Pride's Guide To Roman Glory

Well, Introductions to my thesis and Guide.
There once was a Dream Called Rome, Rome is one of the best Faction if not the best. For sure Top 3, many argue Boii and Thrace and Kush are superior or equal. However those players are wrong,Rome has many strong units that can very much hold their own, they arent unstoppable nor immortal, Romans have high morale, can deal high damage with higher armor making them one of the strongest factions in term of infantry. Their Cavalry they are no slouch either.

In this guide i will explain which units and tactics will show off Romes might as well as your ability to win battles and understanding why you won. no Parthian will Carrhae you, no Carthaginian will pretend to be Hannibal, No barbarians will cause Rome to Tremble in Fear, Because we have you Imperator.

You may feel the need to buy the most expensive units you can buy Praetorian guard, which inst bad idea they are really expensive but one of the best units. They can take on many great units and win one on one or two on one, however that's not really wise move to win the battle, you may be slaughtering your enemies front line but what about their reserves, their troops moving to flanks bam they have you encircled Cannae all over again.
Romes strength comes from Spam, sounds bad but its true. Romes strength is numbers and power house, if you can wrap around your enemy while they trying with all their might to push through your front ranks is your key to glory. having as many Romans in the battle field as possible not "bad troops" not "excellent troops" but good troops.

Romes early Infantry are very good and really powerful and cheap, Hastatii, Princeps, and Triarii are very excellent troops are pretty damn good, have great morale, can hold a line for 5 to 10 minutes will tend to defeat your enemy thats directly in-front of them. I suggest Princeps they are equal to legionnaires slightly more expensive to be a holding line, as they can defeat most enemies, hold your opponent in place as your better and elite troops flank or slam them from behind causing a utter route.
Marian Reform units As Legionnaires, Veteran Legionnaires and armored legionnaires have their pros and cons, however legionnaires are very good can hold a line and also crush enemies pretty soundly and best part they are cheap like really cheap, legionnaires and veteran legionnaires will be your best friend no need for Evocati or Praetorian traitorous wreches. Legionnaires will be your armies back bone and best use weapon against the hordes or unwashed barbarians and slightly less washed Greek and eastern barbs.
Cavalry Romes many gifts, they may not have the best Cavalry but they do have some of the better Shock Cavalry they are very heavy and very slow but can hold infantry in place, and hold off cavalry thats superior to them in every way for a long time. Aux and Legion cav have many advantages as they are decently armored, speed is medium not the slowest in the roman army but the issue is a tad expensive and not very cost effective as they have less hit-points so they die faster to skirmish tactics of Parthia, and Boii and Thrace, The Cav i use is Socii, Romans italian allies, they have more hit-points, and deal more melee damage and charge damage then the other Cavalry however slower and more of glass cannon, they can hold down Cataphracts, and hold down any other greek cav and Blood noble Cav til your infantry can reinforce and murder the enemy better troops for cheaper money.
Now Romes Weakest Point Skirmish, Romans have very weak range capabilities other then seige which we wont talk about. you have Slingers, and archers and jav inf. archers are maxed out at 4 they arent very good because of their price tag they are superior in range to some other units but their cost effectiveness is your advantage and you lose it when you spend money on the "best troops" instead of the best for the situation. Slingers is your best friend, best against cav and chariots and pikes. no need to fire into the sky to hope gravity kills your enemy, a fast and hard rock thrown by one of these men utterly destroys any unit that has the misfortune of standing in his way. they are cheap < like dirt cheap.

The goal of Winning a battle is winning decisively, Princeps and legionnaires and heavy shock cav, with slinger killing any thing left to mop up. Will grant you victory for their cheap cost and their cost effectiveness. Being cost effective is really Romes bread and butter

Romes historical ability to conquer the known world was due to their superior units and their numbers, and Tactics. Many Historical Imperators who led the many legions were genius and some were not so lucky. Incompetence and lack of military discipline which one of the causes that led to the decline of the Empire, I will teach you to be Not a Crassus who only notable military career was funding his own legions but defeating a upstart rebel named Spartacus, But a Chad like Caesar.
Many tactics in Rome Total war and history dont work the same way because of how quickly the opponent will fix mistakes and watch out for ambushes and tracks. however they work very much the same if you can do it subtle and quickly.
your legion formation should have a front line and a reserve, reserve should be larger and the better of the troops so your legionnaires, and veteran legionnaires while front line should be like princeps.
Romes Advantage is your better infantry and you mass concentration of men in a single location, to not blob keep a good clean formation never break formation til engaged. always counter charge your opponent, if done timely and correctly you can negate their charge and get more kills with your pila throw that you can get the slight advantage that turns into a greater advantage for that unit.
Your front line should be long enough to hold the entire enemy front line so you can try to flank with your reserves to quickly collapse the wings of your enemy formations and cause your opponent to blob.The more the enemy blobs the better, Slingers or archers and cav and infantry all descending on the flanks will quickly cause a mass route and quickly lead to a slaughter.
Romes cavalry are not the strongest so never engage in a cav fight one on one as you should have less cav but more infantry this is also why reserves are the key to winning not just to flank the enemy but also counter any "hammer and anvil" tactics from your enemy as you can intercept with your cav and reserves.
Against superior armies that favored Cav with weak to decent infantry thats good, keep the reserves behind your cav ranks and try to bait your opponent with a "false gap" to try to grab your Range units. so have your cav and reserves farther away from the first line, and have the slinger or archers behind the infantry, when they try to quickly kill the range quickly close the gap and slaughter all the poor cav that fell for your trap. Works well on Parthians. Why it works is because they did a high risk/high reward move if you on purposely do this kinda of move your golden any troops you can kill easy the better. no need to try to chase faster cav with infantry and heavy cav. just keep moving march don't run.
Against pike nations try to bait your opponent into using his pikes. he wont be in pike formation to avoid the slinger and archers slaughtering em. so you charge infantry close enough to bait them into going into formation they pull back and use range ability to slaughter the unsuspecting pikes. always pull back no need to engage in a pitch fight as pikes will slaughter even praetorian one on one. baiting your enemy and mass firing on one unit to break it quickly is a good move. if you are unlucky and have to engage. try to quickly encircle the pike to quickly break and route the unit.

Roman formations and legions were great in any terrain however, some have more advantages then others, hills and open fields will help you defeat Pike base armies with your mobility and numerical advantage easy for your legion to encircle or even just keep falling back and pelting the pikes marching towards your line. Shrub and trees and hills will help you fight a more larger force of cavalry or Chariots and archers. Always take advantage of your surroundings, it may seem unfair but the battle maps arent balanced and mostly take advantage of whatever you can to get the slight edge over you enemies.
Armies that favor pikes tend to be very slow with alot of cav as support thats good. use the terrain to defeat their pikes and cav separately. I tend to bait the pikes into using pikes then archer them to death, then deal with the cav afterwards. so if there is a open field fight the pikes there, may seem to their advantage but its not as it gives you plenty of time to fall back constantly and try to archer them. their cav will not be a issue if you keep your reserves close enough to your archers/slingers.
if your enemy has superior cav force try to stay as united as possible. with your formation being sorta a noob box but not all facing forward so you can meet any opponent head on or quickly move to disable their advantage. if their is favorable ground for you and your troops take it. Cav are very slow in the woods making it ideal to trap make them have to fight you in the trees.
same for chariots as their speed and power is completely gone and you can just focus them down and hold them in place to route or fully wipe from the battle field.

I have 78 victories in quick battles at the time of making this Guide. To show i have experience i will show some screenshots and then have some closing comments about why i think roman players should adopt a more larger army with numbers instead of more "quality" army. when Rome excels at both but with so many play styles revolving around Cav and light infantry or pike spam Rome can and will be top dog. fighting Romans V Romans is always a good time, however Tactics get different your just trying to incircle your enemy, while they are also trying to do the same move well should be trying too. however with such few men you wont be able to encircle your opponent nor defeat them out right without much trickery.

Yea so mainly most guides take more about what units is what, and what they do and blah blah. i just telling you buy alot and buy cheap. not to cheap but cheap. this is for open fields not seiges, sieges do same tactic but buy some really good troops as your reserve like prae. this is one v one or two v two and so on. buying alot of men and having the ability to encircle and cut off cav from getting behind you or having to much men for the enemy to engage you is really the tactic. Rome was the early Soviet union lol Caesar was a commie, loving them plebs. Populares :D well Roma Invicta Aeterna.

I didnt talk about seiges as it would take a long time to explain how to counter and its just so many bad players play seiges because it gets rid of the need to micro except for attackers, attackers always at disadvantage and dont want to go on and on about how to win and you lose because it was rigged against you then you blame me. Kid the game was rigged from the start. My composition in the screen shots are in the rule set of 124. so copy it if you like. i always use it and never lost a 1v1 so it works against parthians, and romans and barbs alike. the composition isnt tourney rules but just change some legionnaires to Triarii and you golden :D oh if you wanna be a ♥♥♥♥ and cheat in a battle snipe your opponents general early. cake walk from there. :D

I was trying to make this guide before the winter sale for newbies to have basics of Roman formations and ideas as most newbies play Rome, however steam kept not letting me upload apperently vpns or the one i am using causes issues with uploading.

signing off, RvPride
Roma Victor Aeterna