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Arkanin
03-14-2008, 22:01
Hi everybody,

This is my first post on these boards... I want to start by saying that Europa Barbarorum is an incredible mod! I've happily dropped MTW2 for a genuinely challenging campaign and have absolutely no regrets about doing so. The mod is just amazingly good fun.

I do have one and only one issue with the mod, however, and that is unit balance. There are a couple of balance related problems I see, nothing that can't be fixed. First, it appears that the designers relied on the Charge Bonus rather than relying on cavalry mass settings, which causes the cavalry I have seen to do negligible damage in charges. Between their extremely high cost and lack of charge damage, I have seen no reason to use most of the cavalry cavalry (except for one very cheap, very light unit to chase down stragglers).

Also, it seems like all unit's defense settings are a little too high. This can lead to archers never killing a single unit of mediocre infantry, and is also what I consider responsible for the undesirable gameplay side-effect where two exhausted melee units fight very, very slowly. The next issue I have seen is that there are various mistakes in unit balance, units are simply costed wrong or do not receive unit balance, and so on. Some examples of the balance flukes I have seen include Roman Rorarii -- which get 120 soldiers as skirmishers at near-skirmisher cost, but behave like low-quality legionaries, and should probably have only 80 soldiers, and Iberian Medium Spearmen, with almost twice the upkeep cost per man compared to Light Spearmen and a smaller unit, but only 2 more attack and good -> excellent morale.

So I wonder if the designers of this mod -- again an excellent, absolutely fantastic mod -- are officially done balancing units. If so, I will get to work on a mod for the export_descr_units.txt, or maybe I will do so anyway. ;) As it stands, my proposed balance changes would be:
-Improve cavalry charges by restoring cavalry mass to as in RTW vanilla.
-Reduce defense on most units (slightly improves missiles and prevents ultra-slow battles from occurring)
-Normalize infantry costs in general; slightly raise the price and upkeep of skirmishers, while slightly reducing the cost of elite units (this improves incentives to use superior units and compensates for the above defense reduction)
-Slightly reduce cavalry costs in general

I am wondering what you guys think about campaign balance in general, and if you have any other ideas. Overall I do think it's pretty healthy, but it could simply be improved. Please discuss :)

Ibrahim
03-14-2008, 22:05
you've missed a point of this mod: realism in combat, as well as looks.

actually, the charge is effective (at least with me); do they sound the horns/trumpets as they close? if they don't, you're waiting too long to close in a gallop. also the lethality(not mass) was lowered to prevent people from using all cataphract armies or whatever, and to reflect the fact that infantry was king in the EB timeframe.

the defensive ability has little to do (relatively speaking) with arrow damage. it's where you shoot the at and the lethality of the arrows (shooing at the rear is way more damaging than the front)
the slowness of battles is again lethality, not attack/defence related. in RTW the lethality of all (or almost all) weapons was 1; now a celtic longsword has say .225 lethality, and a dagger or arrow is less lethal. the slowing down is thus deliberate, for realism, not balance. lastly the rorarii have the stats they have again for realism's sake, and the prices are to add challenge to gameplay.
if you play long enough, the enemies will churn out elites, as more money is available.
I hope this was all helpful stuff.:sweatdrop: :yes:

mcantu
03-14-2008, 22:10
the mass stat has no effect on the damage done by a cav unit. it determines how the cav will push into another unit but doesnt add to the attack stat...

also, the defense skill stat is not applied to missile attacks

Arkanin
03-14-2008, 22:21
You are right that the mass does not explicitly increase some hard-coded value for deadliness, but its practical result is that the charge is more deadly. When the cavalry knock men over and press deeper into the unit, more enemies simply die. So far I have not seen my Roman Generals able to do much damage to even cheap infantry with a rear charge, but your mileage may vary of course. :)

I understand that facing affects archery damage. As I understood it, armor (from any direction) and shields (from the front) do affect missile defense. So unit defense does affect archery damage, correct?

I do believe some changes can be made that improve the quality of the game balance without compromising realism. If realism somehow significantly reduces the quality of the gameplay (at this point I do not see any reason it does, although I find the way the battles drag out to compromise the tactical richness of the game) I would definitely change it though. If I do make a modlet, a positive aspect of that is that players who will enjoy it may download it and those who will not enjoy it will not have to download it.

Anyway, I wonder: if deadliness is a hidden value, and there are many other significant hidden values, have the designers left us with a way to get an idea of what it has been set to for each unit, aside from editing the files (E.g. a deadliness value corresponds to an attack value)? I hope we can all agree that when you look at unit cards, there definitely do appear to be noteworthy imbalances in terms of overall unit power divided by some function of upkeep and recruitment cost. I do not think such imbalances make the game more challenging, rather, they reward players for building lots of one unit type, and that is probably not ideal.

mcantu
03-14-2008, 22:26
You are right that the mass does not explicitly increase some hard-coded value for deadliness, but its practical result is that the charge is more deadly. When the cavalry knock men over and press deeper into the unit, more enemies simply die. So far I have not seen my Roman Generals able to do much damage to cheap infantry with a charge, but your mileage may vary of course :)

I understand that facing affects archery damage. As I understood it, armor (from any direction) and shields (from the front) do affect missile defense. So unit defense does affect archery damage, correct?

well the overall defense # is made up of armor, defense skill and shield. the armor stat applies to attacks from any direction; the defense skill stat is a parrying bonus that applies to non-missile attacks from the front and front/right; shield applies to attacks from the front and front/left.

Save you cav charges for attacks from the rear into demoralized units...

Watchman
03-14-2008, 22:45
Especially with less than stellar horse, such as most the Romans wield is. That said, IIRC the mount mass values were under reconsideration for 1.1...?

Arkanin
03-14-2008, 23:02
well the overall defense # is made up of armor, defense skill and shield. the armor stat applies to attacks from any direction; the defense skill stat is a parrying bonus that applies to non-missile attacks from the front and front/right; shield applies to attacks from the front and front/left.

Save you cav charges for attacks from the rear into demoralized units...

That is a good suggestion. But as I have observed, the cavalry are currently sufficiently underpowered (when you examine 1.) their cost and 2.) their efficiency in combat) that they do not seem to regularly achieve cost efficiency even when hitting most infantry units in the rear. This is especially true when combat is slower and most infantry units can simply turn around and fight the cavalry, who did not get much of a charge to begin with. Hitting almost anything in the front seems to be a disaster, even skirmishers, as cavalry cost up to 1000 Denarii in upkeep and will trade one for one with units that cost as little as 200 Denarii in upkeep.

mcantu
03-15-2008, 02:16
from what i gather, you're basing this on Roman cavalry which is weak to begin with. there is much better cav throughout EB...

ombudsman
03-15-2008, 02:18
That is a good suggestion. But as I have observed, the cavalry are currently sufficiently underpowered (when you examine 1.) their cost and 2.) their efficiency in combat) that they do not seem to regularly achieve cost efficiency even when hitting most infantry units in the rear. This is especially true when combat is slower and most infantry units can simply turn around and fight the cavalry, who did not get much of a charge to begin with. Hitting almost anything in the front seems to be a disaster, even skirmishers, as cavalry cost up to 1000 Denarii in upkeep and will trade one for one with units that cost as little as 200 Denarii in upkeep.

I would suggest playing around a bit with cavalry to get the right feel for it, it is quite hard in the beginning to know how to use cavalry properly. As you yourself said, hitting infantry from the front is a disaster, which i believe is as it should be. When you do get the hang on using cavalry carefully and right, they really are a battle winning force. prices for cavalry are high because horses are expensive to maintain IIRC. Anyway, not trying to put you off making a mini mod, i´m just suggesting you try fiddling around with the different units and see if you can use them in maybe a different way then you are to get the most out of them, I find the balance really very good, and I really enjoy the way it´s different from other mods and vanilla rtw, it just takes some time to get to know how to use them properly. Just my 2cents.

Arkanin
03-15-2008, 03:14
I will definitely make sure to experiment with other cavalry :)

I also don't think frontal charges should be rewarded, though the cavalry I've played with (Iberian and Roman Cavalry) is not effective even when charging flanks. As for microing the cavalry properly, though... it's been get behind a unit that's engaged with another, then charge, the meek charge kills about 3 enemies, and fairly quickly more cavalry are dying than infantry, so I repeat.. is there something else I should do? (I play vanilla RTW competitively so I definitely know how to micro there!)

Also wondering, where do I find this deadliness stat? export_descr_units.txt? I'm not seeing it. Thanks!

JeffBag
03-15-2008, 03:30
stat_pri 6, 34, no, 0, 0, melee, blade, piercing, spear, 200 ,0.4
stat_sec 13, 18, no, 0, 0, melee, simple, piercing, sword, 0 ,0.15

The rightmost figure in each line is the lethality stat, and yes it is in the EDU file.

By the way, do you let your cavalry stop, reform up in a appropriate direction, before charging? They have to sound the horn and lower the lances before you get any charge bonus. Anyway, Roman cavalry are still pretty useless in a charge; you need those two handed lancers for that. They are however, pretty useful for preventing those two handed lancers from charging in, as their mobility allows them to escape a direct charge and to harass them while they are forming up for the charge, thereby preventing one.

Arkanin
03-15-2008, 04:02
Thanks for the information Jeff. Yes, I watch their formation and get a trumpet sound. Interesting thought about fending off better cavalry but I'm not sure I understand your idea, I would imagine better cavalry would cream mine so I'm not sure how you mean when you say I should fend off lancers with weaker cavalry.

Kromulan
03-15-2008, 05:14
Arkanin,
The reason elites are so expensive, relative to their incremental increase in combat ability, is to prevent you (actually, me) from building unrealistic armies consisting of nothing but elite units.

As to the cavalry issue, I was stunned the first time I used cav in EB. . . I was so used to cavalry destroying everything in its path in vanilla, I just stared at the screen for a few seconds wondering what happened to my cav. Then I grinned like an idiot and though "OK, so maybe there IS some realism in here"
Careful use of even light cavalry (I use horse archers in melee all the time) can turn a battle still. It's just not auto-win like in vanilla. I just caused a chain rout of 3 ~80% strength triarii with a rear charge on the middle unit from my single Illyrian light cavalry. Not a particularly impressive unit, but all I had at the time. . . I've also seen heavier cav do the bug on a windscreen impression trying the same thing . . . It's kinda fun not knowing if your foolproof battle-winning tactic will work or not.:yes:

JeffBag
03-15-2008, 06:46
Proper quality (i.e. non-Roman) shielded medium cavalry can beat similar quality lancers in direct melee due to the extra defense from the shield. They can dodge the initial charge from the lancers by running perpendicular to the direction of the charge, which somewhat cancels or at least screw the charge up bad. Against heavier cavalry, the faster medium cav can charge in to the heavy cavalry side while the heavy cavalry are forming up to charge into your infantry, then backing off and causing the heavy cavalry to chase a little, which results in them to have to form up again.

By the way, equites romani is definitely cost ineffective, so I wouldn't use them for general price comparison of cavalry. I never used them during my Romani campaigns, prefering Ligurian cavalry and Greek Hippies, which are cheaper and actually better, if not the same.

Bonny
03-15-2008, 13:03
The balance of EB is not perfect but imho well done in most parts ( I'm one of the few members who spend a little bit more time playing EB than aktual modding ~D )


Also, it seems like all unit's defense settings are a little too high. This can lead to archers never killing a single unit of mediocre infantry

Archers are devastating to ligtly armored units but have almost no effekt on heavily armored units.
So you have to think what units you taregt with your missile units , If you target Phlangites or Hoplites the effects will be rather limited, if you target only th support units, ( Hoplite Haploi, skirmishers and all kind of celtic, iberian and germanic lower class infantry ) you will notice that those units will suffer heavy casualties. The direction of the unit is also something that influences the casualtie rate rather much. If you shoot in the rear or in the unshilded side missile units will cause greater damge to the armored units. For example Akontistai do little damge to Pantodapoi Phalangites, if they shoot at them from the front, if they shoot at them in the back two units of akontistai is enough to rout the Phalanx unit.

Some balancing examples : Drapnai are a Killer Unit in hand to hand combat, they manage to fight their way through most of EB's heavy units ( Triarii, Phalangites, Hoplites, Hypaspistai ) but they get eaten alive by missiles ( arrows and javelins ).

Arkanin
03-15-2008, 15:07
Arkanin,
The reason elites are so expensive, relative to their incremental increase in combat ability, is to prevent you (actually, me) from building unrealistic armies consisting of nothing but elite units.

As to the cavalry issue, I was stunned the first time I used cav in EB. . . I was so used to cavalry destroying everything in its path in vanilla, I just stared at the screen for a few seconds wondering what happened to my cav. Then I grinned like an idiot and though "OK, so maybe there IS some realism in here"
Careful use of even light cavalry (I use horse archers in melee all the time) can turn a battle still. It's just not auto-win like in vanilla. I just caused a chain rout of 3 ~80% strength triarii with a rear charge on the middle unit from my single Illyrian light cavalry. Not a particularly impressive unit, but all I had at the time. . . I've also seen heavier cav do the bug on a windscreen impression trying the same thing . . . It's kinda fun not knowing if your foolproof battle-winning tactic will work or not.:yes:

I'm curious, does this mean the elites are intentionally overcosted (IE made cost-inefficient) to prevent the spamming of them?

Some cavalry units in RTW were slightly overpowered, but at a high level of play cavalry attacks were not game breaking. They seem unusually powerful against the AI and in campaigns because the AI's grasp of combat tactics is extremely poor. I would probably not try to use EB cavalry against a human, but I guess that doesn't matter, if it's at least effective against the AI that works.

Do you guys have any suggestions for a faction with cavalry that is cost-effective?

beatoangelico
03-15-2008, 16:12
-Improve cavalry charges by restoring cavalry mass to as in RTW vanilla.
-Reduce defense on most units (slightly improves missiles and prevents ultra-slow battles from occurring)
-Normalize infantry costs in general; slightly raise the price and upkeep of skirmishers, while slightly reducing the cost of elite units (this improves incentives to use superior units and compensates for the above defense reduction)
-Slightly reduce cavalry costs in general


1 increase mass a bit, maybe, restoring to vanilla values, madness. With vanilla mass values and EB charge values cav could destroy anything with frontal charges.
2 as said it's not defence the "problem" but low lethality values. I'm pretty sure that the team won't change how lethality works for EB 1.1, so if you want you have to modify the files yourself (for example double lethality values and increase by 1 missile attack)
3 no way, one of the best thing EB accomplishes is that AI armies are not full of elites like the ones in vanilla and other mods, but more realistically made up of several good quality units with some levies and some elites. I wouldn't touch anything but some errors and inconsistencies.
4 cavalry is mostly fine. You have to use it very carefully, but is still a battle winner.

pezhetairoi
03-15-2008, 16:18
@Arkanin

Possibly the horsearcher factions, logically...

Arkanin
03-15-2008, 17:29
Hey, would anyone mind sharing with me the formulas used by attack and defense? I imagine that chance to hit on attack is adjusted by the attack value and the defense of the unit (which is adjusted by enemy unit facing)?

By the way, viewing export_descr_units.txt stat_pri field, melee attacks generally have a deadliness of 1. Isn't 1 the default, should be fine?

Disciple of Tacitus
03-15-2008, 17:38
Do you guys have any suggestions for a faction with cavalry that is cost-effective?

Head East, young man. You will find fanatic adherents to just about all the factions here - so send that general question out knowing that. Start a new thread with a "best cavalry faction" and find yourself in the middle of a fine mess. There may be some insightful threads already out there - so do take a moment and check out some of the older pages.:book:
I've played mostly Western Factions, so I am of little help. I do know that the Gallic Briethen (sp) cav is the best in the west. As for out East - ask away - just remember ..."I warned you!!"

:laugh4:

beatoangelico
03-15-2008, 17:58
Hey, would anyone mind sharing with me the formulas used by attack and defense? I imagine that chance to hit on attack is adjusted by the attack value and the defense of the unit (which is adjusted by enemy unit facing)?

By the way, viewing export_descr_units.txt stat_pri field, melee attacks generally have a deadliness of 1. Isn't 1 the default, should be fine?

take a look at this excellent guide https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=88859

mcantu
03-15-2008, 18:01
arkanin,

you're looking at missile weapons. using 1 for melee weapons will make battle way too fast as every hit will be a kill...

Arkanin
03-15-2008, 18:05
Head East, young man. You will find fanatic adherents to just about all the factions here - so send that general question out knowing that. Start a new thread with a "best cavalry faction" and find yourself in the middle of a fine mess. There may be some insightful threads already out there - so do take a moment and check out some of the older pages.:book:
I've played mostly Western Factions, so I am of little help. I do know that the Gallic Briethen (sp) cav is the best in the west. As for out East - ask away - just remember ..."I warned you!!"

:laugh4:

Good idea, thanks :beam:


arkanin,

you're looking at missile weapons. using 1 for melee weapons will make battle way too fast as every hit will be a kill...

I see, thanks. So stat_sec in those cases must be the melee attack?

Watchman
03-15-2008, 18:35
Normally that would be the case. A surefire indicator is the third, fourth and fifth segments - they're always "no, 0, 0," with melee attacks, whereas with ranged attacks you have "[missile type], [range], [ammunition per man],".

Arkanin
03-17-2008, 03:40
Right now I've been playing with Iberian and Carthaginian cavalry, which at this point I find to be very underpowered. It takes 2 stacks of medium greek cavalry to win when frontally charging a single unit of skirmishers. I am not honestly confident I have so far seen a cavalry unit that is cost-effective when charging straight into undefended archers. :(

At which point I have noticed and I must ask -- why are the attack values on cavalry so low? Is that what is wrong with them, what causes them to fare so poorly in combat? It seems that 4-6 attack is the norm for cavalry aside from their charge bonus. For comparison, slingers have 8 melee attack. This really doesn't seem appropriate... from a realism, or gameplay perspective.

JeffBag
03-17-2008, 07:29
That is the attack rating of their lance, which has high charge value but low melee stat. You have to alt-attack for them to bring out their swords, which are far better in melee. Also slingers have daggers with a lethality of 0.04, though their attack may seem high.

Once again on this point of lethality I must stress that overarm spear cavalry like Hippies are rather crap for charging since they only have a 0.15 lethality and no ap stat for their lance, as compared to lancers which generally have lethality of 0.4 and the ap stat which are fundamental.

Personally though I still believe that the -2 penalty to skirmishers and the like should be -4 instead, and certain skirmishers like Roman leves and Iberian velites come with good attack and high lethality spears with the light_spear attribute which is pretty capable of slaughtering even medium cavalry.

Korlon
03-17-2008, 07:32
Most likely due to the absence of stir-ups. They don't have the balance for that kind of melee. Some cavalry have large lethality though. I think the Greek General's lance has .4 lethality, which is fairly huge even though their attack is only 4.

LorDBulA
03-17-2008, 08:13
Skirmishers are tricky. They run away from charge and this screws up charge pretty bad. Loose formation doesnt help either.
This is a big flaw in RTW mechanics.

mcantu
03-17-2008, 12:26
Right now I've been playing with Iberian and Carthaginian cavalry, which at this point I find to be very underpowered. It takes 2 stacks of medium greek cavalry to win when frontally charging a single unit of skirmishers. I am not honestly confident I have so far seen a cavalry unit that is cost-effective when charging straight into undefended archers. :(

At which point I have noticed and I must ask -- why are the attack values on cavalry so low? Is that what is wrong with them, what causes them to fare so poorly in combat? It seems that 4-6 attack is the norm for cavalry aside from their charge bonus. For comparison, slingers have 8 melee attack. This really doesn't seem appropriate... from a realism, or gameplay perspective.

It really sounds like you still need to get used to a different style of cav use than what youre used to in RTW. Skirmishers will not rout as soon as contact is made with cav in EB. No cav should be left in melee too long after the charge is complete, esp if they have no shield. When charging, use alt-right click so the cav switches to their swords after they charge; then if you see that they start taking casualties, pull them out...

antisocialmunky
03-17-2008, 13:51
The only exception are the heavy cataphracts and some of the Eastern FMs that are exceedingly hard to kill. But even then they tend to do better if you charge in when units start wavering, use mercenary light cavalry to kill skirmishers instead.

pezhetairoi
03-17-2008, 15:15
@Arkanin

I can't understand why you would find the Iberian cavalry crappy, or even the Carthaginian. Surely you haven't yet tried out the Iberi Lanceari, the closest things to cataphracts you will find this side of the Bosphorus, and of course the Sacred Band cavalry are very much a match even for Brihentin. In fact, I'd say they pip Brihentin, just that the Brihentin are more widely available to other factions. Lebiponnim cavalry are also very fine medum cavalry, effective and nasty, and they look good too, to boot. Have you been trying to re-enact Crecy with your cavalry against a longbow line made of rhomphaiaphoroi behind argyraspidai instead?

LusitanianWolf
03-18-2008, 01:07
Are you playing in what battle dificult? If you want gameplay balancing you should play in medium battle dificult (at least in your first EB times, this is not vannilla wherewe you can play VH all the time).
Sure that EB cavalry is not the same as vannilla cavalry but still very usefull in most battles.

Arkanin
03-18-2008, 15:35
It really sounds like you still need to get used to a different style of cav use than what youre used to in RTW. Skirmishers will not rout as soon as contact is made with cav in EB. No cav should be left in melee too long after the charge is complete, esp if they have no shield. When charging, use alt-right click so the cav switches to their swords after they charge; then if you see that they start taking casualties, pull them out...

I keep hearing this sort of thing, but if medium cavalry are unable to defeat lower-quality missile units when they are isolated and have no infantry support, when is it desirable for me to build cavalry over simply infantry or skirmishers? If their attack is too poor to beat skirmishers, it's too poor to flank even light infantry. This makes infantry the preferable flankers, too, as they have the staying power to win while flanking other infantry. I'm just not seeing what there is to get "used to" -- they appear tactically inferior. Surely the 7-8 skirmishers I could have for the cost of two units of cavalry would have fared better against the lone skirmisher unit.

Combinatorial tactics have so much synergy in this game, there is a very large range of power level a unit can have before it becomes dominant or unusable. But all the cavalry I have encountered are so far from the middle of that range that they no longer even have a cost-justified purpose (well, one or two of the cheapest cavalry to chase routers is good). If they cannot punish undefended ranged units or flank better than infantry, they are in a lot of trouble.

The only exception I have seen to all this is the macedonian bodyguard unit, which I can only guess is much larger than other general units (62 on "large" size, when 40 is the norm) because someone made a mistake, as it is otherwise also far more powerful than other generals.

antisocialmunky
03-18-2008, 15:40
I almost never use cavalry to try to kill skirmishers. Main line infantry and shrug off missiles pretty well from the front.

On the other hand, if you're flanking with them and get the enemy with a formed charge from the rear... well. Its not really pretty.

I killed 1/2 of unit of Triarii with a formed frontal charge with those Iberian Lancers once. Many of the medium cavalry while not that ridiculous are fairly charge happy.

So in summation: Medium Cavalry is used to engage enemy cavalry and break units from the rear... and chase crap around the map.

mcantu
03-18-2008, 15:48
I keep hearing this sort of thing, but if medium cavalry are unable to defeat lower-quality missile units when they are isolated and have no infantry support, when is it desirable for me to build cavalry over simply infantry or skirmishers? If their attack is too poor to beat skirmishers, it's too poor to flank even light infantry. This makes infantry the preferable flankers, too, as they have the staying power to win while flanking other infantry. I'm just not seeing what there is to get "used to" -- they appear tactically inferior. Surely the 7-8 skirmishers I could have for the cost of two units of cavalry would have fared better against the lone skirmisher unit.

Combinatorial tactics have so much synergy in this game, there is a very large range of power level a unit can have before it becomes dominant or unusable. But all the cavalry I have encountered are so far from the middle of that range that they no longer even have a cost-justified purpose (well, one or two of the cheapest cavalry to chase routers is good). If they cannot punish undefended ranged units or flank better than infantry, they are in a lot of trouble.

The only exception I have seen to all this is the macedonian bodyguard unit, which I think is simply much larger than other general units because someone made a mistake.

use other skirmishers to keep the enemy skirmishers tied up before sending in the cav. i would imagine that a unit of 40 cav surrounded by 120 skirmishers would have a difficult time not being swarmed and pulled off of their horses when there are 3 skirmishers attacking each horseman.

i hold back my cav until they can be used decisively against a faltering enemy unit or to stop enemy cav from flanking me...

Arkanin
03-18-2008, 15:58
What about 120 cavalry against 120 skirmishers? Thing is, the cavalry still lose. Most have a lower attack value than slingers and my best guess is that such a low lethality mitigates much of the charge bonus as well by causing the fight to take much longer. Cavalry would seem to me to inherently get the most benefit out of operating in the smallest time window possible, and the lower lethality (which may be good but may also require a rebalancing of cavalry) greatly stretches out the time window for players to react to cavalry, greatly reducing their effectiveness.


I almost never use cavalry to try to kill skirmishers. Main line infantry and shrug off missiles pretty well from the front.

On the other hand, if you're flanking with them and get the enemy with a formed charge from the rear... well. Its not really pretty.

I killed 1/2 of unit of Triarii with a formed frontal charge with those Iberian Lancers once. Many of the medium cavalry while not that ridiculous are fairly charge happy.

So in summation: Medium Cavalry is used to engage enemy cavalry and break units from the rear... and chase crap around the map.

I will try them some more. I would like to say I have found cavalry to flank units effectively... but so far I have found infantry to be much more effective.

pezhetairoi
03-18-2008, 16:01
speed is the catch though. You don't want your infantry taking too many losses in the meantime. Consider the broader implications, it's not just about winning a battle, but also about having enough troops left to continue and advance and fight more battles. Unless, of course, you have a very good logistics system to keep new troops shuttling to the fronts. Cavalry is a force multiplier that way.

Gotthard
03-18-2008, 16:22
The western cavalry overall is pretty bad (I wouldn't be caught dead with a Lusitianian "Elite" Cavalry, for example), but their eastern counterparts are ridiculously overpowered. Good luck stopping a frontal bodyguard cavalry charge with anything but a 3 unit deep stack of some excellent spearmen. Even then, you're going to lose a single stack for sure. Balance overall seems much better in the west than the east, my current Armenia game (H/VH) has me in Babylon in 245 BC. ( I was recently declared the 'most advanced' and 'richest' nation... how I have no idea.) This was accomplished with some Caucasian spearman, some slingers, and whatever units I could scrounge from my exceedingly low level barracks. My cavalry generals basically demolished everyone. Morale is either pathetically low on units, or unbreakable (my 9 units of spearman were broken by a 1/4 strength phalanx unit. Completely surrounded, charged from every direction... *SIGH*) A combination of poor morale, little effect for spears versus cavalry, and low attack values versus defense for most units make battles slow and painful, or exceedingly quick. As Armenia, I haven't seen the point of building anything other than the cheapest foot unit, their performance has been, at best, marginally better, and they are 3x more expensive.

However, I actually find archers to be quite balanced overall, there are times you want javelins, times you want stones, and times you want arrows. There is a WIDE variety of ranged units in the east and west, and they have varying skills and abilities. It's quite well done. The problems unit balance has in the east exist in the west as well, but they are markedly reduced overall, and it's MUCH harder to play there (which is perhaps your problem as you've played Romans and Lusitianians).

JeffBag
03-18-2008, 18:10
Mainly the east has the ludicrously overpowered combination of excellent foot/horse archers and incredibly powerful bodyguard cataphracts, which on your King or Heir grants you an over sized unit. Its pretty much shoot till 1/2 of the unit then instarout it with 1 charge.

As I said earlier, you have to use alt-attack on your cavalry units to bring out their swords rather than their crappy charge-only spears. Also, try to use cavalry groups consisting of 3 units instead; when they are massed their power increases exponentially, as they reach that critical mass where they just instantly rout anything they rear charge.

I used to think that cavalry was useless too, taking my Legions over Gaul with no cavalry support. However, when I got to Germania, and fought every battle heavily outnumbered sometimes even two or more full stacks to one, I realized how important that one unit of cavalry which was my General unit was. When the lines degenerate into chaos with Germans coming from every side and each unit of Principe holding two or more German units, the ability of even that crappy medium cavalry to run from point to point routing troops with single charges, was massively important.

When you flank a fresh unit, use infantry, when you flank an exhausted unit, use cavalry. The burst damage of cavalry doesn't show itself until late into the battle, and unlike javelins + heavy infantry/Gasaetae charge, they are limitless.

Decimus Attius Arbiter
03-18-2008, 19:28
The one big thing I don't get is how you are "losing" to skirmishers. I've never gotten routed by skirmishers in EB. I did in Vanilla RTW because their stats were bugged. Cavalry can rout skirmishers. It takes longer the earlier in the battle you do it when their morale isn't shaken and they aren't winded. But it's still possible.

Also, are your comments related to how effective units are in multiplayer? Everyone here is talking about singleplayer. That's what's confusing people.

Ibrahim
03-18-2008, 19:48
want to turn eager units to routing in seconds? send lots of cav in 2 waves, 3-5 sec apart, 2-3 units per wave (works really well with the romani) from the side or rear preferably.

Arkanin
03-18-2008, 20:31
Are you playing in what battle dificult? If you want gameplay balancing you should play in medium battle dificult (at least in your first EB times, this is not vannilla wherewe you can play VH all the time).
Sure that EB cavalry is not the same as vannilla cavalry but still very usefull in most battles.

This is an interesting idea. I only play VH/VH, so that may be a significant part of why I'm getting unusually poor results with cavalry (ironclad enemy morale no doubt helps a lot against the morale damage caused by charges).

I would try VH/M, but I do still want the game to be challenging. If I want to see some of the good cavalry with a challenging campaign on those settings, what would you guys recommend the highest? Saka Ruaka, Scythia?

mcantu
03-18-2008, 20:41
This is an interesting idea. I only play VH/VH, so that may be a significant part of why I'm getting unusually poor results with cavalry (ironclad enemy morale no doubt helps a lot against the morale damage caused by charges).

I would try VH/M, but I do still want the game to be challenging. If I want to see some of the good cavalry with a challenging campaign on those settings, what would you guys recommend the highest? Saka Ruaka, Scythia?

that clears things up. for battles to be balanced they have to be set at Medium

Ludens
03-18-2008, 20:48
To expand upon what mcantu wrote, at VH battle difficulty enemy troops get something like +8 attack and +4 defence. Given the subtle stat differentiations of EB, this is enough for levies to beat high-quality troops. This cannot be modded, unfortunately. If you feel level battles (M battle difficulty) are too easy, you could try H (+4 attack), but remember that they simply aren't balanced at this level.

Gotthard
03-18-2008, 20:50
Balanced battles are only in medium?!? I'm trying saka on H/VH, and admittadly it's getting pretty irritating, but I'm afraid on M/VH I'd be crushing the computer mercilessly. Seems like most units break quickly anyway, and on medium it might turn into a constant rout. I'm about 10-15:1 casualty ratio on this, at medium it'd get even worse for the computer.

antisocialmunky
03-18-2008, 21:28
You're an HA faction, the AI therefore loses.

Watchman
03-18-2008, 21:28
The whole cavalry vs. skirmishers problem chiefly comes from a few issues. One, and easily the worst, is that the engine is kind of stupid when it comes to cavalry charges against loose-order units, and God forbid if they're trying to run away with skirmish mode... they should bust right through like the proverbial hot knife in butter, but engine mechanics is engine mechanics. Not much that can be done there really.

Another is simply that most skirmishers come in such godawfully big units, pure and simple. The low-level ones invariably have base unit size 60, over double that of cavalry; sheer numbers make them relatively resistant to the effects of casualties, and allow them to do surprising amounts of damage through sheer attrition in an extended fight before they finally reach the breaking point.
Again, not that much that can be done there except change tactics. Go in, do some damage, pull out and charge again; the lowly stickpickers should break soon enough with that.

quackingduck
03-18-2008, 22:23
calvary still eniliate everything for me usually (yes i do play medium battle difficluty). what has worked for me is taking 2 groups of a very heavy calvary (iberian HC, companion cav, sacred band, etc.) and before the battle starts and you are deploying your troops just put them right on top of each other sorta so you get 2 groups in the space of one. and keep them like this throughout the battle
when you have them like this they will eniliate skirmishers, archers, from the front and most heavy infantry from the back. espesially once they start to get 4+ experience. also having a 3rd group ready to back up your 2 doesnt hurt either. you just charge, double click away, and charge again. if you have more than 2 groups of cav take turns charging. if you do this infantry wont stand a chance.

Arkanin
03-19-2008, 00:44
Well, I guess that does it; I am going to try a VH/M campaign, but then the next question on my mind is whether I will have luck finding a challenging campaign as such.

Playing as Hellon Koinon and Lusotanan (sp both) I have found VH/VH to be an excellent difficulty, not insurmountable but a good challenge.

By the way, one more question, are Macedonian pike levies very broken -- as in, must be completely surrounded by superior units to kill, in my case, Greece has no real viable counter tactic -- or is that another VH/VH fluke? It would seem that VH would make pike levies overpowered given the fact that they need a lower attack and defense to be fair.

mcantu
03-19-2008, 01:10
VH will make any AI unit overpowered. It gives them +7 to attack and +7 to morale...

JeffBag
03-19-2008, 05:49
Actually I think its +7 attack, +7 defense skill, and then +7 to morale. Even skirmishers can annihilate anything. A fun campaign even on VH/M is Pontos; full stacks of Seleucid against your half stacks more than makes up for the balanced battles, and isn't so aggravating as to see Agryaspidai getting rolled over by levy pikes.

Aradan
03-19-2008, 13:25
I just couldn't resist posting it here as well, since so many people seem to have the wrong idea about it. :) Difficulty settings affect only attack and nothing else (in battle). -4/0/+4/+7 (for AI units)

pezhetairoi
03-19-2008, 16:29
...Bad enough. It makes the difference between my losing 5-8 Brihentin when they charge solo into a mass of akontistai before routing it, and losing close to half the stack instead.

Ludens
03-19-2008, 21:10
I just couldn't resist posting it here as well, since so many people seem to have the wrong idea about it. :) Difficulty settings affect only attack and nothing else (in battle). -4/0/+4/+7 (for AI units)
I looked up the relevant thread in the LM, and it confirms what you say. However, one of the developers suggested there was also a morale bonus.

Aradan
03-19-2008, 23:39
The Devs have said some things that were not entirely accurate afaik, mainly because things got changed between patches. No modder can claim perfect knowledge of the engine's inner workings, but proper testing can help give us a clue.

In case anyone's interested...
Simple test I ran to research it:

Set up a battle on flat ground (both campaign and custom), normal difficulty, 1 vs 1, and gave my unit uber stats, frighten enemy etc and made the AI unit useless with 1 morale.
Started the battle and walked my unit towards the enemy, while viewing the AI's morale status. It took a specific amount of time and a specific distance from my unit until the enemy dropped from Eager to Steady. Run the test 2-3 more times after quitting and restarting the campaign and I always got the same result.
Then I gave the AI unit +7 morale and timed again. This time their morale dropped to Steady only after they engaged me. Again repeated 2-3 times, always getting the same deal.
And finally I restored their morale to 1, and played on VH difficulty. Got the same results as with 1st setup.
To be sure, I tried giving the AI morale 3 in the EDU (diff=Medium), but still they didn't drop to Steady until after engagement, while on VH/morale=1 they dropped before that. So the bonus is either very very small or non-existant (I believe the latter)


On a related note, morale bonuses from buildings in campaign mode seem to not work at all. Similar way of testing it.

Irishmafia2020
03-20-2008, 00:54
If you are looking to create a good hard hitting and inexpensive Cav force you should consider playing as Baktria. The Bactrian Hippies are practically light Cataphracts (42 charge - pretty heavily armored as well) and I have stacked all of the money saving ancilliaries on my Bactra governor so that I am saving 30 -40 % on unit costs. That means that I am able to buy some of the best cavalry in the game for around 1800 mnai. These guys are a classic hammer to the anvil of the phalanx, but if that is not enough, elephants and cataphracts are available as well. I have focused on Bactra (the city) to develop my military, but I can obtain some brutal units with the level 4 barracks. The level 5 simply adds a few elite Thorkatai types, so most of the Elite cav can be available by the 240's or even sooner. Unfortunately you have to deal with a variety of new units and styles (HA, heavy cav, elephants etc) so you will probably end up with a lot of archers rather than a lot of cav in the early game. Still I do reccomend Bactria to a Cav lover, at least with the battles on Medium. One downside, you aren't centrally located, so don't expect to face Rome.

pezhetairoi
03-20-2008, 05:37
If only you piled all the upkeep savings ancillaries on your field commander with all those hippies too. Now that would rock.

Decimus Attius Arbiter
03-20-2008, 07:25
Keep on eye on those dirty Baktrian hippeis. Missles still hurt them. They aren't cataphracts yet young prince.

Ludens
03-20-2008, 10:56
The Devs have said some things that were not entirely accurate afaik, mainly because things got changed between patches. No modder can claim perfect knowledge of the engine's inner workings, but proper testing can help give us a clue.
Thanks for the information. I've posted it in the relevant thread of the Ludus Magna (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?p=1866427#post1866427). For the record, JeromeGrasdyke mentioned that there was no set morale-bonus, bit instead a series of sliding scales. Unfortunatly, I cannot find the post itself, but it is cited in Froggy's R:TW guide (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=38382).

Irishmafia2020
03-21-2008, 03:46
If only you piled all the upkeep savings ancillaries on your field commander with all those hippies too. Now that would rock.
oh yeah... I hadn't thought of that, I think I'll try it!

Danzifuge
03-22-2008, 09:25
as has been said, cavalry attacks in the rear and their left flank are most effective. try attacking with two or more cavalry units on the same enemy unit. i often get insta-routs from doing this. number of kills vs. cost effectiveness isn't what you should be entirely concerned about it in a cavalry unit. their ability to rout enemy units is their primary role, thus saving your infrantry in losses and ultimately winning the battle. their abilities against unengaged skirmishers and archers are not quite as effective at times, but remember to bring more than one cavalry unit to break these guys. if there is more than one skirmisher/archer you may do great damage to the one unit but the other one rest assured will take from you just as much. thats the role of these guys i find. as cavalry counters they get chewed up but still dish out, but are cheap so easily replaced. unfortunately i found little use for skirmishers/archers beyond their use as cavalry counters. and this really isn't too accurate. skirmishers were the front lines in battles and the only thing they can hit is cavalry and maybe other skirmishers/archers in this mod. the same goes for archers. so far i've never managed to be able to maneuver my archers to the rear in time to hit the enemy in the ass and cause any real damage. i do agree that the effectiveness of these two units in missle attack could be raised a bit so as to reflect their actual use in combat. if this would done, rest assured cavalry flank/rear attacks would be much more difficult instead of almost a certainty which is what they are now. i don't think i've never been able to flank the enemy with cavalry no matter how many cavalry they had.

Arkanin
04-23-2008, 12:53
I thought I'd let you all know where I am now -- so far I have finished four VH/VH campaigns:

1.) Rome
2.) Koinon Hellenon
3.) Iberia
4.) Sauka Rauka (warning: very hard!)

My thoughts will follow. I play RTS games competitively, to the extent that I have a lot of experience identifying the units, strategies and combinatorial tactics that are the most effective. After playing these campaigns, I can see that the game balance is not finished at this point in time. RE the question about Iberian Lancers: I found playtesting on VH/N that they barely have a usable role in their army; they are not beyond but reside on the bottom end of what is a usable power level for their strategic purpose, so they extremely rarely belong in a stack. Keep in mind that being "on the bottom end of what is usable" seems fine for low-tier units, but if a high-tier unit is on the bottom end of desirability in performing whatever role it has it removes the purpose of teching it.

If you are role-playing armies and just building whatever you are "supposed" to build, as I imagine some of you history buff guys might be fond to do, you may not see the balance problems, because you are not thinking about what actually is the least fair within the game engine. But balance problems do exist on every continent and need to be dealt with, though; hopefully most of them will be nailed in the next version.

I'll withhold more comment about what specifically is and isn't balanced until they release another version, as I realize that unit stating is still a work in progress. A lot of people have personalities that tend to assume units are all within an acceptable continuum of power level until completely proven otherwise, though, and they are not likely to discover how well-balanced the game is. With experience playing games (especially competitively) I think you are more likely to come to realize that games generally begin life in a completely degenerate state and need to be wrestled into a non-degenerate one. To understand how the units really work inside the game engine, and remove this degeneracy, it is necessary to search for and exploit flawed mechanics. I just hope it is the individuals that try to find the dominant strategies that staff the stating department, as if so we will have a much more balanced game with the next version. :)

Otherwise fantastic mod, by the way.

Foot
04-23-2008, 14:45
We have released our last version, beyond bug-fixes in the future, for EBI. Now is a good a time as any to make your propositions known.

Foot

mcantu
04-23-2008, 14:49
Arkanin,

Were those four campaigns with EB 1.1? I find it hard to believe that someone could finish that many campaigns at 4/tpy each in the short amount of time that 1.1 has been out...

Woreczko
04-23-2008, 17:23
Why should EB be balanced? It`s based off real history as much as possible. Armies of the past weren`t balanced at all - some were better, some were worse. Same as today. Of course EB, being a game, needs some semblance of "balance" or "fairness" to be playable but it`s not a Starcraft to have all factions and units absolutely equal in their usefulnessnes.

Cambyses
04-23-2008, 17:37
Ah yes, gameplay versus historical accuracy. A tough one.

I would suggest however that many factors - not just including stats and battlefield effectiveness - are involved in costing units. Some of them surely do need changing. Lusotanna - Iberian Medium Infantry (swords) versus Iberian Heavy for example. (Unless that has already been adressed in 1.1). But most of it seems to work for me. Cavalry are expensive though and to my mind need to be able to offer more back to the player - although not necessarily on the battlefield. An example (dont shoot me) % of cavalry in a stack might affect a general's logistical ability, so that armies with more cavalry would have more food as they can scavenge more widely. I suspect also if the game was less focused on settlements and more on field battles cavalry's cost effectiveness would seem to increase.

I would assume/hope that the majority of costings include a reflection of the scarcity of a troop type, difficulty in training etc etc, balance with other units available to a faction etc. And in that case given how EB's economy works, surely a steep exponential curve is required in costs for more elite units, as they are supposed to complement - not replace - their non-elite compatriots. I imagine its also for this reason that regionals are more expensive, but also - generally - more widely available.

Midnj
04-23-2008, 20:09
I do somewhat agree with the OP.

This isn't the medieval period so we don't need heavy cavalry churning through anything with frontal charges.

But on a rear charge the lethality should be higher.. often times the casualties inflicted from a full on rear charge are very small (eg out of an 80 man unit being attacked, I seem to average 5-10 at most with a totally fresh, elite cav unit). One important reason for this as was mentioned previously in that it's like a bug on windshield thing where the rear rank gets decimated but nothing else.. perhaps mass is the key? Or upping lance lethality to 1 (with the really low base attack this would only really benefit the charge)?

I disagree with him though in that cavalry is totally cost ineffective. I will always use cav because while it is overpriced on a raw statistical basis vs infantry it provides certain tactical benefits through mobility and morale effects that make it a battle winner.

EDIT: While I'm at it... it'd be nice if the fatigue took longer to take effect. AFAIK this is not moddable (except to give everyone very_hardy, which isn't really an option since this would no longer distinguish between a Legionary vs a Conscript) but it'd be nice to make battles more tactical. Unfortunately turning fatigue off (as I've seen suggested by a couple others) isn't an option.. it makes cavalry worthless.

Arkanin
04-23-2008, 20:40
Arkanin,

Were those four campaigns with EB 1.1? I find it hard to believe that someone could finish that many campaigns at 4/tpy each in the short amount of time that 1.1 has been out...

Nope! I didn't even know the new version was available. I'm downloading it now. As I said in that post, changes were not final and their stating department was hard at work, so I look forward to seeing the changes. Not to mention that this has always been a fantastic mod anyway! :egypt:

Where realism is the topic, I am inclined to believe that if a mounted warrior of a given quality, equipment and training fought a similar non-mounted warrior, the mounted warrior had a noticeable advantage. In the old version, toe-to-toe, cavalry were at a recognizable disadvantage when fighting an equal number of non-mounted troops and that just wasn't right, heck, they were often disadvantaged charging the flanks without even accounting for their inferior stack size and tripled upkeep cost. But I look forward to seeing what they have done in the next version.

Daos
04-24-2008, 05:02
Yup.Cavalry is crap in this game. I know many of you came to accept it and got accustomed to it but the fact remains that it's not working as it should be and it's wrong. You told me like you told this thread starter here that there is something I'm doing wrong. I will tell you just this: I've charged 18 Capadoccian men with a full stack of Thessalian cavalry head on and 8 of my men died and many more would have followed if I wouldn't have helped them with another cavalry unit. That is just wrong anyway you look at it.

Korlon
04-24-2008, 05:10
That 18 men didn't rout just from one charge of one unit of Thessalian Cavalry make me question your battle difficulty.

gamegeek2
04-24-2008, 05:28
Look; heavy cavalry are to be used to smash unprepared targets or far weaker units. Example, let's use Cohors Reformata vs. Asavaran-i Azadan

160 vs. 100

Cav charge; cohors javelins down 4 and loses about 15 to 20 men on impact (frontal). After this, the legionnaires are consistently able to catch the Azadan before they can remount a charge, and win by a 7:8 loss to kill ratio. This reflects Carrhae, where Surena sent his cataphracts against the roman infantry's line after they had been softened a bit by arrows. The well-articulated Romans repulsed the attack, despite the length of the kontos and power it delivered in the charge; group organization repulsed the cavalry's knee-to-knee charge and initiative. The cataphracts were content to break off after this failure and let the horse archers do their job (supplied with ammo by camel caravans) while they picked off weakened units or those in a testudo, which was too tight for the romans to fight back in.

Let's say those Azadan crash into the back of some good-strength romans in combat with some theurophoroi. The result is a loss of about 50 guys on impact and an immediate rout (if you're not unlucky). Even with this, Romans historically could form their back ranks for such a situation, but it usually wouldn't work anyways.

Daos
04-24-2008, 06:29
That 18 men didn't rout just from one charge of one unit of Thessalian Cavalry make me question your battle difficulty.

It's actually Medium difficulty. Although I normally play on hard when I've tried it in EB the gameplay was just ridiculous. It was an error so to speak that they didn't rout but still, 18 men with axes or whatever they have against 50 of the best heavy cavalry in the game and they almost win the fight? If I wouldn't have used my Thracian cavaley to make them rout they would have killed them all I think. And the price oh lord. They cost me 7000 mnai and for what? Just another unit that I have to flank with?

bovi
04-24-2008, 07:09
Perhaps you didn't get the charge to count. The lances need to be lowered or they won't make the attack with the charge bonus (and the attack without charge bonus is really weak). The easiest way to get the lances lowered is to line them up completely before right-clicking once on the enemy. I've smashed into plenty of phalanxes this way from more than one side at once, and they nearly invariably rout upon contact.

Daos
04-24-2008, 08:43
right-clicking once on the enemy.

you say? Hm... That might have been it but still 50 horsemen should kill 18 axemen no matter what. Just a question. In 1.1 has the cavalry attack changed or is it the same?

Foot
04-24-2008, 12:23
you say? Hm... That might have been it but still 50 horsemen should kill 18 axemen no matter what. Just a question. In 1.1 has the cavalry attack changed or is it the same?

Except the axe is Armour-Piercing so thats half of the horseman's armour down for the count. Did you switch to secondary weapons or did you keep using the primary weapon? If the latter then I can easily see why the 18 axemen won.

Its funny that in a post above you complain about everyone telling you that you use the cavalry wrong, and then admit that you don't use cavalry correctly. Cavalry is going to get bogged down in a formation of infantry, and if that formation of infantry has AP weapons then any heavy cavalry is going to have a hard time.

Foot

Titus Marcellus Scato
04-24-2008, 13:25
I think we need a completely separate FAQ thread on 'How to use Cavalry in EB'.

Separate, so that people will see it. And stickied.

russia almighty
04-24-2008, 13:38
And hard and very hard battle settings are broken in RTW.

Daos
04-24-2008, 13:42
Except the axe is Armour-Piercing so thats half of the horseman's armour down for the count. Did you switch to secondary weapons or did you keep using the primary weapon? If the latter then I can easily see why the 18 axemen won.

Its funny that in a post above you complain about everyone telling you that you use the cavalry wrong, and then admit that you don't use cavalry correctly. Cavalry is going to get bogged down in a formation of infantry, and if that formation of infantry has AP weapons then any heavy cavalry is going to have a hard time.

Foot

Well I didn't admit to anything. Unlike some people I'm always wiling to try out certain things and I'm willing to change. However, I've tried clicking once and they just walk there. Now that's not a charge, now is it? I've figured it out on my own tho. You gotta use mixed unit tactics. You need like two HA units for every heavy or medium cavalry to wear them down first. Or use mass heavy cavalry like some people suggested. The problem with that is that they cost too much to be effective. For example: Getai MC costs 4000+ a mass charge requires something like 4 of them. That's 12000 or more. With that money you can build a whole army of infantry and it will be 10 times more effective on the battlefield. Exactly like the thread starter pointed out. I'm definitely interested in a mod to either make cavalry more deadly or cheaper, that would be much better than how it is now.

As for the first part of your post. What can a man with an axe do to 3 men with long lances, heavy armor and horses? I'm talking about realism here, not bonuses.

mcantu
04-24-2008, 14:03
Well I didn't admit to anything. Unlike some people I'm always wiling to try out certain things and I'm willing to change. However, I've tried clicking once and they just walk there. Now that's not a charge, now is it? I've figured it out on my own tho. You gotta use mixed unit tactics. You need like two HA units for every heavy or medium cavalry to wear them down first. Or use mass heavy cavalry like some people suggested. The problem with that is that they cost too much to be effective. For example: Getai MC costs 4000+ a mass charge requires something like 4 of them. That's 12000 or more. With that money you can build a whole army of infantry and it will be 10 times more effective on the battlefield. Exactly like the thread starter pointed out. I'm definitely interested in a mod to either make cavalry more deadly or cheaper, that would be much better than how it is now.

As for the first part of your post. What can a man with an axe do to 3 men with long lances, heavy armor and horses? I'm talking about realism here, not bonuses.

You have to be more patient...as those cav are walking to the unit you alt-single right clicked(this will get them to switch to the more effective secondary weapon after the charge stops), they are forming up. when they reach the proper charge distance, they will lower their lances/spears and begin the charge. if you charge units that have high morale or are not tired, you will generally have to repeat the process...

glouch
04-24-2008, 15:56
daos, i've never heard of or seen such a thing as an 18-man strong unit standing up to a full cavalry charge. they'll either rout or get wiped out. you may have done something incredibly wrong to lose like that. sad. :no:



arkanin, i don't question your prowess in gaming, but realism is first and foremost the primary objective of EB, i believe. historically, cavalry specifically designed for charging was really meant for nothing but that. lancers (and other 'charging' cavs) were never intended to last in a prolonged melee - they were meant to charge at the weakest link of the army (such as some demoralized, bloodied, and tired soldiers facing a wall of sarissas, oblivious to the lancers lining up behind them). after the charge, what they're expected to do is, a)if the unit they charged routed, pursue and kill or b)if the unit they charged didn't rout, or if they were needed somewhere else, to pull out very quickly and reform their formation. if you read some kind of article concerning the hellenistic period in wikipedia, i think you'd find some reference to that. the decision of the EB team to give the cavalry inferior melee stats compared to infantry was, i think, intentional so as to integrate that reality into the game. there are cavalry that could stand up in a melee, such as the cataphracts (catatanks :laugh4:), but they are a special kind. some cavalry are actually meant for melee, to be able to provide support when and where it is needed, screen the infantry, and deter any other cavalry threatening to flank the infantry... but don't expect them to launch bodies 10 ft into the air with the ferocity of their charge.

as for the what you perceive as cost-ineffectiveness of the units. if you could try to create an army that is well balanced, with ranged units, infantry units to hold the line, skirmishers to harass the enemy, cavalry for hammering or support... and then throw in some elites to hold them all together, then i guarantee you that you will be satisfied. the army may cost a bunch, but it'll stand up to anything you might encounter because of the variety and versatility that only a combined-arms force can provide, ensuring that this army will last a VERY, VERY, VERY long time, lasting through many many battles WITHOUT retraining all but the skirmishers (who are traditionally there to be whittled away in the place of relatively more important units). i think cost effectiveness relates more to how you use your units as opposed to just spamming them.

one thing you might want to try is to gather enough money to create an army with, say the macedonians. get 3 units at least of pezhetairoi phalangites (but i highly recommend 2 pezhetairoi and 1 argyraspidai combination). get some decent spear-armed or sword-armed infantry to protect the flanks, and fend off any maneuver or attempt that would threaten the integrity of your line, thus ensuring that the pike wall is solid throughout the battle. i suggest you get 5 of them, 1 to protect the right, 1 to protect the left, and three to support any point on your line that needs supporting. get a decent amount of archers and slingers (i personally prefer 2 units of cretan or bosphoran archers and 1 of any kind of slinger, and 1 of any kind of low-level archer). use the archers to reduce the support of the enemy's heavy infantry, such as light infantry, skirmisher, and cavalry, so that they won't be too much of a nuisance later on in the battle. use the pikemen to create an impenetrable wall of pikes, at least 4 men deep, or if you have more pikes, 8.
this will be the men who will do the 'anvil' part of the alexandrian system - they will stand there, poke their sarissas at the men in front of them, whittle away the enemy soldiers' morale, stamina, and numbers (yes, even the elite ones). let them come to you. let them attack. let them wear themselves out. and of course, plug in any holes with your reserve infantry (the extra spear/sword-armed infantry). by this time it's a matter of sending your enemy straight to hell (or heaven, for that matter). that's where the cavalry comes in. have preferably the equivalent of 1/3 of your total force composed of cavalry. of these, have maybe 2 light cavalry for harassment, support, or 'clean up', though this isn't required. what is important is the medium cavalry with lances(like prodromoi, for quick strikes and even quicker retreats :laugh4:, or lonchophoroi, if you plan to hang on for a while - but only for a while) that'll do most of the charging. have them in reserve, preferably hidden, only moving if there is a threat that your infantry guarding the flanks can't deal with. wait for the right moment, then, when the enemy is down in morale and stamina, release them, circling to the rear and wiping out any opposition. then, reform, and or order them all - or at least, most of them - to charge at the same time. you will see that at the moment of impact, a wave of blinking flags - white, [color], white, [color] - will manifest itself throughout the enemy army, signifying a mass rout - and total victory.

you might think this tactic is too defensive for your liking. knowing that you are a very proficient gamer, i am sure that you can device another way to effectively use a combined-arms army of any faction. but just so you know, by using this tactic i was pretty successful. despite my lack of skill, i was able to to completely annihilate four and a half stacks with a 2/3rds stack. why just 2/3rds? because the army i'm using (as makedon of course) has been campaigning in italy for 35 years, with the same general (obviously an EB war god by now), fighting battle after battle(my last count was 106, i lost count after that), usually outnumbered at least 2 to 1, and getting like, 1500-3000 kills with only 10-50 casualties at the most. and what's more, in those 35 bloody years of war (or 140 EB turns) i only retrained 7 times. now that's cost-effectiveness for you. :beam:



p.s. : wow, i never thought reminiscing that campaign could be so fun!
it took 35 years because believe it or not, i was actually keeping rome alive.
the purpose was so that they could develop their armies not only so that i'll have bigger and bigger challenges, but also so that they could keep the northern peoples (arverni, aedui, etc.) in check. i even went to war with carthage 5 times, 2 aiding rome, and 3 fighting both (because they got into an alliance). i went so far as to give rome 50,000 mnai every 4 years as a gift, so they could continue to produce armies and be manipulated indefinitely. until now i'm in possession of just taras, rhegion, syrakusa, messana and lilibeo, although i'd occassionally rampage through italy and sack capua and rome, then give it back (of course not before being exterminated and stripped of every building in sight). i was even able to prevent rome from capturing the 3 northern, massively garrisoned eleutheroi cities (forgot the names, but one is ligurian i think, near where genoa is supposed to be) by keeping their armies constantly occupied (and constantly utterly defeated).

you see, after playing EB and RTW for four years now, i've gradually lost interest in this whole idea of 'conqueing the world is victory'. think about it. what if you could instead be a power broker of empires? what if instead of completely taking over a region, you could instead impose a protectorate and practically have a pet nation? just a thought i implemented- and it turned out great.

one other trick i employed is that i'd let multiple stacks attack me so that i won't have to waste time chasing them all over the map just to kill them. what i'd do is i'd goad them into battle by besieging one of their cities, and voila, instant enemy-magnet.

ok i'm off-topic. enough.




i hope this'll help you to appreciate EB more. :yes:

Titus Marcellus Scato
04-24-2008, 18:15
You want to appreciate cavalry in EB?

Play the Casse for a while and see how much you 'enjoy' their chariots....now they are REALLY crap in melee.....

Or try the KH and use all-infantry armies against the Makedones, and watch your skirmishers being chased off the field by their Companion Cavalry.

Olaf The Great
04-24-2008, 21:53
Head East, young man. You will find fanatic adherents to just about all the factions here - so send that general question out knowing that. Start a new thread with a "best cavalry faction" and find yourself in the middle of a fine mess. There may be some insightful threads already out there - so do take a moment and check out some of the older pages.:book:
I've played mostly Western Factions, so I am of little help. I do know that the Gallic Briethen (sp) cav is the best in the west. As for out East - ask away - just remember ..."I warned you!!"

:laugh4:
Isn't the "Best in the West" those crazy Iberian Kataphraktoi?

Midnj
04-24-2008, 23:23
Isn't the "Best in the West" those crazy Iberian Kataphraktoi?

I'd say the Sacred Band is the best in the west as a pure cav unit. The Iberian Lancerii (or whatever) are probably the best melee cav, but then I was never a fan of melee cav in EB unless they're also a horse archer.

Arkanin
05-25-2008, 17:38
Hi guys, thanks for the replies, especially Glouch. I don't have time to respond to your entire post mate but I understand your point about cavalry not doing well toe to toe but I don't see that as the big picture.

I have finished a 1.1 campaign now and it is my opinion that the way cavalry behave is deeply flawed. In EB, cavalry cause almost no damage to any kind of unit without suffering major losses. Their only role then is to repeatedly charge flanks and retreat with minimal casualties to cause arbitrary morale loss and routing, not to actually injure units in any significant way. I have seen heavy cavalry fight skirmishers and route -- the lack of balance of cavalry as an actual combat piece is quite ridiculous.

Whenever I fight now, I bring two units of cavalry. I micro the cavalry to repeatedly charge flanks without ever connecting with infantry, and then chase down routers with it. Let's talk historical accuracy. One for one, mounted warriors should have an edge against infantry, i imagine, even "toe to toe". The reason is not equipment but the synergy of the confusion caused by a charge, and their continued mobility; cavalry units do not sit around while infantry whack on them but remain moving targets even as they enter a melee.

RTW has a mechanic that reflects this. Cavalry mass. In RTW cavalry penetrate enemy ranks, remain mobile, and cause much more damage to enemy units. In EB, they run up to the enemy with lances out, kill a few guys, and just stand there.

My proposal is that the "CHARGE BONUS" has a negligible affect on cavalry behavior -- it causes one or two casualties, while the "MASS", which has been nerfed, is what causes cavalry to behave like real cavalry -- disrupting enemy ranks, using their mobility to their advantage after a charge, and so on.

Arkanin
05-25-2008, 17:43
I understand if the EB team does not see balance issues the same way as me -- but since I believe a hidden attribute determines cavalry effectiveness and not "charge bonus", which has negligible effects, I am going to find and up cavalry mass to comport with old RTW settings and see how it plays.

So here is the question, if I want to increase cavalry mass, how do I go about doing that?

Mediolanicus
05-25-2008, 17:50
I thought I'd let you all know where I am now -- so far I have finished four VH/VH campaigns:


I suppose you always play VH/VH?

Then the last thing you have to complain about is unit balance, because you are unbalancing them yourself!
VH battles gives AI 7 more defence and 7 more morale points.
With those advantages you'd have to unbalance cavalry very heavily to make charges effective.
And since in EB melee with cavalry is very deadly for your cavalry only (as it was back then too, without stirrups), VH battles just won't work!

Play on VH/M and start complaining then.

If you do then I'll tell you you're using your cavalry wrong and tell you to read this thread : https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=103172

good day.

Arkanin
05-26-2008, 00:40
I suppose you always play VH/VH?

Then the last thing you have to complain about is unit balance, because you are unbalancing them yourself!
VH battles gives AI 7 more defence and 7 more morale points.
With those advantages you'd have to unbalance cavalry very heavily to make charges effective.
And since in EB melee with cavalry is very deadly for your cavalry only (as it was back then too, without stirrups), VH battles just won't work!

Play on VH/M and start complaining then.

If you do then I'll tell you you're using your cavalry wrong and tell you to read this thread : https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=103172

good day.

I misspoke. My 1.1 campaign HAS been on VH/M based on someone's prior suggestion that VH/VH screws up unit balance. I HAVE figured out how to exploit the cavalry in this mod; I already explained how.

In your guide, the author spends the entire battle paying a micromanagement cost to charge repeatedly, then achieves woeful cost inefficiency by exchanging elite cavalry with middling spearmen... it ought to be a primer on why cavalry are worthless.

Regardless, I DO NOT want to debate this with you. I would much rather someone tell me where I can change cavalry so that they penetrate ranks as intended like in old RTW... which was unfair when they cost the same as infantry, but is quite fine when they have triple the upkeep.

beatoangelico
05-26-2008, 01:17
the file is descr_mount. But I have to say that is sad to see that you continue to not understand how cavalry work in RTW and in EB and how this compares to real life. If someone say that EB is "deeply flawed" and vanilla RTW was better, then I expect that he knows how the things work and not just some generic supposition. But if you want the I WIN button and screw up the balance, go on :drama2:

satalexton
05-26-2008, 01:47
....another prime example of a traditional RTS gamer that has been overfed with hollywood 'historical' productions... *cough* LS, Gladiator.

...Bear in mind, in real non-hollywood history, casualties in the actually battle itself are very low (no more than 3-5% of the combatants involved). People are normal people like you and me, not some hollywood fearless kungfu gladiator that carve through everybody without a scratch. the vast majority of casualties happen during the rout, where the routers throw off everything they wear (armour, shields, weapons), run for their dear lives in disarray, and swiftly chased and cut down by the light and medium calvary.

QuintusSertorius
05-26-2008, 02:20
Charges work perfectly fine, if you charge from the right distance. No horn, no proper contact.

Archers are rubbish, because in this period, archers were rubbish. Use slingers.

||Lz3||
05-26-2008, 04:00
*cough* looks like someone just came from RTW... oh and "competitive" gamer (I wonder what am I then):thinking2:


RTW is so full of lies compared against reality (*cough**cough* urban/praetorian cohorts army :smash: ) ,DONT trust what RTW or Hollywood says...

I also think that cavalry is horrible when talking about effectiveness/ cost but you can't win any battle without cav... and prices are also realistic , not made for balanced gameplay , as you might be able to see by now , the majority EB players prefer historical accuracy and NOT balanced gameplay... horses were expensive to maintain , thereafter its in-game high cost

I dare you to play a MP match... but you have to use ONLY infantry with no archers or skirmishers since they are useless...


well I guess you can change the cav stat if you wish (:¬|) , and add lorica segmentata (cause its cooler) in the process...

EB is not exactly game balanced , but rather historically acurate , and ALL of us are more than pleased whit it


an off topic question do you like halo?:smash:

russia almighty
05-26-2008, 04:50
Got to love power gamers sometimes.



"OI EVERYTHING HAS TO BE TEH BALANCED"

Sorry dummy, warfare and army compositions in history isn't balanced. Even at Carrhae, the kataphraktoi backed the fuck off from head on cavalry charges the first time around; they'd only charge when the legions were trying to make a run for it, and even then, the charge wasn't that great. It was the HA's that won the day.

So read a history book, cause frankly you are pissing off the rest of us.

Captain Trek
05-26-2008, 04:59
Bear in mind, in real non-hollywood history, casualties in the actually battle itself are very low (no more than 3-5% of the combatants involved).

I think that would be because (you might not believe this, but it's true) in reality, it would only be about 2% of the men invovled doing all the killing... Look up the documentray "the Truth About Killing" and see what I mean... In the Age of Imperialism and even as late as WWII, only 2% of the men involved were doing the killing, 25% were firing but were firing over the heads of the enemy, the prmitive parts of their mind telling them to try and scare the enemy away (this was a typicall Gaulish tactic as well, but it didn't generally work on the Romans because they were all doped up on lead from their drinking water pipes), and the remaning three quaters weren't even firing at all...

How could this apply to a melee senario, though? I reckon what most of the men would have done would be to simply do what they do in drill when they train with each other, and would wind up striking each-other's shields and whatnot, but would deliberately (subconciously at least) avoid taking advantage of openings through which they could score a kill...

Once the enemy was routed, it would become easy for the 2%ers in the cavalry to cut their way through a ton of enemies...

Do you think that's in the ballpark?

Cartaphilus
05-26-2008, 09:37
In the ancient war most of the casualties happened when the battle had finished and the enemies were fleeing.

Africanvs
05-26-2008, 09:50
I see what you're saying, but you're confused about the way a cavalry charge happened in this time period. People weren't ridden down so much as they were outflanked and outmaneuvered. Simply being enveloped and realizing you were surrounded, and the effect that had on ones moral was the key. A xyston through the back didn't hurt either but cavalry weren't barreling through lines of infantry. There is a unit that behaves in the way you're talking using shear mass as it's weapon: it's called an elephant, and if you want to run over dudes and launch them into the air, go for AS or another elephant faction. If you learn to use your cavalry correctly, you'll see that they can be very effective, but they'll never be the queen on the chess board. Typically, my cavalry oppose the enemy cavalry, as was the case in history most times. Only after winning the cavalry engagement, do they turn on the enemy missile troops, and then after routing those, strike at the weak points in the enemy line from the rear (not to kill a lot of men, but to rout them so my infantry can hack them to bits). Cavalry simply aren't the destructive force you want them to be. Raising their mass will make it so when you land a charge you'll send guys flying everywhere and it will be very devastating and ahistorical. The thing is, if thats what you want, why are you playing this mod? A shit load of work has gone into creating a historical situation where things are as realistic as possible. I think you saying that it isn't vannilla enough is a huge compliment but why you would want to go back to that is beyond me. Anyway if you want uber cavalry good luck with your modding of descr_mount but if you mess up the file, fear the LorDBulA if you need help. ^^

Arkanin
05-26-2008, 20:58
I see that the average level of maturity here is not terribly high. To those of you who at least formulate your comments without complete direspect (Africanvs et al.), thank you. Historical accuracy aside, I still think it's unexciting and imbalanced, so let's let my opinion be mine and yours yours.

To the person that said I should edit descr_mount, thank you. Can give me more information about what I need to change? I'd like to figure this out before the thread gets closed.

||Lz3||
05-26-2008, 22:04
well...cav wasn't really useful on those eras... I guess that's why romans never actually worried on having a good cavalry... so perhaps the stats mean that you cant use cavalry against every type of unit and pretty much win every time as you can in MTW2... why? well because in history they weren't able to do that...


this is a history based mod... perhaps if you try RTR ... I've heard it has more "action" , and about the exciting thing...well I wouldn't say I'm excited when I play the game but...rather fascinated :2thumbsup: unless I'm playing MP (My offer to have a MP match is still alive...:cool4: )

satalexton
05-26-2008, 22:26
indeed RTR has a pretty good focus on gameplay, quite well balanced too....of course at the expense of certain historical details. But u'll still get your cavalry slaughtered if you charge head on into prepared light infantry.

EB is not the average game you buy in the streets, EB's focus is NOT on entertainment, but rather EDUCATION. thats where the term EDUTAINMENT comes in.

In fact, arguably, I could even consider EB as a historical simulator of sorts... go see the AARs, you can even say many of them are actually "what-ifs" of history.

if you want a balanced game set in the classical period, i recommend you [Age of Empires: Rise of Rome]. I quite liked that game back then.

||Lz3||
05-27-2008, 04:18
I've learned more ancient history in 3 weeks of EB that in all my life!!:laugh4:

geez I didnt even knew there was something called baktria for example :embarassed:


Now I almost consider myself as an amateur expert :wiseguy:

craziii
05-27-2008, 04:28
I see that the average level of maturity here is not terribly high. To those of you who at least formulate your comments without complete direspect (Africanvs et al.), thank you. Historical accuracy aside, I still think it's unexciting and imbalanced, so let's let my opinion be mine and yours yours.

To the person that said I should edit descr_mount, thank you. Can give me more information about what I need to change? I'd like to figure this out before the thread gets closed.

find the mass line, then change the number to whatever you like. keep in mind the armored cataphract mass value though, as it should alwas be the heaviest horse mount. elephants should be change to 3 times that.

Mediolanicus
05-27-2008, 07:21
I agree that maybe you should go for RTR then.

RTR is a very, very good improvement of RTW, with lots of action and well balanced, decent gameplay.

EB is a very, very good game, using the RTW engine.

They are therefore uncomparable.

(wow, just wait until Hax sees this page)

As for your horses. I can kill either unit, as long as I don't charge head-on - but then again what commander would do that? - with every cavalry unit in the game that has a lance as first or secondary weapon.
The only problem I encounter is something hard coded, namely that you can't charge running skirmishers.

beatoangelico
05-27-2008, 10:26
I see that the average level of maturity here is not terribly high. To those of you who at least formulate your comments without complete direspect (Africanvs et al.), thank you. Historical accuracy aside, I still think it's unexciting and imbalanced, so let's let my opinion be mine and yours yours.

To the person that said I should edit descr_mount, thank you. Can give me more information about what I need to change? I'd like to figure this out before the thread gets closed.

if you'd simply asked "I'm still dissatisfied, how can I change it?" insted of teaching us how real cavalry charges work and that the mass value is the holy grail, maybe the answers would have been different :juggle2:

Arkanin
05-27-2008, 14:51
Regardless, I DO NOT want to debate this with you. I would much rather someone tell me where I can change cavalry so that they penetrate ranks as intended like in old RTW... which was unfair when they cost the same as infantry, but is quite fine when they have triple the upkeep.

TY for the replies that were constructive. Those of you who can't muster the maturity to be... I'm just not going to reply.


RTR is a very, very good improvement of RTW, with lots of action and well balanced, decent gameplay.

EB is a very, very good game, using the RTW engine.

They are therefore uncomparable.

By definition, EB's an RTW mod. In about 3 hours, I could produce an export_descr_unit.txt file that causes EB battles to play like RTW battles. Anyway, that's not what I'm going to do, but I *am* going to make one that causes EB to play like a combination of EB and RTW.

I'm going to make a mod that focuses solely on balanced gameplay that is only somewhat slower than original RTW, with physics a little more like RTW. The goal is for it to play a bit like darthmod. If you don't like it, don't play it. I'll post it up in a while, then start a campaign and begin a continuous tweaking process.

mlp071
05-27-2008, 16:36
I am not sure that you are taking into account additional factors such as:

a) units experience (did they had chevrons and if so which ones?) and if there was AI FM around and some others.

b) EB AI generals are packed with stars and all different goodies in order to prolong fight, since AI is not capable itself to do that.

c) Was your cavalry also tired or not ? I mean, no ones runs same if they are tired, and horses are not exception to that.

All that also affects units moral and liability to break.

Even so, no unit will break from one cavalry charge while they are still not tired, unless you charge them with cavalry with very high charge value.

Personally, I tried several M2TW mods and didn't like it ,because suggestions that you are making made my game unsatisfactory for me.Example 2-3 units of my Armored Sargents( T1 or T2 cavalry with almost no charge value) would rout pretty much any army, including elite one off the field.And as human i know how to take advantage of that(high unit mass) , but AI is completely incapable to do it.

Result of all that for me was very short battles and i would win without even trying to use any tactical knowledge.I found that gamebreaking for me and unrealistic.

For me it comes down to this:

1) Cavalry (with some exceptions like Cata's) of classical period was not all powerful to win battle by single charge, if it was Romans would be first to use and abuse that considering their history of using others knowledge in their favor.

2) Only coming Dark Ages Cavalry got more power and even then it could not resolve battle alone, you still need infantry and other support units to do that.
You can see Battle of Adrianople(Goths) in 378 for that, as that was historically(i believe wrongly) marked as start of cavalry domination in battle . Or you can see Battle of Mohi and Batlle of Legnica in 1241(if anyone had best cavalry it was Mongols).

In all those cases cavalry charges in the back were used to win battle after infantry, archers and HA's tired, demoralized and somewhat depleted enemy.

3) Having cavalry with mass like in RTW vanilla or in Darth mod in M2TW( if you check my posts in the past i am huge fan of Darth's but nevertheless) is just way to much, it takes away tactical point of battles.All you need is to lineup infantry to hold other side and then charge once. Game over without any sweat.

Same applies for lowering down defensive values of infantry.

4) Price of cavalry(and prices in general) in EB is pretty much on the mark. You pay less then for infantry if you recruit unarmored , crappy nomad HA's (very useful ones though), but you will pay bunch if you want Ornamented, heavy armored cavalry that has a punch.

You can ask Antiochus III the Great how much it cost him to recruit his army at Magnesia(he had 12000 cavalry).And he still lost to Romans without almost no cavalry(5000 cavalry).

I am not sure, but it looks to me that you are looking for quicker battles where you can decide battle in first couple of minutes with 1-2 cavalry charge.Or i am wrong in that ?

Sorry for lengthy post.

Captain Trek
05-27-2008, 16:36
RTR is a very, very good improvement of RTW, with lots of action and well balanced, decent gameplay.

EB is a very, very good game, using the RTW engine

I see the issue of RTR vs EB thusly...

What RTR tries to do is it attempts to make RTW as historically accurate as possible, but with a focus on keeping the gameplay as balanced as possible and retaining the 'spirit' of what Creative Assembly were originally attempting to accomplish when they made the game...

EB, on the other hand, says 'screw it' and rebuilds the game almost entirely from the ground up and puts historical accuracy first, balanced gameplay second...

That's the thing really, as you said, EB and RTR attempt to accompish different things... That's the long and short of it... And indeed, if this guy is so obsessed with having more powerful cavalry charges and RTR apparantly has that, he should probably play RTR instead...


EB is not the average game you buy in the streets, EB's focus is NOT on entertainment, but rather EDUCATION. thats where the term EDUTAINMENT comes in.

The way I see it, if I were to picture EB as a meal, I would see the primary entertainment value of the mod as being the meat and potatoes, with any other vegitables on the plate representing how the drive for historical accuracy crosses over into the gameplay and actually serves to make the gameplay better... This comes in several forms including how units behave and look on the battlefield, unit availability and cost on the campaign map, the campaign map itself and, of course, the new mechanics behind generals and the traits and ancillaries they acquire...

The, what I would call 'extraneous' historical infomation (like the historical context you get when you right click on a unit or building for more infomation) that does not directly affect the gameplay is (I think) appropriately represented by a drink of some sort (wine possibly) to go along with the meal... You could eat the meal without the drink (I.E. You could play the game without reading any of the histroy), but taking the drink as well helps round out the meal and almost certainly serves to make it a more pleasureable experience... You don't want to drink the wine at the expense of the meal though, or else the meal will languish and get cold while you chug down the wine and become drunk... What that means is that you don't want to find yourself having done nothing for an hour or hours because you were reading through pages and pages worth of historical infomation... This is, after all, a game, not a textbook...

In the context of the meal, you're far better off taking an occasional sip from the wine glass as you eat... That is, for example, only reading up on the histories of particular units and buildings as you become curious about them (such as when I first encountered a unit of Elite African Pikemen when I attacked Carthage)... This is what I do anyway (your method may be different though, but it's fine as long as you don't suspend actually playing the game just for the sake of reading the history)... I also don't make it my buisness to read through every 'the year in history' 'cover to cover' as it were (rather I just skim through them and get the main points)...

That's just how I view it anyway...

Anyway, I'd just like to see if we can adress something else Arkanin said but no one has responded to... that being his view that Rorarii are unbalanced... What do you think about this? I've personally found them to be a fantastic and highly versatile light unit, just the thing for bogging down enemy cavalry and/or out flanking the enemy... I've also found they make a fantastic garrison unit, being fairly cheap, having large numbers and being strong enough to deal with brigands and the occasional small enemy force that slips by my main legions... I'm personally not sure if being versatile necessarily makes them unbalanced, but what do you think? Does Arkanin's statement regarding Rorarii have merit?

Cartaphilus
05-27-2008, 19:59
I hate this f***ing CTD after winning a battle!!!

:wall: :wall: :wall: :wall:

Death wishes increasing!!!

Mediolanicus
05-27-2008, 20:52
Wait half a minute at the victory screen before continuing.
That way your PC can "catch his breath".

take a look at this : https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=104003
and that : https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=103681

Grim Fiddler
05-27-2008, 22:00
I just read through this entire thread today. It was very interesting and informative. Only towards the end did it get testy, when some people started to defend EB against Arkanin too harshly.

I kept finding out things I didn’t know or had forgotten, like the single right-click, then alt-right click.

Sdragon
05-27-2008, 22:15
I always hear people complain about skirmishers beating heavy cavalry, but I've yet to have this happen. My medium cavalry even do fine against them. It's just a matter of waiting for contact (When your cavalry starts to act stupid), hit the stop button and order the attack again. Only my lightest of cavalry avoid such a fight.

||Lz3||
05-27-2008, 22:22
actually I had lost many heavy cavs by those pesky skirmishers... but oh well... they have spears...


although is a little annoying to get your 5200 mnai unit killed by a 245 one ...


either way I do bealive that I certainly DONT need anything from the original RTW...there's nothing I would like to recover from there

satalexton
05-28-2008, 01:17
quite normal if you think about it in real life.

everybody has a spear, some have longer, more expensive ones. Other have a shorter crappier one. But in the end, all it takes to kill a cavalrymen are a bunch of steadfast men sticking their spear the right direction. It makes little difference be it a skirmisher or a hoplite. the difference is how disciplined and train you are to stand fast long enough to deal with multiple charges.

I always have at least 2 units of heavy calvary with me, and they typically last me at least a dozen battles before needing retraining. Why? Cuz i keep pulling them out the moment the charge is spent, wheel to their back again/find a new target, charge again. If done right, cavalry in EB is deadly.

Even the Eqvites can be deadly, they're just not worth the price for medium melee cavalry thats all.

Africanvs
05-28-2008, 07:17
The cost of a unit doesn't always mean a lot. Cavalry are expensive because typically you're talking about supplying a soldier with finer armor and weapons, one maybe two horses each, tack for the horse, sometimes barding, etc. Although they might still be vanquished by a cheap ass gallic farmer with a stick. Just like sports, the key to winning battles is all about match-ups. You have to know thy enemy. There is nothing more brutal than missile troops with spears for a cavalryman. Indeed the spear is the bane of cavalry. I am wary to charge spear units even from behind with cavalry because the spear units turn around eventually. It happened a lot in history that cavalry would dismount during a fight and make an infantry battle of it, but the engine doesn't allow this. M2TW just drove me crazy when their cavalry would charge frontally right through my pikes.....unggghhh. Cavalry is perfect for me in EB but if it isn't for you I understand why you want to change it. It's your free time, and it is a game so it should be fun for you. That being said...

Arkanin, it's all about how you want your game to play. You have to excuse the many diehard fans of EB. Some people don't like when people walk in and start saying how the mod is flawed in certain areas. This mod has a long history and many hours of work have been done. Nothing in EB has been done without a lot of discussion and research. There always seems to be someone who thinks the mod should change to fit them. A better place for this would probably have been the unofficial modding thread where people are more receptive to these kinds of changes and would be happy to help you implement them. At any rate calling people immature and the like is not going to solve anything. It will probably just turn into a flamefest and will inevitably be locked. I'm not naming any names but if the shoe fits wear it. Never get into an argument with an idiot, they'll drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.

Cartaphilus
05-28-2008, 07:36
Wait half a minute at the victory screen before continuing.
That way your PC can "catch his breath".

take a look at this : https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=104003
and that : https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=103681

Thanks a lot.
I'll try it next time.