Total War: Rome II - Egypt vs Macedon (Online Battle #16)

Sup guys today, we're gonna be doing another battle. This is gonna be me playing as the Egyptians against an opponent He's gonna be playing as Macedon. This is actually gonna be a very good battle I hope you guys can learn from this and I hope you enjoy my opponent plays very very well And you'll notice actually and I'll point this out in the video that it seems like he's using hot keys And that's uh, it's actually gonna be very efficient with the army that he's building that he's using right here Which is gonna be Pikes. Pikes are actually surprisingly maneuverable Flexible and responsive as you'll see in this battle and it's all based off a hot king It's actually this opponent who has sort of inspired me I think I'm gonna start looking into using the hot keys a lot more especially for these types of builds Anyways, let's look at his army. He has mostly an army composed of foot companions and Thorax pikemen, so he's a lot of those pikemen and then he has six of his cavalry So those are gonna be a combination of asbestos and companion cavalry myself I only have four cavalry. But what I also have is elephants and chariots hidden around the side and I actually have some spear So we saw early in the battle is I have three hidden units on the very left My goal is to sort of make my opponent fixated on the front and try and get him around the back with those three units I figured chariots Cavalry and spearmen are enough to deliver a blow around the back and hopefully knock him off Anyways, you can see here He's formed up with his mass of pikes and we're gonna start a dance here and it's gonna be a lot of jockeying for The positions on the side my build right here. Obviously has mostly Melly infantry and so my goal is to get around the sides of his pikes attacking them head-on is suicide So I'm gonna be trying to get at him It's sort of like trying to get past a wall and he's constantly gonna have to keep shifting the wall So you're gonna see a lot of this dancing go around and I hope you can learn from it Anyways what he's doing right here is he's starting to move towards the woods. So I'm a little worried about that in the woods It's probably good for his Spears because it means my cavalry can't land hammer and anvil strikes on the back of them to effectively also I can't really see what's going on I have to zoom in very closely to see if his spears are facing the right all that stuff So I try and push a little bit more on the right and try and engage his cavalry on the very right flank and to hold Him up here. What I'm gonna do is feign a charge right here I obviously don't anticipate charging his men, but it's enough to get him to pull his cavalry back So he's gonna halt right here. And what I decide to do is okay It looks like I've caught him in the middle stopped him And so what we're gonna do is we're gonna push right So in order to do that, I have to cover my left flank obviously, which is why I have spears there They're gonna moving up holding up that front My center is gonna move back as you see me often do in many of my battles and then I'm gonna push the right side Now in order to push the right side, I don't have as many Calvary as him So what I'm gonna do is move in elephants my general and then also another cavalry body and that's gonna be enough to push him back and We'll see how my opponent reacts. Anyways, you can see my cavalry dancing in front of him has drawn fire from his archers He put them on fire mode that does less damage. So that was kind of lucky for me, although he does land one kill So that's a dangerous maneuver on my part I might have kept them a bit closer for too long But I figured if they're not staying there for you know, too long a time it keeps his forces fixed So you can see here now he has to react to what I'm doing. And that's because these elephants are basically The the key players to this they are what are dictating the battle right now Elephants are such big targets and have such a big impact on the battle that they're kind of them the centerpiece that everyone's gonna be Looking at so depending on where they are moving. That's how my opponents gonna react So I decide to push heavily on the right and you can see his cavalry on the left are gonna start pushing this way He's rearranging his archers. He's doing everything possible to combat that flanking attack He's moving his whole army there so you can see now he's moving all the way to the right So my opponent is doing a good job of keeping me from moving around the flanks, but by moving too heavily on this side I'm actually gonna be able to move more effectively on the left that opens me up and I figure he's busy microing So I'm gonna pull these guys around back Now you can see he's opened up this side here and I'm gonna decide to charge in you can see all his pikes immediately Went into spear wall or pike formation. I think that's the speed with which he did It means he has them hotkeyed so you can see how effectively they drop them now. They're moving again I think he took them out of it very rapidly. You can see just how quickly they're deploying So my opponent is really not letting me get around the side. I'm having a hard time And that's what he does very effectively this battle You can see my units in the front are really not forming a solid line Keep in mind that you don't actually have to form a solid line Just because my units are in the vicinity means he has enough of a threat in this in the center I don't have to be arrayed directly at him. Your units can be a little bit facing in different directions because Especially against a spear wall. It's not like I'm gonna be charging head-on, but just the pressure there Is all I need now, you can see I forced him into more of a choke At this point, he's gonna unleash with his arrows. So I'm gonna try and wrap around the sides I figured I've got his cab in a good position My spears have actually made it around the side So they're gonna be the thing that pushes his cavalry back forces him to fold in on himself Make some more and more compact at the same time. I'm not quite in the position to move my melee infantry forward So what I decide to do is move around the sides here I'm gonna sacrifice one cab unit to try and pin his down my opponent in response He's gonna move all his spears back. He's gonna start shuffling his cavalry But what this has done is it's allowed me to get some of his Sarissa cab here with my spears and this whole flank here Is gonna be open same on the other side. I'm gonna keep swinging these guys around his thorax pikemen Trying to engage them But my opponent is gonna be quick enough and react and move them out of the way just before my guys can get there But what you can see here is I've trapped his cavalry right behind his spears He doesn't have much spear support and so they're all in glob and that's what I'm gonna start charging in with all my units from The front however, it's still an impregnable wall I can't really get around there But as they're reforming I'm gonna try and put some pressure on them You can see what I've done in the back is my cavalry are moving in his cavalry are not really in the best position to React so I'm gonna get a two-on-one charge right here. That's gonna be to my benefit So even though he is new parent numerically superior Calvary because I was able to engage them in such like a cornered position He can't take advantage of his numbers his spears out here that are sort of not in perfect arrangement I'm gonna try and engage him with my guys I'm gonna deploy my chariots and try and move them into the thick of that infantry fight Or at least around the sides of his guys and this huge calve blob is exactly where I'm gonna charge in my elephants My opponent however switches targeting from his archers round to my elephants my cavalry right there decide not to engage They're gonna try and free up those infantry there same time I'm gonna try and prove move my chariots over to the front you can see there's that gap in his line that I'm gonna try And engage over on the right. I got to pull my guys out there facing the brunt of his spears That's not not where I want to be my elephants at the same time have lost control, but that's fine They're gonna be charging in and amongst his men He's gonna charge forward here and decides to go for the juicy target That is my chariots chariots actually do relatively well against horses in this occasion especially with infantry support So they're gonna take him out still a massive scrum back here I'm not doing super well, but that's because I'm facing his spear so I decide you know I have my chariots and these infantry on the flank Let's go ahead and just push these guys right through in the middle and try and slice up his men that aren't facing me This doesn't go actually according to plan as you can see right here my chariots are an attack order but they're just kind of sitting there and that gives enough time for my opponent to start rear for ranging his troops and This is gonna be bad for me. My chariots are caught in a bad position I have to retract them so they're gonna start pulling out my elephants are still doing damage But over here I had to retreat my guys so what you can see is in the center He's one and I'm trying to push him back on the extremities But his spears are being actually very very effective And he has so many of them anytime I try and charge him he can reform and pose a pretty solid front against me I see his spears here are out of spear formation. I'm gonna move my chariots in over here I'm trying to knock out his asbestos and his extremities his skirmishers all the troops out there my chariots move right in here I figured they get a couple kills But at that exact instant my troops route and my chariots are left high and dry and he basically collapses on them So the chariots right there were not used super effectively, but again It is kind of hard to do it when he has a lot of spears so I I would applaud the build of my opponent So what's happening right now is basically we're moving into new phase of the battle He's knocked out my chariots and my elephants. I've knocked out most of his cavalry, and I'm gonna try and Reform my opponent is gonna try and reform as well He knows that the strength of his spikes is gonna be their uniformity there if they can form a solid front So that's what he's gonna retreat to do my guys gonna make sure I don't attack them But he still has some cavalry guys here And they're gonna try and pick off my men While his main front can just kind of sit there And he's gonna try and whittle me down as much as possible and just take away as many of my advantages I form up into a shield wall And I'm able to get a surround on his general and cavalry here And I figured that was good for me because if I can knock on his general That's gonna be a huge blow to his morale and his abilities his pike wall in response is gonna be moving up rapidly you can See he Activates some abilities. He's gonna be moving up with the vengeance, but at the same time he Still is kind of nervous about engaging my troops because I have troops behind his back behind his flank I'm gonna take the opportunity to recharge some of his skirmishers there They're just just keep flaming my guys, so I'm gonna try and take them out meanwhile He's his main bodies keeping the pressure on I'm trying to ward off his cavalry with those troops there my opponent Cleverly moves back one of his spears catches me right before I hit his guys But at least I was able to ward them off now He has more cavalry going around the side and so he's actually not engaging his spears He's his he's just holding them back for the opportune moment he's kind of using up all his troops that don't comprise the bulk of his infantry and he's gonna wear them out till they're Basically till they run out and try and see how much damage they can inflict on me and then follow up with his spears This is a very effective strategy something I would recommend you guys do and that you should learn from my opponent at this point He started to sandwich my troops his cavalry there held out much longer And I was hoping to you know kill his general in the last moment But it was not to be my guys just got surrounded so what I'm gonna be doing here is trying to Hit his his pikes his pikes are all engaged and so that means they're gonna have some backs facing me my opponent However has kept two of his pikes in the back, and they're gonna be running some anti-cavalry movements One of my Galatians is still full health so I know if I can get some of his pikes out of formation That's gonna be perfect I back charge some of his cavalry at those spears my Galatians over there engage some of his guys and finally I'm able to Out micro his spearman in the back and get at his archers But at this point they're kind of inconsequential Here my Galatians are engaging with his pikemen I kind of have a surround but again my opponent is quick on his micro And he gets them back into spear formation over here the fight is getting desperate my spearmen are not holding up Well my cavalry are gonna try and come out and land an anvil strike Thank God my general still alive the royal peltas does very well I go ahead and pop the rally ability and the raised flag ability because I'm not sure if my opponents gonna Kill my general now he decides to disengage and replace his asterisk cavalry with some spears That's gonna be a good move because he wants to keep those cavalry alive for a hammer and anvil over here I'm trying to keep it on these guys I don't want them facing the full brunt of his spear wall seeing as they're fully formed I'm gonna pull my guys back over here. You can see I'm trying to pull out I don't want to engage too much with this spear wall my opponent over here figures These are the last of my strong troops. He's gonna charge them. I go into shield wall That's the best way to fight cavalry is to brace yourself for the attack, so I'm actually gonna do pretty well Over here. I see some of his pikemen are Low on numbers. They're exhausted, so I'm gonna charge them from the side again My opponent is quick to react quick to click that a drop go into filing stability And so it doesn't do as much damage as I expected if I had some energy in the vicinity to follow up I probably could have routed them, but my opponent is able to kill me as I was saying over here I'm pretty effective against his cavalry knock out one of his aspis and at the same time. I'm just gonna try and Dance these guys around I'm hoping my Galatians can start mopping up his units I know they've been engaged in comment for a while. You can see his companion and his thorax spearman Thorax pikeman excuse me all gonna be pretty tired pretty exhausted So I'm hoping I can kind of keep dancing my opponent realizes that I might be winning the fight here And so he decides to stop the chase from the rest of our army He knows if he can knock out my Galatians. That's gonna be it for my troops I charge in some calvary here hoping to halt his advance But again my opponent drops the spears and gets the best of me in that engagement Right here my guys are wavering, but they're able to attack his his companions at the same time I do have some royal Peltas engaging his spears from the side. They're gonna start crumbling relatively soon You can see I'm getting the better of them, but my opponent keeps his cavalry cycle charging in and out in and out That's exactly what you want to do. You can see my Galatians right here They charge his guys by accident, and they just lost five or six men right there in a couple seconds So you can just see how much you have to babysit them and how effective these spears can be if you get them pointing in The right direction my opponents gonna charge in I activate shield wall and even though he could have taken me out He's gonna be a very smart guy and not Risk it so that's very smart. He says I don't need to take these needless casualties I have a lot of pikemen to Use up and he's gonna save his horses for what they do best which is charging into the backs of my men Which is exactly what he does right here. I pop a rally I know that's gonna be basically the end of my general and I'm gonna try and at least Get some on the flanks of his guys here, but you can see he already has some guarding the backs of his men He's forming them up in sort of a not a new box, but a defensive position Holding off the slaughter basically right here my guys start to waver start to route, and we call it a game So I hope you guys enjoyed that battle very very well played on my opponent's side what I would say I could have done better was probably Keeping more cavalry closer to my main body in the end my attack from the back was pretty effective But just the sheer number of spears Negated any effect that my cavalry or my elephants or even my chariots had you can see here the number of kills of his Pikeman was very high my elephants and chariots were relatively low, and that's where the discrepancy came from anyways I hope you enjoyed it see you guys next time