Rebels/Eleutheroi

[GodEmperorLeto]

These guys seem awfully passive. They do little more than sit around, amass armies, and in general make little more than a nuisance of themselves by looting spaces (creating devastation).

Is this hard-coded, or can you edit the AI for that faction to make them more aggressive. I think I'd have more fun, believe it or not, if the rebels came out of their cities and attacked me on my own turf sometimes, or slave revolts attempted to capture one of my lightly garrissoned cities.

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

Hi,
I think the AI is hard coded, but EB have helped the rebels immensely by giving them huge cash bonuses. I am sorry to say that, I presume, that that is the only way possible of increasing their strength. Cheers!

[Teleklos Archelaou]

We do make their generals inside cities immobile - so they don't vacate the place and go hide in the woods nearby.

Otherwise, we get complaints that rebels are too hard for small factions, and too abundant in many factions' lands, and that they are too passive from some people. Hard to make it all perfect.

[Orb]

Well, it was quite nice as Carthage to see some Numidian rebels coming to attack me (fortunately I'd sent spies out a few turns earlier, anticipated the attack and trained a decent enough force to crush them.

The Carthaginian campaign is a thing of beauty, much like the rest of EB :bow:

[Teleklos Archelaou]

I'd love to see a minimod that someone makes a little later that puts decent MIC buildings in rebel provinces at the start of the game. It's a little difficult though - but if you just make a list of which complexes go with which factions, then look at a map for faction_owner (we have them on the map thread), then you could put better ones in for the rebels so they have better recruitment from turn 1.

[GodEmperorLeto]

We do make their generals inside cities immobile - so they don't vacate the place and go hide in the woods nearby.

Otherwise, we get complaints that rebels are too hard for small factions, and too abundant in many factions' lands, and that they are too passive from some people. Hard to make it all perfect.

I guess it's an issue of being incapable of pleasing averyone. Oh, what the heck, the game's still amazing, so I won't complain. And I just read a thread by another poster that says the rebels besieged one of his cities, so I guess they can get frisky. They just don't usually for me, even on VH/M (the only way I play).

I did notice that if a city (like Syracuse) fills up with units, it builds an external army that wanders around the province. The only problem is, it is totally comprised of something like πελτασται and not a good mix of troops, so they are actually quite easy to defeat with the right army, even with 3:1 odds against you. And it almost never tries to invade your territory (from my experience).

Nevertheless, I've seen the Celtic and Germanic rebels usually do have a good mixture of troops.

When it comes to rebels, the general strategy I always have to use is basically build an army large enough to besiege their settlements. Walls are the great equalizer--there is little more you can do to go through one than to punch a lot of holes in it with as many battering rams as possible. Meeting a rebel army in the field outnumbered 2:1 is a possible victory, but besieging them is suicidal with those odds. So the only thing that can really be done strategically against rebels is to just come at them with full stacks. There's no finesse involved. It feels like attrition/trench-warfare instead of warfare of maneuver.

[Velvet Elvis]

...

When it comes to rebels, the general strategy I always have to use is basically build an army large enough to besiege their settlements. Walls are the great equalizer--there is little more you can do to go through one than to punch a lot of holes in it with as many battering rams as possible. Meeting a rebel army in the field outnumbered 2:1 is a possible victory, but besieging them is suicidal with those odds. So the only thing that can really be done strategically against rebels is to just come at them with full stacks. There's no finesse involved. It feels like attrition/trench-warfare instead of warfare of maneuver.

Amen! :saint:

[QwertyMIDX]

Of course a lot of ancient warfare was just that. Even mighty Alexander had to spend plenty of his short life bogged down in siege warfare.

[GodEmperorLeto]

Of course a lot of ancient warfare was just that. Even mighty Alexander had to spend plenty of his short life bogged down in siege warfare.

Good point. Good point. Tyre, and half of Iran/Afghanistan he was bogged down in attrition warfare.

Anyway, I have to eat my words. I'm playing a Romani game, just unified Italy (except for Milan) and all of a sudden, a Celtic revolt is besieging Bononia with FIVE GAESETAE UNITS, plus cavalry units, and he's trapped a pretty good general with less than half a cohort (2 hastati, and a bunch of worthless Rorari garrison troops). My consul is rushing in with the rest of the cohort, and one more backup cohort to relieve them. Haven't fought the battle yet, but I figure I'll win with severe losses, because Gaesetae suck to fight against.

So yeah, I'm eating my words, guys. With ranch dressing.

[QwertyMIDX]

India and central asia too, he spent ages out there laying siege to cities and forts.

[McHrozni]

What's this big issue everyone has with the Getstae anyway? They never seemed to be much more than a nuisance to me.

All you need is a nice phalnax to hold them in place, plus something that gets them from their exposed rear. They usually do kill more than their fair share of my troops, but it's not all that bad as to require high level specialist tactics and skirmishing.. Am I missing something?

McHrozni

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

The naked freaks? They used to have multiple hitpoints and everyone who fought them back then still has bad memories.

[QwertyMIDX]

They still have 2 hitpoints, they were never that hard to kill as long as you knew what you were doing, more people just seem to have figured it out.

[Birka Viking]

Well GAESETAE isent much harder then other units to kill..They are realy fun to meet.:balloon2:

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

Really? I heard that no infantry unit had multiple hitpoints and assumed, my bad. :shame:

They do seem much easier to kill in .8 though. Of course I usually reserve my pila for them...

[McHrozni]

Really? I heard that no infantry unit had multiple hitpoints and assumed, my bad. :shame:

They do seem much easier to kill in .8 though. Of course I usually reserve my pila for them...

Ah, I see the problem :)
I think that 2 hp is fine. Anything more, however .. a Pilum jabbed in your body will incapacitate you, regardless of drugs you take. A light javelin is one thing, but this is a tad different.

McHrozni

[Watchman]

I somewhat fail to see the difference in the amount of perforation of squishy internals the two do. It's not like the pilum had a wider wound channel or something. People normally drop from even less anyway, so for anyone who can ignore that much wound shock and general system trauma the practical difference ought to be fairly trivial.

[Julian the apostate]

i think its a matter of force becuase the Pilium is much heavier and also prolly harder to get out

[Watchman]

If someone can keep standing after taking a javelin to the gut, and pull the thing out to boot and go on fightin' (until he eventually drops of blood loss and such anyway), then I'd say it matters preciously little if the javelin in question is of the usual kind and only went as far as the kidney or if it's of the long heavy kind half of which is now sticking out of the other side. The kidney and whatnots along the same axis don't get meaningfully more skewered anyway.

[HumphreysCraig00]

Seeing as the Gaesati have been moddeled as the horrifying killing machines they were rumoured to be, is there any german berserkers?

As I know they were around in viking times, I dont know if they were around in the period the game is set in though...

[Janius]

The Sweboz have those 2 handed axe men, they make a very good assault unit :yes:

[GodEmperorLeto]

The problem with the Gaesatae is that I usually have no more than 2 units of phalanx whenever I play the Romans. Because I roleplay the historical army composition, I have only 1 Triarii per 2 Hastati and 2 Principes. Principes can hold up against Gaesatae, but Hastati usually can't. And hitting Gaesatae with cavalry--from any angle--is suicide.

1 or 2 Gaesatae aren't a big deal. But 4-5? That's tough without more phalanx units. I beat them anyway.