Prince of Macedon

A popular RTW commoner, and the host of many popular RTW online tournaments. Under the patronage of Hader.

Prince of Macedon nearly always plays as Macedon in online battles, reportedly due to his admiration of Alexander the Great. He claims to never play the campaign game of Rome: Total War because the computer tends to repeat the same mistakes, thus removing much of the challenge and fun.

Prince of Macedon's fighting style

Prince of Macedon is a big fan of the hammer and anvil tactic, where the cavalry has a decisive role in flanking the enemy.

He likes to use light cavalry against heavy cavalry because heavy cavalry will get tired while pursuing the faster light cavalry, and if they stop pursuing then he can have his light cavalry turn and charge the heavy cavalry again and retreat before they have recovered.

Sometimes he lures the enemy cavalry into an isolated position on the battlefield and uses his light cavalry as the anvil and the heavy cavalry as the hammer.

The units he uses for this role are Light Lancers and Companions.

His favorite infantry melee unit is the Royal Pikemen because of their flexibility. They can beat any phalanx units except for hoplites, and they can also be the anvil of his army.

Royal Pikemen are also good swordsmen, unlike Phalanx Pikemen, and they have the same number of soldiers (241) on huge scale, as well as a big shield that protects them better than the aspis does the Phalanx Pikemen.

He also usually brings both Cretan and normal archers to the battlefield, so his Cretans can stay protected for a longer time and take out melee units from afar while the normal archers takes care of enemy missile troops.

Formations Prince uses

Prince of Macedon's battle line usually has infantry in the center. The flanks are evenly distributed with both light and heavy cavalry. Normal archers stand behind the Royal Pikemen and further to the back Cretan archers.

The battle starts...

Prince of Macedon starts running towards his opponent in an ordered fashion so that his enemy has less time to react to his formation, and to minimize casualties from missile fire from his enemy's archers.

He then flanks his opponent with light cavalry to lure the enemy cavalry away, and then attacks them from behind with heavy cavalry to gain the edge that cavalry brings to the battlefield.

This tactic is copied from Alexander the Great's tactic of luring the enemy cavalry away to allow his heavy cavalry to gain a better position on the battlefield.

He then makes a flanking action with some Royal Pikemen to free up his cavalry for rear attacks and to prevent his opponent to make a new batteline further behind.

When his infantry units that made the flanking action have engaged his opponent's infantry in the flanks, he crashes with his cavalry against the enemy archers to cause them to rout, and picks them all off so that Prince of Macedon is left with an overwhelming superiority in numbers.

How to win on the battlefield

Use troops in the manner they are supposed to; know the strengths and weaknesses of each unit (for example, peltasts quickly run out of ammo and don't even kill as many enemy units as there are peltasts).

A better option than peltasts:

Archers with long range and armour will kill 5 times their own number if properly protected and used. Let some archers fire at cavalry or close combat infantry while others kill other archers.

Make a good battle line from the start and keep reserves in place.

If your infantry is better than your opponent's no infantry melee reserves are needed, but place 2 heavy cavalry behind the center to exploit the gap that will emerge when your infantry rout the enemy's. Remember keep your own flanks safe!

Note: a phalanx is invulnerable from the front against a non phalanx unit, but you can hold them in place with 2 legionary first Cohort 3 ranks deep.

Use the rest for flanking actions to limit enemy cavalry's room to maneuver.

Never attack with 10 legionary cohorts behind one another because most wont even fight in the battle instead attack flanks with one unit in each flank and then rush with other units against the rear also bring some troops to protect the rear of your flanking units so that they cannot be crushed from the rear.

Have both light and heavy cavalry.

Light cavalry lures the enemy cavalry away and when your heavy cavalry charges the enemy's back you charge in with the light cavalry.

Use terrain and weather to your advantage.

Attack enemy flanks and rear. The reason for this is obvious: a unit is strongest and has the highest number of fighting men at the front in a line, but the line has an end and the troops behind the fighting line of the first rows are there to fill any gap caused by casualties.

That is why the amount of soldiers in the end of a line has only as many soldiers on the flanks as in how deep your line is and if that flank faces the front of an enemy unit that unit that is attacked from the flank will break a lot faster and with higher casualties on the player that didn't flank but was flanked himself.

Always make a balanced line never make your line too thin or too deep. If a line is too thin then the casualties will leave a gap that the enemy can exploit. A too deep formation will decrease the number of troops that can fight at the same time and also make your formation vulnerable to flanking actions.

Never attack an enemy flank if enemy cavalry is nearby because if you don't react and control your impulses than the enemy cavalry will attack your cavalry's rear and annihilate it.

Common mistakes an RTW player does online (besides spelling ones):

Most players never bring light cavalry to the battlefield because they assume heavy cavalry is better. Instead, remember that light and heavy cavalry have different roles. Light cavalry can choose when to fight but a heavy cavalry can't do that against light cavalry. In short, light cavalry are faster and more maneuverable.

By bringing more light cavalry to the battlefield, they can give you that advantage in mobility that your heavy cavalry can exploit to devastating affect.

Many players, when they see that they have a greater number of cavalry, immediately charge with the cavalry with the opposite results than the player expects just because the enemy cavalry attacks from the rear and flanks and massacre the routing players heavy cavalry just because they aren't fast enough to get away.[Editor note: this sentence is confusing and grammatically incorrect, and should be fixed by someone who knows what it may be trying to say]

Always have an anvil before deliver the hammer!

Now play Rtw online with greater knowledge and better skill!