romans vs germans with premarius legions

[hiho TW]

wel as so many of you are haveing problems with this i thought ide post my tacticts and solutions. currently i have yet to incounter the germans in my campagn so this will be purely out of custom battles.

my first attempt to defeat the is using a no brainer formation (a normal formation just with tiarii at the front strechted to cover the line to prevent the 6 units of cavalry destroying the main line) i hope this will work and will post my findings after the battle. also feel free to post your tactics and suggestions here as well

epic fail! the tiarii were to depleted by the time the cavalry charged to have any effect
as you can see here ... ... ... ... still sending request to tw centre... any way it was an epic fail... lol any one got any other ideas?

[czePowerslave]

With Pre-marius it is simply crazy idea. I wont even try that out.

[hiho TW]

With Pre-marius it is simply crazy idea. I wont even try that out.

seems to be the case

[Hesus de bodemloze]

It is not difficult to defeat one single german armie with one pre marius legion, but in campaign germans attack with more then one legion and all silver cherveroned afther time that is what makes it difficult.

[hiho TW]

It is not difficult to defeat one single german armie with one pre marius legion, but in campaign germans attack with more then one legion and all silver cherveroned afther time that is what makes it difficult.

then i envy you because i cannot defeat even one with a pre marius legion in custom battle ^^

[czePowerslave]

Basically, after the initial armies are killed, they will like gauls pull out tons of high-experienced and very tough troops, and that will eventually break you down.

[czePowerslave]

Lol. Well, then you need to adopt better tactics acustomed to fighting such enemies as Germans.

[hiho TW]

Lol. Well, then you need to adopt better tactics acustomed to fighting such enemies as Germans.

aye

I had practice in my 6.4 campaign i defended Patavium with 3 legions against germainia and 4 against the gauls. My campaign only existed out of defending the northeren borders against barbarians, i did not invade any other part of the world.

y? wouldnt that be a bit boring? =/

[Hesus de bodemloze]

I had practice in my 6.4 campaign i defended Patavium with 3 legions against germainia and 4 against the gauls. My campaign only existed out of defending the northeren borders against barbarians, i did not invade any other part of the world.

[czePowerslave]

I had practice in my 6.4 campaign i defended Patavium with 3 legions against germainia and 4 against the gauls. My campaign only existed out of defending the northeren borders against barbarians, i did not invade any other part of the world.

And you had no money for anything else Poor you

[Ejergard]

In my 6.4 campaign I pushed the Germanians back a little and held them with 3 legions, and another 3 legions in reserve. At this point I held Basilea, A Vindelicum, Iuvavum and Aquincum as a border towards the Germanians. This gives you the mountain pass north of Darantasia aswell as the river following these provinces northern border to channelize the enemy.
This campaign I only retrained my legions every 20 turns too (thought it applied to all legions and not only after the marian reforms).
What I did do though, was make sure the units I trained had +4 in experience by having all the possible upgradebuildings, like republican barracks and scriptoriums. And ofcourse archers had replaced slingers.
However, I abandoned this campaign in 168bc when I installed version 7.0.

[hiho TW]

In my 6.4 campaign I pushed the Germanians back a little and held them with 3 legions, and another 3 legions in reserve. At this point I held Basilea, A Vindelicum, Iuvavum and Aquincum as a border towards the Germanians. This gives you the mountain pass north of Darantasia aswell as the river following these provinces northern border to channelize the enemy.
This campaign I only retrained my legions every 20 turns too (thought it applied to all legions and not only after the marian reforms).
What I did do though, was make sure the units I trained had +4 in experience by having all the possible upgradebuildings, like republican barracks and scriptoriums. And ofcourse archers had replaced slingers.
However, I abandoned this campaign in 168bc when I installed version 7.0.

lol will try this tomoz thanx for the pointer

[24Gamer]

Basically it's not the problem to defeat an army of them 1v1. The problem is that they won't stop sending full stacks at you and while its not impossible to defeat germans you will recieve more losses than usual, so you'll get problems.
And it's just annoying at the beginning of a campaign to have this.

[asanovic7]

Yep, annoying pesky germans send about 4 armies every two/three turns. That was on hard, so I abandoned that, started new on medium, steering clear off patavium..

[Hesus de bodemloze]

Yes it was my first campaign afther a very long break. I should have known bether.

[czePowerslave]

Legions cost money, and when your purse is near-to-depleted every turn, you cannot really build up economy to support larger quantities of troops needed for expanding.

[franks_tank]

It is indeed possible to invade germania with premarius troops but it's just not worth it...after doing so in 6.4 I ended up with long borders to defend, thousands of dead romans and wasted money, provinces with lots of squalor to deal with which don't generate much money (only a few) and finally a total mess in greece, because they became a superpower...the few cities worth an invasion are something to deal with when money is no problem anymore and it's just about the greatness of rome...I only did that because they were annoying me but it was wasted time in my opinion...all this happened in 6.4 but I don't think much has changed in 7.0...there are better, more lucrative options than starting a war with those tough b*st*rds early on

I fought them in standard-anti-barbarian-formation (defensive,fire at will)...nothing fancy...the Triarii were embedded in the second line and one unit in third line to be as flexible as possible when the cav charges...my own cavalry was mainly used to keep their archers busy...they won't flee and the cav-units will have many casualties but it's better than letting them fire...a hit-and-run tactic will save some of them...when the germans got tired it was happy-charging-time for the remaining cav and even the general if not too risky, starting with the weakest unit...I consider it best when you are able to concentrate on one wing to get some of your own soldiers free so you can start surrounding the enemy...in many cases that's already the end of the battle since most of the enemie's units start to rout shortly after you start to attack them from the back with footsoldiers...some elite soldiers will stay but they can't stand long surrounded by your troops...that worked most of the time but more then 2-3 battles without reinforcements would have meant a certain defeat...it's not perfect but it worked, cost me a fortune and took several years that could have been spent more reasonable...

[czePowerslave]

That is the problem of such defending. When you are holding a chokepoint, and AI can throw tons of armies at you, eventually your units will get depleted and you will lose. Thats why I for now use auxilia to hold the chokes, and making legions to invade Greece only

[S u l l a]

That is the problem of such defending. When you are holding a chokepoint, and AI can throw tons of armies at you, eventually your units will get depleted and you will lose. Thats why I for now use auxilia to hold the chokes, and making legions to invade Greece only

I do the same.

Regarding Germania, I took Tergeste quite early in this campaign ... and they came at me much stronger than the Gauls (which should say a lot). For about 20 years I had 5 Pre-Marius legions stationed in Tergeste and at more than one occassion I felt a bit of panic

Anyway, my formation and army composition that could manage up to two stacks of Germans (I talk now about their initial army compositions of mainly axemen and spear - not what will come later ), and which was also relatively easy to maintain logistically and money wise was as follows:

Attachment 27860

[czePowerslave]

Nice drawing you have there LPS I like it. It is pretty much what I use in battles, although I usually flank with triarii and cav only, as if 10-12 Gaul units push through my hastati, they wont hold them all so I have to reinforce the gaps with princepes units. But it works definitely. Also, for greater routing effect, you can replace 2 archer units for either mercenary swordsmen, who are great at holding any infantry or cavalry unit and are 240 men strong, or few more cavalry units, even equites. With that, smashing is secured on even higher level.

But great nonetheless.
And the Germans...once they start pumping, pre-marius will become pretty obsolete to fight them. Tough foes where you need more than that to stop them.