With no ranged units to keep my skirmishers at a distance, my slingers and javelinmen had closed to a lethally effective distance.

As Veii's troops closed in for the kill, they started getting raked by spears and stones. I had a ragged line of depleted infantry from all over Greece, Sicily, and Italy, facing the advancing line of spearmen from Veii.īut my skirmishers, their own missions completed, were finally returning from the edges of the map where their hit-and-run battles had deposited them. Soon everyone was fleeing back up the hill, where the shaken mercs began to rally their few survivors. My army began to buckle as my Romans fled, abandoning their mercenary allies. My cavalry ruthlessly hunted down all the slingers and skirmishers that Veii had, routing them from the field, but the main fight was a lost cause. Now the battle was a complete mess, the battle lines looking more like a pair of snakes both eating their own tails. Before my troops could get in their places, they were hammered by Veii's fresh troops. With only a moment to re-form, I swarmed the enemy formation with skirmishers while trying to reform my infantry into some kind of line.īut I ran out of time. My troops caught the first enemy army on the move and routed it just as their reinforcements pulled up. Against this, Veii fielded two armies comprising almost endless numbers of medium-quality spearmen, slingers, and an elite hoplite bodyguard.

Finally, I had my general's cavalry unit and a band of horsemen from Thessaly. But my infantry arm was comprised of just about every archaic combat unit you could imagine: mercenary hoplites from Greece itself alongside some axe-wielding Etruscans, swordsmen from the hills, and a bunch of half-trained Roman spearmen whose tactics aped the Greeks', but whose armor and training were visibly pitiful compared to the real thing. Slingers and javelinmen were the backbone of my force, and the army itself had specialized in skirmish tactics, making them even deadlier. I had one of the most delightfully hodge-podge armies I've ever had to command in Rome 2. They immediately sallied to try and break my siege. This was a mistake because between the wounded field army I'd trapped in the city, and the city's huge garrison, I was actually outnumbered by the troops inside the city walls. After winning a series of hard-fought battles outside Veii, I hired a few regiments of mercenaries to bolster my numbers and set up for the siege of Veii itself. We were too evenly matched for me to deliver the knockout blow.

Total war rome 2 tactics