Besieged by Pyrrhus, any advice?

[K.Wiz.]

Since it's been so long coming back to the game, I find myself rather rusty with battlefield tactics. Pyrrhus has just besieged my consul in Grumentum (or whatever that joint of a city is called). Now, i'm pretty certain that, even if lost, the battle could have been handled better (even though all his war elephants died in a fire).

Thing is, the wooden palisade in the town has a hole in it from the beginning. Luckily the AI isn't smart enough to take advantage of it, and there I was wasting a quarter of my army just guarding that hole. It all actually ended because his heavy infantry could simply not be stopped from entering the city via a breach (and strangely enough his cavalry, running in a single file, went through my line of triarii right in front of the gate...and through two of his spearmen companies)

The battle would have caused the enemy many more casualties should I have guarded the attacked point (next to the gate) from the start, but before I replay it (and I feel that this is winnable, or at least cost Pyrrhus a like-named victory).

Any advices? Note that with his war elephants gone and with the rest of my army some 3 or four turns away he's not long for this world, but I'd like to finish it there and then.

I spent all my money building up roads in all of Italy, so defense shouldn't be very difficult, cash keeps coming in and should he press on the attack I will benefit from shrinking interior lines (I've always wanted to say that).

Edit: I just got a whole feeling of this campaign and I can see how Pyrrhus' struggle is more or less futile. I just realised that with the road network working and with the income pumped in by the commercial and infrastructure I built Rome is simply too much of a powerhouse to be brought down. No wonder people are steamrolling through Sicily

[dr0p]

Pyrrhus' army relays heavily on cavalry and they're useless when it comes to assaulting cities(as long as the gate and walls are not taken yet), especially when the AI controls it. Not to mention he has no more elephants.
The rest of his army is made of spears and phalanx, which are again useless on walls. Use it to your advantage, your Principes and even Hastati should deal with his elites easily...

About that breach in the wall of yours, place your Triarii there on guard mode, supported by missiles(Hastati on fire at will will also do) and Slingers raining hell from the surrounding walls over the enemy trying to break your Triarii lines. Don't forget to place your general there so your troops won't rout too fast.


Either that, or just fortify yourself in the plaza and hope the AI would be dumb as usual

[K.Wiz.]

Can you actually put missile units on palisades? Also, his elephants pretty much go in wherever they want,those thing tear walls out like paper hi hi.

[K.Wiz.]

Apologies for the double post. Wether in a siege or not, what is the best way to get rid of Pyrrhus? How does one go about to grinding away that huge army of his?

[Heinz Guderian]

Its a bit gamey, but you can lure him towards a bridge battle and use hoplites and slingers. Jav cav is good for his Oliphantes.

Oh and you cant put missiles on pallisades.

[dr0p]

I meant skirmishers, not artillery, they can be placed on walls.
And I thought you said he has no more elephants...

The easiest way to defeat him is in bridge battle or siege, because, as I said, the AI is useless there.
In my campaign I retreated in the first battle and placed my force in an ambush on the way to Grumentum and left Pyrrhus alone while I build a new and stronger army in Roma. Problem was, Pyrrhus went south to fight Carthage in Sicily(taking Reghiom as he does), a march that had weakened his army badly, so it was no trouble defeating him eventually...

[K.Wiz.]

Allright, I reach turn 10 and Pyrrhus once again sieges me, this time I have a full army, replaced some of the useless missile units (they refuse, for some reason, to launch their javelins over the wall) with some hastati, so right now I have a LOT of infantry, and am ready to face him in the siege(the palisade has been replaced).

Now if I could just get the damn figt to start! Aside from the ludicrously long loading times (it takes FIVE minutes for the main screen to show up) one in two savegame loads crashes, it freezes doing nothing.

This, coupled with the punishingly long loading times makes even trying to correct a minor mistake a possible trip to the reset button and another stupidly long wait for the load. I must confess I am frustrated. Can't wait for the battle itself.

[Maurits]

Hm. It sounds like your system is not very capable of running the mod. Did you tone down the graphical settings?

[K.Wiz.]

To the ground unfortunately. The fight normally work like a charm, the map moves fluidly, but the loading times are a killer.

This has been the third reload, half an hour after my first attempt at fighting Pyrrhus in a siege. The battle just won't start, it gets stuck when I press the "Arrange troops" button. Apparently 1.5 GB of ram is causing the game to not only load up with the speed of a rabid snail, but it's also causing frequent crashes during the loading time. It's a shamem, the mod otherwise behaves flawlessly, the fights are a charm, crashes are okay as long as it doesn't take me ten *** minutes to get back into them.

Sadly, I'm going to have to put this away until I calm myself. The frustration is even bigger considering that I used to play RTR 6 on a low-end laptop. Even then the loading times weren't this long.

[Iguanaonastick]

A bit late to the party, but from the sound of it you didn't hurt Pyrrhus that badly in the first scripted battle? That's how I dealt with him. (Actually I won that first battle on my second try, but even on the first Pyrrhus died which left his army less effective by far.)

[K.Wiz.]

Nope, I didn't even face him in that battle. I thought it was almost impossible to beat him? Anyways, I'm not the kind of guy to face his opponents like this. I like sneaking around, sending spies. The way I beat him was forcing him into a battle on my own terms, capturing Herakleia while he was beyond the bridge.

This left his posessions vulnerable, so he was forced to attack. Boom, headshot.

[Iguanaonastick]

Sun Tzu would approve.

The Romans of the era probably wouldn't though. They were a pretty headstrong attack-now-plan-strategy-later kind of bunch in their early days. Not even Pyrrhus cured them of that. It took Hannibal to convince them of the necessity of being a bit more careful and fighting on their terms rather than the first available ones.

As for the battle of Herakleia, it's pretty damn tough and I wasn't actually expecting to win it. It took a combination of careful tactics and a bit of luck, though I basically used classical Roman deployment (Normal Triplex acies with a few variations) and just fought very conservatively, sparing my strength and reserves for the decisive moment. Having a very good general also helped a lot, without the consul behind my lines I'm sure the hastati would have routed long before I wore the enemy down. But even without that bit of luck you can hurt that scary starting army to the point that your next attack will be able to easily beat Pyrrhus. And if the man himself dies you're golden. (That's what won me the battle, though it only happened because I managed to rout and chase down his bodyguard with fresh cavalry reserves at the end of the battle.) Basically I was trying to make his victory properly Pyrrhic. Appropriate, no?

[K.Wiz.]

True. But it would still have been his name as the victor. Unless a brick hit him square in the face, I wasn't going to fight and let him go.

Turn 50-something now, in 269 BC and I've just got back Rhegion while massively upgrading the whole infrastructure in Italy. The leadership system is really paying off, but I wonder how I'll cope with the clusterf*** of towns in Sicily. Only now have I figured out where the bastards were getting their resources.

I have a non-historical strategy in almost every battle - boring but efficient. I try to outnumber the enemy every time, have his line shorter than mine and completely unhistorically - have my hastati (or quickest other infantry) charge to the side of the enemy, quickly go left or right and hit them in the back or flanks while my heaviest infantry keeps the enemy busy. The whole charge itself is quick enough to also sandwich the enemy's missile troops somewhere in there, and their cavalry quickly gets bogged down while trying to criss-cross my other highly mobile infantry.

I like to think of my battles as bloody maneuvers, however "unroman" they are. I will try the Hannibal strategy sometime, hardened flanks and a weak center, see how that works.

The devs were able to create this wonderful system, the script and the leadership, but I have to wonder, was there no way for them to limit certain units in number? Logic dictates that the hastati and local italian troops were the most numerous, with the principes and the triarii the few elite. While every one of them definetly has a use, I'm starting to think that perhaps having so many principes is kind of overpowered.

I understand the logic of playing in a "historically accurate" manner, but I mostly enjoy being forced into doing so(like with the leadership and the resources). Just like the romans had no choice but to cope with what they had.

Still, I'm really enjoying this. Now if we could just work on the loading crashes...brb,buying new computer.

[Iguanaonastick]

The Hannibal strategy is actually how I ended up winning Herkleia. Accidentally, of course. But I ended up more or less refusing the centre by pinning 4 pike units which had gotten crunched too close together during the march with 1 Principes unit in guard-mode, which meant that their pikes basically contributed very little to the main infantry fight, so I could then hold off and eventually defeat the hoplites and cavalry on their flanks.

And unfortunately in Rome Total War there doesn't seem to be a real way to limit unit numbers except like the devs have done with the unique elite units. (40 turn recruitment time.)

I just make my armies historical. Rome is pretty damn strong already and using principes only would make your armies rather overpowered I think. Until I can get Italic Principes my armies have 2 units only.

If this were Medieval 2 total war recruitment pools would help encourage a mixed unit spread, though even then there's nothing to force you to use historical armies. I think it's just a decision you have to make for yourself.

[Maurits]

Well, the numbers of Principes and Hastati were equal in Roman Republican armies, the Triarii being half their number which is reflected by the number of men in their units.

Therefore, my historical consular army consists of:

-1 funditores/velites
-1 velites
-1 Consul
-1 Equites
-2 Hastati
-2 Principes
-2 Triarii
-2 to 4 Italian line infantry deployed on my flanks
-2 Italian skirmishers
-1 Italian cavalry unit

That's the base, additional AoR's or Mercs are added depending on the situation.

[Iguanaonastick]

I use the same except more Italian line infantry since they generally matched the Romans in numbers. Sometimes two Italian cavalry instead of Roman equites too, since historically the Italian contingent usually outnumbered the Roman by a large margin and the Consul's/Praetor's bodyguard can stand in for the Roman equites.

[Maurits]

True regarding the cavalry, but I just like my Roman Equites

[K.Wiz.]

Some really newbie questions:
1. How can I replenish the numbers in my general's escort? My older guys have a full complement of horsemen, 40, but the younger dudes have only about a dozen, and it really hurts my formation. I believe in an active command unit, mopping up the stragglers and the runaways.
2. Brigands. Where do they come from? What do they do? aside from being punching bags.

[Iguanaonastick]

1] It depends on certain traits the character has. I believe it's Influence? Can't quite remember. But basically, older and more experienced family members will usually have bigger bodyguards. The king and heir (Re-named to First and Second Consul for Rome) will also have a much bigger bodyguard than others.

I'm afraid that essentially you'll have to suck it up and deal with having small bodyguard cavalry units.

Actual casualties the units have suffered will be replenished over time for free.

2] It depends on certain settings in the text files. They spawn fairly randomly. I'm not sure what impacts it. Watchtowers maybe prevent them spawning nearby? They generally tend to spawn a bit away from settlements.

They're essentially punching bags, but if you leave them unattended they'll reduce your income by blocking trade and scorching the land. They also like to "capture" watchtowers by sitting on them. Stops you from seeing from that watchtower.

[K.Wiz.]

Can brigands be bribed into submission? I think they can merge too, I had about eight unit stacks in the latest batch, I'm actually mustering forces in order to deal with them.