42 units against Epirus 24 units and i lost?

[unmerged(564430)]

Can somebody tell me what iam doing wrong?

Yesterday i send a 42 unit force, with good numbers of heavy infantry, velites and bowman to Epirus to finish them of, but i lost the battle against his 24 unit force.

My commander was high grade(8) and i should win this only by numbers.

Any ideas?

Thanks guys.

 

[tuareg109]

velites

Well they won't do you any good, no wonder you lost.
I'm hoping they were more than 50% of your army. If not, there are serious issues in your military system.
Low discipline, low morale, etc.
I'm assuming you're Rome, Epirus's commander was probably Pyrrhus (9-star), and Epirus's army is always a mix of heavy infantry, bowmen, and both heavy and archer cavalry. It's no wonder you lost, bringing velites to a battle like that.
You might have also made the mistake of landing your men right in the province, giving them a negative from both terrain, and amphibious landing. Try getting military access and landing them in a country next to Epirus.

Hover over the troops' icons to see their type, their bonuses due to omens, laws, events, etc., and their effectiveness against all other types of troops. Velites are 100% effective against velites, and less than 100% against everything else (very bad, they're the worst troop type, fit only for arrow fodder and only an option when you have no money); every other troop type (heavy infantry, cavalry, elephants, etc.) has a bonus (more than 100% effectiveness) against 1 or more of the other types.

A little story related to this:
My first ever game was as Sparta. I took a National Idea that increases heavy infantry discipline by 10%, and enacted a Law that increases heavy infantry discipline by 20%. My cash and force limits only enabled me to have 2,000 men, and Aetolian League suddenly attacked me...with 13,000! I thought I was done for, but I didn't ragequit. I put my 7-star king in command and waited for the inevitable.
The battle was amazing. Every day I'd lose 5 men, the enemy would lose 500. And that's when I learned that a general's stars, the terrain, troop type, and morale and discipline MATTER. This isn't CK2.

 

[riknap]

And that's when I learned that a general's stars, the terrain, troop type, and morale and discipline MATTER. This isn't CK2.

:rofl::rofl::rofl:
though to be fair, it's entirely possible to make the Martial skill, terrain, troop type, and morale in CK2 matter the same way as with EU:Rome simply by both ramping up the percentage effects of the first two and lowering base values of the last two so that bonus effects matter even more (though I think I can kinda understand why vanilla has toned them down).

still, that battle of yours would have made one hell of an awesome story and AAR

 

[tuareg109]

still, that battle of yours would have made one hell of an awesome story and AAR

The whole campaign would've made for a great AAR.
Backwards, rustic Sparta conquering Greece and the Aegean coast of Asia? What's next, Dacia defeating Macedonia in a war?

 

[fmurciap]

Which province are you attacking from? Only coming from Macedonia or Taulantia you avoid the river-crossing penalty. And attacking from the sea is only a messy way of coping with your excess in military spending. So what should you do? First of all: a long battle line (the only use for velites) is useful only if you have it topped on both sides with a)horse archers, to kill the enemy Heavy Infantry and b) Heavy Cavalry to protect the former from enemy cavalry. Second: the main killing is made by your bowmen, but only if they are in the back line, protected by infantry. For this you need HI. Velites will only delay the unavoidable. Other factors: martial skill of the generals, differences in moral of the troops, dice rolls (three bad rounds in a row and you are doomed). And last but not least: have a look to the diplomatic screen. What are their NI? If Civic Duty is among them, they have a 50% defensive bonus.

 

[Leon_Aditzu]

Can somebody tell me what iam doing wrong?

Yesterday i send a 42 unit force, with good numbers of heavy infantry, velites and bowman to Epirus to finish them of, but i lost the battle against his 24 unit force.

My commander was high grade(8) and i should win this only by numbers.

Any ideas?

Thanks guys.

Most realistic Pyrrhic war, don't worry, you will win the war but with huge manpower cost

 

[Pugmak]

Heh.

Thanks for that info on velites. I've had Rome:Total War on the brain when constructing my armies. Love my velites in RTW. Guess I gotta unlove them for EUR.

 

[unmerged(378968)]

Sorry for partially hijacking this thread, but I have a twofold question which ist at least half touching the issues discussed above:

A) on fighting forces:

So if I get it right from the posts above, the most efficient fighting force would be a battle line of heavy infantry backed up by the same amount of bowmen in the second line and cavalry with horse archers support on the flanks?

Does this only be true if your infantry/bow double line is as long or longer than the enemy line?

What if your flanking cav/ha units stands against enemy HI units (because of them fielding slightly more troops than me)?

B) On taking aggressive/offensive actions against a slightly more powerful nation (which is also a good part of why I'd like to know the answers to A)) ;-) :

I am just before turning against the monsterous blob of the antigonid kingdom ruling Greece, southern balkans, Asia's mediteranean coast regions and Egypt while I'm just in control of Italy, Africa, Numidia, all of Hispania and Gaul as well as the northern balkans regions and am looking for some tactical advice against bigger foe. My battle plan so far would be to block the straight between Asia & Europe with my superior navy to keep their many force in Asia or at least force them to march all way round the black sea and through some barbaric terretories, stand my ground in Africa and take as many of their Greek provinces as I can lay my hand upon before negotiating a hopefully decisive first peace treaty - enabling me to cut them down in the next wars with more ease.

Please advice

Edit: playing the republic of Rome, of course, which I forgot to mention

 

[fmurciap]

Sorry for partially hijacking this thread, but I have a twofold question which ist at least half touching the issues discussed above:

A) on fighting forces:

So if I get it right from the posts above, the most efficient fighting force would be a battle line of heavy infantry backed up by the same amount of bowmen in the second line and cavalry with horse archers support on the flanks?

Does this only be true if your infantry/bow double line is as long or longer than the enemy line?

What if your flanking cav/ha units stands against enemy HI units (because of them fielding slightly more troops than me)?

About the most efficient deployment, basically you're right. You have to consider, though, that the front line of HI will suffer loses during the battle, but the back line of bowmen won't. So, if the two lines are of the same length, the destroyed HI unit will be replaced by archers, and that is a very weak point in your battle line. To avoid this, you have to deploy more HI than archers, but not much more. Experts advice ranges for a HI/A relationship of 2:1 to 5:3 or 5:4, depending on the HI losses expected. This way, the HI line manages the losses by shortening the line instead of using the back archers. The principle is that the front line CANNOT be shorter than the back line.
As for the general length, the HA will fight very efficiently against HI, but the cavalry will not. You need them to protect the HA against enemy cavalry (a rock-paper-scissors game).
If your main force is, as usual with Roman Republic, the HI, your best option, specially against superior forces, is fighting defensive battles in a suitable terrain, preferably behind a river.

B) On taking aggressive/offensive actions against a slightly more powerful nation (which is also a good part of why I'd like to know the answers to A)) ;-) :

I am just before turning against the monsterous blob of the antigonid kingdom ruling Greece, southern balkans, Asia's mediteranean coast regions and Egypt while I'm just in control of Italy, Africa, Numidia, all of Hispania and Gaul as well as the northern balkans regions and am looking for some tactical advice against bigger foe. My battle plan so far would be to block the straight between Asia & Europe with my superior navy to keep their many force in Asia or at least force them to march all way round the black sea and through some barbaric terretories, stand my ground in Africa and take as many of their Greek provinces as I can lay my hand upon before negotiating a hopefully decisive first peace treaty - enabling me to cut them down in the next wars with more ease.

Please advice

Edit: playing the republic of Rome, of course, which I forgot to mention

A lot of 'ifs'. Are you holding Thrace? Are their forces in Greece weak or strong? How stronger is your navy? If you hold Thrace, you have at least two big armies, and there is none of the typical seleucid stack of doom in Greece, your best option is to deploy the biggest one in Thrace, letting the oncoming armies to try crossing the straits. Use the other(s) to destroy the seleucid power in Greece. If your navy is so superior, it will be used at its best by preventing the seleucids to send reinforcements to Greece by sea, destroying them while still on board.
Be aware yours is not an easy task at all. Seleucid and egyptians have the advantage of being monarchies, so they can make use of any high martial character just out of the kindergarten, while you have to wait for the roman suitable candidates to climb the high steps of the cursus honorum.

 

[unmerged(378968)]

thx for your answer!

based on this, I will aim my main force against Thrace and use my fleet to kill off any Antigonid ship in sight. Hopefully the Seleucids (still holding the inner Asian provinces), which have taken some beating in their last war against the Antigonids will try to seize the opportunity to backstab the Antigonids or at least stay neutral, Greek or not.

As far as I could scout, the Antigonid army in Greece is relatively small and will mostly rely on their Spartan allies, which will give one or two of my armies something to think about, but that will be mostly seek and destroy duty.

For my naval presence, I'm pretty sure to have absolute superiority, for a decade ago I had round about 100 ships which was considered 20% less than the Antigonid navy. This issue was fixed by half a year's output from my ship producing provinces, and I haven'T really stopped building since then, now fielding a little less then 300 vessels. As they were fighting the Seleucids during the same time, I'd bet my republic on it that they had better use for their money and building capacities than to build ships. I guess my best hope to further improve my chances would be to localise a nice fat troop carrying fleet of their's and send them to Neptun's loving arms.

The issue with the generals, well, yes, that will remain an issue, but I have 3 relativly young martial skill 9er generals waiting with short above 20k men at their northern border and 2 more loyal (but rather unskilled) generals in command of 2 reserve-and-besieging forces of the same force right behind them - as long as the war is over within 20 years and my generals keep themselves from being killed, I guess I at least stand a chance.

 

[fmurciap]

thx for your answer!

based on this, I will aim my main force against Thrace and use my fleet to kill off any Antigonid ship in sight. Hopefully the Seleucids (still holding the inner Asian provinces), which have taken some beating in their last war against the Antigonids will try to seize the opportunity to backstab the Antigonids or at least stay neutral, Greek or not.

Speaking of backstabbing, why don´t you wait for the next war between them and the seleucids and attack when most of the antigonid army is occupied in their far east?

 

[unmerged(378968)]

well... now as you say it, it sounds like if should give that a try

 

[fmurciap]

By the way, how could the macedonians become such a superpower? In my experience, they are a suitable faction to play as human, but as AI they usually end swallowed either by the romans or by the seleucids. And the struggle for dominion in the east is a seleucid-egyptian matter.

 

[Pacius Ferox]

I've had bad experiences about the Macedonian armies, they do have higher tech level than Romans - like they should. Them controlling the whole Greece... don't let it happen. You must just kill them with attrition, using the Roman surplus manpower.

 

[unmerged(378968)]

well, maybe that's the time to mention that I'm playing Epigoni Mod startdate "Basileus" - Those Antigonids were pretty strong from the start and have grown even stronger as I did not much to keep them at bay from early on - I rather destroyed Carthage and conquered the whole western/northern part of the map instead. In the nord, there is only the British Isle and Germania east of the Rhine which is not speaking latin, but my eastern border is Italy / Illyria. In the west, and the western part of northern Africa there is nothing more to liberate / pacify - everything is clean and neat.

Speaking of Tech, well, after my rather aggressive expansion politics, I'm pretty much at the southern end of the Tech race

 

[tuareg109]

they do have higher tech level than Romans - like they should

Eh...I'm not so sure about that.

 

[Pacius Ferox]

Eh...I'm not so sure about that.

How come? It's little more than 50 years of the conquests of Alexander. Romans are still a bunch of Etruscans Latins and Sabellic people known more of their stubbornness than brains - learned the hard way by Hannibal and it's not yet the time of military reforms of Marius.

 

[tuareg109]

How come? It's little more than 50 years of the conquests of Alexander. Romans are still a bunch of Etruscans Latins and Sabellic people known more of their stubbornness than brains - learned the hard way by Hannibal and it's not yet the time of military reforms of Marius.

The Roman state abandoned the phalanx formation during the course of the Samnite Wars and adopted the more flexible maniple formation.
This formation is certainly more high-tech than the phalanx; the soldiers don't have to keep perfect formation, the men don't have to carry very long, heavy pikes, and it is quite stable even on broken, uneven ground (over which the phalanx falls apart).
As for alleged Macedonian superiority, the conquests of Alexander are just that, the Conquests of Alexander. Aside from Alexander (and his father, Philip), the Macedonians didn't have much over their enemies except a toughness and a disregard for nobility.
The Romans had the tech superiority; that is how their defeat of the Macedonians was so laughably easy in every single Macedonian War.

 

[Pacius Ferox]

The Roman state abandoned the phalanx formation during the course of the Samnite Wars and adopted the more flexible maniple formation.
This formation is certainly more high-tech than the phalanx; the soldiers don't have to keep perfect formation, the men don't have to carry very long, heavy pikes, and it is quite stable even on broken, uneven ground (over which the phalanx falls apart).
As for alleged Macedonian superiority, the conquests of Alexander are just that, the Conquests of Alexander. Aside from Alexander (and his father, Philip), the Macedonians didn't have much over their enemies except a toughness and a disregard for nobility.
The Romans had the tech superiority; that is how their defeat of the Macedonians was so laughably easy in every single Macedonian War.

Samnite Wars were far beyond in history, and the Roman phalanx and the Macedonian phalanx are entirely different things. And Macedonians didn't renovate their army? That's hardly true, Phalanx would easily defend the mountain passes. Romans were allied to the Aetolian league and they didn't succesfully fight Macedonians until the end of Punic Wars and, only after their experiences in the wars against Carthago. This aspect has been faithfully reproduced in the game.

I would never say Romans had any kind of technical superiority over Greeks. Remember Syracuse? Romans just couldn't take the city because of Archimedes' designs, they had to attack during a religious festival. Syracuse and Sicily however are too easy to conquer in the current game.

 

[tuareg109]

Samnite Wars were far beyond in history, and the Roman phalanx and the Macedonian phalanx are entirely different things. And Macedonians didn't renovate their army? That's hardly true, Phalanx would easily defend the mountain passes. Romans were allied to the Aetolian league and they didn't succesfully fight Macedonians until the end of Punic Wars and, only after their experiences in the wars against Carthago. This aspect has been faithfully reproduced in the game.

I would never say Romans had any kind of technical superiority over Greeks. Remember Syracuse? Romans just couldn't take the city because of Archimedes' designs, they had to attack during a religious festival. Syracuse and Sicily however are too easy to conquer in the current game.

The maniple system came into Roman use around 315 BC, during the Samnite Wars (343 to 290 BC) FAR before the Macedonian Wars (214 to 188 BC), so you're wrong there. You're right about the phalanx dominating in mountain passes and tight spaces, but all Rome would have to do (in real life) is to sail around Greece with the help of their Aetolian allies and invade the broad plains of Greek Macedonia and the plateau of Larissa. With no harvest of their own, and only barbarians to buy from (and only hostile, tribal land to transport the grain through), and no available money through taxation of the rich ports of the Aegean, the Macedonian army and government would fall apart through starvation.

You're completely right about Syracuse, but that's just one city, one example, whose walls are famed and celebrated for being the toughest in the ancient world. It took my Dux of Sicily the entire course of my Punic War (about 4 years) to finish that siege!

As for Rome not being able to succeed against Macedonia until after the Punic Wars, that is correct too. Rome didn't have the size, control over its territories, or anywhere NEAR domination of its seas to succeed against Carthage. However, this isn't a failure in tech; it is simply a limitation of the Rome's size, position, and situation before the Punic Wars. OPM Ansbach can't take on Hapsburg Spain in EU3 either, despite its massive tech advantages.