alexander historical battles

[Yuudachi]

Hi all,
im currently struggling with taking out the sacred band in the first alexander historical battle on very hard without losing either 90% of my cav or without my allies breaking right after. anyone got any helpful tips for this one?

[Hat8]

You will lose most of your cavalry just breaking the Sacred Band, but you have no choice to do this. Whatever survives must be used to do Hammer and anvil. Run around and exhaust their hoplites. Then smack them from behind one by one while keeping them separate.

[FireAgain]

It's a terribly balanced fight and much harder in the remaster. Basic strat goes like this, but you will have to restart many times to get it: While you are paused, reshape your cavalry to three lines deep and bring them forward a bit for later. Alexander slips through the very small gap that opens up in their lines to the right to get behind the sacred band (you may need to slow motion, change formation to a narrower group so he doesn't get caught at the sides by hoplites). He charges into the back of one band immediately AS THEY ARE STILL WALKING, you have two choices - you can have alexander keep fighting this band (they should only walk forward still but don't let Alex touch the second band at all or else you die - will explain in a moment) or you can choose to break away afterwards and charge the second band. I recommend the first way as they will not fight back for a good length of time so its free damage, but the second gets you a really nice charge too).

The band should not turn around to fight him the first time as the script will only give the AI control of the units when two bands have been engaged. If you picked the first strat, the first band should be wavering and under half strength, with alexander near-uninjured - they should break with one good charge from the front of your cavalry and then you can move on to the other two. If you went with the second strat of two rear charges into two units - you won't get an instant rout but should rout two of them together faster especially if you can bait them to chase alexander away without losing his men (the AI is stupid at selecting and chasing units with these three units because of their script).

Once two units have entered combat, the AI will now take control of the bands and likely turn to face Alexander (if the AI does this while you are doing the first rear charges, restart). You should already be moving your cavalry in at this point regardless of your earlier choice (go to slow motion) - charge the back of any exposed units, wheel away alexander and cycle charge their backs again as they turn to fight. You will NOT get the charge bonus if your units have not completely broken away - if one, single model is stuck in battle you get nothing.

This gets very bloody in very hard, but as long as you get good charges off from both sides, you should rout two bands easily very quickly. From here, strategies split and your preference may differ. Some people like to send a cavalry to go help the rest of the army, others prefer to finish the last sacred band off - what's better depends on how fast you are. I'll explain:

The battle is scripted so that for every sacred band you rout, your enemies main troops get weaker and your allies get stronger - more experience, armour, weapons etc. On very hard, this won't make much of a difference in outcome as Philip will still handily lose - but it does mean that he takes more down with him and ties the enemy up for longer. If you focus on the last s acred band, which tends to be hard to rout as you often don't get a big rear charge on them - Philip is probably running by the time you are done. If you focus on this strategy, you want to be conserving as much of your units as you can because you will be mostly soloing the battle from this point onwards by isolating hoplites and mass-rear charging them from all angles. This is hard, but you might find you prefer this method. If you manage to finish the battle fast, go look at the frontline and find the biggest surviving ally unit and go save it - one cavalry unit to kill the ranged, alexander to murk the general and then do your best to save your remaining allies from routing as they are now your meatshield.

The other method is as I said, you can peel off your cavalry to go and charge the rear of the battling hoplites to extend their lifespan and value, making the most of the frontline provided by Philip. You have to be really fast with this strategy as Philip melts on V hard. If i remember correctly, you MUST rout two sacred bands before attacking more than one "main" enemy unit or the battle will auto-fail - but after this you are free to play it out as you like (but that last sacred band still represents free stats for the enemy, so its important to kill). The enemy general is scripted to walk back and forth unless engaged or you get close, so you can gank him, take out the ranged units or get nice hits on the phalanx while you can even as you walk out the last sacred band to finish off with a good charge.

Worth noting that Alex has the best charge damage, so if someone has to engage troops let it be your other cavalry while Alex does the charge/immediate break away work. Don't get bogged down, but get the max value from your charges as well. I had some luck getting a companion cavalry through to the other side alongside alexander as well - but didn't need it in my successful attempt. Alexander can also murk their general as he patrols if you are edging for a tiny bit more morale to break the bands earlier too.