lycortas2
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Caesar vs Pompey

Sat May 10, 2014 11:18 am

Um, i know this is a late hour for this, but i was playing this scenario and just watched Antonius get obliterated in Spain by 100,000 Pompeians in the first year of the war. That seems slightly excessive as historically Pompey had to raise an army to fight Caesar, he didn't start with 200,000 men under arms in all theaters.

Jagger2013
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Sat May 10, 2014 1:34 pm

Are you playing a human or the AI?

Pompei can raise a lot of troops in Spain and can move troops to Spain from both Africa and Sicily if he decides to concentrate there.

lycortas2
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Sun May 11, 2014 12:53 am

Yeah, i am playing against a human. I just went through the events and setup files (i do not like to do this before i play, takes too much away from the game for me) and found that Pompey's army in Spain in 49bce includes about half the Munda army which did not exist in 49bce. Way, way too many troops in Spain at game start and you can ship in a huge Numidian army by August or so easily pushing Pompey's Spanish force to over 100,000 men in 49bce.

Silly.

Spain was historically cleared out by Caesar in 49bce while Pompey was in the east building an army, yes, this game my opponent did go to Spain at start but these numbers simply did not exist in 49.

Also, the calendar was off... the scenario should start in November 50 or so to accurately show the calendar.

Mike

pantsukki
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Sun May 11, 2014 12:21 pm

The whole point of the choice given to the Pompeian side is that either you go to Hispania where an army is already available, or you go to the East to build an army with more resources. The amount of legions available in Hispania seems correct to me.

Regarding the Numidians, I think they should always be houseruled to stay in Africa. At least the majority of them.

Edit: and you can take Hispania pretty quickly by capturing key cities in the area, which fires a surrender event.

Jagger2013
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Sun May 11, 2014 4:39 pm

Actually I think the Numidian troops have the african theater ability. So should suffer penalities outside Africa. I will doublecheck later.

I am taking notes as this scenario plays out. If the AJE database comes out, I suspect some tweaking to the scenario could be justified.

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marek1978
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Sun May 11, 2014 4:58 pm

I was Mike's opponent in this game.

I would say that forbidding african troops from moving to spain wpuld be ahistorical.
In Pharsalos, Pompeyan army was accompanied by useless but numerous allies, and it was assian cavalery charge under Labienus that failed and caused disruption on pompeyan left, and and the end of the day defeat.

Using non roman soldiers is limmited to the Pompey command as he is the only one who
can lead multinational army without the penality.

While i massed my troops in spain in this game i left the whole afrika empty. So i would say getting those troops there was a gamble.
The other thing is that choosing spain increases your loyality there and you can move troops unntoiced which caused my force buildup unnoticed.
And choosing spain makes pompeyan force unlock much faster.
And it alows it to concetrate on the northern border.
Even without african soldiers i would have around 70 000 soldiers there - becuase of intensive recruitment and force conetration.

Is it too much? Well i would say it is too much but whole aje operates with too big numbers.
All cesariaon legions are full while in reality they were in half of their TOE.
All ather scenrios in this game show armies as if they were big as Polubius described. And other ancient historian. And my guess they were to big to be suppleyd.

Magnesia in 190 BC - probally saw 50 000 romans and 60 000 seleukid soldeirs was enormously big battle as for ancient standards.
And battles like that happey way to often in this game.

But genneraly my point is that 100 000 soldiers in northers spain in 49 is ahistorical.
But they faced 35 000 soldiers lead by marc anthony. And it was as mike wrote me around 40 percent of his army. My call is that is was even closer to 30-35 percent but thsi would mean that in 49bc cessar had 90 000 field army. And i think it is ahistorical as well.



QUOTE=pantsukki;313246]The whole point of the choice given to the Pompeian side is that either you go to Hispania where an army is already available, or you go to the East to build an army with more resources. The amount of legions available in Hispania seems correct to me.

Regarding the Numidians, I think they should always be houseruled to stay in Africa. At least the majority of them.

Edit: and you can take Hispania pretty quickly by capturing key cities in the area, which fires a surrender event.[/QUOTE]

lycortas2
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Sun May 11, 2014 7:00 pm

I am unsure but i think the Republic had 7 legions in Spain two of which promptly joined Caesar. At Ilerda Afranius had 5 legions i think and about 10,000 auxilliaries.

Also, in early 49bce 3 Pompey legions defected to Caesar at Corfinium, is that represented by the two legions Caesar has up near Torino that you can move on turn 2?

Jagger2013
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Sun May 11, 2014 7:00 pm

And the African leaders do have the Out of African theater penalty. African troops require african leaders out of theater suffering penalties or without leaders have the high command point cost.

lycortas2
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Sun May 11, 2014 7:03 pm

Maybe the numbers are not incorrect then, if he moved in the African Legion, Juba's army and the force already in Spain that would be near 100,000 men.
Dude.

I am unsure what to stop that with as Caesar.. i had only played this once, against someone who went east with Pompey, so i edged in Antony with 4 legions to see what was going on in north east Spain, "won" a battle against the 100,000 men and Antony retreated south into Pompey territory instead of north into my territory. Grr.

Jagger2013
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Sun May 11, 2014 7:08 pm

I read an old thread yesterday in which there seemed to be a consensus that Caesar was completely unbeatable in PBEM. Not sure of the date of the thread but perhaps some tweaks have been done to the scenario since then to balance it out a bit.

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marek1978
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Sun May 11, 2014 8:21 pm

Jubas soldiers do have african trait, but they were not loosing cohesionmin 2 turns they where there

But they were under command of Pompey with his multinationat skill




Jagger2013 wrote:And the African leaders do have the Out of African theater penalty. African troops require african leaders out of theater suffering penalties or without leaders have the high command point cost.

Jagger2013
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Sun May 11, 2014 8:37 pm

Jubas soldiers do have african trait, but they were not loosing cohesionmin 2 turns they where there


I don't believe the troops lose cohesion for being out of area. I believe all the penalties are related to command control and command points. I believe African leaders outside of Africa have their strategic, offensive and defensive ratings substantially reduced. African troops under the command of non-african leaders have higher command point cost than under African leaders- I believe.

lycortas2
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Sun May 11, 2014 10:21 pm

Yeah, i have played this scenario twice both as Caesar; when Pompey went east i had time to organize my armies and i won quite handily.
This time i am facing 3 armies and i have two to block them with and no time for anything to get organized, i am still bringing troops down from Gaul and with a bit different luck could still be sieging Marseille.

I would say, authoritatively :bonk: , that Pompey is far better off moving to Spain than the east. Also, i don't think Juba should be an all but free activation on the second or third turn for Pompey. I do not think Juba felt he owed Pompey that much, Caesar was Marius' heir, more or less, and the army the game is showing for Juba would be almost impossible for him to support for any length of time.

Jagger2013
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Mon May 12, 2014 12:14 am

I would say, authoritatively, that Pompey is far better off moving to Spain than the east.


Oops, I am playing a PBEM as Pompei and I moved East. I think it is turn 4 or 5 now and I was given the option to activate Juba last turn. He is now active.

One of the great difficulties I am having at the moment is the complete Fog of War within Italy and Gaul. I can only see enemy units in Spain and at Massilla. It is very risky moving amphibiously into enemy controlled territory when you have no clue what you might run into.

If I were to mod this scenario, I would definitely give each side some RGD spy options as in one of the other AJE scenarios. Some intel would be very useful.

lycortas2
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issues

Mon May 12, 2014 2:00 am

One of the problems i have with this series is the 2-5 morale cost to raise a legion. The Pompeians in the civil war raised, what, 19 legions or so? You can't do that in this game, so they give you locked units at game start instead.

Some intelligence in different parts of the republic/empire would be accurate.

Jagger2013 wrote:Oops, I am playing a PBEM as Pompei and I moved East. I think it is turn 4 or 5 now and I was given the option to activate Juba last turn. He is now active.

One of the great difficulties I am having at the moment is the complete Fog of War within Italy and Gaul. I can only see enemy units in Spain and at Massilla. It is very risky moving amphibiously into enemy controlled territory when you have no clue what you might run into.

If I were to mod this scenario, I would definitely give each side some RGD spy options as in one of the other AJE scenarios. Some intel would be very useful.

TC271
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Thu Oct 02, 2014 11:38 am

There are about 5 or so locked legions in Spain at the start of the game - if Pompey goes to Spain he also takes the two ex-Ceasarian legions from Italy with him.

Coupled with various auxiliaries that can give Pompey a large high quality force relatively quickly.

It really is a no brainer for Pompey to go to Spain IMO - even Ceasar with his veterans will have a hard time against Pompey and this army.

The benefit for the Optimates in keeping Pompey in the East are pretty poor - the ability to unlock non Roman allied units is not a great boon.

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James D Burns
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Thu Oct 22, 2015 3:22 pm

marek1978 wrote:Is it too much? Well i would say it is too much but whole aje operates with too big numbers.
All cesariaon legions are full while in reality they were in half of their TOE.
All ather scenrios in this game show armies as if they were big as Polubius described. And other ancient historian. And my guess they were to big to be suppleyd.


You have to remember the AGEOD engine was originally built around elements and strength counts were not included. The system was built around a simple system that required that elements be full strength to operate normally and that hasn't changed. The force (men, horses, guns, etc.) count was a player requested feature that was added to their game when the first civil war title came out. The reported numbers of men plays no real part in the game which still revolves around elements with limited hit points and requires elements to be full strength to function as they were intended to when the game was coded.

That means you will always see numbers of reported men far too high in their games since weak 150-200 man elements can't survive in this engine as they did historically, so you need to judge the game on how the armies behave. Do they behave as you would expect? In that regard I'd say the game does a good job of recreating historical expectations. Just view the number counts as chrome with no real bearing on the game, since if you created historically weak armies (1 or 2 hit points for most elements), they'd be destroyed at first contact due to how elements are treated in the combat engine.

Jim

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