Rome Total War: invincible AI heavy cavalry?

[john_...@my-deja.com]

Have been playing the RTW campaign game, captured Rome, and now
replaying from just before then. I have 5 or 6 armies in the area so I
just let the AI counterattack me to see what sort of battles ensue.

This is about 180BC, post Marius, and I am getting the impression that
AI heavy cavalry units are virtually invincible.

The other night I played a battle in which I had 3 20-unit armies. The
terrain was rolling low hills, wooded in a band from the southwest to
the northeast corner. To the southeast, the terrain was open, and rose
to a slightly higher hill.

In the woods in the centre of the battle area, I put a unit of velites
and a unit of Roman archers. I deployed the remainding 18 units under
my control along the hill to the southeast, facing northwest. This was
my weakest army; the other two waited in the north-east and in the
west.

Basically I put 8 infantry units in a line with the unit at the end
refused. I put four scorpion units in the centre of the line, triarii
behind them, a unit of praetorians in reserve, and on either flank, two
equites units.

The enemy had three armies. The first was about 100 Scipii who moved
down from the north. These were mostly light cavalry and light auxilia.
I broke them easily and drove them out of play with very few losses. My
line reformed and waited for the next effort.

Next up was an SPQR army, which came down from the northwest through
the woods. They walked right past my hidden velites and archers, who
gave them a good going over then fell back to the south, drawing 4 or 5
units after them. The others pressed on and the four heavy cavalry
units then charged my line. They ignored the scorpion fire and simply
crashed into the ends of my line. The refused units at either end
joined in, and the cavalry then rode around the flanks and charged them
from behind. In this way 80+ principes / praetorians and 54 equites
were just about able to drive off 40-odd heavy cavalry who'd marched
through a wood and charged uphill.

There was a bit of a ruck in the centre as a dozen enemy units charged
up hill at my scorpions, heavy infantry, and triarii. They were beaten
back and pursued by my remaining cavalry. My line was now pretty
knackered - all their pila thrown, cavalry depleted and tired, etc.

At this point the third enemy army came on, close behind the one I just
routed, and they charged my lines with their standard four heavy
cavalry units too. This broke every unit in my line for perhaps 3 or 4
losses to the heavy cavalry.

My entire 20 unit force was duly routed and the next one on was the
reinforcing army in the west. So another 20 units, similar to the
previous, advanced into the rear of the one surviving enemy army. Guess
what? Yes, those heavy cavalry charged frontally into my fresh and
intact principes and routed the lot.

This seems a bit of a weird result. OK, a pilum volley isn't going to
do much against a charging horse, but neither is a horse really going
to charge full-tilt into a wall of shields. If it did, surely the first
few would knock over a few guys, then come to a halt surrounded by
legionaries and get cut to pieces?

What exactly are you supposed to do to defeat an AI heavy cavalry
charge?

[James D Burns]

2 things work in RTW. Spear armed infantry or put your Principles in woods.
Cavalry suffers big penalties while fighting in woods. The charge bonus
alone in the open will route most units except those with bonus fighting
cavalry (spearmen).

Jim

[john_...@my-deja.com]

Putting units in woods didn't work for me, every unit got routed while
inflicting no losses just the same.

Last night I had 3 armies of 700, 600 and 600 men against two AI armies
of 200 and 500 men. I routed the first but the second had 6 heavy
cavalry units, which routed all 20 of mine then charged to the edge of
the map and routed each of the next 20 reinforcing units individually
as they came onto the map. At no stage did any of these cavalry tire
despite having charged all the way across the battlefield uphill.

Makes it all a bit futile really. If the enemy has any heavy cavalry
the only thing that will defeat them is spearmen, but you can only have
20 spearmen units on the table at the same time whereas the AI can have
2 or 3 armies with 40 or more units in play.

[Ivan Bajlo]

<john_...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:1128609360....@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...

> Makes it all a bit futile really. If the enemy has any heavy cavalry
> the only thing that will defeat them is spearmen, but you can only have
> 20 spearmen units on the table at the same time whereas the AI can have
> 2 or 3 armies with 40 or more units in play.

Now you see benefit of attack - fighting battle on your own terms. ;-)

Also Rome Total Realism mod give much more realistic combat.

--
Vojska.net - Free PC games mods, maps, scenarios
http://www.vojska.net/

[Nats]

Really? Well how come I can beat the enemy when faced with odds of 5 to 1 in
the RTR mod? Try the Darth mod if you want a difficult battle or even better
try BI expansion which really is tough.

Nats

"Ivan Bajlo" <ivan....@zg.htnet.hr> wrote in message
news:di3l72$s5l$1...@news1.xnet.hr...

[john_...@my-deja.com]

Ivan Bajlo wrote:

> Now you see benefit of attack - fighting battle on your own terms. ;-)

Up to a point, but if you have 600 guys and your enemy brings 150 heavy
cavalry to the battle, it appears you are screwed no matter what. I
find it historically unlikely that that's what happened in reality, so
this strikes me as a significant fault in play balance.

> Also Rome Total Realism mod give much more realistic combat.

I've downloaded it but not installed it. I must do so. A number of
features of the standard game strike me as improbable.

One is the astonishing endurance of horses. IIRC from my reading in the
Napoleonic period, a horse with a fully-accoutred rider can gallop
flat-out for about 100 yards. Beyond that, it rapidly exhausts itself.
At Eylau in 1807 lightly-armed cossacks were able to massacre large
numbers of French armoured cavalry when they caught them blown and
exhausted from a charge; at Waterloo, French lancers annihilated
superior numbers of British heavy cavalry the same way.

Another point is that cavalry did not often in reality charge downhill
and neither did they charge over long distances where avoidable. In
both cases this was because the unit lost its cohesion rapidly and
arrived at close quarters with the enemy in disorder. AIUI, cavalry
actually prefer to charge uphill.

Also, troops manoeuvring on steep slopes should become disordered -
somewhere I have a cite of a 19th century manual which says that at
anything over about a 1 in 6 slope formed manoeuvre is impossible.

As for the particulars of ancient combat, I wouldn't know, but if
ballistae and similar weapons were really as ineffective as they are in
RTW, I have to wonder why they bothered with them. So far, all I've
found them useful for is as bait: line 4 or 5 of them up along the top
of a hill with triarii behind them, and the AI will send cavalry right
through them and onto the spears. I suspect that just recruiting
triarii in the first place might work better.

[James D Burns]

It's very possible that the cavalry army's commander had a high number of
command stars. That will dramatically increase the effectiveness
(armor/attack/morale, etc. all go up 1 per star) of any units under his
command. I have rarely seen infantry in woods get routed by cavalry because
of the penalty cavalry pays for combat in woods. But you did state you had
fought and defeated an army already. More than likely your units were very
fatigued. This will directly affect their morale and thus make them prone to
route before they have a chance to inflict harm on the cavalry.

Other than these tips, I too highly recommend RTR over standard RTW. It's
all I play anymore, makes for a much better (more realistic) game in my
opinion.

Jim

<john_...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:1128609360....@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>

[James D Burns]

Ouch don't waste em like that. Put them behind your spears and when the cav
charge the spears, run around and chop them up from behind. They are very
effective at slicing and dicing other infantry or cavalry once its no longer
charging.

Basically thing paper rock scissors. Cavalry beats infantry, infantry beats
spear and spear beats cavalry. As a bonus pepper everyone with slings and
arrows. ;) Of course al this is heavily affected by command stars and unit
experience. That's why I prefer the mods, units have much higher defenses so
things are not so dramatically changed by command stars and experience
hashes. these things still have an effect of course, just not so dramatic as
in the standard game.

Jim

<john_...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:1128681055....@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...

[Nats]

"James D Burns" <jburn...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:GKy1f.1563$dO5...@fe07.lga...

> Other than these tips, I too highly recommend RTR over standard RTW. It's
> all I play anymore, makes for a much better (more realistic) game in my
> opinion.
>
> Jim

Have you tried Darths mods theyre far better then the RTR mod, in terms of
fun gameplay rather than realism. The main problem with RTR is that to be
completely realistic you have phalanxes everywhere which makes it all rather
boring to play.

But Im playing BI with Darths 1.1 gameplay fix for slower troop movements
and higher morale and its looking really good - far better than RTW with any
of the mods applied.