, Archer auxilia, Roman –and Legionary Calvary). The best units I can rally. All these forces are formed into three armies, with the focus placed on Calvary which make up some 45% of the total army. I start my march east, moving my three armies close to each other so that they in the event of a battle will be able to reinforce each other. I capture Cyrene, which I burn and loot, I defeat an Egypian army just east to the city and continue my march. How ever, this victory does not come easy since their chariots cause several of my Legions to route and a massed cavalry charge is the only thing that save the day. My infantry have had no chance against the chariots, and several of my cavalry units had taken losses against the egypitan heavy infantry (axemen) since the cavalry hadn´t been able to break trough when they charged and got forced to hand to hand combat. Knowing that my armies are far away from “home”, I know that I can not afford to waste any troops, so am I still quite confident that I will defeat any Egyptian army stupid enough to come in my path even with the recent battle fresh in memoty. I decide to deal with the city south-west of Alexandria (don’t remember the name of it now…) since I don’t wish to leave it intact and with the ability to threaten my flank and head off towards it. I place the garrisoned city under siege, still with all three armies close to each other. I spot a full egypitan army closing in on me. Knowing that my combined armies at this point have a 5/2 superiority over that army, I remain in place wanting a defensive battle on ground of my choice. I am not worried of the troops within the city. So it comes, the day of reckoning…A huge Egyptian army form in front of me, spanning over the entire horizon, and even though I have a large force, so do I recognize the situation since the forces within the city are placed under reinforcements. My combined forces are close to 6000 men, and the Egyptian forces are at around 4500 men. Seeing the amount of chariots, I feel happy with the amount of cavalry I have. I have so much cavalry that my flanks are almost to long and difficult to manage. The Egyptian have placed several units of chariots on his flanks, backed with missile cavalry. Heavy infantry in the center, backed with spearmen. In other words, no deployment of cavalry against their center on my behalf. My plan is to use my “standard” tactic: Move my flanks forward, beat back the Egyptian chariots and then move my infantry forward supported by missile-units.

So the battle begin. I instantly get the message that my reinforcements enter the battle, coming in from my left flank and in such way that they will smash into the Egyptian right flank and also come in behind them – excellent! I can already see a clear path to the Nile. Egyptian missile cavalry starts to move against my right flank, and I send 3 formations of Roman and Legionary cavalry forward in an attempt to knock them out right away . My cavalry charge and hunt them away – as I can see it. How ever, Egyptian chariots come to their rescues – in masse. I soon find my cavalry heavily engaged in hand to hand combat and I am forced to deploy more of my right flank cavalry into that fight. The Egyptian have now started to advance, and they do so quickly! My missile units are forced to fall back and my Legionary cohorts take the full impact and starts to take losses . Seeing that they wont be able to stand their ground against the Egyptian onslaught, I see no other option than to send my Pretorian cohorts forward. My first line now starts to break and retreat in complete disorder, also preventing my Pretorians to reach the Egyptians. In order to deal with the possible deadly situation, I bring my entire left flank cavalry forward and charge the Egyptian straight on, but also from the side. Four stacks of Roman and Legionary cavalry slam into the Egyptian infantry, but are not able to break trough and cause the Egyptians to route. My cavalry are caught in hand to hand combat against heavy infantry and spearmen – I guess that you can imagine the amount of losses my left flank started to take. I start to search for my reinforcements, who have been stopped by Egyptian forces at a distance – not able to come to my rescue. I must admit that I by now started to loose control over the situation and my infantry (what had not already been killed) started to route. Seeing that I still had some cavalry still fighting on my right flank, I send these back with the purpose to strike at the Egyptian infantry from behind. How ever, not many of these units were alive, and they were in a very poor condition. Out of the five cavalry formations I had on my right flank, perhaps one made it back to engage the Egyptian infantry – the rest were dead or had routed. My center is now a complete mess, with unorganised and weak infantry and cavalry close to breaking heavily engaged with Egyptian infantry and chariots. I have fleeing units hindering other units and can not get any order. My eyes can not believe what they are seeing, and to make things worse so do my “Superior Commander” die and “Heroic Death” and the fiasco is complete.

I must also admit that I had a difficult time seeing what happened to my reinforcements, but they must have been utterly destroyed by Egyptian reinforcements. In the after battle statistics so could I read that my losses were close to 5600 men and the Egyptian losses only 1600 men. The crown of my empire, three first class armies were wiped off the map completely.

Now, can you from what I have described spot what I made wrong and why do cavalry route at the earliest possible moment when engaged in hand to hand combat? Do you have any general advice for how to deal with Egyptian armies as a Roman, cause after this event so am I some what reluctant to engage unless I am forced to it. If you need more specific information to draw conclusions, please ask

[AquaLurker]

Hi there,

I suggest that you either use a unit of your archers to keep those mounted missile units busy as you attack or you could had pulled your legionary cavalry back when the chariots made their moves. I had tried fighting against chariots with cavarly before and the result is terrible...you will end up losing more cav than it is worth destroying those irritating wheel carts. . Sometimes if you pull your troops back from and attack, the AI chariots will purse your units and hopefully get them within range of your archers and that is where the fun begins but that's sometimes...


I learn the best way to deal with chariots is to use archers and infantry as a team, but that means you will will have to be on the defensive and be patience while those damn Egyptian archers rain arrows at you, best way is to destroy their chariots first before commiting your troops. I realised that archers can kill chariots fairly well and that chariots can be very good against most medium & light horses, tricks I had learn from the multiplayer games heheheh lesson from defeats of course but that they way to learn.

[zhuge]

Egyptian missile cavalry starts to move against my right flank, and I send 3 formations of Roman and Legionary cavalry forward in an attempt to knock them out right away . My cavalry charge and hunt them away – as I can see it. How ever, Egyptian chariots come to their rescues – in masse. I soon find my cavalry heavily engaged in hand to hand combat and I am forced to deploy more of my right flank cavalry into that fight.

Apparently in R:TW, cavalry tend to do pretty poorly against chariots and Egyptian chariots are probably one of the better types. Engaging in melee with chariots will be casualty prone. You should be targeting them with your archers for as long as you can before hitting them with masses of heavy infantry. In fact, it is probably better to lure their fast chariots to your infantry to take them out piecemeal before engaging their infantry.

In order to deal with the possible deadly situation, I bring my entire left flank cavalry forward and charge the Egyptian straight on, but also from the side. Four stacks of Roman and Legionary cavalry slam into the Egyptian infantry, but are not able to break trough and cause the Egyptians to route. My cavalry are caught in hand to hand combat against heavy infantry and spearmen – I guess that you can imagine the amount of losses my left flank started to take.

For cavalry to be effective, they have to flank or charge from the rear. Charging Egyptian spearmen/heavy infantry head on on higher difficulties is suicidal.

My combined forces are close to 6000 men, and the Egyptian forces are at around 4500 men....
In the after battle statistics so could I read that my losses were close to 5600 men and the Egyptian losses only 1600 men.

The battle which you described sounds quite winnable to me. If you have a previous save, I suggest that you try again.


EDIT: As a side note, if you are trying to lure the chariots, do take note of their speed, missile cav and chariots are faster than regular cavalry and if they catch retreating cavalry from the rear, losses will be tremendous. So only use 1 unit to lure (a missile cavalry unit if possible) and have some of your infantry within reasonable distance to be able to charge and engage the chariots in time for the cavalry to retreat.

[Metatrone]

Thank you for the advice(s).

The mistake must have been that I made inaccurate conclusions from previous battles against the Egyptians, in which my infantry got pounded and routed almost instantly because of the chariots, and that calvary worked as a charm to take them out / make them route - hence my complete deployment of my right flank. I was confident in that my calvary would, in spite of losses, be able to deal with the egyptians and be able to swing around and charge the egyptian left flank. Well, well...I guess I learned something from it.

On a side note...Were forced to make a stand at Lepsus Magna against the Egyptians, lost the city in a siege, took it back suffering tons of losses. Have now again advanced into Egypt with two full armies and knocked a quite decent Egyptian army out in basically the same area as where I suffered the defeat. It took quite a few turns, but I am back in place at least.

[sps]

Hi Metatrone,
I think that your basic error was in the actual % of Infantry/Cavalry that you recruited initially. Roman Cavalry was never really used as a battle winning arm at all.
I think that you needed a much higher % of Legionary formations to give you the knockout punch. I agree that some additional missile troops would have been of greater value too. Unless you are dealing with the horse aristocracies of the east ( Parthia in particular) all other armies are cored onto the heavy infantry principle. They are the linch pin in any field engagement or siege. Roman formations would have a split of some 85% legionary and 15% cavalry. Nunce est bibendum!
Marcus

[Fridge]

What SPS said, definitely.

Also, use mercs - there are some good ones to be found in the desert, certainly better cav than the Romans have (IIRC).

But when I was the romans fighting the Egyptians, I found the best tactic was let them throw themselves on your walls. Chariots are a bitch to face in the field, but they're next to useless in a siege. If you've got stone walls, the Egyptians advantages - missile troops and chariots - are nixed, and your infantry should eat them up on the walls. Even with wood, chariot formations can't cope with city streets and as they come up the streets you can literally pick them off one by one.

One thing, don't know if you know this, but if you're playing battles on 'hard', all it does (well, the main thing it does), is just add +3 to the attack stat of all the enemy troops. Worth knowing if you're trying to predict the outcomes of any 1 on 1s...

[dedmoroz]

another problem i see is you timing with reinforcements.
you attacked too fast before your reinforcements had a chance to arrive and your controllable army routed.
also you sholud try to divide single enemy units and try to destroy them with you cavalry, then retreat and repeat it once again. it is a lot of micro management but in some grim situations you must use this tactics.

[Zorn]

I have little to add here. Don`t try to hunt charriots with cav - they kill cav just by touching them.
However, you can go after missle-charriots, but use at least 3 units of cav, so that they are broken instantly. A longer fight will cast you dearly.
Avoid fighting melee charriots with cav however.
(just to encourage you: scythed charriots are much much worde than egypt charriots. )
The suggested method of luring them into your infantery sounds very good. Don`t be worried if they plow through your ranks - most of your men will get up again, losses are marginal. Charriots can just frighten infantery, but roman units, especially with a good general shouldn`t break so fast.
As for your infantery: Post marius cohorts should be able to deal with anything egypt has in the infantery department.
Put them at fire at will, so every charging axemen will get a shower of pila in their faces. This takes the punch out of their charge nicely.
The greatest problem that I had with egypt are their archers. Egypt has the best archers in the game (normal archers have much more men than other standard archers, and pharao archers have just 1 attack less than forresters but a ton more armour).
So you have to deal with many, and good archers wich are all surrounded with charriots and spearmen.
There is no real solution to that. You can try to sneak a few cav through and sacrifice them hoping they can take the achers with them.
Or you try to shoot it out with archers of your own - but I doubt it would work, since egypt archers are way superior to yours.
Last option is to go in testudo and just let them spend all their arrows - if you are the defender you can also just play for time, sooner or later he has to attack.

As a summary, egypt is a very awkward enemy. I hate fighting them. It doesn`t really help that The AI handles archers and (missle-)cav much better than infantery.
I would just wait for the AIs moves. Stop his cav from surrounding you, and rely on your infantery to save the day.

[Warspite]

There's certainly no pleasant way to deal with chariots. If archers can't deal with them, I usually just use cavalry to keep them distracted while the infantry fight gets resolved (if you can get your cavalry on high ground relative to the chariots, it certainly helps). Any light cavalry will likely not survive, but they do buy time, which is more important than their lives. Enticing chariots to attack spearmen, then hitting them with cav from the flanks or rear, is really the only decisive tactic (other than archers).

AI reinforcements are terrible. I take pains to remove any generals from any groups that might be drawn into a fight as "reinforcements." It's not always avoidable, but life sure is better when you can control those units yourself (plus, the AI has a nasty propensity towards getting your generals killed.)

It's hard to tell from what you wrote, but you might be doing something I used to. In the center, I found my potency went up substantially when I stopped "over-qualitying" my armies. The idea of main lines made entirely of legionary and praetorian cohorts certainly feels right, but all it really does is invite expensive casualties. When I began to pair my "heavy" infantry with auxiliaries (or mercenary spearmen--even the pathetic eastern variety) on a one-to-one basis (at least), I actually saw a huge increase in my lethality, despite the reduction in "quality" fighters. Spearmen in "defensive" ahead of a main line act as fantastic "speedbumps" against enemy assaults, absorbing charge damage as well as inflicting some of the own, and they give your cohorts (on autoattack) time to add the full weight of their pilum damage before committing themselves. On the offensive, an auxiliary vanguard delivers its own charge damage, as well as weakens the enemy line for exploitation by your heavies. So, as much as possible, I now try to make the job of my most valuable units to be the mopping up of remnants. When I commit them, I thoroughly expect to see the enemy line crumble.

This of course means a lot of auxiliary casualties (in fact, I often don't even commit my cohorts at all until their associated auxiliaries have begun to rout), but so what? Auxiliaries are cheap to retrain, there are often mercenary alternatives available (even the best infantry units take time and effort to carve through 240 barbarians!), and almost any town can churn them out on the cheap (besides, they aren't proper Romans anyway! ).

--Warspite

[Grifman]

You're problem is that you have nothing to counter Egyptian missile units. Against the Egyptians, my field army has two onagers and 4 archers, and a couple of units of javelin cavalry. That's usually enough to keep his chariots busy and weaken them before they got too close to do alot of damage. Onagers really rule on the battlefield.

[Metatrone]

I again thank all of you for your advice(s). Much appriciated.

As I said previously so have I returned to Egypt now, with basically the same line of troops as last time since I chosed to blaim my previous defeat on poor tactics. Have managed to knock a couple of their armies out. Still...I dont view the Egyptian archers as much of a problem since they tend to position themselves quite exposed in front of their main battle-line and are easy to deal with (ie cause to fall back and stop firing) using the cavalry, which also in many aspects also apply to their chariots. I dont view enemy missilefire as much of a problem, since the testudo formation tend to cope with that in a decent way and if their archers (foot) can fire at me, so my own archers also take their told. As I see it so do all missilefire (at this point) tend to only cause very marginal losses. The advice on improved tactics to strike heavy infantry directly from behind (once exposed), rather than from the sides have worked out as explained. So I can say that my calvary are much thankful for the advice on the improved calvary-tactics.

Well, I´ll better head off and move my armies off the mountain-ranges west of the Nile and set course on Alexandria now.

[EGO]

I found that upgraded Wardogs work good against chariots.. they keep the chariots busy for awhile.

On a side note: I just had all three of the cities in Egypt revolt on me at the same time. After I take them back and exterminate the population I'll know better then to garrison them with only the Town Watch

[The Storyteller]

A bit difficult to go offensive on the Egyptians because of their archers and chariots. My advice (as you already know, I'm sure) is to play defensive so that they have to approach you, and you do minimal micro management.

I find missile fire works wonders against the egyptians.

Try to position your troops as far away from the enmy as possible, on as high ground as possible. They'll be exhausted by the time they get to you. Have 4 onagers pounding the enemy as soon as they get in range. Next come the archers, and finally the pila.

If you use flaming ammo you should be able to rout quite a lot of the army before it touches you. If you use normal ammo the enemy will suffer very heavy losses, and will also rout quickly. If your army is cavalry heavy, try to use them in pairs - one to take the enemy head on, and one to attack from the flank or rear.

[Sam Adams]

I was using repeating ballistas to go after those damned chariots for a while.

even elephants take a bunch of casualties in close combat with those friggen things.

Im resigned to the fact that chariots must be killed from range. Mercenary war elephants arent bad as long as you keep them away... since they are invulnerable to missile fire themselves.

[CrackedAxe]

Easily the best weapon against chariots are phalanxes. Use light cav to lure the chariots onto the waiting spear points and watch them DIE!

Recruit some mercenary hoplites for chariot killin' and ship them to egypt to join your armies. The best way to use them is to (once you've lured the chariots in) pin the chariots with one unit and flank them with another. I've watched my flanking pikemen kill whole units of chariots in seconds.

[Didz]

I used Onager's loaded with flaming ammunition to take out whole chaiots in a single ball. My Roman armies never went anywhere without at least on battery of Onagers and sometimes two.