gamegeek2
06-02-2012, 10:39
(Note that this applies to 1v1s only)
Here at EB Online we are dedicated to the proposition that each faction, with the exception of the Saba, should be equally playable and viable in online play. This does not mean that we do not concede that some factions are poorly matched against others. What we do believe, however, is that each faction should have a fighting chance.
The Sauromatae have only six factional infantry units. These are as follows:
1. Scythian Axemen
2. Dugundiz
3. Sarmatian Spearmen
4. Vojinos
5. Scythian Foot Archers
6. Sarmatian Foot Archers
Now, first thing you notice is that only one of these units is unique to the Sauromatae, the one with 'Sarmatian' in its name. Even that unit is basically a clone of the Scythians (who are one armor superior anyways). So essentially, no infantry unique to the Sauromatae. That is fine; each faction has its own unique combination of troops, which need not be available solely to it.
Another noticeable thing is a decided lack of javelins among these infantry. While roughly half (or more) of all infantry units in EB carry javelins, only one factional Sarmatian unit does; prior to recent changes, none of them did. This has a few effects; one is to make the Sauromatae immediately lose against any player who decides to bring elephants. I can only offer anecdotal evidence, but frankly in a practice battle against Brave Sir Robin the other week, I simple gave up when I saw he brought elephants. I played the missile duel as best as reasonably possible; managing to take out stray slingers with charges from my Aorsi, shooting enemies' backs when I can, etc. I even remembered to have my infantry fire some of their javelins, while having some be saved for the elephants; but as soon as Robin engaged my infantry and therefore cutting off my javelins and brought the elephants to the flanks, I simply gave up fighting. Shooting elephants with arrows will simply not bring the pachyderms down as it might have historically, killing mahouts and pestering the beasts into rage and panic.
One can argue that I could take javelin cavalry to counter such beasts; let me point out that the only two such units available to the Sarmatians are both nonfactionals, and with recent changes, a Sarmatian player can only bring six of such troops. Hence the Epeirotes, Carthaginians, Romans, Ptolemies, Sakae, and Seleucids need only make a 9000 mnai down-payment (or less) and thus mostly guarantee a victory for themselves.
The final noticeable thing is that none of these infantry have any sort of armor and none of them have great killing power to make up for this. The Sweboz and Lusotana have both been pointed to as victims of such blights for their existence; but the Lusitanians have many Celtiberian and Iberian factional units with large shields and respectable armor stats. The Sweboz, though lacking in heavy armor save their most elite, have such tremendous killing power and morale resiliency that they can take great damage from missiles and still carve through enemies or chain rout them with troops that frighten the enemy.
The Sarmatians, to decide a melee, must rely on formidable but vulnerable nomadic nobility and lancers, who boast none of the shields or impressive armor of Hellenes (save the Roxolani who cost the player as much as a cataphract archer unit) nor the sheer brutality of Parthian and Sakae cataphracts. The Sarmatians do boast powerful lancers in their current incarnation, but are unable to contest swathes of heavy infantry. And though such should be the historical case, with well-formed Romans even resisting Parthian cataphracts, Tacitus describes the irresistibility of armored Sarmatian lancers formed in squadrons; and given the classical predilection to exaggerate the armor of Sarmatians (hardly many could have afforded such panoply, even though they are depicted in good numbers). Though Roman legionaries are described as capable of holding against the charge of the Iazyges, these are the same legionaries that held themselves against the onslaught of the Parthians.
Tests using current EB stats indicate that Sarmatian lancer units (the most vulnerable ones) dent heavy infantry about 20% less than do cataphracts; consider further that Sarmatian lancers have but 1 more attack and 3 more charge than Prodromoi (who have greater armor and higher total defense) and one questions the value of the Roxolani lancer unit. Even when one accounts for their capability to engage at range, this capability is easily nullified by foot archers and horse archers that boast comparable or superior accuracy and greater numbers as well as far lower cost. Given that any reasonable opponent of a Sarmatian player will load up on such units and keep reserves of them, as I have seen in my battle experience, the lancers are thus rendered useless. One could argue the same for Prodromoi, but recall that a player bringing excessive missiles against a Hellenistic player will be quickly punished by inferiority in heavy infantry.
Now you can try to solve the problem the same was as a Sarmatian player; bringing more heavy infantry. Then you realize that you can't. The absolute maximum number of heavy infantry a Sarmatian player can bring is 6 - 6 hoplites. These aren't even effective offensive troops. And if you want effective offensive troops without losing these heavy infantry, you must turn to the Dugundiz - who will be shredded by the many missiles brought by a competent enemy, and aren't even that impressive as combat troops when you stack them against the Kuarothoroi and Thorakitai of other nations. Should you need a particularly strong infantry offense, you must sacrifice hoplites in exchange for Bastarnae - who will be even more quickly destroyed by numerous missiles.
Even the deployment of six hoplite units requires the forgoing of the Sarmatian player's most important foot unit - Bosporan archers. The strongest medium foot-archer unit available, these are also the most heavily armored and thus are strong in missile duels, dealing out the damage well and absorbing it better. After this they can even fight in melee! Indeed, one wonders why you would not bring six of such troops - except for their inability to hold in melee against more numerous or more capable opponents of similar or lower cost, whose large shields turn aside arrows with ease. There is a good reason why the entirety of my past Sarmatian infantry forces would consist of Bosporans, Bastarnae, and the occasional Vojinos unit to scare enemy infantry (that is of course no longer a tool in the Sarmatian arsenal). Eight of these units in total (bosporans and bastarnae, occasionally kirwinikos) were needed, though six was a reasonable number in the days when you could park horse archers in Cantabrian circle and take 5 casualties from a whole unit of Cretans emptying their quivers. No more - without Bosporans to absorb arrows, a Sarmatian player's horse archers are stuck in a shootout, with less armor and worse accuracy than their opponents (and only greater spacing to save them). I'm not saying that this should not be the case - horse archers should indeed lose quite badly to foot archers such as Cretans.
Given that I have presented several paragraphs of babble dissecting the woes of a Sarmatian player, why then do I take them? It's a personal thing for me - I first enjoyed success in EB Online as the Sarmatians, in the days when true steppe armies abounded. I thrived in fact off of strict quotas - my enemies could only take five missile units, and I had the luxury of taking 8 - or later, 10. Now that such quotas are gone and my enemies are free to deploy unlimited missile troops against me - something that I welcome, as I firmly believe that the relaxation of composition restrictions has been one of the most positive developments in EB Online (and a mark of the success of the new EDUs that such deregulations have not introduced fundamental imbalances - self compliment :) ) but it leaves the Sarmatian player in an impossible situation.
In short, if I as the Sarmatian player am to play to my strengths as a steppe faction and deploy numerous lightly armed missile cavalry alongside a few Bosporan archers, it makes sense for my opponent to counter through use of numerous medium to heavily armed missile units. If I as the Sarmatian player wish to counter in turn, I must either bring more heavy infantry to overwhelm my opponent's missile advantage or deploy more armored archers. These are for the most part mutually exclusive possibilities. If I am to bring heavy infantry, my only option is to bring Hoplites, making me forgo the possibility of offensive infantry (Bastarnae) because of the nonfactional unit limit. If I am to attempt to bypass missile fights and overwhelm opponent with offensive infantry frontally, I must utilize unarmored troops which will be incidentally massacred by the archers my opponent has brought for my cavalry. If I am to bring more Bosporans instead, my opponent can simply advance with heavy infantry to overwhelm my Bosporans and use his archers to fend off my cavalry. In every situation where I try to adapt to my opponent's strategy, I lose - and I lose by doing nothing as well.
I recognize and embrace the fact that the Sarmatians are a difficult faction to play as. But this should flow from the skill required to wield a cavalry-heavy army and numerous horse archers against foot archers and numerous heavy infantry (something that these days I unfortunately seem to lack), not from the completely inability to pick an effective army.
My question to you all is, how would you solve this predicament? What is there to be done but to sit out the tournament, change factions, or beg for changes? And, if the last is the outcome (as I hope it is), what changes would be done?
Thank you (for wasting five minutes of your life reading this),
-gamegeek2
Here at EB Online we are dedicated to the proposition that each faction, with the exception of the Saba, should be equally playable and viable in online play. This does not mean that we do not concede that some factions are poorly matched against others. What we do believe, however, is that each faction should have a fighting chance.
The Sauromatae have only six factional infantry units. These are as follows:
1. Scythian Axemen
2. Dugundiz
3. Sarmatian Spearmen
4. Vojinos
5. Scythian Foot Archers
6. Sarmatian Foot Archers
Now, first thing you notice is that only one of these units is unique to the Sauromatae, the one with 'Sarmatian' in its name. Even that unit is basically a clone of the Scythians (who are one armor superior anyways). So essentially, no infantry unique to the Sauromatae. That is fine; each faction has its own unique combination of troops, which need not be available solely to it.
Another noticeable thing is a decided lack of javelins among these infantry. While roughly half (or more) of all infantry units in EB carry javelins, only one factional Sarmatian unit does; prior to recent changes, none of them did. This has a few effects; one is to make the Sauromatae immediately lose against any player who decides to bring elephants. I can only offer anecdotal evidence, but frankly in a practice battle against Brave Sir Robin the other week, I simple gave up when I saw he brought elephants. I played the missile duel as best as reasonably possible; managing to take out stray slingers with charges from my Aorsi, shooting enemies' backs when I can, etc. I even remembered to have my infantry fire some of their javelins, while having some be saved for the elephants; but as soon as Robin engaged my infantry and therefore cutting off my javelins and brought the elephants to the flanks, I simply gave up fighting. Shooting elephants with arrows will simply not bring the pachyderms down as it might have historically, killing mahouts and pestering the beasts into rage and panic.
One can argue that I could take javelin cavalry to counter such beasts; let me point out that the only two such units available to the Sarmatians are both nonfactionals, and with recent changes, a Sarmatian player can only bring six of such troops. Hence the Epeirotes, Carthaginians, Romans, Ptolemies, Sakae, and Seleucids need only make a 9000 mnai down-payment (or less) and thus mostly guarantee a victory for themselves.
The final noticeable thing is that none of these infantry have any sort of armor and none of them have great killing power to make up for this. The Sweboz and Lusotana have both been pointed to as victims of such blights for their existence; but the Lusitanians have many Celtiberian and Iberian factional units with large shields and respectable armor stats. The Sweboz, though lacking in heavy armor save their most elite, have such tremendous killing power and morale resiliency that they can take great damage from missiles and still carve through enemies or chain rout them with troops that frighten the enemy.
The Sarmatians, to decide a melee, must rely on formidable but vulnerable nomadic nobility and lancers, who boast none of the shields or impressive armor of Hellenes (save the Roxolani who cost the player as much as a cataphract archer unit) nor the sheer brutality of Parthian and Sakae cataphracts. The Sarmatians do boast powerful lancers in their current incarnation, but are unable to contest swathes of heavy infantry. And though such should be the historical case, with well-formed Romans even resisting Parthian cataphracts, Tacitus describes the irresistibility of armored Sarmatian lancers formed in squadrons; and given the classical predilection to exaggerate the armor of Sarmatians (hardly many could have afforded such panoply, even though they are depicted in good numbers). Though Roman legionaries are described as capable of holding against the charge of the Iazyges, these are the same legionaries that held themselves against the onslaught of the Parthians.
Tests using current EB stats indicate that Sarmatian lancer units (the most vulnerable ones) dent heavy infantry about 20% less than do cataphracts; consider further that Sarmatian lancers have but 1 more attack and 3 more charge than Prodromoi (who have greater armor and higher total defense) and one questions the value of the Roxolani lancer unit. Even when one accounts for their capability to engage at range, this capability is easily nullified by foot archers and horse archers that boast comparable or superior accuracy and greater numbers as well as far lower cost. Given that any reasonable opponent of a Sarmatian player will load up on such units and keep reserves of them, as I have seen in my battle experience, the lancers are thus rendered useless. One could argue the same for Prodromoi, but recall that a player bringing excessive missiles against a Hellenistic player will be quickly punished by inferiority in heavy infantry.
Now you can try to solve the problem the same was as a Sarmatian player; bringing more heavy infantry. Then you realize that you can't. The absolute maximum number of heavy infantry a Sarmatian player can bring is 6 - 6 hoplites. These aren't even effective offensive troops. And if you want effective offensive troops without losing these heavy infantry, you must turn to the Dugundiz - who will be shredded by the many missiles brought by a competent enemy, and aren't even that impressive as combat troops when you stack them against the Kuarothoroi and Thorakitai of other nations. Should you need a particularly strong infantry offense, you must sacrifice hoplites in exchange for Bastarnae - who will be even more quickly destroyed by numerous missiles.
Even the deployment of six hoplite units requires the forgoing of the Sarmatian player's most important foot unit - Bosporan archers. The strongest medium foot-archer unit available, these are also the most heavily armored and thus are strong in missile duels, dealing out the damage well and absorbing it better. After this they can even fight in melee! Indeed, one wonders why you would not bring six of such troops - except for their inability to hold in melee against more numerous or more capable opponents of similar or lower cost, whose large shields turn aside arrows with ease. There is a good reason why the entirety of my past Sarmatian infantry forces would consist of Bosporans, Bastarnae, and the occasional Vojinos unit to scare enemy infantry (that is of course no longer a tool in the Sarmatian arsenal). Eight of these units in total (bosporans and bastarnae, occasionally kirwinikos) were needed, though six was a reasonable number in the days when you could park horse archers in Cantabrian circle and take 5 casualties from a whole unit of Cretans emptying their quivers. No more - without Bosporans to absorb arrows, a Sarmatian player's horse archers are stuck in a shootout, with less armor and worse accuracy than their opponents (and only greater spacing to save them). I'm not saying that this should not be the case - horse archers should indeed lose quite badly to foot archers such as Cretans.
Given that I have presented several paragraphs of babble dissecting the woes of a Sarmatian player, why then do I take them? It's a personal thing for me - I first enjoyed success in EB Online as the Sarmatians, in the days when true steppe armies abounded. I thrived in fact off of strict quotas - my enemies could only take five missile units, and I had the luxury of taking 8 - or later, 10. Now that such quotas are gone and my enemies are free to deploy unlimited missile troops against me - something that I welcome, as I firmly believe that the relaxation of composition restrictions has been one of the most positive developments in EB Online (and a mark of the success of the new EDUs that such deregulations have not introduced fundamental imbalances - self compliment :) ) but it leaves the Sarmatian player in an impossible situation.
In short, if I as the Sarmatian player am to play to my strengths as a steppe faction and deploy numerous lightly armed missile cavalry alongside a few Bosporan archers, it makes sense for my opponent to counter through use of numerous medium to heavily armed missile units. If I as the Sarmatian player wish to counter in turn, I must either bring more heavy infantry to overwhelm my opponent's missile advantage or deploy more armored archers. These are for the most part mutually exclusive possibilities. If I am to bring heavy infantry, my only option is to bring Hoplites, making me forgo the possibility of offensive infantry (Bastarnae) because of the nonfactional unit limit. If I am to attempt to bypass missile fights and overwhelm opponent with offensive infantry frontally, I must utilize unarmored troops which will be incidentally massacred by the archers my opponent has brought for my cavalry. If I am to bring more Bosporans instead, my opponent can simply advance with heavy infantry to overwhelm my Bosporans and use his archers to fend off my cavalry. In every situation where I try to adapt to my opponent's strategy, I lose - and I lose by doing nothing as well.
I recognize and embrace the fact that the Sarmatians are a difficult faction to play as. But this should flow from the skill required to wield a cavalry-heavy army and numerous horse archers against foot archers and numerous heavy infantry (something that these days I unfortunately seem to lack), not from the completely inability to pick an effective army.
My question to you all is, how would you solve this predicament? What is there to be done but to sit out the tournament, change factions, or beg for changes? And, if the last is the outcome (as I hope it is), what changes would be done?
Thank you (for wasting five minutes of your life reading this),
-gamegeek2