Rome: how to keep my allied legions alive

[Bosje]

I read somewhere that the basic rule was: one roman legion and one allied legion next to it. so i try to play that way, creating taskforces of 2 legions which can fight side by side.

but every battle, specially if it's a big nasty battle against spearmen, my reinforcements (allied legion) insist on charging the nearest enemy head-on with their cavalry, followed by their skirmishers, ending with their cohorts running around blindly, getting themselves flanked and killed.
the allied cavalry (2 bodyguards and 2 equites) are the first to die and also the first to heal their wounds as a result, except that i keep losing characters.

it's a good way to rid myself of crappy characters, sure, but is there any way at all to make the reinforcements behave like proper legions?

my enemies usually have better cavalry than me, but i still don't see them charging headlong into my prepared positions. why does my allied legion always try to commit suicide?

does anyone ever use reinforcements successfully? how? do you just make a cavalry stack and leave them to harass the enemy? do you just use 10 cohorts under a captain? or only skirmishers so they stay out of the melee but annoy and split up the enemy?

i just fought a big battle outside carthage. 1 enemy stack versus 2 of my legions. i was surprised to see the odds being roughly 1:1 but went ahead anyway.
my own legion: 1400 kills, 100 casualties (roughly)
my allied legion: 300 kills, 600 casualties including 2 generals
the enemy: 700 kills, 1700 casualties

my allied legion approached to the enemies rear and i redeployed to the enemy flank, ending up with both legions fighting either flank of the enemy (because they turned to face the empty ground between both legions). first thing that happened was all cavalry charging straight into their front line. didn't take long for them to die. as a result, without their general, the allied cohorts were all over the place, getting flanked, getting routed, getting killed. i abused the mess which it now was and piled my own forces onto any exposed enemy units, winning the battle.
but i quit and will reload shortly to fight the battle again, looking for ways to improve my reinforcement's performance.

i waited and let the allied legion engage first, i figured they could take a beating because they were more easily retrained but with hindsight, i should have let my crack roman legion take the brunt of the assault, perhaps.

should i go straight in, distracting the enemy by a frontal assault to give my allied legion a chance to attack their rear and make themselves useful for a change?

any opinions would be welcome
thanks

[mp84]

The only thing I can suggest, is I know sometimes you want to be historical accurate and all (As if you played RTR Extended Realism or EB, we're taught that way), but try not to be and avoid using your 2 full stacks like that. Reason being, is since you have to let the AI control the 2nd army (As you have no choice if you already have 20 units in your army), you'll realize that AI is rather bad for you, and in fact will do more harm then good for you. Which is something I always find weird, since if your playing on Hard/Hard, and the enemy AI is good, why can't the AI for you can just as good as well?

So if possible, try to always get to a point where you only controlling just one legion (Or full stack), or if you really need the "cannon fodder" per say, then make sure there's no well-known generals or something in the other army, and perhaps just keep it only heavy infantry if possible, so that it can at least serve some kind of distraction. Naturally, more experience players will give better suggestions, but hope this helps.

[Marcus_Vipsanius]

Handing over an army to the AI is not your best choice (why does it always charge spearman with cavalry?). But then, lik mp84 said, if you're already controlling 20 units, you have no choice.

[Dekker]

should i go straight in, distracting the enemy by a frontal assault to give my allied legion a chance to attack their rear and make themselves useful for a change?

Yeah - I think this is pretty much what's necessary.

Try not to leave the AI in charge of cavalry units, unless you know that you'll be personally occupying the attention of the enemy infantry. Those suicide charges are far less suicidal if the enemy's busy trying to deal with your legionaries.

In general, you want, as much as possible, to leave the AI only in charge of line infantry. With skirmishers you'll take friendly fire (although a lot of such casualties heal) and with cavalry you get the suicide charges into spears.

Also: only ever have the AI as your support force. Never expect to leave the allied AI in charge of the main meat grind of winning the battle: they'll bugger up with alarming regularity.


If possible, position them on the opposite side of the enemy (to avoid them firing javs and pila into your own troops' backs, and don't let them use cavalry.

Try and get both you and the allied AI engaging the enemy simultaneously: this way, you'll hopefully force the enemy AI into disarray , and you will also be on hand to bail the AI out of any mistakes it's making (eg, when it decides to send its general careering solo into heavy traffic, you can help him cut his way out).

[Bosje]

hmm ok
i fought the battle again, this time letting the reinforcements come from behind me while i charged their lines

it was a disaster, my precious cohorts suffered heavily and the ai friendlies just charged into the back of my line, simply adding to the line. it took ages for me to get rid of the enemy cavalry (this was a pretty badass stack, actually) and the battle lasted very very long before i could charge into their backs. i won, of course, but i lost a lot of men.

why, for the love of god, why, can't my allied legion behave like the AI enemy does.
is it really about reinforcements just charging at the nearest enemy? it seems that way. enemy reinforcements usually commit suicide as well.

well i had my crap junior commander in charge this time, he died and good riddance to him. but i hate that i can't actually use allied legions for anything useful. the only option seems to be heavy infantry which you don't mind losing, just to let em all get killed and make the battle proper a bit easier.

the bigger problem is this: i siege a town, i have an allied legion sieging as well, in support. the enemy send a counterattack and attack my allied legion. that means i'm forced into commanding the allied (supporting) legion, while my crack supercool soldiers are left in the ai's hands.

they got decimated and i almost cried.
*wanders off, scratching head*

thanks for the suggestions, people

[mp84]

hmm ok
the bigger problem is this: i siege a town, i have an allied legion sieging as well, in support. the enemy send a counterattack and attack my allied legion. that means i'm forced into commanding the allied (supporting) legion, while my crack supercool soldiers are left in the ai's hands.

they got decimated and i almost cried.
*wanders off, scratching head*

thanks for the suggestions, people

The best recommendation I can give to that, is simply don't siege a town with 2 stacks, it will cause more harm then good.

Just have one full stack of units lay the siege, if there happens to be crack troops inside even if you have numerical superiority you may still lose, but you should do a great deal of damage to them, that you can immediately come in with your 2nd legion and lay siege again and just mop up the remaining armies. (Since it's done in the same turn, they can't recoup their losses)

That's how I took back the town of Tarentum, there was 2,000 silver iconed shield and sword roman rebel infantry inside, along with mostly 3 bronze chevrons and some single silver ones against my 3500 troops (which I only had a few units with 2 bronze chevrons), and I got deicmated even though I had superior numbers which didn't mean much in the end. It also didn't help that I made a few mistakes along the way, like I probably should of split my groups a little better, and maybe concentrate on other gates and their walls, instead I just went after one gate, and it's surrounding walls, and it just funneled most of my troops into a single line on each side I was attacking, and they were just no match for the experience troops lol.

But it's not like I didn't do damage to them, I almost pulled it off in the end, and the town was left with only like 200 defenders, that my next legion of 2500 strong easily mopped without any problems.

So basically just practice, it's going to get tough, especially in the beginning if your playing Rome.

[Reaper200]

Basically what everyone else has been saying. I've had a couple of battles with huge AI reinforcements and they've all went really well. The main rule is make sure you get to the enemy lines first. It leads to the enemy being 'distracted' and allows you to 'backup' the AI legion if it gets itself in to a mess.

[sithlord447]

easy solution just uncheck the box that allows your reinforcments to be controlled by the ai instead they wait on the side lines and enter staggerd as your force melts away

[mp84]

easy solution just uncheck the box that allows your reinforcments to be controlled by the ai instead they wait on the side lines and enter staggerd as your force melts away

problem is, that option seems buggy if you already have a full stack of 20 units, or perhaps 18-19 units in your army.

I had one where I had 19 units in my army, and when the reinforcements came, only the General of the other side entered the battle, and everyone else just stood there like an idiot, lol.

As some of my units got routed, and left the battlefield, and more slots opened up in my unit cards, it was not getting replenished by the extra units there, and I still only had the general from the opposite army to command.

It may have been random fluke, but that was my experience with it.

[sithlord447]

problem is, that option seems buggy if you already have a full stack of 20 units, or perhaps 18-19 units in your army.

I had one where I had 19 units in my army, and when the reinforcements came, only the General of the other side entered the battle, and everyone else just stood there like an idiot, lol.

As some of my units got routed, and left the battlefield, and more slots opened up in my unit cards, it was not getting replenished by the extra units there, and I still only had the general from the opposite army to command.

It may have been random fluke, but that was my experience with it.

the game waits to send them in untill you really need it, like if you have your cav route, its not going to send you 3 full cohorts. In the end it is better as the ai can't kill your units and they usally end up coming into the battle in a timely fashion

[mp84]

the game waits to send them in untill you really need it, like if you have your cav route, its not going to send you 3 full cohorts. In the end it is better as the ai can't kill your units and they usally end up coming into the battle in a timely fashion

interesting, alright I will keep that in mind the next time I have two stacks with me, thanks.

[Jaytee]

easy solution just uncheck the box that allows your reinforcments to be controlled by the ai instead they wait on the side lines and enter staggerd as your force melts away

That's exactly what I was thinking the whole time as I was reading through this thread. lol

[Bosje]

lol well no the point is that i like a second legion to come in and help me out, a bit like m2tw where you tell the 2nd army to hold ground or deploy a ranged skirmish stance or something.

i want them to do so in a normal and organized way, not charge their cavalry to death and run around all over the field

i guess that's just not possible

[glory-to-rome]

i'd recommend using a skirmisher army and a full legion, if you want to have two armies attacking(which you should). but make sure you control both, otherwise you'll take heavy casualties. what i do is attack with my skirmisher army first, wait till they're all out of ammo then withdrawl them. this will inflict massive damage to the enemy, and tire and demoralise its troops. then i send in the real legion for the killing blow.
i defeated hannibal on VH with less then 400 casualties this way.
(just make sure your skirmisher army is adequately 'armed' to defend its self from cavalry and such)

[Bosje]

you mean a skirmish army and full legion both under my own full control? and start the battle with the skirmishers who can withdraw, making room for the cohorts of the legion proper to enter the field and get to work?

that's quite cunning, never thought about that option. i will certainly try it, thanks!

[St Naffatun]

A skirmish army and a full legion, gimptastic.

[DarthLazy]

take 5 regular cohorts and 5 allied cohorts, no need for another army, I tried the same thing you did and got roflstomped and theres no way around it