The first historical battle in Rome is so hard..

[SnoW]

I clocked it on hard first go.. it was boring. but Very Hard - I have given up almost.
The walls of spears seem to stop my Romans getting close.

How are you meant to do this? The A.I actually plays it really well which surprised me. It holds the general back for maximum effect. Charges as soon as I'm out of position, pins and flanks. Sends elephants sideways through my lines quite often.
The other thing that makes the battle tough is the enemies troops are all upgraded max level armour + the very hard buffs....

However I don't understand how to beat those phalanx / levy pikemen
even when I have one of their units flanked on all sides they don't break or even die. They seem invincible.

[Hellraiser]

never played the battle, but a main way to kill phalanx is any type of missile troop especially javelins, so if that is an option I would say try your best to position missile troops to weaken the line as much as possible before engaging frontally.

[Jambie Lionheart]

I'm not sure exactly how it translated to the historical battles but when they 'rebalanced' the game they massively ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up the unit balances. Some of the historical battles as Romans MIGHT actually be legitimately impossible on maximum difficulty now. Some of them really hinged on the Roman units high moralé, which they just don't have anymore.

[HunterRassius]

Originally posted by Jambie Lionheart:

I'm not sure exactly how it translated to the historical battles but when they 'rebalanced' the game they massively ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up the unit balances. Some of the historical battles as Romans MIGHT actually be legitimately impossible on maximum difficulty now. Some of them really hinged on the Roman units high moralé, which they just don't have anymore.

What are you even on about? I've heard absolutely nothing about nerfing Roman morale from R:TW to the Remaster.

This battle is absolutely brutal on Very Hard which is probably why Pyrrus "won" the battle in history.

Things to note that make the battle a royal pain:

-They have elephants
-They have cav superiority with their Companions + double your general bodyguards
-They have range superiority with their archers + slingers (have some javs too)
-They have superior heavy infantry as well because phalanxes will destroy you from the front
-They have amazing unit upgrades and veteran units
-Higher difficulties (like Very Hard) fix the one weakness of their pike units... morale

So what do we have?

-Enough javs to counter the elephants
-A large amount of spears
-"Solid enough" morale for our heavy infantry
-"Enough" cav to deal with the ranged units

This was literally my 1st foray into the Very Hard difficulty. Got wrecked a number of times playing the battle straight then noticed we have a treeline behind us.

So here's what I did: I sent my Velites to the left wing along with a couple of spears behind them to counter the elephants. 2 spears to the right wing to catch the Companion cav that's liable to destroy your frontline. Pull back the Equites behind the spears because if we lose them early it's game over. General goes in the middle behind our last spear unit. Pull all the way back to the treeline to counter their range getting easy kills on your units and makes it harder for cav charges to get you as well + gives a bonus to your jav units.

The left wing's javs and spears eat the elephants alive. Afterwards you'll probably get slammed with the Gaul mercs charging into your javs. Pull the spears back to hit them on the wing. Javs will sadly probably spend all their ammo on the elephants and mercs. My right wing nearly got ganked by a Companion charge on my frontline Hastati. Lost a whole unit from that charge alone but the spear charge from behind + Equites managed the recovery. With the elephants and Companions taken care of my Equites were free to hit the slingers on the right flank. Your Equites are gold. If you lose them you're done. I used them to hit all the range as they can't melee anything else and not get destroyed.

Right about this time the enemy general is probably trying to shatter your frontline (and doing a very good job of it). Use your last fresh spears + your general to kill him ASAP. If he doesn't die you're basically done. Blow that general's horn so your army doesn't rout. Pull as many right flank spears as you can get to surround him. I was sweating bullets sending my general in as a phalanx was right there and knocked off 2 of the bodyguards. With the enemy general dead you can win the morale battle. Only with the enemy general dead do these phalanxes have a chance to break. Swing up your heavy infantry to surround the phalanxes and do back charges. Preserve your general at all costs as probably 2/3 to 3/4 your army is breaking and routing by this point. You need to keep it together long enough to break the morale of the last remaining phalanx units. Keep pulling in your damaged units that rally. Send your cav to chase off enemy stragglers that rally themselves. Getting kills on routing units is the lowest priority with breaking the morale of any units still left on the field being top priority.

I did a lot better than my Hard run despite mistakes by not losing my general. Wiped out 90%+ of the army but lost over half of mine with a "Clear Victory". My hat's off to anyone that can keep the losses to a minimum for this one.

[Jambie Lionheart]

Originally posted by HunterRassius:

Originally posted by Jambie Lionheart:

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If you play the original disk version the difference is obvious (the ones before steam became the communal ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥). But technically the change was made a little before remaster when someone was messing around with armour values and what not. Morale dropped too. So technically the remaster didn't change it but more carried over.

A field battle could last for a full 40-50 minutes (extremely rarely 60 without re-enforcements) because units lasted wayyyyy longer in the fray due to higher morale and a different armour system. In the remaster, battles will seldom last more than a quick wham bam thank you ma'am kinda deal. 15 minutes and one side is either routing or dead (probably routing). The Roman units felt it the most (and admittedly they're my favoured faction) because they also 'rebalanced' morale across the in game world.

I haven't played with the istorical basttles in that time though so i've no idea if the changes affected those or not. If they did though then highest diff' levels would likely be impossible on some battles.

I'm not gunna argue with you on minutia of the individual battle though. That's just a time waste :D

[SnoW]

From what I've since read - they have changed it in the historical battles.
Even if you unselect all the 'remaster setting' options...
It's still different. Much harder.

I was playing with all the remaster settings on..., impossible. I played that forest ambush one just for fun, in fast forward.

1 unit made it inside the keep somehow.

[HunterRassius]

Originally posted by Jambie Lionheart:

Random bs

The funny thing about the internet is it's forever. You can go and check to see if someone's talking out their ass or not. The Remaster did do some small tweaks to the morale of some units (examples: Libyan and Iberian infantry) but none of them to the Romans. There were a few other changes but none that would make this massive swing that you purport.

Supposedly, this would impact historical battles but my old eyes can barely see any difference at all between these 2 videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N76PFzZS1Pg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kVXopqao3Y

The first is obviously Rome Total War a full 5 years before the Remaster was released. The second is the Remaster. Sadly, the two players are of different skill levels but we have both the scripted ambush and the lone triarii. Aside from the damage of the ambush being nearly the exact same, the exact same amount of units rout. As for the triarii example between both, yes the triarii hold off for ~7 more unit deaths in the original but the Remastered player's triarii had got surrounded by 2 units of cav and neither the general nor other units were nearby. They both broke with more than half the unit still intact with one of the highest morale units in the game.

The TTK is nearly the same, the routs happen nearly the same, the lengths of the videos is incredibly similar but there is a relatively small disparity between the men alive at the end of the battle but this is all considering the Remaster player lost his general at a bad point during his run and didn't use his rallied cav till the end of the battle (good on him for pulling off the win).

While there are differences between these two games vast disparities between the two is at best nostalgia shades or maybe modified nostalgia shades. Either, should not be a count against the Remaster or some weird doom posting that 'Oh noes! Historical battles are impossible now!'

[Jambie Lionheart]

Originally posted by snow man:

From what I've since read - they have changed it in the historical battles.
Even if you unselect all the 'remaster setting' options...
It's still different. Much harder.

I was playing with all the remaster settings on..., impossible. I played that forest ambush one just for fun, in fast forward.

1 unit made it inside the keep somehow.

Haha, that's actually pretty hilarious. I can't remember the name of it anymore but that one's my favourite back in the day :3