Advice on Aquae Sextiae

[troysgoodfellow]

Too little time, too few troops.

Any advice here?

[sum1won]

I havent a clue what it is that you are talking about.

[troysgoodfellow]

You get a limit of nine units on the field, two minutes of game time and some really tough Gallic fighters to kill - including a level 20 heavy infantry unit and two high level heavy cavalry.

How have people gotten past this one?

[sum1won]

I load up on the heavy melee troops and some good suppport. With the right punches, the break eveantually. If you break the high level, expensives first, the weaker ones run much more easily, btw.

[troysgoodfellow]

Turns out all I had to do was make sure I get to the general and kill him. So I just loaded up the archers and wiped him out.

Now stuck on the last Spartacus battle.

[honvedseg]

I finished the Roman campaign on HARD over the weekend, and made a few brief notes on each battle. IIRC, I used a unit of cav on each flank to draw the "V" formation apart rather than in around the leader, then swamped the remaining mess in the middle with my heavy hitters, supported by archers. I took the guy out with nearly 15 seconds to spare.

The foot-race battles were the hardest. while in most of the "survive until..." scenarios, I actually routed the attacking army before the time limit. The "Grannacus" battle in the 1st Servile War was the toughest to beat, with only 60 "monutes" to break all enemy units, and my first try actually routed the last unit of enemy skirmishers at the 1 second mark, but didn't register in time. The second time through, I again had the last unit shaken, but not broken, and it wasn't until the third try that I dedicated a cavalry unit specifically from the start to hit and destroy those pesky skirmies.

[troysgoodfellow]

I got by Grannacus on the second try. But this last Spartacus battle is a real pain. I have to take less than 120 casualties and have a nice mix of skirmishers and HI to take down. I've tried using elephants to soften up the front lines, archers to decimate the advancing troops, cavalry to flank, etc. Closest I've come is with a minute of game time to go when the counter runs down.

[honvedseg]

On this one, casualties are more critical than time, although you don't have enough of the latter to pick them apart at your leisure either. I grouped my army on one end of the field, so I could take on the rebellion battle line a few units at a time. I still had almost a minute to go, but was only around a dozen casualties away from the limit by time the last opposing unit broke. BTW, if you have an elephant unit, that is a good way to tie up a lot of the opposition without taking a lot of casualties (only a few very BIG ones). You can beat up half of their army while the other half concentrates on your high-priced decoy.

[honvedseg]

I ran through the campaign again on HARD, and tried a different approach to Aquae Sextiae. Two cav on the flanks to pin the enemy cav, a big block of heavy infantry in the middle to suck them in, and one lone cav unit outflanking them all to catch the general sitting in the back. Took 9 casualties, 21 seconds to go on the clock. I should have milked it longer for XP.