Syracuse vs Rome ... how to beat the Romans ?

[TTRouble]

For a bit of fun I kicked of a Syracuse campaign and after taking all of Sciliy (way too easy defeating Carthage .. which annoyed me as my Carthage campaign I defeated Syracuse pretty early on). Now by accident - I'm not sure how, I managed to trigger Rome to attack after capturing a settlement in Caspain Gaul that i took from the Rebels and no amount of diplomacy would have them back off. So I'm in a full scale conflict with Rome in Italy (currently beseiging Rome) but with only 3 full stacks against Rome's 6-7 .

So far I've managed to defeat 4 armies (full stack) that they have sent but at some serious losses..eg

One battle just outside of Capua :

Syracuse - 4008 men - kills: 2642, men left: 612
SPQR - 3136 men - kills 3052, men left 462

....talk about Pyhrric victories!

Army wise my units have been - 1 x General, 3-4 Marine Archers or 4-5 Greek Archers, 2 Hoplites, 6-8 Peltasts, 2 x Heavy Mac cavalry, 4 x Syracse/Scillian Hoplites and 2 Greek Swordsmen.

Now what would be the best unit selecton to go toe to toe with the replubican rome units and not get seriously mauled ?

1. The Hoplite Phalanx is too weak and I wish I could recruit some Phalanx pike units instead but so far thats not been possible. Can they be recruited from Tarantum ?

2. The peltasts have been really useful at giving the legions a taste of their own medicine but they've been taking a major hit , so good thing that theyre cheap to recruit. Thurophoi would be so useful here.

3. The Syracuse/Scilian hoplites and Greek swordsmen have been taking a serious mauling when I thought they would be ok going against Hastati, Principes and the Triarii.

4. Archers - The really good surprise has been how good the MArine Archers - long range and also when up close and personal! That battle outside of Capau was only saved by the archers and what was left of the General and heavy cav, so they are definite must have.

Cheers

TTRouble

[SimpleCourage47]

Best advice is to lower your peltast numbers and replace them with more cavalry and more hoplites , preferable Sicilian or Syracusian hoplites if you can or sword hoplites. Learn from the Romans copy their checker board formation and you should be able to hold their infantry in place while your cavalry defeat theirs or if they dont have any simpley run your cavalry right out to the flanks so no infantry follow them , then when you infantry has engaged theirs simpley attack the rear with your cav pull out a safe distance then repeat.Also go for the general if its a family member asap, this will greatly increase your chances of breaking them with your cavalry.

[Nolthra]

I am not sure if this is the best way of beating Rome but it is working well for me so far. Take and hold Rome, they will send all of their stacks down to recapture it which will allow others to break off chunks of their territory. As far as battles...I usually have 1 General, 2 Heavy Cal, 2 Royal Guards, 4-5 Armored Hoplites, 3-4 units of Archers, and the rest depends on where I am sending them. Of course the first order of business is to cut the head off of the serpent by laying low the enemy general. Use your Armored Hoplites to engage the legions up front while archers rain fire down upon them. Fire Arrows mind you, they do not get kills as quickly but they pay off by making the enemy rout before you do. Now the Heavy Cav that killed their general should pick off the weak units while you have their heavies tied up. If you have any extra melee units in your army send them around the flanks to keep the pressure up. Now once you tire the roman dogs send in your 2 Royal Guards right up the middle. Let them get a ways into the enemy formation to form a bulge before you tell them to attack. When the enemy starts to waver send in the Heavy Cav to finish the job. Once they rout get all of your infantry away so they do not cause the romans to fight to the death. Use your General and Heavy Cav to take out the routers. I have 35 plus battles won using this tactics, and only 1 lost. Lost that one mainly due to the fact they had almost a full stack of First Cohorts and a 3/4 stack backing them up of older units. Hope this helps and good luck.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

You may hate the Romans all you want but you best respect their armies and what they are capable of lest you fall beneath their savage blows.

[saxdude]

Surender to Rome, its your best chance.

[Kallides]

Surender to Rome, its your best chance.

lolMan you would be a great adviser to the general!

"I am giving it all she's got Captain, I cant push her any further, she is gonna blow!"

[rory o'kane]

Surender to Rome, its your best chance.

This is exactly what I thought when I saw this thread.

[youdig66]

Don't know if this has already been mentioned, but the hammer-anvil tactic will work for you! Make sure however that you don't use the very first hoplites/phalangites since they are too weak to take on Rome.

Another thing that will put you in a more comfortable position is to march with your army through Roman territory and let them attack you. Your hoplites/phalangites should handle that quite easily, I think.

[General Brittanicus]

militia hoplites are the way to go, just use them to absorb all the roman pila that will come your way and hten use your better quality troops to do a hammer and anvil or sumthin like that.

[Nolthra]

militia hoplites are the way to go, just use them to absorb all the roman pila that will come your way and hten use your better quality troops to do a hammer and anvil or sumthin like that.

Agreed except pick a different cheap unit. Those Militia Hoplites are not worth the air they breath. Had a whole unit rout at full strength when the enemy general charged them head on. And they only had 3 men, archers took out the rest.

[Hannibulluis Cullis]

On the topic of no pike units do this in your EDU and your hoplites will use the pike instead of the hoplite spear and you can also change the stats of the unit.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[SkyVodkeR]

Lol, AOE?! wonderfull.... about five years ago i spent whole nights playing online thi Masterpiece!!!! It was really, really funny!!

[TTRouble]

Thanks for the tips... !

Have to agree with Nolthra about the Militia Hoplites - they're a total waste of $$$ and even as canon fodder. The Roman units just chew right through the standard hoplite and militia hoplites and way too easily! So I've been using the peltasts as bait, to take the all those pila and then flank the legions as the phalanx tries to pin the legion down before countering. Formationwise, I've been using a mixed setup with my peltasts/swordmen in a checker board formation with archers in the middle.

I'm going to go with Nolthra and upgrade the barracks in Syracuse to get the Agema hoplites and Heavy Phalanx units (will change the spears to pikes too!) to the mix - may be 3-4 Heavy Phalanx units per army and a couple of Agema Hoplites. Hopefully those will add some real bite and give those Roman units a run for their money.

I've tried the hammer and anvil tactics against them and without having pikemen to pin them down it doesn;t have the same impact, the normal hoplite phalanx unit is usually in real trouble by the time you get in to charge and then you have to worry about the Trairii engaging your cavalry units.


TTRouble

[Drowsy]

Lol, AOE?! wonderfull.... about five years ago i spent whole nights playing online thi Masterpiece!!!! It was really, really funny!!

http://www.voobly.com -- come join us it's still a lot of fun online

[Binshuy]

use the pikes and spears to your advantage and oh
did i mention pikes?

[GreatOne]

I'd say, build a big hunk of infantry, supported with a few peltasts as a cannon fodder.Use ardchers if you want, but more than 2 units are not really necessary, and go cavalry, big time wipe out their rear support, and then charge the legions in their backs.If they don't rout in the first try(which they won't) repeat.Oh and yes, if you have any excess infantry, or peltasts, use them to surround the pila throwing bastards.

[Souka]

No need to cheat (alter unit stats in edu) just lose a couple of peltasts and archers and you can skip the sword hoplites as well. In my Syracusian campaign I had no trouble beating Rome and i used hammer and anvil tactics most of the time but ambushing or simply raining missiles on them works just as well. Best way is imho to have a heavy missile army stand guard at the various bridges in Italy while you lay siege to their settlements.

On field your army should look like this.

1x general, 4-6 missile units (peltasts or archers) 2-4 cavalry (light or heavy) 2 city hoplites (for command presence) and the rest regular hoplites. Note that this army is mainly for holding ground as the enemy approaches while you rain arrows on them. Hoplites are placed in a wide front line to cover most of your units, city hoplites on the sides or behind the hoplites and cavalry on the sides or in a forrest. When facing a heavy infantry roman army or phalanx army you should keep some hoplites in the rear to reinforce, 3-5 is enough.

For a more versatile army for sieges and field battle you lose the regular hoplites (maybe keep a few, 2-4 at front) and go for city hoplites/armoured hoplites/agema hypaspistoon.
I wouldn't use this army composition against Romans who spam pilas because these hoplites are considerable more expensive units than the regular ones and they both die just as fast from pilas.

For bridge holding armies you should have 1-2 onagers with you to speed up the slaughter, otherwise you keep it simple, 6-10 archers and the rest are regular hoplites. Archers placed on the sides along side the river bank and hoplites in a semi circle in front off the bridge, onagers are placed closely to the hoplites to reduce the risk of friendly fire.

Btw remember to have guard ability off all time when commanding city hoplites and such except when you are defending and you want them to hold their ground or your units are suffering heavy casualties and you want them to hold out a bit longer. It just doens't work when attacking because your hoplites will not push through the enemy line.

[xXEsotericXx]

attack rome only when u got a good strong money income and a good strategy point to attk them.

[Theoroshia]

Spartans. Lots and lots and lots of Spartans.

[stanley86]

You can try using more sword hoplites. These guys seem to be really fast, thus the Romans would not have any chance to throw more than one volley of pilas. Also in melee they are tough to beat. Not to mention they can encircle the enemy.

[Binshuy]

yeah just surrender you'll just get eaten anyway