End of Game Army Composition

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Aleksandr
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Re: End of Game Army Composition

Post by Aleksandr »

Also, and as another sidenote: I just spent an hour studying the history of Velites, and my man, was I wrong! These are by fartherst the most cool units of the whole Roman army. Simply the fact that they had to prove themselves worthy, that they wore their distinctive wolfhead clothing and... well, everything about them is so cool, that since now I will use them no matter what!
moj
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Re: End of Game Army Composition

Post by moj »

Aleksandr wrote: Thu Dec 23, 2021 1:54 pm Hello moj, nice to see another veteran. :-)
Bugger. Just wrote a lengthy and incredibly interesting post about the 'high score' vs 'gameplay' dichotomy which has disappeared.

One question, though: do officers significantly help in terms of ordering units around? 7/8 units is about my limit in terms of order point regeneration. I've no interest in improving 'morale' - if an auxilia unit wants to break it's usually for a reason and I'd rather they didn't fight to the last man when archers have the situation under control. Not sure I've ever bought so much as an NCO. Have no idea how you'd keep 12+ units under control (although it's obviously far simply if half of them are a static block of archers).

Will try again in the next couple of weeks. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all!
Aleksandr
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Re: End of Game Army Composition

Post by Aleksandr »

moj wrote: Thu Dec 23, 2021 6:24 pm
Aleksandr wrote: Thu Dec 23, 2021 1:54 pm Hello moj, nice to see another veteran. :-)
Bugger. Just wrote a lengthy and incredibly interesting post about the 'high score' vs 'gameplay' dichotomy which has disappeared
Sadface! I hate when this happens... I hope that you'll find the strength to rewrite that, it's an interesting topic for sure!

One question, though: do officers significantly help in terms of ordering units around? 7/8 units is about my limit in terms of order point regeneration. I've no interest in improving 'morale' - if an auxilia unit wants to break it's usually for a reason and I'd rather they didn't fight to the last man when archers have the situation under control. Not sure I've ever bought so much as an NCO. Have no idea how you'd keep 12+ units under control (although it's obviously far simply if half of them are a static block of archers).
I never used NCOs since roughly 2005, mostly for the very reason you wrote. I want my units to not get hurt, and with enough armour, tactics, and pin cushions, they can stay out of harm's way... mostly.
Speaking of ordering the guys around: Exp Drill increases order points regeneration, so it's just like you wrote, all those static archers (who mostly don't need any orders at all) help you to control the other units. I had an extreme core of 1x Aux Cav, 2x Auxilia, 12x Archers and the one problem I never had was with order points. Granted, this setting had its own issues, but order points wasn't one of them.

Will try again in the next couple of weeks. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all!
I think that I'll rerun the game on weekend. :-)
And yeah, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all!!! :)
Aleksandr
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Re: End of Game Army Composition

Post by Aleksandr »

So I just finished another try, and this time it was much worse. I didn't trust the full-archers core, and I wanted to try fast Velites but it didn't really work. I delayed the Aux Cav and then went for two of them, so the core was pretty unusual and I had issues with the army.
Obviously one should either go a punch-heavy core with lots of h2h guys, or use a full set of archers supported by expensive pin cushions, so that either one or the others are strong enough to kill the enemy. My army was just so-so in both departments, and it did hurt.

Image

Very close to 1 142k, not my best at all.

I was kinda satisfied with the Velites, but no matter how cool they are, they are still a bit problematic unit. They need a bit of a micro management, they often cannot get into the range fast enough, and they are squishy. Otoh, I gave them Adv Anti-Ele before Pyrrhus minicampaign, and they were solid, they often routed one elephant unit in two salvos.

I still wanna explore the light units army concept, but I think that 1 146 k is the absolute limit. Maybe something silly might work, I tinkered with the idea of cutting the Auxilia totally in the last three minicampaigns and going crazy with archers and throw away Pretorians, but there are several battles where this cannot be done.

I'm also a bit burnt out, as I finished the game for dozen of times in past two weeks, so maybe I'll try my luck next year.

Cheers everybody!
Aleksandr
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Re: End of Game Army Composition

Post by Aleksandr »

Ok, so I just finished another run and this will be my absolute personal best for the rest of eternity. I am totally burnt out and I need a year or two off. Morevoer, this last effort felt very much like cheating, as I used every dirty trick that I know about, and I also replayed many scenarios for the best result. It took me about twice the normal time, and sometimes it was not exactly a pleasure.

AUXILIARY ARCHERS

Image

Legate 16
Auxiliary Cavalry 26
Auxilia 23
Auxilia 22
Auxiliary Archers 27
Auxiliary Archers 26
Auxiliary Archers 26
Auxiliary Archers 25
Auxiliary Archers 24
Auxiliary Archers 20
Auxiliary Archers 22
Auxiliary Archers 20
Auxiliary Archers 19
Auxiliary Archers 20
Auxiliary Archers 20
Auxiliary Archers 20



Denarii: 7 135
Fame: 1 147 545


I don't think that I am able to improve this result in any significant way. I also don't plan to try that... :-)
I may try one last run in next couple of days, a simple "playthrough" where I'll concentrate on just having fun instead of trying to beat the record.

Cheers!
moj
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Re: End of Game Army Composition

Post by moj »

Happy New Year!

From pre-Christmas posts, re officers…tried them in a ‘bash game’ and wasn’t excited. I feel that officers should improve order-ability as well as morale; separate skill paths for order points and morale seems unnecessary. With my limited number of units I’ll buy ‘disciplined formation’ for the auxiliaries and managed to scramble through.

Morale is an ill-defined quality and the squad stats bar seems to lie! Don’t know what factors determine a unit’s breaking point: sometimes a unit will ‘dig in’ far deeper than expected, sometimes they’re shaken in moments. Also have absolutely no idea what the skirmish skill means for archers. The -50 morale point hit (because ‘they don’t like it’) isn’t reflected on the stats bar, and archers with the skill don’t seem to break in seconds of (rare) contact. If they did, then the skirmish skill would be a real negative.
Aleksandr wrote: Sun Jan 02, 2022 2:45 pm Ok, so I just finished another run and this will be my absolute personal best for the rest of eternity. I am totally burnt out and I need a year or two off. Morevoer, this last effort felt very much like cheating, as I used every dirty trick that I know about, and I also replayed many scenarios for the best result. It took me about twice the normal time, and sometimes it was not exactly a pleasure.
Yeah, when you get too focused on points the game loses some fun. If you’re using no-heal pincushions there are survival battles where you can just run your legate around the screen for a bit. But at battles like Asculum and Sambre River you’ve *got* to go for the win rather than just meet the winning conditions, right?!

In my games since Christmas I’ve increasingly found myself looking at the score the whole time, doing far more ‘first fifteen second resets’ when it’s obvious that my set-up isn’t quite right, and more retreats towards the end of battles when it’s apparent that I’m heading for a lot of heals. And getting upset when a unit takes a late fourth casualty and trips into ‘requires healing’. It does take the shine off, to some degree. 1,147k is a fantastic score, but I can imagine it wasn’t a barrel of laughs getting there!

******

So... have now completed 17 ‘logged’ games, with #17 being a new high score...

Image

18,565 unworthy foes sent to their unmarked graves for just 1310 fallen heroes, all of which were auxiliary infantry with the exception of 21 archers and 25 aux cav.

I think I ‘won’ in in mid-game by prioritising anti-cav over anti-inf before Messana and Aggreigentum - both are very messy with auxiliary infantry on open ground versus horses - plus a fairly miraculous, 20 heal point Adys. Believe that this prioritisation cost me points later until the anti-inf skills caught up, but it was obviously a net gain.

Further assisted by remembering, just a few games ago, how I used to play Pydna: aux in the rough, and the archers in the woods are safe. Didn’t play it particularly well - 290 heal points was my worst battle of the entire campaign - but much better than some of the carnage I’d experienced in the past. That heavy infantry unit in black just won’t die! But as my infantry got more effective my archers got less experience. Think this was only game of the 17 which I finished without a single megabow (even a post-Philippi megabow). Which meant the scores in the final half dozen or so battles weren’t as good as in some earlier attempts.

I’m currently lacking the enthusiasm/skill to properly play with my scores in Excel. But here are my average heal points over the course of the 17 battles:

BEST TEN
0 defiant farmers
0 Latin expedition
0 Sabine ambush
20 battle of Bribacte
26 Etruscans at Caere
26 Coriolanus
33 Gallic scouts
33 scout the Etruscans
36 Aequi raiders
40 Samnites

WORST TEN
194 battle of Mulhouse
195 battle of Zela
207 Africa
218 Battle of Magnesia
218 battle of Vadimo Lake
228 a small victory
254 Battle of Zama
272 battle of Aggreigentum
282 battle of Noreia
310 battle of Pydna

God, I hate Pydna with those unkillable heavies and those bastard archers. And Zama and Magnesia, which can veer from a 30 casualty battle to an 80 casualty battle with exactly the same set-up.

A no pincushion 1445k is certainly possible with 'my' army, but the number of RETREATS!!! needed to get there would veer too far into 'cheating'. It's a shame there isn't some sort of iron-man mode, where you *can* restart a game but each time you do so it costs you 1% of the battle's fame/XP. So that’s it. Taking some time off to try and re-enter the real world!
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Re: End of Game Army Composition

Post by Aleksandr »

moj wrote: Wed Jan 05, 2022 7:48 pm Happy New Year!

From pre-Christmas posts, re officers…tried them in a ‘bash game’ and wasn’t excited. I feel that officers should improve order-ability as well as morale; separate skill paths for order points and morale seems unnecessary. With my limited number of units I’ll buy ‘disciplined formation’ for the auxiliaries and managed to scramble through.
I give Drill to my Aux Cav asap, so that I may trample the routed much more effectively, than Adv. Drill some time after Frenzy. I give Drill to Auxilia around the time when the gold flow allows an army expansion to roughly eight units, because it's a bit hard to manage them with only Legate's skill. But I don't give them Adv. Drill ever, because in the later stages the Legate is skilled enough to control ten to twelve units, and by the time I got 15+ units, the Archers happen to help. I max the Drill for them, and when there are eight to ten Master Drill bowmen in my army, order points are the least of my trouble.
Disciplined formation is a must, of course, so I buy it immediatelly on lvl6 (Auxilia) or lvl8 (Aux Archers).

Morale is an ill-defined quality and the squad stats bar seems to lie! Don’t know what factors determine a unit’s breaking point: sometimes a unit will ‘dig in’ far deeper than expected, sometimes they’re shaken in moments. Also have absolutely no idea what the skirmish skill means for archers. The -50 morale point hit (because ‘they don’t like it’) isn’t reflected on the stats bar, and archers with the skill don’t seem to break in seconds of (rare) contact. If they did, then the skirmish skill would be a real negative.
Well, I'm not exactly sure that I'm exactly right, but I think that the unit's breaking point has a lot to do with what happened already. I believe that routed friendly units affect morale of the particular unit that is thus vulnerable to break much sooner. But I may be mistaken, it needs to be confirmed by Slitherine guys.

Yeah, when you get too focused on points the game loses some fun. If you’re using no-heal pincushions there are survival battles where you can just run your legate around the screen for a bit. But at battles like Asculum and Sambre River you’ve *got* to go for the win rather than just meet the winning conditions, right?!
I'm going to start a new run in next half an hour or so, and this time I'll try to play it in a more relaxed way. I'm interested in a more balanced core than the extreme one that I used the last time, because 12 Archers are exactly that, an extreme. I had battles where the enemy ran before the first contact, but I had battles where it took fifteen tries to not lose.

In my games since Christmas I’ve increasingly found myself looking at the score the whole time, doing far more ‘first fifteen second resets’ when it’s obvious that my set-up isn’t quite right, and more retreats towards the end of battles when it’s apparent that I’m heading for a lot of heals. And getting upset when a unit takes a late fourth casualty and trips into ‘requires healing’. It does take the shine off, to some degree. 1,147k is a fantastic score, but I can imagine it wasn’t a barrel of laughs getting there!
Yep, exactly! Towards the end of the campaign, or rather somewhere in the middle, the game was a real horror. I didn't have enough h2h guys, my bowmen horde still sucked, and my gold was too low to purchase a unit of Pretty pincushions to save me. It was a strange experience, definitely not the most fun I ever had.

So... have now completed 17 ‘logged’ games, with #17 being a new high score...

Image
Nice one! But in the name of all that is holy... use ten units, man! :-D Can you at least imagine how this hurts my ocd? :-)

snip
I’m currently lacking the enthusiasm/skill to properly play with my scores in Excel. But here are my average heal points over the course of the 17 battles:
snip
Nice work! I'm far too lazy for such analytical work, and that's the reason why I lack a lot of insight. I just go with a gut feeling most of the time, but it's also about pure memory. I think that a proper test of my skills would be Britannicus campaign, but alas, it's lost in time...

A no pincushion 1445k is certainly possible with 'my' army, but the number of RETREATS!!! needed to get there would veer too far into 'cheating'. It's a shame there isn't some sort of iron-man mode, where you *can* restart a game but each time you do so it costs you 1% of the battle's fame/XP. So that’s it. Taking some time off to try and re-enter the real world!
Yeah, this is spot on. I may try a no pincushion run on weekend, or at least something more manly than what I tried the last time. It was fun, at least most of the time, but when it wasn't fun, it wasn't fun in a really really annoying way. :-D'

Cheers!
moj
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Re: End of Game Army Composition

Post by moj »

Turns out I decided to put off returning to the real world for a few days.
Aleksandr wrote: Fri Jan 07, 2022 5:41 pmWell, I'm not exactly sure that I'm exactly right, but I think that the unit's breaking point has a lot to do with what happened already. I believe that routed friendly units affect morale of the particular unit that is thus vulnerable to break much sooner. But I may be mistaken, it needs to be confirmed by Slitherine guys.
Yes, breaking point appears to be at least partially 'situational'. That front-most aux infantry standing knee deep in water at Noreia is just itching to run. I think there's also a resistance to being told to stay put: if you pull even the most experienced/skilled unit back into the woods 2-3 times when it wants to rush out into the open it'll be shaken after just 10-12 casualties.

The other great mystery is: does agility have any impact whatsoever? Have you ever thought 'oooh, I wish I'd spent more on boots'?!

Aleksandr wrote: Fri Jan 07, 2022 5:41 pmTowards the end of the campaign, or rather somewhere in the middle, the game was a real horror. I didn't have enough h2h guys, my bowmen horde still sucked, and my gold was too low to purchase a unit of Pretty pincushions to save me. It was a strange experience, definitely not the most fun I ever had.

I decided to share your pain...

Image

Much like yourself, it’ll be a long time until I think of trying it again!

Compared to my previous high score of 1,144.8k the aux inf and cav were all one level lower, and the archers 1–2 levels higher. But I still failed in my quest for megabows: got my first and only megabow in time for Munda.

The difference in casualties is huge: 1310 in the previous best, 824 in this game. Lost six archers and nine cavalrymen across the entire campaign, incurring a total of 60 heal points.

Number of deaths dealt was slightly up at 18,582 vs 18,565, which surprised me: given the unit levels my archers were more effective than before and my aux inf less effective, and archers generally break enemy units without ‘superfluous’ kills. Also, although I still went out to win the winnable battles, I was fairly conservative at Crossing The Alps and I won Thapsus very efficiently (all four archers straight onto the ‘general’, which is the unit on the extreme right, for just two casualties).

THE DIRTIEST DOZEN
205 giants of Noreia
160 battle of Nicopolis
135 Battle of Magnesia
130 battle of Vadimo Lake
130 battle of Pydna
120 a small victory
110 Cisalpine Gauls
105 Battle of Cynoscephalae
100 battle of Messana
100 battle of Aggreigentum
100 Battle of Zama
100 battle of Sambre River


My absolute highlight was Alesia: not so much because of the casualties I sustained but because of my aux inf’s score:

Image

Other high points: getting both Messana and Aggreigentum right first time for 100pts each (these are usually really messy without any heavy infantry). Smoooth wins at the other great 1-2 punch of Vadimo Lake and Cisalpine Gauls (which is nice; would hate to have to play the latter ten times in a row). Discovering effective new tactics for Zama, Pydna, and Magnesia.

The lows: 20+ goes at Etruscan Treachery because I’d somehow zero-healed it in my previous game; I think one of my aux inf took 4 casualties for 20pts in around half these attempts. I was practically weeping with frustration. Similarly Asculum, which I’d zeroed a few times but had to eventually settle for 35pts because my anti-elephant skills were down a level on previous attempts.

20 or so *perfect* set-ups at Cynoscephalae but never ducking below 100pts. Seemingly forgetting how to play Nicopolis - my early games regularly came in at around 120pts, now it’s a real (repeated) effort to make 160pts. A single archer unit which *always* decides to skirmish halfway through End of the Dream. Being unable to zero-heal Philippi because I’ve only one megabow. Battles which look great until you realise one of your archers has been randomly pumped full of arrows. Bastard wedges of bastard giants. Bastard elephants still fighting at 2/8. Bastard L17 heavy infantry at Pydna who are seemingly impervious to arrows. That bastard unit which takes a fourth casualty right at the end of the battle. And many, many more...

Yep. That’s me done for several months!
Last edited by moj on Tue Jan 18, 2022 2:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Aleksandr
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Re: End of Game Army Composition

Post by Aleksandr »

moj wrote: Mon Jan 10, 2022 6:58 am Turns out I decided to put off returning to the real world for a few days.
You're my man! :-D
Yes, breaking point appears to be at least partially 'situational'. That front-most aux infantry standing knee deep in water at Noreia is just itching to run. I think there's also a resistance to being told to stay put: if you pull even the most experienced/skilled unit back into the woods 2-3 times when it wants to rush out into the open it'll be shaken after just 10-12 casualties.
Ha, this could explain some of the weird results that I had in the past, but unfortunately I wasn't paying attention to the particular unit's behaviour, so I cannot confirm anything.
Another question: more experienced units have larger area of control, right? My lvl28 Auxilia always run into the fray when the enemy are half a screen away.

The other great mystery is: does agility have any impact whatsoever? Have you ever thought 'oooh, I wish I'd spent more on boots'?!
Nah... never. :-D
Idk, it's such a strange ability, maybe it helps, maybe it doesn't. I wish that there was some kind of sandbox scenario to try all this stuff.

I decided to share your pain...

Image

Much like yourself, it’ll be a long time until I think of trying it again!
Oops, you did it again! :-D

Compared to my previous high score of 1,144.8k the aux inf and cav were all one level lower, and the archers 1–2 levels higher. But I still failed in my quest for megabows: got my first and only megabow in time for Munda.

The difference in casualties is huge: 1310 in the previous best, 824 in this game. Lost six archers and nine cavalrymen across the entire campaign, incurring a total of 60 heal points.
Wow, this is such a nice result! And you lost only nine horsemen? That's spectacular! I use them really carefully, but I doubt that I was below thirty deaths on my best run. Gotta check that.
Also, I'm surprised that your archers didn't have the Odd Bow, your auxiliary infantry must have been extremely aggressive.
Number of deaths dealt was slightly up at 18,582 vs 18,565, which surprised me: given the unit levels my archers were more effective than before and my aux inf less effective, and archers generally break enemy units without ‘superfluous’ kills. Also, although I still went out to win the winnable battles, I was fairly conservative at Crossing The Alps and I won Thapsus very efficiently (all four archers straight onto the ‘general’, which is the unit on the extreme right, for just two casualties).
Yeah, I really dont get this. Either someone "leached" the experiences (but who, Legate?), or maybe the enemy did run after a few salvos? It seems like the bowmen are really good at routing the opposing units, but then again it could be just a false perception, as it's much easier to note the damage done by archers (a big cloud of numbers with few arrows mixed in) then trying to make any sense of what the h2h guys deal.
Btw, the "breaking without overkill" is pretty annoying during Bibracte: there are not enough enemy soldiers to shoot down, so its pretty easy to lose the scenario as you run out of targets. When I had 12 Archers in my core, I needed to make all sorts of silly stuff to NOT kill the enemy too fast; it was necessary to draw them forward, then get my horsemen behind them so that I gain additional kill numbers from the routed...

My absolute highlight was Alesia: not so much because of the casualties I sustained but because of my aux inf’s score:

Image
That's sick... O_O
Hey, I noticed something interesting, the order of units is different from the final one. Is there a way how to toss the units around? I never found a way to do that.
A single archer unit which *always* decides to skirmish halfway through End of the Dream... Bastard elephants still fighting at 2/8
Yeah, I hate that. It's the enemy general, he's got insane ZOC and he always drags some unit acros 1/4 of the map. Speaking of elephants, it looks like Velites with Adv-Exp antiEle are kinda solid. At least I don't remember any trouble with dumbos.

Yep. That’s me done for several months!
I thought the same, but I'm going to start another run soon, maybe right this evening. :-D
Aleksandr
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Re: End of Game Army Composition

Post by Aleksandr »

moj, I just realized one thing: your 1 147k run was a no-pincushion game? If that's so, then it's a truly epic result!

I finished another try on Sunday, and this was something a bit different. Instead of obsessing about the final result, I concentrated on ease of play. I tried a bit more "reasonable" build, a bit more realistic army, and it was a weird surprise. But first... the usual picture.

Image

So the idea is obvious, I guess, but the result wasn't. I hoped that the more balanced core will lead to a more balanced gameplay, but it wasn't exactly how it went. I had serious issues during Gauls and Pyrrhus, and the heavy infantry was an absolute disappointment. They totally melted away during Vadimo Lake and even later I didn't really enjoy them. Pretty expensive healing and the Triarii gain experience really slowly.
But contrarily to the 12-archers core, there were far less restarts. This seems like a solid build for an easy walkthrough, but it will never break any record.

I'm going to try something different tonight. And tomorrow... I guess that I may finish the game on weekend, but this time for real. I need a break. :-)
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Re: End of Game Army Composition

Post by moj »

Aleksandr wrote: Mon Jan 10, 2022 2:54 pm more experienced units have larger area of control, right? My lvl28 Auxilia always run into the fray when the enemy are half a screen away.
Hadn’t considered that units get more ‘twitchy’ as they progress, but it sounds very possible. At Alesia and Munda (which are basically the same battle) I have real problems keeping my aux inf in the woods: once they’ve killed the charging unit/general they remain ‘engaged’ even though the next enemy are still a fair distance away.

Idk, (agility is) such a strange ability, maybe it helps, maybe it doesn't. I wish that there was some kind of sandbox scenario to try all this stuff.
Oooh yes, it would be great to be ‘know’ how 3-4 levels of ‘stand firm’ compares to 3-4 levels of ‘anti-cav’, or how ‘anti-specialism’ matches up to ‘swordsmanship’. I guess you could run two separate games simultaneously and alternate battles, but I just *know* I’d overwrite the wrong savefile.

Wow, this is such a nice result! And you lost only nine horsemen? That's spectacular! I use them really carefully, but I doubt that I was below thirty deaths on my best run. Gotta check that
Yep. Two at Pydna in taking out those nasty archers and the light infantry that step in to help them, and four at Mulhouse which was probably unnecessary - those archers are down to one or two volleys by the time I’ve reached them, so it’s cheaper to take the ‘hit’ with 5pt auxillia. My usual horsey death toll seems to be 20-25, although attempt #12 had a grand total of seven cavalry deaths and no heals.

Also, I'm surprised that your archers didn't have the Odd Bow, your auxiliary infantry must have been extremely aggressive.
I don’t understand it either. My auxilia spend at least 80% of the time in offence formation, but I’m not using them more aggressively. But in early games I was usually hitting 2, 3, occasionally 4 megabows before Philippi. While it’s fun to have that sort of fire power I don’t think it necessarily has a great impact on the score, because they always arrive late in the game.

"breaking without overkill" is pretty annoying during Bibracte: there are not enough enemy soldiers to shoot down, so its pretty easy to lose the scenario as you run out of targets
Ah, the classic ‘You are defeated... kills 292, casualties 0’.

Hey, I noticed something interesting, the order of units is different from the final one. Is there a way how to toss the units around? I never found a way to do that.
Don’t units just appear in the order they were added to the battlefield? The preceding battle was Divo, where only one aux infantry is used. The same units/positions carry over to Alesia (because the battlefields are the same size) and when I add the second and third auxilia they occupy the last two positions.

(End of the Dream skirmishing archers and unbreaking elephants) Yeah, I hate that. It's the enemy general, he's got insane ZOC and he always drags some unit acros 1/4 of the map. Speaking of elephants, it looks like Velites with Adv-Exp antiEle are kinda solid. At least I don't remember any trouble with dumbos.
It seems to be an intermittent ‘problem’ but if it happens once then no amount of restarting/repositioning seems to put enough space between archers and ‘point of impact’. Interesting that you don’t have elephant issues! Even my Achilles-wearing anti-elephant eiltes/masters can get broken in open ground. That said, now I’ve started hiding in the woods for Magnesia – for some reason my previous ‘open a gap for cavalry to hit archers’ tactic has stopped working – I *think* the only battle where I meet elephants in the open is Illipa. And those elephants *can* be dragged into the woods, i’m just not very good at it.

The issue with elephants is that outcomes are much more variable than is the case with other units. Sometimes an aux inf unit can defeat them for a couple of losses; sometimes the same unit will be shaken or even broken while the elephants are still at 6/8 or 7/8.

If morale is situational, as I think we’ve decided it is, then I guess if the elephants know they’re fighting a shaken unit then that’s when they themselves will fight right down to 2/8. It’s a double whammy.

moj, I just realized one thing: your 1 147k run was a no-pincushion game? If that's so, then it's a truly epic result! .
Yep, I stopped pincushioning very early in my career as a legate. Slapping peasants all over the field at Vadimo Lake in order to occupy the enemy for another three seconds made me feel like a war criminal.

I concentrated on ease of play. I tried a bit more "reasonable" build, a bit more realistic army, and it was a weird surprise. But first... the usual picture.
1,129K... back to earth with a bang!

I had serious issues during Gauls and Pyrrhus, and the heavy infantry was an absolute disappointment. They totally melted away during Vadimo Lake and even later I didn't really enjoy them. Pretty expensive healing and the Triarii gain experience really slowly.
But contrarily to the 12-archers core, there were far less restarts. This seems like a solid build for an easy walkthrough, but it will never break any record.
The only heavy infantry I’ve ever persevered with is one or two Praetorian units, but I doubt I could use them again now that I’m so fine-tuned to occupying rough/forest. The ‘lighter’ heavies, as you say, don’t seem any more resilient than auxilia in the open (certainly not twice as resilient in accordance with the 5pt/10pt heal cost). I’m curious: does the triarii’s lack of a throwing weapon make any difference? I never thought that my infantry’s javelins / pila did much damage, and the idea of a unit that engages without pausing appeals to me: makes it easier to ensure you’re fighting on the right ground.

Re the ‘easy walkthrough’, when did you last try a lossless game? I’m fairly sure that the only battle my army can actually lose, except on time, is Lingering Gauls. I’ve got the ‘tight’ timed battles – Etruscan Treachery, Adys, Aqua Sextiae –choreographed like ballets. If your initial positioning and orders are accurate, I’m confident that a zero reset/quit/loss campaign is achievable.

It’s a pity there’s no ‘iron man mode’ in the game settings to enforce adherence to the 'rules'!
Aleksandr
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Re: End of Game Army Composition

Post by Aleksandr »

moj wrote: Sat Jan 15, 2022 8:43 am Hadn’t considered that units get more ‘twitchy’ as they progress, but it sounds very possible. At Alesia and Munda (which are basically the same battle) I have real problems keeping my aux inf in the woods: once they’ve killed the charging unit/general they remain ‘engaged’ even though the next enemy are still a fair distance away.
Yeah, that's exactly my experience, and these are the very same battles where I always get frustrated. :-D
The infantrymen charge from their forest hideout like crazy, and there's no power in world that brings them back.
Speaking of generals: I really hate that they are such an effective archers-killers. I had battles where the enemy leader routed three or four archers units, and I was unable to do anything, because it's absolutely impossible to disengage from the general.

Oooh yes, it would be great to be ‘know’ how 3-4 levels of ‘stand firm’ compares to 3-4 levels of ‘anti-cav’, or how ‘anti-specialism’ matches up to ‘swordsmanship’. I guess you could run two separate games simultaneously and alternate battles, but I just *know* I’d overwrite the wrong savefile.
I got all 68 pre-battle savegames in a special folder in case something ugly happens, and I may use them for the tests, but the issue is that it's kinda cumbersome: I need to find a solid battle for tests (preferably passive AI, mixed units, etc), with a few battles before the testing one where I would train my newly purchased units. I guess Third Samnites War minicampaign could be usable, and the great cavalry ambush towards the very end of the game could work like an experience chest for light INF hiding in woods.

Yep. Two at Pydna in taking out those nasty archers and the light infantry that step in to help them, and four at Mulhouse which was probably unnecessary - those archers are down to one or two volleys by the time I’ve reached them, so it’s cheaper to take the ‘hit’ with 5pt auxillia. My usual horsey death toll seems to be 20-25, although attempt #12 had a grand total of seven cavalry deaths and no heals.
I just realized that I cannot compare our results, as I always start with Aux Cav, so I lose many many more of them... but even if I would purchase them much more lately, I simply can't use them with such an elegance. And it's absolute unimaginable that you were able to finish the whole campaign without healing a single horsemen, this is an achievement in itself!

I don’t understand it either. My auxilia spend at least 80% of the time in offence formation, but I’m not using them more aggressively. But in early games I was usually hitting 2, 3, occasionally 4 megabows before Philippi. While it’s fun to have that sort of fire power I don’t think it necessarily has a great impact on the score, because they always arrive late in the game.
Yeah, the Odd Bow is not the most necessary item, althoguh it's surely the most funny one. But it still strikes me odd that you didn't get even one. Maybe this has something to do with the opposing units, is it possible that you differed your gameplan and the Auxilias killed the most valuable units? But even then it doesn't solve the mystery, because playing with nine units should provide enough exp. for your archers to have at least one megabow at least post-Philippi.

Ah, the classic ‘You are defeated... kills 292, casualties 0’.
It happened to me today... twice. :roll:

Don’t units just appear in the order they were added to the battlefield? The preceding battle was Divo, where only one aux infantry is used. The same units/positions carry over to Alesia (because the battlefields are the same size) and when I add the second and third auxilia they occupy the last two positions.
True, that's it! Shame, I hoped that you found a way how to organize units.


It seems to be an intermittent ‘problem’ but if it happens once then no amount of restarting/repositioning seems to put enough space between archers and ‘point of impact’. Interesting that you don’t have elephant issues! Even my Achilles-wearing anti-elephant eiltes/masters can get broken in open ground. That said, now I’ve started hiding in the woods for Magnesia – for some reason my previous ‘open a gap for cavalry to hit archers’ tactic has stopped working – I *think* the only battle where I meet elephants in the open is Illipa. And those elephants *can* be dragged into the woods, i’m just not very good at it.
I can confirm that no repositioning helps once the ZOC issue happens.
Speaking of elephants: first of all, I play with a hordes of pincushions and lots of them skirmishers. These can gang on the dumbos, and/or get a lucky javelin throw and when there are several of them, they can kill the small pack. Otoh, I had games where I used four Hastati pincushions, and they all died to a single elephant pack without making much of an impact; I think they killed one or two animals. (Truth to be told, these were lvl1 Hastatis against elite elephants, so yeah...)
I also use temporary Velites (who sometimes get promoted to core), and they can fight the dumbos kinda well, and I also gained confidence in drawing them to river/rough. But sometimes they get out of control, and when that happens, it's usually a restart, see the "four Hastati" example above. :-)

The issue with elephants is that outcomes are much more variable than is the case with other units. Sometimes an aux inf unit can defeat them for a couple of losses; sometimes the same unit will be shaken or even broken while the elephants are still at 6/8 or 7/8.
Yeah, exactly! But that's also a reason why I don't wanna invest into anti-ele: if the result is already a dice roll, why bother at all, I'll just go with the rng result. Not to mention that there are not that many enemy elephants to waste much levels on the anti- skill. Oh, and one more issue: I had a dedicated anti-ele unit back in the day, but soon I realized that this is unreliable, as units get mixed in the mess of the battle and/or one unit is not enough.
I mostly deal with them by pincushions horde, and it works most of the time.

If morale is situational, as I think we’ve decided it is, then I guess if the elephants know they’re fighting a shaken unit then that’s when they themselves will fight right down to 2/8. It’s a double whammy.
This may be true. I had battles where enemy elephants really fought to the last beast standing (ok, maybe 2/8, but still...), and they surely stood against shaken units.


Yep, I stopped pincushioning very early in my career as a legate. Slapping peasants all over the field at Vadimo Lake in order to occupy the enemy for another three seconds made me feel like a war criminal.
sigged... :-D

1,129K... back to earth with a bang!
yeah... :oops: :lol:

The only heavy infantry I’ve ever persevered with is one or two Praetorian units, but I doubt I could use them again now that I’m so fine-tuned to occupying rough/forest. The ‘lighter’ heavies, as you say, don’t seem any more resilient than auxilia in the open (certainly not twice as resilient in accordance with the 5pt/10pt heal cost). I’m curious: does the triarii’s lack of a throwing weapon make any difference? I never thought that my infantry’s javelins / pila did much damage, and the idea of a unit that engages without pausing appeals to me: makes it easier to ensure you’re fighting on the right ground.
Yes! The heavy infantry definitely doesn't feel like a "double the price, double the fame" unit, and some of them seem quite out of balance, e.g. Legionaries vs. Principes: do you really wanna pay 200 Denarii more to get a slight bonus? I like the Triarii for reasons listed below, but other than that, heavy INF is weird. They pack a solid punch, and they helped in time-limit battles. Otoh, for the price of unupgraded Legs you can have Auxilia with lvl2 weapons, armour, and helmets, and you can start gaining exp much sooner, while enjoying all the boni of light infantry, cheap healing including...
Speaking of Triarii: I use them solely for their anti-cav nature. Although the lack of pila makes them a bit faster in h2h, the softening impact (pun intended) of the javelins would be welcome. Idk. I don't miss the pila, neither I would wish against them.
Triarii also gain experience really slowly, namely if you train them for their inteded anti-cav role. An anti-cav unit also bleeds men to trample, and it's nearly imppossible to have a "no healing" result with them due to this. The best use of Triarii (and this is also the overall best use of heavy inf in my experience) is a heavy-duty pincushion. But other guys had more success with them, and properly trained and equipped, they can kill endless stream of enemy horsemen.

Re the ‘easy walkthrough’, when did you last try a lossless game? I’m fairly sure that the only battle my army can actually lose, except on time, is Lingering Gauls. I’ve got the ‘tight’ timed battles – Etruscan Treachery, Adys, Aqua Sextiae –choreographed like ballets. If your initial positioning and orders are accurate, I’m confident that a zero reset/quit/loss campaign is achievable.

It’s a pity there’s no ‘iron man mode’ in the game settings to enforce adherence to the 'rules'!
I didn't try an Iron Man game in several years. The main reason are those time-limit battles, but also the disengage bug and placement misclicks. When you lose the Etruscan Treachery because you needed five more seconds, or when you lose at Mulhouse because you forget to change the stance of you Aux Cav to Long Hold, or when the "kill enemy leader" is set incorrectly, or when there are not enough enemy soldiers to kill at Bibracte... is it a real loss? But if this isn't a "real" loss, than what IS?
Also, the lack of a true Iron Man mode is what discourages me. I may try this again in the future, but lets be real: I play LA since the first demo back in the Stone Age, and I never beat the game without losing, if there is a tactic how to do it, I don't seem to know it. :-D


It's nice to have a conversation on these topics, thanks a lot for all your ideas!
Cheers!
moj wrote: Yep, I stopped pincushioning very early in my career as a legate. Slapping peasants all over the field at Vadimo Lake in order to occupy the enemy for another three seconds made me feel like a war criminal.
moj
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Re: End of Game Army Composition

Post by moj »

Aleksandr wrote: Sat Jan 15, 2022 9:23 pm
I got all 68 pre-battle savegames in a special folder in case something ugly happens, and I may use them for the tests, but the issue is that it's kinda cumbersome: I need to find a solid battle for tests (preferably passive AI, mixed units, etc), with a few battles before the testing one where I would train my newly purchased units. I guess Third Samnites War minicampaign could be usable, and the great cavalry ambush towards the very end of the game could work like an experience chest for light INF hiding in woods.
Have finally managed to find the save game’s location on my Mac. The filenames don’t reflect the name seen in Legion Arena itself (ie ‘Save_40_.dat’ rather than ‘post-Pydna.dat’) but are presumably renamable.

It would take a lot of dedication to truly explore the differences between skill paths that way; I always take my auxilia to master feint/swordsman/endurance + disciplined formations before any possible deviation. To get to that point they’re L14, and given the slow-down in experience gain it would take a further 10+ games down each path before there’s been sufficient promotion to make meaningful comparisons (eg anti skills version protection from skills).

Not sure even I’ve got that degree of interest! It’s certainly no substitute for a proper sandbox.

I just realized that I cannot compare our results, as I always start with Aux Cav, so I lose many many more of them... but even if I would purchase them much more lately, I simply can't use them with such an elegance. And it's absolute unimaginable that you were able to finish the whole campaign without healing a single horsemen, this is an achievement in itself!
I honestly don’t use them much. Auxiliary cavalry seem to progress quite quickly just from being on the battlefield. I buy them before Heraclea but hide them ‘off screen’; then buy L1 weapons/armour and send them searching for the light infantry at Asculum. They then engage skirmishers towards the end of Malventum, spend Messina and Aggreigentum in their stables, then just manage to catch a few skirmishers at Alalia before the kill count is reached.

If I’m lucky they’ll then be L7 in time for Adys, meaning they can be W3/A3. This is the first battle in which they’re actually needed. From then on they’re almost entirely concerned with engaging archers/skirmishers. I think they only battle they go head-to-head with other cavalry is Aquae Sextiae, with significant archer support.

In my infinite restarts/reloads record score game the aux cavalry reached L19, total kills was 754, highest kills was 67, and best exp was 2075.

In the game I’ve just completed (more below!) the aux cav reached L21, killed 1143, best kill 117, best exp 4578, but suffered 40 casualties.

Yeah, the Odd Bow is not the most necessary item, althoguh it's surely the most funny one. But it still strikes me odd that you didn't get even one. Maybe this has something to do with the opposing units, is it possible that you differed your gameplan and the Auxilias killed the most valuable units? But even then it doesn't solve the mystery, because playing with nine units should provide enough exp. for your archers to have at least one megabow at least post-Philippi. ]
The megabow really isn’t vital to your score – needs another 5+ battles in the campaign for that – but yes, it’s fun and I miss it :-(

I guess my high level auxilia, given the right terrain, will mince the opposition too quickly/efficiently? I very rarely run out of arrows except for at Bribacte. At Mulhouse and Nicopolis (essentially the same battle, just different seasons!) I’ll target skirmishers, but generally I’ll just let the archers auto-target. Unless you’re doing a huge amount of retargeting to high value targets then I don’t think there’s ‘enough difference to make a difference’.

I’ve no idea how the enemy are ‘valued’ but it’s more subtle than ‘one dead heavy inf = two dead light inf’. I assume the enemy’s level (visible) and armour (invisible) come into play, and this is then divided by your own unit’s level?

For my four archers, all bought at exactly the same point in the game:

Infinite restart/reload game:
L27/L26/L25/L25; total kills 5660

Most recent game (more below!):
L27/L26/L25/L25; total kills 5957

So zero difference in levels (although I had two megabows for Philippi in the most recent game), and fairly negligible difference in kills, despite two very different sets of objectives. Slight difference in number of casualties sustained, though: 6 vs 99!

But that's also a reason why I don't wanna invest into anti-ele: if the result is already a dice roll, why bother at all, I'll just go with the rng result. Not to mention that there are not that many enemy elephants to waste much levels on the anti- skill. Oh, and one more issue: I had a dedicated anti-ele unit back in the day, but soon I realized that this is unreliable, as units get mixed in the mess of the battle and/or one unit is not enough.
I got tired of being torn apart at Asculum and Malventum. Asculum’s not so bad - the battle ‘times out’ – but at Malventum I had so many experiences of comprehensively winning the imaginary ‘no elephants battle’, then watching several auxilia units, then each ammo-less archer unit in turn, splashing about in the river before being routed by three or four elephants.

I now try to enter Malventum with two expert anti-elephant guys (you know the drill: one for the river, one for the lower right patch of scrub). You’ve mentioned OCD before; my OCDish trait is that all my troops of any type *must* all receive the same training, so I waste skill progressions bringing the third auxilia up to expert anti-ele.

Malventum is actually the only battle that significantly benefits from 2x experts. Subsequent double elephant games occur when your auxilia is far better trained and armoured, and your archers far more deadly.

(You should have seen me playing Civilization: every settlement had to have every improvement, regardless of population).

sigged... :-D
You’re welcome!

An anti-cav unit also bleeds men to trample, and it's nearly imppossible to have a "no healing" result with them due to this. The best use of Triarii (and this is also the overall best use of heavy inf in my experience) is a heavy-duty pincushion. But other guys had more success with them, and properly trained and equipped, they can kill endless stream of enemy horsemen.
As I’m sure I’ve said before, I go down the ‘anti-unit’ path. The weakest auxilia in my most recent game (more below!) finished on L30 with GM1 anti-inf and anti-cav skills. No ‘protection from’, no missile protection, no ‘stand firm’.

The only battle in which the auxilia are shown to be ‘light’ is Cannae when one unit will usually be routed. They do a lot of dying at Noriea, but from memory even quite advanced Praetorians get blown away there.

Do you make much use of ‘disciplined defensive’? My annecdotal/experimental experience suggests that for some reason it works well in rough/wooded terrain when you want to slow things down for your archers, but is pretty much useless elsewhere. The armour bonuses are too small to offset the order cost and hit to offensive capabilities, and it reads as though a defensive formation actually increases the chance of being trampled? When I select ‘defensive’ it’s usually for the extra width of the formation, to prevent enemy from targeting past me and into my archers.

I didn't try an Iron Man game in several years. The main reason are those time-limit battles, but also the disengage bug and placement misclicks. When you lose the Etruscan Treachery because you needed five more seconds, or when you lose at Mulhouse because you forget to change the stance of you Aux Cav to Long Hold, or when the "kill enemy leader" is set incorrectly, or when there are not enough enemy soldiers to kill at Bibracte... is it a real loss? But if this isn't a "real" loss, than what IS?
So... my most recent game...

Image

It was my first attempt at an iron man, and I sailed through (kinda). As I said before, I think the only battle I can actually lose out on the field (rather than on failure to meet win conditions) is Lingering Gauls (well, that and Aequi Raiders if I really try hard). Etruscan Treachery had 12 seconds left on the clock, and Adys 19 seconds. Closest I got to losing was Aquae Sextaie, which was entirely down to lazy play: I allowed the auxilia which was engaged with the opposition general to be routed without blowing my magical steadying horn, and ended up with my cavalry vs the general of rough ground. Squeaky bum time, but stopped the clock at two seconds.

(Aquae Sextaie confuses me: sometimes you can kill the opposition general and you win; sometimes the game continues; but there doesn’t seem to be a constant/clear alternative ‘kill unit’ like there is at Thapsus. On this occasion, the general was the last man standing for quite some time).

My only other minor scare was Magnesia. I’ve recently struggled with this one - my ‘open up centre and hit their archers’ tactic has ceased to work - so I’ve started hiding in the woods. This time I misplaced/miscontrolled a few units and ended up with ‘the crunch’ being just beyond the trees. Two of my three auxilia broke and I suffered 97 casualties; had the third broke I could well have exceeded the 150(?) casualty maximum.

All the ‘winnable’ survival battles I won by some margin. In hindsight, given I wasn’t looking to minimise casualties, I should have been more aggressive at Bagradas and woken up the static enemy ranks for archery practice, rather than wait three hours to time out!

Total kills 18,887; total casualties 1672. Infinite restart/reload campaign: 18,582 and 824 casualties. Best ‘honest with occasional reset/retreat’: 18,565 and 1310.

The number of deaths dealt is relatively constant (unsurprising, given that I didn’t hold back on trying to win the survival battles) and the number of casualties sustained isn’t hugely different between the ‘iron man’ and the ‘honest’ campaigns. I played the battles I knew I would win with much less precision than I would have done if I was concerned with the points score, and I think I could ‘easily’ chisel an iron man game back to sub 1500 casualties.

Right now I can deploy units to pretty much the exact pixel I want/need them to occupy. If I were to not play the game for three months and then try again I’d imagine it’s hugely unlikely that I’d win in the first half dozen attempts.


Also, the lack of a true Iron Man mode is what discourages me. I may try this again in the future, but lets be real: I play LA since the first demo back in the Stone Age, and I never beat the game without losing, if there is a tactic how to do it, I don't seem to know it. :-D
If I can do it then you can do it!

Here’s my proposal for Legion Arena release 1.2 (lol):

Each campaign starts off as IRON MAN. Complete the campaign as IRON MAN and you get a big shiny star to share with friends and family. Once you lose or retreat from a battle, the game reverts to REGULAR which has the following constraints:
  • Replaying a battle costs 100 XP. This encompasses lost battles, battles you've retreated from, and battles you want another go at because you believe you can improve your score by more than 100 XP.
  • Disbanding a unit only gets you a 50% refund on the purchase cost of that unit (sorry, pincushioners!)
If the game can lock/delete savefiles to prevent save scumming, then the above would be absolutely perfect for score comparisons and bragging rights.
Aleksandr
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Re: End of Game Army Composition

Post by Aleksandr »

moj wrote: Mon Jan 17, 2022 9:53 pm Have finally managed to find the save game’s location on my Mac. The filenames don’t reflect the name seen in Legion Arena itself (ie ‘Save_40_.dat’ rather than ‘post-Pydna.dat’) but are presumably renamable.

It would take a lot of dedication to truly explore the differences between skill paths that way; I always take my auxilia to master feint/swordsman/endurance + disciplined formations before any possible deviation. To get to that point they’re L14, and given the slow-down in experience gain it would take a further 10+ games down each path before there’s been sufficient promotion to make meaningful comparisons (eg anti skills version protection from skills).

Not sure even I’ve got that degree of interest! It’s certainly no substitute for a proper sandbox.
Yeah, the savegame naming system is a bit unfortunate. In Windows it's further complicated by their location.

Yep, a proper sandbox would be really cool, or some kind of random skirmish mode, that'll be funny! Speaking of Auxilia, I give them Disc. Form. on lvl6, other than that I go Swordsman, Feint, Endurance, Anti-Infantry, followed by anti-Cav plus Block, all the way up to (Grand)Master. Some of this may be an overkill, and Dodge may be better then Block, but I'm not sure if it's good enough, so this is my usual progression. I sometimes use one or two levels of anti-Elephant, it may be a bit wasted skill, otoh elephants can be ugly, so I guess I should bite the bullet.


I honestly don’t use them much. Auxiliary cavalry seem to progress quite quickly just from being on the battlefield. I buy them before Heraclea but hide them ‘off screen’; then buy L1 weapons/armour and send them searching for the light infantry at Asculum. They then engage skirmishers towards the end of Malventum, spend Messina and Aggreigentum in their stables, then just manage to catch a few skirmishers at Alalia before the kill count is reached.

If I’m lucky they’ll then be L7 in time for Adys, meaning they can be W3/A3. This is the first battle in which they’re actually needed. From then on they’re almost entirely concerned with engaging archers/skirmishers. I think they only battle they go head-to-head with other cavalry is Aquae Sextiae, with significant archer support.

In my infinite restarts/reloads record score game the aux cavalry reached L19, total kills was 754, highest kills was 67, and best exp was 2075.

In the game I’ve just completed (more below!) the aux cav reached L21, killed 1143, best kill 117, best exp 4578, but suffered 40 casualties.
Aaah, this makes sense!
I use them absolutely differently, they are my most favourite unit, my precious, I totally
lavish great love and attention on my heavy cavalry.
I buy them for Scout the Etruscans (is that the name? well, scenario no. 4), even though it's a bit silly, at least they got lvl3 when entering the 2nd minicampaign. I made a few tests, and it looks like it's better to lose a few horsemen during the scen4 and scen5, but then going strong into the next battles.
I use them to draw the enemy into the fray, to kill the light units, namely skirmishers and militia, I like to overrun the routed, trample+disengage the shieldwalls... they are really useful. The only thing that I avoid are opposing heavy units and cavalry. These clashes tend to be too bloody.

The megabow really isn’t vital to your score – needs another 5+ battles in the campaign for that – but yes, it’s fun and I miss it :-(

I guess my high level auxilia, given the right terrain, will mince the opposition too quickly/efficiently? I very rarely run out of arrows except for at Bribacte. At Mulhouse and Nicopolis (essentially the same battle, just different seasons!) I’ll target skirmishers, but generally I’ll just let the archers auto-target. Unless you’re doing a huge amount of retargeting to high value targets then I don’t think there’s ‘enough difference to make a difference’.

I’ve no idea how the enemy are ‘valued’ but it’s more subtle than ‘one dead heavy inf = two dead light inf’. I assume the enemy’s level (visible) and armour (invisible) come into play, and this is then divided by your own unit’s level?
Yep, this makes sense. I use some high-cost pincushions, and I generally don't use the Auxilia really effectivelly, namely when I run an archers-based army. So it's possible that my static gameplay yields more archers' exp.
And yeah, unless I'm in a dire need to manually command, I always let my archers choose their own target.

So zero difference in levels (although I had two megabows for Philippi in the most recent game), and fairly negligible difference in kills, despite two very different sets of objectives. Slight difference in number of casualties sustained, though: 6 vs 99!
Interesting! The number of deaths is really surprising.

I got tired of being torn apart at Asculum and Malventum. Asculum’s not so bad - the battle ‘times out’ – but at Malventum I had so many experiences of comprehensively winning the imaginary ‘no elephants battle’, then watching several auxilia units, then each ammo-less archer unit in turn, splashing about in the river before being routed by three or four elephants.

I now try to enter Malventum with two expert anti-elephant guys (you know the drill: one for the river, one for the lower right patch of scrub).
Yeah, in my last run I went for the Adv Anti-Ele for each Auxilia, because I also lost all patience with the mûmakil.

You’ve mentioned OCD before; my OCDish trait is that all my troops of any type *must* all receive the same training, so I waste skill progressions bringing the third auxilia up to expert anti-ele.
Hehe, I do the same! :-D
As I’m sure I’ve said before, I go down the ‘anti-unit’ path. The weakest auxilia in my most recent game (more below!) finished on L30 with GM1 anti-inf and anti-cav skills. No ‘protection from’, no missile protection, no ‘stand firm’.

The only battle in which the auxilia are shown to be ‘light’ is Cannae when one unit will usually be routed. They do a lot of dying at Noriea, but from memory even quite advanced Praetorians get blown away there.
End of the DReam is a reall massacre, too. But when I compare the Fame results for Aux campaign with that of the Heavy campaign, it's quite obvious that Auxilia are not only good enough, they are better.
Do you make much use of ‘disciplined defensive’? My annecdotal/experimental experience suggests that for some reason it works well in rough/wooded terrain against any enemy, but is pretty much useless elsewhere. The armour bonuses are too small to offset the order cost and hit to offensive capabilities, and it reads as though a defensive formation actually increases the chance of being trampled? When I select ‘defensive’ it’s usually for the extra width of the formation, to prevent enemy from past me and into my archers.
Yes, exactly that. I use them when my units have extreme adavantage and I don't wanna lose the unit to rng: Aux Cav against skirms in open, Auxilia in woods against heavy inf. Otherwise it's really bad, and Disc. Off. is the most useful.

So... my most recent game...

Image
Nice!!!
(Aquae Sextaie confuses me...
I never had any trouble since I found out that the lvl20 heavies are the men to kill. I realized that your Legate finishes 50 lvls higher tham mine: do we use the same patch? Maybe this may be the reason for the Aquae Sextae randomness?

Here’s my proposal for Legion Arena release 1.2 (lol):

Each campaign starts off as IRON MAN. Complete the campaign as IRON MAN and you get a big shiny star to share with friends and family. Once you lose or retreat from a battle, the game reverts to REGULAR which has the following constraints:
  • You can retreat from a battle at a cost of 100 XP. I think that’s enough to discourage restarting a battle merely because it’s ‘not going how you’d like’; it would require an unexpected and avoidable archer/cavalry rout before you would consider having another go.
  • Replaying a completed battle (usually because you’ve lost, but I guess also if you’ve won at TERRIBLE COST and were too shocked during the course of the battle to sound the retreat) will cost you 200 XP.
  • Disbanding a unit only gets you a 50% refund on the purchase cost of that unit (sorry, pincushioners!)
If the game can lock/delete savefiles to prevent save scumming, then the above would be absolutely perfect for score comparisons and bragging rights.
Good ideas! I'm just a bit afraid for the new players, it's not really friendly to start in an Iron Man fashion, but well.. new players...yeah. :-)
It's a pity that the chances for LA2 are really low, but maybe the Slitherine guys still read this thread? Who knows... ? :-)

Thanks for all the ideas, cheers again!
moj wrote: Yep, I stopped pincushioning very early in my career as a legate. Slapping peasants all over the field at Vadimo Lake in order to occupy the enemy for another three seconds made me feel like a war criminal.
moj
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Re: End of Game Army Composition

Post by moj »

Aleksandr wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 2:44 pm Speaking of Auxilia, I give them Disc. Form. on lvl6, other than that I go Swordsman, Feint, Endurance, Anti-Infantry, followed by anti-Cav plus Block, all the way up to (Grand)Master. Some of this may be an overkill, and Dodge may be better then Block, but I'm not sure if it's good enough, so this is my usual progression. I sometimes use one or two levels of anti-Elephant, it may be a bit wasted skill, otoh elephants can be ugly, so I guess I should bite the bullet.
I don’t block or dodge at all! I can’t imagine playing Malventum now without at least one expert anti-ele standing in the river.

I use them absolutely differently, they are my most favourite unit, my precious, I totally lavish great love and attention on my heavy cavalry ... I use them to draw the enemy into the fray, to kill the light units, namely skirmishers and militia, I like to overrun the routed, trample+disengage the shieldwalls.
I’ve never had much success with the disengage/re-engage routine, and because I don’t ‘drill’ I guess I haven’t always got the order points to do so regularly. I’m also pretty bad at using cavalry to trigger enemy units. My broad strategy is to let the enemy come at me in woods/hills/rough so my auxilia can do their thing, so the cavalry are more or less limited to smashing into ranged units once all the enemy infantry are safely engaged.

the mûmakil.
Heh. And they’re the Peter Jackson stupid-sized ones, too.

End of the DReam is a reall massacre (of aux), too. But when I compare the Fame results for Aux campaign with that of the Heavy campaign, it's quite obvious that Auxilia are not only good enough, they are better.
I’m surprised... would have thought your massed ranks of archers should save them too much of a drubbing. My save-scumming result was 18 casualties for 90pts, but my average over the first 17 games was around double that. Aux generally at W6/A6 or better by then. It’s not the *worst* massacre, but I can imagine that even two good Praetorian units would do well to get away with fewer than 20 casualties / 200pts.

Yes, exactly that. I use them when my units have extreme adavantage and I don't wanna lose the unit to rng: Aux Cav against skirms in open, Auxilia in woods against heavy inf. Otherwise it's really bad, and Disc. Off. is the most useful.
Ah, hadn’t considered the ‘extreme advantage’ aspect, but that makes sense. Glad it’s just not me who struggles with ‘defensive’ formation! But as previously mentioned, it’s sometimes necessary into order to have the width when there are archers huddled behind.[/quote]


(Aquae Sextaie) I never had any trouble since I found out that the lvl20 heavies are the men to kill. I realized that your Legate finishes 50 lvls higher tham mine: do we use the same patch? Maybe this may be the reason for the Aquae Sextae randomness?
Are the L20 heavies one of the units on the righthand side? I really can’t see any pattern to it. In my iron man game the opposing general was *absolutely* the last enemy on the field for the final ten seconds or more.

Re patch levels, I think you’re under-patched! In April 2006 a Slitherine person mentioned that a patch increased legate scores; you yourself were getting your legate into the mid 60s in July 2012. I’m running Mac 1.1.1, but I don’t know if Win patches were synced. Also don’t know what changes the patch makes –I thought it was purely about OS compatibility, but it clearly isn’t.

Good ideas! I'm just a bit afraid for the new players, it's not really friendly to start in an Iron Man fashion, but well.. new players...yeah. :-)
Nah, these new players (heh) won’t notice... it’s exactly the same game, but after your first non-win you no longer get a nice “I BEAT LEGION ARENA” badge at end.

It's a pity that the chances for LA2 are really low, but maybe the Slitherine guys still read this thread? Who knows... ? :-)
Well... just from reading this thread you can see there’s clearly a *massive* demand for LA2. Seems like a no-brainer to me!

I’m not sure what I’d like to see from an LA2 (other than my IRON MAN badge and the battle replay penalty). I don’t think ‘improving’ the graphics would actually represent an improvement; I’d certainly hate to lose the naked fanatics’ little passport photo faces. I have Cult of Mithras but I very rarely played it; I think the no-heal restriction was just too extreme. Would have loved to have seen a ‘Legion Area: MORE BATTLES’ add-on, if nothing else just to get/use the megabows.

My main issue with the game as it stands is the difficulty/sequencing of the battles. Versuvius/Granacus might have their place about a dozen battles in, but one after the other in the last quarter of the game? Ditto Divo - I think a couple of L12-15 aux could handle that one quite easily without archers. And Philippi is the worst boss battle ever! I can only assume there was insufficient play-testing before the game was released.

The battles can’t be resequenced without losing the game’s sort-of educational aspirations, but we’re fighting at a very small scale – I’m commanding an ‘army’ of 360 men – so it’s possible to make all sorts of changes to opposition numbers/levels/tactics on the basis that our engagement represents 1/50th or 1/100th of the larger battle`

Once you acknowledge that we’re a small detachment of troops rather than a bunch of legions then it’s possible to introduce all sorts of fictitious, lost to history skirmishes with ‘interesting’ terrain and victory conditions.

If anyone at Slitherine is reading this and wants to engage me as Battle Balance Consultant for LA2, my rates are very reasonable...
Aleksandr
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Re: End of Game Army Composition

Post by Aleksandr »

I don’t block or dodge at all! I can’t imagine playing Malventum now without at least one expert anti-ele standing in the river.
I train the Block and/or Dodge and/or Missile Protection only after the unit has GM Swordsman (this gets them cool stuff), Master Endurance, Feint, Anti-Inf, anti-Cav. This basically means that only the very first units gain enough levels to train the defensive upgrades.
I train only Endurance as a sole protection skill from the very beginning, as it's a generalized skill that's useful against any and all enemies, moreover it allows the use of the heavy armour.

I’ve never had much success with the disengage/re-engage routine, and because I don’t ‘drill’ I guess I haven’t always got the order points to do so regularly. I’m also pretty bad at using cavalry to trigger enemy units. My broad strategy is to let the enemy come at me in woods/hills/rough so my auxilia can do their thing, so the cavalry are more or less limited to smashing into ranged units once all the enemy infantry are safely engaged.
I really love the cavalry drill. It's so easy once you find out the trick. And the trick is to attack in a DEFENSIVE STANCE, then disengage immediatelly the moment they hit the opposing unit. Defensive? To have a much wider front. Disengage immediatelly? To not get bogged down.
Once you'll provoke the enemy units into chasing the cavalry, you can kite them all over the battlefield in front of your archers, drive them into the woods for an Auxilia meating, open gaps to hit their back row of skirms, etc. Once the grand melee starts, I encircle the battlefield and trample the routed units for additional experience, and of course I sieve the enemy, meaning to hit the scrum from behind and let the enemy die post-battle while trying to... well... sieve through my cavalry.

Heh. And they’re the Peter Jackson stupid-sized ones, too.
Yep! :-)

I’m surprised... would have thought your massed ranks of archers should save them too much of a drubbing. My save-scumming result was 18 casualties for 90pts, but my average over the first 17 games was around double that. Aux generally at W6/A6 or better by then. It’s not the *worst* massacre, but I can imagine that even two good Praetorian units would do well to get away with fewer than 20 casualties / 200pts.
I expected the same, but the enemy is too close, and the units are so brutal that once they hit the archers they kill them in few seconds. I am able to stop the cavalry with pincushion Triarii, OR stop the infantry with pincushion Pretties, but never the both. I realized that the cavalry is totally dead to Triarii, and those can stand a few moments against the infantry horde, so I use them, then a lvl1 elephant as a bait, then two Auxilia to hold the line, Aux Cav to kill the skirms, rest the best of archers. It's a so-so battle, and if there's a better tactic for my kind of core, I don't know about one.


Ah, hadn’t considered the ‘extreme advantage’ aspect, but that makes sense. Glad it’s just not me who struggles with ‘defensive’ formation! But as previously mentioned, it’s sometimes necessary into order to have the width when there are archers huddled behind.
I am ashamed that I didn't mention the importance of the Always Trample In Defensive Stance doctrine. It's amazing: the wide front of the unit, and the fact that it doesn't penetrate too deep make it really powerful and safe tactic. I change the Aux Cav to Offensive once they are engaged, namely against weaker targets, but when closing in (namely against archers) and for the initial hit, I use Def Stance 95 % of time.
Take for example Aequi Riders (or MIB to lesser extent). If I were to hit the opposing infantry in Balanced (not to mention Offensive) stance, I'd lose much less command points for the disengage. But! I'd be in a much more serious danger of being trapped inside the enemy fromation ,and what for? A slightly higher chance for trample? One that is offset by a slightly narrower front of the Offensive Stance.

Always Trample In Defensive Stance. :-)

Yep, I switch to Offensive for pursuit and for sieving, but that's a different story.

Are the L20 heavies one of the units on the righthand side? I really can’t see any pattern to it. In my iron man game the opposing general was *absolutely* the last enemy on the field for the final ten seconds or more.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkTerIG ... q&index=47
Unless I'm mistaken, it's the shielded unit NW from the enemy general. Obviously we cannot check anything at 5:45, coz the battle ended with a total scrum... :-)

Re patch levels, I think you’re under-patched! In April 2006 a Slitherine person mentioned that a patch increased legate scores; you yourself were getting your legate into the mid 60s in July 2012. I’m running Mac 1.1.1, but I don’t know if Win patches were synced. Also don’t know what changes the patch makes –I thought it was purely about OS compatibility, but it clearly isn’t.
Yes, you're right! I thought about it, and I just realized that I simpl installed the game from CD, never patching it.. and tbh, idk if I ever will, I'm afraid of the "missing pop-ups" bug. But otoh, that bug seems to be linked to nvidia, not to the game itself.

Nah, these new players (heh) won’t notice... it’s exactly the same game, but after your first non-win you no longer get a nice “I BEAT LEGION ARENA” badge at end.
True! Than I support your idea!

Well... just from reading this thread you can see there’s clearly a *massive* demand for LA2. Seems like a no-brainer to me!
True, true once again! :-)

I’m not sure what I’d like to see from an LA2 (other than my IRON MAN badge and the battle replay penalty). I don’t think ‘improving’ the graphics would actually represent an improvement; I’d certainly hate to lose the naked fanatics’ little passport photo faces. I have Cult of Mithras but I very rarely played it; I think the no-heal restriction was just too extreme. Would have loved to have seen a ‘Legion Area: MORE BATTLES’ add-on, if nothing else just to get/use the megabows.
Yep! I play chess in 256 colours, I don't need any "improved" graphics! Otoh, if it wouldn't be done at the expense of gameplay... why not, it's 2022 already. ;-)
It's also a selling point, so new graphics are unavoidable, while not really needed.

My main issue with the game as it stands is the difficulty/sequencing of the battles. Versuvius/Granacus might have their place about a dozen battles in, but one after the other in the last quarter of the game? Ditto Divo - I think a couple of L12-15 aux could handle that one quite easily without archers. And Philippi is the worst boss battle ever! I can only assume there was insufficient play-testing before the game was released.
Yes, you're right. I also dislike the robotic nature of the AI, I know that it's programmed to act by the preset orders, but after a third or fourth playthrough, you know how it'll react, move, etc.

The battles can’t be resequenced without losing the game’s sort-of educational aspirations, but we’re fighting at a very small scale – I’m commanding an ‘army’ of 360 men – so it’s possible to make all sorts of changes to opposition numbers/levels/tactics on the basis that our engagement represents 1/50th or 1/100th of the larger battle`
That's exactly how I design campaigns for Panzer/Open General! We cannot change the outcome of the war, but we are tiny enough to wage our own war!

Once you acknowledge that we’re a small detachment of troops rather than a bunch of legions then it’s possible to introduce all sorts of fictitious, lost to history skirmishes with ‘interesting’ terrain and victory conditions.

If anyone at Slitherine is reading this and wants to engage me as Battle Balance Consultant for LA2, my rates are very reasonable...
Pip? Iain? Hello!!!


Speaking of LA2, there are a few things I'd welcome/expect:

- improved graphics... it's 2022
- improved AI
- Iron Man mode
- random skirmish/battle
- scenario editor
- CAMPAIGN EDITOR!
- more civs, each with its own campaign: Latins (tutorial campaign, but a tiny bit longer now), Rome, Greece, Puns, Celts, Germanics, Persians, Steppe Nomads, eight civs, two for each basic element
- a few more units: surely horse archers, war chariots, the "lets open this can of worms" field artillery; and an overall units' balancing

There's always more to wish for, but this is an absolute minimum, one that's also pretty reasonable imho.

Cheers!
moj wrote: Yep, I stopped pincushioning very early in my career as a legate. Slapping peasants all over the field at Vadimo Lake in order to occupy the enemy for another three seconds made me feel like a war criminal.
moj
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Re: End of Game Army Composition

Post by moj »

Aleksandr wrote: Wed Jan 19, 2022 5:30 pm I really love the cavalry drill. It's so easy once you find out the trick. And the trick is to attack in a DEFENSIVE STANCE, then disengage immediatelly the moment they hit the opposing unit. Defensive? To have a much wider front. Disengage immediatelly? To not get bogged down.
Once you'll provoke the enemy units into chasing the cavalry, you can kite them all over the battlefield in front of your archers, drive them into the woods for an Auxilia meating, open gaps to hit their back row of skirms, etc. Once the grand melee starts, I encircle the battlefield and trample the routed units for additional experience, and of course I sieve the enemy, meaning to hit the scrum from behind and let the enemy die post-battle while trying to... well... sieve through my cavalry.
You make it sound so tempting! Will give it a go, some time.

(End of the Dream)I am able to stop the cavalry with pincushion Triarii, OR stop the infantry with pincushion Pretties, but never the both. I realized that the cavalry is totally dead to Triarii, and those can stand a few moments against the infantry horde, so I use them, then a lvl1 elephant as a bait, then two Auxilia to hold the line, Aux Cav to kill the skirms, rest the best of archers. It's a so-so battle, and if there's a better tactic for my kind of core, I don't know about one.
Oh. I just front up with two well-spaced, defensive auxilia. They’re further advanced than I’d like, because of the Suicidal Skirmishing Archers Problem that’s perculiar to this battle. Archers in bottom left; third auxilia waiting to step in on my right flank is/when the unit ahead are broken; cavalry trot round the right side to take out the enemy archer. Works for me, and far less ‘steering’!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkTerIG ... q&index=47
Unless I'm mistaken, it's the shielded unit NW from the enemy general. Obviously we cannot check anything at 5:45, coz the battle ended with a total scrum... :-)
The Ambrones Nobles at around 2:18? Interesting. Will give it a go, some time. Have you tried just archer-rushing them?

We cannot change the outcome of the war, but we are tiny enough to wage our own war!
Yep. And I’m sure that on *any* battlefield you’ll be able to find atypical units and a bit of scrub, a pile of rocks, an area of bog...

I also dislike the robotic nature of the AI, I know that it's programmed to act by the preset orders, but after a third or fourth playthrough, you know how it'll react, move, etc.
We’re very much ‘gaming the game’ but it’s a testament to the game that we bother to do so. I’m sure we’ve both forgotten how we arrived at our army compositions, or how we arrived at our pre-battle deployments, but it’s now a question of *tiny* tweaks to positioning. I have a couple of battles where I’m not 100% sure of my best tactics/deployment, but that’s it.

I’m not asking for the opposition army to be commanded by Deep Thought, but it would be fantastic if there it some greater level of decision-making in response to events: enemy heavies/cavalry not ploughing into hills and woodland unless you’re first ‘annoyed’ them with ranged fire, for example. Or, at Bagradas, the enemy reserve deploying once you’ve destroyed the first wave of attack.

A simpler fix than producing a superior AI would be one or more of the following:

a) Multiple plans for the enemy. What if the enemy cavalry occasionally charge rather than trot at the Annexation of Etruria? What if the enemy cavalry keep coming down the right rather than switching to the left at Etruscans?

b) Random enemy reinforcements: two units of light cavalry or an elite heavy infantry formation *might* enter from left or right when you least expect them.

c) Fog of war: you can see where the enemy units are, but you can’t accurately identify them beyond the first rank. And there is randomised substitution/swapping of units before each battle, eg you don’t know until the horns sound whether those horses in the distance are L20 cataphracts or L1 children on rocking horses.

d) Restricted unit purchasing: the only thing your neighbourhood pro-consul has in stock right now are legionaries, hastati, and noble cavalry. Do you want to buy now, or wait to see which units he has after the next battle?

All these randomised elements would obviously screw up some players' (cough) sad obsessive chasing of high scores, but I'd say it's healthier :-)

Speaking of LA2, there are a few things I'd welcome/expect:

- improved graphics... it's 2022
- improved AI
- Iron Man mode
- random skirmish/battle
- scenario editor
- CAMPAIGN EDITOR!
- more civs, each with its own campaign: Latins (tutorial campaign, but a tiny bit longer now), Rome, Greece, Puns, Celts, Germanics, Persians, Steppe Nomads, eight civs, two for each basic element
- a few more units: surely horse archers, war chariots, the "lets open this can of worms" field artillery; and an overall units' balancing
Wow, you’re really going for it here

Graphics: I’m not as young as I used to be, and I like my games to look a bit ‘basic’. I never really recovered from the visual changes between Civ 3 and Civ 4.

Random skirmish/battle: yep, having every third or fourth battle as an essentially random event (but obviously one which takes account of the position in the game; no point having a Mulhouse when you’ve got half a dozen L10 units) would be good.

Editors: hell yes.

More civs: sounds like a lot of development work for a target market of two. Are you suggesting we should be able to *play* as the Persians? I’d be more than happy with a 60+ game Celtic campaign; the existing one ends horribly abruptly.

More units: mounted archers would be fun to come against – the Romans always enjoyed those battles! ‘Field artillery’ could work as an enemy-only unit: longer range than archers, but completely static (perhaps with a limited fire radius?). Take out that bolt-thrower! Can we also have war pigs running in all directions?

There's always more to wish for, but this is an absolute minimum, one that's also pretty reasonable imho.
If you change ‘minimum’ to ‘maximum’, and ‘reasonable’ to ‘unreasonable’, then I’m in full agreement!

*****

Had another go at IRON MAN yesterday.

Was going really well – on target for 1,144k – until Illipa. I way-pointed my cavalry around the top of the map to hit the enemy archers from behind, but managed to trigger the enemy cavalry too. My cavalry were routed and I suffered a 345pt heal cost.

Should have realised I was getting sloppy and left it for the day, but went onto Zama. Because I was now looking at points as well as IRON MAN I went for my less tested tactic of deploying in depth on the central hill (seems cheaper than deploying to the left and ‘poking’ that one immobile heavy infantry unit right at the start). Once battle was met on the hill I sent in my cavalry to engage archers without realising that they, too, had *just* made it onto the hill, leading to a slugfest rather than a quick kill. Should have poked the static heavy in the corner with my legate, but didn’t. By the time my archers and cavalry reached him it was ten seconds too late; timed out with those heavies at 41/48.

I am now retiring from the game for at least 4-5 days. Will have another stab some time next week.
Aleksandr
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Re: End of Game Army Composition

Post by Aleksandr »

You make it sound so tempting! Will give it a go, some time.
It's one of the better and safer ways how to use the cavalry. Horsemen tend to have big losses, at least until they can get the three big items: Sarmatian Cav Armour, Teutonic Horses and Ach. Armour. They are also my sole heavy unit quite often, and thus every lost men hurts.
I think that properly trained and equipped Aux Cav (much less the Nobles) could be a solid h2h unit, the issue is that they drop to "need heal" after mere two dead, moreover they need to operate in a clear terrain and that's not a good place to fight enemy heavies.

Oh. I just front up with two well-spaced, defensive auxilia. They’re further advanced than I’d like, because of the Suicidal Skirmishing Archers Problem that’s perculiar to this battle. Archers in bottom left; third auxilia waiting to step in on my right flank is/when the unit ahead are broken; cavalry trot round the right side to take out the enemy archer. Works for me, and far less ‘steering’!
I tried the same, but the losses were awful.
These days I make a defensive ring in the SE corner, Triarii hold the S middle, elephant bait stands in SW corner. The enemy cavalry attacks the Triarii who can withstand the attack thanks to the archers support, then when the rest of the enemy routes the elephants, my Triarii still got enough men to hold for say ten seconds. That's when The Aux Cav finishes the encirclement and rides down the enemy missile unit, and my Auxilias join the battle with enemy units already weakened by my archers. It can be really ugly battle with multiple routed, but it also can end with as few as twenty dead Auxilia. Weird battle, indeeed.

The Ambrones Nobles at around 2:18? Interesting. Will give it a go, some time. Have you tried just archer-rushing them?
Yep, them. Yep, tried. It works flawlessly, you just need someone to stop the cavalry flanks, I use 2x PinTriarii; even at lvl1 they hold their ground long enough for the archers to win. I also tried a full-Archers approach with only the Legate holding the left flank, and I was able to kill the Ambrones before the cav could hit me... but the enemy archers shoot at my own men, and killed a lot of them, so the pin/core flanks are needed.

We cannot change the outcome of the war, but we are tiny enough to wage our own war!
Yep. And I’m sure that on *any* battlefield you’ll be able to find atypical units and a bit of scrub, a pile of rocks, an area of bog...
Exactly!


We’re very much ‘gaming the game’ but it’s a testament to the game that we bother to do so. I’m sure we’ve both forgotten how we arrived at our army compositions, or how we arrived at our pre-battle deployments, but it’s now a question of *tiny* tweaks to positioning. I have a couple of battles where I’m not 100% sure of my best tactics/deployment, but that’s it.
Yes, this is indeed spot on. I sometimes feel a bit weird when trying to beat my record, coz by now I don't really fight the enemy, but rather do a routine work, but as long as it's fun, why not? I also try new tactics from time to time, I got something to share in a few days.
And yes, this is truly a real testament to the game and its quality!

I’m not asking for the opposition army to be commanded by Deep Thought, but it would be fantastic if there it some greater level of decision-making in response to events: enemy heavies/cavalry not ploughing into hills and woodland unless you’re first ‘annoyed’ them with ranged fire, for example. Or, at Bagradas, the enemy reserve deploying once you’ve destroyed the first wave of attack.
Exactly, that's what I'd love to see. I know that some new behaviour could easily become too powerful or annoying (imagine heavies who'd never charge no matter how many arrows rain at their heads), but a bit of an AI tweak would be nice.

A simpler fix than producing a superior AI would be one or more of the following:

a) Multiple plans for the enemy. What if the enemy cavalry occasionally charge rather than trot at the Annexation of Etruria? What if the enemy cavalry keep coming down the right rather than switching to the left at Etruscans?

b) Random enemy reinforcements: two units of light cavalry or an elite heavy infantry formation *might* enter from left or right when you least expect them.

c) Fog of war: you can see where the enemy units are, but you can’t accurately identify them beyond the first rank. And there is randomised substitution/swapping of units before each battle, eg you don’t know until the horns sound whether those horses in the distance are L20 cataphracts or L1 children on rocking horses.

d) Restricted unit purchasing: the only thing your neighbourhood pro-consul has in stock right now are legionaries, hastati, and noble cavalry. Do you want to buy now, or wait to see which units he has after the next battle?

All these randomised elements would obviously screw up some players' (cough) sad obsessive chasing of high scores, but I'd say it's healthier :-)
Yes, this will be a solid improvement. I'm not sure about the limited purchase (we're already limited by gold), but all the other ideas are totally fine and doable, namely small randomness factor. It's one gaming aspect that always adds to replayability. It can be dangerous, and it would definitely screw the recordmen, but there are people who speedrun Diablo2, much more rng-based game, and it doesn't seem problematic, quite the contrary.
Fog of War was kinda kinda used in GBoR, and I don't even think that anything more would be needed, in fact I like that all information is visible, we really play real-time chess. But a tiny random element, lets say 90% of the enemy units is preset, 10 % is randomly chosen, could introduce some suprise factor and improve the already mentioned replayability.

Wow, you’re really going for it here
Well, ummm... yes... :-D I mean, it's totally possible that I think about LA a little bit too much. ;-)

Graphics: I’m not as young as I used to be, and I like my games to look a bit ‘basic’. I never really recovered from the visual changes between Civ 3 and Civ 4.
Keep it nice and oldschool, keep it undemanding, just add a little bit of a "whoah!", and I'm absolutely happy. :-)

Random skirmish/battle: yep, having every third or fourth battle as an essentially random event (but obviously one which takes account of the position in the game; no point having a Mulhouse when you’ve got half a dozen L10 units) would be good.
I wouldn't add random battles into the campaign flow (although non-linear campaign could be cool, PG2 / Open General work this way), as this could alter the feel of the game bit too much. A few random units here and there, yes, but I'd keep the overal campaign design.

What I meant was a separate game mode! A true random skirmish, something similar to random map in Heroes of MaM or AOE: randomly chosen map (from some presets, or limited choice via player preferences), then either a battle of prebuilt armies or even an army builder (you got three-five minutes to build your force).
It may be far too clunky and tiresome to build a whole 30k Gold 20k Exp army from the scratch, so maybe there could be a portfolio of preset units, each unit having three experience categories (Green, Vet, Elite), each exp. category with its own preset upgrades and items.

Imagine it like this:
You start with some gold + fame based on an agreed settings or maybe set by a gold slider, whatever. You purchase units by simply clicking on them and moving them from reserves to your army. You may buy e.g.:
- two Elite Aux Cav (who are at lvl 18 and they start with lvl3 weapons+armour+helm), then
- three Vet Auxilias (they are born at lvl 12 and they got lvl2 sword+armour), plus
- four Green Velites (starting at lvl 6 with extra javelins), then...
...click to save this army, this moves you to the deployment screen, where the players alternately place the units. Once all of them are placed, start the battle!

Editors: hell yes.
Yep, this is a must, this is what builds not only the scenarios, but also modding/design community.

More civs: sounds like a lot of development work for a target market of two. Are you suggesting we should be able to *play* as the Persians? I’d be more than happy with a 60+ game Celtic campaign; the existing one ends horribly abruptly.
Sadly, you're right, this would never pay for itself. It's surely not a viable idea for an LA mod, but maybe for LA2?

Eight civs might seem like a lot, but thinking of Antiquity: whom we gonna scratch? Surely not the Romans, but then who else should be missing? Greeks? Persians? Phoenicians? Gauls and Germanics? All of those were either empires or great tribal federations, important cultures, they had their share of famous warriors and kings. And once you'll think about broader Med./Black Sea timespace, Steppe Nomads are a must.

If I had a million to donate on LA2, I'd love to see:
- an easy Latins campaign, a short 4-scenarios tutorial
- two main 60-scenarios campaigns:
the Roman one, and...
the expanded Gauls campaign
- four medium difficulty, medium length (40-scen) campaigns:
one for Germanics
one for Phoenicians
one for Greeks
one for Persians
- a short but hard "bonus" campaign of eight battles for the...
Steppe Nomads

I'd love such a game! <3 :-)
More units: mounted archers would be fun to come against – the Romans always enjoyed those battles! ‘Field artillery’ could work as an enemy-only unit: longer range than archers, but completely static (perhaps with a limited fire radius?). Take out that bolt-thrower! Can we also have war pigs running in all directions?
Yeah, horse archers would be nice, static bolt throwers are also a good idea, then of course chariots, and quite some elephants. This would be sooo cool!

There's always more to wish for, but this is an absolute minimum, one that's also pretty reasonable imho.
If you change ‘minimum’ to ‘maximum’, and ‘reasonable’ to ‘unreasonable’, then I’m in full agreement!
:-)

Had another go at IRON MAN yesterday.

...

I am now retiring from the game for at least 4-5 days. Will have another stab some time next week.
Yeah, I also often wage one battle more than I should, and then I'm losing patience and soldiers. :-I
I think that I found an enjoyable routine: I don't touch LA during the week, but I got free evening on Fri and Sat, and those two evenings are exactly what I need for a nice run of Legion Arena. It's Thursday today, so in 48 hours expect the unexpectable... :-)
moj wrote: Yep, I stopped pincushioning very early in my career as a legate. Slapping peasants all over the field at Vadimo Lake in order to occupy the enemy for another three seconds made me feel like a war criminal.
moj
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Re: End of Game Army Composition

Post by moj »

Aleksandr wrote: Thu Jan 20, 2022 6:45 pmI think that I found an enjoyable routine: I don't touch LA during the week, but I got free evening on Fri and Sat, and those two evenings are exactly what I need for a nice run of Legion Arena. It's Thursday today, so in 48 hours expect the unexpectable... :-)
We're waiting!

Have actually had two IRON MAN games since my last post, both really lazy blast-throughs. Lost both due to huuuge management failings. First game ended at Vercellae where I didn't wake the right hand enemy heavies until too late (timed out with them ploughing towards my archers at 35/48; another volley would probably have done it). Second game ended at Zela, when I 'won' with 30 seconds to spare then took around half the remaining time, with the clock running (doh!), to notice that the enemy general was slugging it out with one of my archers while two auxilia units stood pointing and laughing from 50m away. That second game also featured one of those great Malventum battles where it's your arrrowless archers splashing around with two elephants for over an hour of in-game time.

In both cases once I'd got past Aquae Sextiae I switched off and went into victory lap mode.

Am starting to think that IRON MAN, and having absolutely no concern for casualties, isn't much fun. It boils down to the three or four battles where you can play badly enough to fail to meet the victory conditions; most of the other 60+ battles are basically 'set and go' with next to no need for in-battle management.

Something I noticed that surprised me: I completed the second, 'defeated at Zela' campaign to see the score (just short of 1,142k). I suffered a huge number of auxilia casualties, with probably 10x as many 'breakages' as in a score-conscious campaign. I thought this would mean that the archers had to save my arse by making many more kills. But after Philippi my archers were L25/L25/L25/L24, so absolutely no improvement in level attainment.
Aleksandr
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Re: End of Game Army Composition

Post by Aleksandr »

moj wrote: Wed Jan 26, 2022 2:45 pm
We're waiting!
Oh, hi there and thanks for your interest! I had a serious man cold in the past days, but now I'm back in strength again! :-)
I got the promised stuff ready, and then I'll try to address your Iron Man related ideas. Hopefully I won't forget anything important.


Auxiliary Velites

Image

Leg 19
Aux Cav 28
Aux 23 23 21 22
Vel 30 28 26 24
Aux Arch 30 29 28 25

So, the idea behind this build was to explore the viability and possibilities of the Velites. Someone (literal sum1won, or maybe possum, maybe even you?) had good experiences with them, as they are much less micro intense due to the fact that they don't shoot at random target two screens away, and they can function very well as a dedicated dumbo killers. I tried them and I was a bit disappointed. They don't withstand much punishment in h2h, once they rout their first enemy they just stand firm and watch the carnage, so not only you need to micro them, but also do that in the least suitable moment. They also delayed my archers, and I had far too few of those, so the result is kinda meh. There was hardly a battle where I said to myself "man, I'm sooo glad that I had the wolfies" while there were dozen of battles where I'd love to have more numerous and/or more experienced archer horde.
I think that if I were to use the Velites in the future, then only one or two units as a support for the most important unit or to hold/open the gap.
7/10, definitely wouldn't try again


Auxiliary Only Fans aka No Peasants Were Hurt During The Making Of This Movie

Image

Leg 20
Aux 32 27 28 28
Aux Arch 33 29 28 31
Aux Cav 28

Yep, what the title says, and more. This is not only the final army, these are all of my units that I purchased during this run. No pincushions at all, not a single peasant was hurt, not a single pretorian was bought, not a single mammoth was risen from the frozen grave only to be slaughtered, not one pincushion. Result kinda speaks for itself, this is sooo 2011. :-)
Butt! Other than the final fame, this was unexpectedly enjoyable run! I had a strong bond with every unit. I gave them bis equipment without hesitation, and instead of counting every penny, I could be more than generous. The run was also surprisingly fast and relaxed due to a much lower level of micro (battle ballet) and macro ("crap, I forget to delete the half dead pretorians before mass heal, reload pls") managment necessary; I think that it took me half the time of the normal low-pincushion runs. It was also both a novel experience and a nostalgic one: I played like this back in mid 2000's, and I had totally forgotten that this leads to a much different, much more interesting and yes, much nicer gameplay.
The only minor matter is the fact that I couldn't start with the Aux Cav, so my ocd did hurt a tiny bit, but then again when I finally purchased them and they received eight levels after the first battle I was like whoa!
10/10 definitely gonna try some variation on a theme.


Low Pincushion Army

Image

Leg 46
Aux Cav 25
Aux 22 19 19 20
Aux Arch 23 23 22 21 21 21 19 19

Well, this time the positioning of the horsemen was 100% perfect, and as you might have noticed by the Legate's final level, I finally patched my game. For those of you wondering: yep, it works fine, and the no tool tip issue is surely an nvidia bug.

Speaking of the run: so many things are wrong or at least a bit off. First of all, I went a low-sacrifice route meaning that I used pincushions, but only sparingly and I tried to avoid peasants. It didn't pay, neither in the resulting fame, nor in the resulting fun. Imho you either go full war hero or full war criminal, nothing in between really works. I also made a big mistake of investing into the Auxilia's stuff without keeping enough money for a solid pincushons, so instead of having six Pretties available at any given moment, I often worked with just three to four, and it showed.
Interestingly enough, even though I used much less throw-aways, the pre- and in-battle managment was quite straining. The constant need to reshuffle the dudes, to remember to not accidentally heal them, to give them proper orders, to set a correct stance, to set their movement, etc. all of that kinda lowered my patience and a few of the battles were not quite optimal. I'm also really surprised with Vadimo Lake, I'd expect four lvl 12 - lvl 14 Auxilas to fare much better against what is mostly a greenhorn army of heavy infantry standing in rough, but they always bleed my nose.
I didn't use my usual progress tree, too, and although I variated in only a slight bit, it wasn't an improvement. The Archers Horde also gained too few exp. and no Odd Bow is kinda meh.

I think that this may be THE correct approach, but I also need to execute it correctly, too. And for the love of Jupiter, I need to keep my Auxilia at home for several battles towards the end of the whole show.
Also, I replayed Africa for like thirty times, and not just for a better result, but simply because they defeated me no matter what. With a mighty Archer's Horde I can shoot down the enemy horsemen before they fight through the two lvl1 Triarii, and I can ride down the approaching skirmishers with my own horsemen, but once the rest moves in, it's easy for them to score a few lucky hits, and as the casualty limit is really tight, I had many many results where the final javelins salvo routed the Triarii or killed a few archers and I was back in the main menu by the speed of light.
8/10, and with enough drill, this will be it.


*******************************************************

And now for something completely different.

arrrowless archers splashing around with two elephants for over an hour of in-game time.
Horde approved.

In both cases once I'd got past Aquae Sextiae I switched off and went into victory lap mode.

Am starting to think that IRON MAN, and having absolutely no concern for casualties, isn't much fun. It boils down to the three or four battles where you can play badly enough to fail to meet the victory conditions; most of the other 60+ battles are basically 'set and go' with next to no need for in-battle management.
Yeah, that's it, that's exaaactly the issue!

I started two IM games this week, not finishing either one of them. In fact I may have made a core development issue during the 2nd try, as I tried an unusual start with the Nobles. The idea was that as long as I don't care about the fame, I may simply develop a fast early core (Nobles + 2x Aux) with enough gold for pincushions so that I can build the Archers Horde asap, followed by some Triarii and Aux Cav to pack a punch.
Surprisingly, I lost very early, at Aequi Riders to be precise. Now, excuse my excurse, but this is the core issue (pun intended) of the IM challenge: you simply cannot deviate from your tried and true core army, battle plans, purchase order. So what's the fun then? Namely when the fame goes out of the window, AND you still can lose to a disengage bug, or enemy leader's ZOC extending all across the map, or random dude dying two seconds before the time limit, or random enemy guy NOT dying in the same way, or archers splashing to death with dumbos, etc.
In its current form, Iron Man challenge doesn't thrill me. The self-imposed restrictions are all that makes the difference from a "normal" run, I don't think that Slitherine will make a datadisk for 18 y/o game, so we're stuck with what we got, and I don't really enjoy that, namely when it seems like the best Iron Man army could be some kind of a 20-units behemoth that rolls over the enemy without consideration for our own losses. I may very well be proven wrong, but I cannot imagine that anything less than a complete juggernaut of an army could have enough punch for the 68 scenarios, although it would certainly bleed the fame.

Maybe this could work:

1x Aux Cav
4x Auxilia
8x Archers
2x Triarii
2x Aux Cav

Enough early power, four Auxilia to fight in the woods, many fast archers, two extremely powerful anti-cav dudes, two more horsemen for improved mobility in time-limited battles. Could this work? I may try this on the next Fri/Sat nights.

Something I noticed that surprised me: I completed the second, 'defeated at Zela' campaign to see the score (just short of 1,142k). I suffered a huge number of auxilia casualties, with probably 10x as many 'breakages' as in a score-conscious campaign. I thought this would mean that the archers had to save my arse by making many more kills. But after Philippi my archers were L25/L25/L25/L24, so absolutely no improvement in level attainment.
Weird. I cannot comment more, as I finished mere one campaign with the patched game, but I think that there's some hidden experience resource.
I'm like 99% sure that the number of units involved makes a lot difference, because there's some post-battle bonus that's split between the party, otherwise my Legate not to mention the Aux Cav would not gain anything at the Hernici Farmers. Which btw has a really powerful intro, I always root for the farmers, they are neither cowards nor weaklings.
What's your opinion on the post-battle bonus, is it real or do I see things?

Thanks for the conversation, and as always: cheers!


edit:
I think that there's some hidden experience resource... What's your opinion on the post-battle bonus, is it real or do I see things?
So, what about I test that, hm? ;-)

Image

Image

Yeah! And on the 1st try the scouts gained few experiences although they killed more units then on the 2nd try; the peasants didn't even kill anybody, yet they still gained some exp. Interesting, if I knew about this, I did forget that. Gotta use this knowledge!
Now it makes me doubly sad that I cannot start with the Aux Cav; Slitherine guys, y u no give us 500 gold!? :-)
moj wrote: Yep, I stopped pincushioning very early in my career as a legate. Slapping peasants all over the field at Vadimo Lake in order to occupy the enemy for another three seconds made me feel like a war criminal.
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