early roman formation

[TITANAS84]

i am fun of hastati principe and triari.now i see at start of game only triari, polybian unit and allied recruits.i want to know the numbers of each unit in one legion and where place them.
-o tempora o mores.

[wafflezboy]

I came from the mod SPQR, so I am accustomed to there house rules. No more than ten cohorts in a legion, and the rest auxillia. Pre-marian I usually have 1 general, 10 polybian cohorts, 3 triarri, 2 cavalry, and 2 archers and 2 veilites. Here's my formation.

-cohort-cohort-cohort-cohort-cohort-

-cohort-cohort-cohort-cohort-cohort-

-triarri-velite-triarri-veilite-triarri-

-cavalry-archer-general-archer-cavalry

First line is fire at will and guard, second line is fire at will, and the missile units generally have fire at will and guard. Though if you're facing a tougher enemy, try making them hold their fire and place them behind the enemy line and pour from the back for maximum damage. Triarri is used to protect the flank and to flank, and the cohorts are to hold the line while the cavalry attacks skirmishers, archers, and enemy cavalry. Put your general to use too and help chase routing enemy units or flank some enemy units that won't seem to die.

[TITANAS84]

ok understand.thank you.

[tyboman]

My army build is similar to wafflezboy, but i do vary ever so slightly with my units, and positioning.

My build is: 2 Generals (more historical than 1), 4 cavalry (2 roman equites extrordinary, and 2 latin medium cavalry), 8 polybian cohorts, 4 triarii, and 2 velites.

My army placement is like this.

--------------------------velite---velite--------------------
cav-cav--------cohort-cohort-cohort-cohort--------cav-cav
---triarii-triarii--cohort-cohort-cohort-cohort--triarii-triarii---
------------------------------generals----------------------

with my front line cohorts set to guard and fire at will, and my second line cohorts set at fire at will, velites on fire at will and skirmish, with triarii on guard mode, so they can hold longer for support, if the flanks become overrun. the cav is sometimes closer to the main army, or farther, or farther forward, or further back, depending on where i can make them become hidden, if there is nowhere to hide, i put them right where they are illustrated. The generals i only use if there is no choice but to use them, if the battle fares badly, i will use them about 3/4ths of the way to defeat, not when on the verge of defeat, as the men will be routing by then, the key is to use the generals as flankers when the men are at shaken.

Hope that wasn't too lengthy.

[AnthoniusII]

Two generals were present when an entire army was reqruited.
In order to present accuaratly a an army of an "hypatus" you have to have:
1 general
1 Equites
8-10 (10 if you want to have the entire stack full) of Polybian cohorts (because now there is no separation between Hastati and Principes).
4-5 Triarii (5 if as above)
The legion's formation is quite bizzare. It had to do with the abillity of changing places of cohorts when the front ones had heavy casualties or got tiered. Vanilla RTW formed that formation when you had the units i describe above.
The formation

.........................Velites.....................Velites.......................
Equites........Cohort......cohort......cohort......cohort......cohort..
...........Cohort......cohort......cohort......cohort......cohort.........
...................Triarii......Triarii.........Triarii........Triarii......Triarii...
.........................................General....................................
Equites had a 2ndary role in battle but they were responsible to "cover" the gap the columns created (see where the left cohort of triarii is).
Now in order to realisticaly present the dual "legion" hypatic armies you need to have one more scimilar army like above but with "allied" kind of troops. If you not have access to allied triarii you can use "native" spearmen.

[TITANAS84]

tybomam 2 lines of troops is wide but weak legion because polybian cohort are not good.
antonius this is solid legion but maybe if you take away the 2 triari for 2 archers are usefull for barbarian factions.equites maybe place them behind because if you place them wide the enemies attack them and flank the cohorts.if you place them behind you can flank the unit who attack the wider cohorts.
i think hastati and principes is better because hastati routed easily without extreme casualties(stay in battlefield).,the enemy face the principes and you can use your triari for cover your gaps of principes.behind them you can make line of remain of hastati.
now with polybian cohorts if you try replace the first line you lost the battle.

[AnthoniusII]

antonius this is solid legion but maybe if you take away the 2 triari for 2 archers are usefull for barbarian factions.equites maybe place them behind because if you place them wide the enemies attack them and flank the cohorts.if you place them behind you can flank the unit who attack the wider cohorts.
i think hastati and principes is better because hastati routed easily without extreme casualties(stay in battlefield).,the enemy face the principes and you can use your triari for cover your gaps of principes.behind them you can make line of remain of hastati.
now with polybian cohorts if you try replace the first line you lost the battle.

Hypatic (early Roman republican) armies and later legions had no archers.
Archers were added later with artilery usage also.
In RSII when you will have "named" (imperial) legions that have no triarii as troops the legion will change dramaticly.

.........................................archers................archers......................
Late auxilia cavalary.....cohort....cohort.....cohort.....cohort.....cohort.....
............................cohort.....cohort.....cohort.....cohort.....cohort........
.................................cohort.....cohort.....cohort.....cohort.....cohort...
....scorpion..scorpion..........................General...................................

Archers and light battlefield artilery gave the legions a "long hand" in the battlefiled that could keep in a distance mainly the oponet's cavalry.
Cavalry again is a 2ndary unit.

[AgentGB]

Two generals were present when an entire army was reqruited.
In order to present accuaratly a an army of an "hypatus" you have to have:
1 general
1 Equites
8-10 (10 if you want to have the entire stack full) of Polybian cohorts (because now there is no separation between Hastati and Principes).
4-5 Triarii (5 if as above)
The legion's formation is quite bizzare. It had to do with the abillity of changing places of cohorts when the front ones had heavy casualties or got tiered. Vanilla RTW formed that formation when you had the units i describe above.
The formation

.........................Velites.....................Velites.......................
Equites........Cohort......cohort......cohort......cohort......cohort..
...........Cohort......cohort......cohort......cohort......cohort.........
...................Triarii......Triarii.........Triarii........Triarii......Triarii...
.........................................General....................................
Equites had a 2ndary role in battle but they were responsible to "cover" the gap the columns created (see where the left cohort of triarii is).
Now in order to realisticaly present the dual "legion" hypatic armies you need to have one more scimilar army like above but with "allied" kind of troops. If you not have access to allied triarii you can use "native" spearmen.

same tactic used against hannibal i believe!? the checker formation, to allow the elephants to move thru the roman forces without taking heavy losess! The romans would preform last mintue maneuvers creating an opening for the elephants to move thru, aswell as direct javelins against them! very historical battle formation

[AnthoniusII]

In fact the each three cohorts (in game) were the three maniples of the same cohort (real).
Each "column" 2 cohorts and one triarii (in vertical position) are one cohort only.
So our ingame legion has 5 cohorts and not 15.
Now imagine. The three maniples to change positions from left to right (just like clock fingers moove).
The 4 maniples (starting from right side) in the middle line have their march covert by the maniple in the left of it. The far left one though has its march entirely exposed and that is why cavalry was at the left flank.

[AgentGB]

Interesting!? quite advanced tactics!? i actually thought you was talking about somthing like this? a tactic used to counter elephants, as elephants would avoid attacking humans dead on and look for the safest route, which took the advantage of the elephants away

where did you get your inf9ormation on these tactics, ive watched alot of documnetarys, and haven't seen tactics that advanced explained in such?

this is what i thought you meant

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

then the romans would form there orignal postion again, a checker formation

[Hunor]

About the formations.
I dont know guys , but in my rome kampaign battles i see the enemy AI use mostly the SAME ROMAN formation against mee...???Even barbarian or iberian or hellenistic. Nothing nation specific own formation.Its a bug or what? I hope somebody make a formation submod to solve this unrealistic situation.
(sorry for bad english)
thx

[HerzoG]

the ai doesnt care about which faction it plays with .so all have same formations

[AnthoniusII]

Interesting!? quite advanced tactics!?

Yes that was a factor of the finall roman victory (the other was the reqruitment system of their in =side their population numbers).
The 3rd factor was that romans always learned from their enemies.

where did you get your information on these tactics, ive watched alot of documnetarys, and haven't seen tactics that advanced explained in such?

I study Roman and Medieval Roman /ancient greek/hellenistic stradegy and battlefield tactics for about 25 years (I am 39).
Unfortunatly all my resourses are in greek and my pure english do not allow me to express what exactly i need to say.

then the romans would form there orignal postion again, a checker formation

Checker fits in what you need to imagine about the maniples moovement.
What we must not forget is that triarii were soldiers for the hard tasks like covering rears and sides when the oponet had too much cavalry, replace the front line maniples and hold ground until the other maniples regroup, comando style tasks in the battlefield (long range flanking the oponets formations etc).

[NerZhulen]

my formation is
....................archers...archers...archers...archers.................
....................cohort.....cohort....cohort....cohort..................
....................cohort.....cohort....cohort....cohort..................
cavalry.cavalry..triary............triary..........triary..cavalry.cavalry
........................................general......................................

-archers aim primarly for enemy archers than skirmishers and light/non armored units, when enemy is nearby they moove behind general
-cohorts are on free fire when any heavy unit is coming nearby
-if enemy has more and better cavalry than you, than 1 triary squad is mooving with 2 cavalry units, when not cavalry kills any leftover enemy ranged units and triari flank or do nothing
-general usually does nothing or chase routing units

[Striker]

your formation is pretty close to mine, only diference is that i use 10 cohorts instead of eight

[TITANAS84]

too much archers and cavarly.romans use more infantry.this is style of other faction.

[MadJackMcJack]

I generally use this formation:

-----C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-----
-----T--A--S-S-S--A--T-----
-----CV-CV--G--CV-CV-----

(C = Cohort, T = Triarii, A = Archer, S = Slinger, CV = Cavalry, G = General)

Tactics are pretty simple. March up (or wait on defense), have the Cohorts do a javalin charge, Triarii guard against flank attacks (or flank themselves if no enemy flankers), Slingers snipe the enemy General then focus on nasty well-armoured stuff, Archers focus on missile cav then unarmoured stuff, then once any missile cav has been cleared away I take all of my Cavalry (including General) around the enemy's weaker flank and crush it, working my way the line until the whole army has broken. Used it against Celtic and Carthaginian forces and it's not failed yet (came close once when the enemy general was an Elephant unit which ran amok and outpaced my ranged units. Sodding enemy units wouldn't break until reduced to 20-30 men apiece, and this is on huge! ).

And yes, I know it's not very historical. Just as well I don't care about being historical

[AgentGB]

Yes that was a factor of the finall roman victory (the other was the reqruitment system of their in =side their population numbers).
The 3rd factor was that romans always learned from their enemies.

I study Roman and Medieval Roman /ancient greek/hellenistic stradegy and battlefield tactics for about 25 years (I am 39).
Unfortunatly all my resourses are in greek and my pure english do not allow me to express what exactly i need to say.

Checker fits in what you need to imagine about the maniples moovement.
What we must not forget is that triarii were soldiers for the hard tasks like covering rears and sides when the oponet had too much cavalry, replace the front line maniples and hold ground until the other maniples regroup, comando style tasks in the battlefield (long range flanking the oponets formations etc).

Thank you for your reply, i see what you mean by the triarii being a commando unit! i did under estimated them until you mentioned there tactics as such! i was using them as a primary cav counter. But these are very effective troops who seem to being very die hard, althou they aren't equipped with pilum. Ive actually started developing in game tactics with them allowing me to take on harder & better equipped stacks. I haven't been spamming them, usually 4 triarii to a stack, but are very effective, i mostly use them on the flanks, unless the AI stack is heavy with javelins, which i will send a forlong to deal with the enemy skirmishers
heres any example! its not quite a roman historical tactics, but ive tried to keep the same setup, i do use the checker formation, but usually when my troops are better, and i want to invite the ai to try and flank my units, so in the end they form a jaggered wedge, that was a hand saw? but heres a play i use against the ai, after you telling me that the triarii are a good unit! as proved very effective with a low cas rate

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

ive noticed you keep using the phrase maniples? going to look into this later today, ive never even heard of this before, but i have a feeling it as somthing to doing with using raw recruits & battle harden cohorts, the raw recruits acting as the frontline? with the more harden troopsbehind them, which i do sorta employ as a tactic? but gonna look into this, do wanna try and use some authetic tactics!

[NerZhulen]

too much archers and cavarly.romans use more infantry.this is style of other faction.

yea but this one is much more effective in the early state when you dont have testudo

[AnthoniusII]

In real each cohort had 3 maniples ,1 hastati ,1 principes and 1 triarii.
Each maniple had almost 100 men exept triarii that had 60.
Each maniple had a centurion as officer.
The 3 maniples placed one behind the other in a generic position.
Triarii as the oldest warriors followed the hoplite style of warfare (shield and spear).