AGEOD Forums

8 well organised, well led by Pompey himself, veteran legion in Hispania against 3 legions under Marcus Antonius. they are on the move when we attacked. And my legions were again repulsed with twice as much casualities. I just don't understand why!

Without a save, we don't understand either...there are dozens of conditions that might affect a battle which cannot be properly analyzed from your statement. If you feel there is something very weird, please send us a save or post it here

You said they were on the movie, right? Could be that the legions were suffering from attrition and low cohesion. Supply could also be a factor. I've lost battles that I went into with 2 or even 3-1 odds and after I got beat I noticed that my units had been suffering a lot and had very low cohesion.

Not to mention if you were Force Marching the legions.

i will take ascreen shot next time. But i wasn't force marching or disorganised.

I'm also having difficulties preventing the caesarians rushing down in Spain ... I always try to defend behind a river, but my forces only manage to achive an entrenchment ´level of 2, while I remember getting much higher levels with caesarian forces ... This makes fighting, even on the defense, much harder. Pompeius "veteran" legions just don't stand a chance against a stack of 4 legions under Caesar or Marc Antonius!

cwegsche wrote: but my forces only manage to achive an entrenchment ´level of 2, while I remember getting much higher levels with caesarian forces ...

Some of the starting locations have entrenchment levels pre-set that are higher than 2, but you cannot dig new entrenchments beyond 2 if you leave those locations.

Pompeius is a tricky side to play with. First of all, you must assimilate the fact that : your standard legions are 33% weaker than Caesar's standard italian legions and that your hispanian veterans are on par with Caesar's standard italian legions and 15% weaker than Caesar's veterans. BUT they all share the same frontage!

This means that : no matter the leader or the ROE, you will usually(*) loose any battle where you are figthing one to one :
- because of the OOB of each side, when you have the same number of legions,
- because of the field, if you're figthing in narrow places when number does not matter (ie, if Caesar player is in the woods or has 4 legions or more in the hills). This is true in defense too, as the defensive factor will usually not make up for the quality.

When in defense, do not rely to much on entranchements : legions are not that much about ranged battles, and entranchements won't protect from assaults as well as it could protect from gunfire in AACW.

Last point : do not rely on your leaders. You may think that they are good, but Pompeius being 5/3/4 with his abilities is no match for Caesar's best lieutenants. You only have 3 leaders which could rise troops quality significatvley on the field (Labienus, Afrianus and Octavius), given they are not figthing Caesar.

(*)Usualy means that if you outnumber the ennemy enought to rotate a significant amount of troops, you will probably rout him at the cost of heavy casualties.

So, I wonder: has anybody ever won with Pompeius? I'm playing a PBEM game and I feel doomed reading you.
Sicily was won by Caesar himself just conquering Messana, and Cato was still in the island, although in the far west side

Against the AI? Yes, i did, during the beta.

Against a human brain, i did not had enought game opportunities, but i'm open to taking Pompeius in PBEM .

[ATTACH]19986[/ATTACH][ATTACH]19987[/ATTACH]

That's my weird battles...but I think lilian explained it with the frontage. So, the next question...how do you beat ceasar?

that are secrets we can tell you next month, too early now

i won in -43 with historical attrition against CAE, while i could seize all the map in -46 as Caesar.... you will do too, after more training
other were even faster

dont concentrate on military victories in the open field...

After playing the scenario once from each side, PBEM, it is extremely difficult to play the Pompey side. I'm not sure how or where the Pompey faction can win a significant battle, or gain an advantage. Everything seems stacked against Pompey. There aren't even that many legions possible to recruit during the scenario, which seems to doom the faction to inferior forces in any possible play of the scenario.

I understand Pompey lost the war in unimpressive fashion, but for game purposes, there has to be some way to win here. Even the VP totals are heavily in Caesar's favor. I can't see much replay value to this scenario.

hm... its another question against an human opponent, sure, but i won with the first update of the "public" beta patch within less than 3 years against Ai lately, non historical attrition.

i even complained about too many exploit-able loopholes...

VP is a problem especially in PBEM, known for the four emperors and the Marius-Sulla scenario already. Problem i see is, that the Ai needs the simulation as it is right now, while players are doomed to minor victories thereby / losses

Well, try the latest patch. I Did several times and indeed the problems seems to remain/be back: Pompey loses the battles even if you have higher NM and more forces. Hell I even lost battles when my NM was at 120, Caesar's was at a mere 62 (after I had managed to trap Anthony and ten legions in Northern Spain and force them into surrender) and had three legions more in a fight with Pompey against one of Caesars legates. This makes playing Pompey even the AI an uphill battle, let alone against a human opponent...

Soderini wrote:Well, try the latest patch. I Did several times and indeed the problems seems to remain/be back: Pompey loses the battles even if you have higher NM and more forces. Hell I even lost battles when my NM was at 120, Caesar's was at a mere 62 (after I had managed to trap Anthony and ten legions in Northern Spain and force them into surrender) and had three legions more in a fight with Pompey against one of Caesars legates. This makes playing Pompey even the AI an uphill battle, let alone against a human opponent...

same problem back with Pont. 120.000 Pontique in defence again 20.000 Roman completly defeated

Soderini wrote:Well, try the latest patch. I Did several times and indeed the problems seems to remain/be back: Pompey loses the battles even if you have higher NM and more forces. Hell I even lost battles when my NM was at 120, Caesar's was at a mere 62 (after I had managed to trap Anthony and ten legions in Northern Spain and force them into surrender) and had three legions more in a fight with Pompey against one of Caesars legates. This makes playing Pompey even the AI an uphill battle, let alone against a human opponent...

same problem back with Pont. 120.000 Pontique in defence again 20.000 Roman completly defeated

This is exactly problem that I spotted and wrote about almost a month ago in other thread (see: Experience factor - too powerful?). In short, somewhat better discipline and assault values, outweighs everything else during battle. You may have better leader, skyhigh NM, better cohesion, much more units, posture advantage, favorable terrain... but if enemy has a unit(s) with marginally better assault and discipline values you are doomed. I'm not saying discipline is not important, but I doubt it's influence in AJE is highly exaggerated.

Was Sulla able to defeat three times larger Pontus Army? Yes. But, was it because legionaries were some unearthly begins and their enemy were undisciplined horde. Could it be that commander strategic and tactical skills, terrain, weather conditions and morale also played a large part? It is suffice to read: "Sulla consistently refused to offer Archelaus battle until he found his enemy encamped in terrain favorable to his Roman force ([color="#FFFF00"]commander's strategic skill[/color]) ... Archelaus had to array his army before the Romans on the plain below the hill. Moving his army out of the camp onto the rocks would have disordered their formations, and prevented their horses and chariots from being effective ([color="#FFFF00"]terrain factor[/color]) ... As the Mithridatic forces formed up, Sulla hastily advanced upon them, closing the gap between the armies, thereby rendering the deadly scythed-chariots useless ([color="#FFFF00"]commander's tactic skills[/color]) ... center led by Murena, who was actively encouraging his men in battle... ([color="#FFFF00"]force morale factor[/color])". Cited from: Battle of Chaeronea, 86 BC.

As you may see, all factors combined (commanders, strategic choose of battle site, favorable terrain, superior tactics) AND quality of Roman troops contributed to victory. As if it is now in game, if you have (marginally) better troops, you don't need to worry to much about other things... Just move your juggernaut across map and kick butts. Again, I have nothing against Sulla's 40K strong army to beat 120K strong Pontus army if most factors are on Roman side. Namely: strategic and tactics factors (simulated through commander), terrain, posture, willingness to fight (simulated through national morale), not only marginal but reasonable difference in troops quality.

Emx77 wrote:

As you may see, all factors combined (commanders, strategic choose of battle site, favorable terrain, superior tactics) AND quality of Roman troops contributed to victory. As if it is now in game, if you have (marginally) better troops, you don't need to worry to much about other things... Just move your juggernaut across map and kick butts. Again, I have nothing against Sulla's 40K strong army to beat 120K strong Pontus army if most factors are on Roman side. Namely: strategic and tactics factors (simulated through commander), terrain, posture, willingness to fight (simulated through national morale), not only marginal but reasonable difference in troops quality.

+1

I have just been completly beaten by Pompeus force in a PBEM again Ferpa ...
they were 2 battles with Ceasar and it was 2 time defeated .....

l'canadien wrote:I have just been completly beaten by Pompeus force in a PBEM again Ferpa ...
they were 2 battles with Ceasar and it was 2 time defeated .....

Can you post screenshots of battle reports for these two battles? It would be interesting to see what forces were involved on both sides.