The effectiveness of the Roman Formation

[SinerAthin]

So, Rome was pretty famous for their amazing formations, and most of their defeats were due to them being caught outside of their formations.

So I'm curious, how much will their formations effect the battle in terms of casualty/defense etc.

Say, if my Legionaires are in perfect formation and they face a barbarian charge head on, how many casualties will they take?

And historically, if the Barbarians charged headfirst into a Roman formation, how much damage did they really manage to do?


Or will formations not matter that much, and we will see more like how it plays out in earlier TW games, such as TW(units fighting each other, often 1vs1; stats, not formation being the deciding factor of battle).

[King Philip II]

As long as they keep their formation I'm happy. It would be great to see unit and legion formations being much more important though, but I doubt it.

[RGA]

In pitch battles, everyone used formations of various kinds. Barbarians did not fight as leaderless mob. And mind you, Roman formation evolved time to time and got more and more "barbaric". The first Roman armies fought in phalanx (though perhaps not as closely packed as the Greek ones) and got their bottom kicked not just once by Gallic wild frontal charge.

I would use the world "cohesion" instead of "formation". Losing cohesion often cost you a battle. And even a perfectly formed formation could lose cohesion after some "unforeseen contingencies", like the way Spartan phalanx was disrupted by its own (retreating) cavalry in the battle of Leuctra.

[Pour Some Sugar On Me]

Well I think if the formation stays tight, than I think that the Romans can defeat any kind of army, even those longlegged beserkers, we're all afraid of.

Oh one of the first things i'm going to test out is a full stack of cohorts vs a full stack of beserkers. I think my pc is going to explode