I liked this replay nevertheless because I think it shows that the engine can give you a feeling of a more realistic flow of battle, even though not everything looks or plays out correctly. What you see is 4 centuriae without auxiliaries engaged by some Gauls. The centuriae are drawn up very thin - the game mechanics don't really give you penalties for it if you don't stick to the arcadey "attritional combat"-idea. First, the gallic right "flank" (if you can call it such in this tiny skirmish) gives way to a spirited charge of the few supporting roman horsemen. Due to the new pursuit behaviour, the roman cavalry makes the Gauls pay some terrible death toll - until the gallic cavalry closed in and forced the romans back. Meanwhile, the lines exchange javelins. Ideally, this should add to the opponents fatigue, but it doesn't work like that unfortunately. What this actually does apart from morale-mali for being under fire is to help the AI not to engage too early, and, perhaps, to create a bit more tactical depth: the disruption caused by javelins could be used to create gaps for melee. But I would need to try that out and see if one can really exploit/use that. Other than that, it is purely aesthetical.
Encouraged by the push back of the Gauls on the right flank, the romans advance to close combat. But, against all expectations, the gallic battle line, having just beheld the slaughter on their right, doesn't give way yet. It's the romans who finally have to break off ( I hope it was because of the horrible gap in my center - alignment to only one opposing unit is a weakpoint of units with a large front; they tend to expose their flanks whenever they align to an enemy...) and retreat to prepare another charge. However, the retreat looked okay in the beginning, but turned out very wrong. Even though the Gauls did not really keep on the romans' heels (well, they at least had one centuria as reserve to threaten any exhausted pursuer with a counter charge), some gallic horsemen kept up the pressure, picking off stragglers. The Romans never really managed to form up again, harrassed by javelins (giving morale mali, disordering the unit so that it always need to keep moving and therefore doesn't recover fatigue) and the cavalry (which causes fear and – even though it doesn't inflict too many causalties – also helped to keep the romans engaged at all times, also preventing them from recovering fatigue). Even though I gave the Romans the ability "fatigue-resistant" to represent their superior discipline, they couldn't stand the pressure. I think that this episode was really quite realistic. Under constant harassment, the romans simply couldn't form up anymore. Watching this replay, if I was a soldier, I would always, always, always try to stick with my men. Get isolated and you're likely to be killed. I wonder if more skirmishers for the Romans would have made a difference and would have enabled them to reform.
Help needed: How to identify an animation?
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