Effectiveness of testudo?

[jamreal18]

Testudo should be able to deflect arrows or missiles but weak when charged.
But in game, its like nothing...

Rome 1 - testudo is covered in 3 sides and on top, meaning archers cant make casualties enough to break or rout that unit. You will order your archers to stop firing when a unit form a testudo because it will give them defense bonus. "Clever Romans". You'll have to maneuver your archers to their back to cause damage.

Rome 2 - testudo is covered in front and top only. Archers can still cause damage to testudo. Even though a legion form testudo, archers can still continue firing at them disregarding testudo. Who cares if they form testudo, you can still rout or deplete them. If you want more casualties, move your archers slightly to the side and continue firing. They are not protected. "Poor Romans". No more maneuver is needed.

In battle of carrhae, parthians needed to charge legions when they form testudo because arrows were almost useless against testudo.

Hope CA fix testudo.

P.S.

Also phalanx.....

Testudo and phalanx are the top reason why i love roman era....

[Mangalore]

...

In battle of carrhae, parthians need to charge legions when they form testudo because arrows were almost useless against testudo.

...

game mechanics aside what you describe was the whole point of Parthian battle tactics, they didn't do this because the Romans formed testudo, it is the whole point of having heavily armored cavalry and a large number of horse archers. The Roman reports were that the damn arrows could pierce shields so the arrows weren't useless at all, at the same time they were not expected to mow down the enemy, they were meant to make them weak to cavalry attacks.

[Octavius Vatco]

That is also why i dont understand all the ads about better tactical and strategic challenges in the game, because the testudo and it's effectiveness was a great part of that. So much for CA's advertising...

[SirRobin]

I guess it would be more fun to just buy a big box of tin soldiers and pretend they are fighting..

[Humble Warrior]

I guess it would be more fun to just buy a big box of tin soldiers and pretend they are fighting..

Y`know this is actually tempting. I had more fun playing with my thousands of toy plastic soldiers as a kid than I`m having with RTW2 at present.

Maybe I`ll buy a whole pack and just stand them by my chess board for old time`s sake.

Anyway, when I first saw RTW2s testudo I thought `What`s going on here? They don`t look right.`

[Emperor Arcturus Mengsk]

Am I the only one who finds BAI ranged units a piece of cake to deal with with just 1 unit of cavalry?

[Arbolianus]

In battle of carrhae, parthians needed to charge legions when they form testudo because arrows were almost useless against testudo.

That's not really the point. A legion could try to withstand a charge by heavy cavalry by adopting a loose formation and bracing, or it could try to withstand arrow fire by making a testudo. It couldn't do both at once, and at Carrhae that's exactly what the Romans were forced to attempt to do. Without enough cavalry to deal with the Parthian horse archers, the Romans could do nothing apart from stand their ground and wait to be shot or crushed, and that's why they lost so decisively.

[Naked Emperor]

The problem with testudo is the ap value of missiles. Ap damage disregards armor entirely so even though testudo gives huge bonus to armor the ap damage is always applied.

I'm at work and dont have the game so I'll crunch some theoretical numbers.
Lets say that a testuda with 250 armor gets hit by a volley of 100 arrows that do 25 dmg, 5 of that are ap dmg.
That means 5*100=500 dmg are applied automatically plus there is an armor roll for each arrow for the rest of the damage.
Armor roll is 1-250 for each arrow and all that roll under 20 take dmg as the margin they fail by. So statisticly 20/250=0,08 or 8% should fail takin additional on avg around10 dmg each. So 8*10=80 so the unit would take 580 in total dmg most from the ap damage or enoug to kill around 11 men with 50hp and wound one by 30hp, of course this is spread among those 100 who got hit so you wont see the effects until after few volleys of arrow fire