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[Rorarii]

According to james Russell, in this interview

http://au.ign.com/articles/2012/07/1...-war-in-rome-2

Quote -
What does that mean specifically? “A Roman unit coming into another unit is not going to break up and surround the other unit. It’s going to fight in a locked formation, the Roman meat grinder. Whereas the barbarian unit, they’ll spill around and anybody will just try to find a target. It’ll feel quite different.”
-end Quote

Uber Roman "meat grinders" wipeout loose-leave barbarians .. UG!

Would someone please contact James and say "no fantasy uber units please" .. and teach him some barbarian military history.

R

(sorry if there's already a thread regarding this)

R

[UghUghUgh]

I hope for a button to hold formation, like there was in MedII, or barbarians will be portrayed as primitive brutes to please the prejudice of the uneducated. Like others said before this portrayal is unrealistic and I just don't see the point.

[Asgaroth]

I just want to comment from the same text :

By breaking up territory into these smaller regions, you can’t effectively ‘headshot’ a massive area by knocking out a single city. Instead, provinces can be captured region by region, so even if you lose part of a province, you’ll still maintain control of it, though with resource accumulation penalties.

Toooo good, can't wait !

Uber Roman "meat grinders" wipeout loose-leave barbarians

He just said that everyone will be different and special in there own way, he didn't mention that Romans are going to be stronger.

[-Concrete-]

This doesn't mean a blanket style of fighting for all barbarians surely, he is speaking in broad terms for a short interview. People trying to say all non-Romans were well disciplined are just as bad as the people saying all non-Romans were wild savages.

[MrOuija]

This doesn't mean a blanket style of fighting for all barbarians surely, he is speaking in broad terms for a short interview. People trying to say all non-Romans were well disciplined are just as bad as the people saying all non-Romans were wild savages.

Absolutely true.

[Greve Af Göteborg]

He's just saying that the fighting styles will differ, not that the romans will slice and dice everything that comes into contact with them.

[MathiasOfAthens]

Its too soon to say he doesnt know history or ancient fighting styles. I feel like they have a learned a lot since RTW.

[|Sith|Galvanized Iron]

CA are seriously missinformed, the barbarians used strong shield walls they did not fight as savages...

[Sneaking Viper]

CA are seriously missinformed, the barbarians used strong shield walls they did not fight as savages...

Really? Celts and other "Barbarians" use a tactic that was not invented until 6 AD? how did they manage that one? timemachines?

Shield walls was a evolution of the Hoplites and a greek invention, that the Romans transfered to other parts of Europe during their reign.

[bobbin]

Really? Celts and other "Barbarians" use a tactic that was not invented until 6 AD? how did they manage that one? timemachines?

Shield walls was a evolution of the Hoplites and a greek invention, that the Romans transfered to other parts of Europe during their reign.

Where on earth did you read that ridiculous fact? Sheild walls have probably been around since the invention of shields, even the earliest civilisations like the Sumerians used them, thousands of years before the Greeks even existed.

[Ariovist]

Really? Celts and other "Barbarians" use a tactic that was not invented until 6 AD? how did they manage that one? timemachines?

Shield walls was a evolution of the Hoplites and a greek invention, that the Romans transfered to other parts of Europe during their reign.

Please read about the battle between Julius Caesar and Ariovistus, War king of a Suebii confederation in Gaul.
We should ignore the typical tendency of J.C. to enlarge the numbers of his enemies, but the battle description sounds realistic.
Germanic tribes often used this "shieldwall" tactic.

[-Concrete-]

Please read about the battle between Julius Caesar and Ariovistus, War king of a Suebii confederation in Gaul.
We should ignore the typical tendency of J.C. to enlarge the numbers of his enemies, but the battle description sounds realistic.
Germanic tribes often used this "shieldwall" tactic.

Agree, this seems to be something the sources agree on. The Germans fought differently to the Gauls.

I still don't read the interview as 'all barbarians will fight as individuals'. Let's give them the benefit of the doubt until the game is released.

[Rasic]

I don't think anyone wants mindless savages, but you also can't go on the opposite side of things to say that an army of 200,000 people who essentially are thrown together from different parts of a region will fight as coherently or effectively as a professional army that's been fighting with the same men for years and years. The reasons aren't exactly represented in total war games because they don't utilize things like chain of command or supply so we're left with mostly a lower grade of average soldier or lower moral for these units, that's just the nature of the game.

[MathiasOfAthens]

Really? Celts and other "Barbarians" use a tactic that was not invented until 6 AD? how did they manage that one? timemachines?

Shield walls was a evolution of the Hoplites and a greek invention, that the Romans transfered to other parts of Europe during their reign.

Caesar specifically mentions shield walls and honestly its not that ing unique. You have a shield. Your mate has a shield. Heres an idea lets stand close to each other for added protection. And then get some other mates to also stand close to us. ing rocket science.

[Xerrop]

Quote -
What does that mean specifically? “A Roman unit coming into another unit is not going to break up and surround the other unit. It’s going to fight in a locked formation, the Roman meat grinder. Whereas the barbarian unit, they’ll spill around and anybody will just try to find a target. It’ll feel quite different.”
-end Quote

Uber Roman "meat grinders" wipeout loose-leave barbarians .. UG!

This only means we will see different fighting styles in the game. Some units will only deploy with inflexible formations, others will be more mobile and respond to enemy weaknesses.

Sounds good for me. Both could have their advantages and disadvantages and it makes the battles more diverse. What can be wrong with that?

[magpie]

Hmm, We have a fair idea of what Roman combat tactics were from written records.
With the Celts and Germanic tribes things get somewhat hazy as battles involving them and the Romans and the combat which took place came from the Roman perspective.
Perhaps a better example to look at would be Hannibals major victory against the Romans in Italy. Were his allies the Gauls held the centre with his Iberians stationed on the Gaul flanks.
Hannibals numidian cavalry destroyed the Roman cavalry out on the wings. The Gauls were pushed back in the centre one of Hannibals brothers fell fighting with them. They held long enough for the major flank attacks by the Iberians and the Numidian cavalry into the Romans who were still engaged with the Gauls. The Roman formations were decimated by a combination of missile and hand to hand combat.

[Lord Baal]

And that's why we need supply and command chains for the game.

[88HaZZarD88]

And that's why we need supply and command chains for the game.

quote

[Sneaking Viper]

Ok, since so many here seems to think that I am crazy since the notion of a proper Shield wall used by Celtic tribes was a thing I found silly. Lets look at what we know about the Celts:

1) they did not fight a formation (as Greeks, Romans or Sumerians did) they fought in groups or bands, hence already there is the creation of a proper wall difficult at best (since you need a structured command and not just a mate that has a shield, 2 people do NOT constitute a shield wall, just as much as 2 bricks do not constitute a wall).

2) War and warfare definitely played an important role in ancient Celtic society. The nobility most probably was a warrior elite that spent considerable time training with weapons. For them, fighting and raiding were quite common occurrences. The client landowners most probably were also required to fight if and when the need arose, both to defend their own land and to attack enemies. Since they were involved in the production-cycle, they however did not have as much or any training in actual military tactics.

3) A Celtic warrior’s basic equipment consisted of a set of one to four spears. One was a 1.8 meters long fighting spear called a "lancea" that sometimes had very large spearheads of up to 50 centimetres in length these were used to dismount horses and to stop a cavalry charge. The others were short throwing spears called "gaesum" with relatively small, normally shorter than 10 centimetres long spearheads compatible to a light Roman pilum and use for throwing at the enemy before a charge. A warrior also had a large—about 1.2 meter high and 0.5 meters wide—leather-covered, wooden shield with a metal shield-boss. This was likely to have been decorated with painting and sometimes metal ornamentation. With this basic equipment, the average warrior usually wore his everyday clothing consisting of trousers, a shirt, and a mantle.

So it is fair to assume that shield walls was not something Celtic tribes did, they did however adapt the Roman tactics and might in AD has used some shield tactics.

[RandarKal]

Ok, since so many here seems to think that I am crazy since the notion of a proper Shield wall used by Celtic tribes was a thing I found silly. Lets look at what we know about the Celts:

1) they did not fight a formation (as Greeks, Romans or Sumerians did) they fought in groups or bands, hence already there is the creation of a proper wall difficult at best (since you need a structured command and not just a mate that has a shield, 2 people do NOT constitute a shield wall, just as much as 2 bricks do not constitute a wall).

2) War and warfare definitely played an important role in ancient Celtic society. The nobility most probably was a warrior elite that spent considerable time training with weapons. For them, fighting and raiding were quite common occurrences. The client landowners most probably were also required to fight if and when the need arose, both to defend their own land and to attack enemies. Since they were involved in the production-cycle, they however did not have as much or any training in actual military tactics.

3) A Celtic warrior’s basic equipment consisted of a set of one to four spears. One was a 1.8 meters long fighting spear called a "lancea" that sometimes had very large spearheads of up to 50 centimetres in length these were used to dismount horses and to stop a cavalry charge. The others were short throwing spears called "gaesum" with relatively small, normally shorter than 10 centimetres long spearheads compatible to a light Roman pilum and use for throwing at the enemy before a charge. A warrior also had a large—about 1.2 meter high and 0.5 meters wide—leather-covered, wooden shield with a metal shield-boss. This was likely to have been decorated with painting and sometimes metal ornamentation. With this basic equipment, the average warrior usually wore his everyday clothing consisting of trousers, a shirt, and a mantle.

So it is fair to assume that shield walls was not something Celtic tribes did, they did however adapt the Roman tactics and might in AD has used some shield tactics.

I would think with those weapons and that shield, they could easily organize units to fight in a shield wall...but more importantly, as others have said, the Gauls and Germans fought differently, and I think most so far have mentioned the German use of shield walls.