Rome Total War- Battle strategies

[marvises]

I usually play as Macedonians, so I try to use Alexandrian tactics as much as possible. My usual pre-battle setup is a modified Gaugamela battle line.



Hypaspists guard the flanks of the phalanx, which is refused on the left wing, as I use my right wing as my main attack arm. I put cretan archers and skirmishers out front to pepper the enemy lines as much as possible, attempting to draw the enemy forward on the sarissas of my phalanx. If the enemy has a large force of archers I bring up my phalanx as quickly as possible in order to fix the enemy infantry in place, while minimizing the amount of time my own troops are under fire. If the enemy takes the bait and charges my lines I withdraw my archers and skirmishers through my phalanx and reposition them on my wings, supporting the hypaspists. I also keep a unit or two of spearmen in reserve in anticipation of enemy flanking cavalry maneuvers. My general I keep being the phalanx where he urges his men on for the glory of Macedon and the memory of Alexander. I put him behind my phalanx for his morale bonus so my phalanx will keep the enemy infantry occupied as long as possible and not break. While this is happening, hopefully on the right wing the Hypaspists have adequately guarded against enemy flanking maneuvers and my 5 unit-strong cavalry force has made it's way behind enemy lines to disrupt (slaughter) the enemy missile troops or kill the enemy general. Then they'll begin striking the enemy infantry from the flanks or rear in repeated hammer n' anvil charges.

Well, that's the pre-battle PLAN anyway. It never quite works out that well in practice.

wow that is an excellent strategey i tried something different last night by having the heavy infantry in the middle with auxilia units on the ends of it with Velities in the front and archers in the rear and some Auxilia on the sides of the archers and calvery just spread out into a double line