Surprisingly bad units

[machinor]

Seriously? Against those Pantodapoi spearmen? I never had the chance to use them in battle, but this sounds aweful. There must have been an other reason for them doing so bad.

[Cullhwch]

I was actually quite disappointed by my carthaginan sacred band infantry... I made one unit of them to try them out and used them in my army against the ptolies. In the first battle I was attacked by a single unit of hellenic native spearmen 'reinforcement' in the back, so I decided to try my shiny sacred band against them. What happened? After about 10 minutes of fighting they finally managed to rout those crappy spearmen, loosing half of their unit!:wall:

Shenanigans. What difficulty level were you playing on? The stats are balanced for medium battle difficulty. You probably played on VH, which gives the AI +7 to attack, defensive skill, and morale. On medium difficulty it's about as lopsided as prison sex.

[Kuningaz]

Actually I played on medium difficulty, the only advantage the pantadopoi had was advantage of height. I even charged them btw (from a small distance)

[Watchman]

They didn't happen to be some of those gold-upgrade gold-chevron OMGWTFHAX monsters settlement revolts often spawn? The last time I had to deal with such, they were Missile Target #1 for the whole army...

[Kuningaz]

Hm don't really think so, usually it's apeleutheroi and mercenaries that get spawned and not a single unit of pantadopoi, no?

[Aemilius Paulus]

Actually I played on medium difficulty, the only advantage the pantadopoi had was advantage of height. I even charged them btw (from a small distance)

Advantage of height, eh? How big was the advantage? RTW engine vastly overrates height advantage IMHO. Not only this, but terrain in RTW can be ridiculously steep. Anyway, I remember doing tests in vanilla, and an unupgraded unit of Ppeasants destroyed a unit of Mercenary Hoplites in phalanx mode on about a 20 degree slope, suffering only 40 casualties out of 120!

[Watchman]

Hm don't really think so, usually it's apeleutheroi and mercenaries that get spawned and not a single unit of pantadopoi, no?The Apeleutheroi were created to do away with the problem of the game crashing if there were no barracks in the settlement to generate the rebel units from. If there are barracks present, however, pretty much any unit the "rebelling-to" faction could recruit out of them may appear.

And Panties? They're recruited out of the first-level barracks over a *very* wide area...

[Tyrfingr]

https://www.europabarbarorum.com/i/units/baktria/baktria_bactrian_kambojas.gif

In my semi-observing Indo-Baktria game, I thought these were good medium cavalry...but it turned out they drop like flies for the most.

[Kuningaz]

Advantage of height, eh? How big was the advantage? RTW engine vastly overrates height advantage IMHO. Not only this, but terrain in RTW can be ridiculously steep. Anyway, I remember doing tests in vanilla, and an unupgraded unit of Ppeasants destroyed a unit of Mercenary Hoplites in phalanx mode on about a 20 degree slope, suffering only 40 casualties out of 120!
Well I'm aware of how steep the battle maps can be but it wasn't that much at all, just an average dune in the Sahara near that town west of Alexandreia (forgot the name)


The Apeleutheroi were created to do away with the problem of the game crashing if there were no barracks in the settlement to generate the rebel units from. If there are barracks present, however, pretty much any unit the "rebelling-to" faction could recruit out of them may appear.

And Panties? They're recruited out of the first-level barracks over a *very* wide area...
Hm I didn´t know that maybe I got my impression of apeleutheroi with mercenaries from my Sauromatae campaign where completely destroyed and abandoned cities rebelled to the AS.

[kekailoa]

https://www.europabarbarorum.com/i/units/casse/casse_calawre.gif

These guys are a hinderance to my army. They have no stamina, so tire extremely easy (slowing down the rest of the army). I'm almost tempted to mod the EDU file.

They are 'surprisingly bad' because they are an elite unit (who should be fit), and are expensive

By the way, I love Casse; the varied units, the body paintings, all beautiful.

I agree. For an elite unit of the Casse, you can recruit the Milhant (those Belgae swordsmen) for less, get more troops, and maintenance is less by half. I just skip these guys and keep my Milhant until I get to the Rycalawre.

And I disagree about the Godilic Nobles. Those guys are tough infantry that saved my Casse army in Iberia by fighting where it was the hottest (I was playing a Godilic Iberian conquest) and I relied on them heavily.

[Karo]

The Carthaginian Bodyguard, they are really awful they get their ass kicked by some weak skirmish cavalry. or is it just me and that I'm used to the tanks of the east who can destroy everything on their path

[Watchman]

AP weapons. Don't get swamped in them. The Sacred Band are just about the most hardcore cavalry in the whole western third of the map (with the possible exception of the Iberian catas), but anything dies with enough AP-armed weenies swarming it.

Especially if high charge and lethality scores are involved. I've had some unpleasant experiences with Qarth FMs getting mobbed by multiple Numidian horse, myself.

[Marcus Ulpius]

Personally I found Sacred band bodyguards quite good. They were able to tip the tide in several battles with Romans, while Roman infantry had quality advantage over my infantry as Romans were fielding mostly Triarii and PE's (until I destroyed most of their recruitment centers). I certainly wouldn't win those battles without Sacred Band guards.

On the other hand, I think Hypaspistai are surprisingly bad. Of course they can take care of themselves in battle, but for their title and stats they lose too much men and cause too little damage you'd expect from elite soldiers. I think Pheraspidai is a much better and more versatile unit.

[Sdragon]

Pontic Elite Infantry are really bad. They are supposed to be a step up from Hellenic Spearmen but you'll find they are cheaper and are far worse, despite the armour they actually have -1 defence. Fought a 88 man unit of militia hoplies with 5XP and bronze weapon. My full strength elite infantry (160 men) routed after their numbers fell to 70. They killed just 30 hoplites. After that I threw my Celtic spearmen into the mix and destroyed those hoplites with ease, taking limited casualties This is on flat ground, in a town, a fair test. Taking into account the level barracks needed and the limited recruitment area, your left with something cheap and useless at everything. I got more use out of the Hellenic native spearmen I started with.

Iberian Heavy Infantry are the same thing really. They cost a tiny bit more and you get a little more out of them. But the loss of numbers over their light cousins doesn't make up for it. They are described as the best of the Iberian warriors, but they don't act like it. Little more than glorified line infantry.

[Zarax]

I fully agree, Pontic thorakitai were my biggest disappointment when playing with them.
Luckily galatian heavies proved to be a pretty good replacement...

[MerlinusCDXX]

My solution to recruiting the relatively useless Pontic Thrakitai...don't. Use lots of type 3 gov'ts and get Classical Hoplitai and regular ole thureophoroi instead as a line infantry (for a non-phalanx option) or recruit Galatikoi Kuarathoroi (Galatian heavies- these guys rock) where you can as your elite infantry.

[Watchman]

The Pontic Thorakitai aren't actually too bad when you look at it closely - save for numbers and the lack of AP precursors, they're about on par with Cohors Reformata although a bit more expensive. (Which actually also goes for the largely similar Armenian armoured swordsmen. I'm actually a bit surprised nobody's complaining about them in the same breath...) The real letdown is their war gear, which just doesn't really add up to armour scores better than average (9, to be specific) no matter how you look at it, so they just can't really make all that good a showing compared to, say, the more thoroughly armoured common Thorakitai.

The Iberian armoured troopers have a bit different problem, namely, they live in a corner of the map where AP weapons grow in trees. That kind of seriously nerfs the mileage they get out of their gear, goes a long way to allowing the lighter guys swamp them by sheer numbers and makes them rather cost-inefficient much of the time. They should perform rather better against opponents without AP though, one imagines.

Could be that the lot need to be given the +2 "agility" bonus to defense skill. It's not usually used on units with more than a relatively light level of armour (8 is the usual threshold), but when that's broken it is to either A) denote a particularly elite level of training or B) make an expensive unit perform more like "what it says on the tin". In the case of the three units mentioned above, the latter is probably applicable as they do seem to have a bit of a viablity issue ATM.

[MerlinusCDXX]

Good point on the Armenian swordsmen, I don't think anyone notices their lackluster performance because Hayasdan has better options for killing power, namely horsearchers, cataphract horsearchers, and cataphract lancers. I think with Pontos, the lack of a good infantry unit with proper killing power is noticeably lacking because there's not really any other outstanding killer in the Pontic arsenal except for early FM bodyguards, as their heavy cavalry options aren't recruitable in their core provinces. They do have a good pike phalanx, but they have more holding power than killing power. With Pontos, I tend to use a lot of regional troops because of their lackluster homegrown military.