Rome: Total War: Difference between revisions

- Always have a unit or two of light cavalry to run down fleeing survivors and skirmishers. Don't let the enemy retreat with intact units. Try and kill them to the last man if you ca - especially archers and other annoyances.

- The artillery you can bring with your units is next to useless against walls, but fuck if it doesn't kill enemy soldiers like the dickens. Scorpions on a hill can fire over long distances, with fair accuracy, and skewer whole columns at a time. Once they get experienced - which they will quickly, if you don't let them die - they'll fire faster, further, and more accurately. You can have a battle half-over before the melee starts.

- When fighting Carthage, bring skirmishers - Velites, specifically. Use them against elephants. They're cheap, so it's worth losing a unit of them to cause to rampage a unit of elephants - especially when those elephants are still among enemy troops.

- You can try the manipular formation (line each of Velites, Hastati, Principes, Triarii, each falling back through the other when tired) if you're a masochist. I'd recommend Principes in the center, Hastati on the flanks, and Triarii in reserve, with Velites as skirmishers. Get archers if you can find them, because they'll outrange your Velites. Post-Marian, your units will homogenize - while simultaneously growing in effectiveness - meaning that you can pretty much just build big lines and crush the hell out of them.