Battle of Scirthaea (AAR)

[grumblefish]

I saw a few requests for an AAR, so here we go. Hope this gives people a sense for how the game plays!


Second Servile War
Battle of Scirthaea, 103 BC

TURN 1:

Slaves are up in arms again, whatever are we to do?

Here is the centre of their battle-line:



The unit with three red flags is King Salvius, their leader. Three red flags indicates that he's a very impressive general; the person in charge of our centre, Lucullus, only has one flag.

Here is King Salvius' stats:



Looks to be a very strong unit. Great morale and training, plus he's armoured. His other troops are a real mix, though. The blue-shields are okay, as are the lads immediately to King Slavius' right, but the rest are just mobs of poor, untrained slaves. King Salvius' best units are on his flanks, which you shall see in the next post. Lastly, the King's men are undrilled, which will give them some manoeuvrability issues.

Anyway, on to the dream team:



My units appear darkened because I've already moved them. I have the advantage of javeliners, which my opponent is completely without, and I have very, very strong legions in the centre. The green-coloured legions are the remnants of Nerva's defeated force, however, and their stats are far inferior to the red, pilum-clasping legionaries.

Here is the hero of the story, Lucullus:



As you can see by his pose, he's a very brave and dashing general. Still no word on why he only gets one command-flag (affects command radius and bonuses). In a 1 on 1 fight, I reckon he'd beat King Salvius' picked men, because "swordsmen+" indicates that our general's troops have extensive training with the sword. King Salvius' men are also undrilled, which means they take more time to manoeuvre in formation.

[grumblefish]

TURN 2:

Nothing much going on, except... who is this that dares challenge my mighty javelineers?



History sources tell me Athenion led his cavalry to great things, but for turn 2 he will have to be happy with catching javelins. I lay low a handful of horses and end the turn.

The bow and arrow on my unit indicates they are ranged.
The little target things indicate who my javelineers can shoot at.
The hand underneath my javelineers indicates that they are outside of my general's command radius.
The 25% indicates the chances of a good attack, but I still do some damage either way.

Javelineers can disrupt units they hit if you're fortunate. No such luck this time, I'm afraid.

[grumblefish]

TURN 3:

General state of affairs:



The flanks are about to clash, and my centre is moving up. As you can see, the javelineers were attacked and retreated back to my lines. Skirmishers work really well in this game; when the opponent attempts to engage them head on, they will simply retreat back 4 spaces or so, and on the next turn you can control them like usual. If you want to defeat a skirmisher without ranged weapons, you will usually have to chase them a good distance until they flee off the map, which simply isn't worth the effort most times (and is likely to endanger you, as there will be a gap in your line).

Let's take a look at how the flanks are doing, post-turn:

Left flank:



As you can see, my allied infantry contingent is having a tough time of things. The D represents “disrupted," and I don't predict any good news coming from that side of the field.

Right Flank:




Errr... it appears my allied contingents are trying to compete in terms of incompetence. As if getting disrupted upon contact wasn't bad enough, now the allies on the right are getting disrupted by unruly mobs of slaves.

[grumblefish]

TURN 4:

Urgh, more troubles on the flanks, but our centre has joined the fray!

Just for fun, I've switched the camera around for this turn, so you can see the Romans head on.

Here is the left-hand side of my battle-line, along with the left-flank you saw earlier:



The "F" on the allied contingent stands for fragmented, which is one step worse than disrupted. The unit of Romans coming up to support the flank is a Legatus commander from Nerva's weakling legions. The good legions are going to stay in the centre and smash through to King Salvius, so Lucullus can kill him one-on-one. You can see Lucullus engaging a slave-mob, and King Salvius with the red triple-flag cowering immediately behind.

Right-flank:



Hah, as you can see, I wheeled my horses around and smashed the blue-shields. The skull underneath one of the slave-mobs indicates that they've lost 25% of their men, too. Depending on the quality of your troops, they will auto-rout at certain casualty levels. You can also see that my javelin men are hiding behind the up-coming legionaries. Only one unit shot its javelins this turn; it's the one standing between the legions and the allied contingent, and it shot through the gap at the blue shields. In this game, you cannot shoot at units currently engaging in melee; unfortunately there is no option to commit friendly-fire.

[grumblefish]

TURN 5:

Finally, the centre starts to smash through:



At the rear, you can see two routing groups of units; one consists of blue-shields, the other is a slave mob. Just off-screen another mob is fleeing. King Salvius appears to have been caught unawares by this sudden route; he was swinging around to my left-flank, where my army is rapidly falling apart. However, one benefit to the slaves is that King Salvius is in the perfect position to try and rally his routing forces; units that are fleeing get a bonus to their chance of re-grouping if a good general is near them.

Still, there is one unit of blue-shields left at the centre (fragmented, though, I believe), and that unit of beige-shield spearmen is in good condition.



Here is my left-flank, woeful as ever:



My units are both fragmented, although the one unit they tried to engage is fragmented as well. Still, it's too late for them; Athenion is about to engage and rout them both, as he is in near-perfect condition.

[grumblefish]

TURN 6:

Great victory in the centre; the battle is mine!

I am now splitting my forces into two groups, and going to save the situation on my flanks.

Left-flank:



As you can see, Athenion routed both my cavalry and the allied contingent. Those two units are now half-way home. Yet, it's going to be a bridge too far for Athenion; he's now staring down two legionary units, one of which consists of the superior red-shields.

Please take the time to notice my brilliant defeat of King Salvius, too. Just as I promised, Lucullus is engaging him one-on-one, and utterly thrashing him (it likely helps that he's looking the wrong way!). The centre did not hold long enough for King Salvius to join up with Athenion, and now it is all over.

Here's my right-flank:



As you can see, the slaves are routing. However, so is the allied contingent that used to be on this flank. The blue-shields engaging the javelineers shattered them, and during the chase the allies disrupted my javlineers, and the blue-shields decided to go a step further and fragment them.

It's too late, though. They have nothing that can stand up to the legions, and at this point the battle is over. Time to declare victory, and see a few random screenshots that I forgot about!

[grumblefish]

VICTORY:

Woe to the vanquished, etc.

Here is the victory screen; as you can see, I am an amazing general when I am giving superior units and put in a position of almost certain victory:




Dishonourable mention goes to this unit of slaves, which was the first to rout:



boo, hiss

Here is the difference between Nerva's weakling, defeated legions, and the superior red-shields:






That's all!

[IainMcNeil]

Thanks - very nice

I'd love to see some multiplayer AAR's as well!

[deadtorius]

Quick qestion how do you get the screen shots?
Print screen button?
and what file are they saved in, is there a default game file or will it ask you if you take a pic

[grumblefish]

Quick qestion how do you get the screen shots?
Print screen button?
and what file are they saved in, is there a default game file or will it ask you if you take a pic

I just hit print-screen, and then I alt-tabbed out into paint. I then cropped the image, saved it, and uploaded to a free image hosting service.


My attempts at playing the role of King Salvius have all ended in failure. I tried twice, and both times I was utterly defeated; the red legions are simple too strong for me to overcome. At my best, I managed to get rid of their cavalry and allies, and hurt some of the greenies, but eventually my routing troops send my break-points skyrocketing and I lose.

[gdrover]

I haven't played that scenario yet, but one suggested strategy is to avoid the core troops at all costs and attack only the flanks.

Perhaps sacrifice a couple of units to keep the tough legions moving front and center and then go after the weaker legions to win the game.

[Hudson]

This looks awesome. As someone that cannot find opponents locally, I was looking at getting this title.

Does it have any MINOR bells and whistles like sound effects? Nothing great but just wondering if it had a little immersion factor built in

[JayRaider]

This looks awesome. As someone that cannot find opponents locally, I was looking at getting this title.

Does it have any MINOR bells and whistles like sound effects? Nothing great but just wondering if it had a little immersion factor built in

Yes it does.
Sound effects for movement, charges, evades etc

[Blathergut]

Quick qestion how do you get the screen shots?
Print screen button?
and what file are they saved in, is there a default game file or will it ask you if you take a pic

I just hit print-screen, and then I alt-tabbed out into paint. I then cropped the image, saved it, and uploaded to a free image hosting service.

.

Likewise:

1st hit print screen.
2nd load a photo program and hit paste and save as jpg or such.
3rd insert the photo into a WORD page, add arrows, text boxes, suitable taunts to opponents, etc.
4th print screen again with that WORD page showing
5th load photo prog. again and hit paste...then crop and save as final jpg.

[grumblefish]

Playing a multi of Cynoscephalea right now, I'm King Philip; might have to get another AAR going. I think Cynoscephalea is my favourite map so far, although I've only tried a handful of them.

The battle starts off with some great skirmishing, then you get a serious jostle for perfect infantry position. Gotta avoid that scrub! I love pikes and spears, but terrain can be so cruel. :'(

EDIT: My companion cav refused my charge order!


EDIT 2: What would be really good for AARs, and in general really, would be a save-replay function. That way you don't need to worry about the AAR until after you're done fighting. Also, a refresh button, so you can know it's your turn without clicking back and forth to make the screen refresh.

EDIT3: the Romans just tried to hide their elephants in the scrub, but they were facing the wrong way. I just charged them with Nicoratus, who routed the entire unit in one go. His elephants did literally nothing the whole game.