Egyptians?

[Private Clark]

So I'm playing a campaign as the Brutii, vanilla RTW. It's the year 215BC and I've got all of Greece up to about the Danube river and I'm expanding into Asia Minor. Meanwhile, Egypt has become a major superpower, Seleucid's no longer exist, and me and the Egyptians are fighting for the most advance and largest faction awards. Question is, I've now got a strong-ish foothold in Asia Minor, but Egypt has brought its massive army against me, have any fail-safe strategies for dealing with large Egyptian armies with several unit of bowmen, chariots and phalanx?

At the moment, I've got my men in a sort of semi circle, infantry in the first line, archers in the middle, I rely very much on my archers and i usually have 2-3 Cretans and 2-3 Auxillia Archers. Otherwise, in the first line I've got 3-4 Legionary/Early legionary Cohorts, a couple of mercenary hoplites, Basternae mercenaries if i can find them, otherwise Thracians. Finally i have cavalry behind ready to chase down routers (2 Roman Cavalry + General). My combination has been working well, haven't lost a battle, but at some point, the enemy retreat after a while and so can reform their army.

During my campaign in Greece, my strategy was forming a line with infantry and advance them up about 50 feet from the hoplites, then I would place my cavalry around the flanks of the Hoplites, then i would charge into their backs, this worked very well, i was able to effortlessly murder whole armies with minimum casualties, however this won't work with the egyptians because of their frequent bowmen, and quick chariots, furthermore, they have decent supporting cavalry: Desert Cavalry.

So! Discuss your strategies fighting Egypt.

[Jubal]

Strategy #1; Drop your legionaries. in the eat legionaries are at thier least effecitve - think Carrhae.

The chariots and light cav will slaughter your legions, get rid of them.

What you need is merc support and auxilia. The best way to take out the chariots is eles if you can get them, if not machine gun bow/siege them (spam archer auxlia, repeater ballista) or take gladiators.


My roman armies in the east consist of mostly cavalry, roman cav isn't that good but they'll fare reasonably against most eastern and egytian infantry.
Firstly, chariots, use the strateies above. your cavalry wing has to kep otu the way here, the chariots will slaughter them. The chariots should be taken out by a separate force, with your cavalry and lgiht infantry body at th back of the battlefield until they are gone. Once they have been taken out (and you WILL take casulaties uness you have merc elephants), move the remanants of your chriot killers back to your main infatry body. After that then the cavalry wing (which should be mimimum half your force) should simply be used as a single, crushing hammer, pummelling into the bowmen then pulling out before the melee gets protracted. They should be able to do this with few casulaties, advoiding the cumbersome phalanxes.
Finally, the phalangites are simple to beat, just put a linght to medium infantry meat shield up with the rest of your force, then smash them in the back.

That's my roman strategy anyway. Romans re OK against Egypt if you do it right, better than the poor greeks (phalxes in the desert V.S. chariots, ouch), but not as good as Carthage (elephants own chariots).

[Private Clark]

Mkay, so go with Auxillia then? What exactly was your strategy for taking out chariots? Hitting them with arrows?

[Jubal]

Fire arows, or gladiators (although quite a few will die), and/or plenty of ballistae or scorpions (scorps if you can get them, can't remember off the top of my head if the romans can).

[Marcus]

Romans are the only ones who can get scorpions.  

[Jubal]

Really? My copy has the hell modded out of it so far I forget these things, in mine Carthage and Greeks get scorps too.

[stormcloud]

I find that Roman cavalry is consistent in abilities and that a full army (well with one space free to hire mercs to handle rams in case of a siege) of them can take on just about anything, with the faster stuff flanking phalanx and smashing their rear before I make them run off again :-) its all about timing and forethought, also if you try getting them to split up by chasing various units they are easy to kill.

[Guest]

Have a military center where you can train standard armies, full stacks to a set design, and make two of them to work with the other. If used well they can easily take out many full stacks, even some more powerful.
I conquered Africa and most of Europe with this method.

[Private Clark]

Thanks Gallowglass, i actualy lost that save file when i reinstalled Rome, but thanks anyway  

[Legion Of Hell]

I regard Egypt as the most backstabbing faction in the history of Total War games.

[Jubal]

I hate egyptians. They are unrealistic and OP.

[stormcloud]

chat with singe arabs here ad  :blink:

[Private Clark]

OP?

[comrade_general]

over powered im guessing

[Jubal]

Correct! Have a biscuit.