RTW noob questions

[o_loompah_the_delayer]

Hello all, I havent posted in the forums for a long while (two years!?), I havent actually had the time to play computer games , too many things to juggle until the recent holidays when I stumbled across my (shrink wrapped) copy of RTW. So I finally installed it and played a game having updated to 1.5 patch.

First I played a M/M game with Julii for a few turns to learn the ropes and now a "proper" game on H/H. I doubt I will ever play on VH as Froggy's guide says they AI gets stupid advantages. I have gone thorugh both her and Quietus's guides so I hope I am not repeating any questions that have been dealt with already.

1. Special units.
a) Elephants, love them, got them as a reward form the Senate for a mission. Dont need to wait for sieges and my elephants beat the Carthaginian elephants outside Carthage. The Carth only had one unit of elephants i came across having overrun them in all their provinces. Did I get lucky or does the AI not build them?
b) Chariots, nasty nasty Britons. How do you deal with them? Velit javelins nor archers have any significant effect. Only the generals heavy cavalry seemd to work. Rather risky.
c) Wardogs, absolutely love them until the damn Gauls turned one on my single unit of Triari, they went down from 36 men to 12! Ant way to stop them?

2. Missile troops.
a) I have only had roman archers so far, havent used post Marian legionary archers yet. They seem to be very ineffective at actually killing anyone. Is this correct? eg I shot up a warband using up about half the archers ammo, they only killed 5 of the 61 Gauls.
b) Belearic Slingers. Love this as well, a lot better then archers, eg they decimated a warband from 61 down to 30 odd. Only problem is the idots sometimes shoot my own troops in the back. Even if I put them off for auto fire (A) they still sometimes shoot so I turn them facing away fromt he enemy so there is no firendly fire once the melee starts. Is there a better way?

3. Managing armies.
a) I get the impression that in armies where ther is no family member I have a tougher time getting the units to move where I want them to. Is this my imagination or a feature of the game?
b) Inforests the trees are absolutely huge and frankly a nuisance as even if I go down to the units point of view it is rather hard to see where the enemy is. Again I suppose this is a game feature? But then why is cavalry allowed to charge around in woods? Is there a penalty for them in wood combat?

4. The AI:
a) Ambushes! I got ambushed by the Gauls but it was very easy to beat the snot out of them. Why? Because the Gauls on my left attacked the rear of my column, the Gauls on the right attacked the middle and the Gaul bait I was chasing attacked from the front after a while. This meant my front turned around areinforced the middle, flaniking the Gauls there and routning them. Then I routed the ones attacking my inn the rear and finally turned again to deal with the bait. Why dont the AI attack with all troops only one section of my army (eg the tail) from all sounds and cause an instarout na d then hit my fron and middle sandwiched between their main army and their bait? Much mor effective tactics I think.
b) Is the naval-army coordination any good? I got very lucky in my first game, from the Sneate missions I got three quinquiremes and so I managed to sink the Carthaginian fleets repeatedly. THey almost always were carrying troops shuttling to and from Spain/ Sicily/ Carthage/ Beleares. Why did the navies fight carrying their precious cargo, triremes against quinquiremes?

5. Civil War and Rome
a) Havent had it yet but in my first game I stopped just before Civil War was breaking out. The situation was this, two full stack SPQR armies next to each other outside Rome, my twoo stacks both with generals and a Scipii stack. Every one at war with each other. In the event of battle ( I didnt fight, no time for such a big battle) how would it work out? Would all five armies appear simultaneuosly? Would my second army be able to cooperate with me or would it fight indfependently and I would have to adapt my main armies plans to its needs?
b) According to the rankings, Brutii are filthy rich though they own only three provinces, Croton, Tarnetum, Applonia. What gives? They then went on a conquering spree annihilating Greece, Macedon and Thrace but havent gotten sinificantly richer. In fact I am richer than them.
c) Damn Brutii also have huge armies, seven full stack near Campus Iazyges. Very very powerful. But nothing defending their core, Croton and Tarnetyum. Why?

6. Capital.
Any risks of moving it to AMsilia?

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

Welcome to the .Org o_loompah_the_delayer

a) Elephants, love them, got them as a reward form the Senate for a mission. Dont need to wait for sieges and my elephants beat the Carthaginian elephants outside Carthage. The Carth only had one unit of elephants i came across having overrun them in all their provinces. Did I get lucky or does the AI not build them?

The AI does build quite a few of them in my campaigns, but only when they have the associated infrastructure in provinces with the "elephant" trade resource. I believe Carthage lacks the infrastructure required at the start of the game, so won't begin training the beasts straight away.

b) Chariots, nasty nasty Britons. How do you deal with them? Velit javelins nor archers have any significant effect. Only the generals heavy cavalry seemd to work. Rather risky.

As you have said, general's cavalry deal with chariots fairly well, although a few units of very heavy infantry often is much better. Units which can form into the phalanx formation are also effective, but only if the chariots charge into the units front. Missile Units which use javelins are supposed to be good again chariots/elephants, but I haven't yet tested them.

c) Wardogs, absolutely love them until the damn Gauls turned one on my single unit of Triari, they went down from 36 men to 12! Ant way to stop them?

I am lead to believe that there is some sort of bug making wardogs overpowered - a full stack of them was said to have obliterated most of an equal full stack composed of only humans while taking few losses. Elephants are said to be good against them in many reports though, but as a Roman getting hold of some can be problematic. I would say cavalry would be a good alternative, or possibly fairly heavy infantry

a) I have only had roman archers so far, havent used post Marian legionary archers yet. They seem to be very ineffective at actually killing anyone. Is this correct? eg I shot up a warband using up about half the archers ammo, they only killed 5 of the 61 Gauls.

I haven't noticed too much of a difference between the strength of Archer Auxila and Roman Archers. They do seem fairly equal in attacks, although the Archer Auxila appears to be a little better all round statistically.

The sucess of attacks often depends upon the firing angle - when missiles lunched directly at the unit's front or the left flank all defense attributes (with the exclusion of defense skill) apply. When launched in the right flank or the rear only the armor statistic protects the unit. Bear this in mind when attacking heavily shielded foes.

b) Belearic Slingers. Love this as well, a lot better then archers, eg they decimated a warband from 61 down to 30 odd. Only problem is the idots sometimes shoot my own troops in the back. Even if I put them off for auto fire (A) they still sometimes shoot so I turn them facing away fromt he enemy so there is no firendly fire once the melee starts. Is there a better way?

Yep, it's easily resolvable. Simply click on the arrow symbol with the red background in the bottom right hand side of the screen. This switches of fire at will, which automatically makes them fire at all foes in range.

.b) Inforests the trees are absolutely huge and frankly a nuisance as even if I go down to the units point of view it is rather hard to see where the enemy is. Again I suppose this is a game feature? But then why is cavalry allowed to charge around in woods? Is there a penalty for them in wood combat?

There is a fairly large attack penalty for most cavalry in woods, although it isn't always noticeable. They can, as you have noticed, still charge, although with less force than they could in the open due to the penalties. Barbarian Cavalry units, although they also gain penalties, don't quite have the attack deducted quite as much as "civilized" cavalry units.

a) I get the impression that in armies where ther is no family member I have a tougher time getting the units to move where I want them to. Is this my imagination or a feature of the game?

I haven't noticed such a feature.

a) Ambushes! I got ambushed by the Gauls but it was very easy to beat the snot out of them. Why? Because the Gauls on my left attacked the rear of my column, the Gauls on the right attacked the middle and the Gaul bait I was chasing attacked from the front after a while. This meant my front turned around areinforced the middle, flaniking the Gauls there and routning them. Then I routed the ones attacking my inn the rear and finally turned again to deal with the bait. Why dont the AI attack with all troops only one section of my army (eg the tail) from all sounds and cause an instarout na d then hit my fron and middle sandwiched between their main army and their bait? Much mor effective tactics I think.
b) Is the naval-army coordination any good? I got very lucky in my first game, from the Sneate missions I got three quinquiremes and so I managed to sink the Carthaginian fleets repeatedly. THey almost always were carrying troops shuttling to and from Spain/ Sicily/ Carthage/ Beleares. Why did the navies fight carrying their precious cargo, triremes against quinquiremes?

The AI in R:TW doesn't always perform as well as it should - both on the campaign map and battlemap. This was improved in later patches, and even more so in BI, but it still doesn't have as tactical sense anywhere near to that of a human. This is unfortunate since it removes much of the challange from the game.

a) Havent had it yet but in my first game I stopped just before Civil War was breaking out. The situation was this, two full stack SPQR armies next to each other outside Rome, my twoo stacks both with generals and a Scipii stack. Every one at war with each other. In the event of battle ( I didnt fight, no time for such a big battle) how would it work out? Would all five armies appear simultaneuosly?

Not all five - only the stack which has been attacked, any adjacent re-enforcements for both sides (both allied and own faction troops) and the attacker will end up fighting on the field. The other stack will simply watch from afar and not bother to get involved.

Whether all those that are supposed to appear will appear or not depends upon the number of troops fighting in total. When a certain number of troops on the field is reached (both sides), all additional reinforcements are automatically delayed until a significant number of troops have been killed. The idea behind this is simply to prevent the rendering engine going beyond its maximum capacity and negatively effecting performance.

Would my second army be able to cooperate with me or would it fight indfependently and I would have to adapt my main armies plans to its needs?

If you choose to have the reinforcing army AI controlled then it simply will make its own strategy and force you to work around it. The AI isn't very dynamic in reinforcement battles and can often hinder you more than it helps.

There is, however, a solution which allows you to take control of re-enforcement troops. This involves simply un-checking the box on the pre-battle screen which appears next to the details of each re-enforcement army.

This solution, however, has one major problem - the player can only control twenty units at a time. When there are twenty units on the field a starting unit must be killed or routed before a re-enforcement can enter. This can be problematic since re-enforcements delivered in this fashion can't all be used at once.

]b) According to the rankings, Brutii are filthy rich though they own only three provinces, Croton, Tarnetum, Applonia. What gives? They then went on a conquering spree annihilating Greece, Macedon and Thrace but havent gotten sinificantly richer. In fact I am richer than them.

Weird things happen money wise on hard and very hard difficulty levels - in both cases the AI gets large bonuses of cash to assist them against the player. As you may expect this is slightly larger on very hard than simply hard, but its still enough to noticeably effect income levels.

c) Damn Brutii also have huge armies, seven full stack near Campus Iazyges. Very very powerful. But nothing defending their core, Croton and Tarnetyum. Why?

Usually the AI doesn't feel the need to defend their homelands if there are no enemies they wish to make a move on bordering them (this excludes factions overseas). The definition of potential enemies doesn't include Romans until the civil war breaks out.

Any risks of moving it to AMsilia?

This depends upon how central the province is in your empire. Provinces any distance from your capital will experience a happiness penalty identified as "Distance to Capital" due to it. This happiness penalty leads to corruption in your cities which can be a major drain on income. The magnitude of the penalty increases the further away from your capital you get, so caution should be exerted when moving it.

This tool can be useful in working out the best location for your capital should you need it.

Good luck o_loompah_the_delayer

[Charge]

b) Chariots, nasty nasty Britons. How do you deal with them? Velit javelins nor archers have any significant effect. Only the generals heavy cavalry seemd to work. Rather risky.

hmm, I noticed that cavalry is completely useless against them, heavy infantry indeed is the killer for chariots...

c) Wardogs, absolutely love them until the damn Gauls turned one on my single unit of Triari, they went down from 36 men to 12! Ant way to stop them?

Well just as how unit is strong in melee, it will perform against dogs. Heavy swordsmen seems best for this task.

Is there a penalty for them in wood combat?

usually they get -4 or -6 attack/defence 'bonus' ;)

a) I have only had roman archers so far, havent used post Marian legionary archers yet. They seem to be very ineffective at actually killing anyone. Is this correct? eg I shot up a warband using up about half the archers ammo, they only killed 5 of the 61 Gauls.

actually late archers faaaaaar better than earlier ones - most important is distance (170 instead 120), damage, + armour. And hey has compact formation..

[mrdun]

Niiiice tips guys. They answer your questions o_loompah_the_delayer?

[Gaius Scribonius Curio]

Just to add my two cents worth, even though you're pretty much covered already.

b) Chariots, nasty nasty Britons. How do you deal with them? Velit javelins nor archers have any significant effect. Only the generals heavy cavalry seemd to work. Rather risky.
c) Wardogs, absolutely love them until the damn Gauls turned one on my single unit of Triari, they went down from 36 men to 12! Ant way to stop them?

As the Parthians my cavalry was generally useless against chariots, that includes my General's bodyguard. Early on the Ptollies massacred a couple of my armies before I started bombarding them with arrows until they fled. In a straight melee either lots of heavy infantry (with good morale) or in my Roman campaign the General seemed to cope better, but yeah its risky.

Wardogs! The bane of my existence. Heavy infantry that has enough time to deal with them before being otherwise engaged. If the enemies troops engage you while you're trying to get rid of some lousy dogs then you could be in trouble. If no heavy troops I tend to flood the area with light troops that are available, but this can be expensive in the long run.

2. Missile troops.
a) I have only had roman archers so far, havent used post Marian legionary archers yet. They seem to be very ineffective at actually killing anyone. Is this correct? eg I shot up a warband using up about half the archers ammo, they only killed 5 of the 61 Gauls.
b) Belearic Slingers. Love this as well, a lot better then archers, eg they decimated a warband from 61 down to 30 odd. Only problem is the idots sometimes shoot my own troops in the back. Even if I put them off for auto fire (A) they still sometimes shoot so I turn them facing away fromt he enemy so there is no firendly fire once the melee starts. Is there a better way?

Well I've noticed that missiles travelling directly into an advancing force seem to be less effective than missiles into the flanks. Watch out for enemy cavalry if you're going to do that though. Slingers also seems to be more effective than other missiles at killing advancing troops but that could just be my imagination. (maybe something to do with the fact that they travel in a straight line whereas javs and arrows have a arc?).

On your friendly fire problem, as I've said, I place missiles on the flanks of my force on occasion. If you keep your slingers line of fire/field of view clear that should do it, when your melee forces engage, turn off the fire at will feature, as has been suggested.

4. The AI:
a) Ambushes! I got ambushed by the Gauls but it was very easy to beat the snot out of them. Why? Because the Gauls on my left attacked the rear of my column, the Gauls on the right attacked the middle and the Gaul bait I was chasing attacked from the front after a while. This meant my front turned around areinforced the middle, flaniking the Gauls there and routning them. Then I routed the ones attacking my inn the rear and finally turned again to deal with the bait. Why dont the AI attack with all troops only one section of my army (eg the tail) from all sounds and cause an instarout na d then hit my fron and middle sandwiched between their main army and their bait? Much mor effective tactics I think.
b) Is the naval-army coordination any good? I got very lucky in my first game, from the Sneate missions I got three quinquiremes and so I managed to sink the Carthaginian fleets repeatedly. THey almost always were carrying troops shuttling to and from Spain/ Sicily/ Carthage/ Beleares. Why did the navies fight carrying their precious cargo, triremes against quinquiremes?

Yeah... the AI never takes the easy road to victory, must be some cunning plan, not finished yet though.

c) Damn Brutii also have huge armies, seven full stack near Campus Iazyges. Very very powerful. But nothing defending their core, Croton and Tarnetyum. Why?

Maybe because they're expanding and don't consider you a threat yet. Later on it might change. When I was the Julii, and getting fairly powerful, the Brutii abandon that policy and seeded several full stacks in northern Italy, my homelands! If there's no threat of civil war they won't need to protect their homelands, other Romans will do it for them.

6. Capital.
Any risks of moving it to AMsilia?

Been mentioned, just keep it central.

Hope this helps.

[Quirinus]

b) Chariots, nasty nasty Britons. How do you deal with them? Velit javelins nor archers have any significant effect. Only the generals heavy cavalry seemd to work. Rather risky.

I find that cavalry generally gets slaughtered against chariots due to their low numbers. The key to bringing down chariots is impeding their mobility-- Pin it between two troops of heavy infantry, and they go down pretty fast. Alternatively, get a bunch of Mercenary Hoplites from Greece. When I played as the Seleucids, even Militia Hoplites kill Egyptian chariots very well, including their imba Chariot Generals, helped by the fact that the AI likes to spit them on my spears. You'll lose a few men, but they're only militia hoplites after all.

c) Wardogs, absolutely love them until the damn Gauls turned one on my single unit of Triari, they went down from 36 men to 12! Ant way to stop them?

Ugh, yeah, I hate wardogs. Aside from being unrealistic, they are ridiculously overpowered.

2. Missile troops.
a) I have only had roman archers so far, havent used post Marian legionary archers yet. They seem to be very ineffective at actually killing anyone. Is this correct? eg I shot up a warband using up about half the archers ammo, they only killed 5 of the 61 Gauls.

Try shooting them from a position slightly to the left of the warbands so that their shield defense is negated. This is especially useful for units with bigass shields like Eastern Infantry.

[Barbarossa82]

Surprisingly, some of the most effective troops at bringing down chariots are foot skirmishers such as velites, peltasts and their equivalents. Many of these troops get big bonuses against chariots and will swiftly dispatch them in hand-to-hand combat. Same goes for elephants.

[placenik]

In my Schytian campaign I found that barbarian cavalery is excellent against wardogs (any idea why?)

BTW, anyone know how to order reinforcements not to come? (I do a lot of HAs scrimishing)

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

In my Schytian campaign I found that barbarian cavalery is excellent against wardogs (any idea why?)

I think it may be related to mounted units in general - wardogs seem to do less damage to cavalry units than they do foot troops.

BTW, anyone know how to order reinforcements not to come? (I do a lot of HAs scrimishing)

This isn't really fully controllable, although preventing the AI from controlling re-enforcements at all is. It does have severe drawbacks though.

The best method is to decheck the box(es) besides the basic details of your re-enforcements on the pre-battle scroll. This, as you may expect, makes the re-enforcement units fully under your command when they arrive.

You can, however, only have twenty units under your control at once. When this limit is reached any additional re-enforcements have to wait for units to be routed or killed before they can enter the fray. This can be fairly frustrating since you can't use all your man power all at once.

You can also prevent re-enforcements from being available at all by not placing any stacks on areas directly adjacent to other forces. This also has the disadvantage of not allowing you access to all possible man-power though, so probably is a strategy best avoided.

[Paradox]

Allowing the AI to manage reinforcements is a waste of time IMHO. I remember checking the box and when the battle started, my reinforcements remained right where they are throughout the battle, it's as if they weren't there in the first place.

[placenik]

You can also prevent re-enforcements from being available at all by not placing any stacks on areas directly adjacent to other forces.

Exactly what I am doing now. My tactics is to scrimish and run keeping enemy busy until main force arrives, or untill I kill them all .

[Quirinus]

Surprisingly, some of the most effective troops at bringing down chariots are foot skirmishers such as velites, peltasts and their equivalents. Many of these troops get big bonuses against chariots and will swiftly dispatch them in hand-to-hand combat. Same goes for elephants.

Oooh...... so is the secret to engage them in melee? I never thought about that.

I always thought getting retinues were random, but I could be wrong, someone correct me if I am.

Not totally random, I think. To get a military tribune, I'm not sure, but storming a city seems to get one pretty regularly. For drillmaster, I'm not so sure, but I would imagine that it comes from a victory. The only ancillary that I can think of that comes from defeat is an oracle.

Spending a sick spy into an enemy city is fun though.

Amen, my friend.

Plagues, I shouldnt move troops in or send the garrison and governor out out right?

Yeah. The thing is to wait it out. It will die out itself within ten turns. In the meantime, quarantine all personnel from the city-- no one comes in, or out. (Except your plague spy, Machievellian )

[mrdun]

Generally I disagree with anything other than M/M, bonuses are unrealistic. However this sounds challenging. I beat the Ai in a VH battle, evenly matched. I was over the moon!!

[GamblerTuba]

Drillmaster- looks like you need to train an infantry in a city with a governor that has 4 or more command stars (3% chance)

Military Tribune- need to win a battle with a general that has Roman Virtue trait and 4 or more command stars (20% chance)

Credit to Pooh's RTW database

Just to reinforce. The trick to defeating chariots is to pin them down. They die very quickly when they are bogged down. Just be careful that your men do not break and run as they try to pin the chariots down. Scythed chariots are wonderful targets for fire arrows.

Moving the capital should not have any poor side-effects so long as you keep it in a central location.