Spanish - Total War Heaven Forum

Topic Subject: Spanish

jon_rapley
Legionary

posted 27 October 2005 15:57 EDT (US)

This may sound like I am a total moron;
I am playing hard battles, V hard strategy, no weird and wonderfull patches, just the offical ones.
I am fighting the spanish, the computer rates them as being significantly stronger than me even when I outnumber them 3:2, worse still this is born out in fighting, for no readily apparent reason my entire army breaks, despite having taken very few casualties, I went into a battle with such overwhelming numbers that my army strength was equal to theirs, I engaged in good order only for every single unit within striking distance to break, except the general who broke a couple of seconds later.
Seriously what is with this, do the spanish have some mystical warrior who goes round and says mean things to my soldiers which cripples them emotionally?
moreover why is it that this only happens with the spanish, I have fought other much harder opponents and been down to 25% of some units with a 2* general on the other side of the field and my units have not broken - ie I am not a total lame wad, I am capable of fighting a battle.
This isn't an isolated incident It has happened several times, is it the bull warriors or is it If their soldiers have significantly more experiance? if so has anybody else had this problem and beaten it?

Author

Replies:

NA Lord Blaine
Legionary

posted 27 October 2005 16:09 EDT (US) 1 / 9

The spanish might be using their warcry more often than usual, which would cause a faster rount, but I am not sure, what units do theya have, and what are your units?

��(-� ₤ o r d B l a i n Ʃ �-)��
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�Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.�
~Albert Einstein

SgtYeaton
Legionary

posted 27 October 2005 16:48 EDT (US) 2 / 9

I am currently playing a spain campaign and i noticed that the enemy routed a bit easier than when im playing the other factions
Idk if its cause im only fighting the gauls right now or that its the medium level taht im playing at cause im not very good lol
maybe because the spanish soldiers are basically crap besides the bull warriors, and the taunting makes up for it?

Zygodactyl
Legionary

posted 27 October 2005 17:54 EDT (US) 3 / 9

Could it be your general? I had one general once who had traits adding up to something like -5 morale for all troops on the battlefield. Of course, if this is with captain led armies, then this wont really apply.

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[This message has been edited by Zygodactyl (edited 10-27-2005 @ 05:54 PM).]

jon_rapley
Legionary

posted 27 October 2005 18:19 EDT (US) 4 / 9

I don't think its my general, but I keep meaning to check.
The last battle I played was in the forest, and finding the enemy was hard work, the enemy seemed to spend a lot of time 'taunting' the unit I sent ahead to scout, I noticed that their morale had dropped to wavering b4 they even engaged.

The spanish seem to have bull warriors and ibizan warriors, I have equitates, principes archers and a general (219BC, Rome is mine still no marius! damnit).

Their units do seem to be quite experianced (I guess you get experiance in Ibiza) and mine only have 2 chevrons, what is the effect of experiance?

SgtYeaton
Legionary

posted 27 October 2005 18:50 EDT (US) 5 / 9

I never really knew what exactly experience does, so i did a little test

I made a custom battle, i was the julii, agaisnt the brutii

we each had 1 unit of peasants, except that i one bronze experience bar, and the brutii had 3 bronze experiences bars

My unit actually was killing them more in the beginning, but then the brutii took over and routed my 5 peasants left, while they had 13 left, so i think experience means then can kill a few more and survive a little bit longer

dune42
Legionary

posted 27 October 2005 20:13 EDT (US) 6 / 9

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but i believe a point of experience gives a unit +1 attack and +1 defence ratings so this can obviously become extremely useful for very long-term troops in campaign mode. I was playing a H/VH campaign as the Greek Cities once and had greek cavalry who had 1 gold stripe (7 experience ups) and it was able to rout most cavalry units thrown against it (legionary cavalry for example) in a 1 on 1 fight. Experience can definately turn the tide in battle. It also gives you that added morale boost for that unit. Always good to invest in in my books.

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- Petronius

Gaius Colinius
Seraph Emeritus

posted 01 November 2005 06:20 EDT (US) 7 / 9

Had a similar problem in my epic spqr vh/vh game Jon.
Facing it again in my current britons vh/vh campaign.
Two words: bull warriors.

Those bull warriors have 2 hp which makes them very hard to kill. They also have a javelin throw. Numbers-wise, their stats don't seem to match roman legions but no legionnary unit has 2 hp. In my experience, there are few infantry units that can stand up to them in a one-on-one fight. The bull warriors will also eat bogged down cavalry for breakfast. Many is the time that I routed them with my initial pila storm only to have them reform and then beat my already decimated legion which was chasing them.

I understand that you are a roman faction, right?
Try this. 10 principes. 5 archers. 4 cav. 1 general.
When you get marius, change to post-marian units. The archers are critical because they will trim the bull warrior unit down and the ones that are not killed will at least be brought down to 1 hp plus you reduce their morale. Velites are no good because they run out of ammo too quick.
Kill their general and then kill all the bull warriors. Round shield cav are useless against an ordered legion and the rest of the iberian units are pretty poor.
It's no good routing a full unit of bull warriors because they will only reform and fight you again. You must kill them to the last man. Ignore the rest of the [non-bull warrior] units to do this!
If you must fight them up close, use units to flank. They will beat non-phalanx units in frontal attack.

As the britons, head hurlers and light chariots do the trick!

Correction on the chevron thing:
+1 chevron adds +1 attack, +1 defence AND +1 TO MORALE. Gold chevron bull warriors will be very difficult opponents.

Im_a_beaver
Legionary

posted 01 November 2005 14:46 EDT (US) 8 / 9

i was thinking, when playing as Spain, what's best: Bull Warriors with no chevrons or Scutarii with 3 exp. from a war shrine?

"The real Art of Peace is not to sacrifice a single one of your warriors to defeat an enemy. Vanquish your foes by always keeping yourself in a safe and unassailable position; then no one will suffer any losses."
-Morihei Ueshiba, founder of aikido

English is not my first language, so please excuse me.

GMRage
Legionary

posted 01 November 2005 23:08 EDT (US) 9 / 9

Killing multi hitpoint units is a pain in the backside.

However, I found that archers using FLAMING AMMO seem to be quite effective...

I haven't done extensive testing, but I DID notice this in a game I played just the other day:-

I had 4 archer auxilia trying to take down an experienced unit of german warlord cav. At first I tried using normal attack, but this was doing stuff all damage. Then I switched to fire arrows & suddenly the volleys were killing & burning up the cav.

At all times, the cav was fairly close in front of the archers, so distance/accuracy WASN'T the issue at the start.

The only conclusion I could draw was that since flame arrows burn up a unit when it is hit, the flame arrows seems to negate the extra hit points.

Anyone else done any testing on this?

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