So what am I doing wrong here?

[Nats]

I am really struggling with this game. I have played several games now on the third difficulty level generally playing Pyrrhus against Romans and Romans against Samnites and yesterday played the Early Romans against Sabines. I have lost all of my games recently. The only game I won was when I placed all my phalaxes on a hillside. The rest of the time no matter what I do I lose. I have tried going in a stright line, grouping my men into one large group, putting them into three or four boxes - keeping the best troops back, putitng the best troops at the front. Keeping the cavalry back, sending them forward, keeping my skirmishers back, sending them forward. They all seem to lose.

In fact every time I make first contact with troops my men always seem to come off worst. It only seems to be when I use two units gainst one of theirs that I start winning during melee.

I am especially shocked about the phalaxes. They dont seem to be very good against any sort of organised troops. When I put them against swordsmen they invariably get hit quite hard on first contact and usually lose in melee. Same for cavalry. you would think armoured cavalry would hit enemy skirmisheers hard but most of the time it says I am going to lose if I hit them.

But often the numbers will say I will lose but if I leave my troops in place sometimes they start winning even though the numbers say I should lose most of the time.

So whats up? I avoid rough ground for heavy troops, I use hills where I can but dont want to go that way every time, I use skirmishers on the flanks, I use cavalry to take out other cavalry and try to take out skirmishers with them, I try to keep my men together and hit the enemy in a concerted manner. But I just cant seem to keep from losing. I am always losing a lot of men early on which I think does it and causes me to start losing from the start. A lot of the time I start pulling it back later on but by then its too late and the game usually ends before I can turn it around.

Is there any obvious tactic I should employ in this game to avoid losing so easily?

I have even watched the videos on game mechanics and I know the difference of troop quality and POA ratings etc but even when I have quite strong superior troops I often get beaten.

What is the 'normal' difficulty level surely level 3 isnt all that high? I doint usually lose tactical games like this so badly - I mean I can win in Total War every time no problem.

[Nats]

I should point out that these are all campaigns I am doing on difficulty level 3 that I started this week, when I played the quick battles on difficulty level 2 last week I invariably won. There seems to be a massive leap up between levels 2 and 3?

[Zarkarion]

Originally posted by Nats:

I should point out that these are all campaigns I am doing on difficulty level 3 that I started this week, when I played the quick battles on difficulty level 2 last week I invariably won. There seems to be a massive leap up between levels 2 and 3?

Actually there isn't, especially as a campaign on level 3 actually starts with the first battle at around level 2.5. What happens after that depends on whether you set the campaign to Progressive difficulty or not. If you do, the difficulty will gradually increase until the last battle is on difficulty 3.5. If not it will stay on 2.5.

However, this all depends on not losing too many casualties in each battle. If you lose much more than 15% casualties in a winning battle, your replacements won't be able to keep up with the losses, so the actual difficulty will gradually increase for each battle. (Though not by as much as the discrepancy in casualty %).

What is the 'normal' difficulty level?

There isn't one. You can pick whichever difficulty level gives you the level of challenge you want.

Level 2 is the default difficulty. Perhaps try playing a campaign on Level 2 progressive (or level 3 non-progressive if you haven't already done that).

[Nats]

Originally posted by Zarkarion:

Originally posted by Nats:

I should point out that these are all campaigns I am doing on difficulty level 3 that I started this week, when I played the quick battles on difficulty level 2 last week I invariably won. There seems to be a massive leap up between levels 2 and 3?

Actually there isn't, especially as a campaign on level 3 actually starts with the first battle at around level 2.5. What happens after that depends on whether you set the campaign to Progressive difficulty or not. If you do, the difficulty will gradually increase until the last battle is on difficulty 3.5. If not it will stay on 2.5.

However, this all depends on not losing too many casualties in each battle. If you lose much more than 15% casualties in a winning battle, your replacements won't be able to keep up with the losses, so the actual difficulty will gradually increase for each battle. (Though not by as much as the discrepancy in casualty %).

What is the 'normal' difficulty level?

There isn't one. You can pick whichever difficulty level gives you the level of challenge you want.

Level 2 is the default difficulty. Perhaps try playing a campaign on Level 2 progressive (or level 3 non-progressive if you haven't already done that).

I havent been playing on progressive and my level has been set on level 3 over the last few days andI have been losing the first and second battles rather badly even with superior troops a lot of the time. I must be missing something.

[Zarkarion]

Originally posted by Nats:

I havent been playing on progressive and my level has been set on level 3 over the last few days andI have been losing the first and second battles rather badly even with superior troops a lot of the time. I must be missing something.

It will come with practice. Meantime, maybe try level 2 progressive?

[Vektor T]

Well, I will try to maybe help you out. First and foremost, the game punches you hard until you get used to it. I started with Pike n Shot game, another Slitherine game, the time period is another but the idea is roughly the same. I played, hate it, came back, hate it as little less, comeback again, dump the difficulty down, won some battles, get the hand on it, difficulty up again, had a blast. Field of Glory 2 is no different, but in my opinion I do find it harder than Pike and Shot to the point that even with PnS experience I had almost the same experience on the first playthroughs all over again but again managed to get the grasp on it. So if the current difficulty is way to hard, try to do some campaigns with a lower difficulty. If it gets to easy, set it to the Progessive Difficulty like Zarkarion said. It will start easy, but will get slower more difficulty. Also worth noting: battle size play a huge role. I like longer campaigns starting with v. small battles going to v. large ones, but the difficulty may varies greatly depending of wich Army you are using in what difficulty. For instance, I found the Achaemenid Persians to SUCKBALLS in small battles, to the point I cannot even start the campaign, but if in large battles they actually are pretty decent.

So about the game rules. I always have the POA tables with me while playing. The game rules seens pretty easy and straight foward, but it really can bite you. The rules and clear but there is still room for a lot of surprises and unexpected results, so dont blindly trust the number. For example: pike phalanx are great in the melee phases, but Impact Foot can really lay havok on them in the Impact Phase. It's important because if the pikes become disrupted in the impact phase (not difficulty agains romans, for example) it loses basically all of it bonuses in the melee phase and if you are not luck enough for it to reform midfight you can expect it to be pushed back and routed fast and easily. Impact Foots especially the romans are all about Shock and Awe. They can disrupt your units fast and drill holes into your front line faster than a termite in rotten wood, so you really have to dance a lot to counter it.

That come down to the overall army comp you are using with your current army and the enemy army. For example, with romans against other majors you rarely will have cav superiority and even so your cav is not that great to really won the battle for you (except very lare romans). With romans most of the times I find the cav better used for defense, not attack, letting the hard work for your legionaries. Avoid rough terrain at all cost, also avoid attacking uphill, aim for the weaker units in their line first if you can. Romans are all about offensive and punching faces hard, but keep in mind that while the Elite and Superior Armoured legionaries are formidable forces, the Above Average Some Armour and less are mid tier at best. If they get engaged in melee with Warbands, Pikes and Hoplites without disrupting them they will likely lose. Legionaries are my personal favorite unit ingame to the point I find boring playing with them because I do think they cut through too easily, but they are NOT invencible. Also I have a love/meh hate with light infantry. I probably could used tips for them myself, but what I do is try to set some in rough terrain, counter their own light or better yet, support my own cavalry if I'm going offensive with it. Works wonders if you don't want those pesky skirmishers to ruin your heavy cavalry.

The overall strategy, I almost always do one: I take a strong position and lure the enemy to attack if they aren't already attacking. It means staying back or rushing mid map to take the high ground or force the enemy to advance through rought terrain. It works with Pontus, for example, where I have superior cav so I can set my not-amazing infantry in strong position, hit the enemy alas with my cav so they start moving towards my infantry. With romans, it may not work pretty well since you may not have good enough cav to safely provoke them without losing it, so you may have to take the offensive.

Also, with cavs, I personally prefer to use them like modern armoured forces: I mass them in groups, I don't spread them. This often means I put all my cavs cav in a single flank and I try to make my other flank secure with the terrain. If I have a river, mountain of a lot of rough terrain to my left or right, great, cav all to the other side.

[Zarkarion]

Good post Vektor

[Nats]

Thanks very useful info I think I will lower the level back to two and progressively increase over the campaign from small battles - might have more success!

So how is the best way to use phalanxes? And are they only any good against average troops? I suppose in Alexanders day he really was mostly against unformed massed troops so maybe thats whey they were so effective. But certainly against more experienced formed infantry they are a lot less effective it seems. I know they are very vulnerable in the flanks and if disrupted. Thats the problem - how to use them so they stay steady and effective against infantry etc? Hills obviously help but there must be a way to use them effectively in the open? They certainly are difficult to manoeuver. You would think they would get a morale bonus if they have steady neighbouring units because they all act as one unit. Not sure if they do in this game though?

[JungleTears]

Originally posted by Nats:

Thanks very useful info I think I will lower the level back to two and progressively increase over the campaign from small battles - might have more success!

So how is the best way to use phalanxes? And are they only any good against average troops? I suppose in Alexanders day he really was mostly against unformed massed troops so maybe thats whey they were so effective. But certainly against more experienced formed infantry they are a lot less effective it seems. I know they are very vulnerable in the flanks and if disrupted. Thats the problem - how to use them so they stay steady and effective against infantry etc? Hills obviously help but there must be a way to use them effectively in the open? They certainly are difficult to manoeuver. You would think they would get a morale bonus if they have steady neighbouring units because they all act as one unit. Not sure if they do in this game though?

Phalanxes are bigger as cohorts, in the manual it says that always 480 men fight (scaled up for historical campaigns) so as the Romans take casualties (or others), effectiveness will go down as they get 'overlapped'. The Phalanx just fills the rank back to 480 fighters. Smaller units (Romans for example) soon fight With only 300 and then 280 fighters. And so the Phalanx gets better the longer combat lasts.

I think that the first turns are always fought in attackers terms, so that a unit of 300 men attacking a Phalanx of 800 will fight against 300 men the first turns. But iam not sure, youll have to read the manual for that.

Try to let a commander fight with his subordinate units, to my understanding if i remember the manual correctly a commander in battle gives a +1 for each of his troops that has to past a cohesion test. (Limited radius and not map wide, refer to the manual)


I have no Problem with phalanxes.

[JungleTears]

Originally posted by Nats:

Alexanders day he really was mostly against unformed massed troops so maybe thats whey they were so effective.

Very wrong though. He fought the tracians, the illyrians, thebes, the persians - which had excellent troops! Contrary to what 300 has planted in peoples heads (They even conquered Athens one time and burnt it to the ground)

Alot of other persian armies with a high % of greek mercs, and the indians and elephants. And its save to say, that some of the battles where decided by luck for him. Battles that where not decided up untill the last Moment. Its not that his army fought losers, his army was just outstandingly excellent and he had a Moment of genius at gaugamela

Later on epirus 'won' against the Romans. The Romans had problems against the Phalanx, but ultimately the commanders of the greeks of that time were incompetent.

At one battle, dont remember the Name, the greeks Were not even really defeated but lifted their lances as a sign of surrender and free passage after a flank attack, the Romans did not recognize this sign and slautered almost a whole army that panicked.

Or they lost the battle badly head on against a Phalanx but lured the Phalanx into Bad terrain, the incompetent commander ofc not noticing it got his men slaughtered.

Also it was a slow gradual process to conquer the greek world.
https://youtu.be/5W6Zs2IOu70

^ i think youll enjoy it. The playlist of Alexander is very interesting. Alexander just won faster there :p

And if youre interested in campaigns in the style of the Video i can suggest the game alea jacta est by slitherine here on steam.

[smidlee]

Another option you have if you reach a point in a campaign where you continue to lose a battle ... like against Roman late legionaries... is you can change the difficulty to centurion during the battle. Centurion and Deity effect happen instantly.
In other word you can set the difficulty in a campaign before you leave the battlefield to effect the amount of troops while after the battlefeild is loaded change the difficulty to centurion or deity to change the units quality. Just make sure you change the difficulty back before leaving the battlefield.

[mikec_81]

Post screenshot replays for us of a typical battle you play. 1 screenshot every 2 turns should do it.