Advice for a new Rome player

[Aristocrap]

Medieval 2 was my introduction to the TW series, and I picked up from there - Empire, Napoleon, Shogun 2, etc. I never played Rome when it was relatively new and I decided to try it out this week, since I couldn't wait until the end of next year to fight battles in the age of antiquity. I played my first multiplayer game today and noticed some observations.

Upgrades seem to be important. In Medieval, you could get away with taking a larger army with less upgrades, but in RTW, it seems to me that upgrades are more of a deciding factor. I fought the Greeks with the Seleucids and I had more numbers but the hoplites (especially the Spartans) won out in the end. It was pretty close, but his upgrades ground me down, even with my Cataphracts cycle-charging the Greek mass.

Because I started with Medieval, I never got used to the pike/phalanx style of fighting and I'm just starting to get my head around the mechanics. So far, I've determined hoplites are more offensive than pikes, and using pikes, you typically don't right-click to attack and instead let the enemy run into your spears.

If there's anything in particular about Rome that one needs to know, I'd appreciate the advice - and not the usual "don't charge spears with cav" or "make sure to surround your enemy" because those are general and apply to the other TW games I'm familiar with already.

[Skittish]

Well, you already hit the nail on the head with the upgrades thing. I am a relatively new player as well, and the one thing that never fails is a smaller army with higher upgrades will beat a larger army without them. This is particularly apparent when facing a unit that is good without upgrades- after they are upgraded you will notice that you are lucky to get a few kill before your unit routes.

From what I've noticed, people generally stay away from general units, except of course in factions without any other decent cavalry- they aren't cost effective. Also, something else you will see is that Rome get picked ALOT- and in CWB that means ALOT of urbans. how do you deal with an army of high upgraded urban cohorts?

That is a tough question.

You will see that javelins are very rarely used, but archers are constantly purchased- watch out though, if you aren't cautious and attentive a good player will have charged them with cavalry and ran away already.

Specific rome details... hmm Don't be surprised by the ridiculously low morale of the barbarian factions- or the generally overpowered nature of the roman factions. Cataphracts are amazing. Cretan Archers are amazing.

[Varus12]

If you play <=15k learn the weaknesses and strengths of the three major type of units: missiles, cavalry and infantry.
New players focus way too much on infantry and cavalry. Usually the paths of players goes as follows. First they realize how strong upgrades are, so they starting taking stronger and stronger infantry. Then they see how useful cavalry can be, so they start having mixes of heavily upgraded cav and infantry. At this point most players believe rome is overpowered on 15k. This is obviously the case if the armies of both players only consists of cav and inf.
The next and hardest step is learning how to skirmish. What you have to realize is that an archers unit is extremely cheap compared to a heavily upgraded cav unit. So if you start sending your cav to chase some of my archers across the map, at the mean time I can fight your temporarily weakened army with my main bulk. If you bring your cav back, I avoid fighting you and just shoot you. What then happens is that end up tiring your heavy units and I end up fighting a tired army with a fresh one.
This is the basic idea of skirmishing.
Avoid fights you cannot win, shoot and tire expensive units.

This is actually something you hear constantly through the tutorial, yet a lot (and most) of players apparently do not seem to apply it.

[SpartaFTW]

im pretty new too, but i have observed a few things-
1. seems like siege weapons are not worth it for field battles
2. javelin units stink
3. roman pilas are great
4. never do skirmish mode and fire at will, i always like to control my own range units
5. always shoot/attack at the enemy's right side, side without the shield
6. let the enemy march to you (tires them out)
7. always get the high ground
8. morale is super important, find out what increases and decreases morale (love germania for decreasing enemy morale)

yeah, but i might be wrong on some things

[Rexasaur]

im pretty new too, but i have observed a few things-
1. seems like siege weapons are not worth it for field battles
2. javelin units stink
3. roman pilas are great
4. never do skirmish mode and fire at will, i always like to control my own range units
5. always shoot/attack at the enemy's right side, side without the shield
6. let the enemy march to you (tires them out)
7. always get the high ground
8. morale is super important, find out what increases and decreases morale (love germania for decreasing enemy morale)

yeah, but i might be wrong on some things

Not to be a D***, just wanted to use your points to clear things up

1. Correct, seige weapons are a bad unit choice when for the same cost, you can get a good set of upgrades, or even a unit of slingers
2. Javelin units are good as fodder, or if you have 200 dernii to spare after buying your units. Javelin Cav however, are amazing.
3. ALL pilias are great
4. Personal Preferance, no right or wrong way to use that.
5. YES, although you can volley at their front before they put their shields down (If you look closely, it happens once they take one casulty)
6. No. You want to make the enemy try to move to how you move. You need to stay on the agressive, even with pikes, as the enemy will expect you to stay still. Never play defensive unless you are in a seige battle as the defender. (Even then, try to play agressive)
7. Yes.
8. Yes, but the highest factor is the enemy general, so try to kill him before he kills yours. (in my opinion) You should never put your geneeral in a Cav unit, as he will go far from his troops and they will lose the morale bonus of him being near. Also, cav are prone to dieing on the charge. The ONLY exception to this is cataphracts.

Hope this helps

[Plant]

Listen to Varus21, he seems to have some idea of what he is talking about.

For Rexasaur:

2)Javelin units are not good as fodder. You might as well buy peasants for that purpose, which is an option for all factions.

6) No. If you have taken a lower mobility army, it follows that you have to play defensively. Blindly playing aggressively will simply mean that you will lose.
You say that you want to make the enemy to try to move to how you move. That sentence makes no sense.

[Rexasaur]

Listen to Varus21, he seems to have some idea of what he is talking about.

For Rexasaur:

2)Javelin units are not good as fodder. You might as well buy peasants for that purpose, which is an option for all factions.

6) No. If you have taken a lower mobility army, it follows that you have to play defensively. Blindly playing aggressively will simply mean that you will lose.
You say that you want to make the enemy to try to move to how you move. That sentence makes no sense.

Why take peasants who dish out little to no damage, when you can have javelins who actually do something to enemy archers/slingers/light cav?

And I mean that you want to make your enemy react to your movments. Always playing agressive will most of the time catch your opponent off guard, especially when they are more mobile. Usually, a mobile army will require micro management on a large scale. Of course, you can't win every battle playing agressive, but it helps to catch your opponent off guard. A lot of people are scared of a hored of phalanx pikemen running at you, even if they aren't the best troops

[Varus12]

Peasants are cheaper and have more men. Javelins are used sometimes as fodder, but experience teaches that peasants work better just because of number.

For 6), very often whoever controls the map will win the battle. Why? simply because of archers fight. If you control the whole field, you can easily stretch your archers line. The less lines archers units have the higher the chance they will beat another archer unit (its just how the game mechanics work). This is why beating skirmishing factions can eb hard because you have to try to control lots of terrain with slow units.

[Rexasaur]

I agree with Varus12 that map control is indeed a very important factor, but i digress, an agressive player with an infantry force far larger than their opponent, who has a large archer/missile cav force, will manage to take down some of the enemy units due to the act of suprise.

say a (CWB) Roman army with 10 cohorts of some kind, 4 praetorians and 6 archers face off against a (CWB) scthian army which consists of 4 axemen, 6 head hunting maidens, 2 noble archers, 6 archers and 2 noble cavalry. If the roman player played defensively, they would be picked off by the scthians who will surround and attack individual units one at a time, until the roman army remains a dead force. If the Roman player split his army into two groups of 5 cohorts, running them to surround the axemen, that would create a problem for the scythian player, but they would adapt and use their cav to help them out, plus be defensive with the 6 archers. If, in addition to this, the roman player separates his cav into three sections (2 with one cav, one woth two) and runs them off to the sides and centre, now the scythian player has to choose who to go for. Thus, in all likelyhood, going for the two cav unit with his maidens, or spliting them in two and so going for two. This will either lead at least one praetorian to charge the archers, to allow the Cohorts to get to the axemen and the archers.

Thus playing agressive is important.

[Varus12]

I agree with Varus12 that map control is indeed a very important factor, but i digress, an agressive player with an infantry force far larger than their opponent, who has a large archer/missile cav force, will manage to take down some of the enemy units due to the act of suprise.

say a (CWB) Roman army with 10 cohorts of some kind, 4 praetorians and 6 archers face off against a (CWB) scthian army which consists of 4 axemen, 6 head hunting maidens, 2 noble archers, 6 archers and 2 noble cavalry. If the roman player played defensively, they would be picked off by the scthians who will surround and attack individual units one at a time, until the roman army remains a dead force. If the Roman player split his army into two groups of 5 cohorts, running them to surround the axemen, that would create a problem for the scythian player, but they would adapt and use their cav to help them out, plus be defensive with the 6 archers. If, in addition to this, the roman player separates his cav into three sections (2 with one cav, one woth two) and runs them off to the sides and centre, now the scythian player has to choose who to go for. Thus, in all likelyhood, going for the two cav unit with his maidens, or spliting them in two and so going for two. This will either lead at least one praetorian to charge the archers, to allow the Cohorts to get to the axemen and the archers.

Thus playing agressive is important.

First of all this is a bad example. CWB are supposed to be played on 15k. So a roman army with so many expensive units cant be any good. Second take scythia vs rome as example is not a good idea either because everybody knows, Rome just has to take 6 praet cav gold/gold 2 legionnary cav g/g and rest archers and there is nothing scythia can do against it.

Let us say the rome player still goes for your weird army. Why would scythia waste money on axemen? You should rather spend them on wardogs and peasants and use them to harass and route rome's archers.
Third point, your roman army has NO light cav against a SKIRMISH faction. This is a very bad idea.
Fourth point, maidens are faster than praet cav and archers are much faster than heavy infantry. Unless scythia is braindead there is no way cohort can get to missiles units.

In final conclusion, even if you put two extremely good players against each other, your roman army would easily be crushed by a better scythia army than the one you proposed. This would also be very embarrassing for the Rome player considering that Scythia vs Rome is considered as a pointless match-up for the reason I gave at the beginning.

[Rexasaur]

First of all this is a bad example. CWB are supposed to be played on 15k. So a roman army with so many expensive units cant be any good. Second take scythia vs rome as example is not a good idea either because everybody knows, Rome just has to take 6 praet cav gold/gold 2 legionnary cav g/g and rest archers and there is nothing scythia can do against it.

Let us say the rome player still goes for your weird army. Why would scythia waste money on axemen? You should rather spend them on wardogs and peasants and use them to harass and route rome's archers.
Third point, your roman army has NO light cav against a SKIRMISH faction. This is a very bad idea.
Fourth point, maidens are faster than praet cav and archers are much faster than heavy infantry. Unless scythia is braindead there is no way cohort can get to missiles units.

In final conclusion, even if you put two extremely good players against each other, your roman army would easily be crushed by a better scythia army than the one you proposed. This would also be very embarrassing for the Rome player considering that Scythia vs Rome is considered as a pointless match-up for the reason I gave at the beginning.

Each to their own I guess. I'll keep winning via being an agressive player, and you keep denying that that is how you should play

[Plant]

Why take peasants who dish out little to no damage, when you can have javelins who actually do something to enemy archers/slingers/light cav?

And I mean that you want to make your enemy react to your movments. Always playing agressive will most of the time catch your opponent off guard, especially when they are more mobile. Usually, a mobile army will require micro management on a large scale. Of course, you can't win every battle playing agressive, but it helps to catch your opponent off guard. A lot of people are scared of a hored of phalanx pikemen running at you, even if they aren't the best troops

Jav men aren't going to do any cost effective damage to archers/slinger/light cav whatsoever. Peasants are cost effective at preventing movement and being cannon fodder. Jav men are not. Everything is a matter of cost effectiveness. In the end, unless you have some role that jav men can do more cost effectively than any other unit, it would be wiser to take that other unit, be it archers for ranged combat, light cav for skirmishing and peasants/light phalanx for prevent movement and acting as cannon fodder.

The only role I can envision that would be useful for javmen, is if other units are unavailable or perhaps as a combination of cannon fodder and range attack in a roman army. But velites/light auxilia are noteably more expensive than other javmen.

Each to their own I guess. I'll keep winning via being an agressive player, and you keep denying that that is how you should play

It is not a question of whether or not that you are capable of winning games, but a question of whether or not the advice you have given are any good.

Seeing as the level of opponents you are facing are " A lot of people are scared of a hored of phalanx pikemen running at you, even if they aren't the best troops", it is wise to assume that the level of opponents you are facing are of low quality themselves.

Especially since you have given out some extremely poor army and game play examples, I question whether you should be giving out advice to new players at all.

[Ngazi]

It seems to me jav infantry do higher dps but their small range and limited ammo means they are useless against archers.

[_TubbZ_]

General tips:

• Watch your replays and work out why you lost.
• Steal the enemies armies: straight after a game leave the lobby, create a custom game and use the preload saved armies thing to see what they had. Save it and use it against the faction you previously played as. Obviously if they were useless feel free to skip this step.
• Make a note of the units good players use, RTW has a lot of shoddy units that should be avoided. E.g. for Rome, everything but Urban Cohorts for inf.
• Alt attack with cataphracts, armour piercing FTW (I never knew this one when I first played ).
• don't upgrade chariots defence, they use HP and only have 1 defence point (e.g. default: 3 HP = 3 hits from anything that does more than 1 damage; w/ 3 shield: 3HP = 3 hits from anything that does more then 4 damage)
• Play people that are better than you and ask why you lost when you lose, most people are kind enough to tell you.
• Be open to playing the various rulesets that exist, for example 15K CWB has been around for ages, and that's probably for a good reason.
• Listen to Varus12; IIRC he's a somewhat average player but knows what he is talking about .

[daxypoo]

good things to learn as a rtw mp newbie

best way to learn fast is host a ton of 1v1 games with either 15k cwb normal; or 31k large (these are the most common games and will attract more consistency) and host on grassy flat grounds sun (most "straight up" settings)
after battles (tubbz)- watch replay (you have options to save at the "scoreboard" at the end of fight) and/or copy/save enemy armies
you will quickly learn the most common and efficient armies and factions

as a general rule of thumb- for mp versus competent players there are very specific armies and factions that counter your enemies set ups
exotic combinations and unit types rarely work although there is a time and place for nearly anything


basic tips with regard to pikes are to not forget to toggle off pike formation when you need to maneuver your army- a static army is a dead one
use guard on/off accordingly as well as backspace

play a hundred games and you'll get a decent lay of the land

[* Matolo Swazulu *]

Watch replays on YouTube... Like the Prince of Macedon or someone like that. The more you watch, the more you listen, the more you learn! At the end of the day, if you stick to one or two armies for a while, you quickly learn their strengths and weaknesses. So then move to a different pair of factions, and learn their strengths and weaknesses, so when you play against them, you already have some knowledge on that faction. It works for me anyway!!

[EdmireDragonbane]

as a guy who loves to use Equite Urban builds I can state this. Light Cav (No matter which) are the best cav in the game for players who like to make their opponent move their cav a bit.

[EdmireDragonbane]

I also recommend looking at video's of clannies (Moussolini, Varus, Zeke, Saint) Who are regarded as the kings of RTW..It helped me out. I also recommend KittySN on youtube, she has some crazy odd builds that players do not use that much. So if your into odd builds I recommend her channel!

[Lancy]

Yes, on low money light cavalry are an excellent choice. As archers are the most cost-effective unit having light cav helps you to destabilise the archer line, and clean then up when you're opponent isn't looking.

And as Edmire suggests videos featuring Moussolini, Zeke, Varus etc are most beneficial as they are some of the very top players.

Commentaries by Moussolini are an excellent source. Particularly his live play videos
http://www.youtube.com/user/ROMEMous...?feature=watch

Mythodea is another good commentator, clear and with good tactical knowledge. His Clan Community League videos are from a tournament featuring a lot of good players and match ups. Unfortunately most of his other RTW general videos are in Spanish (excellent if you can speak it though xD)
http://www.youtube.com/user/Afesin

Then there's Belle/KittySN as Edmire mentions. She's not a commentator and uses many odd builds but her games are live play which is itself beneficial as you can watch how she plays and uses her units. She can be a little overzealous at times, but she plays well and has rather swift micro.
http://www.youtube.com/user/KittySN?feature=

Alas the op is long gone but hopefully someone else will benefit. Btw the above largely relates to low money, ie. 15k cwb. The other main money is 31k large which Mousso has a few usual videos on.

Edit: Plant is another very experienced and well known clan player (well for anyone who started before 2011) who's commentaries may prove beneficial. Unfortunately they are little known
http://www.youtube.com/user/Plantissue

Saint's channel is also good. He has some live videos so you can see how he plays
http://www.youtube.com/user/disbandedsaint?feature=