Arena v Time

[ross]

Dear Iain,
Thankyou for your swift and well appreciated attention to this. As usual you try to make sure your customers are happy and if it gets idiots like me onto the web to battle then you will have reached your objective hopefully increasing sales. Now if I may make a comment on Legion. Is it possible to take the old game and place it within the COW or Sparta engine thus making it 3D and increasing the map at one fell swoop? Just a thought.
Yours,
Ross.

[sum1won]

Ross, your army is lacking in serious close combat troops. Spearmen are good for absorbing damage and dying slowly, but little else- they arent nearly as good as other melee units. 4 militia seems to be a bit high, seeing as how militia tend to be unarmored- militia are just very cheap screens, really. The archers arent bad, as they can allow you to do some damage, but you really do need units that can charge in there and kill something. Scouts are useful for maneveur and screening, but the rest of your army needs a bit of work. Try it with 2 militia, 2 auxila, 3 principe, and a unit of archers, with some scouts, and maybe a velite or two. Feel free to swap a unit or two out for this kind of engagement

[Redpossum]

IMO, there's nothing wrong at all with using 4 Militia, but I agree the Spearmen are not good at all. Then again, I am a serious fan of Militia, as most of the community will tell you. I think Auxilia are vastly over-rated.

What you need are serious heavy cavalry. Auxiliary Cavalry is the best.

In a time situation like this, cavalry can get across the battlefield and into contact much faster than infantry can (duh!)

Now your Scouts are plenty fast, but their dicks are too short to do the job when they arrive. Heavy Cavalry is the ticket here. Not a ton of it, 2 units will suffice. But you must have some.

Heavy Infantry is just too slow for this scenario. Light Infantry, Heavy Cavalry, and a few fire units, that's the ticket in my opinion. Just be sure you line your units up intelligently. Put your Light Infantry opposite the rough. Put your Heavy Cavalry and any Heavy Infantry you have opposite the clear terrain portions of the enemy line.

Now, with regard to fire units. Archers can advance ten paces and start shooting. Javelin troops have to run 3/4 of the way across the field before they get in range. You tell me which is better?

I don't mean to be arrogant, but this scenario has never given me serious trouble when using an army like I describe above.

[tora_tora_tora]

Hi Ross , it is very nice of you to mention me in your reply and so, I want a kind of assist.

THe saved data is located in, in my case

Black Bean/LegionArena/Saved Games/Save_*.

Black Bean is publisher, so this might be different from your version.
* is where numerical number is automatically assigned by game system beginning from 0, so the newest data is the biggest number.

And if it is not very disturbing, please send the saved data to vortexofchaos2000@yahoo.co.jp

And I can post it on the web at
http://legionarena.web.fc2.com/

As I'm not good at HTML writing , it's a really rudimentary site, but I can upload your file here.

<militia
I guess, difference between Auxilia and Militia is their armor as sum1won says.
And possum gives their Militas all the equipment they can get, I presume even very expenseive miracle armors and banners,
so things a bit different.

[IainMcNeil]

In reply to the question about Legion, unfortunately not. It would take a lot of work to convert it to the more recent engines. Most of it art & data, but still a lot of work.

[ross]

Dear Iain,
OK, but as you have the artwork in Arena, can that be put to the COW or Sparta engines? Forgive me if that sounds intrusive or offensive but I loved Legion as did many others and would dearly like to see it return in some sort of upgraded fashion retaining all the elements that you appear to want to abandon. Being a wargamer you must appreciate the need and hunger for vast panoramic landscapes and conquests in distant lands especially at the head of Roman Legions? This I believe is why modding has become so popular but alas such is their enthusiasm most of the potentially good mods have many flaws.
Yours,
Ross.

[IainMcNeil]

The simple answer is no it cant

[honvedseg]

First, there are enough differences between the older Legion/CoW/Spartan/GoT graphics and the new Arena files that there is no way to interchange them. A number of us are eagerly awaiting the merger of the older campaign games with the improved Arena graphics and tactical engine.

Second, Auxilia not only have better initial armor, but begin with slightly higher offensive stats in almost every regard, and are also equipped with a single round of pila to throw before contact. The down side is that they gain experience more slowly, and also require a slightly higher number of those scarce points to promote. Of course, since a decent level auxilia unit can stand toe-to-toe with a weak heavy infantry unit in the open, and will butcher even the best heavy unit in rough terrain, they can gain points more readily, instead of cowering in the woods until something comes in after them.

Spearmen, and Triarii to a lesser degree, are equipped and trained for a primarily defensive role. They take a long time to destroy, but are not that effective at breaking an enemy unit quickly. I prefer Principes, which offer the Roman player the best heavy offensive punch for the Denarius. Legionaires have slightly higher morale and otherwise identical stats for a higher price, which makes them a reasonable alternative only late in the game when money is available but training time is running out.

[tora_tora_tora]

Dear Ross, I got your letter and I'm looking for some way to finish this map.

As casuality allowance is relatively high, there are many ways to try, I guess.

PS
I managed to clear the map.
I disband legionary lv.1, and buy weapons for heavy infantries and militias, and extra arrows for 2 archers.

PS2
the rocky ridge line is not entirely rough terrains, and some part of the ridge is open terrain. So employing militias always in
rough terrain is relatively hard.