light spear balance (vs. swords) in 1.2

[Metaluis90]

Praetorians are far from the elite soldiers in this game. TAB's should slaughter them. I would think Carthage has at least 3 units capable of beating them (Elite Liby Phonecians, Iberian Assault, Sacred Band), Arche 3 as well (TAB's, Hypaspistai, Peltastai Makedonikai), I would think Solduros, Carnutes, and Gaesatae would beat them, maybe even Neitos. In fact there are probably about 20 better units, maybe more.

yes, I also tried pretorians vs gaesatae, and the celts would have beaten them, if I hadn't use guard mode.

So if pretorians are far from the elite of the elite of the game, where does their strenght lies? in their stamina?

[Suraknar]

Hello all, this is a great discussion to say the least.

Well I am making a Mod based on EB (customizing my experience mainly), and I run in to this issue as well while trying to balance units to my liking so I run a search to see and found many threads about this Spear issue.

Anyhow my final solution as of now is to give

"Spear, Light_Spear" attributes to units with Phalanx and Long Pikes, this way they get both defense +8 and attack +8 against cavalry , while they get Attack and defense -4 against infantry.

Non phalanx and units I left to "Light_spear" and added "Spear_bonus_4", this way they get +8 defense bonus against cavalry, -4 defense against infanrty, and +4 attack against cavalry, and since they have short spears compared to the Phalanx units, but still get some bonus compared to non spear infantry vs cavalry.

The idea being that "Cavalry > Infantry > Spearmen > Cavalry".

Run some tests so far it looks good and thus I did not have to fiddle with attack and defense ratings. And accoding to EDU definitions there does not seem to be any conflicts with combining "Spear, Long_Pike, Light_spear" attributes.

Just thought to share this in case its useful to anyone.

[Jackaloboulos]

I've read through the thread, but I still don't understand--have we confirmed whether or not the modifier is intended from a Team Member?

[ninja51]

Im really not sure about this. Looking at it some levy greek hoplites have better attack and defence than some mercenary Galatian shortswordsmen which doesnt seem quite right. Im just on the fence about nerfing spearmen unless they were really intended to have this nerf. I dont want them to become too ineffective, but I want that elite groop of swordsman in good armour to be better than my levy phalanx in actual battle skill if they get past the spearwall

[ximxim]

Im really not sure about this. Looking at it some levy greek hoplites have better attack and defence than some mercenary Galatian shortswordsmen which doesnt seem quite right. Im just on the fence about nerfing spearmen unless they were really intended to have this nerf. I dont want them to become too ineffective, but I want that elite groop of swordsman in good armour to be better than my levy phalanx in actual battle skill if they get past the spearwall

I'd argue it's shortswordmen in general which should be buffed, rather than spearmen nerfed. Most longsword infantry will do very well against spearmen.

[Jackaloboulos]

I dont want them to become too ineffective, but I want that elite groop of swordsman in good armour to be better than my levy phalanx in actual battle skill if they get past the spearwall

I agree absolutely, and that makes me wonder: should spearmen get a bonus, even against cavalry, after the charge, once battle is joined and more or less a stationary affair?

[ninja51]

Im just looking for someone to say yes or no about this. Are spear units incorrectly too powerfull? I dont want them to be unnecissarily too weak but I do want swordsmen to be actual contenders not the bums that they are. I suppose it doesnt matter though, threads a year old the files uploaded are gone, and I doubt ill get a real answer

[vollorix]

I, too, reduced the attack value of all spearmen ( -4 ).
From all the games i´ve played since then i can say the following:
- The Phalangitai units aren´t really concerned, except their ability to fight AI FM, which are rediculously strong anyway ( last time a FM of Epirotes just cut his way through my Deuteroi phalanx, routing 2 units with a little support from Thureophoroi ).
- The Hoplitai Haploi perform now as they should, imo; but the Classical Hoplites suck a lot against sword infantry, especially against "ap" units. I think, one should give them at least 2 attack back ( though, they are still quite cool against horsemen ). On the other hand i use BI.exe and therefore "shieldwall" - if you do, let them as they are, because otherwise they are simply unbreakable/unstopable.
- I haven´t tried the elite units like Agema Ordeton etc. - but since this guys are quite tought anyway, and they can make shieldwall, too, they might be ok.
- Ippikrates Hoplites are normaly underpowered, so to compensate the loss of attack value, and also to make them usefull, i´ve improved their stamina to "very hardy" - now they are quite ok.

That would be all for now, i´ll post some more observations when i have something usefull to say again.

[Drewski]

I, too, reduced the attack value of all spearmen ( -4 ).
From all the games i´ve played since then i can say the following:
- The Phalangitai units aren´t really concerned, except their ability to fight AI FM, which are rediculously strong anyway ( last time a FM of Epirotes just cut his way through my Deuteroi phalanx, routing 2 units with a little support from Thureophoroi ).
- The Hoplitai Haploi perform now as they should, imo; but the Classical Hoplites suck a lot against sword infantry, especially against "ap" units. I think, one should give them at least 2 attack back ( though, they are still quite cool against horsemen ). On the other hand i use BI.exe and therefore "shieldwall" - if you do, let them as they are, because otherwise they are simply unbreakable/unstopable.
- I haven´t tried the elite units like Agema Ordeton etc. - but since this guys are quite tought anyway, and they can make shieldwall, too, they might be ok.
- Ippikrates Hoplites are normaly underpowered, so to compensate the loss of attack value, and also to make them usefull, i´ve improved their stamina to "very hardy" - now they are quite ok.

That would be all for now, i´ll post some more observations when i have something usefull to say again.

Been awhile since this thread goto started, but since I was one of the primary plantiffs, here's my most recent take on things.....

-4 across the board is imbalanced. So what I did some time back, was introduce a sliding scale, dependant on the units cost, training and supposed abilities.

Levy spearman -4 attack in virtually everycase (same with almost all Archers that have spears as secondary).E.g. Levy Hoplites should be a garrison/peacekeeping force. They should not be line infantry ever. Look at any "suprisingly good unit" thread and Levy Hoplites are right up there. Well take away the 4 attack and they perform very normally, as should be.

The middle spear units, -3 attack, the better ones -2 attack. Phalanx units have double shield value when in phalax mode, so giving them 5 shield (when its a tiny little thing as well) is ridiculous. Normal Phalanx therefore have a "2" shield and Elite Phalanx have "3" shield, in addition to the above modifiers. This makes them slightly susceptible to missile file (instead of impervious as before), but still tough as nails from the front. Autocalc is seemingly unaffected.

These honestly work very well in SP mode (never tried) MP. My last huge campaign was as KH (all spear), current is Mak, having some superb proper mixed full stack action vs a strong AS atm.

[Rahl]

I changed my EDU a lot over the last years to improve balance. I don't really like the idea of reducing the spear attack, at least not in EB on rtw.exe where you don't have the spear_bonus attributes. Heavy cavalry can already beat spearmen cost effective-wise with repeated charges, reducing their attack makes them even weaker. The problem aren't to strong spearmen but too weak shortsword units. Longsword wielding warriors perform relative good against spearmen only shortswords suck against both of the others. So what I did was to give more lethality to the shortswords (1.0->1.3 and 1.3->1.5) and sometimes extra attack or defence points to single units who were completely underpowered, like pontic thorakitai. Falcata and kopis now have 1.4 lethality instead of 1.1 but one attack reduced (similar to clubs I think), it's hard to balance them because of the overpowered ap-attribute but I think they work better now.
I did some other changes too, longswordmen got +1 defence skills, cavalry +1 or +2 defence and heavily improved secondary weapons (+20% lethality mostly in additions to the changed swordsword lethality). Phalangitai got reduced shield defence (3 for levies, 4 for the others) and -1 armor (the team said they already did this but as far as I understand the armor system I couldn't see difference to non-phalanx-units) and lowered secondary attack but gave some more defence skill.

I tested a lot in costum battles and played several months with different factions and the balance is way better but far from perfect since that's not possible in the RTW engine especially not without the extra attributes of BI.

[Jackaloboulos]

I changed my EDU a lot over the last years to improve balance. I don't really like the idea of reducing the spear attack, at least not in EB on rtw.exe where you don't have the spear_bonus attributes. Heavy cavalry can already beat spearmen cost effective-wise with repeated charges, reducing their attack makes them even weaker. The problem aren't to strong spearmen but too weak shortsword units. Longsword wielding warriors perform relative good against spearmen only shortswords suck against both of the others. So what I did was to give more lethality to the shortswords (1.0->1.3 and 1.3->1.5) and sometimes extra attack or defence points to single units who were completely underpowered, like pontic thorakitai. Falcata and kopis now have 1.4 lethality instead of 1.1 but one attack reduced (similar to clubs I think), it's hard to balance them because of the overpowered ap-attribute but I think they work better now.
I did some other changes too, longswordmen got +1 defence skills, cavalry +1 or +2 defence and heavily improved secondary weapons (+20% lethality mostly in additions to the changed swordsword lethality). Phalangitai got reduced shield defence (3 for levies, 4 for the others) and -1 armor (the team said they already did this but as far as I understand the armor system I couldn't see difference to non-phalanx-units) and lowered secondary attack but gave some more defence skill.

I tested a lot in costum battles and played several months with different factions and the balance is way better but far from perfect since that's not possible in the RTW engine especially not without the extra attributes of BI.

Glad to hear that you found a formula that works! But when you said "without the extra attributes of BI," did you mean that you're not running Europa Barbarorum on the BI engine? I'm eager to try out your setup, but I use BI, so I'm thinking that I should look before I leap; I imagine it does make a significant difference.

[mcantu]

I changed my EDU a lot over the last years to improve balance. I don't really like the idea of reducing the spear attack, at least not in EB on rtw.exe where you don't have the spear_bonus attributes. Heavy cavalry can already beat spearmen cost effective-wise with repeated charges, reducing their attack makes them even weaker. The problem aren't to strong spearmen but too weak shortsword units. Longsword wielding warriors perform relative good against spearmen only shortswords suck against both of the others. So what I did was to give more lethality to the shortswords (1.0->1.3 and 1.3->1.5) and sometimes extra attack or defence points to single units who were completely underpowered, like pontic thorakitai. Falcata and kopis now have 1.4 lethality instead of 1.1 but one attack reduced (similar to clubs I think), it's hard to balance them because of the overpowered ap-attribute but I think they work better now.
I did some other changes too, longswordmen got +1 defence skills, cavalry +1 or +2 defence and heavily improved secondary weapons (+20% lethality mostly in additions to the changed swordsword lethality). Phalangitai got reduced shield defence (3 for levies, 4 for the others) and -1 armor (the team said they already did this but as far as I understand the armor system I couldn't see difference to non-phalanx-units) and lowered secondary attack but gave some more defence skill.

I tested a lot in costum battles and played several months with different factions and the balance is way better but far from perfect since that's not possible in the RTW engine especially not without the extra attributes of BI.

actually, the spear_bonus_x attribute was added with the RTW 1.3 patch. iirc, the EB team made the +4 across the board addition to spear units when the spear attribute was being used (back in EB 0.8x) because it gives -4 attack to spear units. when they switched to light_spear though (which gives -4 defense skill), they did not remove the +4 attack or move the +4 to defense skill. so, IMO an across the board reduction of -4 to the attack of spear units makes total sense.

[Jackaloboulos]

Been awhile since this thread goto started, but since I was one of the primary plantiffs, here's my most recent take on things.....

-4 across the board is imbalanced. So what I did some time back, was introduce a sliding scale, dependant on the units cost, training and supposed abilities.

Levy spearman -4 attack in virtually everycase (same with almost all Archers that have spears as secondary).E.g. Levy Hoplites should be a garrison/peacekeeping force. They should not be line infantry ever. Look at any "suprisingly good unit" thread and Levy Hoplites are right up there. Well take away the 4 attack and they perform very normally, as should be.

The middle spear units, -3 attack, the better ones -2 attack. Phalanx units have double shield value when in phalax mode, so giving them 5 shield (when its a tiny little thing as well) is ridiculous. Normal Phalanx therefore have a "2" shield and Elite Phalanx have "3" shield, in addition to the above modifiers. This makes them slightly susceptible to missile file (instead of impervious as before), but still tough as nails from the front. Autocalc is seemingly unaffected.

These honestly work very well in SP mode (never tried) MP. My last huge campaign was as KH (all spear), current is Mak, having some superb proper mixed full stack action vs a strong AS atm.

Drewski, this sounds like a pretty well-thought-out fix. Do you think you could please upload it? I'd love to take it for a spin. Plus, all of the other uploaded fixes in this thread give me the Game Front "File not found, you will be redirected to..." message.

[Jackaloboulos]

Drewski, this sounds like a pretty well-thought-out fix. Do you think you could please upload it? I'd love to take it for a spin. Plus, all of the other uploaded fixes in this thread give me the Game Front "File not found, you will be redirected to..." message.

Maybe too soon...but...bump? I'd really love to try your current solution, Drewski.