[EB] EDU Balance Proposals

[Brave Brave Sir Robin]

I would like to point out to ASM that Baktria no longer has the problem of inferior archers. I played as them last month (June) like you once did and they were inferior in the archer department and I suffered a few losses out of that. However with the 100 man Persians new to July's edu, as Lazy has shown, they no longer have to worry about heavy or steppe archers since those Persians will soak up all the arrows just fine, thank you. This is no longer the weakness of Baktria with the new edu.

[Lazy O]

Id also say that things are not nearly as bad as people are making it out to be, Presently, id count only Sweboz and Makedonia as underpowered factions.

Btw Robin, please do come on today, alot of things to talk about.

[vartan]

We could run an anything goes tourney. Its more feasible now that infantry is stronger. If we eliminate the limits, I think it'll be easier to balance. After all, the limits are another balancing system and using two systems at once is a pain. Also steppe is overpowered in the current setting. We could remove everything but merc/phalanx limits.

Would the mercenary and phalanx limitations be applied across the board or would we still need to make a distinction between what a 'civ' and 'steppe' army are, so that distinct phalanx limits would be implemented?

[antisocialmunky]

I was not aware that they were sized 100 now. That changes quite abit. I can still imagine that fighting scaries is horrible since your units generally aren't that scary resistant and the weakness of light axe infantry in the current EDU probably underpower the majority of your infantry. When I played them, I took mass levy phalanx + eastern axe AP spam armies as indo-hellenic hoplites were fairly mediocre line infantry only suitable for combating certain factions.

Would the mercenary and phalanx limitations be applied across the board or would we still need to make a distinction between what a 'civ' and 'steppe' army are, so that distinct phalanx limits would be implemented?

No steppe/civilized distinction but limit of 5 mercs (faction flavor) and 8 phalanx (no retarded .3 lethality boxes).

[vartan]

Boxes are retarded indeed. But the high lethality is there so that the phalanx kills from the front at a more pleasing rate. How do you compensate the two?

[antisocialmunky]

I don't understand why you are asking that. I'm saying keep hte 8 phalanx limit so people can't phalanx spam/box.

[vartan]

They can't do that anyway. Or rather they still do, even if it's not 360 degrees...people do a lot of things.

[antisocialmunky]

I'm the only one here who knows how to control infantry well enough to chew my way through one (legally).

Besides, we can only play so many games a month. How much time do you want to waste on listening to Phalanx spam complaints when people whine about Cohort spam?

[vartan]

I don't know anymore...

[Vega]

Currently watched lazyo's archer balance and i totally agree persians can match with imperials and cretans and they are much cheaper then them..

[Lazy O]

^Because he experienced it first hand :)

[-Stormrage-]

Here are some more balancing suggestions :

Archers need to get a decrease in moral (so they dont stand in the face of a cav charge and fight like heavy infantry)

i dont know anything about this but is are helmets supposed to have a value of 4 armour ?

how about a new way of going about making heavy archers. instead of making archers heavy by giving them tons of armour, why dont we give them medium armour and a little more sheild, so that they dont act like heavy infantry when their arrows run out. heavy archers right now have 10 armour (imperials) the same value as pontic heavy infantry, and 7 armour (bosphorans) i beleive the same as some of the medium infantry. I would say 5 armour with 3,4 or 5 shield is better.

[Vega]

storm i know you are talking about imperial but every roman soldier have big morale that is their biggest wapeon and about routing why should they route from 1 cavarly charge if they are four unit of them and if they have around them a lot of roman legionaries and general :DD

[antisocialmunky]

Its less of an issue of high morale and more of an issue of loose formations jacking up cavalry charges.

[Kival]

And we will not give a unit which historically HAD the same armour as a legionair a armour value which is worse. Bospharan Archers are MEANT to hold in melee... etc.

@storm

I fear, you do not understand the basic concept of EB: to represent the historical troops as accurate as possible with the engine of Rome. There is no "heavy archer" concept. A unit does not (only) get stats because it belongs to some artifical category.

[Brave Brave Sir Robin]

The solution to heavy archers is to make them more expensive. Archers equipped like heavy infantry that are also a professional force should be priced like heavy infantry.

[Vega]

Ok guys i know that my thinking is not so much important but lets be clear is this balancing game that all factions must be almost same or game based on historical facts where every faction have their benefits and weakness... :DD

[antisocialmunky]

They cost equivalent to better melee infantry. :\

They feel stronger because they are shooting and not losing much stamina and end up fighting tired units.

[Lazy O]

Nevertheless, Archers rout too slowly to cavalry, you would need a cata charge at the very least to insta rout them. Melee cavalry, with their intended use being to kill all these archers and skirmishers, actually are crap against them since they die too fast to arrows and the archers take too long to rout.

[-Stormrage-]

save us gamegeek kenobi you are our only hope

[antisocialmunky]

Nevertheless, Archers rout too slowly to cavalry, you would need a cata charge at the very least to insta rout them. Melee cavalry, with their intended use being to kill all these archers and skirmishers, actually are crap against them since they die too fast to arrows and the archers take too long to rout.

Yeah, the main issue with fighting archers is if you guard mode them they will shoot arrow instead of melee like Legolas or something. You need sufficient mass to rout them instantly or its never worth it to charge them. Cost up may be a good solution but high end skirms do the EXACT SAME THING and have MOUNT EFFECT so if you're going to nerf archer screwing up cav, you should nerf skirms screwing up cav.

Its not pure RPS logic in EB and you really need to take advantage of cavalry mass to make cav cost effective (as in 3 cav charge 1 unit that's vulnerable). I suppose a suitable counter would be to make it so medium cav comes in like slightly bigger units. One of the biggest morale penalties in this game is being attacked by something larger.

Also, would it be possible, since slingers are quite underpowered to make them bigger?

[-Stormrage-]

Also, would it be possible, since slingers are quite underpowered to make them bigger?

Where were you when i was ranting about this the other day.

and i totally agree about decreasing archer and skirmisher morale that will solve the problem of skrewing up rear cav charges AND will effectively stop archers fighting like heavy infantry.

[Brave Brave Sir Robin]

Slingers underpowered? 4 slinger units following up an army are sufficient to destroy any heavy cav or at least keep them away while your infantry wins the battle before they are killed off by enemy archers.

[Kival]

What's wrong with strong spear skirmishers beeing able to stop cavalry? Or is it only about skirmishers in skirmish-mode? I really can't see that cavalry is so disadvantaged, good players with cav (not me!) win with their cav and players who are not so good lose because they've not yet learned to use them properly. One cav-charge of one unit does not root much but with some more charges (depending on the actual cavalry) you still can kill a lot.

[gamegeek2]

Im thinking right now a couple of tweaks:

-Another 1 attack point for javelin skirmishers
-Persianarchers get 6 or lower morale (they should be instarouted by cavalry)
-Archer spearmen get 8 morale but 3 arrow attack

[-Stormrage-]

persians and spear archers arent even used . Our problem is imperial ,bosphoran, and cretan archers, those are the archers that need de-moralizing.

skirmishers should get low morale too.

The reason behind lowering morale for ALL archers and skirmishers is so that people stop using them too ruin cav charges. But maybe skirmishers and archers WERE historically used to stop cav charges.

Edit: i dont think +1 attack for javelins will do anything especially since almost allEB units have ALOT of armour. Either decrease armour value of grieves, helmets, body armour etc. or give a mega boost to javs i was thinking 16 jav damage ,some of u might think its OP but you must remember javs are NOT AP and all EB units have alot of armour ( even naked people have 4 armour) .

[Lazy O]

Correction. If they are not fixed, you people will curse the day Persians were made into 100 men because of what ive planned for august.

And all skirmishers and archers should have 6 morale. I dont care, a simple village dud with a spear and small shield cannot stop a cavalry man. Elite Archers like Bosporan I suppose are fine as is, but beside them, even cretans and Imperials, every armoured archer should be 6 morale.

The biggest thing that would do is to stop people sitting around with 5 archers infront of 15 infantry with no cavalry and think they can win.

[Vega]

Lazy you are rightbut i think that rome is exeption about this they had won battles with infratry no with cavarly :D

[Kival]

Correction. If they are not fixed, you people will curse the day Persians were made into 100 men because of what ive planned for august.

Persians are a problem but that is no reason to lower the morale of every skirmisher and archer unit.

I dont care, a simple village dud with a spear and small shield cannot stop a cavalry man.

What are you speaking about? Luso skirms are described as part of the warror class, thrakian peltasts and dacian elite skirmishers are not just village duds...

And I still do not see a problem people using armies without cavalry.

[Lazy O]

Thracian Skirmishers... Yeah, It does not go down with me that Archers and Slingers stand up to cavalry charges. This is why your Overhand cavalry are so crap.

And so what if they are a warrior class? Cavalry would still mow them down.