full stack of principes, triarii, and hastati no match for short swordsmen and slingers?

[GIJeff]

I am playing as rome obviously and am at war with one of the gallic tribes. I advanced two full stack armies with about 1/3 heavy troops mixed with hastati and a few skirmishers.

When they advanced two full stack armies of nothing but short swordsmen and slingers the army slider was about 3/4 in their favor and I got rocked....

In short, what the hell?! How are these troops more than a match for my professional (and expensive) Roman troops?

P.S. I am playing on legendary but that should not affect the force strength bar right? How are these troops more powerful than mine?

[CHE]

Originally posted by GIJeff:

I am playing as rome obviously and am at war with one of the gallic tribes. I advanced two full stack armies with about 1/3 heavy troops mixed with hastati and a few skirmishers.

When they advanced two full stack armies of nothing but short swordsmen and slingers the army slider was about 3/4 in their favor and I got rocked....

In short, what the hell?! How are these troops more than a match for my professional (and expensive) Roman troops?

P.S. I am playing on legendary but that should not affect the force strength bar right? How are these troops more powerful than mine?

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If you're up against slingers, then I suggest you bring a larger number of slingers and/or archers, and/or use cavalry to chase away and rout their slingers. However, if their infantry have missile weapons, too, then I suggest you keep your cavalry away from those infantry until those infantry are in melee combat - otherwise their infantry will throw so many missiles that they will wipe out your cavalry.

[GIJeff]

Thank you for your reply. I realized that enemy troops got a morale bonus but I did not realize they also got a plus 7 bonus to their attack rating. Still, that bonus apparently makes short swordsman more powerful than Principes and triarii?

[Salty Nobody]

The base stats on Short swords are almost exactly on par (and actually costs more) with Hastati, so it makes sense for Hastati to break even or lose to them depending on how the Hastati and Short Swords are used. As to your better troops, short swords can beat them if they are charging (barbarians get a hefty charge bonus that increases their melee attack and melee damage) or if they outnumber you. Charging stationary Hastati with 19 charge bonus Short Swords would be overwhelming.

You haven't been playing very long so you probably don't do much counter-charging yet. Now would be a good time to start, Romans get a charge bonus too and they need it to hold their own against charging barbarians. The only units that you maybe (not all the time even with them) want to just let sit there and be charged are elite hoplite units with the expert charge defence trait, which Rome does not have.

You are also on legendary where the AI cheats a bit with stats, so ofc you are going to have a hard time. Keep at it, turn the useless formation attack off so your units can flank the unit they are attacking, and eventually you will get the hang of it. My main tip to overcome your problem: lose the weak Hatsati units and bring full stacks of principles. Or keep the weak Hastatii units and bring THREE stacks of your own. They key to defeating a legendary AI is to either outnumber them or have lots of vastly superior units than them. Your heavy infantry are superior but not vastly so and you don't have enough of them if you are getting wrecked like that.

I'm going to link the stats for the relevant units. The best way to quickly compare different units is by their cost. Some units are underpowered or overpowered, but the cost gives you a general idea of how a certain unit should perform agaisnt all other units.

Short Swords
http://www.honga.net/totalwar/rome2/unit.php?l=en&v=rome2&f=rom_nori&u=Cel_Short_Swords

Hastati
http://www.honga.net/totalwar/rome2/unit.php?l=en&v=rome2&f=rom_rome&u=Rom_Hastati

Triari
http://www.honga.net/totalwar/rome2/unit.php?l=en&v=rome2&f=rom_rome&u=Rom_Triarii

Principles
http://www.honga.net/totalwar/rome2/unit.php?l=en&v=rome2&f=rom_rome&u=Rom_Principes

Also, don't pay attention to the campaign force strength bar, it has no idea what it is talking about. DO pay attention to the battle force strength bar, it usually does. If that one says you are screwed at the beginning it likely means you really are until you get much better at the game. If it says you are even but you lose badly anyway you are doing something wrong.

[GIJeff]

I find that the campaign force strength bar is meaningful and will give you a good idea of the relative strength of the troops on either side. Also I am A total war veteran but it has just been a few years since I played and I am a little rusty

When it comes to the attack in formation button I don't really understand what that does. When I was last playing it didn't even exist in the UI. Does that button refer to the formation of the unit itself or within the greater formation of the battle line?

As for charge bonuses, that I do understand but only up to a point. How long does the bonus last for? Just for the initial clash right? If you have a heavily armored unit shouldn't they be able to stand up to a charge of short swords?

I do want to be able to counter charge, but the enemy AI is much better at managing the line in that situation then I am. When I tell my line of infantry to charge they always break formation and get flanked. I have tried holding control when telling them to charge but they just seem to hold formation slightly better until they get closer to their targets and then break it anyway. Without a tactical pause in legendary I find this very difficult to manage

[Salty Nobody]

Originally posted by GIJeff:

I find that the campaign force strength bar is meaningful and will give you a good idea of the relative strength of the troops on either side.

Really? Well good for you lol! I can't get that campaign bar to give me the time of day. It tips heavily in favor of the AI even when I would be able to wreck them with minimal losses in actual battle, and when I am forced to waste time fighting said battle the battle strength bar puts us at even or with my own strength (well) ahead when the campaign bar had messed with the auto resolve calculations so much that it claimed that I would lose the battle outright or 60% of my army would die with a victory.

Originally posted by GIJeff:

When it comes to the attack in formation button I don't really understand what that does. When I was last playing it didn't even exist in the UI. Does that button refer to the formation of the unit itself or within the greater formation of the battle line?

It refers to the unit itself staying its own internal battle line/block of men. This is bad, as the unit cannot flank around the enemy it is engaging and so kills less enemies. It also causes the unit to shift constantly to try to maintain the formation as the unit loses men, which not only looks wierd and pulls men out of combat but I swear (don't quote me on this) it seems gives the enemy free hits on the manuevering men. So basically the first thing you should do when deploying your army is turn it off, always. Barbarians don't have this at all, so turning it off makes your civilized units fight more like them. Not very realistic but in the world of the game more effective, which is what you want. (There are mods that make formations pretty essential though if you care about it that much :)

Originally posted by GIJeff:

As for charge bonuses, that I do understand but only up to a point. How long does the bonus last for? Just for the initial clash right? If you have a heavily armored unit shouldn't they be able to stand up to a charge of short swords?

The bonus lasts for 30 seconds. With the Short swords' charge bonus of 19 to both attack and weapon damage this would cause serious problems even to armored units if they did not counter charge or have the expert charge defence trait. (This reflects the extra charge damage back upon the charging unit. The stationary unit still gets the full brunt of the charge but they do alot of damage themselves as well. Most Roman units do not have this trait and the one that does is much later in your tech tree.) On top of that the charging barbarians are hitting your Romans with precursur javelins, so between that and impact more than a few stationary Romans will get one shot and the survivors will get a beating for the next 30 seconds. Romans will still get one shot if they counter charge, but this will apply to the barbarians as well. Romans have the advantage after 30 seconds, but first enough of them have to survive that long to make a difference. This is much more attainable if the enemy is dying at at least the same rate your units are during the charge.

Originally posted by GIJeff:

I do want to be able to counter charge, but the enemy AI is much better at managing the line in that situation then I am. When I tell my line of infantry to charge they always break formation and get flanked. I have tried holding control when telling them to charge but they just seem to hold formation slightly better until they get closer to their targets and then break it anyway. Without a tactical pause in legendary I find this very difficult to manage

Yeah it took me practice in legendary ambushes to be able to micro fast enough to keep up with the AI, you may need to do the same in custom battles to the get the hang of it. A good trick to use is to have your line run at somewhere behind the enemy, and then give the attack orders to targets roughly in front of each of your units. This way they are still in a fast moving line the whole time and keep it during the charge. Formation attack off helps immensely in this as well as units naturally spread out a bit fo fill in gaps. It is also good to use bait and switch between your first and second lines, with your first line taking the brunt of the damage and your second going in right after and doing most of the killing while your first line (after the second is also engaged) then pulls back and repositions to fight off the flankers or flank themselves in support of whatever third line units or cavalry you have. I know people like to have reserves and all that but personally with a sword heavy army like the Romans or barbarians I like to attack with everything at once and defeat enemies in detail to win a battle with fewer losses. The AI certainly doesn't hold back and trying to fight all of them with less than all of yours is not going to end well for the player unless the player has pikes or more awesome units than you have.

You could also try the Long Line of Death (probably not the actual name of this but I like mine better!) method, with your whole army spread out in a big line. This is a fairly common and effective tactic that melee spamming players use, and it works around the idea that flank + flank - center = victory. Your center will get hammered by the enemy but the enemy will get hammered on both flanks, with overall the advantage going to the player.

[Glenn]

Originally posted by GIJeff:

I am playing as rome obviously and am at war with one of the gallic tribes. I advanced two full stack armies with about 1/3 heavy troops mixed with hastati and a few skirmishers.

When they advanced two full stack armies of nothing but short swordsmen and slingers the army slider was about 3/4 in their favor and I got rocked....

In short, what the hell?! How are these troops more than a match for my professional (and expensive) Roman troops?

P.S. I am playing on legendary but that should not affect the force strength bar right? How are these troops more powerful than mine?

well autoresolve should not be a ´´win´´ button i only use it when i attack an undefended city or something like that or some other obvious fight

[Hartassen]

Originally posted by Tactician:

The base stats on Short swords are almost exactly on par (and actually costs more) with Hatsati, so it makes sense for Hatsati to break even or lose to them depending on how the Hatsati and Short Swords are used. As to your better troops, short swords can beat them if they are charging (barbarians get a hefty charge bonus that increases their melee attack and melee damage) or if they outnumber you. Charging stationary Hatsati with 19 charge bonus Short Swords would be overwhelming.

You haven't been playing very long so you probably don't do much counter-charging yet. Now would be a good time to start, Romans get a charge bonus too and they need it to hold their own against charging barbarians. The only units that you maybe (not all the time even with them) want to just let sit there and be charged are elite hoplite units with the expert charge defence trait, which Rome does not have.

You are also on legendary where the AI cheats a bit with stats, so ofc you are going to have a hard time. Keep at it, turn the useless formation attack off so your units can flank the unit they are attacking, and eventually you will get the hang of it. My main tip to overcome your problem: lose the weak Hatsati units and bring full stacks of principles. Or keep the weak Hatsati units and bring THREE stacks of your own. They key to defeating a legendary AI is to either outnumber them or have lots of vastly superior units than them. Your heavy infantry are superior but not vastly so and you don't have enough of them if you are getting wrecked like that.

Seriously dude, stop calling Hastati for Hatsati.

[Salty Nobody]

Originally posted by Hartassen:

Seriously dude, stop calling Hastati for Hatsati.

Oh...sorry lol let me fix it then. Seriously steam needs a spell check....