[BOR] Playing as the Samnites in the Samnite War Scenario

[Dulahan]

Basically... how?

So anyways, I am new to the series, I started out playing Rome on said scenario and it was, even on the default difficulty I left the game on (With the exception of letting the AI get more time) something of a cakewalk. The free troops from Dictators pretty much make Rome invincible. I never even felt like it was difficult, despite not having a clue what I was doing. There was rarely a time one of my two consular Armies ran into something they couldn't deal with on their own, and then woot! Dictator army. Whoa! The troops stick around? Jackpot!

Needless to say, easy. I won via total map conquest pretty early on, including the Gallic parts of the map.

So anyways, knowing that I figured it would be tough, but also knowing the rules of how to avoid dictators I figured I might be able to handle it as the Samnites. Now, dozens of attempts later, I am convinced it is literally impossible for the Samnites to win, which must mean I'm doing something horribly wrong.

I read the Samnite AAR on the forum, but it seems all that did was lead to the devs patching it to make Rome -more- difficult to beat, and regardless, the strategy used in it no longer can do anything, really.

One big hurdle has been the Roman AI seems to almost always unite all 4 of the legions under one Consul general and leave the other alone... WTF? Historically that -never- would have happened, at least not for long, work together sure, but one consul giving up all control of his army? Yeah right... And that in turn creates a doom stack of troops that frankly, is impossible to beat. Heck, I've united all my Samnite troops and still lose most battles against even two legions. Let alone four. So there's instantly a level of luck there. Though sometimes the AI sends one legion to besiege Volsini and the other wanders around in the North glaring at the Etruscans. Meanwhile, the the other one rampages through Samnium like an unstoppable juggernaut, probably uniting with the allied army down there and poof. No chance even with all my troops.

On some plays I got lucky and two of them went against the Etruscans, unlocking that stack. But again, it was stuck there because it can't move South without triggering a Dictator. And even one is essentially game over on all fronts.

So I've tried time and again to keep the war on my terms, taking Lucernia and the allied state in the south. Hoping I get lucky and the Romans keep their armies apart and I can manage a lucky win against a poorly supplied legion, but it never works. I've gone against JUST two legions, with well over twice the 'combat power' and still lose every fight. I really wish I could save scum and see if there is some better data... heck, I just had one battle where with twice the combat power, I lost 2000 troops and the Romans took 0 losses. That was just me on a Feint attack too!

I'm thinking part of the issue is the Samnites have no Line Troops. Which seems odd since the Legions were based off of fighting the Samnites.

But regardless, I can't figure it out. I do feel like I must be missing some critical gameplay element. Like how to reinforce my troops, the point of depots, etc. How to cut off their supplies. Any number of things. While even after reading the manual the mechanics of combat proper make zero sense. So I am surely missing something? Or is this literally just a case of the scenario being made so it is impossible for the Samnites to win anymore? (Despite it being a near thing, historically, with a few key battles possibly going very differently early on. The Romans were stubborn, sure, but they got darned lucky a lot too)

So yeah, tips, tricks, strategy, etc?

[Solemnace]

Hold strong maintain your armies and try to damage limited Roman forces when you can and procrastinate The samnites do get line infantry but you need to wait a few years to get the linen cloth legions as there called and they are cheap and more than a match for the Romans and the two you get are elite as hell. TO reinforce your troops you need to buy replacements and then wait a bit preferably in friendly territory. Now once you get the Gauls after a bit over a year the situation gets better but also remember that you can't reinforce the gauls actively or the skirmisher elements in the Samnite main infantry. You can't fight the war on your terms Samnite infantry is just too terrible to do that. Try to take what regions you can and slowly build up what you have and wait for later game options to help turn the tide. I won once by managing to take Rome which is effectively the only option to be able to win the war.

[Ech Heftag]

Adopting a strategy of elastic defense is the key for survival as the Samnites. It is extremely difficult to win offensive battles against the Romans with your starting troops (especially when all the Roman legions are united into a single stack). But you can win defensive battles in rough terrain (especially mountainous terrain like in Maleventum).
It's also exceedingly difficult to hold on to Bovianum (no preferable terrain for defense and no harbor to reinforce troops under siege), so I usually concede it to the Romans if they choose to besiege it with all their troops. Loosing Bovianum strips you of your main source for engagenment points, though, so you still should try to hold Bovianum as long as possible.
In the later stages of the war, after you got the event of the Linen Cloth infantry, you can try to fight back and take the offense to the Romans. Those troops really improve your odds a lot.

Since such a strategy can be quite boring for a human Samnite player, you might play around with the Etruscans while your Samnites hold the ground in Maleventum. The Etruscans are actually (except for their weak leaders) quite capable in this scenario and can easily keep 1 or 2 Roman legions busy.

btw, my two cents regarding this scenario and the dictator issue: I think the inability to reinforce the Samnite Rorarii makes little sense gameplay-wise. This should be changed in a future patch. And to encourage more aggressive gameplay and help the AI, the Rome in danger zone for triggering a dictator should be reduced to just one region away from Rome.

[Dulahan]

Is there any general trigger for Linen Cloth?

Also, what makes a unit qualify as Stealthy? I know one thing the Samnites did in the Wars was ambushes, yet I've never figured out how to lay one with my troops. I cannot help but think this could make a big difference against the Legions.

[Ech Heftag]

Is there any general trigger for Linen Cloth?

Also, what makes a unit qualify as Stealthy? I know one thing the Samnites did in the Wars was ambushes, yet I've never figured out how to lay one with my troops. I cannot help but think this could make a big difference against the Legions.

I think it's an option without specific triggers. It will appear quite late in the war and has a rather steep costs in engagement points. It will also remove the normal Samnite infantry from the forcepool and permanently replace it with Linen Cloth units (but you'll retain your on-map units and you can still reinforce them normally).
For the precise date and costs you can check the corresponding event file.

Regarding ambushes, that's a bit of a complicated matter. You can set ambushes by using the ambush command in the order panel. If successful, it will give your force a higher chance to get first fire (iirc), but it has no effect otherwise (no bonus damage or some-such). It can also fail (you will see the chance of success in the tooltip for the command). Personally, I haven't used this command all that much (read: basically never), but it might be worthwile if you often suffer large losses in the first rounds of combat.

[Dulahan]

See. That's the thing. the Ambush option is never even available, always greyed out.

[Solemnace]

I think the only units that can Ambush are Irregulars of which the Samnites themselves get none though there are Italic,Etruscan and Celtic irregular units.