Gaesatae/Tindanotae Far Too Powerful?

[deltafan]

That story begins with my 12-unit Roman force of Hastati, Principes, Cavalry, Triarii, and 3 generals besieging and assaulting Segestica. After breaking through the gates and routing their initial defense, I now faced a 90-man unit of Naked Fanatics. After being entirely surrounded by cavalry and infantry, not one Fanatic fell until about 2 minutes after engagement and had killed at least 40 of my soldiers.

I think the Fanatics are far too strong. They have no armor and should not be able to stand that long after being surrounded. The only way they would in reality be able to stand that long would be in a frontal assault where they have their shields concentrated in one direction. However, being surrounded and no armor, they should be destroyed in 2-3 minutes.

Perhaps something to think about for the next release, in the meantime, is there a way for me to modify their defense points?

[blacksnail]

A word of caution - we get threads like this at least once a month. The team's stance on naked fanatics has not changed since the last one, and is not likely to change due to this one.

That said, if you really really really want to change them, you can do so with very little effort. It involves changing their hit points from 2 to 1 in export_descr_units.txt.

[Fleeb]

I think the Fanatics are far too strong.

What difficulty are you using? Like Blacksnail said, these threads come up very regularly. 90% of the time the complainer is using VH/VH. The game is not balanced for that difficulty level.

[Karo]

They not that though just youse some skrimesh units or slingars that can attack them from behind and they'll die so fast you wont even notes that they were there



Karo

[The Errant]

EDU. export_descr_unit. Can be found in your EB\Data folder in your RTW directory.

Open the file in wordpad. Choose edit and find. Write gaesatae (for western fanatics) or tindanotae (for eastern fanatics) and the file will hop to the relevant stats of either unit.

At the beginning of the file are descriptions on what the values represent. Change whatever you feel is wrong and save the file. Should be savegame compatible.

Personally I don't feel they are overpowered. A pain in the rear. But not overpowered. You just have to find a way to combat them properly. Slingers from the back do wonders. So do archers with flaming arrows and the occasional repeated shock cavalry charge.

[NeoSpartan]

scroll down in the threads section and you will see AT LEAST 3 different discusions on the Gaestae. Read 'em up, :book:

[Sakkura]

Personally I don't feel they are overpowered. A pain in the rear. But not overpowered. You just have to find a way to combat them properly. Slingers from the back do wonders. So do archers with flaming arrows and the occasional repeated shock cavalry charge.
They can be a pain in your front too.
But they are manageable if your missile units know how to be a pain in their rear. :clown:

[Wolfman]

But they are manageable if your missile units know how to be a pain in their rear. :clown: I don't forget to use heavy to medium calvary to hit them in the flanks.:charge:

[mlp071]

They can be a pain in your front too.
But they are manageable if your missile units know how to be a pain in their rear. :clown:

Yeah even Toxotai will do it .Just unleash flame on them as soon they get into range from 2 units and then flank them .

They will be "Gone in 60 seconds":2thumbsup:

[Watchman]

They seem to stop at pike-points well enough, too.

[pezhetairoi]

Hell, they stop in front of my Polybians and even my Camillans well enough, too, as long as you don't face them one on one, and have at least one unit in reserve behind, or better, your general. And this is my Roman legion, which has no light troops whatsoever. It can be done. You just need to practice and get more 1337 skillz. XD The idea is to break the rest of the army and use your best troops to oppose the gaesatae. Triarii wherever possible.

But yes, gaesatae somehow perform waaaaaay better in cities than in the field. I have observed this, and I wonder why. I have also therefore also made it a point not to storm a settlement with naked people inside until such time as hell freezes over.

[Moros]

In cities will not be flanked that easily and usually are profiting from a multi star AI rebel general. And on the townsquare they'll not rout.

LAst thel I fought them I was dissapointed.

[artavazd]

the Gaestae remind me of "Steven" from Braveheart "cray Irishman" and I mean that in a good way Irin go brak ( did i say it right??):2thumbsup:

[deltafan]

Hell, they stop in front of my Polybians and even my Camillans well enough, too, as long as you don't face them one on one, and have at least one unit in reserve behind, or better, your general.

I've been practicing a little bit with getting missile troops behind them and shooting them in the back, it is quite effective. However, I've found that Camillan Hastati and Principes can't advance through though them, they can only hold them off for a while, they can't combat them effectively for too long, like you said, being basically one on one. But are you saying the Triarii may be able to cut through? As for one unit in reserve, would I want to charge it after a few minutes of engagement or after the first unit has killed "x" amount of them? When charging the second unit, do I want to simutaneously pull the first back, or do I want to keep them engaged and use the reserves simply as an extra push?

[Sakkura]

I've been practicing a little bit with getting missile troops behind them and shooting them in the back, it is quite effective. However, I've found that Camillan Hastati and Principes can't advance through though them, they can only hold them off for a while, they can't combat them effectively for too long, like you said, being basically one on one. But are you saying the Triarii may be able to cut through? As for one unit in reserve, would I want to charge it after a few minutes of engagement or after the first unit has killed "x" amount of them? When charging the second unit, do I want to simutaneously pull the first back, or do I want to keep them engaged and use the reserves simply as an extra push?
Triarii can hold them for far longer than principes or hastati, and inflict more casualties to them even. They can't take them down on their own though.
Charging in another infantry unit doesn't really matter much against gaesatae, so I mostly just do it if I need to pull out the unit that was originally engaging them.
Then I usually charge in the second unit, and after a few seconds pull out the original unit.

What kills them is either missile fire or some heavy cavalry charges in the ass. I prefer missile fire since there is always a risk of losing some of your precious horsies in the charge.

[Antagonist]

There probably should be a mention in the FAQ about this at least since it crops up so much, explaining the historical explanation (ie they aren't just crazy naked guys, they're on drugs etc.) preferably with Ranika's cool story about the Gaesatae ripping a pilum out of his own body and throwing it back.

Antagonist

[pezhetairoi]

I've been practicing a little bit with getting missile troops behind them and shooting them in the back, it is quite effective. However, I've found that Camillan Hastati and Principes can't advance through though them, they can only hold them off for a while, they can't combat them effectively for too long, like you said, being basically one on one. But are you saying the Triarii may be able to cut through? As for one unit in reserve, would I want to charge it after a few minutes of engagement or after the first unit has killed "x" amount of them? When charging the second unit, do I want to simutaneously pull the first back, or do I want to keep them engaged and use the reserves simply as an extra push?

Mmm, we have some miscomm here, yo. Nobody tries to break through gaesatae, that is suicidal. The basic premise here is that you have to -hold- gaesatae until your cavalry or the rest of your infantry can devote some attention to them having broken the rest of the army. I'm talking about people who use all-heavy troop armies like me, of course. I refuse to use slingers anymore, cuz they are too :daisy:. It's a reaction to my 8 and 10-slinger Baktrian armies, and how they owned the Seleukids.

But anyway. Triarii can't actually break through gaesatae either, they just can hold them far better and with far less casualties, until my extraordinarii and brihentin come crashing into their naked butts.

[Bonny]

There probably should be a mention in the FAQ about this at least since it crops up so much, explaining the historical explanation (ie they aren't just crazy naked guys, they're on drugs etc.) preferably with Ranika's cool story about the Gaesatae ripping a pilum out of his own body and throwing it back.

Antagonist

There are afaik already mentioned in the faq, with a link to the thread where Ranika exaplained exactly this (it is from 0.72 , so more than ayear old).

[Frostwulf]

Since a lot of you appear to be having trouble in this area, I will now explain how to properly fight Gaesatae in this brief guide, so you don't make the common mistakes. Let's first clear some things up, and then move onto how to fight.

1. Gaesatae are not simply large, strong men, who fight nude. They are elite mercenaries who used a 'magic potion' (a copious amount of a painkilling drug) before battle. So powerful was it, that they were reknowned to rip out javelins that had struck them, and throw them back. Because of this, Gaesatae have two hitpoints, and incredibly high morale.

2. Gaesatae are frightening to infantry. First, they fight nude, which is, in this period, interpretted as incredibly brave, if somewhat insane. Two, they have a reputation. They are famous for decimating huge numbers of enemies when outnumbered, and rarely fleeing from combat, as well as immense skill with their javelins, for which they're named, and incredible hand-to-hand combat skills.

This means they are some of the toughest infantry in the game. If you experience huge numbers of infantry lost to the Gaesatae, they're doing their job right. If they are outnumbered and still win a fight against infantry, they're, again, doing their job right. Later versions may have Gaesatae with increased expense, making them more rare, but their stats are designed to make you hate and fear what they'll do.

I have replied to these same type of threads always asking for the same information but as of yet I have not received any. So Ill ask again, where can I find information of these guys? The only thing I read in the past 8 books that mention these guys is the battle at Telemon, they were not impressive there. If anyone knows where to find more about them and the battles they were in, could you mention the article, book or whatever information there is?