pergamon follows the old spartan tradition - our army is our wall - and failed
"Harzschütze"
Re: Let's Kick the AI Down a Bottomless Pit (Chap. 42, Disc. 2, Hist. 5)
pergamon follows the old spartan tradition - our army is our wall - and failed
The Great Conflicts 872-1071
public alpha II + patch 001 09.03.2021
GoRR 0.1 beta - Glory of Rome Remastered
Primicerius
Re: Let's Kick the AI Down a Bottomless Pit (Chap. 42, Disc. 2, Hist. 5)
If only you had posted this way back on turn1, when... after loading the campaign, Agesipolis immediately attacked stacks in Assos, Korinthos and Thebes which were all unwalled.
Primicerius
Re: Let's Kick the AI Down a Bottomless Pit (Chap. 43, Disc. 2, Hist. 5)
Spoiler for Chapter 44:
Last edited by Alavaria; July 20, 2015 at 03:31 PM.
Primicerius
Re: Let's Kick the AI Down a Bottomless Pit (Chap. 44, Disc. 2, Hist. 5)
Spoiler for Chapter 44:
FYI, we are now at 42,295 kills to 5310 deaths.
20 settlements have been taken, 12 by Agesipolis, 7 by Machinaidas
Last edited by Alavaria; April 26, 2015 at 09:14 PM.
Primicerius
Re: Let's Kick the AI Down a Bottomless Pit (Chap. 45, Disc. 2, Hist. 5)
Spoiler for Chapter 45:
Last edited by Alavaria; April 26, 2015 at 09:15 PM.
Primicerius
Re: Let's Kick the AI Down a Bottomless Pit (Chap. 46, Disc. 2, Hist. 5)
Spoiler for Chapter 46:
Last edited by Alavaria; May 15, 2015 at 02:06 AM.
Primicerius
Re: Let's Kick the AI Down a Bottomless Pit (Chap. 47, Disc. 2, Hist. 5)
Spoiler for Chapter 47:
Last edited by Alavaria; July 20, 2015 at 03:31 PM.
Primicerius
Re: Let's Kick the AI Down a Bottomless Pit (Chap. 48, Disc. 2, Hist. 5)
Spoiler for Chapter 48:
Last edited by Alavaria; July 28, 2015 at 08:56 PM.
Ordinarius
Re: Let's Kick the AI Down a Bottomless Pit (Chap. 48, Disc. 2, Hist. 5)
Dude, this is really good. However, slings are overpowered.... Very overpowered. I don't use them in my campaign and if I do, I never let them flank. Against a real player I probably use them. The AI doesn't know how to counter them. In my opionion its a player cheat to use them as a flanking force. I have noticed how much harder my campaign/battles are not using known exploits.
I actually lose battles. Sad, but true.
I really am enjoying this, maybe you could just be a little more realistic, sligners usually fired straight on and weren't used as a flanking force--- that is what I read, not 100% on that.
Primicerius
Re: Let's Kick the AI Down a Bottomless Pit (Chap. 48, Disc. 2, Hist. 5)
Realtalk.
Story wise, the slingers in general don't do much. I treat the enemies as usually routing and -then- being shot in the back or killed by mounted units.
The slingers who actually kill people (ie: storywise these are Rhodians) are specialist anti-armor soldiers. So elites like Macedeonian "shield-bearers" will be their targets. Storywise, the hoplites are what cause enemies to rout. However in-game they don'r actually post a real threat not can they kill or rout enemies like Romans, so in-game threat and fear of flanking shows up as slingers shooting people in the back.
Shooting anyone in the face with slingers doesn't do much at all in game. Storywise, I actually treat most of the slingers as doing some damage but mostly in terms of causing havoc in the enemy reserves (potentially back ranks, but they can't shoot that well over the heads of pikemen).
The only big story change in terms of skirmishing doctrines is that peltasts (or other javelin troops) as well as archers (even Cretan-trained ones) are replaced in general by slingers. Most are assigned to general "covering fire" and just lob stones over the pikemen into whatever's behind, or occasionally try to take direct shots in the maneuvering phases of battle. Even then, their numbers are not as critical as their range (better than javelins) and stamina (they have a lot more rocks than archers carry arrows) and are cheaper to equip (obvious).
Storywise, the pikemen are not as ridiculously competent as they are shown in-game.
If you want to see a lot of melee combat you can see the ChivI story. The way that mod is set up doesn't really work for ranged unit tricks. However, it's still full of knights carefully setting up to charge random peasants in the back and not honorably charging other knights. Though there are some melees (general's bodyguard knight fights)
Last edited by Alavaria; May 09, 2015 at 05:49 PM.
Ordinarius
Re: Let's Kick the AI Down a Bottomless Pit (Chap. 48, Disc. 2, Hist. 5)
Maybe I read it wrong. Just seemed like the aligners were winning the battle. I love the story...continue.
Primicerius
Re: Let's Kick the AI Down a Bottomless Pit (Chap. 48, Disc. 2, Hist. 5)
Ah, the joke was mostly that those Ekdromoi hoplites can't defeat the Pergamon Hypaspists in the "sordid ranks of a drawn-out infantry engagement", while the Pergamon elite will not rout. So even storywise, it means employing the slingers to defeat these enemies by shooting them to death.
Also, some sort of Thermopylae reference because this is after all a Sparta campaign, so people being shot to death always needs a reference.
I'll post later about how the army works in story (it's not unlike Phillip of Macedon styled combined arms, rather than Successor state type push of pike) but indeed gameplay wise the slingers are the ones with the killing power. It's not surprising given the superior stats, attributes and mechanics that they are endowed with by the gods of EDU and RTW engine.
Last edited by Alavaria; May 09, 2015 at 09:28 PM.
Primicerius
Re: Let's Kick the AI Down a Bottomless Pit (Chap. 49, Disc. 2, Hist. 5)
Spoiler for Chapter 49:
Last edited by Alavaria; August 13, 2015 at 05:59 AM.
Primicerius
Re: Let's Kick the AI Down a Bottomless Pit (Chap. 50, Disc. 2, Hist. 5)
Spoiler for Chapter 50:
Last edited by Alavaria; August 29, 2015 at 09:23 PM.
Primicerius
Re: Let's Kick the AI Down a Bottomless Pit (Chap. 51, Disc. 2, Hist. 5)
Spoiler for Chapter 51:
Last edited by Alavaria; August 29, 2015 at 09:24 PM.
Grand Master Yoda
Re: Let's Kick the AI Down a Bottomless Pit (Chap. 51, Disc. 2, Hist. 5)
Any new updates coming?
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Primicerius
Re: Let's Kick the AI Down a Bottomless Pit (Chap. 52, Disc. 2, Hist. 5)
Chapter 52: Mission Accomplished
The Roman dictator was rushed to Arretium, where the garrison remained, now the only forces between him and an "honorable death in battle".
In the Spartan camp, tensions were high, it was necessary to assault this settlement before Roman legions in the east could catch up
However, the Coalition forces were prepared, the Republicanists were not. The outcome was critical, but not really in question.
Shouts came from outside the garrison headquarters:
Romans: "We're under attack!"
General Appius, the garrison commander, along with Sextus Fabius Maximus, the Roman dictator, rushed outside to see the sky filling with massive fireballs.
Appius: What Greek magic is that?!
He would never find out.
SFM watched as just inches away from him, a fireball incinerated his garrison commander.
He himself met an end on the pikes while fighting in a somewhat more direct confrontation.
And that was it, after this point, any organization of the Roman forces on a strategic level was highly uncoordinated.
Spoiler for Details:
Primicerius
Re: Let's Kick the AI Down a Bottomless Pit (Chap. 53, Disc. 2, Hist. 5)
Chapter 53: The Home Front
Back on the Greek homeland...
The "force for the maintaining of order in Macedonia" was encountering an unexpected scenario.
Pelops stared at the now 'Roman' settlement in amazement.
Pelops: I thought Apollonia was a Coalition town.
Scout: It was, until the Roman forces here attacked.
Pelops: To arms!
Under the opening missile bombardment, the Romans attempted to replicate the phalanx formation using their Pila.
Being Romans, this of course failed.
Enraged, they threw the pila at the approaching pikemen, to little effect (due to the pikemen successfully invoking Form Phalanx).
They were then thrown back by a vigorous push of pike.
And then finished off....
Spoiler for Details:
Primicerius
Re: Let's Kick the AI Down a Bottomless Pit (Chap. 53, Disc. 2, Hist. 5)
Chapter 54: A Forest of Pikes
Eventually the purges of North Italy were completed. As calm settled across the land, new arrivals from the east landed and began to take up their new homes on italian soil.
While most milita infantry forces were equipped in the hoplite configuration (hoplon, spear, helmet), in the regular army, hoplites were considered veteran troops due to the necessity of battlefield flexibility.
The militia had their work laid out for them; many rebels had taken up hiding in the various territories. Thankfully they were dissuaded by the constant military buildup seen in the settlements which might otherwise have been their prey.
The Romans had well realized that the Spartan pike formations were formidable obstacles to any victory.
In a rare reversal, Agesipolis and Machinaidas had decided against returning to the more flexible pike use seen under Phillip and Alexander of Macedon, mostly due to the addition of the many Successor-state type pikemen which the new Macedonian members brought to the planning table.
This evolution of the Spartan pike formation resulted in a very heavy and almost irresistible front which even the Romans could not take head on. Missiles such as arrows or javelins were frequently rendered harmless by the sheer amount of wood filling the air. Even pila and Roman artillery did not make much impact...
In order to absorb and apply as many men as possible, the pike formations were deployed dense and deep, frequently packed much denser than even Successor state formations.
Rather than a moving hammer to strike the enemy and a heavy anvil to hold them in place, the Spartan doctrine became one of an upper and lower millstone.
Unlike the highly trained and well equipped hoplites which took positions on the flank, the individual pikeman would be laughably light if not for the massive pike. Indeed, it was said they could go into battle with only a pike and still be effective.
It was generally considered that the pikeman was the ideal massed infantryman; cheap to train and equip, formations were frequently employed at a slow march into the front of the enemy, shrugging off or simply absorbing attacks with the great mass, all without the ranks thinning.
It was not long before the panalopy had indeed shrunk to a "pike only" configuration for the very last ranks. Simply because less shields and helmets meant more pikes, provided there were soldiers...
Spoiler for Details:
The hoplite continued to play pivotal roles in combat, however many enemies faced only the pike formations and only presented their backs to the rest of the Spartan forces.
Pergamon and other militaries who decided to shift to the Roman style of combat generally found their frontline lacking in contrast to the Spartan pike formations.
Pictured here: "Spartans on the Flank", a memorial dedicated to a unit of hoplites who won renown in daring flank maneuvers that won several battles.
The hoplites were not Spartans (the officer was).
Perhaps the most hard-hit were the still hoplite-heavy forces, who only saw their counterparts appearing on the flanks after a painful and fruitless fight against pikemen.
It is hardly a wonder that seeing the armored and colorful coalition hoplites, or even a hint of their usual slinger support caused even elite units to abandon their position.
Regarding encounters with pike-heavy forces... that's a story for another day...
But suffice it to say that the Spartan forces would not suffer another embarrassing defeat due to lack of numbers.
Spoiler for Details:
Last edited by Alavaria; September 05, 2015 at 10:18 AM.
Primicerius
Re: The Bottomless Pit (Chap. 54)
Now to decide how exactly to go about the rest of this... being 0-turn there are tons of pointless fullstack fights around, and endless fort/town busting.
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