I'm re-evaluating my strategy...

[Napoleon Blownapart]

Alright, I'm now certain my way of playing Rome: Total War isn't going to work very well. I'm very offence-oriented, and i find myself doing the following often:

1) I can't seem to get myself to use any other formation besides a single long line of infantry units with calvalry on the flanks and skirmishers in front. I'm overly careful to avoid being outflanked. This formation is getting old. Fast. Someone please give me some reason to ease my fears. A strong push at the enemies' center would also be effective, as the remaining flanks would be divided and discouraged, correct?

2) I always send my calvalry ahead to chase down the enemies' skirmishers and try to do as much damage as they can. They take VERY heavy casualties. Should I keep doing this, or should I keep them guaring the flanks until the infantry forces meet?

3) With phalanxes, I try to get my infantry (still in a line) to turn them around and attack them in the back while pounding them with ranged fire and not using calvalry for anything else then guarding the flanks. This takes a lot of micro-management as far as infantry goes and makes it less of a coordinated battle and more of a each-unit-for-themselves melee. Any better options?

4) Horse archers. What to do besides try to bait them into one of my other units?

Anyway, thanks for reading. I really need to try new tactics...

[GeneralHankerchief]

1) Well, a giant push at the enemy's center could work, but that's what the Romans did at Cannae. Needless to say this strategy sometimes means disaster. I forward you to Woad Warrior's Battle Guide to see a list of formations. One of them is sure to help.

2) Have them guard the flanks. Use skirmishers to take down skirmishers. That's pretty much the whole point of them.

3) Ok, now you're being a bit too cautious with the cavalry. If you're facing a mostly phalanx army, remember that they are way too immobile to pull off a flanking attack. Use hammer and anvil on them. Once again, I direct you to Woad Warrior's Guide.

4) Ah yes, the eternal HA question... usually if you're facing them, there are other Horse Archer mercenaries available in the area (unless Parthia somehow managed to push to Greece, which won't happen). If that's not an option, use foot archers, which generally have a longer range than HAs.

[Napoleon Blownapart]

Thanks for your response! That guide is just what I needed. I can't belived I missed it. This will really help me out a lot.

[Tellos Athenaios]

As far as I have experienced: the same number of Foot Archers doesn't stand a chance against the same number of Horse Archers.

I suppose that's because: Horse Archers use the Circling formation, and usual Foot Archers don't have as much of a longer range as to let longer range make much of a difference.

Playing with 4 units of Horse Archer mercenaries, I routed an rebel army consisting of 2 units of (Barbarian) Archers and several peasant units - all because of the fact that the enemy archers couldn't manage to inflict substantial losses while the Horse Archers circled in front of them.

Perhaps that's a bit different with Cretan Archers, because they have very long range missiles (most other archers don't).

But maybe chariot archers may be of some use against the 'speciality of the east'.

[Alexanderofmacedon]

For Horse Archers, it is a good idea to a)Use foot archers, who are set to spread out b)Counter with HA of your own c)Trap them between units, or d) if you're desperate and you REALLY don't want your troops to be harrassed by the HA, then use one unit as a sacrifice unit (cavalry) to chase after the HA the whole battle. It takes your unit of cavalry off the battle, but their HA are too.

As for the cavalry being charged in before main infantry clash. I wouldn't recomend it. In fact I would discourage it. First of all when you send few troops to do lots of damage, when they get any casualties inflicted they see they have no support of your main army, and they retreat easier. Retreating of your cavalry units before your infantry line meets provides for some morale loss too. In my opinion if you are attacking the enemy you should use archers to take out key units before attacking with main infantry line. Usually the AI takes the missles without a fuss. Other than that, I'd say engage with main infantry line and come around the sides and back and hit the enemy from there. If you have a general use your "rally" call before charging. It kills many with their backs turned as well as drops morale of the enemy.

Hope it helped!

[Papewaio]

Try staggered lines.

A center line of swordmen. And behind that on the flanks have spearmen. As cav want to outflank and hit the rear, start off with you spearmen in those positions. Then between the spearmen place your archers. To the rear of these two lines place cav. Cav are there to outflank the enemy and hit the enemy archers and then to attack the enemy infantry from the rear. I only commit them once all enemy infantry are engaged in combat, this prevents them moving around to attack my Cav.

I typically have infantry : archers : cav ratio of 4 : 1 : 1
With a horse archer civ it would be a 1 : 1 ratio of infantry to HA.

For instance in my RTW:BI Saxon campaigns I create mini armies on and off the battlefield that consist of 4 Levy Spearmen : 1 Hunter : 1 Sea Raider. These 6 units form a battalion. And then I will form up armies by having 1 to 3 battalions. Each of the battalions fights independently on the battlefield with the exception of the Cav which form the reserve.

My selection criteria is based not only on effectiveness on the battlefield but the maintenance cost to field the army and the easy of replacing troops. Lower level troops are easier to replace and cost less.

I have another army which is made up of the higher level troops this is my reserve force and is to deal with any threats that wipe out my battalions.

[Severous]

Hi

As a Roman who likes to micromanage I notice your own style of close control over your troops.

I prefer cavalary and missile heavy army composition. Few heavy infantry units, one or two for street phalanx fighting perhaps.

Moto: kill others whilst not being killed yourself.

If enemy has strong cavalary then use your long range missiles on them to weaken them before you wipe them out with your cavalry. Use cavalry offensively on the battlefield to take out the enemy cavalry and skirmish troops..never fighting their infantry. Enemy skirmishers retreat from cavalry and as they do so can be run down with few casualties. Dont allow your cavalry to come under prolonged missile fire or be charged by other troops.

Once you have just lumbering infantry to fight you do what you already do to lure and turn the enemy. Fire into infantry flanks and rear from height. As they weaken prepare to charge them with best infantry and once engaged add more units to the fight including cavalry from rear/sides.

Horse archers kill a lot but if you win many of your losses will heal. I send cavalry out wide and infantry up the middle. Time it right and the enemy HA leave it too late to run away and get caught in combat by one of the cavalry you have surrounded them with.

A lone cavalry unit a long way out from my lines. Now in the enemy rear and about to loose 25% of its strength taking out Ballistae and a WarDog unit.

Cavalry and archers gain the most kills and experience in my armies.

[The Stranger]

check Woadwarriors BattleGuide or check my Tactics Guide. you can also find a link of Woadwarriors guide in my thread

[Alexanderofmacedon]

Hi

As a Roman who likes to micromanage I notice your own style of close control over your troops.

I prefer cavalary and missile heavy army composition. Few heavy infantry units, one or two for street phalanx fighting perhaps.

Moto: kill others whilst not being killed yourself.

If enemy has strong cavalary then use your long range missiles on them to weaken them before you wipe them out with your cavalry. Use cavalry offensively on the battlefield to take out the enemy cavalry and skirmish troops..never fighting their infantry. Enemy skirmishers retreat from cavalry and as they do so can be run down with few casualties. Dont allow your cavalry to come under prolonged missile fire or be charged by other troops.

Once you have just lumbering infantry to fight you do what you already do to lure and turn the enemy. Fire into infantry flanks and rear from height. As they weaken prepare to charge them with best infantry and once engaged add more units to the fight including cavalry from rear/sides.

Horse archers kill a lot but if you win many of your losses will heal. I send cavalry out wide and infantry up the middle. Time it right and the enemy HA leave it too late to run away and get caught in combat by one of the cavalry you have surrounded them with.

A lone cavalry unit a long way out from my lines. Now in the enemy rear and about to loose 25% of its strength taking out Ballistae and a WarDog unit.

Cavalry and archers gain the most kills and experience in my armies.

Same here. Like all my cavalry have silver chevrons at least becuase they're the routers and the flankers.

My infantry usually has nothing, cuz it's mostly mercenaries when I play RTR

[Napoleon Blownapart]

I may need to put more emphasis on calvalry and missle troops, then. I always seem to rely on an old-fashon wall of infantry with VERY few others, but now that I think of it, I'll try to balance my army out more.

[Garvanko]

Good use of missile troops and cavalry wins battles.

[Alexanderofmacedon]

Good use of missile troops and cavalry wins battles.

Yep. Very rarely do infantry do anything really worthy

[GeneralHankerchief]

Not true, they make good cannon fodder when taking the gates/walls in a siege.

[Alexanderofmacedon]

Not true, they make good cannon fodder when taking the gates/walls in a siege.

You bring up a good point, but I wouldn't say cannon fodder. They're just goof for it.

[econ21]

Good use of missile troops and cavalry wins battles.

This is true, but does it not show a major flaw with the vanilla RTW game? In an era dominated by heavy infantry - the phalanx and the legion - it is missles and cavalry that wins battles? I just want to put in a plug for some of the major mods - RTR and EB - that redress this balance. It's hard to come back to the vanilla game after playing them.

[Avicenna]

In the end it's still infantry that gets rid of enemy infantry and generals, large massed infantry that do not rout and demoralise the enemy. Cavalry takes out cavalry and missiles because enemy cav and missiles are bad for your infantry's health. Missiles weaken enemy infantry so that your infantry have an easier time chopping them up. Infantry free up your cavalry, allowing them to run wherever they want and rout whoever they want.

[Garvanko]

In most cases, Infantry is merely there to engage and hold the enemy infantry so that they can be beaten. However, Missile units and Cav tip the balance. They break the enemy's morale, their formation and then they cut down routing units. Good use of Missile units and Cav mean you hardly ever get flanked, but are able to control your army's zone of engagement.

[The Stranger]

Yep. Very rarely do infantry do anything really worthy

not true. in my way of fighting you cant leave out the infantry. attacking they might me no real use but defensively they are awesome. with 10 roman legionaries i can take on every army. i only have cav to chase routers and missiles to counter missiles. just put a row of 2x4 legionaries up front, 2 legionaries behind each other on each flank and let the enemy come.

[Napoleon Blownapart]

Well, now comes the point where I'm trying to find the right balance of cavalry, infantry and missile troops. The infantry still seem to be important, but not as much as before. They may not be the ones that get the glory or high kill count, but they need to be able to hold. Cavalry should guard the flanks and protect against other Cavalry, but can later break the enemy with a charge after they're engaged with your troops. Missile units should be used to counter other missile troops, and then provide support.

Did I get it right? This will be a lot different then before. I always used missile units against the enemy infantry and cavalry was to hunt down skirmishers and fight the enemy cavalry. I always used my generals to combat the enemy's, but I think I'll try using other troops for that, like those Triarii. So, I was using all my troops to support my infantry, instead of using everything in a coordinated manner.

Well, now I just need to find my balance of the troop types. Could some people post examples of their favorites? Should help me a bit.

Thanks for all your help!

[vonsch]

Fah! You want balance? Horse archers and forget the rest! Cavalry and missiles in one package, and if you run out of arrows, you just come back next year to clean up the loose en...err, infantry. Nothing like a nice crossfire to cut even the heavily armored hikers down to ankle height!

The mongols are coming! The mongols are coming! (Cries Tiberius Revere as he pounds down the highway to Rome...)

Gotta admit I hate it when my nice horse archer unit runs out of arrows and decides to charge though...

Ow! Get back here! Retreat! Come back next year, silly!

[Alexanderofmacedon]

Fah! You want balance? Horse archers and forget the rest! Cavalry and missiles in one package, and if you run out of arrows, you just come back next year to clean up the loose en...err, infantry. Nothing like a nice crossfire to cut even the heavily armored hikers down to ankle height!

The mongols are coming! The mongols are coming! (Cries Tiberius Revere as he pounds down the highway to Rome...)

Gotta admit I hate it when my nice horse archer unit runs out of arrows and decides to charge though...

Ow! Get back here! Retreat! Come back next year, silly!

I hear ya!

[GeneralHankerchief]

I think Napoleon is specifically referring to Roman formations. So correct me if I'm wrong, but the Romans hated both horses and archers so HAs are right out. Cavalry Auxilia is only JavCav so they'll keep up a fire for about two seconds before they charge.

[x-dANGEr]

Alright, I'm now certain my way of playing Rome: Total War isn't going to work very well. I'm very offence-oriented, and i find myself doing the following often:

1) I can't seem to get myself to use any other formation besides a single long line of infantry units with calvalry on the flanks and skirmishers in front. I'm overly careful to avoid being outflanked. This formation is getting old. Fast. Someone please give me some reason to ease my fears. A strong push at the enemies' center would also be effective, as the remaining flanks would be divided and discouraged, correct?

2) I always send my calvalry ahead to chase down the enemies' skirmishers and try to do as much damage as they can. They take VERY heavy casualties. Should I keep doing this, or should I keep them guaring the flanks until the infantry forces meet?

3) With phalanxes, I try to get my infantry (still in a line) to turn them around and attack them in the back while pounding them with ranged fire and not using calvalry for anything else then guarding the flanks. This takes a lot of micro-management as far as infantry goes and makes it less of a coordinated battle and more of a each-unit-for-themselves melee. Any better options?

4) Horse archers. What to do besides try to bait them into one of my other units?

Anyway, thanks for reading. I really need to try new tactics...

I really don't think you should change any tactic. Through SP, you don't really need to face HA, all you should do against a cav oriented faction is siege. In sieges, not HA neither Heavy Cav will give you a headache, considering you are playing an infantry heavy faction.

[Napoleon Blownapart]

I really don't think you should change any tactic. Through SP, you don't really need to face HA, all you should do against a cav oriented faction is siege. In sieges, not HA neither Heavy Cav will give you a headache, considering you are playing an infantry heavy faction.

True, but my strategy was still borked. My post didn't begin to touch on how poor my tactics were. I mean, I had about ten Hastati, one Velite and my General for my primary army in my (older) Julii campaign, and thought only the Greek Cities and Macedon could perform the hammer and anvil. Now since I've studied a bit, I'm still infantry heavy, but have a much healthier mix of troops in my armies (newer Julii campaign).

Now, I just need to figure out the best way to go about on the strateigic map. I know what buildings do what, and which will give the most benefit in which situation, but when it comes to building an armies I'm still learning. I can't quite find that happy medium... Anyway, I still have a few questions, so please bear with me:

1) What should the growth of my cities be early, mid and late game? In both my Julii games, in the early and mid games my capitol had a growth rate of around 3.5%, while Patavium with a higher tax rate and less population had 7%. I know different areas have different farming outputs, but what would you reccomend for early, mid and late game? I've heard that 7 is the magic number at huge city.

2) How does slavery work in 1.5? I've gotten 'Town Grows' messages right after enslaving a town. Does it dump them all at once?

3) Is there any trust factor? If I backstab my allies, will all the world refuse to get an alliance with me?

4) Didn't the time of the Pharoes end long before RTW's timeline? Alright, so it's off topic, but it's been bugging me.

[vonsch]

1) What should the growth of my cities be early, mid and late game? In both my Julii games, in the early and mid games my capitol had a growth rate of around 3.5%, while Patavium with a higher tax rate and less population had 7%. I know different areas have different farming outputs, but what would you reccomend for early, mid and late game? I've heard that 7 is the magic number at huge city.

2) How does slavery work in 1.5? I've gotten 'Town Grows' messages right after enslaving a town. Does it dump them all at once?

3) Is there any trust factor? If I backstab my allies, will all the world refuse to get an alliance with me?

4) Didn't the time of the Pharoes end long before RTW's timeline? Alright, so it's off topic, but it's been bugging me.

1) Too many variables to answer, IMO. In vanilla RWT (BI is pretty different, as there are lots of built up cities to grab and best to keep them small as possible in pop) I aim to build up about 3 cities (and am apt to capture some others) when playing Romans. They rest I generally struggle to keep small, which means dodging as much as I can in building things that boost growth. But the game does a great job of making us have hard choices. We want denarii, so we build trade and farms and things that boost income, but some of the upper end also boost pop growth. Temples too have benefits, but the double edged sword of pop growth in some cases.

My typical pattern is struggle to maintain growth for the first decade or two, then fight to restrain it after that! It's easy to grow once you have a few armies (and lots of income) since you can manipulate enslavements and transfer population using units.

2) 25% goes to the Senate (as I recall), the rest is split up among all your cities with governors. So you can micromanage and have all governors but one step out to the farm while the combat/siege ends (plan ahead with sieges, silly AI can decide to sally early) so 75% of the slaves go to one city... or half to each of two, etc. Yes, from testing other have done, and my own observation, the pop boost happens all at once when you click enslave on the city capture menu.

You also get a period of increased growth (population boom) in the city enslaved and the slave resource to boost trade there and in its partner trading cities. I think that period is 16 turns.

3) Not sure on the trust, but I suspect backstabbing gets you a bad rep with everyone and making any sort of agreement with them gets harder. If it works as "normal", best to tempt the AI into breaking the agreement. I know I'm paranoid about making alliances with factions I KNOW I will go after. I may be too paranoid though.

4) Long is relative.

[Ludens]

1) What should the growth of my cities be early, mid and late game? In both my Julii games, in the early and mid games my capitol had a growth rate of around 3.5%, while Patavium with a higher tax rate and less population had 7%. I know different areas have different farming outputs, but what would you reccomend for early, mid and late game? I've heard that 7 is the magic number at huge city.

2) How does slavery work in 1.5? I've gotten 'Town Grows' messages right after enslaving a town. Does it dump them all at once?

3) Is there any trust factor? If I backstab my allies, will all the world refuse to get an alliance with me?

4) Didn't the time of the Pharoes end long before RTW's timeline? Alright, so it's off topic, but it's been bugging me.

1) In her guide, Frogbeastegg recommends 8% bruto growth, including growth resulting from any building upgrades or trade items (grain, slaves), but without substracting negative modifiers. This way your city can grow to the highest level, but without squalor cripling it overmuch. Off course, this applies to civilized factions only: for Barbarian factions you should aim for a lower growth in my experience, as their cities have only three levels (this can be tricky given that Warbands are so expensive in population terms).

2) Vonsch explained this pretty well, but I will add that the enslaved city and any cities it trades with get a +0,5% growth bonus from the slave resource. This resource lasts twenty turns. (Or at least, this is what should happen: some people report that it does not work: have a look at this topic if you are interested in the details.)

3) There should be, but since R:TW diplomacy is moronic to start with I doubt anyone would notice if it isn't there.

4) Absolutely. By the time the game starts, Egypt was ruled by the Ptolemic dynasty. They styled themselves pharaos, but they were Hellenes (Macedonians, to be precize), and they largely fought like Hellenes: in phalanx formations, supported by heavy cavalry. It is one of the major historical inaccuracies of the game. Egypt was one of the Diadochai, the successors, of Alexander the Great's empire. After Alexander's death, one of his generals, Ptolemaios (better known as Ptolemy), hijacked Alexander's funeral procession and brought the body to the first city Alexander ever founded, Alexandria in Egypt. There Ptolemaios established his own empire, and married Alexander's sister, Cleopatra. The Ptolemic dynasty was characterized by a distinct lack of originalty when it comes to names (as all their pharaos were called Ptolemaios and many or all of their sisters Cleopatra) and dynastic incest, as Ptolemaios' descendents reinstituted the old Egyptian custom of the Pharao marrying his sister. Then again, Ptolemaios himself was closely related to Alexander and thus to his wife, but I am not quite sure how close (I heard he was a half-brother, but the claim is debated).

[Avicenna]

Fah! You want balance? Horse archers and forget the rest! Cavalry and missiles in one package, and if you run out of arrows, you just come back next year to clean up the loose en...err, infantry. Nothing like a nice crossfire to cut even the heavily armored hikers down to ankle height!

The mongols are coming! The mongols are coming! (Cries Tiberius Revere as he pounds down the highway to Rome...)

Gotta admit I hate it when my nice horse archer unit runs out of arrows and decides to charge though...

Ow! Get back here! Retreat! Come back next year, silly!

Say hello to my friend, the 'Skirmish' button, which will solve all your HA retreating problems with one click.

[Monarch]

Say hello to my friend, the 'Skirmish' button, which will solve all your HA retreating problems with one click.

But if they're in canta then it won't work ;)

[Avicenna]

Ludens, it's not certain. I think there's the chance that he was the son of his mother's husband, or his mother's lover, Philip II of Macedon. So there's a chance of them being half brothers, which means that he married his maybe half-sister. Also, surely the barbarians should try to get the population as high as possible? That gives them an edge, having more advanced units than the civilised factions. Later, as you said, the massive warbands can be used to regulate the growth of the cities.

[vonsch]

Say hello to my friend, the 'Skirmish' button, which will solve all your HA retreating problems with one click.

Who has time to check every one of 16 HA units every time you click attack? Once they are out of ammo then melee, and clicking attack turns OFF skirmish. It's first obvious what happened when you see the crossed swords appear and start flashing (followed by the unit size counting down rapidly!)

In small actions it's no problem. But in those 1500-2000 versus 500 HA last-stand-at-the-bridge (except for the next 7 until you use up all the angry enemies' incoming stacks) there so much cavalry charge micromanaging going on, it's easy to miss one or two. And after starting out all neatly lined up, 16 HA units can end up all OVER the field after 10 minutes of battle, so the chance of spotting such a thing on the field itself is slim in all the dust and spurting blood

And the skirmish button is no panacea to anything HA related. It's sometimes as much of a problem as it is a solution. Near barriers it becomes pretty unpredictable, and it's also dangerous if the unit in question is getting pincered. The skirmish AI is not brilliant, even with the patches (though it's lots better than earlier versions).

But I still love my virgies.