roman triarii

[timdedarter]

hi xgm fans
since i updated to 5.6.7 i have a fealing that the roman triarii is weaker.
when i play custom map and i take 500 roman triarii against 500 chosen swordsmen i lose al my men and they have only lost 95 men . also in the campaign i attacked a city with 600 men against 400 roman rebels and i lost the battle with a crushing defeat they only lost 59 men. is this a bug or did the makers of xgm this deliberately(do they want it to be so)

[HeroSK]

I dont think it is related to XGM. In vanilla also, spear units has penalty aganist sword infantry.

[KozCDVI]

I have 5.6.7, and I tried to recreate the battle of Cannae.

It didn't work for several reasons...
1.The Romans did exactly what Paullus didn't in reality
2. My units were defensively based (especially Gauls and Spanards), so they just weren't killing anyone
3. Triarii units smashed everyone allover the sodding place!

I tried it three times, and lost each, but narrowly.
Everytime it was a match between my Libyans and the Triarii, and each time they eventually conked me.
When I pulled my Libyans around, the gallic infantry fled and I was left with Libyans fending off Principes and Triarii, which was inevitable loss! I even (as a joke) reversed the status quo by having the infantry support the cavalry (charge was good, but I lost anyway), which was funny.

[Scutarii]

Triarii have always been bad infantry vs. infantry fighters due to the spear vs. sword penalty against the spears. But they are the only Roman unit to counter cavalry.

[Spartan Guard Itachi]

chosen swordsmen should easily beat triarii, the like the best gaul unit fighting a unit designed to fight horsemen, and even then i dint really ever use triarii.

[RedFox]

KozCDVI: It won't work unless you script the custom battle for the romans to mass attack, trying to overpower Hannibal.
Most of the success was due to the very experienced elite soldiers, who fought in a phalanx type formation on the flanks. With very good armour, equipment and skills matched by no other, they served as the perfect flanking force, while the barbarian mercenaries in the center took the main blow.
Battle of Cannae itself should be considered an analog of Marathon, but slightly more advanced. The center had more men, but of weaker quality and the flanks had fewer men, but of quality matched by no roman.
If you combine those, you have the same result as the battle of marathon, but with the inclusion of Hannibal's excellent mercenary cavalry, the slaughter was complete. The romans did not have room to fight as they were so tightly squished together and they injured their comrades with their weapons.

In that sort I find the original XGM unbalanced as some units are insanely powerful compared to others and the battles resolve too fast.
Triarii should be excellent spearmen, but equal to that of the Principe's skills and should not be some sort of super unit that can mow down anything.
I also hate the javelin AP effect - most javelins did not have such powerful capabilities. Only perhaps the Iberian deadly infantry metal javelins that the romans later adopted. Nevertheless a shield will always stop a javelin.
Go try using a javelin - I bet you can't even make it stick to a log.

[GreekGlory]

i completely agree about the javelin, it is just too powerful against armored infantry, im playing as the greeks right now and the selecuids always mass skirmishers and run up a hill and sometimes if its bad enough i can lose a quarter of my armored heavy infantry marching up the hill its bad man

[Hurlbut]

Nevertheless a shield will always stop a javelin.
Go try using a javelin - I bet you can't even make it stick to a log.

Except that the Romans' Pilum was made exactly to render that shield useless. The long iron shaft let it penerate enough into the shield and the ability to "bend" (by a pin breaking in place) made it very difficult to remove and you would have hardly a chance to do so before the romans charge straight right after their initial pilum volley.

[Hurlbut]

This is accurate, GG, the heavy hoplite warrior was devastated by peltasts and other light troop with ranged weapons where the hoplite couldn't run them down and where they stood, they took javelin and other projectile fires.

[Zarax]

To make things more historically accurate only a few units should have AP javelins (romans, iberians and a few mercs) but the ammo for most missile units should be increased.
Javs by themselves were not a very efficient killer but repeated volleys were pretty good in disrupt unit cohesion and tire heavy inf, same could be said for arrows.

[Dom9127]

I suppose you could make it so that every time a unit gets hit by a javelin they fall over, this would certainly break cohesion and have the effect Zarax was talking about.

[Hurlbut]

Oh to cite an example of what I was talking about, refer to the Battle of Aetolia where an Athenian hoplite force met disaster at hands of forementioned units in my previous post.

[Unknown Soldier]

Hurlbut - that is such a classic use of light troops killing heavy infantry.

Again my eyes are opened - I thought everyone knew about that one.

Maybe I should change my name to Old Soldier!

[chazap]

Hurlbut - that is such a classic use of light troops killing heavy infantry.

Again my eyes are opened - I thought everyone knew about that one.

Maybe I should change my name to Old Soldier!

calmdown killer!, not everyone is as well read as you....how about "Historical Soldier"? something to show your wiseness....

PS
triarii is only thing i can defeat scythia with....hastati and pricipes are virtually useless.....which places a premium on my triarii...

also, the typical roman battle formation? do you use it? is it practical in XGM? would you use it against another human player?

[Hurlbut]

Well, I do have to cite something to show I wasn't blowing hot air under the table.

[Zarax]

Peltasts, especially thracian ones were pretty efficent hoplite killers, that was one of the reasons of the iphicratean reforms and the development of units like thureophoroi and ekdromoi...

[Unknown Soldier]

Dude, I knew what you were blowing hot air about ;-)

I used to play DBM quite a bit - the Aetolia army list was something else - could consist of virtually nothing but light infantry.

you could get 2-5 units for every unit of hoplites fielded by the opposition and then run rings around them - add in some rough terrain and hey well you would be unlucky not to win.

[RedFox]

Perhaps we could add a launching effect for the javelin? Would disrupt the formation alright

[♔The Lizard King♔]

Aye, I noticed that the triarii do have a habit of breaking more then my other troops, despite their elite status. But, it is pretty minor, so I guess we can deal with it DBH .

[Unknown Soldier]

tiarii are not supposed to be 'elite' as such but are the final reserves in battle

A roman army should win without using them.

However in XGM it is tempting to use them to fight other infantry in the frontline - mistake no. 1

They should be used as flankers in attack or flank guards in defence.
Their primary role should be as a shield against enemy cavalry charges.

H H H H
P P P P
T G T

Typical early roman formation.