Rome: Total War

[Prince Toad]

Got the game over two months ago and I still play it all the time. Not only does it have the best RTS-style battle system I've ever played, but it also has a very fun Civ-style campaign mode. It's not as deep as the Civ games, but it's still very good. It came out a bit buggy, but they released patches to fix it and now it runs amazingly well, no crashes or anything. The multiplayer's also surprisingly smooth even with huge numbers of troops on the field. The historical battles are pretty cool too. All in all, it's one of my favorite games of all time.

First campaign I played was with the Julii. They're good (despite the fact that you're conquering **** provinces for most of the game), but I prefer cavalry over infantry-- even ass-kicking legionary infantry-- so when I beat that, I used Parthia. Conquered all 100 provinces with them. I started one with the Greeks yesterday. Even though their army is essentially all hoplites, and I generally abhor such immobility, they're still a lot of fun.

Anyone else have it? Comments?

[Parrakarry]

Oh yeah, I was gonna buy that. I'll get it after I get world of warcraft and xbox live...

[d]

So, that'll be what, never PK?
I've also heard great things about this game.I've also thought of getting it but got WoW instead, which I had some personal things interfer with.I have the other two Total War games and they rule, I love them so much.I'll have to pick it up sometime in the next month or two.

In virtually every RTS and TBS out there I'm the complete opposite of you Prince Toad.I play using almost all infantry.I love it when cavalry try to charge my mass infantry and run into a wall of spears after they've been widdled down by huge walls of arrows.I almost always have atleast a small cavalry force to press the enemies retreat or keep as my reserve.If there's one thing I've learned its that cavalry can be destroyed by a lighter force armed with only swords and light shields if they surround the cavalry. Cavalry just can't take to being hit in the flanks and rear anywhere near as well as infantry.Plus, I ALWAYS have a fair majority of my force being heavy spearmen to deal with cavalry.Those heavy spearmen are backed up by light fast swordsmen so I can flank the enemy. However, I couldn't do without a couple groups of archers, even if I only have one or two groups of melee infantry I have 3 or 4 archer groups.
That's my basic medieval total war strategy, hasn't failed me yet, even when I'm outnumbered by heavy cavalry.

[Prince Toad]

^Heh. Well, in the only multiplayer game I've played, my friend did something pretty similar to what you've described. He took a massive amount of high-quality legionary infantry, First Legionary Cohorts. There are better legionaries, but First Cohorts have more troops per unit than those, and also they carry a Roman Eagle which raises the morale of all nearby allied troops. Then to back them up he took the more or less obligatory general unit, a few units of archer auxilia (high-quality archers), and a few units of cavalry auxilia (mounted skirmishers).

I chose Parthia. We were fighting in the desert-- not sure why he chose it, I guess lack of trees, but whatever-- so I took several cataphract camels (heavily armored camel-mounted fighters). They aren't quite as fast as normal cataphracts (heavily armored cavalry), and their formation isn't as tight, but they fare better in deserts and all camels scare horses. Also four units of war elephants (elephant units with archers on them), a general, two onager units (catapults, good for smashing apart legions at huge distances), one normal cataphract unit, and several Persian cavalry (nomad troopers, more or less-- fight well with bows and swords). I think that was it.

I basically spent the whole time running circles around him, shooting arrows, charging when it was a good idea. His archers got mauled by my elephants pretty fast, then I moved them into his heavy infantry, which are perfect elephant fodder. Even when they started to run amok they managed to slaughter a lot of his units, so I let them. His cavalry auxilia were no match for my Persian cavalry, since javelins can't come close to bows range-wise (or ammo-wise, for that matter), so they got killed pretty fast. Then it was down to just the legions, which are the finest heavy infantry in the game. I didn't exactly slaughter them, but they just couldn't catch up to me.

How exactly do you flank cavalry... with infantry? If that happens, the enemy commander must not be paying very close attention, unless you've set up a clever ambush. Even then I'd just ram the weakest point and break free.

If you took a lot of spearmen, I'd just circle around your lines, or break through with cataphracts (they're heavy enough that they can literally shatter a line of spears, unless the spearmen are very high quality) or elephants (who can shatter anything) and charge through the break. Better yet, make two holes. Sometimes with spearmen I like to form a big square so that can't really happen, but if you did that I'd just surround you with horse archers, take out any missile units contained within, and then fire at the backs of the spearmen on the opposite side.

I always prefer cavalry. However, infantry are nice and cheap, and I like to be able to command as many kinds of units as I can (hence the varied campaigns-- focus on, successively, heavy infantry/cavalry/spearmen) so I can see where you're coming from.

It's worth noting that he gave us a huge amount of money to spend, more than one player could possibly shell out, and I did spend more than he did. Had the money been capped to about what he spent, I might not have won. Still, though. It's the tactics that are important.

[ February 14, 2005, 08:42 PM: Message edited by: Prince Toad ]

[d]

I make excellent uses of forests to hide troops in.I almost NEVER bring my line up to those forests, I keep the end of my line well away from the forests and put a group or two of infantry hiding in the forest, or behind a hill.As the cavalry try to flank my line my infantry double time from both directions as my archers start to pound them from long range except for any archer groups fairly close which I have close to steel range.I take heavy casualties, but that's what infantry is for.Also, I spread my army either in a huge long line that spreads outward as the enemy tries to flank me, or in basically fire bases.With my long line I place my weaker units in the middle, except for my general's unit which goes exactly in the middle, so the cavalry will generally charge into them and my line closes around them in a ball except for one group of infantry on each side which react to any enemy units left behind.Every once in a while heavy cavalry break through the light units I have which can cause some trouble, but the confusion allows me to send a group of archers up to get slaughtered and buy enough time for the enemy to become surrounded.If the cavalry try to flank me I just have my line collapse towards that side, or both sides, and envelope the cavalry.Admitedly, I don't go up against horse archers much, which is the weakness of this strategy.So when they come up I just order the unit to spread out and when the cavalry charge in to try to speed through I close up trapping many cavalry inside the formation.

The fire bases are a better, but harder to implement strategy.Basically, I make a square of most of my units with archers in the middle and hide groups in ones or pairs across my side of the landscape in trees and behind hills.The large square is in the back of my deployable area and I place it in the most obvious area in the back, generally on top of a hill.As the enemy engages the main square my firebase troops advance in their rears.However, some people decide to check the forests and hills for things like this.When they do this(extremely rare)I pull the nearest groups together into smaller squares and they fall back towards the main square where I group up and launch an attack at the enemy.
Also, one key thing when dealing with a heavy cavalry charge, many players just let their infantry sit there with a wall of spears facing outward, WRONG tactic.I've found it works better to charge at the cavalry while they charge at you, it keeps the morale of the troops high, and, even better in my opinion, the cavalry get even more mixed up in the infantry but almost never break through.With the mix up the infantry surround the individual cavalry and take them down quickly.I never worry about siege units because of how inaccurate they are.Every once in a while the siege units get lucky.
However, I will definitely admit, this won't work against the melee elephant units.That one's got me, I'll have to get the game to figure out a way to beat it.The only thing I can figure is an ambush.Archers on the side maybe with light infantrymen in the front to take the casualties.

[Prince Toad]

That's pretty sound tactics.

Vs. your "big ol' line": I'd probably split my cataphracts (or similar heavy cavalry, but cataphracts are the best) into two enormous wedges, one on each wing, and bash through at about 1/4 of the way into your line, keeping some horse archers (again, Persian cavalry work best) running along the flanks in case you try to surround them. Optimally I'd break through, scatter your archers, and bring what isn't already there up to hit your units, now facing the cavalry, in the back. If the cavalry were surrounded, I'd bring in the Persians to break open the outside and retreat out of there, then regroup and try something else. If I had elephants, I'd probably just send them rampaging along your lines, most likely straight towards your archers and general so they wouldn't screw anything up, maybe even killing your general and hurting morale. (This is all hypothetical, of course. I need to play vs. people more, heh.)

Vs. your firebase: I'd probably bring up the Persian cavalry slowly, with the rest of the line following behind. Of course it's hard to attack up a hill no matter what, but I'd try to go around out of range to the gentlest slope, then go up that and try to take out the archers. Or maybe go all the way around, shoot at your front lines from the back, and then charge through when they're weakened. Any hidden units would be dealt with as I found them, if I was thinking about it.

There are a lot of ways to take out elephants, though none of them are that effective. One is artillery. Flamin' rocks kill elephants just like anything else, and I have to assume ballistae and scorpions do too. Another's incendiary pigs or flaming arrows, which scare them into running amok. (Pigs are really the best option.) Spears are okay, but war or armored elephants can just walk through them, breaking the phalanx and killing all the spearmen, though a particularly large and deep formation might hold. (Normal elephants are crappier and can be stopped by good spearmen.) Peltasts and skirmishers do extra damage to elephants, due to the fact that a well-hurled javelin hurts more than a sword stab or arrow to an elephant, but those guys are never much use. (I suppose Roman pila probably do the same thing, not sure. But as I said, elephants kick the crap outta heavy infantry.) Also, light infantry are supposedly the best kind of infantry to use against elephants. Sure, they suck at fighting and might not kill many, but they're mobile enough to dodge out of the way, hopefully long enough for your skirmishers, spearmen, or flaming arrows to scare/kill several of them. Heavy infantry and spearmen just kinda get trampled. In the new patch they made elephants running amok more dangerous, too, so it's much better to rout or kill them, or at least keep them the bloody **** away from your lines.

I'm not sure if it's true or not, but armored elephants seem to run amok faster than war elephants. So do elephants, for that matter. I think war elephants have the best "morale" but I might be wrong. Anyway, Parthia only gets war elephants (no normal or armored) so... elephant... type isn't much of an issue for me as them.

I do that "sit there" thing with spearmen, too. I guess I'll try counter-charging. I remember ol' General Marcus saying something about that, heh.

[d]

Sad thing is, these past few days have been the most active in the PC forums history as far as I know.Anyway...


I think its a little optimistic of breaking 1/4 of the way through the line, but people can get lucky, and I've had light cavalry bust all the way through heavy infantry, once again, pure luck.It's a good tactic that you chose, and one of the better ones, and will work, with a much higher chance if its raining because of my archers being out of the picture.A lot of battles depend more on terrain and weather than tactics.One must always be able to adapt to a situation, and also every tactic has its weak points, and every strong point of a tactic can be broken.Luck is the dreaded equalizer.

Your anti-firebase strategy would not work very well, atleast horse archer wise.My archers on the hill would have a much greater range than the horse archers, even if the horse archers were on a slight rise.Also, if you can hit the frontline infantry, most likely my archers could hit your horse archers.There is also no, "back" of the main firebase, spearmen are in it all around, with archers in the middle on the highest point of the hill.
Obviously though, the best army is a mixture of cavalry and infantry, about even mixture, favoring your preference.Mind you, I still don't have Rome Total War, but have many RTS's under my belt,along with many TBS.Medieval Total War is still one of the few games I play almost everyday, almost as much as I play Starcraft.
Tell me how you do with counter-charge tactic, you have to time it just right.If you charge to soon your forces will be too tired for the assault, if you do it too late, the enemy is upon you.
Anyone else got their own ideas on this? I'd like to hear some other strategies to try out.Speak up all of you! I know more than just me and Prince Toad have tactic/strategy advice to offer; or war stories! Hell, if you see a flaw in any of these tactics, say something!

[Prince Toad]

Well, I haven't tried it out yet, but I'd probably save it until they're about two or three spear lengths away. That might be too late, but with the improved response time (they now react almost immediately) it oughta do the trick. Next time it's an issue I'll try it out.

Good point about the archer thing. I meant in relation to the rest of my army. I'd bring them all the way around, out of range of your archers, then charge up the hill to get within range. You'd still have an advantage, just being uphill, plus the charge would tire them out, but at least I'd be shooting. Oh, and I've never seen it before, and dunno if you've read about it, but horse archers (and mounted skirmishers) have this cool command called the Cantabrian circle. Basically they run around in a big circle in front of (not around, unfortunately, heh) an enemy, within range, with each horse archer firing when they get near the front of the line and then reloading when they're towards the back. It's supposed to be demoralizing, but I've noticed that you're nigh unhittable with missile fire while you're running it. So that's an excellent way to counter archers with their mounted counterparts, and frankly, besides light cavalry and chariots, foot archers are the only way to even hit horse archers. Of course running around in a big circle tires them out fairly quick, but it's not as bad as you might assume.

Heh, war stories? I've never played online too much-- in any RTS-- but a few days ago I decided to see the stats of a fully jacked up (9 exp, gold weapons, gold armor) Urban Cohort. Those are the legionary units with the best stats, although Early Legionary First Cohorts and Legionary First Cohorts have more troops, so they're a little more effective (and expensive). So I took 10,000 denarii and made them as good as I could. It cost about 7,500, give or take. The default enemy's the Carthaginians, so I decided to see how well my supa Cohort and a few helping units would fare vs. a randomly generated Carthaginian army, spending the 10,000 denarii. They had two units of elephants (one war, one armored), one of onagers, and a whole lot of random Carthaginian stuff. Iberian infantry, Numidian mercenaries, what have you. I figured the only way to stop the cohort would be a lot of ranged fire (plus a melee charge, since I could just enter testudo and negate arrows/javelins), elephants, or onagers, so I brought along four units of Incendiary Pigs, two of equites (very light cavalry), and one of Roman Archers just for the hell of it. I'm pretty sure that was all.

So I have the equites run around their sides and charge towards the onager unit. They don't have anything fast enough to catch 'em, so it works, and I rout the onager crew. I dispatch the pigs, and they do their thing perfectly, sending both elephant units running amok. They probably trashed the Carthaginian line, I don't quite remember. The archers went up and harassed people, and I gave the Cohort some decent ground and had them stand there.

The equites got routed, two of the pig crews got routed, I believe the archers got routed, but the Cohort fought off each and every thing that the Carthaginians hurled at them. Essentially I took out a whole freaking Carthaginian army with this one asskicking unit. The best part? I lost exactly 9 (of 42) people. Granted, the computer's tactics were... lacking... but that's still pretty cool.

[ April 16, 2005, 06:25 PM: Message edited by: Prince Toad ]

[Chunky Kong12345]

I like pie.

[Prince Toad]

^No one likes you. Go 'way.

[Chunky Kong12345]

It was a joke, man. I said it because of all the long, intelligent posts here.

[d]

Originally posted by Prince Toad:
^No one likes you. Go 'way.

Yeah, that is a good distance to charge from, I usually try for 4 though.Lol, nice story.I've got one from one of my Medieval Total War games where I played as Denmark(campaign, yes the computer is lacking).While playing as Denmark I allied Spain who conquered France while I took over England and Ireland.I worked my way around to Gibraltor which I took from rebels after it had rebeled against Spain.From there I began my campaign against Egypt which held all of Northern Africa.I used my most veteran troops and my best general.My forces easily delt with the Egyptian troops until I reached Tunis.There while the Egyptian army was in full retreat, my forces were flanked and I took heavy casualties but fought them off.At the beginning of my campaign I had some 800 troops.By the end of that battle I had just over 500.4 groups of 100 Heavy Spearmen(I can't remember the name, but they wore breast plate/chainmail armor with a strong shield) and 2 groups of 60 standard bowmen.Each group had some casualties, but overall it was an okay force.Than the Egyptians counte-attacked with one thousand plus troops and another thousand as reinforcements.When I saw the numbers, I realized I was probably screwed, but decided to fight the battle there instead of retreating, there was little chance of me getting enough reinforcements there to matter and Tunis had the best defensive terrain.
I placed my forces on the 2nd highest hill sense the highest was a unclimbable mountain.There I awaited for the Egyptians to come.As it turned out, the Egyptian king himself was there!To my amazement(and the computers utter stupidity) the king and his cavalry group charged ahead of all of his infantry that were double timing it.My army was in the middle of the hill, almost a plateau really, and so the kings group got up a good speed and charged into a death trap of hundreds of heavy spearmen.I had my bowmen hold thier fire.Soon after the battle was engaged the Egyptian king was dead, along with his entire body guard, but the army kept coming and were starting their assent of the hill.
Because of the morale effect, I decided to immediately launch a counter-attack and my spearmen swept upon the enemy from atop the hill while my bowmen opened up.The combination of the kings death, the hail of arrows, and the massive charge was too much for them and they broke and ran.My spearmen picked them off one soldier at a time and I managed to trap several of the enemy groups between spearmen groups and completely annihilate them.However, for each group I wiped out and for each that made it off the edge, the Egyptians sent in reinforcements.I marched my soldiers to the border of the map and engaged them one or two groups at a time before they could mass.It worked brilliantly and I eccstatic about it, until one of the groups of reinforcements appeared between my bowmen and my spearmen.They were heavyswords man and charged straight at my bowmen.My bowmen were too exhausted to run so I had them stand and fight.One of the groups of slaughtered and broke, the other fought extremely well and survived long enough for my spearmen to arrive.The swordsmen broke under the hammer of my spearmen and ran off.However, the time it took to kill them allowed the Egyptians to group up in to two different groups to either side of me.
I went straight after one but left my generals group of spearmen behind to cover the rear because I was afraid that the other group would hit me there.I was right.The main part of my army managed to kill and break the last remaining Egyptian units and they didn't send in any reinforcements.However, my generals unit fought desperately and amazingly managed to break the enemy into running away.However, before that happened, they killed my general who had led the invasion of scandanavia and England.It was a terrible loss to my army as I had no general to match him.It was pure luck that my army didn't break and run right there when he died.The Egyptian king had no heirs, so I got lucky there.
That was a good battle for me, it lasted till about a minute or two before the time limit was up.During the entire thing I doubted my victory, except for when I broke the enemy on my first charge down the hill.

[Prince Toad]

^Wow, that's awesome. Spearmen don't work quite so well as hammers in Rome, since they only use their spears in phalanx formation and you can't run in phalanx... was that the case in Medieval? It wouldn't surprise me.

My favorite battle ever was one during my Parthian campaign. The Greeks sent a huge army to Tarsus. I was a bit worried, since all my real armies were campaigning up in Anatolia, but I checked it out and it consisted of literally nothing but spearmen. Having nothing better at hand, I threw together a little force consisting of a general and six units of Persian cavalry from nearby garrisons. Persian cavalry, being the awesome units they are (horse archers/light cavalry, but better than both at what they do), were perfect for such a job. The spearmen would never catch up to them.

I engaged. The odds were stacked hugely against me, for obvious reasons. The numbers were 173-674. The battle was a lot of fun. One by one, I surrounded the units and weakened them with arrows, then charged in for the kill. Even the general could help. He was my only heavy cavalry, but Eastern Generals are like Pontic heavy cavalry-- they have three or four sets of javelins that they throw before they have to engage with swords.

The spearmen never caught up to me. By the end of the fight I'd slaughtered the entire army and lost just over 50 men, and even many of those were due to a bit of carelessness towards the end. The general got "Expert Cavalry Commander," a "Trusty Steed" (which I'd never seen before), and a few other awesome traits/retinue members for being the one to lead such an impressive victory.

[Parrakarry]

Well YOU all doubted me. Bought it today, although I was gonna get WoW first... they were sold out of WoW. I'll get that next week, when I get payed again. But anyway, installing now, will update once I've played it.

[Prince Toad]

^Holy ****, really? Well good job.

I had another kickass game a couple days ago. I'm playing the Greeks. The Seleucids (and Pontus) both attacked me randomly, the former at Halicarnassus, the latter at Pergamum. I drove off both attacks before they could assault, so it was okay, but I got pissed off. I took all I could spare from the garrisons of each, plus Rhodos, and marched to Sardis. I originally intended to flank an army they had, but they reached the city before I could do so.

I still wanted to take them out. I merged the armies and assaulted. As it turned out, the spy I had opened the gates for me, so I didn't need to wait, or use battering rams. This freed me up to literally flank the entire city. I had two generals, a lot of hoplites, and a few archers and (I think) peltasts, so I put one general and some hoplites on each side, and left my archers and a couple hoplite units in the front.

I hit the gates and engaged in some heavy spear combat. Not many losses for either side, but I appeared to be gaining slightly. I kept up the assault for a while. After some time, one of their units routed. Then I noticed every unit who was defending that particular flank routed. Then literally every unit that wasn't in the town center routed. I'd always heard about that "chain reaction" effect, but I'd never seen it so clearly in action, especially not in a siege battle. It was really cool. I took the city, and... well, haven't done much since then. Think I'm gonna play for a while now though.

[d]

Nice PK, but yeah, I always knew you'd get it soon like you said, I always believed in you...yeah, I'll go with that.
I haven't had any good game in a while.I also haven't played much because Planetside has been taking up a lot of my time lately.We had a special event this weekend and me and a few other guys took 2 bombers and just kept bombing the **** out of an enemy base that the other enemy empire was attacking.We killed so many people, at one point we even caught a group with their pants down, they were loading an air transport that was just about full when we flew over, it was beautiful. [img]smile.gif[/img]
Anyway, I'm about to load up Medieval Total War myself.

[Parrakarry]

Haven't gotten past the prologue yet. No, not because I suck, because I went to the mall in the middle of it, my brother turned it off, and I haven't loaded it up again yet... been too busy with Xbox/Warcraft 3. I'll play it more today though, I think.

[Prince Toad]

So... how ya liking it?

[[sage]]

Never played it, but from what you told me about it PT, it sounds pretty cool. I'd get it if I had a better videocard.. and a better processor and more ram, etc.

[Lord Umbra]

Got the game, and loving it except that the skirmishers are incredibly stupid and useless. Say that I get them into position. Before they attack even once, they break and flee to the back where they can do nothing except reform and start randomly attacking nearby enemies. Except that they always happen to choose to attack enemies that my men are already fighting. I've fought so many battles where the damn skirmishers start attacking my own troops. GAH!

On another note, the game is wonderful and I would restart so I wouldn't make the same mistakes twice (enslaving towns when I capture them, being the Julii who are near the crap Gauls) except that I put quite a bit of time into it and my faction leader is amazing. This guy picks up retinue like crazy, has 7 command stars , 6 management, and 5 influence. He's in his 60's though, and I assume that if they have family member age, they can die of being old.

[Edit]I was right. My faction leader died (naturally) to my great sorrow. Strangely enough, the same turn a suitor with good military traits proposed. Now my main pet peeve (stopped using the skirmishing units) is that the Brutii got to a town that I had been preparing to take for at least 5 turns. They sieged it, and I decided that I wasn't going to go and HELP them take the damned place and went back to fight the horribly weak Gauls who have provinces so utterly horrible it is beyond imagination.[/Edit]

[ March 02, 2005, 06:35 PM: Message edited by: Lord Umbra ]