Overview
Covers ALL multiplayer aspects.Unit Overview – Army composition – Formations – Tactics – Micro Management – Special Tips.Includes advanced mechanics/tips and complete faction focus.
1. Introduction
Dear TW Rome 2 players,
thanks for clicking on my actually really stupid picture.
This guide’s audience are new players as well as average and experienced players.
Only the very best competitive tournament players may not benefit by reading this guide.
The author
My steam nickname actually refers to Maharbal, who was a cavalry commander serving under Hannibal during the second punic war. He is famous for what he said to Hannibal after the glorious victory at cannae: “You know how to achieve a victory, Hannibal, but you do not know how to use it”. I like this quote because it shows that not only the tactical component is important, but much more the strategic aspect. You do not even have a chance to win a battle if you already lost the strategic comparison badly. Just my thoughts 🙂
If you want to contact me, add me in Steam or write me an Email.
I’m playing Rome 2 since its release, and I almost always liked it. After the release of the emperor edition I decided to test myself in multiplayer matches.
How it all started
I lost my first ~25 online battles without any chance, although I have managed to beat a campaign on very hard without serious problems before. Now, about three months later, I have accomplished to get some nice win streaks and improve my skills and tactics drastically.
Important: I mostly play 1v1 battles. This means my advices and experiences mostly relate to 1v1. It shouldn’t be a problem to transfer on 2v2 / 3v3. But keep that in mind while reading.
Obviously, I do not guarantee that you can win all battles after reading this guide. But if you’re up for some helpful advices, it’ll greatly boost your skill progress.
I like exploring a game and its mechanics further and I’m always open minded to some new ideas or objective criticism.
Most important of all: Never stop learning!
Now, I would describe myself an above-average player. I understand the game mechanics and I’ve got a large amount of theoretical knowledge to support my further progress. Please do neither think of me as a noob nor the best player on earth. I’m doin’ my best and want to share my experience.
About this guide
This guide needed about 125h of work, concepts, writing, screenshotting and editing them, ingame testing, comparing and so much more to be complete. If you like my guide, feel free to show your appreciation. But much more important, be honest. If you don’t like it, tell me. Tell me why!
Have fun reading and playing, Bobby.
2. General stuff
I. Behaviour
Be fair and friendly to the people you play with / against.
– Write HF GL = Have Fun + Good Luck before a battle starts.
– Write GG = Good Game after a battle.
– Read the rules and keep an eye for the chat window in custom battles.
II. Things you might also consider:
This is a Strategy game. If your enemy likes watching his horse archers shooting your army into small pieces and you cant do anything…. Then its mainly your fault. This is not an action game where explosions follow explosions and guns and tits and firetrucks and etc.
So please don’t be mean just because someone’s tactics are a bit slower or rely on falling back.
I got insulted so countless times when I used Elephants or Cataphracts:
STUPID ♥♥♥♥♥♥, YOU MUST BE A BAD PLAYER BRINGING THE MOST OP UNIT IN THE GAME. (this is actually a real quote^^).
First: Every unit can be countered somewhat efficient. If you fail to do so, the enemy is going to profit from your mistake.
Second: Think of it, you get what you pay for, and I payed a huge price. Thats why I get some brutal tools. Every unit has its price, and this reflects their skills.
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If your enemy managed to kill your troops more efficient than you killed his then he was the better player in this battle. If he uses elephants, horse archers or chariots to do so – doesnt have much matter. Accept it, and learn to use all tools – because this is how real balance works. Every defeat gives you valuable experience to enhance your abilities in the next battle!
Do not insult your opponent – he deserves credit for his skills instead of childish insults.
My recommendation to everyone is: SAVE ALL YOUR REPLAYS! Put them into an archive.
You won’t lose anything if you don’t watch every single one again.
But especially the close battles or the ones you got destroyed badly are important.
Watch them over and over again and focus on single fights between units, or micro mistakes.
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IV. Abbreviations
I tried to avoid them, but sometimes my fingers are faster than my brain.
If I used any abbreviations at all, here is the explanation:
– Inf: Infantry
– Cav: cavalry
– ele: Elephants
– char: Chariots
– HA: Horse Archers
– att: melee Attack (the statistic value)
– def: Melee defence (statistic value)
– dmg: Missile damage (statistic value)
– ap, ap dmg: Armor piercing, armor piercing damage.
– stat, stats: Statistic, statistics
3. Basics about different units
Lets look on the different weapons units can have.
But before we do this, some explanations to different unit categories. The following list will show you the different unit categories – the way Rome II. organised it.
Melee Units: equipped with a sword, axe, falx/rhomphaia or club
Spear units: equipped with a spear
Pike units: equipped with a pike (basically a spear variant ca 6 metres long)
Melee Cavalry: equipped with spears or swords
Shock Cavalry: equipped with a long lance to charge more effectively
Missile Cavalry: equipped with javelins or bows – they have a sword, dagger or spear in reserve
Missile Infantry: equipped with javelins, slings or bows – dagger, sword or rarely spear in reserve
Others: Chariots, Elephants, War dogs.
The following pictures with commentary should give you a once-over of the different weapons and their characteristics.
Close quarter weapons
other: Chariots, warhounds and elephants are special and cant be compared this way.
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Ranged Weapons
- Sling and stones: Low damage. Medium armor piercing. High rate of fire. High range of 150m and its single-handed, that means the men can carry a shield.
- Bow&Arrows: Can use (depending on unit quality) different arrow types. Unit quality also determines the range, 125 or 150m. Medium rate of fire.
Standard Arrow: High damage, small Armor piercing, standard range and accuaracy.
Flaming Arrow: Very low damage & Armor piercing. Lowers the morale of units and sets buildings on fire if needed.
Whistling Arrow: Almost no Damage & Armor piercing. Lowers the morale, the melee attack and the rate of fire.
Heavy Shot: High Damage, medium Armor Piercing. Reduces range (25m less) and accuracy.
Javelins: Low to high Damage, depends on unit quality. Low range of 80m and high armor piercing. High rate of fire. Has a bonus VS large. Many melee units also carry javelins. If they have a skirmish/melee function, they have a range of 80m. If they only have the melee mode, its 40m.
Another important attribute is the unit mass classification.
In relation to the armor value, there is a certain mass certification for each unit.
This mainly comes to effect when chargin OR getting charged.
The heavier a unit, the more enemies are going to get run over by their heavy impact. Heavy units can withstand charges better.
Logically on the other side, a lighter unit cant get make use of their weight this effectively and gets more easily run over when getting charged.
You can look up the unit weight class when hovering over the yellow symbol on their unit card.
circle means: very light & light
diamond means: Medium & heavy
square means: very heavy & super heavyThe ingame categories are basically self-explaining. Some units are only semi-fitting in their categories, but youre going to recognize those folks when looking on their statistic values. That’s why I will show you this table…
Explanation to stats values
Melee Attack: the probability of hitting another unit in meleeMissile Damage: the damage a hit with a certain missile does
Weapon Damage: the Damage a certain melee weapon does
Range (only skirmishers/Artillery): The range of the unit in metres
Shots per Minute: How fast a ranged unit can fire
Ammunition: How many shots each individual soldier can carry
Bonus versus Large: amount of bonus attack received against Horses&Elefants
Bonus versus Infantry: amount of bonus attack received against infantry
Charge bonus: Bonus received when charging an enemy unit, adds bonus to attack and weapon damage. It reduces over time to zero.
Melee Defence: probability of not being hit in a melee fight.
Armor: mostly determines the mass of a unit. Offers damage absorption both in melee and against incoming missiles.
Health: How mony hitpoints a single man has got
Base Morale: How likely a unit is to stay in a fight or flee when the odds are against them.
4. Unit abilities and hybrid units
Now that the basic statistics and values are explained, the more difficult stuff comes next.
Lets see what different abilities and traits units potentially can have…
I. Abilties
First of all, there are abilities that are only active if you give the order. These only last a specific duration. Almost all of these have a big fatigue penalty.
Example: Headhunt, Frenzied Charge, Cavalry Countertactics etc.
Second, there are different formations, which can simply be turned ON or OFF without limitations.
These usually trade some statistic values.
For Example “Attacking Testudo”. It trades off speed in favor of protection against missiles.
Last but not least there are permanent traits or skills that simply exist and always influence the unit. Some of them are “Area of Influence”, like “Fear” or “Encourage” effects. Some of them are like a unit attribute.
Example: Suebi Berserkers, “Berserk” Trait.
You can get information on all abilites ingame. Just go to custom battle and hover the cursor over the ability icon.
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II. Unit Hybrids
Some units don’t fit perfectly in the standard categories.
I try to list these hybrids and a bit more special units.
Thureos Spears: Greek Factions
Basically a spear unit with ranged javelin capabilites.
They carry 5 Javelins per man (compared to 7-10 on full skirmisher units).
Units acting the same way like thureos spears: Agema spears, Illyrian marines, of course thureos spear variants: levy thuroes spears etc.
Same category, although a bit special: Lusitani guerillas
Skirmishing Swordsmen
A sword + javelin hybrid.
They have 5 Javelin ammunition.
Units: Iberian Swordsmen, Guerilla Warriors, Ambushers, Royal Peltasts.
Agrianian Axemen
An axe + javelin hybrid.
Since it’s counted as a missile unit, it has 7 ammo.
Elite Javelin Skirmishers
Examples: Suebi Horserunners, most Peltast units
These guys have a surprisingly good armor compared to other skirmishers. They also have some (not good but its better than nothing) melee capabilites. They can withstand a medium melee cavalry charge with some difficulties, but they don’t rout instantly.
Archers with Spears
These unit actually carries a spear as secondary weapon into battle. They act like a normal archer unit, but they get a hidden +30 bonus VS large in melee.
Units: Cimbri Bow Women (Suebi), Elite Persian Archers (Armenia, Parthia, Baktria) and Cimmerian Heavy Archers (Cimmeria).
Shock Infantry
Not easy to draw the line here, but generally infantry units whith the purpose to shock the enemy line: Make many kills quickly, but lose in the prolongued fight.
Many of them have the rare bonus VS infantry.
Falx units can also be seen as Shock infantry.
Examples: Thracian Warriors, Naked Spears, Naked Warriors, Naked Swords.
Javelin + melee Cavalry
This is a unit with good enough melee stats to count as a melee cavalry unit, but also has 7 javelins ready to throw anytime. Most of them have base stats equal to most light cavalry units.
Examples: Germanic Scout Riders, Galatian Raiders, Raiding Horsemen, Thracian Cavalry, Tarantine Cavalry (at least a bit), Numidian Noble Cavalry or Scythian Royal Skirmishers (both elite Melee)
4.1 Special units: Chariots, Elephants, War dogs
Chariots have a long tradition several thousand years ago. They we’re used to carry a fighter and his equipment directly to the battle. Sometimes they were used to crush the enemy lines with the impact. Another eastern idea was to attach blades to the sides to inflict extra damage and cause fear under the enemy ranks. This followed to a countertactic, where the infantry line simply opened a corridor to let the chariot pass through. This is not possible ingame 🙁
Ingame uses
Break ordered ranks of infantry. Run down sword infantry. To avoid that your chariots get bogged down always spam move orders after you attacked. Enemy spear units (cavalry countertactics especially) can damage your chariots quickly. Chariots often start to waver when they lost 50% of their men.
Counter units
a) All missile units
b) heavy cavalry
c) heavy spear units
d) pikes
Counter tactics
a) Pin the chariots with at least medium cavalry. Reinforce with more cavalry if possible. A charge of shock cavalry can be useful, too.
b) Prepare your battleline to oppose some gaps between your first line and the lines behind it. You sacrifice some men in the first line to effectively kill the chariots with your missiles behind it. If possible, put your first line into hoplite wall or shield wall to better brace against the charge.
Factions with access to Chariots…
Scythed Chariots: Egypt, Pontus, Seleucids
(Barbarian) Chariots: Iceni
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First used by the achaemenid empire 5th century BC. Alexander the great discovered their possible uses when fighting war elephants himself and the word spread fast in the ancient world. They were used in some (not many) battles throughout the ancient times until ca 800AD. The historic counter tactic was opening a corridor to pass through, hacking into their feet with axes and shoot missiles on them. The roman’s fanfare at the battle of Zalma actually caused the elephants to go grazy and run through Hannibal’s own men.
Ingame uses
Kills. More kills. Even more kills. Trample everything.
Seriously, that’s it. Additionally, their scare effect actually really helps in producing chain routs.
Counter units (descending from best to worst)
a) Javelins
b) Skirmisher cavalry
c) other missiles
d) very heavy spear units with cavalry counter tactics.
Counter tactics
With the help of my friend charlegamble (thanks again mate) we tested, how many volleys of different missiles on elephants run them amok. We tested this with missile infantry, that means a volley are about 90 projectiles. You could think of how many a missile cavalry with 60 men and therefore 60 projectiles per volley would need.
- Three volleys of flaming arrows.
- One or less volley of javelins (normal and flaming).
- Eight volleys of slingers – but they did so much HP damage that the elefant unit was almost dead after ~12 volleys.
When there are enemy elephants on the field, your skirmishers are your life saver. Treat them like you had treated the nice blonde chick in high school – if you would have managed to get her 😉
If the enemy has skirmisher superiority, let your skirmishers fall back out of their range. As mentioned, you need them!
Similar to chariots, try to create a buffer between your infantry lines, so the enemy elephant cant reach your skirmishers easy. If you have multiple melee infantry lines, this can be also helpful because the second line throws their javelins at the elephants.
Factions with access to elephants…
African elephants: Egypt, Carthage, Rome
Indian elephants: Baktria, Parthia, Epirus, Seleucids
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These special bred dogs we’re trained to withstand the noise and chaos in battles.
Ingame use
Dogs can be useful in very special situations.
They can be a danger to: Light horse archers, light skirmishers.
War dogs are not good for this tasks:
- Use them to interrupt charges
- Use them against medium or heavy cavalry
- use them against any type of spear or sword infantry, not even naked swords – not even into the rear of a fighting unit.
War dogs movement mechanic doesn’t work well all the time, keep that in mind when bringing this unit.
Counter units
a) Cavalry charing the dogs (VERY VERY EFFECTIVE)
b) Everything with armor
Counter tactics
Protect your skirmishers.
Protect your horse archers with melee cavalry or a spear unit.
Factions with access to war dogs…
Celtic war dogs : Arverni
Savage Dogs: Iceni
War dogs: Rome (Similar stats like savage variant)
Molossian dogs: Epirus (higher attack variant)
5. The army composition – Example A)
Yeah. This is where it gets interesting. To be honest, I have won more battles because of a clever army composition than because of micro management. You only can do this when you know what roster the enemy’s faction has. Look on chapter 10 for more informations to that.
Extra Info: I think the most balanced fund size is large = 11700 talents. This requires a solid balance between cheap and elite units. Thats why my examples will heavily relate to this.
I. Think before you fight!
There are different components, almost every army needs. Basically the most simple are:
a) HOLDING POWER
Standard Hoplite for example have a solid holding power, but small killing power.
b) KILLING POWER.
A roman legion has a pretty good killing power, and some medium holding power too.
You need both! Almost any combination of HOLDING and KILLING can work.
Sometimes a certain unit can fulfill both roles acceptably, and the rest of the army’s purpose is to support and defend.
II. Getting started
Okay, you’re in the army selection window now. Don’t just choose any units.
I’ll explain that with the aid of an example.
Let’s assume we have a fight between
and
A first cheap battle line is always a good choice. So lets throw in FIVE HASTATI.
Wait – what is their use? Weaken more expensive enemy units, push Skirmishers away ,throw some javelins or soak up missile damage to protect your expensive units.
But why not bring only two? Or better bring 10?
You need to find a good balance. If you bring only two, you cant use them as a first battle line. Instead you could use them to fill gaps and support your fighting principes.
If you bring ten hastati, you have so many of them in one or two lines, that they cant fight effectively.
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Lets throw in FIVE PRINCIPES. They have high armor and high attack – good combination to finish the weakened enemy. Hastati weakened the enemy on a super cost-effective way, and the damaged and tired enemy units face your very strong principes, this works great.
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Their use should be: Hunting skirmishers, closing gaps between your troops, catching enemy cavalry or to reinforce a fight that might not go in the right direction.
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Stupid greeks. We choose safety and better bring FOUR TRARII to protect our back. When the enemy cavalry is dead, they can pretty effectively reinforce into some melee fights.
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TWO NUMIDIAN CAVALRY would be a bit risky but can be very useful. Since we are a bit on this safety thing today, lets bring some foot skirmishers. We have the sufficient funds, so we have to choose between Archers and Slingers. Archers deal a good amount of damage quickly, but slingers would be perfect to slowly kill some pikemen. Both can do well, it depends on the enemy. Since pikes usually are outplayed in melee too, we are going to choose TWO SYRIAN ARCHERS. Their purpose is to weaken enemy units or to possibly deal with inferior enemy skirmishers. Athens has some Javelin-Cavalry, too – these archers should be able to send these annoying ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ to hell.
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UNITS TO PUT CHEVRONS ON: Cheap and medium infantry units, some mediocre cavalry.
UNITS NOT TO PUT CHEVRONS ON: Elite units of all kind.
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Heavy Hoplites as holding force.
Hippeus Lancers as Killing force.
Tarantine Cavalry to harass enemy horses or chase skirmishers.
Militia Hoplite to soak up missile damage and protect my skirmishers.
Standard Archers to weaken enemy units.
5.1 The army composition – Example B) + C)
I’m pretty sure some additional examples should help. I obviously can’t touch all thoughts you should have in some situations. But this will give you a solid introduction.
EXAMPLE B)
I. The factions
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II. Building your army
- Hoplites dont have high kill rates. So no matter how good the spartan Dude is going to play, his units cant kill you fast. This gives you time to flank with your cataphracts.
- You clearly have the cav advantage, but dont let your cataphracts waste their men to kill a tarantine cavalry! You need them for mid- and lategame to do the killing!
- Since Spartan units have high armor and they are usually numerous, slingers are a solid choice. Try not to start a skirmisher fight against the usually superior enemy skirmisher units… I repeat: You’ll need your skirmishers to kill royal spartans or pikemen!
- Axemen don’t look that good from a pure statistic point of view, but they really shine against high armor units like hoplites. Try to get a clean charge to get a small advantage.
- The cheap spearmen are here to support against cavalry or fulfill missile fodder tasks. Sometimes these can used to hold a better enemy unit in place for a short time – this gives you the chance to “hammer the anvil” or simply reinforce with a melee unit.
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III. What the opponent brings
- The spartan player’s army matches our expectation. Good skirmisher units, with a bunch of medium spartan hoplites and a few royal spartans for the tank-action.
- Watch out when you try to get rid of his cavalry: Don’t let the fights take place too near to his formation, because he can easily reinforce with spears / javelins and cause unnecessary losses.
- Watch out for those royal spartans! These guys are absolute beasts. Try to weaken or better kill them with skirmishers, since they are almost superior to everything in melee, even outnumbered.
- Each of those rhodian slingers is worth 590 Talents. Consider wasting a medium cav unit to kill some of these high-tier skirmishers. It’s a problem for Sparta when their skirmisher support is gone! The Nobleblood cavalry fits this task, it doesn’t do much damage to these heavy hoplites either.
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EXAMPLE C)
I. The factions
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II. Building your army
- These celts are superior in terms of sword infantry and melee cavalry. But we have efficient and sturdy spears to counter their cavalry. This means, we can use our cavalry to kill infantry! And the Boii and comparable factions (galatia, arverni, nervii, tylis etc) often to bring a high quantity of melee units… Good. That’s why we bring some two heavy spears for each flank.
- Horse archers are annoying units, but most of the time easy to counter: Foot skirmishers like slingers or archers. We know that the Boii dont have good skirmishers, which leads to many people not bringing any of them at all. This means we already have a safe amount of damage our horse archers can inflict, because the enemy has nothing to catch them. If he brings enough foot skirmishers, he will be forced to “follow” your horse archors riding around his formation… Try to keep your horse archers just one foot out of range of his skirmishers. If done correctly, you will face less incoming missiles on your valuable infantry units. Profit!
- Use your shock cavalry to damage or finish an enemy cav unit, do not fight them from the start.
- Use your melee cavalry to pin enemy units (other cavalry) while you kill them with infantry support or missile fire.
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III. What the opponent brings
- The enemy celtic warriors can be an effective way to threaten of our spears. The sword followers will mostly cut through our axes and still inflict heavy casualties against our noble swords.
- This means our enemy has a clear melee advantage. But when we look on our army, we have the missile advantage. Our missiles should quickly get rid of his ones, if needed.
- Our horse archers can do serious damage against units like naked warriors, other valuable melee units and are a very effective way to keep te enemy horses at bay.
- Try to save your cavalry force of spear horsemen and noble horsemen until the enemy forces are engaged. Cycle charge and… Profit!
- Watch out for the enemy oathsworn. These guys are brutal. Try to match them against your elite unit after weaking them with focussed missile fire.
5.2 Extreme counter builds D)
Explanation
Some factions are more predictable than others. Most players adapt their selected units to better match the faction they are going to fight against. There are some cool ideas carrying different risks to counter the usual “mostly-used” armies. This is just an example. I published this idea I used pretty often with surprisingly high success. But you should be able to transfer the idea and its approach to other extreme counter builds.
I. The factions
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I think: Why should I fight the Romans with their rules? 
II. Analysis of the usual roman army composition
The romans have some decent skirmishers, and most of the roman players bring three syrian auxilliary archers or three auxilliary balearic slingers. These units arent bad, but from a pure economic point of view it’s more efficient to put the money into super cost effective melee infantry than in a huge fleet of skirmishers. Thats why I rarely saw more than three of them. Velites are nice to have, but still nothing great compared to the damage principes or better units can inflict.
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Another small weakness is that many romans tend to bring no spears at all. If they do so, they either bring cheap crap units or strong but slow triarii.
III. The enemy army
VI. My army composition
Second thought: Whats the counter to pikemen? Missiles and flanking. The usual idea is to focus fire with skirmishers on a unit in the center, slip through with your melee infantry and “sandwich” the pikemen while your skirmishers continue to support.
Third idea: Rome already is usually short on skirmishers – not on quality, but on quantity. And skirmishers both are the counter to elephants and pikes. So no matter how well the opponent plays, he is going to face some serious problems. He simply won’t have enough skirmishers to to succesfully counter my units.
Fourth Conclusion: Missile units switch over to melee mode when attacked in melee. That means, if you just “touch” them with a melee unit, they stop firing until they aren’t involved in a melee fight anymore. This is the reason why we are going to need six medium cavalry units. Their purpose is simply to pull through the enemy flanks to force the enemy skirmishers to switch to melee. Rome brings a maximum of four cavalry units in 95% of their builds. So you still have some cavalry units left to attack the skirmishers.
V.The execution
Put three cavalry units on each flank, the elephants behind them.
Keep the general behind your pikes as a tactical reserve.
POSITIONING
Position your cavalry on the flanks, just out of missile range, split them up to possibly surround the enemy. Position your elephants and your pikes just out of his missile range.
STRIKE FAST – TIMING IS THE KEY
1. When you see a gap or some of his infantry is on the move, strike with your cavalry. Your only goal is to silence his skirmishers for a short time.
2. Come in with your elephants! If he tends to position his infantry to throw their javelins, try to silence them with your cavalry – again, just one single rider has to touch them to silence their missiles. It usually works good to send one elephant against his infantry and the other one helps to trample the skirmishers.
3. Immediately move your pikes against his infantry center, put down the pikes last second.
4. Spam move orders on your elephants, your pikes should prevent the enemy to reform succesfully.
5. Keep your pikes moving to threaten the enemy infantry and force them moving.
6. Smoke a cigar.
VI. Important information
This is only one example, one out of thousand different possibilites, to show you how the approach and actual design could look like. It’s obvious that these special armies and their special tactics sometimes require more micro effort. They can be countered, too – of course. These builds are just something you enemy expects less and may give you some advantages in certain situations.
5.3 Picking the general
Most of you might already noticed that you can choose several different general types.
Some are better overall, some are a bit situational and sometimes a certain general is an important part of your tactic. The special generals are covered in the following paragraph.
I. Strategist general
Second Wind
Description: Completely removes any fatigue a single unit has.
Targets: Single unit
Recharge time: 100 seconds
Use: Great and simple ability enabling to use Trample, Frenzied Charge or Headhunt (+ any similiar) way more often. Also very strong in late game, where a fresh unit can make the difference! Very useful when choosing cavalry heavy builds, too.
Battle Rhythm
Description: A more complex ability, which increases melee performance gradually, but has a exertion phase at the end (not fatigue!). The time values are always refering to the interval between the activation and the start of the stage.
1. stage at start: no bonus
2. stage after 5sec: +2 attack; +3 damage; +4 defence; +5 morale
3. stage after 15sec: +4 attack; +6 damage; +4 defemce; +5 morale
4. stage after 25sec: +8 attack; +12 damage; +8 defence; +5 morale
5. stage after 35sec: -5 attack; -5 defence
Targets: Single unit
Recharge time: 210 seconds
Use: Use this ability to slightly improve your units performance when fighting a similar one. Since the duel of equal battle lines often happens, this can give you the advantage to break through and start sandwiching his units. Can be good in some situations, but second wind is way more powerful.
Pros and cons
This is my preferred general. When you fight against an equal opponent, having fresh troops in late game pulled it off so often in my favor. It is most useful when having a cavalry general unit, because you can reach the target unit quick and can continue fighting elsewhere. This is also very useful when using a cavalry focussed army with a shock cavalry contigent. The latter often have to cycle charge to be efficient, which causes them to tire very fast. Second Wind is brutally effective on oathsworn generals making them a headhunt-spamming monster.
Battle Rhythm is OK to have, but nothing great.
II. Warrior General
War Cry
Description: Reduces the morale of an enemy unit by 20 points for 10 seconds.
Targets: Single unit
Recharge time: 100 seconds
Use: Use this with flaming shot and a quick rear charge to finish an enemy unit much more quickly. Defeating an enemy unit with a key function/position more quickly can give you a solid time advantage.
Intimidate
Description: Prevents an enemy unit from using their abilities (not formations) for 60 seconds.
Targets: Single unit
Recharge time: 100 seconds
Use: Can be useful to hinder the enemy to pop situational abilities like “Cavalry Counter Tactics”, “Headhunt” or “Draco”.
Pros and cons
This is the less used and overall weakest general – but it’s also the most flexible. Reducing enemy morale is always a good thing and having a pretty high recharge timer, it forgives you some wrong decisions.
III. Commander General
Raise Banner
Description: Doubles the area of influence of your general, inspiring more men at the same time. Increases the melee defence by +5 points.
Targets: All units in the general’s area of influence.
Recharge time: 240sec
Use: Very effective when you play with a lighter first battle line to tire the enemy (Hastati, celtic warriors or similar) before engaging with your heavy infantry. They hold out longer, doing more damage and tiring the enemy even more. Although a nice thing when playing with barbarians, since they tend to be more shaky against formation attack units.
Rally
Description: Increase the morale by +15 points for 10 seconds.
Targets: Single unit
Recharge time: 100 seconds
Use: This is useful to stop a wavering unit from routing. Some useful situation are: Getting your cheap spear units charged by heavy cavalry and you want them to not waver instantly – Or when using meatshields or missile aborb units to be even more costeffective.
Pros and cons
This is the most used general type. You are somewhat flexible, but you have to activate your abilities in the right moment. If you do so, this general can make your army considerably more stable. Rally isn’t the greatest ability, because 10 seconds are not very long – you have to be very quick to do what you wanted to do: Shoot misiles on the enemy unit fighting with the wavering one or similar situations.
5.4 Special generals
Additionally, there are some special general types. These come for all armies fighting as a major faction in the Cesar in Gaul Campaign. This means that you only have access to them when you have access to the Cesar in Gaul DLC.
All of their abilites can only be used once per battle, instead of having a certain recharge time.
I. Boudognatus: Nervii
Force Concentration
Description: Increases melee attack by +10 points for 60 seconds
Targets: Area of targeted unit (not necessarily the general itself)
Use: The nervii lack a non-elite infantry tank or defensive unit. Which means their best defense will be a high attack, because the faster the enemy is dead the less casualties you’re going to take. This is useful but only activates in a small radius. Most of the time, you’ll touch 3-5 units on the frontline when activating it. Somewhat useful, though can be a bit tricky.
Fighting Spirit
Description: Makes all targeted units unbreakable for 60 seconds
Targets: All units within the area of influence of the general
Use: Very useful in some situations. If you use several infantry lines, this can be very effective to cause more losses before your units rout. But in any other circumstances, it’s good to support a certain area on the battlefield to buy you some time to fight elsewhere or call support units to help.
Pros and cons
This is the weakest of the special generals. Because the nervii are pretty difficult to play with, it might help alot to have the possibility to call the unbreakable ability or to simply make your units even more deadlier. Good, but not necessarily better than the standard generals.
II. Vercingetorix: Arverni
Relentless
Description: Increases the attack by +5 points for 60 seconds
Targets: All units of your army
Use: Activate this when most units of your army are engaged the same time to maximize effectiveness. Saving this for mid-game is also useful, because tired units have less killing power and you can even this out.
Unity of the tribes
Description: Increases morale by +5 Points
Targets: All units of your army
Use: Don’t underestimate this. This small morale boost can decide, whether your army chain routes or not. If clicked in the right moment, it can be just the small thing you need to pull it off.
Pros and cons
Very simple but useful abilites. No matter how your army looks like, this is gonna help you. The problem is, that you have to pick the right timing, which is even more important than compared to some other general’s abilites.
III. Cesar: Rome
Presence
Description: Increases ability cooldown for 60 seconds
Targets: General’s area of influence
Use: This is useful when you use units with special abilites like “frenzy” or “killing spree on gladiators”. Activating them more often means more carnage. Problem is, that Rome does not have many of these units. These abilites also tire your units very fast, why spamming them without recreation cuold be exhaustion suicide.
Loyality of the 10th
Description: Increases melee defence by +20 points, units are unbreakable for 50 seconds
Targets: Area around the targeted unit
Use: A very strong defensive ability. Since many roman units are more armour and attack focussed than having a surprisingly good melee defence, this ability boosts their stability greatly.
Pros and cons
You have a very strong and a pretty bad ability. That does not mean, that loyality always wins the game for you or “presence” always is useless. That’s just how it is regarding more possible scenarios. Nontheless, cesar is a solid pick for the roman army since you lack “Headhund”, “trample” or comparable abilities.
IV. Ariovistus: Suebi
Pride
Description: Increases weapon damage by +12 armor piercing damage
Targets: all nearby units
Use: A useful ability, especially with the suebi. Most suebi units do their damage on the charge, but since they lack a stout armour unit and they tend to fall quickly in prolongued battle. This ability helps you pretty much to finish off any sturdy, well armoured enemy unit.
Fast charge
Description:
1. Stage – Increased Speed – ends 15 sec after activating
2. Stage – Increases Speed, Charge Bonus +20 points, Charge speed – ends 45 after ending the first stage.
Targets: Nearby units
Use: In combination with wolf warriors, bloodsworn and berserkers, this can be devestating. Having much more impact due to the higher speed and doing much more kills because of the +20 charge bonus can wreck whole armies. Very useful, but also very difficult to handle, you have to position you general carefully when activating and guess the right moment. The enemy can try to dogde this ability, when experienced enough and sacrifices single units to abosorb the charge while reinforcing / regrouping with the rest of his army.
Pros and cons
A very strong addition to Suebi’s army. Requires good situational awareness, timing and a matching army composition. Go with one of the standard commanders if you want a safe pick.
6. The battle controls and the interface
A good handling and usage of the given tools is always important. This allows you to multi-task and micromanage effectively.
I. Handling
Your left hand’s (or right hand, if you’re lefty) ultimate duty is to move the camera.
Use WASD to move forward, backward, to the left or the right. You can accelerate the movement by pressing left shift while holding W/A/S/D.
“But c’mon pal, I’ve been using the mouse for camera movement since my birth…”
-> Have fun while all others are going to micro so super fast that your butt starts to burn and explode!
The “Q” and “E” keys are well suited for rotating the camera. Alternatively use the mouse wheel button to rotate.
The “R”-Key is also somewhat useful to cycle between <walk> and <run> mode of units quickly.
II. Battle Interface
2. Opens the chat window. Essential for communication!
3. Opens the encyclopedia. It’s useful, but very bulky.
4. Advisor button for campaign matches
5. Twitch stream activation shortcut
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2. A roughly accurate bar showing the balance of power. Yellow: Your power.
3. Cycle between useful unit statistics and ugly, useless unit portraits.
4. Minimize the unit window in the left bottom corner.
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2. Activate melee mode. Most melee units are restricted to melee attack orders only.
3. Stop / Cancel last order.
4. Open group control window (explained next paragraph)
5. Open formation selection window
6. Temporarily highlights all units: Yellow are your units, red the enemy.
7. Unit abilities
8. Minimize the unit card window
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Additionally: The green bar with the number in between indicates the unit health and manpower.
The blue bar on a unit card displays how many ammunition a unit has left.
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1. Minimize the minimap
2. Battle time left
3. A white triangle indicates your camera position
4. The speed settings: PAUSE – SLOW MOTION – STANDARD – FORWARD – FAST FORWARD
5. Tactical view. Gives a nice and clean overview of the battlefield. Especially useful on maps with large forest areas, because the trees sometimes hide an unit flag symbol.
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1. The roman letters show the group/formation, to which the unit has been assigned.
2. This symbol shows that some statistics-changing formations or abilities are currently active on this unit. You can hover with the mouse over it to see the description. There can be multiple symbols listed here.
3. This shows the faction avatar of your faction, in this case: Carthage.
4. The symbol (here: sword) shows the unit type
5. The fringe around the symbol shows the unit mass: It’s a square -> very heavy
III. Selection groups
An experienced player can benefit from using selection groups by enabling to issue more orders in the same time. A less experienced player can still benefit from structuring his units because it (if done correctly) supports the overview on the battlefield.
The following is just a single out of dozens of possibilities to arrange the group system to work in your favor. This is actually the way I fight all of my battles. Find your own arrangement, or copy some aspects you like.
I’ll show you a little example of how selection groups can help you without being bulky.
First of all: When I play with one main line of infantry (see example with Macedon), I use this arrangement.
I. Left Flank Support
II. Infantry Core
III. Right Flank Support
IV. Missile Center
V. Optional Infantry Backup line
VI. Left Cavalry Flank
VII. Right Cavalry Flank
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When playing with multiple infantry lines in the center, I just count them the way I expect them to encounter the enemy. The exception here is my missile center, these guys always get group 4 because I am used so much to pressing this number for them on the keyboard. These infantry focused builds usually don’t use many cavalry units, so it’s usually enough to give them the reserve group. Until needed, you can use the group to move them forward without manually issuing orders for every single unit – at the point where you need them, just only select the unit you want.
I. Light Infantry
II. Medium Infantry
III. Heavy Infantry
IV. Missile Center
V. Reserve / Cavalry move group
IV. Formation Groups
You can upgrade a selection group to a formation group by pressing ctrl+g or clicking on the correct button (see screenshot). As described, units keep their relative position. You can put all of your army into a certain formation or only select a part of it. In my humble opinion, formation groups are even more bulkier and hard to handle in battle than unit groups. They have their uses, but I personally prefer to move my army groups the way I want. But nontheless, sometimes formation groups can be very useful.
I used our example from army composition A) to show you how a formation group can be helpful.
As you can see, I select TRIPLEX ACIES since this is the only one fitting to my army – it selects the melee infantry by mass classifications and puts spears at the last line.
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Alternavely ( I like this more, actually), do a hybrid of selection and formation groups. In this example I put the Hastati and Principes in a TRIPLEX ACIES formation in selection group one. I do this because I know that the unit spacing works pretty well when attacking in multiple infantry lines.
All other units are in my usual selection groups, so this gives me flexibility to protect my formation center. Additional Information: Since I don’t know the enemy army yet, I don’t create a second selection group yet. If the battle progress needs more flexibility, I still am able to dissolve the formation group and split them into conventional selection groups with I. Hastati and II. Principes.
7. The battle formations
This chapter intersects with previous one.
Here are some solid all round examples how the same army can be set up on the battlefield.
I. Sword heavy – Tylis
(+) versatile second infantry line with each units potentially doing what they do best.
(+) peltasts can fill gaps or support with javelins and melee afterwards
(+) Oathsworn can either do the killing on the flanks or reinforce with enough tanking power in the center if needed.
(+) Levy Freemen can threaten mid-tier cavalry which might have charged into the back of your melee infantry.
(-) especially the flanks and the front are very vulnerable to shock cavalry
(-) vulnerable to Pike-Missile combination
(-) the enemy might finish your first light infantry line without them getting enough kills to pay off before they die
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(+) a massive infantry main line – eight units! – allows to spread wider and face less enemy units with more of yours.
(+) Peltasts have a flexible position in the center
(+) Thracians+Oathsworn provide the late-game killing and are kept in reserves
(-) Flanks and back are very vulnerable to cavalry, especially in late game
(-) levy freeman may die before your main line catches up
(-) your main line flanks are vulnerable to heavy-hitting enemy units like noble swords or defensive&well armoured units like thorax hoplites… the celtic warriors may die too fast or take too long to be effective.
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(+) the reserve is tanky enough to finish the survivors after filling some gaps
(+) the two flank groups are very versatile consisting: Peltasts, spears and falxmen to flank or counter charge a cav unit
(-) enemy elite units may slaughter your main line too fast to be cost effective
(-) your micro management may be worse than the enemy’s and you lose your support groups
(-) your enemy may field too many cav units to protect your melee infantry from rear charges
8. Basic game mechanics
Charge bonus applies to weapon damage and melee attack. It decreases within a time of 30 seconds to zero. That means that 30 seconds after the initial charge ( and not moving the charging unit away) the charge bonus is gone. Another (hidden?!) value is the collision damage. It is calculated from two factors: Units mass and unit speed. The collision damage determines how much damage is dealt on the initial impact.
These facts and explanation follow some conclusions:
1. Downhill charges are more effective, therefore are uphill charges less effective.
2. Countercharging maximizes the losses on both sides because the speed (both get added logically) is higher.
3. Since cavalry units are faster and have more mass than infantry, they do more damage on the charge. This is the reason why counter chargin cavalry is very ineffective, the mass of the incoming horses simply knocks your infantry over, rendering every small bonus they might have had useless.
4. Charging always does damage due to the collision damage factor. Even if there was a unit with zero melee attack and charge bonus, it would do some collision damage on the charge. This is why even the poorest horse archer can get some kills against unarmored skirmishers on the charge.
Thanks to HeirOfCarthage for offering these informations to the community. He received them in a chat with some guy from Creative Assembly. Source:
What is bracing?
Bracing basically means *preparing for an incoming charge*
What does bracing do?
It helps the unit to withstand charges better. Don’t underestimate the blocking effect a braced unit can have. Bracing practically makes a units formation much less penetrable.
How can I activate that?
You can’t! Units do this automatically when an enemy unit is moving closely into their direction.
What prevents my units from bracing?
Anything that differs from standing still – moving, attacking, countercharging.
Firing missiles like javelins on a hybrid unit prevents from bracing, too.
Facing the wrong direction obviously means that the unit can’t brace.
III. Unit Mass
Unit mass determines the speed of a unit. The lighter, the faster – the heavier, the slower.
Also, Unit mass is a factor that determines how many collision damage a unit on the charge does – a heavier unit can run down the enemy more succesfully.
The unit mass (together with the armor) is a crucial factor when being charged. The more mass a unit has, the better it can withstand charges.
Example: Compare the result when charging a Thessalian Cavalry (mid tier Shock cav) into a Peltast unit with 65 armor and a light unit mass – with the much less dangerous result of an axe warrior (65 armor, too but heavy unit mass) getting charged. Think of it, you have now understood how unit mass works.
Morale is the factor, how long a certain unit can stand on their own on the battlefield.
Every unit has a base morale value, starting with 25 on Eastern Spearmen going up to 75 on Picked Hoplites or Royal Spartans.
There are different factors that affect morale, depending on the situation.
1. Location: High terrain has a morale bonus
2. Formation: Are the flanks secure?
3. Local strength: Are there more allied or enemy units in a small radius?
4. Are they currently winning their fight? You often see a wavering unit becoming steady again because they turned the tide of their current fight.
5. Is the general alive? Units without “disciplined” get a higher malus immediately after the General died (value: -30), while all units no matter if “disciplined” or not get -15 for the rest of the battle.
6. Is the unit within an area of influence of a unit with the “encourage” trait (or general)?
7. Is there a fatigue penalty? The more tired a unit is, the higher the penalty.
8. Is the unit attacked into the rear
9. Is the unit under missile fire?
10. How many men has the unit lost already?
11. Are there friends/enemies in close area routing?
12. Are there other areas of influence or effects? Examples for this could be “Headhunt”, which drastically improves the unit’s morale up to 350, the morale penalty of flaming arrows or scare effects of nearby enemies.
A unit routs when the morale is down to 0.
Examples of morale penalties:
– receiving missile hits: -5 morale points
– attacked in the rear: -30 morale points
– winning current combat slightly: +5 morale points
– winning current combat: +10morale points
– winning current combat significantly: +20 morale points
– losing current combat: -15 morale points
– losing current combat decisively: -25 morale points
– unit lost 40men: -5 morale points
– unit lost 60men: -25 morale points
– unit lost 80men: -50 morale points
– unit lost 90men: -100 morale points
– general recently died/fled: -30 morale points immediately after his death
– general dead: -15 morale points on the long view.
– unit is tired: -5 morale points
– unit is very tired: -15 morale points
– unit is exhausted: -25 morale points
– unit is in area of influence of “encourage”: +20 morale points
There are five grades of fatigue:
FRESH < ACTIVE < TIRED < VERY TIRED < EXHAUSTED
How do my units get tired?
Did you ever carry a full battle equipment, armor and weapons with you?
Units tire from running and fighting. The more single men of a unit are engaged, the faster it tires. This means formation attack units tire a bit less overall.
How do my tired units regenerate?
Let their asses rest a few moments. Moving in slow pace can help a bit too, but isn’t that effective.
How exactly does the “fatigue penalty” apply?
A unit has no penalty effects when “fresh” or “active”.
8.1 Advanced mechanics
I. Friendly Fire
All missiles can damage all units in their target area. This is why you sometimes have to turn “fire at will” off to prevent your units shooting in the back of your own men. The most common occasion of friendly fire is when you have pinned enemy cavalry with yours, and youre shooting into the cavalry blob with missiles. Since there is no clear formation, more like a moshpit, almost 50% off your missiles will hit your men. This can be acceptable, for instance when pinning a cataphract unit with a single cheap medium cav unit: It’s worth sacrificing this cheap unit to neutralize his expensive unit. In this scenario, friendly fire is calculated and you still profit.
II. Unit width / depth
You can adjust the unit formation (don’t confuse that with the army formation) from column with high depth to a very thin line with high width. THere are several purposes of more extreme unit formation and some dangers with these.
Thin line
+ unit can’t get outflanked easily
+ almost all of the units men are engaging the enemy (but all of them tire, too!)
+ reduced effectiveness from incoming missiles.
– charging cavalry can simply run over them
– the enemy can punch small gaps into your single unit formation and get some soldiers behind your unit.
– moving on the terrain is more time consuming and therefore tires your units more.
Column or at least a square
+ you fit better through gaps the enemy army formation might have
+ solid resistance against charges
+ not all of the men get tired
– vulnerable to missiles
– superior thin spread enemy units may counter your quantity with their quality effectively.
– offers large flanks
III. Missile targeting
Missile units will always target the center of a unit. This is the reasen why thin unit formations are less vulnerable to missiles.
This also means, that although shield wall adds an amour increase, you’re unit is dying faster than in a 5 man deep formation. Same goes with hoplite wall.
Shield screen, gives a bonus to your shield value, which is responsible for blocking missiles. This means shield screen is a little bit less vulnerable to missiles than the standard 5 man deep formation. It still isn’t as effective as spreading your unit in a spaghetti line.
IV. Target angle for ranged attacks
All soldiers in Rome 2 are right handed. They carry their shield in their left hand and their weapon on the right side. This has a crucial effect on blocking missiles. Enemy units can actually block incoming missiles from the front (surprisingly :D) and from their shielded side, the left. They cannot block from their right weapon flank and of course from the rear. Use this to your advantage when using missile units, especially mobile horse skirmishers.
V. Shield mechanics
A shield basically has three values.
1. Armour value: How much the shield increases the armour value
2. Melee defence value: How much the shield improves the melee defence
3. Missile block chance: (hidden) value, how high the chance of blocking incoming missiles is. When a missile is blocked, it doesn’t do any damage at all.
Armour and melee defence values are already calculated with the shield bonuses. This means that the shield pretty much fits a cosmetic purpose. The blocking chance is calculated on the man, so the shield is just a authenticity thing. The block chance values differ, I try to list the most important ones in a descending order.
Germanic shields except shock units: 55%-60%
Hoplon (Hoplite shield): 50%
Scutum (roman infantry: 50%
Celtic missile units: 50%
Peltast shields: 50%
Celtic standard shield: 40%
Thureos shield: 40%
Scuta (Scutarii units): 40%
Pikemen shields: 25%
Caetra (iberian): 20%
Thracian shield: 0%
This does not mean that the shield is bad and does not increase the melee defence significantly. For instance: The caetra shield increases the melee defence by 40, which is really high.
VI. Making good use of cavalry against infantry
Let’s look on shock cavalry first, these units have a high attack and very high charge bonus, but very low melee defence. This means, although they’re huge charge bonus could be still useful in prolongued melee, that cycle charges are the most efficient way in 99% situations. The mass and impact will knock some soldiers over, taking damage in this process. Let them stay there for 1-3 seconds, and retreat them when you notice that some enemy soldiers are recovering from the charge and standing up again. This way you inflict pretty high damage but receive very low hits on your part. This is called “Cycle charging” and is a common tactic to break resolute infantry units. When your melee cavalry is out of targets (other cavalry, skirmishers), cycle charges against non-braced units are your way-to-go, too.
VII. Fighting avalry with cavalry
Wedge/Diamond formations have only a very small effect. I’ll explain their use against cavalry in 8.2 Expert mechanics. The most important thing when fighting cavalry is: GET THE CHARGE. Do this when fighting superior cavalry units,too. You still inflict significant health damage, which means your next cavalry unit has less difficulties getting kills.
8.2 Expert mechanics
I. Formation ability use
There are some useful formation abilities like “shield wall”, “shield screen” or “hoplite wall”. These increase some important aspects. When you are stationary in shield wall and the enemy charges, he has an advantage because he has the charge bonus applied for 30 seconds. This bonus is higher than the defensive increase your ability causes.
Counter charge always! This way you use your charge bonus, although it might not be high – but you have to make use of every little help.
Does this mean all my cool abilities are useless?
Hehe, no. Since the charge bonus gradually decreases for 30 seconds after the initial impact, there is still some use for these abilities. The clue is: Don’t activate the ability immediately after you counter charge. Wait for 30 seconds (won’t be a problem if you wait 25 or 35, but 30sec are the benchmark), then activate it.
Micro – Effort
Firstly, you have to watch on the battle timer to get an idea when to activate this.
Secondly, when using “shield wall” or “hoplite wall”, give your units an attack order when they have changed their formation. This makes sure that they are still engaging the enemy effectively.
Thirdly, when using “shield wall”, check if your units do face their static (!!!) formation into the right direction. Sometimes they face the wrong direction and you have to correct it.
II. Cavalry Formation use
Wedge/Diamond formation have a really small impact. This is helpful when two similar cavalry units are fighting each other. It often happens that “Heavy Horse”, “Citizen Cavalry” or “Noble Blood Cavalry” are dueling each other. If you have access to a cavalry formation, use it with a small time buffer so its fully activated when you charge. Since you have better attack and charge values, it will help you as long as the charge bonus is applied. This means, your cavalry unit is used most effectively when you deactivate the cavalry formation 30 seconds after the initial charge. Remember to give the unit another attack order after dissolving the formation.
III. HP Damage
Missile units, especially Slings&Stones can do a serious amount of damage without killing a single men. Especially when two units charge each other and one of them has already been hit by one or two slinger volleys, it can give you the slight advantage you might need. This is because the Health Points of the men in this units are lower, although nobody died yet. Don’t underestimate this effect when fighting cataphracts or other heavily armored cavalry.
IV. Cavalry charges to do HP damage
A quick charge of some medium shock cav or heavy melee cav is often advisable. When you face enemy elite sword units, try to countercharge them with your cavalry first. This charge does, although it may not do a significant amount of kills at all, a considerable amount of HP damage. Retreat immediately after charging. The enemy unit will now be much less cost effective against mid-tier melee infantry.
V. Front charges
Not very logical from a physical point of view, but charges through the own men does not damage them. It slows your units down, but sometimes you dont have the time or the possibilty to move your shock cavalry out to the flanks. It is somewhat useful to simply charge through your men, knock down some units to do health damage, and retreat. This is not as effective as rear charging, of course. But it works to a certain degree.
VI. Infantry Layering
Layering is the process of using one defensive unit to soak up the charge and take damage, while another more offensive unit can do the killing without getting damaged severly. This is somewhat useful against elite hoplites. A combination of those two units could be Persian hoplites and (Kartli) axemen. This is a very situational tactic since it’s less effective than flanking and sandwiching the unit – this tactic can be useful when you have to punch through the enemy infantry center. It’s still better than trying to go around the flank with your axes, probably facing units they’re not good against while your persian in the center gets wrecked. Rare use, but don’t forget this tactic in your toolbox!
VII. Ammo Dump
Many competitive players use light cavalry / horse archers to quickly enter the enemy arc of fire and retreat immediately. If the enemy archer/slinger unit has “Fire at will” turned on, they will waste their ammunition because their shots will fall short. When you use horse archer for this task, remember to turn off their fire at will – or you will waste one volley each time, too.
9. Battle Tactics
Every battle is different, every player has a different playstyle, and therefore it’s pretty difficult to sum up the general things here. But there are some general rules almost all battles have to follow.
I. Skirmisher uses
1. Which skirmish center is stronger?
If you have 3 cretan archers, and he brings 3 balearic slingers, he’s going to win.
If you have 4 eastern archers, and he brings 4 celtic bowmen, you’re going to win.
There are four things important when comparing skirmishers:
– Does the unit have a shield?
– Does the unit have superior/inferior armor?
– Does the unit have higher/lower missile damage
– Who has the range advantage?
You have to guess which skirmish center is stronger. If yours is stronger, you have to think of the next step:
2. Are his skirmishers worth killing or do I need my ammunition for other targets?
Are there any mid- or high-tier pike units? Are there so many pike units you cant flank effectiveley? Are there elephants or chariots on the field? Then you better keep your skirmishers in reserve.
If not, let your skirmishers do your job.
3. Are there infantry units in my army that are vulnerable to missiles – do I have to sacrifice my skirmishers?
Most Lusitani sword units are low armor, but there are many other units you don’t want them to be exposed to missile fire. In this case, sacrifice some of your skirmishers to cover your advance. This forces the enemy to decide, whether he wants to focus on your valuable low armor units and get hit by your missiles, or to return fire – either way, you can even out his skirmisher dominance at least a litle bit.
4. Does the enemy have any cavalry units?
If not, take advantage of this fault and split your missile units to the flank. Do this because shots from the flanks/rear are more effective and you can target two different units at one time.
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II. Cavalry uses
1. Which cavalry force is stronger?
This is sometimes difficult to guess, but there are two situations when you have to be situational aware of your units performance: Charge and prolongued melee.
Sure, Shock cavalry is good on the charge and Melee cavalry better in melee, but there are more things to consider. The charge between two melee or two shock units usually wins the one with more armor and mass. When in prolongued melee, attack+defence and bonus vs large are predominant.
2. What kind of function could your cavalry have against the enemy army?
You brought your units with some plan in mind, what they could do. Now analyse the enemy army and its units purposes. Can your cavalry do the job you want them to do? If yes, good.
If no, what is their second best use?
use some of your cavalry close to your formation with spear support to pin the shock cavalry and buy some time to reinforce.
This is just an example how you could make the best use of your unit if the enemy army doesn’t match your expectations very much.
3. Did the enemy bring some horse skirmishers?
If he did, it depends on the kind. If he brought Horse archers, try to shoot them with your missiles. If you didn’t bring any missiles, choose your cheapest units / the ones with lest use to shield your valuable units while advancing as fast as possible.
If he brought javlin cav or a light-cavalry javelin hybrid, do the same but keep an eye on his units because he could go for your skirmishers any second.
In all cases, try to keep your cavalry close to your ranged fire support.
4. Did you bring some horse skirmishers?
According to my experience, horse skirmishers priority targets are other melee/shock cavalry units.
Either get some nice shots on them while they chase you or force them to retreat to their infantry, taking away their mobility and tactical flexibility. Another good target is the enemy general, especially the legatus / command unit in roman or carthaginian armies. Don’t waste your ammunition against infantry skirmishers or cheap units if possible.
5. Both brought horse skirmishers – whose horse skirmishers are stronger against each other?
If you have a tarantine cavalry with 60 armour against his horse archers with 10 armor, you are going to win unless he turns auto-skirmish off.
If you have a scythian horse archer with 40 damage against your eastern one with 35 damage, you are going to win.
If you have an eastern armoured horse archer (35 damage, 35 amour) and he has got a steppe archer (40 damage, 10 armor), you are going to win slightly.
Armor is most important. Second most important is missile damage. Range is third most important and fourth most important is rate of fire. A certain range advantage only makes you really gain an advantage if you manage to micro your unit within the small distance area where you can shoot already but he can’t.
Armor > damage (> range) > rate of fire.
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III. Infantry Core/ Center
Most players use something between 6 and 8 units as their infantry core. It is also somewhat common to use one or two different units in this battle line or group. Hoplites, Legionaires, or a Chosen Swordmen+Oathsworn mix could be a common example.
1. Does he have more than one unit type in his infantry line?
If he does, try to adjust your formation to encounter his units more effectively.
– Counterpose ligher units against your units with highest charge.
– Put Sword/axe infantry against his spear units.
– Counter his most offensive units with your most defensive units.
– Match your most cost effective units (hastati, celtic warriors etc) against his elite units. His oathsworn has to entirely rout 4 units of cheap swords to pay off a bit. This will buy you som time and tire his units.
2. Is your infantry core able to beat his – without any outside influences?
If no, try to think of an alternative: Weaken his units before engaging or try to get some rear charges etc.
If yes, crush him!
3. How much do his units rely on the charge?
If his units have a comparably high charge value, his unit has to get a good charge to be cost effective. This applies to most barbarian sword units, but not all, you have to check them one by one. If this is the case, try to interrupt his charge orders. The most efficient way to do so is:
– Counter charging with cavalry
– use the cheapest unit you have to absorb the charge and impact, immediateley reinforce with your melee infantry.
There are some other possibilites, more special and a bit tricky to use
– play the shoot and retreat game, to try to get off as many shots as possible before he is able to charge your infantry
– bring 1-2 cheap pikemen spread out as thin as possible to prevent him to charge your formation. This way he has to split up in two groups to come from the flanks. You can use this to charge him with your melee units instead. while is bunched and cant get a clean charge.
4. How much does your units rely on the charge?
When playing with some barbarian factions, you sometimes have to rely on your charge bonus to stand a chance against otherwise superior units. Try not to waste your charge on to weak units. Sometimes is even necessary to use your missile units to shoot on his charge bait, which is ineffective. But it can be necessary to get your charge.
9.1 Micro management
I. Slipping through gaps
When you see a gap in the enemy line, try to exploit it! Put your unit in column formation and order them to move through it. Remember to adjust their formation when using them for engagement again, or it will be terribly ineffective. Cavalry is especially well suited for this task.
II. Attacking the enemy infantry core
When you decide to attack the enemy core group, start to assign the targets for your line already. Remember not double-right click or they will start to run immediately. Wait until the last 50m, select them all by selection group or use the mouse frame. Then put “R” once, they will all switch to run mode and charge the enemy units. If the enemy has missiles targeting your infantry, start running when entering their arc of fire.
III. Outmanouvering short-range units
Well, if. Shoot one volley and retreat behind your infantry line. Immediately after ordering the retreat order for your skirmishers, order your infantry line to move forward. You outmanouver his short range units effectively. He now has to pull back again (and eat javelins from your inf core aswell as your skirmisher’s missiles) or try to get some shots off and be a small challenge for your infantry units.
IV. Defending your skirmishers
This is one of the most difficult tasks. When the enemy has a clever army and uses his tools well, it’s sometimes impossible to defend all of your skirmishers. The golden rule is always: Save as much as you can. In some situations it’s clever to sacrifice a unit so that the other ones survive. The most efficient way to keep some of them alive although the enemy already slipped through, is splitting them up into as many groups as possible. You know have time to regroup again and reinforce the ongoing fights and pin the cavalry unit.
Defending with spear infantry
Keeping some cheap units in reserve is a efficient way to keep the horseman away. But since infantry is slower than cavalry, an experienced player will keep on moving until your units aren’t in the right place for a second and charge boldly through this gap into your belly, the unprotected skirmishers. Problem: You are not mobile enough.
Defending with melee cavalry
This works somewhat okay, too. Keep 1-3 units (depends on enemy attacking units) of preferably medium cavalry in reserve. Engage the enemy units in 1v1 fights to buy some time. If the enemy tries to pull through, pursue him. You may not kill him before he reachs your missile units, but he will lose men while pulling away from your unit. Problem: Mobile enough, but not enough killing power and holding power.
Melee cav + spears
The best possible defense is a combination of some medium melee cavalry and combination spear infantry. The enemy has no chance to get to your skirmishers with enough momentum or manpower to pose a real threat. Keep your cavalry moving around your skirmishers when he moves his cavalry.
IMPORTANT:
If he attempts to charge, do not issue a countercharge order immediateley. Try to issue a run order onto his likely path. Only if he does not pull back again, issue the charge order.
V. Dodging volleys or melee attacks incoming on your Horse skirmishers
Always remember: You have the clear mobility and speed advantage!
It sometimes happens, that the enemy archer/slinger unit manages to fire one volley at your horse skirmishers. If you notice the threat early enough, you can dodge it by moving suddenly into the opposite direction. Dodging to the right or to the left is more effective than dodging to forth and backwards (see picture).
You can also dodge indoming melee attacks on your mounted skirmishers sometimes. When the enemy is close to catch one of your outer horses, give them a formation other some enough distance away in a less thin formation.
Do the opposite if the enemy is chasing you and almost catched the last horses in your formation – order your unit to change the formation to reduce the unit depth and therefore the safety distance between you and the enemy.
9.2 Using the terrain
I. Map setting
There are three settings with impact to the game mechanics instead of pure design features:
1. Snow
Units from cold regions tire less quickly on a snow map. Example: Suebi or Iceni units
Units without this ability tire more quickly. Example: Hastati
2. Desert
Units from hot regions tire less quickly on desert maps. Example: Eastern or African units of all kinds.
3. Everything else
No effect at all, the “Resistant to Heat” or “Resistant to Cold” traits have no effect, too.
II. Hills
Hills are traversable. Units walking uphill are slower and tire faster. Walking downhill increases your speed and therefore your charge impact. When playing a more charge-focussed faction, try to use small hills or slopes to your advantage. Units also receive a small bonus when stationed on a hill.
III. Scrub
Slows all units down to 90%. Some light or skirmisher units can already hide there. Provides a significant amount of cover against missiles, but most missiles will still reach their destination. It’s better than nothing though, and you can use it to have the decisive advantage on a skirmisher fight.
IV. Forest
Slows all units down to 70%. All units except elephants can hide in forests. Forest terrain provides a very large amount of protection against missiles. Never engage your skirmishers against targets stationed in the woods if possible – you waste your ammo!
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V. Missile Damage on uneven terrain
Skirmishers shooting from a higher position do much more damage then skirmishers that are forced to fire uphill. Don’t underestimate this effect, since units with similar statistics are going to have a very very unbalanced fight.
9.3 Hotchpotch: Strategy advices
Veteran ranks – useless?
From recruit to VET1, units usually receive a +2 boost on Melee Attack and Defence, aswell as +1 on Morale. If a unit has a higher base attack value than 42, it gets +3 attack on VET1.
Skirmishers additionally get a small bonus to their rate of fire.
There are some units, that actually get stronger from a cost-effective perspective when vetting them to rank 1. I only recommend to do this when you expect the enemy to bring a similar unit, too.
A common pair could be: Pontic Swordsmen VS Thorax Swords, Mighty Horse VS Heavy Horse, Scutarii VS another melee infantry, etc. Most swords will already kill spear units in an acceptable pace, which means it’s better to put your money elsewhere when expecting a spear core.
Examples of some possible units for this strategy are – again, under some circumstances:
– Scutarii and Fierce Swords, because they both really need the performance boost due to their low/medium armor.
– Thracian Infantry, because the upgrade is cheap and they get +3 attack and some nice boost on defence.
– Mighty Horse, it gets +3 attack and +2 defense to pretty much dominate other mid-tier cavalry.
– Late Carthaginian Hoplites, with vet1 truly the most cost-effective hoplite unit.
– Spartan Hoplites, because you cant do hammer ‘n anvil with sparta, which means much of your killing power lies in your infantry core. +2 Attack on a hoplite unit is sometimes worth spending.
Skirmisher VS Skirmisher
Surprisingly, slingers beat archers, as long the archers don’t have 40 damage or an armor rating higher than ~20. This can be explained by the small block chance slingers have, while archers have to take every missile hit without a block chance. Additionally, slingers have a higher rate of fire. The lower damage of slingstones doesn’t really matter, since most archers are almost unarmored and have low health.
Armor for price – ratio
If you need some missile fodder to protect more valuable troops, look on the ratio between PRICE and ARMOR. Late Lybian Hoplites cost 300 Talents and have 80 armor – that’s the best unit in this aspect. Militia hoplites for 300 and 55 armor, but with a good shield value are a good choice, too. Levy Freeman or Eastern Spearman are somewhat useful too. Don’t use cheap units without a solid armor, like hillmen.
9.4 Hotchpotch: Tactics
Getting Intel
Click on your opponent’s name in the chat window and look on his steam profile. Look how many hours he already played the game. You might not want to test a new tactic against a very new or extremely experienced player. New players often do something weird like 10 royal spartans or three gold chevron praetorian guard.
Getting more Intel
When the opponent plays a faction who has access to stealth units, try to make a rough estimate of the money he spent on the units you can see. If there’s something missing, you know he has stealth units.
Nice to know: Spear brothers & Co
Many Barbarian spear units only have medium armor. Catch the right moment and charge them with shock cavalry to inflict some heavy damage. Watch out for cavalry counter tactics, since it’s one of the rare abilites without any downsides or fatigue.
Fighting cavalry with spear units
Make sure your unit ist stationary and don’t EVER countercharge with infantry units (except Thracian Nobles, see next paragraph). If the cavalry unit is already engaged by another unit, remember to deactivate formation attack if available. Your unit is much more effective against stationary cavalry unit because the men will slip through the gaps between the horses. This way you make good use of your number advantage – cavalry has only 50% men of melee infantry.
Duel between two skirmisher groups
Try to be the one that is stationary and let his skirmishers move into your arc of fire. This way you are the first shooting your volleys, which is a good thing because many cheap units rout when they take high losses within seconds. Practically, they may rout before shooting their (example) 3rd volley, because you made your third volley hit them first.
Get rid of your javelins!
When fighting a pike army, move your melee infantry right in front of his pikes. Let your unit throw ALL their javelins before you even think of an attack. This usually causes the pikemen to lose 15-30 men each unit, which can be very helpful.
Still get rid of your javelins
When performing an flanking manouver with infantry, let them throw their javelins into the rear of the target first. You can charge after that or move to the next unit, because this damage may have been enough help to the turn the scale of this 1v1 fight into your favor.
Don’t get rid of your javelins?
When using peltast or light peltast units, choose your missile target carefully. If possible, try not to waste your ammunition to kill cheap units – and much less if its a cheap archer/slinger unit, since these units are incredibly cheap and have a loose formation to better withstand enemy missiles. Better targets are: High value enemy infantry units or pretty much any type of enemy cavalry.
Better keep your javelins
Thureos spears are a very flexible and one of the most used units. But keep in mind: Units that throw javelins cannot brace against charges. When you want your thuroes spears to stand a cavalry charge, remember to turn off fire and will. This is also important when in square formation, this unit can throw their javelins in a 360° angle when in square. Turn that off to form a brick wall against cavalry.
Pikes and formation attack
When using pikes offensively, try to put them out of formation attack when slowly attacking an enemy by moving straight forward. They tend to behave a bit more aggressive. When the pikes have to move frequently in different directions, put them back into formation attack or their pikes will do weird things and be ineffective.
Priorities against pike armies
When fighting a pike army, try to get rid of his skirmishers while saving yours for later. Sacrificing your cavalry sometimes is needed for this task
Dodging Frenzy and Fast Charge
Many players tend to use their abilities, which improve their charge bonus, too early. If there is enough space left between the charging enemy and your units, simply move back until they’re ability has ended. Fast charge can be more tricky, since it increases the opponent’s units speed, too. You need more buffer between you and your enemy compared to frenzy.
9.5 Hotchpotch: Special units/abilities
Shield Wall + Formation Attack = ?
Units with formation attack enabled and going into shield wall often do weird stuff and fight inefficiently. Remember to turn formation attack off before enabling shield wall.
Axe units + Formation attack = ?
When you attack single units which are not component of a battle line, remember to put your axes OUT of formation attack. This will enable them to get some men into the flanks and rare and be much more cost efficient. This is especially important against hoplites, you don’t want to have the same width/depth than the unit that youre attacking, the hoplite will hold forever in this situation. Try to surround him by chosing a bit wider formation than he has.
Tarantine Cavalry: The unusual way to counter horse archers
Tarantine cavalry can be useful to hunt enemy cheap horse archers, if done correctly. Make use of the auto-skirmish ability – deactivate this on your tarantine unit. Then charge and follow the horse archer. Auto skirmish does only start at about 50-70 metres, which means you can throw your javelins while pursuing the horse archers. Since they have no armor and your javlins hit hard, they will suffer more losses than you do. If you catch them at the red zone, your tarantine cavalry is sturdy enough to finish them in melee.
Rhomphaia – a Thracian’s best friend
The romphaia is a scythe-looking polearm. The curved single-edged blade was actually longer than the pole. This weapon has a hidden bonus VS large, since it is a polearm. But all units that use this type of weapon are melee infantry units, so Rome 2 does not display this bonus. This value is 20, which is pretty high. But remember when using Thracian Warriors against cav: Don’t let them get charged. Use a cheap spear unit to absorb the charge, quickly reinforce and destroy the unit quickly due to the high attack + bonus vs large. After the enemy cav is gone, you can flank or rear charge the enemy infantry line.
Let’s get BRUTAL – Thracian Nobles
These mad freaks destroy everything on the charge. They don’t damage it, they destroy it. They are so powerful, the enemy unit even starts to desintegrate into their nuclear components.
*Joke mode off* No, im serious. They even destroy cavalry on the charge. Since they also use the Rhomphaia weapon, they have a 20 bonus versus cavalry. Their melee attack stats and charge bonus is so high, that they can counter charge a Companian Cavalry without taking noticable casualties.
OMG? Anti-Cavalry Skirmishers!
There are currently three skirmisher units carrying a bow as secondary weapon. Again, this bonus is not displayed ingame, but they have a +30 bonus VS large. This is huge, and although their melee performance isn’t great its still enough to beat medium cavalry in prolongued melee. Remember their armor and mass is pretty low, so the charge is still a big threat.
At the current state, these units are:
– Cimmerian Heavy Archers (Cimmeria)
– Elite Persian Archers (Baktria, Armenia, Parthia)
– Cimbri Bow Women (Suebi)
Cav with axes?
Persian Cavalry, Eastern Cataphracts and Royal Cataphracts use axes after their charge. Cool and unique, but does not really have a large impact on their use 🙂
Horse archer variants
Although you can not see a difference in name, there are several differences between EASTERN and STEPPE horse archers in their mid and high-tier variant “armoured” and “noble” ones.
Armoured Horse Archers: The Steppe Variant is superior in both, missilie damage and melee performance – it’s also 580talents, while eastern ones are 640. The eastern variant has a bit more armor (40 VS 35) and a bit more health (80 VS 75).
Noble Horse Archers: The eastern variant has unbelievable armor of 90, making them “Super heavy missile cavalry). It has a bit more melee defence and charge bonus, and also more health (95 VS 85). The steppe variant has higher missile damage (40 VS 35) and higher melee Attack as well as slightly higher morale (60 VS 55). It’s also cheaper (790 VS 880)
Practically this means that armoured steppe horse archers are superior against armoured eastern horse archers. On the other hand, eastern noble horse archers will win decisively against steppe noble horse archers – the increase in missile damage can’t compensate the incredible armour.
Factions that use the Steppe variants: Royal Scythia, Roxolani, Massagetae, Cimmeria.
Factions with eastern variants: Armenia, Parthia
9.6 Hotchpotch: Other
Screening away Horse skirmishers – Or why Levy Freemen are great!
When the enemy prepares to harass your flanks or single units with horse skirmishers, use your cheap infantry units. They are especially effective when they have pre-cursor javlins, which enables them to push the enemy cavalry away much more efficient and possibly even infilct some damage with your javelins on the harassing units.
Spartan Hoplites are the best?
Haha, screw you, spartan fanboys.
Actually, Thorax Hoplites are slightly superior to spartan hoplites because thorax ones have the elite spear which means a significantly higher armor penetration value.
Light Cavalry is all the same, fast and annoying – right?
Nope. Horse archer units have the mass “light”. But some javelin cavalry like Germanic Scout Riders have the mass “very light”, making them slightly faster than horse archers and therefore able to catch them and destroy in melee.
Wedge Formation – I love how my germanic Nachos are attacking!
Cool idea, but completely useless on the battlefield. Although wedge increases the charge bonus theoretically, it reduces the unit’s charge performance because less man fight at the same time and many men don’t get the impact on the enemy unit.
It’s also weak in prolongued melee because the enemy unit (especially when it’s a formation attack unit) will kill your men because they fight the tip only at the beginning, enabling them to engage more men than your unit is able to have enganged.
Conclusion: Don’t use Wedge, period.
A pleading for the Warrior General – or: How to rape Ariovistus (Suebi General)
Nobody likes the Warrior General, me neither and not without reasons. But it definetely has its uses on the battlefield. Many people use the Oathsworn-Strategist combination to be able to spam Headhunt. Ariovistus is the most extreme example with its fast charge ability. A nifty player chooses a warrior general against the suebi to disable Ariovistus’ abilities and engage the enemy army quickly to make one of the Suebi’s most powerful tools unusable.
10. Complete Faction Overview
I. Explanation: Structure
a) Culture Type and general information
b). Characteristics: Strengths and weaknesses
c). Key Units
d). Tactics
e). Counters
f). Sumarry & Rating
I had to split the faction overview into different chapters, since it was too much text. You’ll find the faction in the same order they are listed ingame.
II. Relativity
When you play Odrysian Kingdom against a steppe faction, doesnt mean you already lost the battle. You can bring an uncommon build to compensate some faction weaknesses. The faction offers the tools, but you use it! Almost all tools can – if used correctly – get the task done: VICTORY.
When I speak of your possibly favorite faction and say they’re weak, this does not mean they only have bad units. It doesn’t mean that I hate your ancestors or your campaign’s heroes. But some factions are more one dimensional than others. Again – you can still win with a weaker faction against power factions, it’s just more challenging.
III. Rating scale
1* very difficult
2* challenging
3* balanced
4* strong
5* very strong
10.1 Factions: Ardiaei – Arevaci
a). Barbarian. Balkan Culture (historically semi-correct). From the Illyrian Coast, today Croatia, Bosnia i Herzegovina, Serbia, Monte♥♥♥♥♥. Uses hoplites inspired by the greeks.
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b). Has probably one of the best spear unit selections in the game. Worst Cavalry of all factions. One of the worst skirmisher selections. Average melee infantry selection by having some mercenaries.
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c). Illyrian Marines: Very good and surprisingly hard hitting version of a spear+javelin hybrid. These guys are the best support unit for your flanks most of the time.
Illyrian Hoplites: Let’s do it quick. It’s a standard hoplite, with a bit less attack in exchange for massive armor. It has no formation attack but has expert charge defense instead. Very cost effective!
Illyrian Noble Hoplites: Same as the Illyrian hoplite. Has encourage and the attack is high enough to do some (not all) killing. Still pretty cost effective.
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d). This faction is pretty hard to play, because every opponent will know to 90% what your army will look like. Bring a lot of infantry, you cant do the killing when you dont have more units to flank. Dont forget about at least one or two cav units to hunt enemy skirmishers. Your heavy units are slow and still vulnerable to missiles, especially slingers. Bring a support of 4-8 Illyrian marines on the flanks – this gives you the chance to throw some javelins into the enemy’s back.
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e). Counter in one word: Rome. And pretty much every faction with decent melee infantry, as long as they don’t rely on the charge much. Pikes can be difficult, too, since your cavalry and skirmishers are almost useless – and your infantry doesn’t carry javelins!
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f). Probably the worst faction in the game. Still has some situational use. Can be useful in 2v2+ fights were you spam super effective spear units and another faction supports the cav+skirmish power. Some cool units, though.
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a). Barbarian. Celtiberian culture. From central spain.
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b). Good melee infantry. Cavalry is above average, too. Skirmishers are useful. Spear selection is very mediocre.
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c). Scutarii: A cost effective and hard hitting sword unit. Good kill rates but is a bit vulnerable to charges or focussed missile fire – They won’t last for too long in melee against heavier armored units. Nontheless, these guys usually make up most of your main infantry force.
Noble Fighters: The beast of beasts, even compared to Oathsworn or other nobles. These guys wreck everything unless heavily outnumbered, under heavy missile fire or trampled by cataphracts. Protect them and this folks easily get 300 kills in a battle.
Celtiberian Cavalry: Yes, I didn’t choose the noble cavalry. Better bring four of this medium cav than two elite ones. This guys are super cost effective, have no trouble killing all kind of skirmishers and do some acceptable damage on the charge. They are good against other melee cavalry too, because they have a +15 bonus VS large instead of +10 on most melee cav units. This unit only has medium armor, so don’t let enemy shock cav charge into them headon if possible!
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d). Usually a bit infantry focused composition works best. Some cavalry for flexibility and some skirmishers to pick off single targets. Don’t forget to add at least one “Painted Warrior” to your army, because this adds the scare effect. It’s useful because your scutarii only have medium armor and can take heavy losses fighting their way through the enemy line. The earlier the enemy flees, the more men can fight the next unit! Bolster your cavalry with up to 4-5 units when facing some skirmish heavy factions. Add some Baleraric Slingers if needed.
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e). Shock cavalry can do some substantial damage because the Arevaci dont have a sturdy spear unit to face them. Additionally, units with a strong charge value cause serious damage to your melee infantry units. Well armoured sword units are difficult to handle for your Scutarii main line. Rome has much better units for just a little more money.
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f). A good faction overall – offers cost effective swords, solid cavalry, good slingers and some special units like guerillas or fear unit. Big downside: they are predictable: Scutariis, some nobles, a bit cav support and balearic slingers – the enemy can prepare well for what is going to come!
10.2 Factions: Armenia – Arverni
a). Eastern Kingdom. Played a key role in the eastern sphere from 330BC – 430AD.
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b). Melee infantry -wise: Axemen offer a solid counter to heavy armored units. Cost effective Spear units for support, but nothing great. Very good shock and melee cavalry and good missile cavalry. Armenia’s skirmishers can get the job done, but you have to be careful.
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c). Kartli Axemen: These guys are the secret counter to Roman infantry. Somehow effective against thorax swords or thorax hoplite, too – Kartli have better charge and slightly higher attack stacking with the armor piercing damage. They have problems against some cost effective barbarian units / with more charge.
Noble Blood Cavalry: These guys are pretty useful; they’re superior to almost all other mid-tier melee cavalry. Can kill other cavalry pretty well and finish off sword infantry. Cost effective if used correctly!
Eastern Cataphracts: In my opinion, eastern cataphracts are more cost-efficient than royal cataphracts. That doesn’t mean that these guys doesn’t have a good use. Use the eastern Cataphracts to punch through enemy lines to destroy their battle line or as superior hammer into the back of enemy units. A cataphract charge into the back of a melee infantry unit usually leads to routing it.
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d). Basically, this faction can be played two ways.
First, with a relatively medium cavalry section, 5-6 kartli axemen some archer support and eastern spearmen as charge bait or missile fodder. This works good against rome and greek factions without top notch cavalry. This builds splits the killing between melee inf and cavalry.
Second, a classy cavalry focussed build. Bring a line of 4-6 persian hoplites, flanked with some eastern spearmen. Bring at least 4 Cataphract units and at least one Horse Archer units to harass. This build works well against successor Kingdoms like baktria or seleucids with strong cavalry for themselves.
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e). Surprisingly, some barbarian factions can threaten Armenia because they’ll cut through their infantry within moments – and have good enough cavalry to pin the cataphracts and bring reinforcements. Parthia can be a problem because it has better archers (both horse and infantry) and has access to camel units, reducing the effectiveness of your horses. Other cavalry heavy factions can be a threat, too, if not handled correctly.
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f). A very good faction. Has the excellent cavalry of all kinds. Axemen are a superb addition to the cavalry-focussed army, which allows you to bring some unexpected Inf-heavy builds. 5/5 would choose!
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a). Barbarian. Celtic culture and one of the many celtic tribes in gaul, today’s france.
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b). This faction is pretty straight forward. Solid melee Infantry, sturdy spearmen, effective cavalry. Skirmisher selection is not very good. They have the special general “Vercingetorix”.
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c). Chosen Swordsmen: These guys are your core infantry. Solid attack, good defence and an acceptable charge bonus. Match them against hoplites or other spear units. As usual, roman legions are a large threat. When facing thorax swords or comparable units, try to get the charge bonus to compensate to formation attack.
Oathsworn: Keep 1-3 units in reserve and completely annihilate the enemy infantry when the right moment has come. Get the charge bonus, if possible. And the same with all elite infantry units: Don’t get the enemy skirmishers focus fire you!
Heavy Horse: This guys get the job done. Pin enemy cavalry, kill light cavalry, kill light infantry or do some damage into the back of the enemy infantry. Cost effective and useful.
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d). I usually bring a balanced army with a small focus on infantry. 5-7 Chosen Swordsmen, supported by 1-2 spear units each flank. Some cheap skirmishers are useful against elephants/chariots and can force the enemy skirmishers to waste ammonition on them. 1-2 units of naked swords do the killing into the back of the enemy. 2-4 Cavalry units to support. Spend the rest of the money on oathsworn!
Alternatively, when facing a cataphract or cavalry-focussed faction, bring some sturdy chosen/noble spearmen.
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e). Hammer&Anvil can work good against arverni, because many arverni players sacrifice a solid spear support group for even more melee infantry. Special high-tier units like elephants or chariots are a large threat, since you have to bring skirmishers to kill them – and your skirmishers are comparably bad.
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f). Arverni’s good spear units offer a surprisingly good defense against shock cav. Their Swords are decent, but have their weaknesses, too and can be outclassed by other sword focussed builds. Very cost effective cavalry offers the support your infantry needs. Still, other Barbarians like Tylis or Boii are going to outclass them.
10.3 Factions: Athens – Baktria
a). The birthplace of democracy (at least a little bit) and center for science and philosphy. Slowly began to slide into unimportance after the defeat in the peleponnesian war. Has a great naval tradition.
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b). This is the typical greek city state faction. It shares many similarities with syracuse. Offers some medium cavalry selection, and at least some sword units. Their focus clearly are spear/hoplite units and skirmishers. Some merceneries add a nice touch and surely needed variety to the athenian army.
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c). Thorax Hoplites: These guys look like standard hoplites. They actually are standard hoplites. But when looked closely, they are slightly superior to most other hoplite units on the battlefield. Due to their high armor rating they can put up a pretty decent challenge for most mid-tier sword units. When in hoplite wall, they can hold the line for a long time.
Peltasts (any): These guys are something like 70% Skirmisher and 30% melee. Try to throw their javelins either at enemy cavalry or at the back of the enemy infantry. When out of ammo, these guys can still turn the scale in melee in your favor.
Mercenary Rhodian slingers: When going for Athens, I prefer Rhodian Slingers over Cretan archers. Your hoplites are masters of defense and kill slowly – better have a strong missile lategame with the slingers because they have more ammunition.
Hippeus Lancer: This units provides a large amount of your killing power. Since they cannot block enemy missiles and defend themselves badly in melee, try to save them for late game or kill isolated, unsupported units. The lancers are the hammer, the hoplites the anvil.
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d). You can send a sword center with a balanced Attack-Defence role. Or you send a Thorax hoplite center with a more defensive role. Choose wisely depending on your opponent’s faction. Against Sparta, for example, I’d bring thorax hoplites (they actually win slightly against Spartans hehe). The fight between my hoplite and his hoplites is going to last very very long… and this gives me the time I need to exploit his rear defense and slip through with cavalry. Against Arverni, for example, I would bring thorax swords and some units to absorb / interrupt his charges.
Either way, bolster up your army with some citizen cavalry and hippeus lancer, 2 of each is a safe pick. Tarantine Cavalry is also useful to harass his cavalry and hunt skirmishers afterwards.
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e). Actually, Athen has a solid roster. But they are predictable, since they dont have anything with solid killing power except skirmishers and hippeus lancers. A good player Athen player will add many mercenaries to his army to be less predictable and more versatile. Try to guess which, and the battle is yours. A cavalry heavy faction is a problem, since the skirmishers are Athens main killing power – and their cavalry is not good at all.
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f). A good mercenary selection prevents Athens being far too predictable. Otherwise, good defensive units.
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a). Baktria is a hellenic successor kingdom. It reached, though not viewable on the campaign map, some parts of today’s India. Baktria is famous for the largest gold coins ever minted throughout the classical world. It was destroyed by steppe nomads in the second century BC.
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b). Baktria really excels in two categories: Skirmishers and cavalry. Their infantry roster isn’t that bad at all, they do not have much choice to offer from swords to spears and pikes, but everything they have is solid and worth choosing. Plus, they have access to indian elephants.
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c). Scale Thorax Hoplites: A cost-effective hoplite unit. It’s a bit lighter than most other hoplite units but also a bit more mobile. This unit holds the enemy in place while you come around the flanks with your cavalry.
Bactrian Noble Horse: These guys close the gap between elite and mid-tier melee cavalry. They do not have any speciel elite like traits or abilites, but their statistics are very good and they have a very high armor and defense rating. Since you probably bring a lot of skirmishers, these cavalrymen keep your flanks clean and make short shrift of other cavalry. Due to their high armor, they can be useful against shock cavalry, too.
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d). Basically, there are 3 different ways to play. Sure, there are other possibilites and combinations, put these few are the most simple and effective.
First, hammer and anvil: Make use of sturdy hoplites and cavalry superiority.
Second, bring pikes/hoplite and many high quality skirmishers to do the killing you need.
Third, build an army to make your insane elephant units count.
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e). I would say that other greek/hellenic factions put up the best counter against Baktria. Try to get some Cretan Archers or Rhodian/Balearic Slingers to overperform his skirmishers. Bring at least 4 spears unit against Baktria to shield your flanks and rear. A build with a superior hoplite core (using thorax hoplite, spartan hoplite, carthaginian etc) can be efficient too, since hoplites aren’t that vulnerable to cavalry. Fact: There is no 99% working counter to Baktria – they have too many different units. But going missile and spear heavy is a solid approach.
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f). Superb cav, good skirmishers, still average Infantry, Best Elephants. Top notch!
10.4 Factions: Boii – Carthage
a). Barbarian. Celtic culture. The boii were a gallic tribe, settling around the northern and western alps and in bohemia.
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b). Their roster looks related to the Arverni’s. Although they have some medium differences. They only have very weak missile units. They have the same good cavalry options like the arverni. The melee infantry selection is one of the best, their spears are a solid force, too – although they lack a high tier defensive beast.
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c). Axe Warriors: This is easily the best lower-mid-tier unit in the game. They are super cost effective when matched against the right targets. When fighting against formation attack units, put them into a relatively thin formation, so they can wrap around it. This way you can damage hoplite and medium sword units badly. What I actually like most: You can use this unit to put some serious damage on the flanks or use them in the infantry center.
Sword Followers: This unit is a very good mid-tier sword unit. It can be seen as a chosen swordsmen, but slightly better. Sword Followers are a serious danger to all other mid tier infantry units.
Heavy Horse: Since the Boiii usually go infantry+cav heavy, you can use your cav more offensively because you don’t have to worry about protecting skirmishers. It still is a very good and cost effective cav unit, which excels at charging light and medium sword infantry, run down skirmishers, and to pin and damage enemy cavalry.
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d). I like to play the Boii with several battle lines. 4 Celtic Warriors, 4 Axe Warriors, 4 Sword followers, 2 Oathsworn. This works good against other barbarians and most greek factions. When facing successor kindoms, bring at least 2 cheap skirmishers and more cavalry.
Another possibility would be a core of 6 sword followers, with one axe warrior + a spear unit on each flank. Now spend some of your money on cavalry, for example 4 heavy horse 2 light horse. The little rest of money left is well spend on levy meatshields or cheap skirmishers.
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e). Factions with elephants and chariots are dangerous, because you lack good skirmishers and often focus on your good swords instead. A pike + elite skirmisher combo can be also dangerous, but your cavalry earnes the key role in this scenario: Harassing and attacking the enemy skirmishers with quick punches. I actually do think Rome is comparably manageable, because your axe warriors love units with high armor.
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f). You’re a bit predictable: Very good Inf, Good Cav, no Skirmishers. But there are enough different ways to use these tool to your advantage. Compared to the Arverni, their melee Inf is significantly stronger. You lack the Spear Nobles, but Veteran Spears and cheaper spear units should still be able to defend you against cav heavy factions.
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a). Punic, of phoenician decent. Rome’s archenemy for hundred years. Remembered by the modern world because Carthage almost broke the Roman’s power over Italy and the mediterranean sea.
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b). Multifarious unit selection. Carthage has probably the second best sword selection after rome. Their spears are incredibly cost effective, their hoplites are one of the most dangerous. They have superb melee cavalry options and the best non-steppe javelin cavalry. Plus: African Elephants. Their shock cav is not great at all and their skirmishers are very strong but very very predictable.
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c). I’ll name the most important units, but carthage is the most versatile faction of all, there are dozens of possibilites!
Late Carthaginian Hoplites: A great unit. Has a very good armour rating and the highest attack of all non-elite hoplites. The pay their strength in armour and offense with average melee defence and morale. This actually is one of my secret VET1 tips.
Mercenary Cretan Archers: No matter what strategy you have, Cretans always have their use. This is (except Cimmerian heavies) the best archer unit in the game. Why not use it?
Carthaginian Cavalry: No one loves these babies, they don’t know why! This is one of the most cost effective mid-tier cavalry units. These guys get all necessary jobs down.
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d). Impossible to tell all of them. I’ll try to so rudimentarily.
– allround build with 5-7 inf, 2-4 missile, 3-5 cav, rest on flank protection
– Sword heavy build: 8-12 melee infantry, protected by 3-5 cav.
– Hoplite build: 5-7 hoplite, 3-6 skirmishers, 2-3 Shock cav, rest on flank protection
– countless hybrid builds, elephant builds, even pike builds.
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e). None. You can’t counter when you don’t know what army you’re going to fight. My advice is, better bring a versatile army against Carthage. Always bring some Cavalry and at least two skirmishers of any kind to counter elephants or a possible cav superiority. A hoplite build (except Thorax and Spartans) is not advisable.
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f). In my opinion, Carthage is the only faction on the same power level with rome. This comes a bit because of their unit strength, but more with their versatility of tools.
10.5 Factions: Cimmeria – Colchis
a). Hellenic culture. The bosporan kingdom existed from 438BC to 370AD. It was a greek colony, ruled while still independent by the thracian Spartocids. Later became client state of Pontus and Rome.
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b). This faction is a classy skirmisher faction. Spear-armed Archers, Picked Peltasts and cheap but heavy hitting steppe archers. These units are supported by all kinds of Horse archers and not necessarily strong, but still efficient spear units. However, this clear focus means the worst selection in melee/shock cavalry and in melee infantry.
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c). Cimmerian Heavy Archers: This is the best archer unit in the game. It has all you need except “Heavy Shot”. This lack doens’t really downgrade the unit, because it has spear for melee defence, the “Precision Shot” ability and good skirmisher armour to beat other skirmishers.
Scythian Hoplites: A cheaper hoplite version. It has less killing power but almost the same holding power, aswell as some useful +20 bonus VS large. This units is the infantry support of your archers and can hold the enemy in place while you shoot missiles in their back.
Armoured Horse Archers: This unit is a steppe horse archer variant with high missile damage, rate of fire and at least some armor (35). It also has some melee capabilities, enough to give enemy light archers or slingers a quick charge when not protected with infantry.
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d). There are several possibilites all having the same goal: Insure your missile units can do the damage, this is almost all of your killing power. Possible build: 6 Scythians and one noble hoplite to encourage, 1-4 steppe spearmen to protect the flanks, spend the rest on foot or horse archers in a good combination.
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e). Eastern Horse archer, because they have more armour than steppe ones. Inf heavy builds with swords, protected by good spears.
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f). Unique and strong units – but no versatile unit variety and therefore massively predictable.
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a). Hellenic Culture, greek colony located along the eastern shore of the black sea.
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b). It’s the only faction that mixes good axemen with hoplites. Nothing special in skirmisher selection. Cav selection is decent but not great.
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c). Kartli Axemen: This unit does your killing against hoplites or defensive sword units. Remember that they excel against defensive, well armoured enemies in order to make these guys cost effective.
Hoplites: Good holding force. Keeps the enemy at bay, which may buy you valuable time to reinforce, shoot missiles or simply regroup and counter attack. Works well in combination with axemen.
Noble Blood Cavalry: Superb Cavalry unit. This units wins the cav fight for you or do solid damage on the charge against sword units threating your axes or hoplites
Horse Archers: Since your skirmisher abilites are acceptable, but limited and you lack a high-tier skirmisher, the horse archer will force the enemy to counter each horse archer unit with one skirmisher unit. Your skirmishers can profit of this distraction and do their job.
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d). This faction has some strange unit combinations. When facing against a greek Hoplite / Thorax Sword faction, bring a Kartli Axemen center and support them. Against sword heavy barbarian factions bring a hoplite core and focus on your cavalry – Axemen can be useful to rear charge. If you’re able to micro them effectively, bring at least 1-2 horse archers to distract the enemy and force his units to stay close together. The perfectly matching colchian army is a real masterpiece, very difficult.
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e). Sword heavy factions are a problem. For example Boii or Tylis are the exact counter to Colchis: Cheap axes against the hoplites, and good sword units against the axes. Since colchis has something to offer in all categories, but excels in none, try to overperform Colchis in one categorie – I don’t think it matters in which.
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f). Army composition is very difficult, but the colchian units are easy to handle and can get the job done. You have access to all unit categories, which enables a versatile army.
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10.6 Factions: Epirus – Galatia
a). Hellenic Culture on the western balkan coast, today Albanian and Greek territory. It’s not a typical city state, more a consolidation of similar tribes and villages.
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b). Has a solid spear selection combined with an acceptable sword selection. Superb shock cavalry and at least average melee cav. Very many and strong skirmishers. If you like them, has also a useful pikes. Epirus has many mercenaries, including Elephants. Versatility is Epirus’ best weapon!
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c). Royal Peltasts: Since you lack a native mid-tier sword unit, focussing on your very good elite swords can be a valid tactic. These guys have also 5 javelins making the Royal Peltasts a Melee+skirmish hybrid. Very useful in second battle line: First throw their javelins, and then reinforce to do some serious killing!
Thessalian Cavalry: Ingame Description: “Superb heavy horsemen who can smash through most opposition on their first charge” Yep, that’s it. Watch out for hard-hitting enemy cav units, because these can pin you down and you will take unnecessary losses.
Thureos Spears: Very very versatile Spear + Javelin hybrid. Putting two on each flank means that your center is much less vulnerable to pretty anything that attempts to come from the flanks or the rear. Since your inf center isn’t that strong like with other factions, spending some money on a strong support on the flanks is a good idea.
Mercenary Cretans: Best Archer unit in the game (with Cimmerian heavies) – who would not want this in his army? Use this unit to weaken up the enemy center to increase your melee unit’s chances or simply get rid of enemy skirmishers. Remember that cretans only have 15 volleys of ammunition, like all other archer units – spend the ammo wisely!
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d). There are dozens of possibilities with Epirus. The most typical ones are:
– Bring a Royal Peltast Core (2-4) and many cheaper support units to insure that your Royals can do the killing without being surrounded or rear charged.
– Hammer and Anvil: Bring tanky infantry like Samnites and Etruscian Hoplites to provide a strong holding force, and use 4 thessalians and 2 merc italian cavalry on the flanks. Add 3-6 cheap skirmishers or 2-3 elite ones to keep the enemy skirmisher group busy.
– or try an unexpected rush build: Samnites and Royal Peltats in the center, Italian Swords and Spears at the flanks, and 3-5 shock cavalry to evem more focus on pure killing.
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e). There is no typical build because Epirus has a very balanced profile. This is advantage and disadvantage at the same time. But there are some tools that almost every Epirus player will use: Elite skirmishers like Cretans or Rhodians and great shock cavalry. When you have to face Epirus on the battlefield, bring Infantry that can get rid off his infantry. Bring 2 or more cavalry units to defend your lines against his shock cavalry and threaten his skirmishers afterwards.
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f). Epirus has many great tools, but they lack a decent native mid-tier sword unit as well as a decent hoplite like thorax hoplite. Their support tools in cavalry and skirmishers are good. It’s not a weak faction, but hard to play and even harder to design a balanced army composition.
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a). Barbarian, celtic culture, of gallic decent. Migrated to today’s Turkey after Brennus’ celtic march to Greece.
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b). All in all, galatia has very few different units. All of their units are comparably strong. Galatia has decent swords, capable spears, versatile cavalry and bad native skirmishers.
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c). Galatian Swords: These guys are like celtic warriors: Cheap, effective, good on the charge. Use these as a first line to weaken the enemy or on the flanks to support against enemy spear units.
Galatian Legionaries: Interesting formation attack unit with GREAT statistics. This unit pretty much always builds your infantry core.
Galatian Raiders: Imagine an already decent light cavalry unit having 7 javelins. Here you are, having an attractive price of 550t. These raiders can threaten the enemy cavalry with their hard hitting javelins, quickly get rid of enemy skirmishers or – if they manage to survive to late game – at least do some damage against non-heavy infantry when charging into the rear.
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d). Balanced Army with Galatia? Never heard of that. Swords, swords and more swords. At least 5 but up to 8 legionaires are common. You need a sheer wave of flesh because you lack an elite sword unit like oathsworn. Put a mix of Galatian spears and swords (both very costeffective units) on the flanks. Galatian Raiders are a must-have. Depending on the opponent’s faction, add some mercenary archers, horsemen or horse skirmishers.
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e). Rome has the potential to wreck Galatia, because they simply overperform their legionaries. Galatia probably is most vulnerable to shock cavalry and horse archers, because they have no effective way to counter them. When facing Galatia, think: “What should I bring to kill galatian legionaries and their support?”
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f). Pretty predictable due to their lack of many options in each unit category, but all of their options are truly worth their price. Since Sword-Heavy builds are reliable and easy to handle, Galatia gets a good rating although they have obvious weaknesses.
10.7 Factions: Getae – Iceni
a). Barbarian, Balkan Culture. The tribes from today’s romania are described as Dacians. They had some fights, and later after roman annexion some mentionable uprisings. It provided a large amount of mineral ressources to the Roman empire after 100AD.
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b). Great spear units. Very strong and cost-effective skirmishers. Melee Inf is acceptable. Cavalry is good but without alternative option (One melee, one shock, one archer, one javelin).
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c). Dacian Heavy Bowmen: You pay 440t and get a 35dmg, 150 range, and 30 armor archer unit with relatively good melee capabilites. No Heavy Shot, but quick reload. These guys are one of the most cost effective skirmishers in the game! The only threat to them are Cretans and Rhodians, but they are also considerably more expensive. Use this unit to kill cheap archers and slingers, protect your infantry and pick off singly targets.
Armoured Spears: The best comparison to a similar unit would be a hoplite. Armoured Spears are kinda barbarian hoplite unit: It has less attack in favor of cav counter tactics and incredibly high melee defense. Try to charge with them, and go into shieldscreen some moments after the charge (30sec actually, see Game Mechanics). This units buys you the time you need to push the flanks back and sandwich the enemy line. Secret tip: Sometimes useful to put on VET1 to provide at least a bit more killing from your speras!
Noble Horsemen: Decent Shock cavalry. Remember to protect them against melee cavalry who attempt to pin them down after your charge, preventing you from cycle charging. They are a little special because they trade of some points in Charge bonus in favor of Melee Attack and defence, which means they are a bit better against infantry but weaker against cavalry (tested and verified multiple times.
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d). There are two main possibilities when forming a Getae army:
– Seperate Force of Holding (spears) and Killing (Falxes, axes, Skirmishers, Cavalry)
– Combined Force of Holding and Killing: Noble Swords, Axes as a melee center, Falxmen to weaken the enemy line / quick rear charges, still benefit of superb spears on the flanks and good archers as missile protection.
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e). Cav heavy factions can be difficult, since the Getae cavalry is decent, but can be outclassed, or more precise: outspammed by Heavy Horse, Noble Blood/Cappadocian, Medians. This often renders you helpless because your killing power is mostly gone. The other extreme on infantry can be difficult, too: Barbarian sword rushes with Boii/Tylis are threatening because they tank out your spears with ease and you might have too many enemies left – or you spears may simply die to fast to prepare rear charges.
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f). Unique. Somewhat difficult to bring a balanced and versatile army – but an interesting faction for experienced players.
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a). Celtic Culture, Britannic tribe. Put up a decent fight mostly using maverick tactics: Ambushing or painting your naked body blue to prepare for the battle… Druids played a keyrole in the resistance against roman occupation in britain.
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b). Has access to similar units compared to most other celtic/barbarian factions. But: They’re light and elite sword infantry is remarkable weaker, their mid-tier sword is a little bit more durable. Their skirmisher variations are very poor, although they are somewhat effective. The cav category is significantly weaker than with other Celtic/Barbarians. Iceni spear units are OK, but nothing more. But: You have access to many special units: Chariots, Ambushers, Fear units and Druidic Nobles to support.
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c). Chosen Sword Band: Decent barbarian Sword unit with a small focus on defense. Has the mass type “very heavy”, making them less vulnerable to charges compared to most other mid-tier swords. Remember: Can’t win on its own against above average mid-tier units like Sword Followers, Tribal warriors or Galatian Legionaries, for example. Will beat hoplites and less armoured units reliably, however.
Spear Band: This is an upgraded version of the levy freeman. It has a bit better melee performance and a buff to morale for a small increase to cost. Use these guys to protect your sword core, throw some javelins ore use them as a better meatshield.
Druidic Nobles: ALWAYS bring one of these strange folks. They have the encourage trait, which boosts your morale. Use them in the center, where your chosen swords may be a bit shaky. When things get hot and some cowards intend to flee from the battle, pop “Chant” to increase every unit’s morale in their area of influence by 50% for 30 seconds.
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d). No matter what faction your opponent has, or which exact build you bring: Make as much use of your many special units as possible. You have access to some of the best special units in the game, from Chariots (with javelins!) going to Guerilla units and Shock infantry with fear effect. Chariots are a bit risky, because your cavalry is inferior to most counterparts and won’t be able to defend your chariots from cav for too long.
Example build for Iceni against, lets say Athen could look this way:
6 chosen swords, 4 veteran riders, 1-3 cheap spears, 1-3 sword band, 1-3 briton slingers, 1 painted warrior, 1 druid unit.
There are many ways to differ the Iceni builds, but you almost always have to rely on your special purpose units
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e). A strong sword core definetely kills the Iceni pretty quick. They are vulnerable to multiple battle lines (hastati, falxmen, celtic warriors etc in first line) since they lack a decent counter part. Factions with access to above-average melee cavalry have advantages, because most of your special units are vulnerable to cavalry: Chariots and shock&ambush inf – and your veteran riders’ performance better suits them for support then for fighting on their own.
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f). Not necessarily weaker than Arverni – they share many similarities – but you depend more on your special purpose units. Since this requires more skill to form a working army composition and more micro skill to put these strange units to good use, I think they are a greater challenge than the Arverni.
10.8 Factions: Lusitani – Macedon
a). Barbarian. Iberian Culture. Was mostly isolated in today’s Portugal until the 2nd punic war. They fought the romans multiple times. The lusitani tribesmen were armed with falcatas swords and soliferum javelins; they used the small and agile caetra shield or the more stout scutarii shield to defend themselves.
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b). Incredibly strong but very fragile infantry. Useful Skirmishers. Average cavalry. Good spears but lack a cheap spam-spearman. All in all a very infantry focused and specialised army with great offensive and bad defensive capabilites in most situations.
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c). Iberian Swordsmen: Very versatile and cheap unit with only one downside: Armour! These blood-thirsty falcata armed warriors have a solid attack, decent melee defence, carry 5 javelin making them a skirmish-melee hybrid, but completely lack any noticeable armour protection.
Veteran Shield Warriors: This is your main infantry unit: Brutal melee attack, decent charge, incredible defence, high morale. But the huge downside is again: Low armour and bad missile protection.
Balearic Slingers: Since all your melee infantry is vulnerable to missiles, you need to bring some balearic slingers to counter the enemy propably bringing many missile units to threaten your infantry forces. In a 1v1, Balearics beat ALL skirmishers in the game except mercenary rhodian slingers (but only greek city states + macedon have access to them, and only 3 per army). This gives you the possibility to “deactivate” enemy skirmisher attempts, which saves many lives on your melee infantry!
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d). Almost always, a mix of iberian swordsmen and Veteran Shield Warriors will make up your melee infantry center. Depending on the enemy skirmishing capabilities, you can add 1-4 balearic slingers. I’d recommend to bring at least 1-2 scutarii cavalry to threaten enemy skirmishers and prevent enemy very heavy cavalry to cylce charge you to death. Fill up the ranks with even more melee infantry or alternatively bring some decent spear support on your flanks.
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e). A combination of missiles and cavalry followed by sturdy, well armoured infantry is the Lusitani Warchief’s nightmare. Don’t be shy to use your cavalry aggressive for quick punches against his sword units, but keep in mind that Lusitani love javelins: Lusitani Guerrillas and Iberian Swordsmen can quickly decimate your cavalry before it even finished the charge, because both are effective hybrid skirmishers. I like bringing peltasts against them because they do high damage with very few volleys and have some protection against his balearic slingers.
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f). Very special faction. Very cool faction, though. The challenge when playing Lusitani is to bring the balanced and effective build as well as making your plans reality on the battlefield. You are very predictable and the enemy always knows where your weak spots are. This is a viable choice for very experienced or competitive players, but has high risks for casual players.
For new and casual players:
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a). Hellenic Culture, located north of Greece. One of the most known classical military powers – who doesn’t know Alexander The Great?
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b). Decent but not great melee and spear infantry. Excellent Pikes. Excellent Shock cavalry. Excellent Skirmishers. Lacks solid Melee Cavalry.
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c). Thessalian Cavalry: Ingame Description: “Superb heavy horsemen who can smash through most opposition on their first charge” Yep, that’s it. Watch out for hard-hitting enemy cav units, because these can pin you down and you will take unnecessary losses.
Thorax Swords: All-round balanced and reliable Sword unit, capable of standing on their own against most comparable units. Remember to intercept the enemy charge if possible because your guys have almost no existing charge bonus.
Mercenary Cretan Archers: Best Archer unit in the game (same level with Cimmerian heavies) – who would not want this in his army? Heavy shot + quick reload damages enemy swords on their charge, giving your Thorax Swords an advantage they might need. Remember that cretans only have 15 volleys of ammunition, like all other archer units – spend the ammo wisely! Try not to waste your ammo on cheap slinger units, they can eat a lot of volleys and are much cheaper.
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d). – Common and well working build with macedon would be a 5-6 thorax sword center, some guys add one peltast or shieldbearer into their first battle line to increase their holding power against enemy elite swords like oathsworn significantly. Put 2-4 militia hoplites or thureos spears on the flanks. Add 2-4 Thessalians back-up’d by 1-2 citizen cavalry for support use.
– When facing Cavalry heavy factions, consider bringing Hoplites instead of thorax swords. Add some 2-6 decent Thureos spear support. Don’t forget about the Cavalry entirely, but Citizen Cav won’t put up a great fight against Heavy Horse or Noble Blood Cav, so better use your melee cav to support.
– If you go for classic Hammer ‘n Anvil, bring 2-4 cheap skirmishers, at least 4 thessalians and 2 citizens, your standard 5-7 hoplite center. Keep in mind that your standard Hoplites are inferior to most other hoplite units like Thorax, Carthaginian or Spartan ones. Rest of your money goes on the light/medium spear support for the flanks, but you can sacrifice this for a better cav force or some additional units / chevrons on your melee units, since you already should have the cav advantage.
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e). Macedon is vulnerable to hard-hitting barbarian factions like Galatia, Tylis, Boii etc. It has great problems against Rome. But Macedon will be a reliable pick against cavalry-heavy factions, greek city states oder other hellenic kingdoms.
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f). Usable infantry, great skirmishers and great shock cavalry: Macedon can threaten any opponent. Fun to play, but not the one of the strongest factions available.
10.9 Factions: Massilia – Nervii
a). Hellenic culture, Greek city state of today Marseilles in France. Ingame portraited with a mix of celtic and hellenic units – although most sources suggest that the Massilians didn’t mix up with the gauls, but mercenaries were surely welcome. But for now, let’s forget about the historical accuracy and look on the faction 😉
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b). This faction excels in nothing. It actually fails in nothing, too. Decent melee infantry, decent spears, acceptable skirmishers and decent cavalry.
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c). Celtic Warriors: Great cheap unit with surprisingly good charge. Very versatile. Best used with Massilia as a first battle line to weaken the enemy main line, which usually proves to be cost effective. Another possibility is to use them to wrap up the enemy flanks because this unit is a large threat to low- and mid-tier spear units.
Thorax Swords: Robust Sword unit with very average fighting skills. Has a non-existent charge bonus, which is the reason why it value improves significantly when combined with cheap celitc warriors.
Massilian Thureos Spears: Slightly superior to standard Thureos Spears, same price. Great unit, cost effective and versatile – fits good in most army compositions. Also get the charge, if possible. 30 Charge bonus is really good for a spear support unit that cheap.
Massilian Cavalry: Superb, I repeat, SUPERB, light cavalry. They suffer on the charge, but are very strong in prolongued melee. Keep an eye out for enemy missiles targeting them because of their low armour. Cost-effective as they are, they mostly overshadow citizen cav.
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d). Since you have access to axe warriors, your first question usually is: Are my axes going to do well against his main line? If he brings Hoplites or similar defensive well armoured units, yes. If he most surely will rely on his sword units, better focus on celtic warriors + thorax combination. Unlike other tactics with multiple battle lines, you cansimply charge the thorax sword unit right a few moments after the celtic warrior charge due to the low charge on thorax swords.
On the flanks, I actually really like the combination of one levy freeman to screen and block his approach, guarded by one thureos spear behind it. No matter what the opponent does with his cav, he will eat enough javelins to weaken this unit noticable.
Cavalry wise, 1-2 Hippeus are a safe choice. Support them with 3-5 Massilian cav. Should be enough to hold the position and eventually slip through his lines and attack his skirmishers.
Skirmisher wise, I’d bring gallic hunters against Horse Archer-factions and Peltasts against Elephant Factions. In all other situations, just don’t bring any,
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e). Massilia’s main weakness are Factions with access to single key counter units. These could be: Sword Followers, Galatian Legionaries for Melee Inf – or Heavy Horse and Noble Blood cavalry cavalry-wise.
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f). Entertaining combination of Celtic and Hellenic units. Is somewhat limited in their roster and therefore pretty predictable. You have to be an experienced player to profit of their uncommon unit combinations.
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a). Barbarians, Celtic culture, Gauls. Inhabitants of whats nowadays called Belgium.
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b). Basically, take the Arverni, Replace their Chosen Swordsmen mid-tier infantry unit by a much more fragile but also more offensive one. Replace their Heavy Horse and do the same. The product is the probably at least used faction in the game: Nervii.
To sum it up again: “Rushy” swords, decent spears, acceptable cavalry, mediocre skirmishers.
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c). Mighty Horse: This is a great offensive medium cavalry unit. Remember their weight, because you know whats hurting them so bad when getting charged by heavier cavalry. Nontheless a good cav unit, especially for bold infantry charges before getting your own infantry into the fight!
Oathsworn: The Nervii really need the brutal force of a more sturdy unit. The oathsworn is a great elite sword unit. Try to benefit from their high charge bonus and protect from skirmish fire and getting sorrounded… If you do so, have fun watching their kills rack up insanely fast.
Fierce Swords: This is a very complex unit to use. It has a relatively low armour value but very high charge bonus (+ Frenzy ability) and good melee attack. This means, these guys slaughter the enemy like crazy for the first 20 seconds after impact. But the longer the fight endures, the more die and you lose.
You have to use them perfectly and get clean charges in order to make them work efficiently: Don’t use frenzy too early, just before they touch the unit that is getting charged. Don’t use frenzy against hoplites and spear units, but against other sword units.
Also keep in mind that their armour is pretty low, which is why they are more vulnerable to cavalry and strong-on-the-charge infantry. This is also one of the VET1 units, you might provide them a small boost if you have some funds left.
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d). It doesn’t seem this way at first glance, but this faction is a real challenge. I experienced that Fierce swords aren’t good to begin the engagement. Try to weaken his infantry just a little bit, and your Fierce Swords will do a good job. In order to do this task, there are three options:
– Cav inital charge: I highly recommend you to bring at 3-5 Mighty Horse which provides you with some inital charge power against the enemy main line. Against Factions without access to horse skirmishers, put 1-2 Mercenary Germanic scout riders on the flanks to harass and threaten skirmishers Spend the rest of your funds for 1-2 Oathsworn and 5-7 Fierce Swords.
– Multiple Battle lines: Weaken the enemy lines with 3-5 Celtic Warriors. The rest of your army could be 3-5 cavalry units, 5-7 Fierce swords, 1-2 Oathsworn, and some spears to the flanks since your cavalry isn’t going to be that strong
– Javelins: Bring 3-4 Celtic Youths in order to weaken the enemy. If possible, kite the enemy infantry center as long as possible in order to get rid of as many javelins as possible. The damage these javelins do can be enough to favor your Fierce Swords again.
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e). Charge baits. Other celtic Factions with similar tactics but superior units. Cavalry charges of all kinds. Try to dodge their Frenzy ability, if the opponent pulls it of too early.
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f). Interesting faction, but almost not used for a reason. Can be fun to take up the challenge with this faction.
10.10 Factions: Odrysian Kingd. – Parthia
a). Barbarian, Balkan Culture. Thracian warriors were both feared and respected in the classical world, especially in greece. Their most famous weapon was the rhomphaia, a sickle-like curved blade weapon.
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b). Very good offensive capabilites, but weak holding power. Cavalry selection is limited but suitable for their support and harassement tasks. They only heave Mercenary Spear units: (cheap spears, Hoplites). Their melee infantry is quipped with the rhomphaia, a cruel weapon on the charge with devestating killing power and bonus VS large, but weak in defense. Skirmishers are weak except the brutal Thracian Peltasts, probably the best peltast unit in the game.
Nice to know: The thracian shield on Thracian Warriors and Nobles is the only shield in the game with 0% block chance against incoming missiles…
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c). Mercenary Hoplites: All Armies need a holding power, and at least a few units are a great and useful addition to your army. Use them to keep the enemy units busy and engaged, while your thracians quickly do the killing from the flank / the rear.
Thracian Warriors: Excellent offensive unit, but low armor and low defense. Try to form quick sandwiches to do as much damage as quick as possible, before the enemy can reinforce the fight and kill your thracians in prolongued melee.
Thracian Peltasts: Very Heavy Missile infantry, very heavy – these guys are very resistant to medium / heavy melee cavalry. Their sidearm is very good against armour with a high armor piercing value. Their javelins are top notch and incredibly dangerous.
Thracian Nobles: A few units have incredible killing power when they manage to get a clean charge. They are also very efficient to cavalry, which some players may not have realized yet. These guys finish off the weakened remnants very quickly, but remember they have almost no defensive abilities and get slain fast when surrounded or rear charged.
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d). Difficult to play because you need a lot of good micro. What worked best for me (I’m no odrysian fanboy and this is one of my least used factions) is a combination of Hoplites in the center, some cheap spears to soak up missile damage or simply buy a few moments of time while you’re units are busy elsewhere. Bring 4-7 Thracian Warriors, 3-4 Peltasts, 1-3 Nobles and spend the rest on Thracian Cavalry or long-range skirmisher support. You can vary these numbers to a pretty high degree, but at the end its always the same: Thracian Warriors and Nobles do the dirty work, the main killing.
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e). Several Defense Lines are difficult for Thracians. They waste their charge against a cheap unit, and you reinforce with some sturdy melee infantry. Hoplites are not recommended, but pikes can be useful. A mix of Javelins and Archers can inflict a significant amount of losses and damage in the short time while the thracians are charging. Archers also keep away the Thracian Peltasts to prevent them beeing too aggressive and decimating your infantry with their deadly javelins.
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f). One of the most unique factions. One sentence to sum it up: High Risk, High Reward. If your tactic works, your Thracians will simply make the enemy disappear – but this can be very difficult especially against eastern factions. Good Odrysian Builds need experience and good prevision.
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a). Eastern Empire. Was one of the successor kingdoms to the persian empire.
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b). Great Shock Cavalry, good melee cavalry, excellent horse archers and decent skirmishers – this comes at a price: Weak Melee infantry and mediocre spear selection.
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c). Persian Hoplite: At least a bit trained warriors, copying the idea of a greek hoplite to form a defensive spear line. This guys can hold the line a while, but they rout easy and have very small killing power. Use them as a meatshield to engage the enemy units while your cavalry and skirmishers do the killing. Basically a weaker hoplite.
Parthian Foot Archers: High range, high damage, acceptable price. Dominates all other archers in this price-range.
Eastern Cataphracts: Here comes the killing power. Perfect for rearcharging or picking off isolated units. Can be damaged by focussed missile fire and by getting chased by faster melee cavalry. But if used in the right moments, this is a real rout-machine !
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d). Depends on your opponent’s faction.
– If its a Greek Faction, you might also bring Mercenary hoplites to neutralize his ones and support them with Persian Hoplites. I recommend going for versatile Eastern Slingers, even if they loose the skirmisher fight against elite mercenaries the enemy will need a large amount of ammo and take high losses. Bring 1-3 Melee Cavalry units and 2-4 Cataphracts. Some cheap Hillmen can be super effective in rear charges against hoplites.
– If its a sword heavy faction (most barbarians, rome), you might want to go for a cheap persian hoplite line with 4-6 units. Add 3-5 Foot Skirmishers. Bring 3-5 Melee Cavalry units to kill his ones and 1-3 Cataphracts. Still money left? Consider bringing 1-3 Horse Archers or an elephant.
You can always try: Most of the time you will have the missile advantage with Parthia. Consider to move forward, and kite the enemy backwards for some 100-200 metres.
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e). All factions with a decent mid-tier cavalry unit can neutralize the cataphracts pretty effective. This should be one of your main focusses. Factions with armoured Archers like Cretans, Dacian Heavies and similar ones can be tricky because armor>missile damage, therefore they win against your Parthians. But there is no standard easy-to use counter.
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f). Brutal Cavalry, nimble skirmishers, and fleet horse archers, everybody hates Parthia. For a reason!
10.11 Factions: Pergamon – Pontus
a). Hellenic Culture, Greek Colony / City State in today’s Turkey. Famous for their Akropolis building.
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b). Good Spear infantry. Standard Missile Infantry. Mediocre melee cavalry, usable shock cavalry. Melee Infantry is extremely limited to one single low-tier unit. Their niche is that they are virtually invulnerable to cavalry heavy factions.
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c). Hoplites: Good Price, good performance. Don’t expect them to win the battle, but they are a solid force to hold the line.
Agema Spears: It’s like a Thureos Spear – but better in every aspect. This unit has 5 javelins and 80 range, and can put up a solid fight in melee. Agema Spears in Square formation are literally bricks on the battlefield, which take an eternety and heavy casualties to break.
Hippeus Lancers: Pergamenese are very shaky due to their low armor, thats why standard Hippeus has to do the job most of the time. You can charge enemy melee cavalry, but remember to reinforce with Citizen Cav so your Hippeus can pull away without getting to much damage
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d). Pergamon standard tactic is a combination of Hammer and Anvil + Flank focus.
– If your opponents faction is more cavalry focussed, bring less cavalry and focus even more on your thureos/agema flanks.
– If your opponents faction is more infantry focussed, bring 3-4 Lancer units and some Citizen or Tarantine Cav to support them before they can start rear charging.
– if you feel comfortable with that, you can also bring some pikes in the center , 3-4 should be enough flanked by hoplites which are again flanked by thureos/agema spears.
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e). A balanced army with decent swords leaves Pergamon almost helpless. Pergamenese Shock Cavalry is not good enough to kill the enemy melee cavalry. Pergamenese Slingers/Archers are too weak to force the enemy to engage. Pergamenese Melee Infantry is just suited to support at the flanks. Pergamenese Spears are good but they lack the brute force of a tanky hoplite like Thorax Hoplites.
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f). All in all a solid units, but highly predictable. Overall a weak faction and without the tools to beat certain factions effectively.
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a). Eastern Culture, Located on the south coast of the black sea. Has some hellenic influences regarding their unit selection.
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b). Cost-effective Melee infantry, but no elite one. Cost effective Spears, but no elite. Wonderful Melee Cavalry and expensive, but worthy Shock Cav. Skirmishers are usable. Pontus also has access to Scythed Chariots.
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c). Pontic Swordsmen: Pretty cheap, but also slightly inferior to Thorax Swordsmen. Try to support your Swords with Thureos Spears or Melee Cavalry. These have relatively low health, making them more vulnerable to Hoplites. You can VET1 all of them when playing against a faction with thorax swords.
Cappadocian Cavalry: Best mid-tier melee cavalry unit in the game. These guys are perfect to wreck the enemy cavalry and inflict serious damage to sword units afterwards.
Horse Archers / Horse Skirmishers: This units come usually in small numbers but can be highly efficient to harass the enemy cavalry and force the opponent to regroup his skirmishers – which means that your infantry will face less missile fire.
Pontic Royal Cavalry: Excellent Shock cavalry for a fair price. Preferred use: Rearcharges against engaged Infantry. When used correctly, you can easily catch the 250 kills mark without losing more than a few men.
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d). Pontus is somewhat versatile. When we look on the infantry center, there are these possible decisions:
Expecting Swords: Bring Pontic Swordsmen. Althogh they will lose the longer the fight is going to last, they usually inflict serious damage in the process. Back them up with some Celtic Swords on the flank or as initial charge force.
Expecting Hoplites: Bring your own, standard hoplites. Now you have to either add a surely superior cavalry force to make sure you can do some rear charges, or bolster up your flanks with thureos spears + celtic warriors.
You can, if you have a good micro, use a chariot unit against Sword heavy factions. This means you have to bring additional cavalry, too: To pin the enemy cavalry which would kill your chariots and to cause chaos among the enemy’s flanks, preparing the chariot attack.
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e). You fear Pontic scythed Chariots? No reason for that, bring some javelin units or additonal archer units and focus fire. If you have access to good melee Cavalry, also bring them and chase the chariot units when unsupported.
All in all, there is no clear counter to Pontus. But Remember to bring some Slingers or Archers against their mercenary Scythian Horse Archers.
Thorax Hoplites, Chosen Swords or other decent mid-tier infantry are probably the greatest danger to Pontus since they lack a good mid-tier Infantry unit.
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f). Average Infantry, but very good cavalry and decent missiles – plus the always existing threat of bringing chariots, makes Pontus an interesting and average faction.
10.12 Factions: Egypt – Rome
a). Hellenic Culture, Successor Kingdom. A truly ancient major power with great history and culture, although the Egyptians were “absorbed” by Alexander the Great.
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b). Excellent Skirmishers. Many options in Melee Infantry, most of them are good but none is excellent. Some interesting and costeffective Spear units, but only suited for support duties. Egypt has a many cavalry options, but again none of them is excellent. Has access to both, elephants and chariots. If you’re a pike-lover, egypt also has a good pike selection to offer.
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c). Galatian Royal Guard: Basically an Oathsworn with a bit less charge but even more attack. Honestly, who wouldn’t like to have an oathsworn added to a hellenic army? These guys make up the killing when supported correctly and are able to finish any other infantry unit in a 1v1 fight.
Mercenary Cretans / Rhodians: Elite Skirmishers are always useful. Use both, spear infantry and melee cavalry to defend your skirmisher units because both Egypt neither has great melee cavalry nor spear infantry.
Elephants/Chariots: Choose wisely, and use them wisely, too. If you do so, victory will be yours. Egypt has decent options in all categories, but they’re units are more of an all-round style than of an offensive character, so a Special unit suited for sheer killing often is a viable choice.
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d). There are many different ways to play egypt. But all of them have one thing in common:
– A Sword infantry core. Thorax swords may be the safe pick, but also not really dangerous. A mix of Thorax swords, elite Swords and a few pike units usually works best, because you have many options to set up your formation and counter the enemy efficiently.
– Some Melee cavalry: Choose a mix of Citizen and light cavalry for the safety, or when you like to be more vulnerable but also hit harder a mix of citizen and egyptian cavalry. One Camel unit is also useful against factions with superior cavalry.
– Some Skirmishers: Most people stick with Cretans or Rhodians, which is fine. But nubian bowmen are also a very cost effective pick.
– Some Killing power: Ptolemaic Cavalry, Elephants or chariots. I personally prefer the Cavalry choice, which isn’t that risky – but not that strong either.
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e). I’d say Egypt has no typical counter. But a faction with superior choices in some relevant categories can be a threat to egypt:
– Good Mid-Tier Sword infantry like: Rome, Boii, Galatia…
– Good mid-tier Melee Cavalry like: Eastern Factions, Pontus, Gallic Tribes…
– Cataphracts, since Egypt doesn’t have a decent melee cavalry unit and they lack a tanky spear unit like the hoplite.
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f). Some similarities to Carthage: This factions strength mainly comes from their incredible versatility while still having access to decent, but not excellent units. Because it has access to both, Elephants and chariots it is a good pick against sword spam factions.
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a). Latin Culture, surely one of the largest and longest-enduring empires in history. Their language and culture still has impact on today in many different aspects.
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b). Easily the best sword selection in the game, both regarding combat performance and cost efficiency. Decent auxilliary skirmishers. Acceptable Cavalry support. Some cost effective spear units can provide solid support to your swords. Has access to (auxilliary) elephants.
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c). Hastati: Incredibly cheap, incredibly efficient. Perfectly suited for your first battle line to weaken the enemy or to soak up missile fire. Keep away from high-charge sword infantry and avoid leaving them unsupported against cavalry.
Legionary Cohort (or a similar choice): Their only weakness is their low charge bonus. Practically this means: If you deny the enemy charge and fight 1v1 against other mid-tier infantry, your infantry will be victorious.
Legionary Cavalry: Comparably cheap and acceptable statistics, bring a lot of them since you want your swords to be fully efficient and they need the proper support. Use them to deny charges, do YOLO-Charges on enemy infantry or to protect your flanks from enemy cavalry assaults. They aren’t going to win most of their fights, but they can hold out for long enough to be effective.
Veteran Legionaries/Evocati Cohort: SCUMBAG UNITS. These units are standing exactly on the thin line between balanced and overpowered, but being none of both. Accept that people use them, especially in quick battles. How to use them? Try to steal the enemy charge bonus, and your Evocati will tank it out 1v2.
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d). Make use of your brutal sword infantry – which sometimes does not mean you spam them, but you support them correctly! Rome is strong, but not an instant-win.
1-3 Skirmishers give you some flexibility to weaken enemy high-tier units like oathsworn before they charge in.
3-6 melee cavalry provide fast and efficient support.
0-1 Elephants can be viable against weak-skirmish factions like most Gallic Tribes or Celts.
0-2 Vigiles if a charge bait is needed.
0-2 Auxilliary infantry or Triarii if you want some sturdy spears against cavalry heavy factions.
Actually, many compositions can work with rome, but all of them have to have complementary units and the plan has to be issued correctly on the battlefield.
Nice to know: Pre-marian units are incredibly cost effective and fun to use: Hastati, Principes, Vigiles, Triarii, Equites and Velites.
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e). Brace yourself for the sheer might of Roman swords. Use everything to your advantage, terrain, harassing, retreating, kiting, YOLO-charges and most of all: Shield wall. This ability is the secret counter to the high attack on roman infantry.
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f). Sword heavy builds are the meta right now – and Rome excels exactly in this categorie without leaving their other unit options too weak. No discussion about the rating!
10.13 Factions: Seleucids – Sparta
25. Seleucids
a). Greek Successor State, multi-religios, multi-ethnic.
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b). Seriously: A better Version of Macedon.
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c). Good Swords, useful spear units but no hoplites, very good missile infantry, cataphracts and a good selection of melee cavalry. Elephants and chariots, even if you dont choose to bring any, will force the enemy to prepare.
Thorax Swords: All-round balanced and reliable Sword unit, capable of standing on their own against most comparable units. Remember to intercept the enemy charge if possible because your guys have almost no existing charge bonus.
Median Cavalry: What a beast of cost efficiency. 620 Gold, solid stats. Especially good against other cavalry, especially high tier shock-cav. Remember though they loose to the cream of barbarian cavalry like Arverni Heavy Horse.
Royal Peltasts: Elite sword support damage dealing hybrid. 1-3 of these bad boys in your army will provide the necessary killing power against the sword spams you’ll encounter. Just remember to support them correctly and use their javelins if possible!
Camel cavalry: Either archer or spear variant, they scare horses. Because you’ll loose the straight up frontline engagement against high-tier barbarian swords, you have to win the skirmisher or the flank battle, both of which includes dealing with the enemy cavalry. Great and underrated support units.
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d). Use a standard frontline of sword infantry. Use some cost-efficient medium melee cavalry. The rest is up to you and depending on the enemy faction or what builds you’re expecting. You can lean towards an upgrade of the flank support with thureos spears, or just use the 220gold armor piercing javelins, sorry I meant hillmen. Pick one redeeming quality of your army, either elephants, chariots, elite swords like royal peltasts, elite skirmishers or even elite shock cavalry to provide the hard hitting killing power. The rest should be balanced accordingly. I do prefer balanced builds.
Example build:
– General: Shield bearers. Sturdy and realiable. Strategist general as safe pick.
– frontline: 6 thorax swords.
– support: 2 thureos spears, 1 hillmen (because why not)
– Cavalry: 2 horse skirmishers (the second cheapest, not the cheapest ones!!), 2 camel riders, 2 Median Cav. Use the Median cav to take the enemy cav charge and the camel riders to come around the flank. Use the horse skirmishers to “reserve” at least 2 enemy missile units or to harass enemy heavy cavalry.
– Missiles: 4 syrian heavy archers.
Many compositions can work, which is one of the true strengths of the seleucids.
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e). As usual, thorax swords aren’t as good as roman swords or the better mid-tier sword units of barbarian factions like Tylis or Boii. You have to use everything in your toolbox correctly to use your unit variety. Royal Peltasts as elite reinforcements after they used their javelins VS royal thorax swordmen to use as an elite unit hiding between your standard sword frontline? Your choice, just use it correctly!
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f). Many solid and reliable units, some of them even greatly cost-efficient. A good toolbox and additionally the persistent danger of bringing Elephants and chariots, which have different counters themselves make the seleucids really great in the hands of an experienced player. Like I said in the beginning, a straight upgrade of macedon in most ways (except the lack of hoplites as a frontline option).
26. Sparta
a). Greek City state. Oh well and famous for being bad ass. At least everywhere except Rome 2…
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b). I feel sorry. Sorry for destroying your fantasies, because Sparta sucks. Their mid-tier spears suck. Their Cavalry sucks. Their unit selection overall sucks. Just the skirmisher options leave not much to be desired, ironically.
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c). Where to start… Never use the 700 standard spartan hoplite when you’re facing any barbarian sword faction or any decent hoplite faction. Whats left? I guess the steppe tribes, The Getae and Ardiaiei… They have less armor and most importantly less weapon damage than the thorax hoplites. Royal Spartans are godlike, though.
Gorgo’s Skirmishers / Cretan Archers / Rhodesian Slingers: Honestly, these will provide your killing power. You have to have at least 6 somewhat decent missile units.
Royal Spartans: The heros we dont deserve. They’re really good, just make sure they’re safe from enemy missiles and things like Oathsworn on Headhunt and that kinda stuff.
Pikes: I hate pikes, but I dont see any other way than some fine tuned strategy of pike-boxing if you want to win against a decent player – or at least put up a fight.
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d). 3 Spartan Hoplites, one of them is your general.
4 Gorgo’s skirmishers, 3 Rhodesian slingers. I slightly prefer slingers because 1. they have a shield which aids in skirmisher battles and 2. they have more ammuntion than Archers.
2 Spartan youths as gap fillers and to protect your skirmishers, aided by…
2 citizen cavalry
6 Perioki pikemen which will at least try to keep your frontline safe. Make sure they stay out of javelin range of enemy melee units.
Not really tested, I detest playing sparta.
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e).counters: Everything except the Ardiaei, Getae and the steppe tribes. A decent player can win against the Odrysian Kingdom due to their low staying power.
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f). Terrible unit selection, low amount of different unit types and unit categories. Good skirmishers provide at least the theoretical probability to win somehow. What a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ faction.
10.14 Factions: Suebi – Syracuse
27. Suebi
a). Kindamy ancestors living in southwest Germany, my area is called “Schwaben” (Swabia) which could have evolved from Suebi. Germanic tribe which at least once in time was somewhat unified.
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b). Many different melee units. Good shields help with missile block chance. Suebi is a bit like many other generic barbarian factions, but with an emphasis on charge, club weapons and a bit of a focus on skirmisher support. They usually get countered by Factions which can use the onion layer tactic effective and Suebi vice versa is good against stereotypical 5-7 frontline melee infantry builds.
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c). Bloodsworn and Round-Shield-Swordsmen: Cost effective low tier infantry. I like to mix them in my first line of attack and assign the bloodsworn to heavy armoured troups while the Round-Shields can fight against medium armoured troops.
Spear Levy (germanic version of levy freemen): 10gold more expensive, but a nice upgrade nontheless stat-wise. Screen off horses with your javelin+spear combo or kite heavier infantry on the flanks.
Hex-Bearers / Berserkers: Hex-Bearers are the Wall-Mart (cheap) Version of Berserkers. They serve a smiliar purpose but are overall weaker. I’d propose using two of those or one Berserker. They have fear and this should be combined with a rear-charge once the bulk of enemy units is engaged. Keep away from cavalry and missiles as well as a frontal charge of medium sword units.
-> Alternatively, you can use some Wolf Warriors in your frontline instead. They are like Bloodsworn on steroids an have fear, but arent that cost effective like Bloodsworn.
Germanic Scout Riders: Javelins and acceptable melee stats, this is the terror in the night for an enemy which focusses on cavalry. Harass enemy units without precursor javelins or when they’re not protected by skirmisher overwatch. If there’s an opportunity to attack light skirmisher units like archers or slingers, seize it. They should be able to kill them in a decent amount of time.
Horse Runners: Pretty Niche use, but the stat on this 60/40 skirmisher/melee infantry combination is insane, especially regarding their low cost of 420. Use one of them on each flanks. They can do solid damage after they’ve thrown their javelins. Gotta say these folks are underrated!
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d). Example A: A rush build. Difficult to execute, but dangerous as hell!
– 2 Noble Riders, one of them your General. Use Ariovist (more about him in the general section…)
– 5 Bloodsworn, 4 of which have 1 experience chevron
– 4 Spear levy
– 1 Rider of the Hunt to expose gaps in the enemy formation
– 3 Wolf Warriors for the fear factor
– 2 Sword Masters
– 2 Germanic Scout Riders for the Support of your Noble Riders and harassement.
Example B: Balanced build. Goal is to trade most efficient most of the time while using the more cost efficient Suebi troops.
– Wodanasz Spears General. Niche use, but a strong late game reinforcement and can fight cavalry exceptionally well. Strategist.
– 3 Bloodsworn and 2 Wolf Warriors for your first line of engagement.
– 3 Sword Masters and 2 Berserkers for your second infantry line.
– 5 Germanic Slingers
– 2 Spear Levy
– 2 Germanic Scout Riders
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e). Factions with sturdy melee infantry that dont rely on the charge so much. Also, Cavalry can be a problem when you’re using a rush build without proper spear support. I’d dare to say, the suebi are so difficult to micro (especially with Ariovist and Horse runners and Germanic Scouts and Spear levy etc), they’re biggest enemy is themself. They can beat Rome reliably but suffer against true cavalry powerhouses.
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f). In the hands of an inexperienced player or someone with only mediocre micro:
28. Syracuse
Sorry to disappoint you here, but read the Athen one. Literally only the mercenary selection is changed. I like Syracuse a tiny bit more than Athen, but depends on the matchup.
Differences in Units:
a) Instead of low tier Thracian Warriors as Shock Troops, you get the mercenary Samnite Warriors, which are tanky as hell. I like that.
b) You get the Etruscan Hoplite, which are worse than your Thorax hoplites, even if just slightly. They’re better if you want to fend of hordes of cavalry (steppe…), though.
c) Your Skirmisher selection is straight up weaker, nothing to be discussed here. Rhodesians (Athen) are better than Balearic Slingers (Syracuse) and you dont have access to Cretan Archers like Athen does.
d) The cavalry options are way better, Athen doesnt have any cav mercenaries at all. Mercenary Italian Cav is a good upgrade from Citizen cavalry except armor, I like to mix them and let the Citizens take the charge and the Italians close the circle around enemy cav. Campanian Cav is a terrible beast, even against enemy cav, although they use swords instead of spears. Extreme Armor and Melee Attack make them beasts in melee against infantry, maybe even a bit better than the Hippeus Lancers.
Quick Wrap up before ending the Syracuse section:
– Pick Syracuse, when you want to contest the cavalry game a bit better than Athen.
– Pick Athen, when you want to contest the skirmisher fights way better than Syracuse.
– If you face a faction with good support units on the flanks, use the thracians with Athen. If you face a faction with good, cost effective frontline infantry, use Syracuse.
For the Rest: Look for Athen.
10.15 Factions: Tylis
29. Tylis
a). Celtic Tribe living in Thracia. Not much history is known, especially since they’re migration attempt over the Hellespont failed miserably and not much is known after that point.
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b). Possibly the best faction in the game. This is because they have the best mid-tier sword infantry of all factions, just go Rome – you’ve been beaten… And this without lacking the proper support or Elite units. I’ll destroy the suspense for you: Bring levy freeman to protect your sword spam, a few horses and a few skirmishers to complement your toolbox, win every battle, that’s it.
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c).Tribal Warriors: Your core of every army, unless you want to put yourself at a disadvantage. Insane Armor, good melee defence and good health and morale. These “tribal” men will annihilate every other mid-tier melee infantry unit.
Celtic Warriors: Great cheap unit with surprisingly good charge. Very versatile, can be either used as a first battle line or as sword support on the flank, if you choose to do so. If you manage to use them effectively in the engagement against the enemy main frontline, your Tribal warriors will even have an easier time grinding out every engagement in their favor.
Levy Freeman: Levy MLG-Men as they were called many summers ago by a Total War Rome 2 Youtuber, who has long perished into oblivion. Literally the most cost effective counter to cavalry, cheap, 2 javelins, massive anti-cav bonus.
Raiding Horseman: Since you lack the good unit from the Boii/Arverni Core – the heavy Horse – your cavalry’s job is to harass and distract. These guys serve this purpose and have enough melee skill to kill enemy skirmishers in a decent amount of time. Basically the same as Galatian Raiders or Germanic Scouts.
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d). Seriously, every build should contain at least 5-7 Tribal warriors. Bring 1 Oathsworn to deal with enemy elite infantry. The rest is up to you…
Focus on an onion tactic with celtic / thracian warriors, or
concentrate on cavalry fights with raiding horsemen and Noble Horse or spam 5-6 cheap celtic slingers to make sure the enemy wastes his ammunition against cheap-ass units or at least force him to attack your superb sword units.
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e). Basically none, although you can manage to lose against cav-heavy factions and unexpected, off meta-builds.
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f). I think the first place of all factions in the game goes to Boii, but Tylis is so close behind in second the difference is basically non-existent.
Easy verdict:
10.16 Factions: Steppe tribes
30. Steppe tribes: Massagetae, Roxolani, Royal Scythia
Similarities:
– All three have these Lancer units: Armoured and Noble
– all have access to these Steppe Horse Archers: Standard, Armoured, Noble
– none of them has any infantry units
– Elite and Cataphract Shock Cavalry
– Cataphract Hose Archers
– No melee Cavalry
– Light + medium Melee Cavalry
– Elite Shock Cavalry
– only few Horse Archer variants
– Cheapest units with draco -> more of them!
– Super Elite Horse Archers
– Elite Melee Cavalry
– only few Lancer variants
– Elite Javelin Cavalry
– Most different variants of horse archers (DLC Daughters of Mars: Amazonian Riders, Noblewomen)
a). Barbarian, Nomadic Culture
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b). Clearly the best cavalry in the game. No access to any infantry units at all. Some Cavalry units have Draco, which temporarily removes 10 points of Bonus VS large of nearby units.
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c). Horse archers: One Rule: En masse. Preferably a mix of cheap standard ones and armoured ones to potentially threaten unprotected skirmishers.
Any unit with Draco: Since the enemy usually does a Hoplite/Spear spam – which is the best idea he could have had – this ability is your life saver. Cycle them through, so you always have one in reserve if you need it while the other units are on cooldown.
Steppe Noble Lancers: Decent Shock Cavalry, almost equal to most non-cataphract elite shock cavalry. Wait for the right moment to come when he moves and cannot brace or his unit faces the wrong direction, and punish him for his fault. Retreat quickly.
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d). Very difficult, but there are several general advices:
– Does the enemy bring any cavalry units? If, try to lure them and destroy them isolated.
– Did the enemy bring any War dogs to chase your Horse Archers? If yes, try to provoke them until they chase your unit. Then simply run over the helpless dog with any melee/shock cavalry.
– Now the enemy should stay close together in a bunker formation, encircle him with your cavalry.
– Try to find dead-angle positions (positions his skirmishers can’t fire at), from where you can shoot at his men. Try to test his defensive reactions.
– If he’s 100% static, find the weakest spot and punish his men with draco+shock cav combination.
– If he tries to manouver his men into the right position, try to goad a foolish reaction to quickly punch on the isolated units.
– Do not hesitate to commit a full charge with all your units at the same time, most players will be helpless due to the chaos for a few moments. Retreat when he regroups or Draco runs out.
– Keep in mind that the Fatigue is only relevant to your men, not on his, since he usually doesn’t have to move. If your guys are all tired, let them rest a few moments, he can’t reach you anyway.
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e). Parthia and Armenia, since their Noble Horse Archers have superior armour. Use these 90 Armour beasts to tank damage while you move 2-3 cheap ones just behind them to provide the killing power. Greek factions with high-armour hoplites and access to good slingers.
Any maps with large forests pretty much renders the Steppe guys helpless…
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f). I am pretty sure that the Roxolani are the most competitive of those three tribes. You can actually win on certain flat and open maps, especially against barbarian factions or Rome.
Still, all of them are EXTREMELY predictable and more of a fun variation than a real pick.
ROXOLANI:
MASSAGETAE & ROYAL SCYTHIA:
11. Desert Factions
1. Masaseyli (Numidians)
Strengths
- Roman-tier medium infantry (Desert legion)
- very good hybrid cavalry with javelins
- solid mid-tier shock cavalry
- good support infantry with light anti-inf unit and cheap javelins
Weaknesses
- frontline units dont have variation, you’ll always bring a very similar infantry core
- lacks Elite melee units in Inf and Cav
- only javelin skirmishers, no archers or slingers
Matchup Guide
Good against: Barbarian sword rushes and most Greek factions.
Suffers against: Kite builds (Parthia) without any heavy infantry to beat. Rome can be hard, too, because they have way more units and stuff like Evocatii…
2. Nabatea
Strengths
- very good higher mid-tier hoplites
- solid melee cavalry options
- excellent shock cavalry
- acceptable cheaper mid-tier melee infantry
Weaknesses
- no really viable elite infantry units (Rekem is meh imho)
- only cheap skirmishers
- no horse skirmishers (camel archers dont have 360° no scope ability… Parthian shot it’s called iirc)
Matchup Guide
Good against: Hellenic Factions of all kinds. I’m sure armoured desert hoplites trade well with thorax hoplite and thorax swords. You also have high chances to win the cavalry fight, too.
Tricky: Sword rushes, because spears still are worse than chosen swords etc. You can win, even against rome, but you have to absolutely win the cavalry fight and eliminate enemy skirmishers fast. Sacrifice your hoplites to hold the frontline and hope the Hammer n Anvil works. Oathsworn are cthulhus chosen warriors against nabatea…
3. Kush
Strengths
- Shotel Warriors are very, very good higher mid-tier infantry units. They have good stats and high armor piercing damage.
- good archer selection (quality-wise… hmm)
- melee cav is okay, Kushite Royal Guard (elite cav) is pretty nice.
- Fragile but insane elite melee infantry (disciples of apademak). Protect them from cavalry and skirmishers and they probably get more than 250-300 kills no problem.
Weaknesses
- archer aren’t very cost effective compared to other factions skirmishers
- no classic 700 gold solid melee cav
- very predictable infantry core (shotels all the way)
- spears have no precursor javelins
Matchup guide
Kush is good against Rome and sword rushes. The danger to bring chariots and or ele is very present for the enemy. Matchups against cav-heavy factions with good shock cavalry and or good skirmishers, especially slingers can be painful. I think it is a fairly hard faction to play, but fun and solid nontheless.
4. Saba
Strengths
- melee cavalry selection is wide and good. Royal Marib Cav trades well in prolongued melee fights against enemy cavalry.
- Very good shock cav/ cataphracts and access to both camels in melee and shock variants, which gives a good variety of options in army composition.
- solid costeffective lower mid-tier melee infantry.
Weaknesses
- Again, no elite melee units…
- most spear inf lack precursor javelins (except caravan guard)
- skirmishers are cheap and bad and usually serve sacrifical purposes…
- no viable horse skirmishers imho (camel archers suck)
- predictable, because only cavalry is good and infantry and skirmishers will be on the cheaper side.
Matchup Guide
Good against: Cavalry heavy factions without a heavy focus on Horse archers. Saba can be solid against sword builds when you have good micro and can exploit little mistakes with your cavalry. Greek States are a okay-matchup, too.
Bad against: Kite builds and easy to use factions with both efficent mid-tier infantry and cost effective skirmishers. I think even factions like Arevaci can be difficult.
In my opinion, this is the hardest of the desert factions to play. Army building is difficult and you have to be able to exploit every small mistake and bait the opponent in unfavorable fights.
11.1 Cavalry Comparison
11.2 Infantry Comparison
11.3 Skirmisher Comparison
X. Version History
27.11.2014 – Created without public access
11.12.2014 – Completed structuring chapter 1-9
12.12.2014 – Added chapter to army composition: picking the general with all abilities listed
14.12.2014 – Re-structured Chapter 9, added more advanced and expert mechanics.
16.12.2014 – Re-structured Faction Overview into smaller sub-chapters to improve clarity and comprehensibility
01.01.2015 – finished information gathering and ingame testing. All chapters except factions are finished.
X. Resources
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQgpBwfpEfDMw7gspgN84KQ
Maximus Decimus Meridius: Very informative channel. Don’t expect geeky or childish jokes on his part. He has a logical approach and many informations on in-game data I have not found elsewhere yet.
honga royal military academy[www.honga.net]
Nice and also very informative. Informations are extracted out of the game data, which makes them very detailed and accurate.
Pack File Manager to extract data values directly from the game folder – This was used to get the morale values and the different shield types.