"Slow" battles?

[Splatterfox]

Hey guys,

I played RS a rather long time ago but stopped. Now I played Rome vanilla again and came back to RS and it feels like a new game again (awesome graphics by the way!).
But I have a question regarding the battles: I play as Spartans again, my favorite faction with Rome, and all the battles, no matte how many units, seem to take ages. While in vanilla Rome a melee fight between two troops is over, in RS by the same time around ~20-30 units seem to die. Of course, it may be more realistic, but when it comes to "quick battles" (small armies with nearly the same unit types, but I don't want to auto-resolve them) even they take a long time. My usual move when facing the Greek hoplites, which I have to face mainly in Spartan campaign, is to involve them into fight with mine. Then, using other spearmen/infantry or cavalry to fall in their backs/sides. While in vanilla this leads to a great effect (but still not overpowered) in RS it doesn't take that more casualties than frontal fight.

So, is the main reason for this that battles between Greece/Macedon/Sparta etc. will often result in battles with high armored tanks (in some cases with few or no missiles/cavalry) or is this the general way fights in RS run? I didn't make much experience with other factions so far.
Second, is the "Arcade" setting recommended to bring the game a bit more back to the vanilla standard in those topics? I never tried it and usually want to stay away from it, since I want more strategy than pure action, but in RS sometimes its kind of too slow for me.

Hope you know what I mean
regards,
Fox

[ur-Lord Tedric]

The battles are certainly designed to 'last longer', both to make them more meaningful and, more importantly, allow decent and fairly realistic tactics to play a serious part. I have fought a lot of battles in testing - I even fight the 1 vs 3 battles. However, even 20 vs 20 mostly last only about 20 mins, so it's not that long.

There is most definitely an 'issue' for all those who like the more entertainment-oriented 'games' of this century. To some extent RSII's version of RTW harks back to a slightly different approach - that of the meaningful and visual simulations of the table-top variety of figure wargaming where all the battles are linked together in a large and complex campaign setting. This is indeed why I love it so. What then could take days and weeks can now, with the PC, be done in hours and days.

However, that certainly does mean that I am quite comfortable with playing a Roman campaign for a whole year or longer at 10hrs per week. That might not be to everyone's tastes. With ignoring many aspects and auto-resolving, that can be shortened significantly however, but (almost) all play-styles are catered for.

I will assure you, overall, however - that the battles in RSII are the most meaningful and 'realistic' and a great simulation (given the constraints) that I have ever come across.

[Splatterfox]

Thanks for your answer. In my opinion battles are only meaningful if the AI doesn't command endless troops. Meaningful means to me, that if I crush an army of about 2000 men I have done great (depending on the size of the enemy empire) damage to my enemy. In Rome vanilla I never got that feeling, I just slaughtered, slaughtered, slaughtered thousands of troops but every turn it seemed that double the amount comes back, which pissed me off a bit.
Thats really a good aspect of RS2, because I don't get this feeling again at the moment. But its mostly that phalanx/phalanx or spearmen/spearmen battles which are just kind of slowly. Even though I send hundred cavalry units in the back of them they seem to brake and ride into them very slowly, doing (often) a ridicoulously small amount of damage.
Nontheless, a great mod of course

[Josura]

Maybe try different cavalry unit (if you can afford something with stronger charge), or try to flank enemy phalanx with slingers - anything hit by them from flank/back falls very quickly.
Also if your charge doesnt work, try to charge from slightly longer distance.
Or, if you really dont like these slow battles, try other nations (something with good and fast AP units/something with cataphracts :-) ). Battles with greco armies tend to be longer than battles with barbarians for me.

Good luck! :-)

[Phaex]

You can also use "frightens the enemy" units to try to get them to crack as well. Fire fire arrows into the melee, breaking them faster will negate any friendly fire usually (plus, screw your men, you are their GOD!!!). As Josura said, charge values matter. Even with all this, max speed is your best friend. Oh, and don't forget if formations seem to get bogged down to just have your men start running through the enemy then attack again. Helps with battle length sometimes even if it kills more of your men.

Final rule from the mouth of Zapp Brannigan: "You see, Killbots have a preset kill limit. Knowing their weakness, I sent wave after wave of my own men at them, until they reached their limit and shutdown. Kif, show them the medal I won."

[Splatterfox]

Yeah, but those a**es of hoplites seem to have armors of diamond. Even with 5 troops of archers constantly firering towards them when they reach me they lost about ~10 men

Anyway, I'll go on now and don't care about this anymore. Killing all of my enemies with highspeed!!!!!!!

[Crymson]

You won't find vanilla-speed battles in any of the three major mods. The rapidity with which units routed in vanilla was beyond absurd. My critical battle with the forces of the Senate, for example, lasted for about 30 seconds after the two armies made contact. Suddenly, the supposedly elite forces of the SPQR were running away like startled sheep. Not fun.