Recreating Battle of Cannae?

[quadomatic]

I'm trying to recreate the Battle of Cannae for a school project using this mod and the Extended Realism mod. Does anyone have any advice? Whenever we attack it just sort of gets scattered and messy.

Any ideas for exactly what units and troop formation? Advice on how to move troops up properly and having the Carthaginians properly envelop the Romans?

Thanks a bunch

[AqD]

I'm trying to recreate the Battle of Cannae for a school project using this mod and the Extended Realism mod. Does anyone have any advice? Whenever we attack it just sort of gets scattered and messy.

Any ideas for exactly what units and troop formation? Advice on how to move troops up properly and having the Carthaginians properly envelop the Romans?

Thanks a bunch

It's not possible in RTR. Unless the article on wikipedia is completely wrong, every tactics it mentioned just don't work in RTR/RTW:

1) Hannibal put his elite infantry in the left & right edges on the line. In RTR that kind of deployment would be useless - infantry flanking works only when you fight pikes or low-morale barbarians, not legionaries. (the squeeze/pressure caused by that doesn't work)

2) His cavalry routed the skirmishers at rear, who then run into the main roman army and caused confusion - which wouldn't happen in RTR either. A routed unit can demoralize nearby friendly units, but its retreatment and collision with nearby units have NO effect on them.

3) The tightly-packed formations used by romans in the battle prevented them from using their weapons effectively - which can never happen in RTW.

4) "Not only would the morning sunlight shine on the Romans, but the southeasterly winds would blow sand and dust into their faces as they approached the battlefield" - the effects don't exist in RTW.


________
Live sex webshows

[Pat89]

It's not possible in RTR. Unless the article on wikipedia is completely wrong, every tactics it mentioned just don't work in RTR/RTW:

I think it is possible It has to be done with multiplayer though. Simply because the AI doesn't fight realistic and all movements for this battle have to be exactly as they were at Cannae, and that is only possible if both sides are controled by a human... But I think it is possible.

1) Hannibal put his elite infantry in the left & right edges on the line. In RTR that kind of deployment would be useless - infantry flanking works only when you fight pikes or low-morale barbarians, not legionaries. (the squeeze/pressure caused by that doesn't work)

If the charge is strong enough, even legionairies flee.

2) His cavalry routed the skirmishers at rear, who then run into the main roman army and caused confusion - which wouldn't happen in RTR either.

It does happen if you first switch sides of the battlefield... In my experience units don't take the shortest way out of the battle, but insteat they choose the way they came from. If switched the sides, that would mean they run strait through the army.

A routed unit can demoralize nearby friendly units, but its retreatment and collision with nearby units have NO effect on them.

I believe fleeing units does effect the surrounding units. This is not based on facts though... Just personel experience and "I read it somewhere".

3) The tightly-packed formations used by romans in the battle prevented them from using their weapons effectively - which can never happen in RTW.

Shieldwalls are tight formations and you get certain negative side effects such as being less flexible in your movements

4) "Not only would the morning sunlight shine on the Romans, but the southeasterly winds would blow sand and dust into their faces as they approached the battlefield" - the effects don't exist in RTW.

The Romans did have the negative sunlight and the other ones have the dust. So both have a real negativity (eng? ) and so it doesn't matter if they both have no negative side effects.

Conclusion:
I think it is possible, though some small moding might be required to make the battle as realistic as possible. And it is only possible if done by multiplayer and not with the aim to win, but make it realistic.

[AqD]

I think it is possible It has to be done with multiplayer though. Simply because the AI doesn't fight realistic and all movements for this battle have to be exactly as they were at Cannae, and that is only possible if both sides are controled by a human... But I think it is possible.

If the charge is strong enough, even legionairies flee.

Charge by infantry cannot be strong. It basically has no physical effect in RTW, so it's only useful when the enemy is shaken.

It does happen if you first switch sides of the battlefield... In my experience units don't take the shortest way out of the battle, but insteat they choose the way they came from. If switched the sides, that would mean they run strait through the army.

I believe fleeing units does effect the surrounding units. This is not based on facts though... Just personel experience and "I read it somewhere".

Fleeing does matter. But I think what happened in Cannae was those troops fleed to the main army and collided & confused them - this would have much bigger effects, because the formation of your other troops would be broken, and it's usually a good opportunity for the enemy to launch a full attack at that point of time.

Shieldwalls are tight formations and you get certain negative side effects such as being less flexible in your movements

But in RTW you can immediately change the formation when it's not suitable.

The Romans did have the negative sunlight and the other ones have the dust. So both have a real negativity (eng? ) and so it doesn't matter if they both have no negative side effects.

Conclusion:
I think it is possible, though some small moding might be required to make the battle as realistic as possible. And it is only possible if done by multiplayer and not with the aim to win, but make it realistic.

If you get two players to try to play realistically, certainly it's doable.

What I was thinking is to play Hannibal against AI romans
________
Sex_Dirty

[quadomatic]

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I'm doing this with another friend over online multiplayer. I imagine that it would be absolutely impossible otherwise, since you wouldn't really be able to get the troops to move around properly.

I think it may just have been that I was a bad commander with the Carthaginians. I'm not very good at moving all my troops up properly. When we last tried it though, my commander got killed (it was among one unit of Elephants) and so the whole thing just got screwed.

We'll try it again with me being Roman; all I'd have to do is...pretty much just get flanked and killed.

Thanks for the advice.

BTW: It seems like it would look better if I had more units on screen...is it possible to play with more units then normally allowed?

[AqD]

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I'm doing this with another friend over online multiplayer. I imagine that it would be absolutely impossible otherwise, since you wouldn't really be able to get the troops to move around properly.

I think it may just have been that I was a bad commander with the Carthaginians. I'm not very good at moving all my troops up properly. When we last tried it though, my commander got killed (it was among one unit of Elephants) and so the whole thing just got screwed.

We'll try it again with me being Roman; all I'd have to do is...pretty much just get flanked and killed.

Thanks for the advice.

BTW: It seems like it would look better if I had more units on screen...is it possible to play with more units then normally allowed?

You can try to modify the line "UNIT_SIZE:...." in preferences\preferences.txt
________
WEB SHOWS

[Quinctius Cincinnatus]

I am making a movie called Cannae - The Movie check out the main RTR forum it is the fifth topic or something:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=135163

Q.

[Quinn Inuit]

PatricianS is right. You'll need two people.

You'll need to use shield wall (all the Romans should have that in ExRM) and keep them in a tight formation. Use Balearic slingers to bombard them as they move in, crush them with flanking attacks by your L-Ps, and then surround them with Numidian, Gallic, and Punic cavalry. Oh, and use a map that gets dust storms sometimes, so you can film in a dust storm.

[Pat89]

Sure... You can change the unit size...

- Go to your Activision/Rome - Total War/ExRM/Data folder
- Copy the export_descr_unit.txt file (in short EDU)
- Rename the Copy to something like "export_descr_unit (backup).txt". This is so you don't have to reinstal the entire game if you mess things up
- Open the original export_descr_unit.txt file
- If you scroll down you will see:

type             barb chieftain cavalry scythian
dictionary       rtr_sarmatian_bodyguard_early
category         cavalry
class            heavy
voice_type       General_1
soldier          sarmatian_noble_cavalry, 8, 0, 6
mount            heavy horse
mount_effect     horse +1, camel -1, elephant -40
attributes       sea_faring,hide_forest,general_unit,very_hardy,power_charge
formation        1.5, 4, 3, 6, 4,square
stat_health      1, 7
stat_pri         7, 26, arrow, 130, 5, missile, archery, piercing, none, 25 , 1
stat_pri_attr    prec
stat_sec         10, 26, no, 0, 0, melee, blade, piercing, spear, 25 , 0.8
stat_sec_attr    no
stat_pri_armour  21, 4, 0, metal
stat_sec_armour  0, 1, flesh
stat_heat        5
stat_ground      -6, 0, -12, 0
stat_mental      15, low, untrained
stat_charge_dist 40
stat_fire_delay  0
stat_food        60, 300
stat_cost        2, 3000, 100, 100, 150, 600
ownership        scythia

This list is different for every single unit in the game... It sais what the attack stats are, how much the unit costs, etc etc. But most importantly (for you) it tells what size the units are.

If you for example want to change the size of a unit of Hastati:
- Hit Ctrl + F
- Type hastati and hit ENTER
- You will see this list appear:

type             roman hastati
dictionary       rtr_roman_hastati
category         infantry
class            light
voice_type       Light_1
soldier          roman_hastati, 40, 0, 1
officer          roman_early_centurion
officer          roman_early_standard
mount_effect     horse -2, camel -2,
attributes       sea_faring,hide_forest,can_sap,very_hardy
formation        1, 2, 2, 3, 5,square,shield_wall
stat_health      1, 5
stat_pri         11, 5, pilum, 38, 2, thrown, blade, piercing, spear, 25 , 1
stat_pri_attr    prec,thrown,thrown ap
stat_sec         10, 5, no, 0, 0, melee, simple, piercing, sword, 0 , 0.3
stat_sec_attr    no
stat_pri_armour  4, 13, 8, metal
stat_sec_armour  0, 1, flesh
stat_heat        2
stat_ground      0, 0, 0, 0
stat_mental      18, normal, trained
stat_charge_dist 30
stat_fire_delay  0
stat_food        60, 300
stat_cost        1, 1140, 438, 104, 112, 450
ownership        romans_julii

- Search for the red line.

soldier          roman_hastati, 40, 0, 1

- The red number tells which size the unit is on normal unit size settings. So normally a unit of hastati has 40 men.
- If you want it to consist of for example 60 men per unit simply change the line to:

soldier          roman_hastati, 60, 0, 1

- Finally save the file and test it in-game.

You can do this for all units you want to use (that's going to take some time though ). But be sure you always make back-ups!!!
And there is a max of men allowed in a unit, but I don't what what it is Maybe someone else can tell you... I think AqD is a good one to ask for some help... He has done a lot of unit balancing for his own mini mod

For more info you can use this guide (click).

Edit:
Here is how it looks in-game after changing the unit size:
Red = original size; Blue = new size

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Good luck with it
PatricianS

[Pat89]

Any updates of your Cannae battle quadomatic?

[Thotiate]

Hmm

I actually watched a battle of Cannae re-enactment thing on youtube today, using RTR! It's actually one of the first videos to come up I believe when you type in 'rome total realism' - it's a really good vid also.

Alexander The Lifeless

[quadomatic]

I finished it. I ended up having to try it a second time.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=kMDfnGFqQlk

It's not that great, but it got me an A on the project (not an A in the class though )

[Pat89]

Well done matey

[quadomatic]

Well done matey

Thanks