Hastati getting smacked in Macedonia

[Auctoritas]

Has anyone had any success fighting cavalry intensive Macedonians using a Roman army that is predominantly infantry, but without triarii?

Although I try to avoid fighting battles with unbalanced armies, on a couple of occasions now I have brought mostly infantry troops to the field and watched my hastati fold like a deck of cards when dealing with Mac lancers.

I believe that I read somewhere that hastati, as a rule, don't do well with cav. Do princeps work noticably better?

Just kind of curious.....

[Rodion Romanovich]

Has anyone had any success fighting cavalry intensive Macedonians using a Roman army that is predominantly infantry, but without triarii?

Although I try to avoid fighting battles with unbalanced armies, on a couple of occasions now I have brought mostly infantry troops to the field and watched my hastati fold like a deck of cards when dealing with Mac lancers.

I believe that I read somewhere that hastati, as a rule, don't do well with cav. Do princeps work noticably better?

Just kind of curious.....

Principes are strong enough to resist and pin the charge long enough for you to send your own cavalry into the rear of the pinned enemy cavalry and rout them before it's too late. You can also do well by stacking 2 or more units of hastati on top of each other. Just remember to bring much cavalry so you can charge the rear of the enemy when they're pinned and you should be fine. Actually I've personally done well against macedonian lancers armies with equites by isolating them and hitting them a few at the time, but it requires more micromanagement and can be harder than using footmen for pinning and equites for killing.

[Dutch_guy]

principes are better , use them, also make your troops -since you are mostly using infantry - fire at will.
lancers drop like flies if you manage to hit them with pila, and once they ingage in melee they are done for, their only power is in their charge.

[katank]

Stacking hastati and using pila works well.

Try to stay on defensive and use hills. This slows their charge and gives them more time to eat pila.

Also have velites right behind your hastati to throw their pila. This overlapping pila fire kills lancers very fast.

Access to archers will also allow you to mow down those low armor troops from range.

[professorspatula]

Don't forget to find a tree to sit your vulnerable units under. Cavalry get a big penalty for fighting in wooded areas, and I'm pretty certain you only need a few trees for it to count as forest ground. Those lancers won't be as deadly then.

I really hate the huge number of lancers the AI builds though. I remember pre-patch my Brutii settlements would be under siege nearly every turn by an army of Macedonians where 50% or more were lancers.

[Muska Burnt]

i like puting my guys in a line and my hasati or pricipes at fire at will and when the horse do get to you just flank them

[Viking]

I really hate the huge number of lancers the AI builds though. I remember pre-patch my Brutii settlements would be under siege nearly every turn by an army of Macedonians where 50% or more were lancers.

There is for one reason: the lancers got a charge bonus on 15.
I was shocked when I first saw it. It`s probably the best 1.level cavalry there is to be found.

[Conqueror]

Too bad that the charge bonus doesn't actually matter much.

Anyway, you could hire some mercenary hoplites and use them to guard the edges of your infantry line:

.// [H a s t a t i] \\
//......................\\ --- (Merc hoplites)

[Viking]

Doesn`t matter much?!
Charge bonus got almost everything to say.

[The Stranger]

i did many times, the key is a close double line (in defence) should the first line rout or get killed the second line takes the pursuers and kills them, but most of the time they wont get trought the first 2 volleys of pilas.

[PseRamesses]

Has anyone had any success fighting cavalry intensive Macedonians using a Roman army that is predominantly infantry, but without triarii?
I believe that I read somewhere that hastati, as a rule, don't do well with cav. Do princeps work noticably better?
Just kind of curious.....

Principes are a little better than Hastaties but except the "wooded advice" earlier keep your inf-army on hold formation, don´t charge, and atleast 2 lines deep (not the unit, the army). This allows the first line to engage until the enemy engages them while line 2 and 3 can continue the pilae hail until depleted. When line 2 is out of ammo flank left and right. Repeat with line 3 etc.

[antisocialmunky]

Doesn`t matter much?!
Charge bonus got almost everything to say.

Impact pwoer depends more on heavier armor. That's why Catanks are better than Cappadocians even though they're pretty much equal except for armor and shield changes(I think it's shield).

[katank]

Not true.

Katanks are superior because of armor piercing secondary attack.

Lancer's charge when delivered by several of them simultaneously can instarout even principes. Charge means everything.

Try that with round shields and fail horribly. Charge matters if you know how to use it.

Fortunately, the AI doesn't know how to do so well.

[The Stranger]

the AI is bad with charges tough in 1.2 they sumtimes try the retreat and charge again thing

[katank]

They actually always do so. Carrahae in 1.0 also featured recharging gold chev katas

Still, they don't focus the charges to instarout a unit.

They also don't bait units to be isolated.

However, an AI on that level will be scary and hard to beat.

[The Stranger]

a real cool game in my eyes

[katank]

That's true.

[Auctoritas]

Thanks to all for the good gouge.
I just refought a couple of battles based on the multiple lines in defense concept and have experienced much better results. It just goes to show that even a blind squirrel can find a nut now and then...

I also noticed that setting the hastati to fire at will has also helped immensely. Is there any reason that I shouldn't make that their default setting?????

[Rodion Romanovich]

I also noticed that setting the hastati to fire at will has also helped immensely. Is there any reason that I shouldn't make that their default setting?????

Nope

[LestaT]

I might have posted it somewhere but I haven't got any answers yet so I just re-posted it here. Since playing RTR 5.41 I haven't been able to go to war with Macedonians yet but the Greeks is my main nemesis now.

So far I haven't had problems with their cavs but their hoplites. One on one my principes always routed before the phalanx. The only way is is to envelope them completely from all sides. Anyway on some battle where the numbers are equal I'm always on the run , even with 4-5 star general on their side.

Since my roman army composition always principes (hastatis only what is given when strted the campaign, provided they still survive. I don't use much triaris.

Which is better against phalax ? Triariis or Principees ? Or any other tactics ?

[pezhetairoi]

All of you are INFERIOR MWAHAHAHA... *ahem* just kidding.

But to tell the truth, I stormed through Greece all the way clear to Porrolissum with just hastati and two units of principes. It can be done. I set my hastati to fire at will, and simply advanced them at the enemy stacks. If the cavalry tried to outflank me I ran a couple of cohorts from the centre to the flanks. The trick is to stop your hastati moving, regardless of whether or not they are facing the lancers head on, to take the charge. Always worked. By the time the pikemen arrived to crush my (empty) centre, my flank battles were over and the phalanx was being hit from every direction EXCEPT the front.

Oh, but one thing. Never ever play the Roman style just because you're Roman--the Romans, after all, had cavalry. Four Equites are enough to destroy the enemy cavalry corps. I've tried this out before. Macedonian LL and all other cavalry forces controlled by the AI never charge en masse, but spread out in a fan as they go, to pursue one-unit-one-target fighting styles. When they do that, I see no reason why I should concentrate my equites in one four-unit fist and punch them in the centre unit where it hurts, break through them and round on the next one, and the next, just as they're all busy beating up my hastati. Concentrate your forces. Don't let the 15 charge bonus scare you. If you play it right and let the LL charge your stationary hastati, THEN countercharge them, bingo, you've got it made--the LL will never be able to use their charge where it hurts. Trust me, LLs charging hastati, even in single line, should never hurt as much as it did you.

Always remember, god never made infantry to be the decisive arm, or else it'd be velites you would use to pursue the enemy off the field, not your general and your equites.

[Marquis of Roland]

MWHAHAHAHA, pezhettairoi I one-upped you

I did the same thing but with 5 hastati, 2 equites, and my general.

Lancers have the great charge bonus but there are plenty of ways to negate that.

The battle in my campaign that broke the Macedonian's back was when they laid siege to Thermon right after I captured it. They had 2 militia hoplites, 1 merc hoplite, 8 lancers, 1 macedonian cav, and the macedonian king.

First off you must make your hastati's rank depth as deep as possible (try a box formation). The AI had all their phalanx on their flank closest to my wall. I exited from a side gate and basically used my equites to "stretch" their cav line by running them away from the wall in a fake flanking maneuver. Then I maneuvered my hastati so that their phalanxes were between me and their cav. I still managed to outflank their phalanx with my general and some hastati while the rest of my infantry held their line.

I routed the militia hoplites and started on the mercs. However, dumb AI wanted to get ALL of their cav into the battle as soon as possible, charged straight into the backs of their merc hoplites! This disrupted their formation so much my hastati was able to close in and negate their spears. Since the lancers now lost their chage bonus because their own hoplites stopped the charge they now got chopped to pieces by my lowly hastati while my cav had free reign to charge the point of engagement as many times as they wanted.

Eventually their king died and the sheer number of routing units running into their remaing cav trying to get into the battle made the rest of their army rout. I chased them down with my equites. End result - I win suffering pretty heavy casualties in 3 out of the 5 hastati and 50% losses in my cav, but their whole army was wiped out except for 3 units of lancers.

As I moved my deplete army further to Larissa, I found that that was most of their existing forces, and I was able to breeze through the rest of my war with Macedon.

[Oaty]

Guard mode halts most cavalry charges dead if they are frontally charged. Even when hit in the flank they will have some standing power allowing time for a producive reaction. Hastati have enough power to take a cavalry charge from the front in guard mode and will allow time in most cases to make a counter move if they get hit in the flank

Also form up in a bit of a reverse crescent (cannae). More than likely the A.I. will concentrate on the flanks in your center allowing you to bring your recessed flanks forward.

Also leave guardmode on for those engaged but try to take it off for those that are charging in for the kill.

Cavalry lose bady when pinned down or tied up. So the big trick with an all cavalry army is to hold there charges and then counter.

[Megas Alexandros]

Guard mode halts most cavalry charges dead if they are frontally charged. Even when hit in the flank they will have some standing power allowing time for a producive reaction. Hastati have enough power to take a cavalry charge from the front in guard mode and will allow time in most cases to make a counter move if they get hit in the flank

Cavalry lose bady when pinned down or tied up. So the big trick with an all cavalry army is to hold there charges and then counter.

Hahaha!

Try, mortal! True charges never come from the front. It is like water falling down from a hunder meters' height. It washes away anything. Anything!

[Krauser]

This sort of thing happened to me when I first started with the Scipii. I went after Numidia after Carthage. A few sieges as my troops were getting through th e bottleneck they were charged and shot at on all sides by cavalry. 12 stacks of Hastati decimated in less than a minute.

[Oaty]

Hahaha!

Try, mortal! True charges never come from the front. It is like water falling down from a hunder meters' height. It washes away anything. Anything!

If your talking about online play yes charges won't likeky come at your front but you can always change the direction a unit is facing. If you take a lot of charges from the A.I. in the flanks, you need to pay more attention or set your line up differently.

[pezhetairoi]

Ah, I've been upstaged by the Marquis of Roland. I am ashamed -_-

Well, in my Brutii game I took my time to get to the Macedonians because I had pressing Senate engagements in Sicily and Africa, so the Macedonians had time to build up, so when I finally got back to them they had two fullstacks that I couldn't just face with 5 hastati 2 equites and 1 general (ofor obvious reasons) so I...must admit that I couldn't pull off what you did. Not with 12 LL 2 Generals 3 Levies and 3 Militia staring me in the face, no.

[Norxis]

The Marquis is right, I also had lots of trouble with the light lancers until I started changing unit formation - then things decidedly changed - just limit the amount of area they can hit and its better (same thing goes for chariots), you just need to have them pinned and they're in big trouble.

[Gaius Magnus]

Gaurd Mode + Fire At Will = Unhappy Horsies

Mob the cav units after they have charged your lines. Don't let them get away and charge again.

[pezhetairoi]

Guard mode, fire at will, hold ground, then countercharge once the cav has been pinned. There's no need to actually mob them... they usually rout fast enough.

My standard variant, that I use more often, is to have Equites already on the move by this time since I would have anticipated the move, and they will countercharge the LL any way they can, up to and including frontally through the hastati if need be, to catch them as they rout. Do it right and they run only a few metres before their unit is eliminated from the playing field.