Why in the heck is the Praetorian Cohort so dang OP?

[highfivingbears]

I killed 334 Egyptians of an army WITH reinforcements that totaled up to about 600 Egyptians... with 42 soldiers, suffering 12 deaths.

42 soldiers. 334 killed.

Not only that, but I repeadtedly fended off larger and smaller armies of Egyptians in one town with wooden walls with armies half or even 1/4 of the Egyptians'.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=920623479

[Twan]

Aren't Urban Cohorts even better?

[highfivingbears]

Originally posted by Twan:

Aren't Urban Cohorts even better?

Yeah, but a majority of my standing army in that game is Praetorian Cohorts mixed with a few Legionary Cohorts and rarely an Urban Cohort.

I only have 2 cities capable of producing them (Syracuse and Carthage) so they're pretty rare in my outlier cities like the one in the picture.

[Myrmidon]

It's very feasible for a single unit to defeat a force many many times their size but it's dependent upon circumstances and factors. I've killed over 2000 infantry with a heavy cavalry unit before but if it was simply them with 2000 dudes surrounding them on all sides going stabbity-stabbity, crack bang, wollop, twang they would have died in seconds.

[highfivingbears]

Originally posted by Myrmidon:

It's very feasible for a single unit to defeat a force many many times their size but it's dependent upon circumstances and factors. I've killed over 2000 infantry with a heavy cavalry unit before but if it was simply them with 2000 dudes surrounding them on all sides going stabbity-stabbity, crack bang, wollop, twang they would have died in seconds.

So it was AI tactics, then. The ranged units they had would be pretty useless against a Praetorian's testudo.

[Krono]

Originally posted by HighFivingBears:

So it was AI tactics, then. The ranged units they had would be pretty useless against a Praetorian's testudo.

Yep, plus there's the fact that your guys have a ton of experience and fully upgraded armor and weapons. On a side note, I actually like wooden walls better than stone walls in a lot of situations, with phalanx units defending a town becomes a joke no matter how big the enemy army is

[Myrmidon]

Originally posted by Krono:

Originally posted by HighFivingBears:

So it was AI tactics, then. The ranged units they had would be pretty useless against a Praetorian's testudo.

Yep, plus there's the fact that your guys have a ton of experience and fully upgraded armor and weapons. On a side note, I actually like wooden walls better than stone walls in a lot of situations, with phalanx units defending a town becomes a joke no matter how big the enemy army is

The problem is on the higher difficulties (and especially with mods enabled) the AI won't actually lay siege to you they'll just sit there and wait the 6-14 turns until your settlement collapses and get's gifted to them automatically. I think in the last 6 months I've only had 2 siege defenses.

[highfivingbears]

Originally posted by Krono:

Originally posted by HighFivingBears:

So it was AI tactics, then. The ranged units they had would be pretty useless against a Praetorian's testudo.

Yep, plus there's the fact that your guys have a ton of experience and fully upgraded armor and weapons. On a side note, I actually like wooden walls better than stone walls in a lot of situations, with phalanx units defending a town becomes a joke no matter how big the enemy army is

Their weapons and armor were only at the silver level, and they had one bronze bar of experience each

[Xautos]

who needs cohorts, use secred bands, wall off obvious locations at choke points. even massive armies can't get past a few lines of these guys when placed on top of each other (not like that). All you got to do is hold the enemies at bay.

hell one fight i was up against 4 full armies of nomads on the barbarian expac defending a village with a few poorly armed soldiers, the saving grace was that there was only 2 ways to the flag and not alot of room in the passage way. that was my advantage. i managed to rout 4000 strong with no more than 150 men including a general unit. i lost most of them but held strong because my units were right next to the flag.

[HD-[18thGA.A] Sgt. Mera]

Originally posted by Xautos:

who needs cohorts, use secred bands, wall off obvious locations at choke points. even massive armies can't get past a few lines of these guys when placed on top of each other (not like that). All you got to do is hold the enemies at bay.

hell one fight i was up against 4 full armies of nomads on the barbarian expac defending a village with a few poorly armed soldiers, the saving grace was that there was only 2 ways to the flag and not alot of room in the passage way. that was my advantage. i managed to rout 4000 strong with no more than 150 men including a general unit. i lost most of them but held strong because my units were right next to the flag.

That sound unbalanced/broken and stupid. If a game allows you to route that many units with 150, then it's broke. End of descussion

[Myrmidon]

Originally posted by Meralious:

Originally posted by Xautos:

who needs cohorts, use secred bands, wall off obvious locations at choke points. even massive armies can't get past a few lines of these guys when placed on top of each other (not like that). All you got to do is hold the enemies at bay.

hell one fight i was up against 4 full armies of nomads on the barbarian expac defending a village with a few poorly armed soldiers, the saving grace was that there was only 2 ways to the flag and not alot of room in the passage way. that was my advantage. i managed to rout 4000 strong with no more than 150 men including a general unit. i lost most of them but held strong because my units were right next to the flag.

That sound unbalanced/broken and stupid. If a game allows you to route that many units with 150, then it's broke. End of descussion

Not really. It depends on the opposing units and the circumstances of the terrain. History is full of examples where a tiny number of men have held off and killed many times their number because they had the advantage of better training, equipment and/or positioning. An elite phalanx such as Spartans, Bronze Shield, Sacred Band, Pharoahs Guard etc are pretty impregnable from the front and if they're camped blocking a bottle neck there's nothing much that can challenege them aside from another phalanx but as the enemy can also only get one into the gap they're going to have to be equal or better.

They can be destroyed by sending missile units down to pelt their front but you'll usually need to wait for multiple units to run dry on arrows or javelins to even make a dent because the vast majority will just bounce off.

Bridge defenses are even worse for the attacker. I had one last night where a force of less than 500 killed almost 3900 and I lost 14 guys. It was because I didn't just have them in a bottleneck I was also pelting them from both sides of the formations with missiles and artillery.

[Myrmidon]

Also I just noticed the amount of denari the OP has and the spread of the other Roman factions. Surely this has to be on 'easy'. Hard and above Bruti always stalemate with Sparta and Macedon whilst Scipi usually stops expansion when they run into Egypt (although in this case it's the players family) Julii is about the only one that ever properly expands on higher difficulties.

Edit: I said Eygpt :'(

[Krono]

Originally posted by Myrmidon:

Also I just noticed the amount of denari the OP has and the spread of the other Roman factions. Surely this has to be on 'easy'. Hard and above Bruti always stalemate with Sparta and Macedon whilst Scipi usually stops expansion when they run into Egypt (although in this case it's the players family) Julii is about the only one that ever properly expands on higher difficulties.

Edit: I said Eygpt :'(

Looks to me like he used some console cammnds to give himself a bunch of money and upgrade his cities, then let a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of turns run through so that his enemies were strong as well and had big armies he could fight. I've done that a few times myself

[highfivingbears]

Originally posted by Krono:

Originally posted by Myrmidon:

Also I just noticed the amount of denari the OP has and the spread of the other Roman factions. Surely this has to be on 'easy'. Hard and above Bruti always stalemate with Sparta and Macedon whilst Scipi usually stops expansion when they run into Egypt (although in this case it's the players family) Julii is about the only one that ever properly expands on higher difficulties.

Edit: I said Eygpt :'(

Looks to me like he used some console cammnds to give himself a bunch of money and upgrade his cities, then let a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of turns run through so that his enemies were strong as well and had big armies he could fight. I've done that a few times myself

I actually didn't use any commands whatsoever, and I do believe I put it on Easy because it's my first game in a long time. Each of my cities at one time had over 3000 gold per turn for each of my cities on the Syracuse island, Capua, and Carthage. The reason why is because I never have massive armies in my cities bogging them down with upkeep costs and I didn't go crazy with buying buildings. I ended up getting about 25K per turn for a vey very long time, I think maybe 50 or so turns.

Basically, I'm a terrible commander, but I'm awesome at the micromanagement part of the game. I usually just auto resolve battles.