The Will of the Senate - out of character thread III

[Lucjan]

Since we're on the topic of the swords vs. spears thing, I have a question maybe somebody could provide a decent answer to.

Besides the clear advantage spears had over cavalry, and keeping men at a distance, and being incredibly cheaper and easier to come by the materials for than swords, why were spears used as the vast bulk of ancient armaments up until the Romans came up with their sword armed heavy infantry? And what caused the development of the sword if spears were so much more favorable?

The only possibility I can see is the need for an infantry unit to close quickly and very closely to the side or rear of a spear armed unit like a phalanx, where the length of the spear would actually be more of a hindrance than a help. Hopefully somebody can clear up my little historical inquiry.

And what is it with CA's rock/paper/scissor outlook on swords anyway? Unless you catch a spear unit by the flank or rear the swords really have no advantage against the spears, but CA seems to glorify them. But the same goes the other way, spears to the flank or rear of a sword unit are devastating.

[Death the destroyer of worlds]

Love your battle report, econ21
Must say Lucius is getting embarassed with all this praise

I use thin lines often, but it is always hazardous, especially with the more realistic use of 'mass'. You can see this well in this battle, check out picture #3. If the AI decides to do a massive charge, your line will bend, and perhaps break. And when it breaks, you are in serious trouble.

I always worry about those battles between turns, as the 4TPY mod is not activated then, but it does not seem to cause problems. Most of the battle-related traits are standard RTW ones, so that is why they work. However, any men coming of age after such a battle may be erratic, but we can fix that.

The AI seems to be at a loss with the islands, which is a shame. I think it sets a strategic target for each city and stores that in the save. But if it then changes its mind, there is a problem. The navy unit still has the objective 'deploy troops on island', while the troops onboard have gotten the new objective 'take city on mainland' or something. So when they are deposited on the island they do nothing and await pickup for the homeland. We could hack the game, but it is extremely laborious and I can't be bothered enough.

As for the population, this is also problematic. Most troop producing cities have 1% growth rates. This means if I recruit a cohort (80 men) the population drops for small cities, i.e. 2000 + 20 - 80 = 1940 men. We really should stop recruiting cohorts from cities with less than 6000 people, but that would leave only Roma and Capua. Ideally, we should deploy governors in all our small troop producing cities and go slaveraiding untill their populations grow to 6000, but that is also unrealistic. The good news is that the population of Jenuensis has grown by over a 1000 men thanks to the presence of Publius Laevinius and the raid on Byzantium. I have been trying to develop Syracuse, Tarentum and Patavium into troop producing cities, but this is a slow progress. We should aim to develop all walled towns into troop producing cities.

I would recommend against meddling with the faction hier thing.

[econ21]

I'm not expert, but the Romans stand out as something of an exception in relying on the sword as their primary weapon. In most other armies and most other times, the sword was a secondary weapon. It was highly prized but not the main weapon used in large bodies of men (the spear, the bow etc. were instead).

So to me the challenge is explaining why the Romans relied so much on the sword. I gather they adapted their style of fighting from some Italian neighbours (Etruscans?). The javelin and sword combo seems like essentially a light infantry fighting style that may have been particularly useful in rough, hilly terrain of parts of Italy, which was less suitable for phalanxes and cavalry. Why it gets switched to a heavy infantry fighting style is curious. Your conjecture - that it was useful for getting round the flanks of phalanxes is a plausible one. It also did well enough against barbarian warbands. It gradually seems to have fallen out of favour as the phalanxes declined and heavy cavalry became more predominant.

You could try asking on the EB forum - they have some real historians there.

[Death the destroyer of worlds]

And what caused the development of the sword if spears were so much more favorable?

For one thing, a sword uses a lot of metal, which is very expensive. In close combat fighting, which most battles generally turn into, a sword is a much better weapon as a spear. Only when facing a spearmen unit from the front are the swordsmen at a disadvantage. Against cavalry, a spear is of course much better than a sword. Spears are also pretty ineffective unless used in large numbers. Finally, for fighting on a wall, nothing beats a sword. In city battles, block the streets with your spearmen and put your swordsmen on the walls.

As an aside, after the invention of the bajonet, soldiers were trained in phalanx tactics once again, with a lot of success. Actually, the bajonet probably killed more men than bullets untill they invented the repeating rifle. In one of the Lara Croft movies, we see her fighting a man armed with a sword using an old .303 rifle from parade rest. This gorgeous bit of cheography, which represents actual training methods, clearly shows how effective a man with a rifle can be without firing a shot. Good examples of effective single man spear fighting is shown in the movie Troy.

EDIT : As for the Romans, who were always outnumbered, they quickly realised that once the army closed untill they were face to face, a spear was not very usefull. The large shields made an effective wall which pushed into the enemy horde, which could not wield their weapons due to lack of space. Then the gladius would come stabbing out in the sliths between the shields to deadly effect. Always try to use the Roman troops on guard (i.e. in formation) , except when charging. They didn't get their ass handed to them in a regular battle untill the Parthians used their missile cavalry on them.

EDIT : econ21 is quite right, their fighting style developed fighting the Sabine guerillia warriors in the south of Italy. The swords proved much more usefull in the woods and hills during their ambushes.

[Mount Suribachi]

Besides the clear advantage spears had over cavalry, and keeping men at a distance, and being incredibly cheaper and easier to come by the materials for than swords, why were spears used as the vast bulk of ancient armaments up until the Romans came up with their sword armed heavy infantry?

I think you answered your own question As for the gladius, I thought the Romans adopted it after they fought in Iberia?

[Death the destroyer of worlds]

I think you answered your own question As for the gladius, I thought the Romans adopted it after they fought in Iberia?

You are correct, they copied the 'spanish sword' when they were fighting the Carthagians in Spain. Before this they used different types of swords.

[Lucjan]

Thanks for the info, I had figured it couldn't have been very far off from what I gathered myself, but I'm still a bit puzzled as to how the Romans could have possibly thought intentionally pushing towards spears, no matter how big your shield, when you don't actually have a spear yourself, could have possibly been an intelligent idea. All logic seems to point to the contrary. Perhaps it was one of those flukes of history where this was discovered on accident and just became widely effective when you had enough desperate men willing to intentionally charge long pointy objects with a shield made, essentially, of three layers of plywood.

[Death the destroyer of worlds]

One layer of triplex breaks easily, but three layers of triplex on top of each other are very hard to break. One bright Roman must have figured that making very large and strong shields, locking them together and then charging the enemy armed with spears, would make the spear barrier not very dangerous. Then at close quarters, the Romans butchered them with their swords.
Still, it takes very brave men to charge a phalanx head on, and it didn't always work. The Macedonians, with their long sarissas, especially scared the Romans, and sometimes caused them heavy losses.

[Lucjan]

Very bright, or very crazy.

[Dooz]

Very bright, or very crazy.

It's a very thin line.


*edit*
Hmm, I just read the Apollonia battle for the first time. Great stuff. However, I'm not quite sure I understand how it was a victory? The only thing I can think of is the clock having run out, but even so, if the Greeks took the forum, wouldn't they have won after occupying it for three minutes? Or did the clock run out before that? In any case, really awesome report.

[StoneCold]

The clock really ran out before the Greeks hold it for the required 3min. At least that's what I understand by reading the OOC threads.

[Dooz]

That's pretty cool. And good presence of mind by "Quintus" to realize the battle could be won that way and saving the day . Made for an interesting battle and RP and historic event and everything.

[econ21]

OK, time to share a dirty little secret. As it happened, the Apollonia battle was very fun to play out because I did not know what I was doing. I discovered an exploit during the course of the battle and my delight at the discovery meant I did not worry about how cheesy it was.

After the mass of Greek phalanxes had thrust their way into the forum, I realised things were pretty hopeless and my only chance was the battle timer. The only problem was, I was using the minimal UI and had no idea where I could see the battle timer. (I was panicking a little and so did not spot it was the egg-timer on the top right of the hidden commands menu.) So I had no idea how long I had. After x-dANGEr's character died, I kind of gave up hope and pulled out Quintus. I saw the 3 minute count-down to victory for the Greeks. Then it occurred to me - what would happen if Quintus stepped back onto the forum? That's what he's doing here:



Well, of course what happens is that the Greek victory countdown ends. Then the exploit became clear - just keep stepping on the forum every couple of minutes, then the Greeks can never get their victory countdown to run and eventually the timer will run out. That's what I did for 10 minutes (it had been a pretty long battle anyway). It got a little hairy once, when a phalanx chased Quintus through the streets and he had to double back, charging through it to get to the forum.

But now I know about the exploit in advance, I would be rather leery of using it again. I tried to sell the tactic to Mount Suribachi in his fatal defence of Maronia, but he is a more honourable man than I and sent me Molon's letter in reply.

On the matter of FLYdude's triumph, here are TinCow's instructions on how to award it:

To give a triumph:
give_trait "CHARACTER NAME" "RomanHero" X
For this trait substitute the following numbers for X depending on the level of Hero you want to give:
Level 1 - Local Hero - X = 1
Level 2 - Popular Hero - X = 2
Level 3 - Roman Hero - X = 3
Level 4 - National Hero - X = 4
Level 5 - Legendary Hero - X = 5

I've added these instructions - and those for the offices - to the FAQ.

Maybe DDW can use these commands and the console to give FLYdude his triumph?

[Death the destroyer of worlds]

There's been some delays as first I managed to lock myself out of my house and now someone's savegame upload has failed, apparently. Bear with me here.

EDIT : I'll upgrade FLYdude first thing when I get the savegame back.

EDIT : For your amusement, and to pass the time, now that the Greek have been destroyed, here are the numbers for my reign.

Greek casualties : 1782
Roman casualties : 280
Average kill ratio : 6.4 - 1
Greek ships sunk : 5 ships
Roman ships sunk : 1 ship

[Mount Suribachi]

But now I know about the exploit in advance, I would be rather leery of using it again. I tried to sell the tactic to Mount Suribachi in his fatal defence of Maronia, but he is a more honourable man than I and sent me Molon's letter in reply.

Not more honourable, just already dead ~:p If I was to fight that battle again I would probably withdraw to the Town Centre to get the bonuses and negate the enemies numerical advantage.

[Lucjan]

I'm not a fan of defending cities unless I have hoplites or some other kind of solid spearmen to form a cork for the bottleneck entrances to the streets. Anything to keep the buggers plugged in a tight space long enough to get some hard hitting troops around the other side or to hit them with as many javelins as humanly possible while they're all disorganised and jumbled together.

[Death the destroyer of worlds]

After reading econ21's battle report

The new Alexander

By the way, the eastern infantry are pathetic, even worse than Gauls. The horse archers are of course the masters of the battlefield. But, alas, we really are broke.

[econ21]

For my peace of mind, can someone load up the latest savegame (255-spr-1.zip) and just click end turn? It crashes on my rig.

[Dooz]

Loaded it up, it worked. But I think I might have an idea what it might be.

In the campaign I was playing with the same mods and everything, when I started moving into Asia Minor, taking cities and destroying them, leaving them to revolt, I got to a point where I got constant ctd's. Turns out, if some certain cities, including Nicomedia, have a civil revolt to slave faction I think, it crashes. This time, at end turn, Nicomedia revolted to the Seleucids, but maybe in your game it went to slave? I'm not quite sure, it's mostly been a guessing game for me. But when that was happening to me, I gave away the cities one by one to test which it was, and it was a ctd everytime except when I gave away an unrested Nicomedia. Then it worked.

Wow, I don't know if any of this made sense. I just woke up. Sorry guys, heh. In any case, it's a dangerous game, getting into Asia Minor as the place is riddled with CTD's if we make the wrong move. I was doing the same thing we're getting into now, raiding runs and such and yeah, not good.

[Death the destroyer of worlds]

For my peace of mind, can someone load up the latest savegame (255-spr-1.zip) and just click end turn? It crashes on my rig.

Same here. I'll worry about it when the turn's actually done.

[flyd]

Turn advanced ok here. Nicomedia was Seleucid, although I'm not sure if it was captured or if it revolted.

By the way, DDW, don't count on those ships stopping any armies from using the landbridges.

[Dooz]

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=60814

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=60428

These threads talk about this problem.

[Death the destroyer of worlds]

By the way, DDW, don't count on those ships stopping any armies from using the landbridges.

Yeah, I was wondering why the 'possible zone of movement' of their armies extended into Greece. That's just great

[econ21]

Very informative posts about the CTDs, Wonderland

From your links and the game situation, I suspect rebellions in our cities are almost certainly the problem. Personally, I think we should stop the tactic of seizing, looting and abandoning settlements as a result - it's just too much of a hassle to deal with CTDs in such an involved (and important!) game. The game will probably be much more challenging if every settlement we take has to be permanently held. (I remember going to Asia Minor as Rome in RTR and having to leave almost full stacks to pacify the larger cities. It really slowed me down.).

This turn (Spring, 255) I guess DDW should try to get all the battles that are fought by others out of the way before he himself does much. That way he will leave himself the maximum freedom of maneouvre for the rest of the turn to tweak things and see if they avoid the CTDs. I suspect RTW has a random number generator, so if you do different things before ending your turn, subsequent random events like rebellions may take a different course.

Maybe the problem will go away, but if not, DDW's technically savy enough to surmount the CTDs - e.g. by consol creating enough weak Roman units in the rebellious towns to pacify them. (We can let the Seleucids take them in due course). Wonderland's second link gives some ideas along those lines as well as some relevant console commands.

[Mount Suribachi]

Good to see my insults haven't been forgotten

Shame Publius isn't still alive, he'd be going mental over that battle :lol:

[Death the destroyer of worlds]

I'm off to reinstall my computer, so I'll be out of contact for some time. If I encounter a problem, I'll let you know.

[Lucjan]

Hope everything goes well.

[Death the destroyer of worlds]

Back online, but it's 4:00 AM here, and I have to reinstall everything. Game is continuing as I am playing from my awesome (* cough cough *) memory so I hope I'm not making any mistakes. I'll switch to BI while I'm at it.

To make matters worse, I'll be in Rome (no kidding ) from Thursday to Sunday so I'll be out of contact then as well. It's a really long story how that suddenly came about. I think it unlikely that I'll be able to finish my term before my departure.

EDIT : I'll answer all my messages when I am done installing tomorrow.

[Braden]

Tonight I’m installing all the Mods etc for this game – fingers crossed; I’m likely to be able to do some testing to see that the mod works and will load up one of the .sav files to test our actual campaign tomorrow night all being well.

That means that if this all goes ok (and it looks really complicated so it may not); I can transfer to the Lower House by the weekend!!

Yay!

(I have a fully patched version 1.6 on my system so there shouldn’t be any compatibility issues. My main concern is getting the installation process in cleanly and understanding how to activate the FULL mod. Can someone volunteer to aid me if I stubble on this? I want to be able to PM someone who’s done this process and played – obviously a lower house member – as I don’t want to clutter up this thread anymore than I have already)

[Lucjan]

If you have issues with all that multi-part zip file stuff you can go ahead and PM me. I have a single file version of the multi-part zip. It takes heck of alot longer to download, but it works if the multi-part won't.