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Erm anyway, I suck. I sucked at M:TW and I suck at R:TW as well. And it's really pissing me off because I really want to be good and enjoy the game more! The thing is that I simply don't have a proper grasp of tactics and where to position my troops/what to do with them. I don't know how best to utilise archers. I don't know what formations help. I especially don't know what I am doing with infantry. Cavalry I'm preety good with, but I guess everybody is.

So here is your chance to show off your R:TW tactics. Please help!

Oh bend ower. use that gray thingy and you can be a roman.

I'd suggest playing around extensively with the Custom Battle option, just to get a feel for how the different unit types perform, and if you go into the campaign, i'd suggest playing as the Brutii, (simply because they, unlike the Julii, get to fight an enemy with a decent level of developement, and Greek phalanxes are fairly easy to outflank and destroy) with the 'no time limit on battles' option.

3rd Impact wrote:with the 'no time limit on battles' option.

I fucking hate the time limit. I can't believe how much it fucked me before I turned it off. I had one battle where my goal was to utterly annihilate an enemy army (down to the last man), and as they were routing towards my heavy infantry (which I had positioned to cut them off and destroy them once they broke) the battle ended in my defeat because the time limit had expired. THEY WERE RUNNING AWAY! There were maybe 100 men left against my 1200+!

Master of Ossus wrote:

3rd Impact wrote:with the 'no time limit on battles' option.

I fucking hate the time limit. I can't believe how much it fucked me before I turned it off. I had one battle where my goal was to utterly annihilate an enemy army (down to the last man), and as they were routing towards my heavy infantry (which I had positioned to cut them off and destroy them once they broke) the battle ended in my defeat because the time limit had expired. THEY WERE RUNNING AWAY! There were maybe 100 men left against my 1200+!

But on the other hand, I can't believe the amount of battles I won simple by ping-ponging routing units until the timer ran out and I won. It's a two way sword...

Use your infantry to pin down the enemy's infantry while your calvary on the flanks swing in from around. This will usually cause a route against units with low morale. For the most part, I'll usually have my infantry in a single, long line formation or a double line formation with the second line acting as reserves. If you play as the romans, the second line can throw their pilum over the first line and if you want a quick charge sans pilium, use the alt+attack; they'll charge in without throwing the pilium.

Archers are generally deployed in the front of infantry units; I usually use them as my vanguard to attack low defense enemy units because that'll cause massaive casulties. Once they've depleted their arrows, I pull them back and engage with infantry.

If the enemy has calvary, I'll usually use my own calvary to engage them until they rout, at which point I swing them around the enemy's rear. In addition, if you have several units of calvary, it shouldn't be hard to annahilate an entire army that is routing.

On positioning your troops, if you're fighting on hilly terrain and its after you've deployed your troops, the computer likes to take the highest grounds. If you move your own troops forward but do not engage, you can slowly keep pivoting your formation and the computer will counter pivot its own formation to keep parallel with your own. By doing this, you can manuever your troops into taking the higher ground while the computer is now in a disadvantageous position. With the higher ground, your achers accuracy improves dramatically and charges (infantry or calvary) will break and rout the enemy very quickly.

Most battle field tactics are the same, usually, and timing the attacks is a key.

Personally i use the following tactic:

1) Have a better commander than the enemy.
2) Have more troops than the enemy.
3) Have more experienced troops than the enemy.
4) Hit the "automatically resolve battle" button.

A hell of a lot easier and quicker and much less likely to have me fuck it up.

Remember to bring skirmishers to a fight. While they might seem worthless, I've watched a line of Light Auxilia pretty much annihilate a phalanx formation. And they're the only thing can effectly take down elephants. Also, after the Marian reforms, I suggest having an army comprised of an equal mix of archers/skirmishers, auxilia, legionaries and cavalry/cavalry auxilia. Auxilia are excellent against cavalry, and are more than able to fight infantry. And legionaries can usually destroy the enemy's infantry without much hassle. Cavalry protects your flanks, and can sweep around the enemy's lines and chase down routing forces. Archers and skirmishers thin out the enemy's ranks (obviously).

Also, make sure to read all your unit descriptions - they have tips on how to best use each unit. Never go into battle with an army that has just one unit type (unless you massively outnumber your enemy or are feeling lucky). And always fight with your units in formation (with at least two lines of infantry). Lone units will be slaughtered.

Turn on the advisor to maximum. He really gives excellent tactical advice for beginners. Beyond that, as the saying goes: When in Rome, do as the Romans do. I usually just use standard Roman tactics with occasional modifications. Early on in the game, pre-Marius, I used the standard "checkerboard" Legion formation: Hastati in front, Princepes in the gaps between them one rank back, and the same with the Triarii an additional rank back. Put cavalry on the flanks, and screening Velites up front, and voila.

v = Velites
H = Hastati
P = Princepes
T = Triarii
C = Cavalry
After the Marius reforms, I didn't bother with such elaborate formations. A simple one- or two-unit deep battle line of Legionary Cohort, with Archer Auxilia in the rear, Auxilia in the front and flanks to take the cavalry charges, Light Auxilia replacing Velites, and my own cavalry again on the flanks. Easy, breezy, beautiful.

Xenophobe3691 wrote:

Master of Ossus wrote:

3rd Impact wrote:with the 'no time limit on battles' option.

I fucking hate the time limit. I can't believe how much it fucked me before I turned it off. I had one battle where my goal was to utterly annihilate an enemy army (down to the last man), and as they were routing towards my heavy infantry (which I had positioned to cut them off and destroy them once they broke) the battle ended in my defeat because the time limit had expired. THEY WERE RUNNING AWAY! There were maybe 100 men left against my 1200+!

But on the other hand, I can't believe the amount of battles I won simple by ping-ponging routing units until the timer ran out and I won. It's a two way sword...

Or defending a town by keeping the enemies off the plaza until the timer runs out.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

2000AD wrote:Personally i use the following tactic:

1) Have a better commander than the enemy.
2) Have more troops than the enemy.
3) Have more experienced troops than the enemy.
4) Hit the "automatically resolve battle" button.

A hell of a lot easier and quicker and much less likely to have me fuck it up.

Same. I once lost 2/3 of an almost 1600 man Austrian army in a Napoleonic mod for Medieval. I had a 2:1 advantage over the Russians, so I decided to oversee the battle myself, and accidentaly got my general captured. Cossacks slam into the front lines, and my already shaken infantry lose their courage and route. Those damn cossacks simply rode along behind the army hacking down men.

The computer uses somewhat unorthodox tactics, so don't be too eager to go reading up on real-life military tactics. Typically, once battle is joined he will not send his battle line crashing into yours, but instead, his units will start all going off crazily in every possible direction. A typical battle against the AI with large armies in "Rome: Total War" is extremely chaotic and spread over half the map. This can be confusing and can upset what may have struck you as a sound tactical plan before the battle began.

A few tips:

1) Try to position your army on the high ground at the start of the battle, especially if he is attacking. This will wear out his troops as they try to approach and it will give your archers a range advantage.

2) Put your archers behind your main battle line.

3) Use "guard mode" to keep your troops from running off wildly after enemy units which hit and run, because the AI can sometimes draw your men out of the battle line and then crush them when isolated.

4) Turn on "Auto-fire" for all of your Hastati, Principes, or (later) legionary cohort.

5) Don't charge directly into the face of an enemy with cavalry; try to maneuver so that you are striking his men from behind. This is easiest when they are occupied with your battle line.

6) Don't use your general until you absolutely have to. Keep him close behind your battle line so that he will keep their morale up and rally them if they start to break and run.

7) If parts of your battle line are not engaged at all (which is quite common since the AI tends to scatter his units and concentrate on individual attack points), instruct them to attack immediately. For the sake of speed you may wish to ALT-doublerightclick when you instruct them to attack, so they charge immediately. An infantry charge onto the side or back of an enemy unit can be quite devastating.

8) Don't be afraid to PAUSE the game if things get too chaotic. That gives you a breather to look around the battlefield, identify any hotspots where you're in trouble or units that are wasting their energy running after routing enemies, and decide what you're going to do next.

In other news, I've just saw the AI use a tactic I've never encountered before. I was playing as the Brutii and a bunch of rebels popped up in my province. They had a unit of hastiati, a unit of velites, a unit of town watch, 4 units of hoplites, and 1 unit of militia hoplites. The general's unit was a unit of militia cavalry. I drew up my army in one line, with the hastiati in the center arranged 3 lines deep to wrap around the phalnxes, and the guys on the flanks arraned into the normal depth. The AI, however, put all its phalanxes in one line, with hastiati on one flan, and velites on another. However, in front of the line, he arranged the town watch, the militia hoplites, and the militia cavalry in a line perpendicular to his main battle line, so that his army looked like a big "T". Having never seen that before, I went "WTF?". This formation also gave me some trouble, as his hastiati charged my left flank. However, I charged their rear with my cavlary, and broken and routed them. Then, my troops engaged his main line, and while my general took care of his velites, I crushed his main line. Out of an army of about 500, 6 men survived, including his general.

So, anyone else get anything like that?

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

May I take this opportunity to say damn you all for getting me hooked on this game?

Bastards.

HAH! Take that, you Pontic bastards! Javalin-bearing cavalry! 91 kills, 0 casualties!

One week of having the game, over thirty hours spent playing it. Damn. I have real work to do.

Use your cavalry effectively! Do not charge head on into the enemy and then allow them to slug it out. Hit the flanks, wheel off, and charge again.

And, manuever, manuever, manuever! This is the key to slaughtering your enemies. Always keep your units manuevering to secure a key position against the flanks or rear of your enemy troops, and remember to maximize your units abilities. Use your skirmishers to slaughter slow, heavy enemy units. Make sure during the deployment phase you take advantage of natural terrain; slopes, woods, etc.

If your line can hold their attack, you'll always win. Flank them with infantry, shoot them with archers, charge-withdraw-charge with cavalry. Keep some light cav way out behind their army, so you annihilate them when they flee.

Its very important that they don't flank you - do what you have to in order to match the length of their attack. I've won battles with a battle line 2 men thick: they only have to hold on long enough for the cav to rout everybody.

If the AI decides to attack (unlikely, they shuffle their forces around like OCD people) wait till they're close then pull your line in opposite directions: the AI will always turn to face the two new fronts, exposing their flanks like idiots. Charge, rout, annihilate.

ALWAYS interfere with their cavalry. Throw your units into suicidal battles: once the main battle is won, the cav will run away anyway. If they get a good charge in, you're basically fucked.

With practice you'll be able to get 10-1 kill ratios, all the time. Even on VH/VH where the AI cheats its ass off.

I my jaillin/arher rider really the demoraliing effet of moile art. i a wonder.

BTW, how do you guys make sure your units stay in formation as you move them? There are the formation buttons, but they don't have all the formations I would like, and if you have two or three formations the battle line still tends to get fucked up, especially because if you give a group an order to move somewhere all the units tend to converge on the same spot.

And, oddly enough, in most of the battles I've played the AI has hit me with a battle line. Macedonians, Gauls, Spaniards to a lesser extent, Greeks...

What is everyone's tactics for destroying certain factions? For Gaul, battles usually degenerate to stand-up knock-down slugfests between infantry, and your superior Roman infantry will nearly always take the day, especially when you factor in the pila.

With the Greeks, I send out my Velites, Auxilia, or Mercenary Peltasts to weaken the hoplites. Numidian cavalry works wonders. Then my own infantry scythe them down with javelins and close. By this point they're seriously weakened and I can bring some cavalry or other infantry to hit them in the flanks. Usually my cavalry is occupied in the early stage of the battle hunting down and slaughtering archers and missile units.

I've noticed the Macedonians tend to use light-cavalry-heavy armies, peppered with a few formidable phalanxes. It's hard to hit the phalanxes with skirmishers, because they run the risk of being ridden down and massacred by the Macedonian lancers. Usually then I keep my auxilia out in front of my battle line and just hope they retreat behind my line before the cavalry hits; when fighting Macedonians I make a point of recruiting plenty of mercenary hoplites to hold their cavalry in place while my Roman infantry tosses in javelins from the flanks and closes in their rear. Roman infantry will also hold Macedonians, but usually they sustain higher losses.

Darth Wong wrote:6) Don't use your general until you absolutely have to.

but always when victory is certain (especially if the enemie is routing). It pays off to have a hardened general

Somehow I always get problems when fighting against the Spanjards. Anyone got good experience fighting them (or do I just suck against spanjards)

A good tip is when up against Horse Archers, unless you have more Horse Archers, the best thing is just to stay away, unless you're like the damn computer and compose entire armies of it. In that case, the best idea is to corner them at the end of the map [thank God for arbitrary invisible walls], since they'll run from your cavalry. It helps to have something like Cataphracts when doing that so that they don't die from shots on the run and can utterly destroy the bastards once them corner them.

If you've got nothing to chase with (like a low tech Seleucid army), always AutoResolve, of course.

Re: AI Battleline

That's odd, because the AI regularly hits me with a full battleline. I've even had the AI hit me with a line of eight phalanx units while 5 cavalry units hit me from the left flank, with archers in the rear firing at my troops. This was with the AI set to medium and unit size set to huge. And it was one hell of a battle (and my Brutii had broken Macedon's main army by the time it was over).

City assaults are really the only time I don't have to deal with a battleline.

Well I normaly turn "use fire" option on, so achers use fire arrows that rout enemy units in less time then normal arrows.

I usually begin a battle by sending out the cavlary auxilia to inflict general light casuatlies, harassment and mayhem while also tiring out any enemy cavalry they have who try and chase them down. Next comes the archers. After that the velites. Once the velites/light auxilia have expended their missiles, it's time to send in the legions/auxilia. Cavalry (Equites/Roman Cavalry etc) remains on the flanks to guard against enemy cavalry moves. If they have none, my cavalry move forward and charge their rear (never the flanks- not as effective). The general moves with the cavalry and seeks out the enemy general, if one is present, and kills him while their enemy general is fighting for his life against Triarii/Auxilia or any mercenary hoplies I ma have.

Oh- later in the game, add Onagers for big fun.