The Battle of Asculum - VH - for dummies

[RedFox]

I've had numerous complaints on the Battle of Asculum being rather hard, so I decided to post this little walkthrough on how to blitz the Romans, charging uphill. No, not even fancy maneuver tactics or anything, just straightforward 'crush them with everything we got' approach.

First of all, the key to succeed in this battle, is to almost never acctually give your phalangites real targets to attack - your objective is to maintain a solid impregnable wall of pikes against the Romans.


Now, lets get started with the battle:

The deployment is rather standard - most of my cavalry is placed on the left flank with the elephants. Skirmishers are all placed in the front, with skirmish ability on and the infantry is formed in a long, solid line.

The battle starts with me ordering all my men to advance into the middle of the dirt road.


The Romans are immediately rather annoyed by my threatening skirmishers and decide to take the initiative.


A shower of javelins and rocks quickly changes their minds.



While the Romans also sent strike forces to both my flanks, I decided to quickly order forward all my pikemen, leaving the supporting infantry forces facing off against Principes. I order my cavalry to immediately start their run up the hill, to prepare their smashing charge against the Principes.


They are routed in a matter of seconds.


After my surprising success on the left flank, I immediately order all my infantry to advance, the left flank supportive troops and cavalry are ordered to charge in right after the elephants. After elephants smashed the Roman general, my cavalry is quickly ordered to retreat.



The Roman infantry is in complete chaos due to crazed elephants rampaging amidst them and crushing soldiers under their stomping feet. While the infantry is all concentrating on the elephants, my own infantry attacks them.


This is absolutely the perfect moment to waste my missiles and order the phalanx forward.

The elephants are quickly loosing their steam, but still enough to get my pikes safely close to their infantry.


Finally, with both flanks of Romans defeated, I order an all out attack and promptly surround the confused Roman army with infantry and cavalry.


The Romans are immediately dismayed upon being surrounded and order an all-out retreat.


A few unlucky units get trapped and surrounded by my pikemen.



The end of the Battle - a Complete and utter victory over the Romans.



Results: Most of my casualties came from disorganized chase of the retreating Romans, which cost me both of my cavalry units and some precious infantry. Overall, nothing serious.


Again though, elephants are way too powerful.



After the battle, I recruit some local Samnite mercenaries and lay siege to Arpium. For the frail economy, I disband a few more expensive units in my cities to save money.



With such an outcome, the Battle of Arpium should be more or less a breeze and the Italian peninsula yours.

Hope this helped the newcomers, even if a tiny bit. The trick is to not give the enemy any time to catch their breath. From my part it was a constant push forward and slowly eliminating their flanks to surround them. The cavalry charging from behind the Romans, down the hill is rather devastating, so perhaps, fighting uphill really isn't that bad, if you know how to take advantage of it

[rogergargantua]

Great report and GREAT victory!

Few things I dont get, you place your army on the dirt road right where you spawn. You used ur skirmishing units to lure the Romans away from that watchtower? They never took my bait when I ever tried.

Also, the skirmishers had to walk or run a big distance towards that hill tower while ur main army was far away at the back..... Wouldnt Roman cavalry attack ur skirmishers if they get too close?

The battle is hard yes, but I tried it like 6 or more times before I finally succeeded. It was a great and worthy battle for sure.
But I never was able to lure em away from that hill.

[Stilgar CG]

How Romans came down? RedFox asked something like: "Who wants a brand new skin and extra hit points in their EDU entry?" ... so Romans just came forward one by one like goats (cavalry was first, hehe)

Well done, RedFox. I see you took that armour and weapon upgrade off cavalry and elephants. It was the right thing to do, I suppose. Keeping missile units as one is a good idea, indeed.

[RedFox]

I really didn't need to do much to lure some of them down - of course the main Roman army stood their ground, but the AI is really irritated if you threaten him with skirmishers. Just lining all my skirmishers up front like that, triggered him to send a good portion of units towards me.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Other than that, I still had to climb up the hill. The main battle I still fought the Romans uphill at a disadvantage, but I was able to surround, confuse and rout them with my cavalry, elephants and infantry.

The trick is to send your infantry and cavalry in right after the elephants, the enemy troops will concentrate solely on your elephants, which leaves them open for a straight cavalry charge.

You can also see how I slowly ordered my pikemen forward, making sure that they keep their line perfect - I never acctually pressed the attack button, I just walked my pikemen right next to the Romans, until the pikes touched them. This is the perfect way to keep your phalanx intact - they are rather low-quality and die off easy in melee.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Also, just to confirm this, the Roman army acctually started the battle by maneuvering a little bit downhill onto the more sloped terrain. The elephants made this battle a little bit too easy though and with the new Romans (you might've noticed the new Hastati), some stats are still unbalanced.
It will take some time when the next patch is released, sorry for the delay, but real life takes its toll on everyone...