Are Triarii the best Roman "Phalanx-like" unit?

[NobleNick]

One of my back-water towns in Northern Africa just got creamed by an Egyptian army. Most of their power was in cavalry and they had no Onagers; so all I had to do was keep the gates intact. Almost made it, almost totally destroyed all the non-cav forces, including the lone battering ram. But a band of axethrowers got to the gate towers, and... here comes Pharoah's horseys... No problem (I thought) I had planned for this possibility and stationed highly upgraded Auxilia next to the gates, backed by 4 units of heavy cav. I rushed the Auxilia, 6 rows deep, in to plug the hole, but Pharoah's chariots, etc. busted them up pretty good. In a very short time they were routing, and then the rest of my cav got munched in short order.

While asking an unrelated question regarding this same battle, I got the following advice:

... just retake the settlement and next time you play plug EVERY entrance with a phalanx unit to stop any potential invader threw the gate. ...also do what i do garrison every city you conquer with 5-6 of your best recruitable phalanx units and 3-4 archers so when you get attacked you can at least hold your own.

I agree with the archer part --> with only TWO PARTIAL PRE-REFORM archer units plus wall defenses, I *ALMOST* totally obliterated 3 units of Pharoah's Bowmen, 1 unit of skirmishers, 2 units of spearmen and 3 units of Desert Axemen. My defense died when my archers ran out of ammo. It just pains me to think of the many opportunites I had to augment my defenders with 2 or 3 units of Archer Auxilia! Siege warfare is definintely not Egypt's forte'.

However, my Auxilia did not hold up to the horse like I had hoped. Was this just a fluke? **ARE** Auxilia the post-reform counterpart of Triarii? And are they any better than Triarii? They appear to perform worse. Is there anything available to the Romans that is more "phalanx-like?"

P.S. -- Is there something wrong with the strategy forum? No posts there since yesterday, and I could not post this there (where I think it belongs) in three tries.

[Lusted]

Auxilia infantry are the best spearmen unit the romans get post-marius.

[Hader]

thr romans aren't big on spearmen either, so they aren't gonna be that good. They are all right, but not great.

[roman_crusader]

i suggest merchanaries. hire greek hoplites if u can. they help a lot in defending ur cities. romans have crap defenders against horses. the auxillia is more like a hastati, with nothing to throw....

anyway, get merchanaries. if ur budget allows, of course...

[Kraut]

Hi NobleNick,

Here are some stats for comparision:

Triarii: Weapon Spear
Attack: 7 (charge bonus 3 )
Defence: 7/5/5 (Armour/Defence/Shield)
Morale: 10

Auxilia: Weapon Spear
Attack: 5 (charge bonus 2 )
Defence: 7/4/5 (Armour/Defence/Shield)
Morale: 6

As you can see, Auxilia do not match the Triarii. However, Lusted is right though, they ARE the best spearmen available after Marius.

I think in your case the point was morale. Here the Auxilia stat is considerably lower than the Triarii stat, so they route earlier. Also, the Triarii kill faster having higher attack value.

Hiring mercenaries is good in regions where you can get tough spearmen. In regions where the hireable spearmen mercs are crappy (e.g. Eastern Inf) you should instead rely on "active defense", i.e. keep a mobile reserve to attack the enemy attacking you.

[Somethindarker]

oh jeez i'm sorry for the false info bro. i thought you were playin a greek/carth/egypt faction with actual phalanx units. your best bet would be get the best unit period. imperials work wonders :laughing: but you can get other lesser powers just plug them up good.

[Legionary Jezza]

if u want mercany hoplites they can be found greece

[Somethindarker]

if u want mercany hoplites they can be found greece

they can also be found in southern italy and northern greece and asia minor i beleive.

[roman_crusader]

and, assuming that ur playing as the scipii and u have sicily, hoplites can be bought there too. also caralis, and sometimes thrace and the crimean peninsula.

[Aemilianus]

Even better- I am assuming, NobleNick, that Pharaoh attacked through one open gate and knocked your auxilia back that way. I'm also assuming they held for a slight period after this happened....

The best way to plan for this is not to jam the gate, though at first glance that looks like the safest way to do it. Rather, deploy your divisions in a semicircle around the gate and wait for pharaoh to drive his chariots into one of them. Charge your remaining divisions into the Egyptian assault, packing them into the circle, and hit them again, and again, and again until you run out of divisions. The charge bonus from that, as well as the fact that they're effectively surrounded at that point, can cause a lot of routing.

Alternatively, what I like to do is to "match up" two divisions of infantry per wall siege unit and station them on either side of the point where the tower or ladder is moving to. Once the troops are on the walls, hit them from both sides. They'll rush up more, do the same to them. Without a battering ram, they won't be able to reach the center and open the gate, and your towers will cut them to pieces. They'll then have to retreat and lose more men in that (I like to run my cavalry out and chase some of the retreaters down). This especially works against the Brutii. I'm currently working on a Dacia game in which I control Patavium, and they're continually sieging it with 15-20 divisions at a time. They can't defeat me on the walls due to that strategy. The only problem is, they're going to do this till I can get a foothold somewhere, which may or may not take forever. Oh well, anyway I'm going far beyond my attempt at an answer. Good luck.

[NobleNick]

Even better- I am assuming, NobleNick, that Pharaoh attacked through one open gate and knocked your auxilia back that way. I'm also assuming they held for a slight period after this happened....

Correct. The story is slightly more complex; but I didn't want to make my previous long post longer. Here is what happened: The chariots and heavy cav coming through the gate really sliced up the Auxilia; but they were holding. Meanwhile, the axethrowers on top of the gate had finished off all my other infantry and were starting in on my archers (who had run out of arrows and were now fighting hand-to-hand. I knew the Auxilia would soon be lost anyway, so ordered them up to fight the axethrowers in hopes that they would prevail and retake the gate towers (which were pelting my own cavalry. Auxilia morale broke as they were starting to go up the tower. So the point is, yes, they held for a bit, even under very heavy losses.

The best way to plan for this is not to jam the gate, though at first glance that looks like the safest way to do it. Rather, deploy your divisions in a semicircle around the gate and wait for pharaoh to drive his chariots into one of them. Charge your remaining divisions into the Egyptian assault, packing them into the circle, and hit them again, and again, and again until you run out of divisions. The charge bonus from that, as well as the fact that they're effectively surrounded at that point, can cause a lot of routing.

Same as the classic bridge defense. I understand.

Alternatively, what I like to do is to "match up" two divisions of infantry per wall siege unit and station them on either side of the point where the tower or ladder is moving to. Once the troops are on the walls, hit them from both sides. They'll rush up more, do the same to them...

I like doing this, too. Unfortunately, for the wall battle, I had only 1 partial Principe unit, 2 units of Auxilia and two partial archer units, against 3 or 4 units of Pharoah's Bowmen, 1 unit of skirmishers, 2 units of spearmen and at least 4 other infantry units (mostly heavy). I used one Auxilia unit to plug the gate; so I basically had one light and one heavy infantry unit on the walls to cover 3 widely dispersed attack points (the enemy had two ladders and a siege tower, in addition to the battering ram). So, I did not have enough infantry to pull off the excellent strategy you mentioned. Despite an awesome performance by the archers, parts of three units of axemen and almost a full unit each of bowmen and spearmen made it on top. Even so, if the archers had not run out of ammo, I'm pretty sure the wall attack would have failed.

@Somethindarker --> I appreciate the help. I am new enough that I thought you knew something about the Romans that I didn't. I did get something out of this, though. I have eschewed phalanx/spearmen in general, and don't think I have ever paid for a mercenary hoplite/phalanx unit. However, I will henceforth regard them with a LOT more respect when I am recruiting!

Thanks!

[Aemilianus]

NobleNick- I thought of something else I had neglected to mention, but which came to my head while I was reading your response.

If you've really got no military chance in front of the walls, I offer another possible recourse, which I've used in the past with German forces (one time I had 6 battered divisions against 15 full Brutii ones). Simply deploy your men at chokepoints in the streets, near the main square, and do so at cross points. They'll capture the wall, but you'll preserve your army. Once they reach a favorable intersection....use the "hold and flank" strategy and pick off any Egyptian divisions that decide to race for the main square. If not, they'll still at least be in a dense column, and we all know how vulnerable those are. Of course, I'm saying this from a perspective of someone who had phalanx in close quarters, but this could work for you....

Disclaimer, I've never done this with anyone but Germany.