Fighting Rome is no joke now!

[Ares1000]

Playing as Chartage, i took Syracuse turn 2 or 3, not sure if that was smart, as it probably triggered the Punic war sooner. But fighting Rome's early troops and a lot of principes, even with a decent army: 2 heavy cav, 2 armored elephants(probably called something else, i just see armor on them) 2 tarantines. Half my ingantry hoplites and mercenaries, and 4 javelin trowers. And a second mostly mercenary army of something similar without the elephants. The problem is, even with good tactics, hammer and anvil with 2 elephants and 2 cav right smack into the rear of a principes, will not nesscerary rout it. Their morale and defense is too good, and they will grind through your own infantry, so even if im pulling off hammer and anvil all over the line, my casulties will be horrendous...

Rome got 4 Legions, i have managed to destroy 2 with my armies, and a third with my ships. Both my armies are att 20-30% strength. Im standing att the Boarder of Roma, theres a full Legion, and 2 badly beaten up Generals, one with 6 units, Roma is about half garrisoned, and i have taken southern Italy, not much of mercenaries available, and can't hire good troops yet, light hoplites, levies and slingers. I Think They will attack, im badly beaten up, so either pull back behind Beneventum, hope they don't attack, or run for it to Taras, merge and build up what i can, i just don't want Rome to recover, but as long as they have the city of Roma, they are making almost 8000.

Any advise on the Situation? And advise on fithing Rome in general.?

[♔Greek Strategos♔]

Hi, there are literally hundreds of Rome specific gameplay guides in the :
DeI Strategy Guides and Gameplay Discussions.

[Ares1000]

Hi, there are literally hundreds of Rome specific gameplay guides in the :
DeI Strategy Guides and Gameplay Discussions.

Thanks!

[♔Greek Strategos♔]

Thanks!

No problem. Just use the search function in that thread and if you're still having questions, shoot.

[bibs]

Playing as Arverni I don't think I ever defeated a Roman legion in a straight 1v1 fight. Only once I managed to destroy a legion in an ambush. Their infantry is just too good (but I like it that way) for my mid-tier boys. I feel I need to have an egde like ambush them, defend inside fortifications, favorable terrain - or just have a full high tier army but I never kept one. I like variety.

[♔Greek Strategos♔]

Playing as Arverni I don't think I ever defeated a Roman legion in a straight 1v1 fight. Only once I managed to destroy a legion in an ambush. Their infantry is just too good (but I like it that way) for my mid-tier boys. I feel I need to have an egde like ambush them, defend inside fortifications, favorable terrain - or just have a full high tier army but I never kept one. I like variety.

That surely makes things more interesting for the player!

[LysanderOfSparta]

Playing as Arverni I don't think I ever defeated a Roman legion in a straight 1v1 fight. Only once I managed to destroy a legion in an ambush. Their infantry is just too good (but I like it that way) for my mid-tier boys. I feel I need to have an egde like ambush them, defend inside fortifications, favorable terrain - or just have a full high tier army but I never kept one. I like variety.

Romans fight a lot like they did historically in DeI. Their armies are essentially lawnmowers; their pila soften up pike phalanxes, and they'll beat plenty of hoplite phalanxes 1v1, and have better survivability than your non-elite Arverni infantry. But I find that they skimp on cavalry, only bringing two equite units.

You can handle them much like Hannibal did - let the confident fools hit you in unfavorable terrain, isolate their cav with about four units of your own, and break them on whichever wing of yours is fairing the best.

I tend to have a different problem with my Spartans. The Romans are killing too many of my first class citizens, so I have to fight them with Perioikoi, and the Romans in my campaign just hit their Marian Reforms. I'm terrified!

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[♔Greek Strategos♔]

I tend to have a different problem with my Spartans. The Romans are killing too many of my first class citizens, so I have to fight them with Perioikoi, and the Romans in my campaign just hit their Marian Reforms. I'm terrified!

Feed them with peasants first.

[Nordling]

Romans fight a lot like they did historically in DeI. Their armies are essentially lawnmowers; their pila soften up pike phalanxes, and they'll beat plenty of hoplite phalanxes 1v1, and have better survivability than your non-elite Arverni infantry. But I find that they skimp on cavalry, only bringing two equite units.

You can handle them much like Hannibal did - let the confident fools hit you in unfavorable terrain, isolate their cav with about four units of your own, and break them on whichever wing of yours is fairing the best.

I tend to have a different problem with my Spartans. The Romans are killing too many of my first class citizens, so I have to fight them with Perioikoi, and the Romans in my campaign just hit their Marian Reforms. I'm terrified!

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Wow! I have yet to see such strong expansion of egypt. In basically all my campaigns they rarely expand besides taking 1-2 settlements. Nice!

[LysanderOfSparta]

Wow! I have yet to see such strong expansion of egypt. In basically all my campaigns they rarely expand besides taking 1-2 settlements. Nice!

Yeah! In large part this is due to my meddling. Sparta has few allies early game, so I nurtured the ones I had, Ptolemies included. This resulted in the eventual confederation of the Athenians and Aetolians, and the elimination of Epirus. Once I had consolidated Greece/Macedonia, I began feeding them gold and and dragging them into my wars with Pergamon, who had become somewhat powerful in Anatolia with 3-5 settlements.

Their losses to me on the coast left a nice power vacuum of isolated settlements fatigued with their wars against Pergamon, and of course the eastern Pergamon settlements themselves. Since then, Egypt has been a great buffer state while I focus on Roma! I *did* make some treaties with Carthage recently however, and they're not happy about that. I may have to bribe them with gold to keep me in their favor...

[corsair831]

Arverni mid-tier units are 1/3 - 1/2 the cost of Roman units, i don't think you're supposed to defeat their armies in straight fights . Hide and run, till you can kick something in its balls

[Devodians]

Just started a late game war with Rome as Macedon. I found out the old Hammer and Anvil strategy with pikes doesn't work when fighting Legionnaires. Their Pilum volleys wrecked my Pike line before they charged in. My center broke within minutes, and now they've gained a beachhead in Epirus to invade Macedonia proper. Now I understand why the Thorax reforms were necessary! Those Thorax swordsmen are probably the only units I can recruit that can effectively fight against Legionnaires. I'll just have to win the cavalry battle and charge them in the rear while my infantry holds.

[Hakka]

Arverni mid-tier units are 1/3 - 1/2 the cost of Roman units, i don't think you're supposed to defeat their armies in straight fights . Hide and run, till you can kick something in its balls

This is the key here. I had a campaign as the Nervii with a friend as Massalia, and they went out and got entangled into a fight with Rome's ally that angered Rome enough to get them to declare war, and she was surprised when her low-mid tier units weren't doing very well against them. Their units are good, but if you can muster some elites and use them effectively you can beat the Romans.

I kind of like it because it makes Rome a sort of end boss/milestone and it makes elites useful without being overpowered. Usually having more than a token of elite units in an army is overpowered, but against Rome spam you really want it.

[CadetNewb]

That's odd. When facing Rome, your hammer and anvil should work out fine. It's just a matter of pulling it off faster than the legionnaires can break your pikemen. Even then, the pilum volleys aren't that bad. Having good shock cav or even skirmisher cav to throw stuff into their backs would likely do wonders. If I recall correctly, in a head to head fight, Macedon's pikes should still beat the average legionnaire even. Unless they're just taking on far more than reasonably expected, you should have it in the bag.

[LysanderOfSparta]

Right, Cadet. I would figure that the issue is too-wide lines of pikes. Keep em nice and thick, have about four units of flanking infantry, and 2-4 units of cav should be able to handle them just fine.

One of my best Spartan armies consists of 1 General, 6 Macedonian Pikemen, 2 Ephesian Pikemen(from Pergamon), 2 Thessalian Lancers, 2 Podromoi Cavalry, 4 Skiritai Swordsmen, and 3 Lithobolos.

(Another option is to switch 1 artillery unit and 2 cav for 3 Cretan archers)

The eight pikes make up the core line, while the swordsmen wait behind the line to the left/right of the pikes, behind my wings of cavalry. This tends to lure enemy cav and sometimes some infantry to the wings. If they charge my wings with just cav, they're at a huge disadvantage as my swordsmen shower them with javelins before they can hit my cav.

If they bring both infantry and cav, it's more even BUT they've weakened their main battle line and my pikemen eventually cut through them, or my cavalry breaks free of the wings and mops them up with rear charges. I may have to link some example battles or something sometime!

https://youtu.be/dpFon5XUc2M

Bam! Here's an unlisted vid showing an example battle between a pike army and a post Marian legion. Hope that's helpful!

[♔Greek Strategos♔]

Merged this one with :
Playing as Rome is interesting for the First time.

[popovic]

Merged this one with :
Playing as Rome is interesting for the First time.

Aaand this is now pretty much a mess. Can`t make heads or tails of this thread anymore.

[♔Greek Strategos♔]

Aaand this is now pretty much a mess. Can`t make heads or tails of this thread anymore.

I'm sure you could live with a mistakenly merged thread, since you're already used to hundreds of identical threads and wrongly placed posts (from other users) without ever commenting on them.

[CadetNewb]

Since someone mentioned it, pikes can fight up to three rows deep or so, and hoplites two rows, but even then, you want an appropriate amount of depth to the formation to compensate for losses. If you spread them out too far, especially a pike unit, losses mean that they will dwindle from three rows down to two. As Sacurason mentioned, have their formations be a bit on the thicker side.

[LysanderOfSparta]

Precisely! Almost nothing can penetrate a solid pike line. Your weaknesses will come from your flanks being surrounded and slaughtered, but if you make provisions for that weakness as I did in my tutorial, you shouldn't have any serious problems. Hell, in the video, I was fighting at a handicap because my pike units had nowhere near the XP they have in my campaign!