Where do i get replays /tactics

[YellowMelon]

Rome is by far the most over-rated faction in the game. They are extremely easy to play, which is why so many unexperienced players do fairly good against other unexperienced players. As soon as people reach a level where they have a thorough understanding of the game mechanics and anti'ing factions, it becomes quite easy to beat Rome. In fact, the only time Rome was ever used by the better clans was normally in team matches where Rome's versatility could be more appreciated. Cheap archers and good cav could support the elephants or phalanx of other teams.

The way to beat Rome is quite simple. The standard legion-breakers, such as chariots and elephants are also the same units that annihilate cavalry. So, if for example I play a Roman team, I expect a fair amount of heavy infantry as well as heavy cavalry. So, you take a more aggresive tactic otherwise intend on winning the archer duel. Chariots > Cavalry, interestingly enough Chariots also > legions. Both require a backup of cavalry support, so for example using Pontus I would bring in 2-3 scythed chariots with a group of Cappadocian cavalry. Your cavalry crisis is solved.

Now for those pesky urbans. Well hands down urbans are the best legions in the game, and if you let them get their pilum off you might as well eat worms. With phalanx, you have to be very skillful, and basically run in range of the urbans so that they can get a maximum of 1 round off. Once you lower the pikes they shouldnt be anymore effective. Now remember the Urbans WILL win in melee, so you have to win the cav battle. But the bronze shields should hold them off long enough to route the enemy cavaly. There is something like 200 denari difference between urbans and shields, as well you may be able to hold off more urbans with less shields because of the number difference (40 vs 60 pike).

To do this you engage your cavalry (I usually use wedge then after the charge turn into block, but most people dont do this). Due to the chance that the chariots will go crazy, you want to engage them last and smash into the side of all the (enemy) cavalry engaged. This will make a sure win, providing the Romans did make uber cavalry and bad infantry. If they try and send urbans into the mix, just target those with your chariots first. Me and Nihilist have had considerable success with this tactic in 2v2's as well.

Now make sure you hit the urbans in the back, and they should route. You can use your scythed chariots as well but if the game is close then you might want to hold them as a reserve. This is the forumula for all chariot, elephant factions vs rome. And if you can coordinate this with a partner it will win 2v2s almost every game.

[AquaLurker]

Rome was easier to kill in 1.2, but with the slow kill rate of the pike in 1.3/1.5. Rome becomes the awsome faction to use. Put it this way, an experiment game I did with a friend who is very good with the game. Note that I used Numidia legionaire against pikes, it took the pike forever to kll my numidia inf(given the smoothness of the game) while I successfuly defeats his cav with a couple of inf that I can pull easily away from the pike meele (suffering only 3-4 loses in an easy disengage move).

Thats how bad this two patches made the pike becomes and indirectly makes rome the super faction. In 1.3/1.5 pike become weaker instead of stronger, they can't react to Numidia legion, how good would you think that they would react to roman inf and skirmishers. constantly lifting ur pikes to chase afer "nimble heavy infantry" will result in breaking up your own foramtion and increasing the rate of casulties to the pike inf from a counter charge. Note that all the guy have to do is click the location.

Heres a trick against Pikes that was effective both in 1.2 and even more so in 1.3/1.5, put rome inf in defensive stance infront of a lower pike formation. As long as you don't throw yourself into the pike(basically charge head on) nothing with scratch you, you can even walk away from a engaged lowered pike formation while drinking a cup of tea at the same time. Now would you risk raising your pike to chase afther the romans inf knowing your oponent intention? Yes, but then, exposing urself to a cav charge in these situation or you become a legitimate targets to archers again and we know how wonderful archer can be against pikes. Roman inf are very resilaint to arrows, even without testudo so same trick agains roman doesn't work much.

Giving this new terrible weakenese of pikes, a "cav bash" would be even more tough to win for pike fraction against rome.

I can imagine the numidian legionaire saying this to the pikeman: "ouch! you poke my leg!"...and a roman legionaire saying: "ouch you scratch my shield, I just polished it!" Then stroll away.

IMO when a player is restricted to a a few units type to take on rome (e.g chariots, elephants), then thats really not alot of option and tactics regarding fighting rome. Lets us take a look at the number of factions that can take on rome, only a few privilage ones as mentioned. Lets have no ele in the game, we have even lesser factions and some close contender are now virtually crippled.

"I wouldn't blame a guy who would chairot and cav spam rome with Brits and egypt."

[NihilisticCow]

As we've said, the pikes aren't there to kill, they're there to hold. Yes, you can run away from them, but you just run after them. If you win the archer battle, you'll be shooting at their cavalry anyway, so they won't want to run around too much. Pikes aren't any weaker against Roman infantry than before; they never really killed much anyway, that was never their purpose.

All you need to do is to delay the Roman infantry, as cataphracts easily beat all the Roman cavalry and will then quickly rout the pinned infantry. Scythed chariots only hasten this. If the Roman player ignores your infantry and hits everything on your cavalry, then the pikes in the back do do quite a bit of damage and hurt morale.

I would blame a guy who chariot spammed as it's a sign of a player that can't deal with something immeadiately so gives up. Chariot spamming is not hard to beat anyhow.

[AquaLurker]

If the roman infantry can easily disenage from the Pike, what chance do you think the pike can do to pin the roman inf down, like I mentioned before that the cataphracts would have their hands full fighting both roman inf and cav while the pike would find themselves pinning a few roman inf? The pike will have nothing to hold if nothing throw themselves into their pike, only a few legions standing infront of them pretending to be engaged, I told a guy who doesn't know this trick after I beat his pike with rome, we reversed the role and he simlply excel in this better than me.

The Pikes can stand there to have their own morale hurt most of the time, considering the fact that they lost their cav support thinking that they had pinned something as many as a few roman inf.

Scythe chariots can lose control rather easily deal to fire arrows. Do we have to use Brits and egypt when all else fail? Chariots spaming can be beaten easily, wouldn't that make roman even stronger?

Just find one day ask one of your clan mates to try my tricks using rome while you use selecid with no ele and art as the game rule basis. If you are afriand that your achers are no match against roman aux, try pike factions with cretian archers or their equivalent.

Edit: Yeah I did play RTW vanilla for a very long period so I never did give up on it, just bored with the tactics that are often geared towards a limited number of factions and units.

[Puzz3D]

Pikes, being a slow but solid unit in frontal fighting, would be used to hold your center. You either have to win on the flanks with something else such as cavalry or you have to win the ranged duel to force the opponent to attack you. If the pikes cost too much, you won't be able to get an advantage in the cavalry or ranged units when going up against a non-pike based army. The problem as I see it is that mobility hasn't been given a proper denari value, so the pike units end up being too expensive. The changes to pikes in v1.5 allows them to fullfill their role, but their cost means you are at a disadvantage in the other areas of the RPS system. Ever since Total War moved away from players drawing their armies from the same unit pool, multiplayer has become an army purchase game.

[NihilisticCow]

Just find one day ask one of your clan mates to try my tricks using rome while you use selecid with no ele and art as the game rule basis. If you are afriand that your achers are no match against roman aux, try pike factions with cretian archers or their equivalent.

Maybe you don't quite understand the sheer amount of Rome I've played online. I've seen that kind of thing attempted and countered it by moving as I said. As long as your patient, you will be able to pin the infantry (or prod it in the back). I'm not someone who has just been playing the game for 5 minutes.

Yeah I do agree that RTW is a bit too much of an army purchase game and that the limited number of playable factions is a bit frustrating, it's just that the number of playable factions are most certainly not dominated by Rome, and there are more tactics that you allude to. 1.2 Rome was though all about winning on the flanks.

I don't quite get why you keep saying chariot spamming, as it's just not the way to beat a competent Rome and will be countered in a series of games, so at the most you'll win 1 game and lose the rest. Besides pretty much all high level games were played at max 8 cavalry (which includes chariots). Why did most veteran players not use Rome all the time in tourneys? I hated facing Parthia or Britannia much more than I ever did Rome.

[AquaLurker]

No Not all battles are won on the flanks...but by many situations and circumstantes and mostly concentrated Cav charge in a single point at the rigth time and place...As I agreed with you rome is easier to beat in 1.2...just go try out 1.5 and use pike.

It is due to all kinds of considerations with different approach on mind , test and proven games with friends and other online players that that I come to this conculsion, not a five mins game.

Like you I too have a sheer amount of game with RTW in 1.2 and have seen you play quite amount of game in 1.2, so I don't really think you are defending the game properly without trying out 1.5...or 1.3 if you prefered.

No I don't believe that a competent rome player would win 9 out of 10 games against a chariots spam used by a competent player, hell even a competent player would fall prey to a noob who cav spam without those "high level rules" to check spaming, past complains from so many of them had proven this. The "high level rules" are there in fact, because overpowered spaming stack cav/chariot/ele(and certain inf unit spaming) charge is a problem and a no brainer, and people want decent intelligent games,therefore the rules...

In team games I always see good clans do a single combined cav charge in a single point(center/flanks and sometimes straight at pikes) in 1.2 too often to know that how victories can be won in so many ways with cav concerntrations...

People fear Britannia in 1.2 because the chariots are cheap reliable, don't lose control due to casulties and fire arrows and the fact that there are ha,catacphracts and the much hated elephants in a parthian army.

I am not understanding why you disagree with my frustartion over Rome in 1.3/1.5 when you already know that in 1.2 tactics are so limited by the unit factions available in the game as you have mentioned.

[AquaLurker]

Pikes, being a slow but solid unit in frontal fighting, would be used to hold your center. You either have to win on the flanks with something else such as cavalry or you have to win the ranged duel to force the opponent to attack you. If the pikes cost too much, you won't be able to get an advantage in the cavalry or ranged units when going up against a non-pike based army. The problem as I see it is that mobility hasn't been given a proper denari value, so the pike units end up being too expensive. The changes to pikes in v1.5 allows them to fullfill their role, but their cost means you are at a disadvantage in the other areas of the RPS system. Ever since Total War moved away from players drawing their armies from the same unit pool, multiplayer has become an army purchase game.

Thanks for clarifying certains points better than I can do. Pikes are definately doing a better job in a frontal fight now but they are facing a new problem with the current patch which in turns make certain units especially those found in Rome even more dominating in MP, espcailly against a competent and patient Rome player.