Defense with an inferior army against lots of chariots

[egervari]

Hi, I'm in a game with the Julii faction and I'm at war with the gauls, britania and germania.

I'll ignore how cheap it is for the game to just declare war on you from all sides.

Anyway, I have to defend a town that I captured from the gauls, and since the brits declared war on me, I have to defend this stupid town. My nearest army to come in to help is about 2 or 3 turns away. I have 4 armies, but I can't be everywhere at once.

I actually don't want the town. I'd rather keep my troops and retreat. It doesn't look like that's going to happen. Or can I do this? The town sucks, and it would give me time to refresh this army since it just got done facing down all the gaul generals and their king in various battles.

Nonetheless, it's depleted. The game is saying they have a 60% or so chance to win.

I've tried to defend, but all I got is a bunch of hastati, 1 light cav, 1 velites, a depleted general and 2 town watch.

They mash in with their chariots one after the other. I have no idea what to do. Help?

[egervari]

Okay, I managed to do it. I had my guys block the two ways they could get it, one in the main entrance (where it was already dismantled because I just captured the city) and the other wall they went for.

I put all of my hastati in guard mode and fire at will so they could use their pila. I positioned them to blockade the entire entances so the chariots had no where to go.

I put the 2 town guard to take the brunt of the chariot charge from the main entrance, where 70% of their troops and chariots would go through. They actually did okay and survived the entire fight! 3 Units of hastati were right behind them.

I had one 34-person unit of Triarii. I didn't know what these were used for, but I did some reading and these guys were pretty instrumental in defending against the stupid chariots. I only lost 1 person during the entire battle.

I used the one light cav and my general to get the other chariots that passed through the lines.

I had my vilates cut down one of the units trying to break in from the 3rd side, killing them all before they could smash through.

All-in-all, I lost the light cav and 20 or so cav from my general's body guard, but I only lost 170 units total during the entire fight. They lost about 570 men.

I also killed 2 britania generals, one being a 4 or 5-star one.

I guess i'll take it

[StealthEvo]

The thang (intentional mispelling) with dem barbarian varmits. Is that they dun have much morally morale. Even with dem Druidy fella's. So really you dang wanna go and kill the gennyral as soon as possible you hear. Should cause a mass rout.

[shikaka]

Against chariots as Romans, deploy your hastati/legionary cohorts in fighting squars, don't thin their line.
You need depth (5 rows at minimum, preferably more), so that the chariots will bog down in your infantry square. If they stop, they are dead meat.

Of course it would be much easier if you had spear units (Triarii, auxilia, or hoplites as a greek faction). You might want to consider to hire the 'barbarian mercenary' units (there is usually 4 available), so they - not your hastati - will take the damage from the first chariot charge.

[egervari]

Yeah, all of my hastati were in squares, if they had enough available that is A few of them only had 16 or 20 people in them. I still had 8 or 9 Hastati units though.

Unfortunately, I don't have any cohorts or advanced units to speak of. This army was actually my FIRST stack, so it didn't even have more than 1 cav unit.

Now I think I am in trouble though. While I think I subdued Britannia, the Germans are a fierce force. They got all these guys with long spears, and I'm still running armies with hastati. And they have A LOT of armies.

Man, this game really puts the pressure on. I'm still at war with all 3 nations, the Germania being the largest threat at the moment. I'm not sure how I'm going to pull it off with what I have.

[shikaka]

Yeah, all of my hastati were in squares, if they had enough available that is A few of them only had 16 or 20 people in them. I still had 8 or 9 Hastati units though.

Unfortunately, I don't have any cohorts or advanced units to speak of. This army was actually my FIRST stack, so it didn't even have more than 1 cav unit.

Now I think I am in trouble though. While I think I subdued Britannia, the Germans are a fierce force. They got all these guys with long spears, and I'm still running armies with hastati. And they have A LOT of armies.

Man, this game really puts the pressure on. I'm still at war with all 3 nations, the Germania being the largest threat at the moment. I'm not sure how I'm going to pull it off with what I have.

Use pila.

While late armies are nice with heavy armor, and rock-hard morale, the main advantage of romans in all of the game is the pilum. Be sure to fire all when possible.

Also, don't attack spears from the front if they are in line. (charge from rear or side)

[Blatta Optima Maxima]

Spain is just a coward tribe that pretends to be a faction.

[KnightOfPortugal]

Could be worse. Playing as Germania, I thought I'd go for that 'unaccessible' settlement for once. In all my previous campaigns I never captured that single settlement. It is called Themiskyra (Province: Hyperboria)

So I send my general with some Spear Warbands and a handful of skirmishers to it, unaware of the threat. When we enter through the only entrance, I think it should be a piece of cake. But, next turn, while I was marching for that town (exiiiteeed, naïve...), I got ambushed. By chariots. Lots of them. And they fired arrows. Oh, and they were women in Greek armors. All of my units except my generals bodyguard were killed till the last man. (glad I still had the general, though)


Later on, I returned, with 6 chosen archers and some spear warbands + the same general.


Effect: Good long-range archers trash chariots.


So, egervari, simply get the best archers you can get against any chariots, and lure them into anything with spears (like.. ehm.. Triarii in your case)



For the rest of your story about being trapped, I'd suggest this:

-Hold off the Germanians
-Attack Spain, they pretend to be tougher than they really are.
-Gauls are training dummies for Romans.
-With the tips against chariots, Britannia should be easy to deal with... watch the head hurlers though!