East vs West (Total War: Rome II Online Battle #227)

Hey what's up guys it's Oakley and we are back here in Rome 2. I'm going to be playing as Pontus. My ally on the right hand flank is going to be Parthia. So two eastern factions and we're going to be playing against two western factions actually. One of them is going to be Rome off in the distance. You can see Rome's legions advancing and Rome's ally is actually going to be coming from Spain. I believe it's going to be the Iberians. Yep here we go. So very interesting kind of army compositions all around. I like Iberia skirmishing heavy but still with some pretty heavy hitting infantry who aren't necessarily the most armored but they are definitely very good fighters. They have pretty good cavalry as well although the Celtiberian cab isn't necessarily the best. It's good at picking off skirmishers but really not good in an engaged fight. You should be bringing some of the more heavy cavalry to make it pay for itself. And then of course these Iberian tribes are known for their skirmishers. Iberian slingers are relatively cheap but they can get the job done. And actually it's the fact that these infantry bodies all have a lot of precursor javelins. That's kind of what can make them pretty good at skirmishing. The fact that almost any unit can be used to kite the enemy. And so let's see if this player ends up doing just that. What I'm doing is I'm driving a wedge here with my two mercenary Scythian horse archers. They're going to be plunging ahead and they're going to take pot shots into the rear. Parthian shot into the rear of these more lightly armored infantry. One of the Roman legions, the auxiliary cab actually is going to try and turn about and help their ally out. And I'm going to go ahead and just charge straight into this with my cavalry. Get a couple shots into the mix and then peel out from both sides. This is a classic step tactics. Now the Roman cavalry here was smart and it's going to try and rein itself in. But in the retreat it's actually going to take additional fire. So that is one of the things that the step tribes would do very well. Bait Romans out of position and fire them in the rear. The main engagement is going to be taking place in the front. My ally has hoplite up. Hoplited up? Hoplited up? Falling stuff? However you want to say it. Which is going to be a perfect chance for me to come in and lawnmower these guys. I will premise this battle by saying it is not going to be the highest skill battle. So just take it for what it's worth. A little bit of eye candy and chance for me to talk. So the main engagement is going to be coming off here. And like I said I did want to take the opportunity to talk. I've been getting some feedback on the content for the channel. People, well let me start off by saying Warhammer seems to be getting a lot of views. It's a great game that's being really well supported by CA. We're seeing a lot of great stuff with custom maps and all that. And it's one of the more lively Total Wars we've seen in a while. The community is you know pretty much thriving. And it's being very heavily supported and for good reason. So you're seeing a lot of stuff on my channel focus around Warhammer. And you're not seeing too much of the older titles. Frankly part of it is because as I said the community is more lively. It's easier to get fun games in Warhammer. But also the fact that just the views in terms of YouTube tend to favor more of the fantasy genre. This will include you know Game of Thrones stuff, Lord of the Rings stuff. A lot of people kind of like that and history doesn't seem to do as well. So that's kind of the reasoning behind not seeing as much of it. Kind of twofold not being able to get games as readily. But then also the fact that just views kind of point towards more favoritism towards Warhammer. That being said I really do enjoy the older titles. You will definitely be seeing me continue to go back there. But it's not always a guarantee that you'll get the best games. Speaking of history though I am doing a couple more concerted pushes to produce documentaries. As you guys saw I've been continuing my Siege of Jerusalem videos which I think are doing really well. And I'm excited to keep pushing those forward. However I've been working on a lot of stuff. I'm juggling so many projects on the side it's kind of crazy. So right now I'm caught in a bit of a transition period where I have both Total War Warhammer and you know other Total War titles. And then also documentaries. And so I'm kind of juggling the two to the point where the history videos are kind of these blockbuster episodes that come out frankly once a month. And the rest is all filler of Total War content. And that has put me in a weird position. I don't necessarily consider myself a straight up Total War channel or a straight up history channel. Which has some people confused. A lot of the new subscribers actually who come in end up favoring the history. And a lot of the people who end up coming end up favoring Warhammer. But there's not that much of a crossover between the two. A lot of channels tend to do better when they try and focus on a certain topic or a certain theme. So if I were to go in 100% Total War I think I would get a bit more satisfaction from people. I'd be able to do a bit more in terms of covering all the various Total War titles. More than I am now and I could do more interesting things. Same prospect goes for history. If I were to focus entirely on history I could do a lot more. And with a little bit of thought I think I'm going to go a bit more in the future towards more history content. Now that doesn't mean you're going to be seeing less and less Total War. It just means I'm going to have to find a way to fit more and more history. And the way I want to do that is by having more history content that is kind of short form like these Total War videos. Because right now I have kind of my history priorities all mixed up. Or at least the marketing of YouTube all mixed up. Right now my history documentaries take a lot of resources and they're directed at a very small hardcore history audience. So that's the polar opposite of what you want. You know clearly to be successful you want something that doesn't take a lot of resources and that reaches a wider audience. So I'm doing the polar opposite of that right now and I want to change that. Now I don't want to reduce the quality of my videos but what I want to do is make it a bit more short form. So I'm going to be starting to develop some stuff behind the scenes that you'll be getting wind of here soon. It's going to be a shorter form series of documentaries where I can focus on little aspects of history without doing these huge in-depth sweeping narratives. Now I'll continue to do those but you'll be seeing a bit more of these short form videos crop up. That'll allow me to kind of churn out more history content and fill it up so there aren't these big gaps and voids between history content. I think that's going to be a nice balance to strike. So yeah stay tuned for that. It'll also give me a bit more flexibility to cover more topics than just the Roman era and I'll probably be branching out to different ways to share that content than just total war footage. I'll probably use images, artwork, and things like that. Back to the battle at hand, I mean not so much happened strategically. It was essentially a big crash in the front lines here. That's where the body count kind of shows and then myself with the chariots sweeping around hitting the enemy in the rear. Rome tried to help out with some auxiliary cav but it's been swarmed by myself and my allies tearing the enemy apart on the open steps. And this for instance is a thing I'd like to cover as well. If I do short form history content I'd like to also do a series that's probably just on tactics. Literally like pinpricks of tactics. Like what is the feigned flight for steppe armies? Literally that's it. Don't have to do a context of the culture or campaigns or anything too crazy. I can just get in and out with three four minutes talking about tactics. Same thing about Rome. Probably do something on the triplex achies, duplex achies, simplex achies. We can do the boar's head and all kinds of little things like that. I think that's the kind of content you guys would like to see. Back to over on this side, my chariots continue to run around. Same thing happened over here. The Romans ran headlong into my spears and then I came and cleaned up with my chariots. 454 kills, triple chevrons on them already. They're doing Jupiter's work here and now they're going to clean up the triarii who are running away. Then my mass archers and slingers are going to be picking apart the last of the Roman units. Not too much happened in this battle. This was kind of a filler opportunity to let you know what's been going on with a little bit of background footage of combat. The main takeaways are that I do want to continue doing various Total War titles. Not just Warhammer but that currently the market is pushing me to do a bit more Warhammer. I don't want anyone to feel like I'm leaving out the traditional Total War stuff but that's just kind of where I'm getting the pressure to cover. Then on top of that I do want to speak out to anyone who's interested in the history content. I will definitely be trying to change things up, do more short form content and try and bring you more sustained, a larger volume of content as opposed to these once a month documentaries because I think that'll bring a lot of growth to my channel and it's definitely something I want to pursue. It'll be less exhausting than these big ass documentaries that I put together all the time. But that's it for this video. Kind of all I wanted to talk about and yeah a nice backdrop of Total War. Let's end the replay take a look at some of the stats. I got some monstrous kills like you saw with the sides chariots. Some of the levy pikemen who were uber cheap got 120 kills against the enemy. Yeah you never want to be charging into pikes straight forward. Let's take a look at my ally here. He got a lot of kills with the cataphracts, hammer and anvilling. Even hillman getting 70, 70, excuse me 73, 70, 47 kills. That's, that's more than a hillman could ever dream of having. That is an absurd number of kills for a hillman. So yeah we, I mean Ralph will stomp the enemy. I do want to point out as well that people have noted a slight difference in my videos in that previously with older Total Wars I would focus a lot on tactics, the mechanics of winning battles and give a lot of pointers and tips and tricks. I've gotten a bit away from that unfortunately. Part of it is due to the fact that I'm not super adept at Total War Warhammer and can't give the same type of advice. Kind of because the Total War Warhammer meta plays out differently and I'm not as keen on you know the strategies of Warhammer knowing all the spells and the unit stats. It's a bit over my head unfortunately to say. Whereas I'm a bit more at home with the older Total Wars but as I said with less content covering those Total Wars because there's less demand for it you're seeing as a result less of these tactical videos. Which is I think a staple of what the channel used to be and we've seen a bit of a move away from that. Which I think is unfortunate but I'll try and as I said make up for it with these throwback videos and then also historical documentaries specifically on tactics. So that's it for this video. Hope you guys enjoyed. Definitely stay tuned for more and if you do like the military history stuff definitely check out my Facebook channel. I'll give previews for upcoming documentaries and then also share with you just other history related content that I find interesting. Images, articles, archaeological finds, just all kinds of variety stuff. So definitely head on over there if you want to take a look and if you're interested. So that's it. Peace out.