tactics discussion

[romanman753]

hello, although i have figured out several deadly tacyics for the marian type legions, my republian legions always take outrageous casualties, usually i lose almost all of my hastatii and much cavalry. i use the traditional roman acies triplex formation. any help would be greatly appreciated! thanks in advance!

[Elendil of Númenor]

It always depends on the foe you are facing. The checker-board formation (hastatii front, principes centre, triarii rear) is useful against phalanxes, as it usually disrupts the solid line which is the strength of the phalanx.

However, when facing barbarians, for example Gauls, the formation won't really work as the randomly positioned enemy units will just wash across your lines. I for one like to play a lot with the flanks - whether I want to pierce through the enemy centre like a spear by placing my strongest units in the middle, or I want the enemy to fill itself into the 'bucket' by making the flank strong and the centre weak - see the battle of Cannae or Marathon.

It really depends on the player, his/her style of fighting - I'm more of a defender strategist, while others like to attack. The only really good way to get useful tactics against the enemy, is to play a lot, and figure out for yourself. Test things a lot, always try new ideas, and always be ready to change your plan - the last part will be key to playing RSII as battles can go anywhere at any moment, and you will always be hard put to react.

[Fridericus Rex]

I use the classical triplex formation with a little alteration - placing the triarii at the flanks to sweep around and attack from behind. I have yet to loose a battle.
But I agree the hastati are decimated at a higher rate.
Early Roman cavalry is quite useless and I use them only to chase and perhaps eliminate archers.

Perhaps putting the triarii in front would help(?)

[Heme]

Principes on the frontline, with little spacing and couple units behind em as reserve. Hastati behind, ready to flank from both sides (if you keep em on the flank, enemy will spread more and make flanking harder). Triarii I rarely use, if I do, on the wings to eat enemys cav.

With general + couple cav units I usually sweep far behind enemy and hunt down their general if he doesnt go kill himself in the middle, simultaneously I've my hastati flank the enemy and first bombard all their missiles into the fray. Then just charge home.

Also, I give fire at will to my frontline so that they'll bring down nice chunk of the charging enemy before the battle even starts.

Usually I got couple archers as well to bombard the enemy.

It's hard to lose as romans with all that firepower and close combat capability

edit: ...in the hypothetical scenario that I actually have hastati. I rarely bother training em as I can just train principes instead.

[stanley86]

Two lines of infantry (no gap between them, so they all can throw the pila at the same moment), some archers or javeliners behind them, triari on the flanks to encircle the enemy and attack from behind. Cavalry in most cases grouped on one flank, with the general following them - they deal with enemy horsemen, with some help from triari if needed.

[romanman753]

thanks for the advice, i'm a major roman history fan, so i keep it historical if i can. i just tried a formation of 5 hastatii, 5 princepes, 5 triarii, 4 equites and general, arranged with a wedge in the center. still took similar numbers of casualties, but it wasn't so concentrated in the hastatii. (i don't have velites because i realized they are drastically weaker with javelins thatn the rest of the legion.)

[Scipio praeditus]

thanks for the advice, i'm a major roman history fan, so i keep it historical if i can. i just tried a formation of 5 hastatii, 5 princepes, 5 triarii, 4 equites and general, arranged with a wedge in the center. still took similar numbers of casualties, but it wasn't so concentrated in the hastatii. (i don't have velites because i realized they are drastically weaker with javelins thatn the rest of the legion.)

Playing historically just means inviting disaster; let the hastatii get ground down untill they almost break and then pull them back causing even more casualties because the game cannot handle this realistically (principes opening ranks to allow the hastatii passage).
This doesn't mean I didn't like this type of gaming when I first started playing RS, but it gets frustrating after a while.

Altough I would like to try these tactics again in RS2 there will be no hastatii in it.

The formation I use most of the time (with few casualties on any dificulty setting) is just a long line of cohorts with gaps in between, and one cohort in reserve/flanking duty on either end.
I activate fire at will for all the cohorts in the line once several enemy units get within range, then deactivate it when they are engaged.
-Skirmishers hang around in front of the line untill the enemy charges, they then retreat behind the line and circle around the enemy flanks to use their remaining javelins/reinforce the two flanking cohorts.
-Archers fire at will from behind the line untill the cohorts are engaging, after that I only let them attack manually to prevent "friendly" fire incidents.
-Cavalry, light/medium/heavy/general doesn't matter which type, take care of opposing cavalry/skirmishers/archers and charge the rear of the enemy line once these tasks are done.
-Sometimes I use a spear unit on either flank to reinforce the cavalry against strong enemy cavalry.

I doubt very much though if in RS2 I will be able to maintian the same low casualty record with this tactic.

[Alavaria]

Well, the Romans did start putting principe more on the front line to make it "heavier". And then hastati started to get armor too. Then those front two lines began to merge somewhat, and triarii lost their spears so everyone was the same and thus legionaries, right?

At least I thought that was how their military evolved ...

[romanman753]

Well, the Romans did start putting principe more on the front line to make it "heavier". And then hastati started to get armor too. Then those front two lines began to merge somewhat, and triarii lost their spears so everyone was the same and thus legionaries, right?

At least I thought that was how their military evolved ...

not exactly.... at the end of the second century BC rome was fighting a VERY unpopular war in north africa, thus it became hard to get property-owning citizen volunteers so that the old system could work, when Gaius Marius became consul he was charged with the war. he made any roman citizen eligible for service, regardless of wheather they owned property, so the poor flocked to the legions. the triarii maniples were raised to the same numbers as hastatii and princepes, and instead of ten of each type of maniple, the thirty were merged into ten cohorts with one type each and equipment wss standarized (it ended up looking like princepes in the old system, later the chain lorica hamata was replaced with the plate lorica segmenta) although in the old system soldiers recieved a little compensation from the state, it was not much thus even less incentive to go fight, under the new system equipment and salary was payed for by the state.** Note, after this period "1 roman legion" no longer meant a legion with an equal number of allied troops, 1 legion was actually one legion**

did i just write all that....

[Austen Bin]

not exactly.... at the end of the second century BC rome was fighting a VERY unpopular war in north africa, thus it became hard to get property-owning citizen volunteers so that the old system could work, when Gaius Marius became consul he was charged with the war. he made any roman citizen eligible for service, regardless of wheather they owned property, so the poor flocked to the legions. the triarii maniples were raised to the same numbers as hastatii and princepes, and instead of ten of each type of maniple, the thirty were merged into ten cohorts with one type each and equipment wss standarized (it ended up looking like princepes in the old system, later the chain lorica hamata was replaced with the plate lorica segmenta) although in the old system soldiers recieved a little compensation from the state, it was not much thus even less incentive to go fight, under the new system equipment and salary was payed for by the state.** Note, after this period "1 roman legion" no longer meant a legion with an equal number of allied troops, 1 legion was actually one legion**

did i just write all that....

Well, it wasn't just Marius that did reforms in one giant sweep. It was a natural progression starting durring the Macedonian wars, where the rigid formality of the Roman battle line began to degrade. The Maniple system was designed to battle other Italians with simular tactics. Against the Phalanx armies, Roman commanders realised they needed a lot more flexibility to outflank the Phalanx.

The maniple system was still in place when Marius did his reforms, but it was not quite the same system it was when Hannibal was running around Italy. It was much more flexible and the three lines were far more standardized as far as equipment and training. Marius simply took those good ideas and reformed the standard unit from the maniple to the cohort, which gave even more tactical flexibility to the Legion.

[sithlord447]

for republian units how do you even build your legion

i go 1 general, 6 hastatii, 6 principes, 4 triarii, 2 velites, and 1 cavalry

i deploy them like this

H=hastatii
P=principes
T=triarii
V=velites
C=cavalry
G=general

---HHHHHH---
-T P PPPP P T-
---T V V T ---
-C---G------


I have all set to fire at will i have the hastatii whold the line and send in the 4 principes. with the remaining 2 principes and the 2 triarii in the second line i have flank around and hit them from behind. If the enemy has cavalry i send the last 2 triarii after them and basicly do their thing as they can be complety surronded by cavarly and still only take light casaulties, and if the enemy does not they just help flank. Btw how deep dou you place your units, i find if i do 3 my center almost always buckels and breaks, so i use 4

[snuggans]

sadly the historical checkerboard formation used by the Romans is not so efficient in-game. it would be difficult to emulate the way velites withdrew through the gaps in the game as they did in real life. a maniple in-game cannot be divided into two centuries, so there is no posterior century filling the gap to present a line of soldiers.

in real life, the hastati were used to detect the enemy's strong point. where resistance was fierce, the young hastati would withdraw to allow the hardened principes to deal with the enemy. in-game, all you get is a huge amount of needless casualties. there is no 'probing', you already know which enemy unit is going to hit hard and the 'withdrawing' is often a chaotic chicken chase.

the end result? i do not bother with hastati ( at least in this mod, because their defense is incredibly low compared to principes. )
i use triarii at the wings to repel nosy cavalry.
i line up velites behind a solid line of principes, they target large formations of enemy infantry once the melee begins.

[Theoroshia]

When I play as Parthia, I just use a load of cataphracts and cataphract archers, so there's no real organization to it. When I play as Pergamum/Pergamon, I use cheap-o hoplites up front, city hoplites (Spartan hoplites, Athenian hoplites, etc.) in the middle, and cavalry/general/archers in the back. It usually works.

[Visiar]

I usually have 4hastati
4pricipes
4triarii
2velite
2slinger
3equite
1general
Against phalanxes, checkerboard formation. Creating gaps in phalanxes.
For Gauls, I put my hastati in front no gaps. I put my principe directly behind.
Then Velite. Then 2 Triarii. The other two go on each flank a little behind the hastati. All calvary on 1 flank. Hold line with hastati, send principe and 2 triarii for support. Send 2 triarii on flanks to out flank them. Put calvary around the enemy and attack from behind and SLAM!

[knight of virtue and valor]

well actuelly marain legions can uasally be gotten within 20-30 turns, way less if you enslave allot of settlements and do cheap tricks like recruiting huge numbers of velites in rome or some otehr over populated city and disband them in turrantum.

[Bull3pr00f de Bodemloze]

but that's no fun at all....I always try to expand historically. (in territory, not in years...I wouldn't want to get marian legions as late as 107 bc )

[romanman753]

but that's no fun at all....I always try to expand historically. (in territory, not in years...I wouldn't want to get marian legions as late as 107 bc )

i agree, although sometimes macedon encroaching on my northern border leaves me no chioce but to deal with them first

[knight of virtue and valor]

well....my favorite part of being roem in RS is the buetiful named and numbered legions. I conquer Ilerai as fast as I can, and also carthage.

[sithlord447]

thats why i use the the protectorate feature to keep everyone in line so i can conquer historicly

[Bull3pr00f de Bodemloze]

forced diplomacy

back on topic

I always use the acer triplex in regular battles....but in battles which are equally balanced, you'll have to be flexible. keep in mind that the Roman generals did this too, since the acer triplex just gives far too many casualties.

note, though; I always have 2 stacks in the field....2 legions, actually, no more no less until the reforms. These stacks get VERY experienced! Yesterday I fought a battle where the acer triplex actually worked because retreating the hastati DIDN'T gave huge casualties. I think this is because of their experience (2 gold chevrons...I don't see the point in disbanding them and "upgrading" them to princepes now ) and weapon and armour upgrades....not sure though.