Lament of a Sarmatian Player

(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

Three words: Kimmerios Bosporos Roster...

As for the elephants predicament, cavalry charges are particularly effective against unarmoured ones...

Yeah, what Arjos says about elephants at least used to be true: cavalry charges used to be extremely effective against any elephants. Since you took AP away from the lances though I don't know if it's still effective - it's definitely much less effective than it used to be (and against the armoured indians it should now be no more than a pipe dream). Would serve you right for making Leuce Epos and Taramonnos useless and therefore forcing Gallic players to rely on mercenaries if they want more than 2 units of cavalry, something which is much more important than being able to effectively counter elephants. :p

In any case, it seems your whole argument stems from you getting ahead of yourself. You might have had the problems you describe if your previous proposition of change to the Sauromatae had gone through, but it hasn't, so while the first two units you list are still mercenaries, you may still bring 10 mercs as a whole.

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Originally Posted by Arjos

Three words: Kimmerios Bosporos Roster...

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I'd like that. Any more concrete ideas?

I'm not so sure they still are without ap but its worth a test. I think of Sauros as the ultimate counter faction. If you take the wrong style of army compared to your opponent, you are probably screwed. This really isn't a good thing. For example, I fought a team battle once with 2 Sauros against 2 Ptolemioi where both brought 8 (!) units of Syrian Archers. Thats 16 armored archers clogging up all the good shooting lanes. The Greek infantry then advanced (no need for expensive cavalry when you can bring so many archers against light cavalry) and cut the poor unarmored chaps to pieces.

I would say that one way to solve this is to increase the discount for Sarmatian cavalry units, but sharing quite a few of the with Pontus, the Getai, and Hayasdan only serves to make these factions stronger, something Pontus and the Getai certainly do not need.

Another, much better solution: we already have 2 steppe factions that gets their settled infantry (Pahlava with Persian Hoplites/Panda Phalanx/Babylonians and Saka with Heavy Hoplites/Indo Greek Nobles/Indian Spears and Guilds/etc.) why not just make the Greek infantry units factional for Sarmatians as a way to play the Bosporan Kingdom and expand their Greek roster? Looking through the mercenary lists can be a boon to Sarmatians as they don't have their ownership in game for many of these units. Merc Thureophoroi, Hippakontistai, Iphikratean Hoplitai, and Peltastai all have mercenary/slave equivalents recruitable as mercs in game. Mercenary Cretans as well perhaps, though those might be redundant with Bosporans, Cretans perform similarly well in melee and have higher morale. Mercenary Thracian Peltastai and Thracian Prodromoi could also be mercenary with the Cretans. Last but not least, Georgian Swordsmen are mercenaries in game, and in close enough proximity to both the Bosporus and more sedentary Sarmatians tribes near the Caucasus that their inclusion on the roster wouldn't be too troublesome as mercenaries either.

I think with these units added, the Sarmatians wouldn't play all to differently from Pahlava or from Saka, minus a bit more armor but an even wider base of factional infantry units. I wouldn't want to make any changes to the edu since the tournament has already begun. However, perhaps these changes might be implemented for next month and Vartan can allow you to switch factions so you can use upgraded Sarmatians next month.

Nerf Bosporans then, as they would be OP in such an army aginst other Steppe factions.

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Originally Posted by Lazy O

Nerf Bosporans then, as they would be OP in such an army aginst other Steppe factions.

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They're called cataphract archers. Use them.

1 cataphract archer killed is worth more than 80 Bosporans dead .

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Originally Posted by Kival

I'd like that. Any more concrete ideas?

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What's more concrete than getting access to peltastai, thorakitai and the likes?
They cover all he asked for!

If Sauromatae gets a bump because of hipotetical "what if" I vote for a bump for Hayasdan following the same ideas, as they don't excell in any parameter and I can confirm that

You can screw up with Casse and don't get any punishment with it, but you screw one time with Hayasdan and all the army goes rout

How is the Bosporan Kingdom a "what if" now? XD

Hai is a very good faction, but if you are playing them as you would do with a western infantry heavy faction, that might be your problem :P

Why do you like suoromatae so much, cant you take another faction ?

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Originally Posted by Arjos

How is the Bosporan Kingdom a "what if" now? XD

Hai is a very good faction, but if you are playing them as you would do with a western infantry heavy faction, that might be your problem :P

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Ok, Then that may be my problem lol

Hai is all about defeating your opponent's cavalry and returning to rescue your infantry :clown:

Cav charges are somehow weaker now without AP attribute

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Originally Posted by The Celtic Viking

Would serve you right for making Leuce Epos and Taramonnos useless

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I do not understand how such units are useless now. They received the equivalent of +6 attack in exchange for losing the armor-piercing attribute. You've broken even against units with up to 12 armor. What more do you want?

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Originally Posted by Arjos

Three words: Kimmerios Bosporos Roster...

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I have thought about this, how many votes in favor?

And how would new players react to such a perversion?

(honest questions, both)

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Originally Posted by Brave Sir Robin

Another, much better solution: we already have 2 steppe factions that gets their settled infantry (Pahlava with Persian Hoplites/Panda Phalanx/Babylonians and Saka with Heavy Hoplites/Indo Greek Nobles/Indian Spears and Guilds/etc.) why not just make the Greek infantry units factional for Sarmatians as a way to play the Bosporan Kingdom and expand their Greek roster? Looking through the mercenary lists can be a boon to Sarmatians as they don't have their ownership in game for many of these units. Merc Thureophoroi, Hippakontistai, Iphikratean Hoplitai, and Peltastai all have mercenary/slave equivalents recruitable as mercs in game. Mercenary Cretans as well perhaps, though those might be redundant with Bosporans, Cretans perform similarly well in melee and have higher morale. Mercenary Thracian Peltastai and Thracian Prodromoi could also be mercenary with the Cretans. Last but not least, Georgian Swordsmen are mercenaries in game, and in close enough proximity to both the Bosporus and more sedentary Sarmatians tribes near the Caucasus that their inclusion on the roster wouldn't be too troublesome as mercenaries either.

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Still, the 6-merc limit...

In exchange for these we could knock any remaining Western Baltic units off the roster (such as the Lonkinikos, which are never used)

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Originally Posted by gamegeek2

I have thought about this, how many votes in favor?

(honest questions, both)

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Vote
In favor.

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Originally Posted by gamegeek2

I do not understand how such units are useless now. They received the equivalent of +6 attack in exchange for losing the armor-piercing attribute. You've broken even against units with up to 12 armor. What more do you want?

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Actually, the Leuce Epos only got +5 attack, meaning they break even in attack against units with up to 10 armour. Regardless, you're thinking of this as if the Leuce Epos were the only ones who got that change, and not taking into account that units with little armour became much more vulnerable too. So, for example, against a unit of Prodromoi, Leuce Epos does indeed break even attack-wise, since the Prodromoi have 10 armour. However, the Prodromoi also got more attack (+6), and since Leuce Epos only have 4 armour, the Prodromoi actually gained killing power against Leuce Epos. Therefore, Leuce Epos are now weaker in comparison to Prodromoi. Since almost all cavalry units used by people in MP have 10 or more armour, the best Leuce Epos can typically hope for is breaking even attack-wise, while always losing out defence-wise - and the Leuce Epos were already weak defensively as it was. That's why they're useless now.

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Originally Posted by Gamegeek2

Still, the 6-merc limit...

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Everyone seem to have missed my post. You still have the 10 merc limit.

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Originally Posted by Kival

Vote
In favor.

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Seconded.

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Originally Posted by gamegeek2

Still, the 6-merc limit...

In exchange for these we could knock any remaining Western Baltic units off the roster (such as the Lonkinikos, which are never used)

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In my proposal units like Hoplites, Iphi Hoplites, Peltasts, Hippakontistai, various Psioli, and Thureophoroi would not count towards the merc limit for the Sarmatians roster, even if they unit is technically a "mercenary" unit just because we can't give them another variant without a proper skin. Then the mercs would be Germans, Balts, and Caucasian units.

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Actually, the Leuce Epos only got +5 attack

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+5 attack
+.04 lethality

Translation: ~+6 attack

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Prodromoi also got more attack (+6)

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That was their lance, previously they had a non-AP secondary. That, of course, was rather useless after the lance changes so I eliminated it.

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Everyone seem to have missed my post. You still have the 10 merc limit.

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It was 8, and is now even lower at 6 once people agreed to the Vojinos changes and the Dugundiz factionalization.

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Originally Posted by Brave Brave Sir Robin

In my proposal units like Hoplites, Iphi Hoplites, Peltasts, Hippakontistai, various Psioli, and Thureophoroi would not count towards the merc limit for the Sarmatians roster, even if they unit is technically a "mercenary" unit just because we can't give them another variant without a proper skin. Then the mercs would be Germans, Balts, and Caucasian units.

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Why would you use the merc unit and not the standard unit?

According to the recruitment viewer, the Sarmatians cannot actually recruit those units in game so I'd assume that they would have no unit card and no skin.

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Originally Posted by Gamegeek2

It was 8, and is now even lower at 6 once people agreed to the Vojinos changes and the Dugundiz factionalization.

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It was and is still 10 since the rules on the EB website are those that matter. I also don't remember people agreeing to making Dugundiz factional (which they aren't, either - again according to the website).

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Originally Posted by Gamegeek2

+5 attack
+.04 lethality

Translation: ~+6 attack

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Okay, I forgot the lethality increase, so lets say + ~6 attack. That means we can say they gained +2 attack vs. Prodromoi, while the Prodromoi gained +4 attack vs. Leuce Epos. In other words, Prodromoi got twice as big a bump vs Leuce Epos as compared to the bump LE got towards it, and the LE are therefore still made even more vulnerable than they were before.

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Originally Posted by The Celtic Viking

Okay, I forgot the lethality increase, so lets say + ~6 attack. That means we can say they gained +2 attack vs. Prodromoi, while the Prodromoi gained +4 attack vs. Leuce Epos. In other words, Prodromoi got twice as big a bump vs Leuce Epos as compared to the bump LE got towards it, and the LE are therefore still made even more vulnerable than they were before.

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Again, recall that Prodromoi had a secondary weapon that was better vs the Epos than the old AP lance.

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Originally Posted by Brave Brave Sir Robin

According to the recruitment viewer, the Sarmatians cannot actually recruit those units in game so I'd assume that they would have no unit card and no skin.

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Well, that's not too hard to do, if you look at the file descr_model_battle.txt you can assign textures and models to those units

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Originally Posted by gamegeek2

Again, recall that Prodromoi had a secondary weapon that was better vs the Epos than the old AP lance.

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A 13 attack .165 lethality sword is not as good against LEs as a 9 attack .4 lethality lance, and the improvement is much more than just +2 attack. I was speaking more in general anyway, the Prodromoi were just an example that flew to mind since I was counting it as a +5 and I knew the Prods have 10 armour, and though it's not as bad as I thought, they've still suffered.

Of course, this is all off topic. Apologies for driving it away with what was initially meant as an innocent joke.

I don't know yet what to think about non-ap underhand lances. That changes a lot...

Regarding Sauromatae, here's an idea. How about you add several units which you might consider reasonable and 'in-reach' for the faction, and I make a factional unit page split. The Sauro player can then choose between two factional sets, much as SPQR has four sets to choose from. Now, what I am considering is that if we have this Steppe-Bosphoran distinction, or whatever you'd like to call it, that the more 'settled'/Bosphoran set be restricted to 6 mercs much like all other civilized factions in the game.

EDIT: For those who don't know, gamegeek2 is keeping his current wins and losses for EBOT 2012 June and switching to Saka Rauka.

I would need to make extensive DMB edits to do this but I'm up to it.

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Originally Posted by vartan

I don't know yet what to think about non-ap underhand lances. That changes a lot...

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Whatever your feelings are on the change, it wasn't wise to change it so shortly before a tournament before it was properly tested by players. I have no idea why this was done.

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Originally Posted by The Celtic Viking

A 13 attack .165 lethality sword is not as good against LEs as a 9 attack .4 lethality lance

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Just to nitpick: It was better because lances had that "recharge" value and have slower animations.