Combat questions - Romani perspective

[Aemilius Paulus]

It is true. The units in guard mode do not tire at all. They do lose less men and yes it is likewise true that they also kill less. Usually when you turn the mode off, the battle becomes very disordered and a battle between two units disintegrates into tens of two- or sometimes even three-man duels. Your own units now have to watch out for attacks from the sides and rear. That is why I always lose a quite a bit more units when guard is turned off as opposed to being on. A unit that is attacked from the right or the rear takes more damage and is more likely to be die because it cannot use its shield. Elite units and especially spearmen units have to be placed in the guard mode. Sword infantry, who do not have a long reach, and cheap but numerous units (who can surround a smaller-strength unit) should have guard mode off. Elite units usually have 60 men, so each one of the soldiers from the elite unit will have two weaker units attacking it from two different directions - not good. Spearmen do not have long pikes, but in guard mode they can still form somewhat of a phalanx albeit having considerably shorter weapons. You should engage cavalry ONLY in guard mode, because cavalry has a large mass value, which will push your soldiers all around the area and disperse your formation - which is exactly what the horsemen need, being of inferior quantity. If one cavalryman has two or three units attacking him at once, he die fast, but one that is engaged in a duel will easily gain the upper hand.

Historically, the roman manipules fought in what can be defined using RTW terms as a strict guard mode fighting. The manipule fought as a whole, and that was its greatest strength. Roman soldiers were very bad at duels and "every-man-for himself" fighting. The barbarians could easily dispatch the roman soldiers one by one, the romans weren't good at that. However, the barbarians fought in rather disorderly formations that completely disintegrated as soon as hand to hand combat began. A manipule was comparable in coherence to a phalanx although the men were much more spaced out. Yes, it did "stick to its formation like glue". If the formation was ever broken, the battle would be lost. "More fluid shapes" and individual duels were only used by Hollywood Roman soldiers, where such styles of fighting possessed greater visual appeal and were more action-packed.

That is why I think the EB creators did the right thing by giving the roman units rather lower stats - they were not supermen, quite the opposite actually. An average Roman was shorter than his contemporaries, especially shorter than most northern barbarian tribes. They were also spoiled, weak city slickers when compared to most of the less civilized people even though the Romans were perhaps the most agriculturally focused nation in the antiquity before the latifundas came in. So important was agriculture that all other professions/social classes, such as craftsmen and merchants were left for the foreigners to fill. Senators were prohibited to engage in anything but agriculture in the early days. For roman soldiers it was the discipline and superior training as well as quality standarised weapons & armor that made them so much better than the others, not weapons skill, strength or bravery.