Things we learned the hard way.

[GeneralKostas]

How about a thread for us to post things we learned the hard way?

1) Taking the Persians in a multiplayer battle will probably lead to a loss.

2) English chariots are very difficult to deal with if you haven't seen them before with normal tactics and will require a new game plan.

3) Don't expect horses to be faster than men on foot and don't expect that units will be able to make turns and/or move logically.

4) Don't expect game mechanics and or units abilities to be realistic. It's a game not reality after all.

5) Fighting in forest is very difficult and you can be greatly surprised what some units are able to do in them.

6) Random battle results can do you in. Yes if it wasn't for bad luck, I would have no luck at all.

7) It is unbelievable how long some enemy units can hold out under extreme odds.

Anyway thread is for fun. The game is fun and very addicting but I have found the hard way that play will not always turn out like you think.

Yes i agree. The game is very nice and unique among other turn-base strategy pc games. I like it very much. But I would like more reality in battles. So I have noticed two things so far.

4) I have seen archers or slingers with no impact and melee capabilities to attack and have melee. How is it possible without an impact or melee weapon? The bow and the sling are only for shooting. I would like archers and slingers be only for shooting. I have read the same in the manual. In one league game, archers attacked to my melee pikes from the flank and the result was the break of the pikes. 745/979 men routed. 745 men are still capable to win melee battles against other units and dominate the field.

7) The resilience of the Roman units is unbelievable. In one league game in melee with one pike unit and one cavalry unit in flank, the Roman unit first disrupted, then fragmented, after some turns disrupted again, then fragmented again. I don't remember for how many turns. This is unrealistic and affects the progression of the battle and the battle plan. Other units will be broken immediately.

[rs2excelsior]

It isn't that archers have no melee weapons, just that they have no particular capabilities. Combined with being unarmored, this means they get chewed on in melee--but even with backup weapons (daggers, clubs, and the like) and next to no armor, they could in theory charge in when necessary. A flank charge is about the only way they'll be effective in melee.

And on Roman resilience... yeah, that was the game against me. Trust me, from my experience playing my other league battles, that was luck as much as Roman discipline. I have seen plenty of my cohorts fold under much less. That superior quality does help, but that unit in particular held out longer than it had any right to.

[pompeytheflatulent]

Superior warbands needs to be massed together. A superior warband with a general and regular warbands to its left and right will likely push through the enemy line and get flanked.

[pompeytheflatulent]

Murphy's Law will always apply to non-light horse archers. They will either evade not far enough and get caught, or evade so far that it takes them out of the fight for 2+ turns. The higher the quality and more expensive said horse archer unit is, the more likely it will do something donkey brained.

[vakarr]

Light artillery do not always get destroyed easily - I charged a loose formation warband and general into a light artillery unit, and it didn't even become disrupted until the second round of combat

[Zachmann]

When I read Ludendorf...I think the game is amazingly depicting the real thing. Realistic enough for me.

[Seamus]

Apparently cavalry were not really as useful as they were depicted in nearly every preceding war game ever produced.

[rs2excelsior]

Apparently cavalry were not really as useful as they were depicted in nearly every preceding war game ever produced.

Try out a cavalry-heavy army (especially one that uses a lot of lancers). I played a Byzantine army this season in the Digital League, learned a lot about how cavalry works. Lancers can hold their own, and when they flank charge it can be deadly. But they're unpredictable. Sometimes they break a unit and pursue into several others--I've had one unit break 2 or 3 enemies in a turn, or I've had entire groups of cav go gallivanting off across the map without doing anything useful. They can be useful under the right circumstances, with a bit of luck.