How long did Roman era battles last?

[Khorak]

Not to mention battles were not like in RTW anyway. Formations would clash with each other, being repelled or breaking the enemy and forcing them to fall back or flee. Several times formations of men could clash and then fall back from each other to do it again a while later.

In RTW everyone just mobs up, picks a target and goes at it like a giant riot.

[The Stranger]

yes that's true but in RTW battles goes way to fast to do that

well Barbarians didn't do that. but they attacked fought a smal battle, inflicted losses try to breach their line, but when they didn't won they retreated and tried again.

[Byzantine Prince]

Not to mention battles were not like in RTW anyway. Formations would clash with each other, being repelled or breaking the enemy and forcing them to fall back or flee. Several times formations of men could clash and then fall back from each other to do it again a while later.

In RTW everyone just mobs up, picks a target and goes at it like a giant riot.

You can counter that by clickin the attack mouse on the front of or behind the enemy line so the lines stay on their proper positions. Also the ranks to fall back sometimes but I agree with you on this, they should have made that more automatic.

[screwtype]

The point is that in RTW, once the melee starts, the battles are over in the wink of an eye, with large numbers of troops dying and the rest running away. It's pitiful.

In STW, I can remember having epic battles with, for example, just one unit of naginata against an AI unit of buddhist monks. The monks won in the end, of course, but even those little battles could last several minutes, which is how it should be.

[Byzantine Prince]

"The point is that in RTW, once the melee starts, the battles are over in the wink of an eye, with large numbers of troops dying and the rest running away. It's pitiful."

It's gonna be fixed eventually. As long as people complain enough. Maybe though a patch maybe by other means(expansion). I wouldn't worry about it, the game is still greater then any other.

[hoom]

Its wierd because when you do a 1v1 custom battle with two units of similar stats, they can wind up fighting for like 10mins.
But if you do a battle between uneven units/numbers of units, the battles suddenly become much shorter.

[Khorak]

It is weird though, how sometimes in MTW I'd be annoyed at a unit for collapsing so quickly, and now I'm playing RTW, where the entire battle is over before a couple units have finished duking it out in MTW. Unless it's Viking Berserkers vs. peasants. Then you just get total, horrific carnage for a few moments and running.

[Kraxis]

hoom you must have noticed that in those custom battles it tends to be a nice and flat, generally very bland battleterrain. Neither side gets much in terms of bonus to morale or ability (fatigue). It is just head on and no flanking.
You must also have noticed that when one units is weakened a bit and has become outnumbered it tends to fall apart rather quickly because now each warrior will face more enemies. That is basically what happens in large battles.

I have though seen phalanx vs phalanx battles last an unending time. But I was lucky that the enemy killed his cavalry on my line and I had none.

Back on topic.

Battles lasted a long time... Very long. Hours on end and often days. Ceasar's battle against the Hevetii near Bibracte lasted acording to himself from around noon until the sun had set in the summer. Nasty long!

The way the rotation was dealt with was rather more simple than a man standing with a watch (bear with me here). Rather the troops fought as long as they could, and that was about equal length for equally trained men. At that time hte enemy would be tired to, and a natural tendency to pull back would be in effect.
Who would in his right mind follow an enemy if you are exhaused and he is not fleeing. The lines would simply pull apart and a lull would happen. For some time the troops would rest, drink some water, rotate the troops (or perhaps even whole lines) and pass up throwing weapons (pila comes to mind here). Then one side would initiate the combat again (neither being surprised as they could see it coming), in ht case of the Romans with a new shower of pila. And this would continue until one side was either too tired to keep up or their line was broken, flank turned or had suffered too many losses.

But hten again, those battle would be anything but fun to control. Lots of lulls and basically no control after the first maneuvers had begun. It was most often decided as per the general's initial orders (Cannae and Gaugamela are nice examples of that, rather than micromanagement or individual initiative).

[hrvojej]

Its wierd because when you do a 1v1 custom battle with two units of similar stats, they can wind up fighting for like 10mins.
But if you do a battle between uneven units/numbers of units, the battles suddenly become much shorter.

That's why it would be great if we could mod the individual morale parameters, and not just the general morale of the units. I am more and more coming to a conclusion that the morale penalty for casualties and/or being outnumbered/outclassed is too great, and this is what causes the 5-second mass routs. And changing the general morale might not be the perfect answer, since you also mess up unit matchups and ratios of other penalties, such as morale loss due to being flanked.

With decreased battle speeds, charges are less devastating because units just don't intermingle as much to slaughter half of the enemy unit outright, so it's a bit better. But still, I think that there's something in the particular morale penalties that has changed from MTW which makes the RTW battles so short.