Just Bought Game, And Wow! Also Sacred Band;

[Twan]

Hey everyone

I just bought the game and only paid around $13 for it (Gold with BI and Alex), I'm amazed so far.

I'm trying to download Rome Total Realism but am having internet issues for now.

I played for about two days so far running some custom battles to get used to the game and have some fun. I was experimenting with the best foot units Rome has, which I think are Urban Cohorts. I made a simple scenario where I put a bunch of Urbans down a street blocked on both sides by buildings, and gave the enemy an equal cost value of Sacred Band infantry (meaning they had I think two more units due to being slightly cheaper).

Despite having worse stats than Urbans the Sacred Band seem to consistently defeat my Urbans, or at least cause way too many casualties. I tried letting them fight it out on even terms at first, then I tried launching all of their Pila before they engaged, which definitely helped but the outcome still wasn't good. I thought the Sacred Band would be mostly good against cavalry due to being a long spear type unit, and the Urbans are more of an anti-infantry unit? Is it just the phalanx formation which makes them so good?

I tried using testudo formation just for fun and it's really entertaining, but I assume that using it while in melee combat is a bad idea? I know it's really good against missiles.

Maybe some of the "Legionaries" are better? They are more expensive but the Urbans have really good stats. What is the best defensive infantry in the game for situations like the one I described?

I'm just talking about pure frontal attacks, no flanking, etc.

Thoughts? Thanks :D

[Ëvïlnïck8 ゴゴゴ]

Depens on how you engage the Sacrad band, charching head on into the pikes, even whith pila, is a stupid idea. Sacrad band are one of the best Phalax units in-game with high stats. Even when out of phalanx a Sacrad band can put up a decent fight againts urbans.

So no, you wont win an 1v1 engement with an sacrad band frontal. (unless you have spartans)

And the idea of Phalanx units is that they are very strong upfront. an decent unit of phalanx units will cause serieus damage to any unit charging frontal, even urbans.

Conlusion, dont charge upfront with an melee unit into an phalanx, you'll take unnecesary causelties. the only unit that can fight phalanx units upfront is other phalanx units.

[Twan]

Originally posted by ëvïlnïck8:

Depens on how you engage the Sacrad band, charching head on into the pikes, even whith pila, is a stupid idea. Sacrad band are one of the best Phalax units in-game with high stats. Even when out of phalanx a Sacrad band can put up a decent fight againts urbans.

So no, you wont win an 1v1 engement with an sacrad band frontal. (unless you have spartans)

And the idea of Phalanx units is that they are very strong upfront. an decent unit of phalanx units will cause serieus damage to any unit charging frontal, even urbans.

Conlusion, dont charge upfront with an melee unit into an phalanx, you'll take unnecesary causelties. the only unit that can fight phalanx units upfront is other phalanx units.

Thanks, I actually ran some 1 on 1 tests having 1 SB defend and the AI with 1 unit of Urbans attacking them and I actually did much worse than when I was defending with Urbans somehow.

[Myrmidon]

Attack phalanx units from the flanks and rear. Once they're pinned with a melee unit send another melee unit to attack them (ideally from behind) and they'll get into trouble. The men at the rear will adapt by turning to face you but they'll drop their pikes/spears and draw their short swords.

[Ëvïlnïck8 ゴゴゴ]

Dit you change difficulty? When playing on hard or very hard the ai gete a boost in stats.

[Brotherscompany2]

Haaaaaa man enjoy that gold period of fun =D

Remember when l was on that zone but l must have like 1000h in the game counting with the CD version but you will get to know how to manipulate the Al so well and notice the patterns on the Campaign map that unfortunelly due to the fact that the end result is always the sameyou will get bored =/

But yhea its a great game and one of the best if not the best in my opinion of CA although now that l literally know everything about it l hate how the Roman units are so freaking OP and that they always wipe the other factions

[Twan]

Originally posted by ëvïlnïck8:

Dit you change difficulty? When playing on hard or very hard the ai gete a boost in stats.

Oh, that's what I was afraid of, I thought that just made them smarter.

What difficulty should I play at so all units have their real stats, like I was playing multiplayer against humans? Easy?

[Ëvïlnïck8 ゴゴゴ]

Originally posted by Twan:

Originally posted by ëvïlnïck8:

Dit you change difficulty? When playing on hard or very hard the ai gete a boost in stats.

Oh, that's what I was afraid of, I thought that just made them smarter.

What difficulty should I play at so all units have their real stats, like I was playing multiplayer against humans? Easy?

On normal difficulty no one gets stat boosts.
On easy the player gets stat boosts and on hard and very hard the AI.
In campaing difficulty the ai gets extra money and troop expierence, and population growth. (or player if you play on easy)

There sadly is no way to make tha AI smarter, its this way with all total war games (and most other strategy games)

[Twan]

Ah ok, thanks!

Also what's up with the Urban Cohort vs the Legionary Cohort? The Legionary Cohort (later versions) are much more expensive than Urbans, and Urbans still have better stats by a fair bit (especially attack). I hear people calling Urbans hugely OP but never mention any of the Legionary units, even though they have many more troops per unit (about 40 more I think). I assume Legionaries are better just because of this? I'm going to play around with them vs the AI and see what happens.

EDIT: They are dropping like flies to Sacred Band, Urbans fared much, much better. I then pit myself as Julii with Legionaries against the AI as Brutii with Urbans and the Urbans mopped the floor with us. I switched it around just to be sure and sure enough my Urbans killed all of their legionaries. Is the point of the Legionaries to just be a meatshield with so many men? I would say no since they don't even last as long even with more men.

[Ëvïlnïck8 ゴゴゴ]

Originally posted by Twan:

Ah ok, thanks!

Also what's up with the Urban Cohort vs the Legionary Cohort? The Legionary Cohort (later versions) are much more expensive than Urbans, and Urbans still have better stats by a fair bit (especially attack). I hear people calling Urbans hugely OP but never mention any of the Legionary units, even though they have many more troops per unit (about 40 more I think). I assume Legionaries are better just because of this? I'm going to play around with them vs the AI and see what happens.

EDIT: They are dropping like flies to Sacred Band, Urbans fared much, much better. I then pit myself as Julii with Legionaries against the AI as Brutii with Urbans and the Urbans mopped the floor with us. I switched it around just to be sure and sure enough my Urbans killed all of their legionaries. Is the point of the Legionaries to just be a meatshield with so many men? I would say no since they don't even last as long even with more men.

I assume your talking about the 'first legionary cohort' (the one with the eagle symbol on the unit card). Those eagle cohorts have the same stats as their normal counterpart (first early legionary cohort is just early legionary and first legionary is standard legionary). They just have double the amount of men in them. The thing that makes these units special is that they increase morale of friendly units nearby (it says something like ''inspired by eagle unit'').
Urbans are just better than these eagle units statwise. The reasen you pick an first legironay instead of an urban is the increased morale the first legrionaries give.

In campaing these first legrionaties are almost imposible to get. (they can only be trained in Rome or as rewards from the senate)

[Twan]

Ah ok, thanks