Hail, Terratheon,

An overwhelming amount of tactical stuff you fed us here(remember you from the old Caesar 2 days). What can you tell us about real defense strategy, or fighting within a city. Every formation you described assumed there were unlimited military resources and enough space to maneuver in, away from the city, interception strategies so to speak.

For example what to do when you got only half filled javelins legions against a superior Carthaginian force in a restricted space,just outside your city.
This is just an example, came up in the new survival scenario by Bob the Lethargic, Sargentum(look at it).
They got butchered whatever I did, only sheer luck saved the day, the enemy-probably set on attacking troops-tried to get to my last 2! troops, hiding in their fort, within the city. Ballistae from my backyard wall took them out slowly and made them retreat(phew).
If I hadn't lured them into my city, but away from my barracks, this would have been the end anyway as you can't rebuild towers or barracks in this scenario. So there is more to deploy than just formations in a wide open space. Don't underestimate the worth of prefects, they slowed the enemy inside the city to let the ballistae do their work. Urban guerilla, you might say.

Other questions that came up while sweating my socks off were:

• How many javelin hits can an elephant have before dying,or how many ballista hits? What do we know exactly by the strength of other enemy war units, what do they inflict and what can they take?
• What does attack military mean? Troops, towers, barracks, mil.academy, prefects?
• Do they retreat if they accomplished this?
• Am I sacked if they did? When does Caesar sack you after an attack?
• Horn blows signaling an attack indicate the strength of it,did anybody research what the different signals are?

Sorry all possible separate threads in one message, but most information gathered from them should be somewhere in the same section as the battlefield tactics, let's call it the war department.

Comments

I recall our exchanges on the C-2 Forum. I still miss some of C-2's unique elements. Your questions are excellent. Most of my military scenarios are idealized models to optimize combat in the open field and that explains the nature of most of my posts. I have by no means neglected urban warfare, or maneuvering on small cramped maps however.

I offer the following suggestions on close combat and urban tactics, and will phase them, in the sequence of a hypothetical enemy army approaching, breaching and than entering the city. Bounding overwatch retrograde is useful as the enemy approaches and can continue right into your metropolis. Using javelins or cavalry in the Death Row tactic is good for when the enemy approaches to the outer wall. If your peltasts or horseman feint against or bombard many enemy units in succession, most if not all will follow their bait along the ballista walls
[Terratheon]

See Death Row, Open Wall Gambit, Baited Detour, Building/Rubble Barricade, Chanelised Skirmish, Tower Pickets, Cop Shop Cul-de-Sac