Questions about Pontus and Populares beating the Lusitani in Marius v. Sulla

[steelwarrior77]

So I stopped Sulla with my defensive army of 60.000+ good Pontus units and a good leader. He is down to 23.000 men against my 60.000+. But whenever I attack him, the battle ends super fast with a defeat for me and very low losses on both sides. So what to do? Can I just dig in and hope he will attack me again? - Also there would be too many regions I need to defend as I never know where he goes...
And how to defeat the Lusitani efficently - they just send out spam units everywhere, take very low losses and escape fast - so how should I take care of them?

Thanks guys ;-D

[Durk]

Your plan is a good one.
Sulla is a bit of a god. He is so strong even at very bad odd.
Some indirection, attacking his forces where Sulla is not, has real advantages.

[steelwarrior77]

You caught me ;-D

[steelwarrior77]

How do I keep my guys supllied? Usually 50.000-70.000 of Pontic units are sufficient to keep Sulla at bay - but how o I keep them supllied even level 4 depots with harbors and cities do not seem to be sufficient...
Can fleets provide any supplies?
Do units uspport each other, if in adjacent provinces?
Running supply trains also does not seem to work, as supply is always eaten up, before I can run the trains forth and back...

[Franciscus]

How do I keep my guys supllied? Usually 50.000-70.000 of Pontic units are sufficient to keep Sulla at bay - but how o I keep them supllied even level 4 depots with harbors and cities do not seem to be sufficient...
Can fleets provide any supplies?
Do units uspport each other, if in adjacent provinces?
Running supply trains also does not seem to work, as supply is always eaten up, before I can run the trains forth and back...

Yes, big armies eat a lot...

Supply is very important and unforgiving in AJE...(although less than in other Ageod games)
There are some rules and ideas, that all come from commonsense, really:
- don't move your troops unless needed. Specially stay put in winter times. Avoid pillaged regions
- build supply carts and rotate them. Move some of them out of your army region, go replenish them in another city, come back while you rotate others. They will need some escort, maybe
- fleets per se do not give supply - unless loaded with supply carts that you unload in your army city.
- some leaders have abilities that improve supply situation (for example, Hannibal was a master in "logistics" and his army in HAN rarely goes out of supply)

In the end, you may be forced to do what historical generals had to do: split your big army in smaller forces

Regards

[steelwarrior77]

Thanks - I am talking specifically about this scenario and there it seems that I never have enough supply carts to take care of my huige army that I need to stop Sulla - usually in Chalcides or Dikaia - do I split my army Sulla overruns me - do I not split is starves ;-( I try all the normal rules - but how do I take care of this?

[Franciscus]

In the end you may have indeed to split your army and/or retreat to Byzantium or even Asia.

Remember however that Sulla cannot be everywhere (attack other roman forces) and roman soldiers also eat - so they will face the same problems you have.

Anyhow, noone said it is easy to defeat Sulla...

Regards

[steelwarrior77]

Yeah, but should be doable - a few more supply carts for Pontus would be great - the Roman factions have a lot more supply carts compared to their army sizes...and the challenge is, that Sulla can run one time around the world in one turn - only islands are safe from him ;-D
So the Romans have the better units and leaders - a few more supply carts for Pontus would just be fair - because they have to counter with bigger armies - or get beaten up ;-D Should als not be unhistorical that bigger armies had more supply carts ;-D
Not meant as disrespect - jut as a wish from a fan - you do really a great job!

[James D Burns]

You need to remember supply carts eat supply too, lots of it. It is far better to burn 4 carts and create a level 4 depot in the region you are trying to defend then to keep the carts on map once their supply is used. I generally never have more than 2-4 carts with a big army as the increase in supply demand isn’t worth it.

You only really need one cart with an army to gain the combat bonus it gives. Any extras are there simply to allow you to begin building a depot ASAP once you reach the region you want to defend in. Big armies should be treated different when it comes to supply, you won’t be able to keep them fed with wagons for more than a couple turns, they need to focus on high supply defendable cities and stay within one or two turn’s move of there.

Only medium sized armies should operate with lots of wagons (2 star leaders lead medium armies, usually about 12-14 command points) since they can make use of the wagons and not eat through them all in just a couple of turns.

Lastly I should point out your request for simply adding more wagons to the game won’t work. There is an upper limit to how much supply any one location can put out. Having dozens of supply wagons with a large army (you would need dozens to be able to provide more than a few turns supply to such a large force) would make the supply demand for the stack so high it would be impossible to re-supply the force even in the highest supply region on map.

It’s far better to just locate the supply level of a region (hover mouse over city) and multiply it by 5. Then hover the mouse over the supply icon (right next to the envelope icon) on your armies info bar and it will give you a breakdown of how many supply points your army consumes each turn. As long as your army’s consumption is equal to or less than a figure equal to five times the regions supply level, you will be ok. Though it is generally better to be slightly under, as otherwise supply will never refill if you are exactly equal.

So for example in my current game of the Great Mithridatic War, Pompey leads an army with a per turn consumption of 140. He is in a location that has a supply level of 31, which means it provides 155 points per turn. So Pompey’s army eats 140 points and 15 points are available to refill any empty wagons he may have with him. As a wagon holds 80 points, it’ll take 6 turns to completely refill one empty wagon.

Here’s the kicker, there are also units under construction inside the town that need 29 points per turn currently and the demand rises as they progress in construction. So for now I’m burning more than the location produces and I should either remove a few units from Pompey or I should hold out and hope the new units complete and can leave before Pompey runs dry.

Here’s a screenshot to show my dilemma, I’ve been shuttling wagons from Emporiae to try and keep Pompey fed, but recently a medium sized army has arrived and it will probably close Emporiae to outside movement next turn. Sertorius has a large enough force that removing strength from Pompey is probably too risky, but I may be forced to if the construction isn’t finished soon.

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Jim

[steelwarrior77]

Thanks for the great answer - I managed it also even though supply was short with building level 4 depots ;-D
What do I need to do to gain a major victory - I had conquered all objectives and even invaded Rome as Pontus - but still only a minor victory at the end...?

[James D Burns]

Thanks for the great answer - I managed it also even though supply was short with building level 4 depots ;-D
What do I need to do to gain a major victory - I had conquered all objectives and even invaded Rome as Pontus - but still only a minor victory at the end...?

It's all about time and options. You can burn away a lot of victory points with Regional Decision cards. And if you take too long to grab everything it may be impossible to get far enough ahead in VP's as your opponents total climbs each turn. I'm not sure what the VP levels are, but I assume its a percentage basis win, you need x% more than your enemy, so grabbing the location isn't enough you need to hold it for some time to accumulate points.

Jim

[Hrothgar]

As I understand it, no matter what the VP difference, if one does not break the enemy's morale, one can not do better than a marginal victory.

Of course, one would think that taking all the objective would have a serious effect on enemy morale, but I guess it wasn't enough to break them.

By the way, Mr. Burns, that was an excellent answer to the question. I myself didn't understand exactly how to calculate supply needs vs the amount supplied by a region, so I appreciate the information.

[Durk]

Yes James D Burns, thanks for explaining supply in such detail. I kind of understand it, but I had a vague notion of what was what. Much clearer about size of force.

[steelwarrior77]

I had in my SP campaign a lead of 1000+ victory points and still only got no major victory - so how to achieve it? I also conquered all objectives and more - still no sudden death...

[Random]

@Mr. Burns,

Excellent!

Thank you for the explanation about supply, don't recall seeing the multiply tool-tip supply by five before (but of course may have just missed it) so this is really valuable information.

-C

[Agesilaus]

The victory point thing is broken if memory serves; you will almost always wind up with a marginal victory. I understand that simply beating the opponent is not enough, as perhaps it involved heavy casualties and many years, but right now even crushing defeats are considered marginal.


James Burns, great post, I have some questions:

Why don't you build a depot where Pompey is sitting? You own the province, so you can keep building a massive depot rather than shuttle wagons around, right?

What to do with sieges? Rome constructs siege equipment and can cause breaches regularly, but other armies can lay in siege for years. Am I to just shuttle wagons back and forth for years? Is there a sweet-spot army size that I should leave to continue the siege and then march onward with the rest of the army?

I have been leaving massive siege armies in place, thinking that maybe it will increase the possibility of a breach or casualties. I rarely play as Rome, though, so I am always stuck in these lengthy sieges. I was doing the Illyrian scenario recently, and was in siege over one city with the majority of my army for about 15 turns of the 25 turn scenario. Never got inside, but won because of victory points anyway.

[James D Burns]

Why don't you build a depot where Pompey is sitting? You own the province, so you can keep building a massive depot rather than shuttle wagons around, right?

The city already has a level 4 depot (max allowed), so I can’t increase it any further. I’m in sort of a dilemma as Pompey is strong enough to challenge Sertorius in the mountains behind his level 4 forts defending Osca, but if he leaves to circle behind and take the depot at Salduba that is supplying Sertorius, he’s not strong enough to come back and drive Sertorius away if he goes for an undefended Osca.

If I had full supply wagons I could leave some in Osca to insure that the defenders didn’t run out of supply in two turns and could try and wait for Sertorius’ army to eat through its supplies. But the current supply situation is critical and leaving isn’t an option right now. By the way this is a game vs. The AI, so I’m very impressed with how it’s playing so far, especially with the recent arrival of the two star leader and his army at Tarraco in what appears to be a move to stop me feeding full wagons to Pompey from Emporiae.

What to do with sieges? Rome constructs siege equipment and can cause breaches regularly, but other armies can lay in siege for years. Am I to just shuttle wagons back and forth for years? Is there a sweet-spot army size that I should leave to continue the siege and then march onward with the rest of the army?

Depends on the garrison size. If the garrison is large enough to breakout, or if there is a local enemy army around that can try and break in, you’d need to keep a large army there and feeding it will be tough. You may even prefer to avoid the siege and try and reduce the enemy army size in the area first to keep from getting bogged down trying to feed a huge army away from a city.

Otherwise I’d leave just enough stuff to guarantee no breakout/in and then rely on wagons to feed the troops. A small 12 command point army can usually last many turns with 4 wagons, so while 4 are with the army, 4 more are in a city refilling. When the army supply gets low swap the two stacks of 4 wagons and the army should be good to go for many turns again.

I have been leaving massive siege armies in place, thinking that maybe it will increase the possibility of a breach or casualties. I rarely play as Rome, though, so I am always stuck in these lengthy sieges. I was doing the Illyrian scenario recently, and was in siege over one city with the majority of my army for about 15 turns of the 25 turn scenario. Never got inside, but won because of victory points anyway.

Only unit traits help in sieges, these are the things that benefit an attacker according to the manual on page 46:


12.2.1 Calculating the Attacking Force Siege Value The attacking force is
given a randomly generated Siege Value which is then modified by the
following beneficial conditions:
_ the amount of siege engine strength points in the attacking force,
_ attacking force commanded by a Leader with ‘Siege Engineer’
Special Ability,
_ attacking force contains Sapper units (with ‘Siege Expert’ special
abilities),
_ presence of a ‘Breach’ in the structure’s defenses,
_ the defending force lacks General Supply.

So unless the defenders supply is already gone, you aren’t going to have much help creating that first breach without special units. So don’t worry about force size, setting up an army that can last for long periods with minimal resupply is more important, size of the army plays no part in creating a breach.

Most non-Roman nations will rely on starvation to capture fortified towns. A few have limited siege capabilities, but most do not.

Jim

[James D Burns]

Thank you for the explanation about supply, don't recall seeing the multiply tool-tip supply by five before (but of course may have just missed it) so this is really valuable information.
-C

Rule 10.2 covers supply production, the 5 points per chit (I’ve been referring to chits as supply levels, they are the same thing and should not be confused) rule is included in the early part of the rules text description of supply chits.

10.2 Supply Sources and Production
Forces will draw supply from their units’ inherent supply reserve and from any Impedimenta in the force.
Units and wagons will then replenish supplies from the region they are located in, or from an adjacent region. This
order ensures that wagons are drained before inherent supply ceases to be replenished.
Supply is generated in amounts expressed in supply chips (SC), which come in two varieties: a full SC holds 5
supply points and 2 ammo points, while a basic SC only holds 5 supply points.
Each turn, supply points (both General Supply and Ammunition) are produced and stored in friendly-controlled
cities, ports, fortifications, and depots. Supplies are produced and distributed on the first day of each game turn
and generated solely in basic or full SC increments The number of full or basic SCs produced by a structure depends
primarily on the level of the structure, but other factors modify that number..
_ The countryside of a region generates 0-4 basic SC to
unbesieged units (depending on civilization level, weather
and looted status). When enemy armies co-exist in the same
region, the region’s supply is distributed in proportion to the
percentage of military control. For the moment there is no
cavalry, light troop or irregular advantages to foraging.
_ Level 1 cities and Raider villages generate 1 basic SC.
_ Unbesieged level 2 (or +) cities, all fortifications, depots and
unblockaded harbors generate full SCs as follows
(cumulative):
_ 1 / city level
_ 1 / port level
_ 5/ fort level if there is a fort in the region
_ 10/ depot level if there is a depot in the region

As you can see Osca should be producing far more than 31 chits (the depots alone should produce 40), but loyalty and the regions development level plays a huge part here. Recently captured enemy regions will produce far less than their full potential until loyalty slowly shifts in your favor. This part of the game is hard to plan for, I’m sure it’s probably possible to pre-calculate everything ahead of time and only bring an army that can feed off the captured lands. But I’m lazy and prefer to tailor my army sizes down to fit after I take a place and see what the levels are.

Jim

[Franciscus]

Excelent info all around on James D Burns posts. Great knowledge and great advices !!


Just a clarification:

Minor or major victory (or defeat) are just an arbitrary convention.

- Major victory or defeat are only achieved by reaching a predetermined level of NM (or making your opponent NM drop below a predetermined level). In the Great Mithridatic war scenario these leves are 175 and 25. As the "Sudden death" rule was set to ON by the designer, this means that if a main faction reaches one of these thresholds, the game declares a major victory (or defeat) and the scenario "ends" (although you can continue to play if you wish). When Sudden death" rule is OFF, this is determined at the end of the scenario.

- Minor victory or defeat are only declared at the end of the scenario and solely on the basis of the absolute number of VP. The faction with more VP wins the game ("minor victory"), the others lose ("minor defeat")

This, of course, is just a convention, and the player(s) are more than welcome to establish their own "house rules" to determine if they "win" or "lose". If you play against the AI, you have the advantage that she will never complain, too...


Regards

[Random]

Rule 10.2 covers supply production, the 5 points per chit (I’ve been referring to chits as supply levels, they are the same thing and should not be confused) rule is included in the early part of the rules text description of supply chits.

Ah, therein lies at least some of my confusion. I took the term chit in the context of an expendable unit assigned some value (like taxi chits on government travel claims or mess chits to record the bar bill back in the day) rather than as a global supply level applied to each region depending upon factors unique to that region. This meant that I was unable to square the supply circle although I quickly learned the tricks regarding managing impedimentia and depots and so mostly solved the supply How without really understanding the supply Why. It would seem though, that I made it more complex than it need to have been.

Thanks again, it's appreciated.

-C

[steelwarrior77]

I like that I can make up my own victory story, because wiping Sulla out with Pontus and conquering all of Greece and capturing Roma feels pretty major to me ;-D Good the AI will not complain ;-D
In my PBEM match my general Achelaos just surrendered after winning 5 defensive battles against Sulla in a row - is that an option that the Sulla player can use? Do I have to expect more of that?