RTR Platinum

**Cornholio** · May 30, 2007, 10:37 AM

Hiho to all of you.

Since this is my first post i want to explain why i ended up here.
I played Rome during a long time on the normal vanilla version, don't ask my why. Now that I checked Total Realism Platinum everything is better, bigger and it's like i rediscovered this game.

My first game with the Greeks is though very frustrating. As in the vanilla version i thought i could easily conquer the greek peninsula. But i was very shocked when i noticed, that when one phalanx engages another, nobody dies. The first siege ended in a battle which i won (by time!!). I killed only 300 miserable soldiers and the macedon general 100.
Okay I thought maybe that general might go another way then, but he attacks me every round over and over, and since my army is only 800 men strong and his 2000 men, I'm not quite able to erase his army cause i can't take many risks.

So... my questions to you is, if you experienced the same problems with RTR Platinum and how you coped with it. Or does anybody maybe know an extension mod for RTRP so that the phalanx engages more realistic? RTR is now maybe historically correct but fights have become now very lame and unrealistic. Unrealistic, because it's nonsense that 160 athenian hoplites engage the enemy phalanx with nearly no success. Even the macedon general charged 2 (!!!) times my phalanx from the front (!!!) and he did not die even after the second try.

As you can see I'm quite frustrated, any advice would help! Thanks

**Arakorn** · May 30, 2007, 10:40 AM

Wrong forum!!!

Why do all people always keep coming here??

**Cornholio** · May 30, 2007, 11:36 AM

i found the subforum of rtr platinum in "rome total war eras". sorry

but this is a bit confusing... cause my question is not really in contradiction with the title of this forum, hehe:

TW and Modding Community Forums
Make announcements, discuss modding, post general modding info and Mod round ups."

and what I've done is discussing a mod

however, i'm going to copy paste this thread where it belongs too. sorry admins

**Halie Satanus** · May 30, 2007, 11:39 AM

No problem, moved to RTR platinum.

Welcome to TWC.

**~~Herpes~~** · May 30, 2007, 11:55 AM

You've just played vanilla too long and lack tactical and strategic creativity.

Obviously your hoplites make a good back bone, but they are not an offensive force, so dont use them as such. You need to use peltasts and generals cavalry to their full extent to flank. Phyrusses elephants are so key to winnning a greek campaign, they can be used to rout a whole wing.

Get a little more creative with your hoplites too. I have a feeling you just create one long line with them. That plays right into macedons strength, use echelon, double echolon, wedge or even roman "checker-board" and you'll do much better.

**Cornholio** · May 30, 2007, 01:24 PM

well, thanks! you're probably right that im accostumed a dumb AI, as well as a strong cavallry.

but i wouldn't describe myself as a strategic looser, i know how to use every unit to maximize their potential, but as i told before, i really don't know how to conquer korinth in the early game with the greeks. fact is i only have hoplites at the beginning, okay, plus two additional peltasts, but they can't protect the flank of the hoplite-army as well as other skirmishers. when the rival army more than doubles you, peltasts don't make a difference. i think they reduced their ammunition with RTRPE and in closecombat they have no chance against macedons (at least in vanilla).

i think the situation is as follows: you start in sparta with two hoplites (2x240, cheep hoplites), two peltasts (2x160) and one spartanhoplite (120) hehe. i moved the athenian hoplitai (160) to korinth too, so that i have an army of 800-900 units. The odds are low with such an undiversified army. I could build cavalry and so on but that costs not only gold but also time which is quite precious at the beginning. that's why i decided to beat the macedons relying more on defense.

i don't have much experience with the AI yet, but the hoplites act very strange. they leave phalanx when they want to and the most critical, you can't attack with hoplites anymore, i think. when attacking, they don't push towards the enemy as they did in vanilla.

okay, many questions, i'm sorry. and i think most of them were unnecessary if i would have played RTRPE more than 2 hours....

**Cornholio** · May 30, 2007, 09:45 PM

okay, macedonia is history, haha

but i still don't understand why the hoplitai don't push towards the enemy when attacking. last battle i watched how two regiments of hoplitai fighted each other without ANY losses. i had to engage my troops manually so that the speer reaches the enemy...

apart from that a real excellent mod, i dont think i want to try out europa barbarorum mod now

**Deus ret.** · May 31, 2007, 07:08 AM

Originally Posted by Cornholio

but i still don't understand why the hoplitai don't push towards the enemy when attacking. last battle i watched how two regiments of hoplitai fighted each other without ANY losses. i had to engage my troops manually so that the speer reaches the enemy...

If I get you right you're talking about the phalanx bug. This has been a known issue since RTW 1.5 patch....hoplites don't fight well and worse, they break their formation if attacking. So all you can do is either cancel the attack order before they engage the enemy or move your phalanx up to the enemy troops, but only on the spot in front of them. Combat will start automatically.

Another possibility is that your hoplites have trouble fighting the extra long spears of Macedonian troops. That may very well be the case and is quite historic; in the event this is causing the trouble you'll have to look for a work-around, just like the Greeks (well, at least they didn't succeed).

**Tiberius Nero** · May 31, 2007, 08:28 AM

I am a bit confused here; the spear push bug of 1.5 actually makes opposing hoplite units crash into each other as they break formation and attack haphazzardly. Casualties are colossal for hoplites in 1.5 unless you take special care to stop your phalanx the moment it engages the enemy, so that it can still fight in formation, as it is supposed to. How can it be your hoplites aren't killing anyone?

**Cornholio** · June 01, 2007, 12:20 AM

yeah quite severe those hoplite-bugs... i experienced all kind of bugs: either they engage with the sword, they just look the other way or even swing with the speer if they want to. im getting quite sick of it. didnt experience too many problems against the 21 foot long sarissa though, problably because the peloponnes units got way more defense, as the spartiate or elite hopliates.

i doubt that the classical-greek speer was generally "worse" than the longer version, apart from the fact that comparision is quite difficult if you're not a an archaeologist or weapon-expert. i guess the longer sarrissa could have been more difficult too control due to the length?
why did the greeks use the xyston-the short speer- anyway?

**Cornholio** · June 01, 2007, 01:18 AM

okay, i found this article on http://www.livius.org/pha-phd/phalanx/phalanx.html :

" King Philip II of Macedonia, who had spent his youth as a hostage in Thebes and knew Epaminondas personally, further improved the phalanx. Until then, it had been eight to sixteen lines deep, but now, twenty lines were more common. The spear, which had been two to three meters long, was now replaced by a lance (sarissa) with a length of about six meters. Because a hoplite now needed both hands to carry his weapon, his shield was made smaller."

we could transfer that data into lesser armour stats for example

another funny sentence on the same site: "The main weakness of the phalanx alway was that its right wing was poorly protected, because hoplites had their shields on their left arm. (The historian Thucydides describes how phalanxes always drift a bit to the right.)"