Battle Honors and Awards

**Kenny Works** · October 18, 2013, 10:21 AM

Were the battle honors and awards removed? The silver spear and so on for the Romans? I'm playing 2.6 on hard/hard and I've won a number of battles but with no awards. I'm assuming they're harder to get, but what is the criteria, if anyone knows? I fight most of my battles on the BM, and only auto-resolve if the odds are heavily in my favor. Thanks for any info.

**High Fist** · October 18, 2013, 11:03 AM

Tend to get them a lot in heroic victories, though I'm not sure if that's completely necessary. I've gotten plenty.

**Zydrius** · October 18, 2013, 11:23 AM

Battle awards for romans still exist. And you even can get few or several of them in one battle! That sounds too much, but sometimes it happens.

**High Fist** · October 18, 2013, 12:42 PM

You can also get them in "ranks", or they stack on top of one another. For instance, there's the Hasta Pura, then the II Hasta Pura and so on.

**Sertorio** · October 18, 2013, 02:55 PM

You tend to see them more on autoresolve battles. They do exist.

**Leeham991** · October 18, 2013, 06:48 PM

Almost all of my experienced commanders have 2 of at least 1 award. There are even a few governors with no real stand out traits which also have 1 or 2 though...

Still, maybe the traits are tweaked from what you're used to? Thank god you haven't got 40 generals called something 'the coward' like in the last version :L

**ur-Lord Tedric** · October 19, 2013, 06:48 AM

A lot of it is down to the army numbers fielded. If you win lots of battles because/as your armies are bigger - then there's little to award honours for.

Heroic victories - that's the ticket!

**Kenny Works** · October 19, 2013, 02:28 PM

Originally Posted by ur-Lord Tedric

A lot of it is down to the army numbers fielded. If you win lots of battles because/as your armies are bigger - then there's little to award honours for.

Heroic victories - that's the ticket!

Interesting. Well, I haven't had a lot of those yet playing as Rome.

I had this idea that it wasn't fair to the AI for me to build foundries in every city so I can spam experienced, well-equipped armies. So I roleplayed a bit. My units were recruited "raw" and as they gained experience from fighting, they would also get better equipment. One chevron of experience would allow them an armor upgrade. It sounded good . . . in theory.

Then theory met the battlefield. In order to win at all with untrained and originally equipped units, I had to outnumber the enemy by almost two to one. One army of allied cohorts was cut to shreds by Boii. And I do mean cut to shreds - a single unit of Boii Champions routed almost three cohorts of allied heavy infantry.

On the other hand, Polybian cohorts recruited in Rome with a foundry cut through the enemy like a meat shredder. I have two armies or legions of those - and this morning I saw my first "honors". I also noticed the AI is producing good stacks of well-equipped armies, so I might abandon this idea. It seems RSII was balanced with these armor/experience upgrades in mind.

**CatoTheYounger** · October 19, 2013, 10:47 PM

I seem to get them when i send my General in the fray more. Scipio the Younger and Marcellus i send in the battle during the mid late section of battles and they seem to get these awards alot. Scipio has just about all of them.

Funny side note. After an endless campagin to regain Saguntum Publius Scipio fought off Reinforcements of superior numbers for three straight turns from outside while trying to capture the city. He finaly beat off the last group and the city was all but empty. Between turns an Earhtquake killed Publius and destroyed most of his army to one man per unit. Fortunately Scipio Africanus was in a fort with reinforcements who now became the main army and captured the city that turn. He killed Hasdrubal in head to head coimbat and got three awards after the battle.

**High Fist** · October 20, 2013, 02:06 PM

Originally Posted by CatoTheYounger

Between turns an Earhtquake killed Publius and destroyed most of his army to one man per unit.

*Wince. I remember an earthquake actually happened in Sagunton for me too, near the start of my campaign in Iberia. I nearly cried when I realised no one was hurt.

**dvk901** · October 21, 2013, 09:42 AM

The way the triggers work for these awards is this:

Auto-resolved battles can result in a reward, but in such battles the General never fights, and the award chance is very low regardless of the type of battle. This was done so that people who like to auto-resolve at least have a chance at getting the rewards.

In Battlefield battles, the chances are much higher...but the General MUST fight in the battle. That's the only way to differentiate between a fought or auto-resolved battle. So if your General is not getting rewards in fought battles, it's probably because he's not fighting in them.

**Kenny Works** · October 21, 2013, 12:01 PM

Originally Posted by dvk901

The way the triggers work for these awards is this:

Auto-resolved battles can result in a reward, but in such battles the General never fights, and the award chance is very low regardless of the type of battle. This was done so that people who like to auto-resolve at least have a chance at getting the rewards.

In Battlefield battles, the chances are much higher...but the General MUST fight in the battle. That's the only way to differentiate between a fought or auto-resolved battle. So if your General is not getting rewards in fought battles, it's probably because he's not fighting in them.

When you say fight, do you mean the general actually has to engage enemy troops? Mine usually do, but just making sure. Also, if you have two generals in the battle, is there any chance that the second general will pick up any traits? I'd guess no, but I keep reading that people have an extra general and I can't really see any other reason for it.

I did a test with auto-resolve and I did pick up a few awards where I wasn't getting them before. In fact, one of my generals got an award for fighting a small stack of rebels with a full legion army! My generals usually do "kill" a few of the enemy by running them down towards the end of the battle. This habit goes back to the original RomeTW game where, if they didn't do that, they received negative traits. However, I don't generally risk my generals by using them as a cavalry unit. I keep them back behind the line until I'm sure the enemy is defeated.

Finally, now that I've started fighting a number of factions at once, I'm getting more heroic victories and I'm starting to see the awards more. Auto-resolve seems to give out more, but in eight or nine heroic victories, I've seen maybe 3 examples of awards.

**dvk901** · October 21, 2013, 11:55 PM

Hmm...I haven't really noticed a big disparity between auto-resolve and fighting the battles. And yes, the general must actually kill some men.

**Kenny Works** · October 22, 2013, 11:08 AM

Originally Posted by dvk901

Hmm...I haven't really noticed a big disparity between auto-resolve and fighting the battles. And yes, the general must actually kill some men.

Okay, this is funny - last night I had a battle involving 1 Germanica right after the reforms. I had just recruited the first cohort and eight regular cohorts, but had to rush them to the front before the rest of the legion was completed because I was feeling the press from the Gauls.

My half stack attacks a similar sized group of Gauls, but they exit the field without fighting. My brand new general gets an award and a posting!

Friends in Rome, obviously.

So yeah, I'm seeing more after the reforms.

One thing is my units are better and they have greater sticking power. The 7th legion (can't remember it's name) is posted by Salona and they've fought an army of Boii every turn for the last four of five turns. Now every win is a heroic victory and I'm switching generals so they can get awards.

**SD_Man** · October 22, 2013, 03:05 PM

Originally Posted by dvk901

Hmm...I haven't really noticed a big disparity between auto-resolve and fighting the battles. And yes, the general must actually kill some men.

What's the most recommended way for generals to get kills. Do I just charge him straight ahead and pray to god that he doesnt die the moment his horse touches the enemy

(No lie, I lost my general simply by just charging him into the backof a unit). Or can I just "rally charge" and wait for the little men to come strolling by. I needz to know

**Kenny Works** · October 22, 2013, 04:31 PM

Originally Posted by SD_Man

What's the most recommended way for generals to get kills. Do I just charge him straight ahead and pray to god that he doesnt die the moment his horse touches the enemy

(No lie, I lost my general simply by just charging him into the backof a unit). Or can I just "rally charge" and wait for the little men to come strolling by. I needz to know

The best way for a general to get kills is to send them to chase down routing units. Routing units will not fight back so there's little danger of your general being killed. And the kills count towards an experience improvement.

The second best way is to send them into the rear or the flank of another unit, preferably not spearmen. Spearmen will cut your cavalry to pieces in seconds. Usually, tho, I don't use my general for that because they do it so poorly and they die so quickly. But, hey, if everyone else is dying, what do you do?

I find general's units to be like free cavalry, so I prefer to role-play a tad and just use them as they were used: to command units and only attack the enemy in extreme circumstances.

Edit: This habit goes back to RTW where cav was overpowered. I do use them to chase down troops in almost every battle. And I'm getting quite a number of awards now that I have legion cohorts and they're cutting through the Gauls.