Morale

[♘Top Hat Zebra]

(I wasn't sure if this went in the questions thread. Feel free to put it there.)

Alright. Well, I just finished my battle against Hannibal (Great fight, by the way.) and I noticed something. His troops, just..... Would. Not. Rout. No matter what I did, they never got lower than "Steady." I eventually won when he only had a couple hundred troops left, and I cought him between my allies and my general and killed him. Then the rest broke and ran.


My question is, are all fights going to be like this? I prefer not to have to kill every single one of my enemy's troops. It seems un-realistic.

Or is this just a special case, what with it being Hannibal?

[Dramatic Cat]

My question is, are all fights going to be like this? I prefer not to have to kill every single one of my enemie's troops. It seems un-realistic.

Or is this just a special case, what with it being Hannibal?

Welp if you try to win all your battles with infantry grindowns and no flanking or cavalry charges then yes, all your battles will be at least 40 minutes long.

This isn't vanilla dude, where the units would break when their numbers barely started to go down. Here you have to resort to hammer & anvil tactics, hunting down their general, and whatnot in order to win a battle.

[Ferdiad]

Hannibal is a 10 star general with Veteran troops. Do the math.

[♘Top Hat Zebra]

Welp if you try to win all your battles with infantry grindowns and no flanking or cavalry charges then yes, all your battles will be at least 40 minutes long.

This isn't vanilla dude, where the units would break when their numbers barely started to go down. Here you have to resort to hammer & anvil tactics, hunting down their general, and whatnot in order to win a battle.

I slammed into the back of some peltasts until there was ONE GUY left.


One guy. He was "eager."


I haven't played vanilla in years, but I have played Med2, Empire, NTW, Shogun, all modded.

I have never fought a battle where I had to kill every last unit on the enemy's side.

[Ybbon]

The short answer is no, not every battle is like this. However some, with veteran elite troops and a high star general will be difficult, Hannibal is one such but you will get others where the right tactics will cause them to run screaming for the hills in a very satisfactory manner.

[Leeham991]

When I fought Hannibal I opened up his line, then sent a shock troop in and took him out. The rest of his army didn't stick around too much longer.

[dvk901]

As other have noted, the reason the battle with Hannibal is so hard is because he is a great General, and his troops all have major bonuses. That will not be the case with others.

[Lord Uxbridge]

Welp if you try to win all your battles with infantry grindowns and no flanking or cavalry charges then yes, all your battles will be at least 40 minutes long.

This isn't vanilla dude, where the units would break when their numbers barely started to go down. Here you have to resort to hammer & anvil tactics, hunting down their general, and whatnot in order to win a battle.

To be honest against Hannibal this doesn't do much to his troops. The way I find is most effective is slingers from the flank and pilum charges from behind. But other than missiles and mass cavalry charges into the enemies backs nothing much routs the enemy that quickly. I find that one or two units of cavalry is not enough for an effective charge so they are left screening my outflanking infantry and missile units.

Hannibal is a 10 star general with Veteran troops. Do the math.

This is pretty much why. Massive morale and combat bonuses for his troops means a difficult fight for your men.

I slammed into the back of some peltasts until there was ONE GUY left.


One guy. He was "eager."


I haven't played vanilla in years, but I have played Med2, Empire, NTW, Shogun, all modded.

I have never fought a battle where I had to kill every last unit on the enemy's side.

You are going to enjoy fighting the elite Macedonian units then

But don't worry you'll get used to it and then it will be easy.

[foster34]

When i first switched from RTW to RS2 i thought the fights last way too long. i felt like units didnt kill as fast because everyone has good defensive stats and that they didnt rout fast enough because everyone had such high morale. however after a few battles i began to like it because you can implement tactics that you couldnt before because units (yours and theirs) routed too quickly. overall i feel like battles are much more fun and realistic in RS2 compared to RTW. As soon as you start experimenting with some tactics of your own you will start noticing that you can cause some units to rout immediately if certain conditions are met before your cav charge or pilla shower or what have you.

on a side note i tried playing RTW the other day and stopped playing 2 minutes into the first battle when half the enemy routed before i could flank them. wheres the fun in that?