Help with Pyhrrus scripted battle.

[.L.]

Dows anyone have any tips for the battle? I never end up winning(Yes I know Rome lost in real life)

[Nerouin]

Put your hoplites and triarii in the first line; put one hoplite unit, then a unit of triarii, then a unit of hoplites, then a unit of triarii. Put a unit of skirmishers (be sure to turn off skirmish mode) alongside the second unit of triarii. Put all of these units on guard mode. Keep your hastati and allied infantry in a separate group behind and to the right of your your right flank and do the same with your principes on the left. Keep your cavalry back. When the elephants begin to approach, take your two uncommitted units of skirmishers and destroy the elephants with javelins.

The pikemen will hit your front line, and the enemy's line will splinter a bit. Meanwhile, enemy cav will attack your principes and hastati. Dispose of them, then flank the enemy with those units. Be sure to make use of their javelins. Leave open spaces for your cavalry to charge. Do not leave your cavalry in melee. Have them form to the proper distance, charge, pull back, reform, charge again, etc.

Also, you must kill Phyrrus. He'll be near the melee. A unit or two of infantry will be sufficient. Do NOT move your hoplites or triarii for this purpose or any other (aside from completing the encirclement of an enemy unit). Them staying in position is vital to keeping the pikemen in place. Killing Phyrrus will give a big morale hit to the enemy. Once you successfully rout one enemy unit, the enemy's non-elite units should begin to rout en masse. Keep them encircled and annihilate them. If any start getting away, chase them down with your cavalry. Eventually only the asthetaroi and agema will be left. Keep them encircled but for a spot for cavalry to charge into their rear. Repeatedly charge their rear with cav. They will break eventually, though they'll eat through a lot of your guys in the process.

Under no circumstances should you charge your general into melee. Keep him close to the battle line so that his morale-giving effects can extend to your infantry, but do not engage him in fighting.

[Cyprian2]

Actually, I'm having the opposite problem. Playing as Epirus, I am completely unable to win the battle of Heraclea. Pyrrhus's army has been nerfed since the FoE expansion, to the point that the battle has become unwinable, imho.

For one thing, the battle now takes place in a dense forest, when, historically, Heraclea was fought on a plain. (Keeping it on a plain would at least give the phalangites a fighting chance.)

Also, Pyrrhus now lacks a decent cavalry force (we are given––playing on large unit size––a handful of ten-man units that basically die on impact with anything Roman).

Finally, the experience levels of Pyrrhus's troops is far outweighed by that of the Romans, which hardly reflects the (historical) professionalism of the former.

Indeed, the battle in FoE was much more balanced and thus, engaging. So, what happened?

Any tips? I'm not a novice at this game by any means, but I find myself at a loss.

This is a major glitch (to my mind) in what is otherwise a stellar mod! (And what a long way the team has come from the Platinum days! )

[Blatta Optima Maxima]

Probably scripted to make it harder. What difficulty are you playing on?

[Cyprian2]

I'm playing medium/medium difficulty. Funny thing, if the roles were reversed, and I were playing the Romans, I could accept the defeat (it being historically correct). However, all the cards are stacked against the Molossians at this point. I'm just wondering why the team chose to do that. But, maybe I'll start a campaign as the Romans so I can put my money where my mouth is.

[Iskiab]

I've always found the battle easier to win as the Romans. Playing the Epirotes is a fun and epic campaign, but getting through the initial battles is difficult.

[Cyprian2]

I should add that I'm expecting a reasonable level of difficulty––a Pyrrhic victory, at the very best––and not a cakewalk. But I'm not sure I can manage any sort of victory given the current army's stats, and the script doesn't allow me to retreat and gather reinforcements (sees that as a defeat).

I'm interested in hearing from players who have chosen the Epeirote campaign and somehow managed to win the crucial opening battle. Anyone?

[Maurits]

We're going to change the tile. For some reason, I thought that had already been fixed. It's on the to-do list again

[Cyprian2]

We're going to change the tile. For some reason, I thought that had already been fixed. It's on the to-do list again

And thanks for the response!

[Mausolos of Caria]

Hey Cyprian,

I just started an Epiros campaign today and won the battle of Herakleia. It was a realy Pyrrhos win, though, as I lost 45 % of my troops. My strategy was the following:

Sarissa pikemen in the first line with gaps between the four phalanges, Hoplites in the second line behind these gaps, like a Roman formation (I also never did that before, but considering I had almost as many Hoplites as Phalangites I thought it was reasonable). On both flanks I positioned the two phalanges outwards so they could protect the wings of my army.
Pyrrhos was put in the center right behind the Hoplites were he was safe, Archers and Slingers near him to both sides of him. Then the cavalry on the left and right flank. The Elephants stood behind the rest of the Army to guard the back.

As the Romans approached, they tried to embrace my left side with my cavalry so I used the Elephants to drive them off. After a lot of manoeuvring the Roman left flank was routed. Especially the Elephants and the Agema cavalry were important in that. I sent the Tarentine Cavalry to the edge of the map then to kill every Roman who tried to escape, while the infantry who had fought the now fleeing Romans was used to attack the rest of the from behind.

It was a very tough challenge, though and I initially oversaw some Roman Troops who tried to attack my line from behind so I had to attack them again and again with my Somathophylakes. But I agree that it should actually be on a plain and on the banks of the river Siris.

Hopefully that was helpful for you

[Cyprian2]

Greetings, Mausolos, and thank you for the run-through of your battle. I can only commend you for pulling off such a tough victory! Have you been playing RTW a long while, then? In my own campaign, I dealt with the battle a bit differently: by retreating and regrouping, only to attack and defeat the Roman stack on more advantageous terms. (I kind of refuse to fight the battle on the scripted terms until the tile issue is fixed. ) It still wasn't an easy battle, by any means, but I was able to use both my phalangites and archers to better effect than the dense forest afforded. Also, the elephants are quite effective (and amusing to watch) in an open-field situation. Still, I may go back and put some of your methods to use, just for the sake of experimentation. Are there any benefits to winning the opening battle (like, additional units or better support from the Italiote cities? Just curious.) Thanks again, and +rep and for your highly detailed and readable post.

[Mausolos of Caria]

Greetings, Mausolos, and thank you for the run-through of your battle. I can only commend you for pulling off such a tough victory! Have you been playing RTW a long while, then? In my own campaign, I dealt with the battle a bit differently: by retreating and regrouping, only to attack and defeat the Roman stack on more advantageous terms. (I kind of refuse to fight the battle on the scripted terms until the tile issue is fixed. ) It still wasn't an easy battle, by any means, but I was able to use both my phalangites and archers to better effect than the dense forest afforded. Also, the elephants are quite effective (and amusing to watch) in an open-field situation. Still, I may go back and put some of your methods to use, just for the sake of experimentation. Are there any benefits to winning the opening battle (like, additional units or better support from the Italiote cities? Just curious.) Thanks again, and +rep and for your highly detailed and readable post.

Thanks for your praise

Aye I've been playing RTW for quite a long time, although I only just signed up on here coz I didn't had RTR 7 before. Have been playing or are playing most of the other Total War games too, apart from Shogun.

Yeah I can imagine that it must be better for Epiros to fight it out on a plain, but I thought it would be rude to ignore the script

I don't think there are special benefits. The only unusual thing that happened was a message coming up which told me that my troops captured a Roman aquila. And Cheers again for your laud, especially that you said it was readable, my English really must have been improved

[torongill]

I just finished playing the scripted battle as the Romani on M/M with huge units with more or less normal tactics and it wasn't that difficult. I used the hastati and the oscani heavies as a first line in the center, principes directly behind them, spearmen coupled with triarii divided on both wings, with the equites on the extreme ends. I deployed on the top of the hill and waited for the epirotes to come crack sculls. And they did, first line of hoplites and the agema, second line phalanx and in the third came the missile troops. Elephants on his left, paired with the tarentian horse and two bodyguards; the hippeis, one bodyguard and the horse agema(if I may call them that, forgot their name) went on the right. This is probably where my first mistake took place, I had concentrated all my javelineers on the right wing, between the hastati and the spearmen. This is where the action started, the tarentians charged and I had to scramble my anti-elephant corps back. The tarentians turned to pursue, which was their mistake, because I let my allied rangers boggle them down and I hit them from the side with my wheeling spearmen. and then, when they turned to face the new threat, with my right equites. From the PoV of luring the light epirote cavalry I had done superbly, but the melee that started on my right wing was a perfect target for the elephants, which until this moment had stood idly by and released the occasional arrow. To my surprise they continued to stay and watch as the tarentians died in a sea of spears. In the middle of that I managed to extricate my javelineers and sent them to the right of the cluster and ordered them to pincushion the elephants. Which they did, with the elephants carrying on their silent and apathic stand.
While this was happening on the right wing, on the left the battle proceeded more or less on plan. The elite Epirote horse charged my allied spearmen, located on the extreme left of the infantry line, whereas the hippeis tried to charge the leftmost hastati, only for me to interpose my left triarii and stop them cold. Then I used my left equites to envelope the elites and charge them in the flank. Another desperate melee started, but I was pretty sure in my combined arms approach(It's not the first time I find myself against superior cavalry force).
Meanwhile in the center Pyrros executed a textbook leeroy jenkins and slammed in the center hastati unit. The two guards from the left epirote wing attacked the rightmost hastati and the allied principes. The agema hoplites and the allied hoplites attacked all across the center to create another desperate slaughter. My Roman hastati suffered terribly, but with the help of the principes and the encouragement of the consul managed to hold.
What was happening to the Epirote phalanx in that time? Believe it or not, they separated. Two units went right towards my left wing, where the Epirote elite and heavy horse had gotten repeatedly the pointy end of the stick and in a rare blink of brilliance attacked the berserk triarii from the front and back. It didn't do them much good, because by the time they started killing triarii, my left-wing allied spearmen and the equites had killed the last of the bodyguard unit that had tried to pin them in a desperate gamble to slow them down. So this was the situation in which the two phalanx units tried to engage my winning left wing and decimate it. They didn't even come close and were decimated in turn, because only the AI will turn its back on slingers in range. On the right wing I had already destroyed the tarentian horse and the elephants and had stopped cold repeated cavalry charges to throw my spearmen and cavalry in the dogfight in the center. And to finish that loong story short, I won without any significant difficulties. The legionary line was pretty banged up, but they survived. The Epirote army and Pyrros's dreams however, remained forever on that field.

[antred]

Am I the only one who thinks Asian Elephants are ridiculously overmodeled? I can't seem to kill even a single one of them regardless of what I throw at them.

[torongill]

ehm... sorry for the bad joke but can't help myself

"Throw more darts, more darts, more darts. Okay, stop darts."

Seriously, trying to kill a 3-4 ton animal with oversized needles, you'd need a freaking lot of needle pricks to bring that monster down. Of course the best way would be to use its mass against it as it charges a braced forest of spears.

I'm not really sure, but I seem to recall that in India there were special troops that guarded the elephant's legs, since hamstringing the beast would be the easiest way. The romans I think used axes against the elephants at Thapsus, whereas at Trebia the light infantry drove them away by hitting them beneath the tail(there's a mental image I could've done without). At Magnesia the elephants went mad from the javelins and crashed into their own phalanx. At Zama the elephants, frightened by the slings and arrows of velites and outrageous roman music, ran back and crashed into the carthaginian line.

Where am I going with all this - well it seems it was easier to make the enemy elephants go amok or run away than to bring them down. Choose your mixtape well and you might not even need javelins.