moj wrote: ↑Wed Dec 22, 2021 7:26 pm
Oooh, snap! Rediscovered it a few weeks ago and have been playing far too much. Have just –
just – completed my ninth 'serious', spreadsheeted game.
Hello moj, nice to see another veteran.
moj wrote: ↑Wed Dec 22, 2021 7:26 pm
Snap again! In early games this time around I tried one, sometimes two, Praetorians, but quickly decided they were too expensive to purchase/heal. In these last nine games I've followed exactly the same composition: 3x auxilia, 4x auxiliary archers, 1x auxiliary cavalry. Started with the three auxilia as the first three purchases. Toyed with 2x aux followed by the first archers for a few games, but have reverted to starting with the three auxilia. The cavalry is always the final purchase. No throw-away pin cushions used.
I always start with Aux Cav either right during the fourth scenario (when I got exactly 500 denarii) or during Aequi Raiders (preferably), as the 600 gold allows me to buy three pin cushion units: two Peasants that eat the javelins, and a Militia that eats the opposing light cavalry.
My most successfuI early setting (meaning pre-MIB) is 1 Aux Cav + 2 Auxilia and I never really enjoyed anything else. Nobles are far too squishy before roughly lvl 12, and both them and Auxilia gain 0 exp. in scenario no. 1 and 3, as the opposition consists of mere peasants.
moj wrote: ↑Wed Dec 22, 2021 7:26 pmLots of room for improvement. Had an expensive Cisalpine Gaul when the left hand aux charge were a few pixels short of the rough when the heavy cavalry hit them: 325 points lost, the worst of all nine games.
I think that you could have used at least one other unit, namely archers, although I understand that you didn't want to delay the Aux Cav anymore. Nine units seems a bit too few. The additional archers would definitely help, I'd be afraid to go into any bigger and/or time-limit battle with so few units. Otoh, your core is really elegant, and the result is quite high one. (In fact I never really broke the 1 142k threshold until the last week.)
For the Cisalpine Gauls I realized that the best approach is to get rid of the skirmishers (I use cavalry, but depending on your build or gold, you may just deplete them of javelins with pin cushions), then after you defeat the javelinmen, I charge the enemy center with cavalry (I prefer Aux Cav, you'll realize why), immediatelly disengage and then kite them in front of my archers until they all die. This is much easier to do with core unit due to Adv. Drill, but I sometimes use throw away Nobles for this task, namely when my Aux Cav is already at 23/24 after javelinmen salvo. Then when the center is clear, I move two Auxilia into the rough, but without attacking anythig; I wanna be safely in rough exactly for the fact that horsemen tend to capture me in the open.
A sidenote: with six to seven archers and only crappy h2h throw aways, the most difficult units are actually the enemy generals. They cannot be shoot at, and they are capable to rout a full unit of lvl1 Spearmen! That's why I always keep the other two Auxilia guarding my flanks and they babysit my archers who'd otherwise die in droves to the enemy generals.
That's one heck of a silly battle, but I kinda like it.
moj wrote: ↑Wed Dec 22, 2021 7:26 pmAt Asculum and Magnesia my aux got 'unlucky' with elephants, which is always a possibility. And I'm still far too aggressive in survival battles; I'm sure that the experience gains of actually winning those battles rather than meeting the victory conditions aren't worth the healing hit. I think 1,145k is possible with this army; but it would take a healthy dose of luck.
Yeah, elephants can be annoying. It was I believe posum or pg who adviced us to use a pair of Velites with basic/adv anti-Ele as a solid counter. It should work, but I so much dislike the Velites that I never used them. I think that it's not unreasonable to give a basic anti-Ele to one or two auxilia, there are quite some battles against elephants, so it's not a totally wasted skill. Idk, I never tried that either, and I always brute force my way with a horde of archers and three costly pin cushions, preferably Legs or at least Principes.
moj wrote: ↑Wed Dec 22, 2021 7:26 pmEDIT: reading backwards, what's the problem with Men in Black? Two, sometimes three auxilia, raced up the right hand side into the rough before the enemy turns. Four of my last five games have had ≤8 losses, including two not requiring any healing at all.
My issue is that I dislike starting with Auxilia, although by MIB they'd be surely quite high in level. Reason for this is that Aux Cav is such a useful unit in the second minicampaign. (And I also have an "Aux Cav must be first unit" OCD.) I tried to start with double or triple Auxilia, and it didn't really work for me, not only during MIB, but also in scenarios leading to it. I had high losses, the battles were clumsy, but it's absolutely possible that the problem was between the chair and the screen.
I also tried to start with Nobles, something that allows me to have a real, permanent starting unit, and that gives me my first Auxilia several scenarios faster, but I didn't like that setting much, due to Nobles being a bit weak unit, as I already mentioned.
moj wrote: ↑Wed Dec 22, 2021 7:26 pm
No throw-away pin cushions used.
Nice! I must do the same, it's such a different game once you'll stop the pin cushion cheating!
I plan two more tries: a minimalistic core with 10 to 12 units (something akin to my old core, but now with a proper setup and tactics) and then twenty units strong no-pincushion run with lots of heavy infantry, kinda like the real legion. I cannot wait for Christmas holidays!
