Historical Gameplay, Campaigns of Pyrrhus (1.2.3f beta)

[kpagcha]

Really enjoying this series. The river battle was pretty cool. Some comments and pointers I want to add regarding the decisions made in the battle, I hope you appreciate the input:

- considering you were outnumbered and, worse, you were going to get sandwiched, you need to use every trick in the book
- in my opinion skirmish trading is not a good idea. Skirmishers are better used when shooting at the enemy's back or targetting the enemy leadership, or cavalry.
- put your shielded unit in the front to soak up and waste enemy ammunition. They will get minimal casualties. But keep your pikemen behind, because they do take a ton of damage from fire.
- when you sent two units to defend against forces coming through the bridge, you threw javelins to their front. This does minimal damage because they are shielded. Turn off fire at will, position your unit behind their back, and then throw the javs. This will wreck them.
- your rear charge wasn't quite a rear charge but a side charge. You could have taken 3-4 more seconds to position your unit right behind their back (just like you did when facing against the second unit), as this is a much more effective charge in terms of damage and morale.
- while you were engaging across the bridge, the main enemy force wasn't moving and the rest of your units had nothing to do. You had 2 cavalry units and 1 elephant. You could have quickly used them to crush the second force and take minimal casualties. The second unit you faced was none other than triarii. A cheap hoplite and militia unit is going to do nothing against them, not even if you rear charge. And that's what happened. They managed to route the hoplites and shatter the militia. Meanwhile your cav was enjoying the view. If you had used them the outcome would have been much better.
- when the main fight started, your cavalry units were idle for too long. Your small front line was holding double or triple their number of units, they were doing great, but you didn't exploit this for a while. You had many opportunities to swing around with Pyrrhus, your other cav or your elephants and crush their backs. Instead, they were sitting doing nothing.
- you mentioned that historically elephants were really good against cavalry but unfortunately this is not the case in Rome II. As you could see, when you sent them to fight Quintus Papus they started to waver. Fortunately Pyrrhus saved the day
- charging your elephants head on against spearmen perhaps is not the best idea. Even though spear units are not that good against cavalry in DEI, your elephants can get stuck in a blob and get slaughtered pretty fast. Better use them to side or rear charge. They are devastating.
- use control groups, they make your life easier and order issuing faster

And that's it that's just my take of the battle, which you did manage to win pretty successfully, but when it comes to minmaxing I think you could have been more optimal with your decisions. And of course this is just my view that comes from my experience playing the mod. So, anyone, feel free to point out if you think I got something wrong. And please don't take this as if I am trying to "correct" you, I am simply trying to help.

[Samos41]

Yeh elephants will get beat by heavy melee cav more often than not if they are on their own. This has been my experience anyway, but if supported by another cav unit they can be devastating. Charging both your cav and elephants at the same time into 1 enemy cav unit will pretty much kill it instantly. Could be totally wrong about that though as I was doing stuff like that in an armenia campaign a while ago and the new combat may have changed things.

[Sarkiss]

thanks for the tips. tbh i was taken aback by the AI's choice of crossing. was expecting them to force the bridge crossing and only discovered their army when half of it was already on my side further down the stream. if Romans were controlled by a competent human player i would probably get crashed in this pincer movement. shame there is no way to host a campaign battle like in Shogun 2. also didnt expect the elephants to start wavering when charging a single unit of cavalry. that was very odd. im a bit apprehensive about using Pyrrhus as a shock cavalry unit, for if he dies its game over. in my experience generals are much more brittle in Rome 2 compared to M2TW. good point on fire at will. will keep an eye on it next time and probably disable it. that extraordinarii unit that routed two of my footmen units, is that a norm? i was about to post it as a concern in beta thread. it looked strange that my 'sandwiching' it had no effect whatsoever and it quickly routed both of my units. phalanx was in phalanx mode as well, if that matters.

[Fluke]

I would have immediately attacked their slinger unit with my cavalry and destroyed it. If the enemy general came to challenge me I would lure him into my spear units.

When in a bridge battle I always put my spear defense units at both crossings with everyone else in between. You never know where they are going to cross. Or if concentrated at the bridge, you can immediately cross the bridge yourself and defend from the other side.

And yes those Triarii are very hard to defeat. In addition in the new beta I have had several examples of individually isolated and surrounded spear units get a huge bonus to the defense stat, up to 20 or so. I don't know if that is intended or not in the new beta.

[kpagcha]

that extraordinarii unit that routed two of my footmen units, is that a norm? i was about to post it as a concern in beta thread. it looked strange that my 'sandwiching' it had no effect whatsoever and it quickly routed both of my units.

Yeah, they are freaking triarii haha they are HARD to break. A couple of low tier units won't be enough, not even when sandwiching.

I would have immediately attacked their slinger unit with my cavalry and destroyed it. If the enemy general came to challenge me I would lure him into my spear units.

That would have been risky because as the slingers would have retreated your cav would have been closer to their infantry, which can throw pila and destroy your valuable unit.

[Dardo21]

The Romans had a saying, "it's up to the triarii" or something like that, they were the last line of defense, so they were expected to hold no matter what. So they're supposed to be pretty tough, although I can't say for certain if they are too overpowered.

[kpagcha]

Nah a good cavalry charge will break them I'm sure.

[♔Greek Strategos♔]

The Romans had a saying, "it's up to the triarii" or something like that, they were the last line of defense, so they were expected to hold no matter what. So they're supposed to be pretty tough, although I can't say for certain if they are too overpowered.

Res ad triarios venit or rem ad triarios redisse
They were more like the last resort for almost impossible battles..

[kpagcha]

That means something like "the thing came to the triarii" right? I am pretty sure "res" means "thing", as in "res + publica" (republic), the "public thing".

[♔Greek Strategos♔]

That means something like "the thing came to the triarii" right? I am pretty sure "res" means "thing", as in "res + publica" (republic), the "public thing".

AFAIK according to Livy it was ''rem ad triarios redisse'' indirect speech.
It has come to the Triarii.

[DownUnderGamer]

Good job mate

[Sarkiss]

Good job mate

thanks. hope you'll revisit EB2 at some point, not many EB2-based playthroughs out there.

new episode's up - Pyrrhus goes onto offensive: Campaigns of Pyrrhus, 4: Late spring 278, Pyrrhic counteroffensive

[♔Greek Strategos♔]

thanks. hope you'll revisit EB2 at some point, not many EB2-based playthroughs out there.

new episode's up - Pyrrhus goes onto offensive: Campaigns of Pyrrhus, 4: Late spring 278, Pyrrhic counteroffensive

Let's see what Pyrrhus is up to

[Vardano]

I like this series, a lot of youtubers who play Total War games obviously did not read single historical book, so I like your approach to this. I think It would be nice addition if you would add some pictures and historical maps to your vids, it would add a lot to immersion and would take another step towards educational channel.

Tip: your army is not replenishing in a foreign land but you still pay full price to each unit (unfortunately not fixable flaw in this game). Merge your units which have half or less men into bigger units, especially those expensive mercenaries, not only you will save a lot of money but during the fights units with full amount of men will have much better moral than two units which have less men. I mean they have same moral value in stats but will last longer in the fight because their moral is dependent on amount of men in a unit. Your welcome.

[Sarkiss]

I like this series, a lot of youtubers who play Total War games obviously did not read single historical book, so I like your approach to this. I think It would be nice addition if you would add some pictures and historical maps to your vids, it would add a lot to immersion and would take another step towards educational channel.

yes, i have actually seriously considered this. what put me off was all the potential issues with the copyrights. in fact, i spent considerable amount of time looking for suitable images with creative commons license on flickr (image of Pyrrhus statue that i use as a thumbnail for my videos was found there) but i struggled to find what i needed. im not too sure if simply crediting the source for the maps/images used is good enough. might still do it in the future though, once i figure how to deal with the copyrights issue.

Tip: your army is not replenishing in a foreign land but you still pay full price to each unit (unfortunately not fixable flaw in this game). Merge your units which have half or less men into bigger units, especially those expensive mercenaries, not only you will save a lot of money but during the fights units with full amount of men will have much better moral than two units which have less men. I mean they have same moral value in stats but will last longer in the fight because their moral is dependent on amount of men in a unit. Your welcome.

interesting, didnt know morale was tied to amount of men per unit. thank you, will see what can be merged.

[♔Greek Strategos♔]

[QUOTE=Sarkiss;15682394
interesting, didnt know morale was tied to amount of men per unit. thank you, will see what can be merged.[/QUOTE]

Yeah it's a known fact, but still people aren't aware of every small detail. I recently learned that garrisons gain experience

[kpagcha]

Yeah it's a known fact, but still people aren't aware of every small detail. I recently learned that garrisons gain experience

That sounds familiar to me hehe It is actually a deal breaker for me too, because I tend to sit my generals in key provinces to boost income or PO, so their gaining experience means improving these effects even further by investing in the bureaucratic skill tree. Before I simply used to sit them on patrol stance for the reduced upkeep and increased income, but they weren't getting any experience (which by the way wouldn't it make sense to gain experience by patrolling? Perhaps the stance would become too OP though...). I guess the tradeoff of garrisoning your armies is the negative PO. Not sure how it affects population though.

(by the way, your quote is broken, you need to close the first tag)

And back into topic: currently watching the 4th episode, having a blast with it! @Sarkiss are you using the latest 1.2.3f beta patch in it?

[Sarkiss]

Yeah it's a known fact, but still people aren't aware of every small detail. I recently learned that garrisons gain experience

interesting, never new that either.

new episode is up (shot before i found out about the morale trick)

episode 5, Campaigns of Pyrrhus, 5: May-June 278, Battle of Cosentia. in this episode Pyrrhus faces an attack from the remaining Roman forces in Magna Graecia.

@Sarkiss are you using the latest 1.2.3f beta patch in it?

im using 1.2.3f beta update from 7/10, as later updates seemed to have issues with the save games.

and thanks for watching

[KAM 2150]

Better to update as issues with save game were fixed in few hours and we have released additional update since then

[Sarkiss]

Better to update as issues with save game were fixed in few hours and we have released additional update since then

great to hear, will update then. thanks

updated the game to the latest patch from 20th October (thanks KAM) and uploaded a new episode - Campaigns of Pyrrhus, 6: summer 278, All Quiet on the Western Front