Some thoughts on unit stats/tech tree (Greek)

It is common knowledge that players tech up military-wise to get better, tougher units or unique units which fit some special function that lower tech tree units cannot do.
However when playing the Greeks, there appear to be some rather odd discrepancies.


1)Militia Cavalry (MC) Vs Greek Cavalry (GC)
MCs have Att6, Chrg2, Def6, Mor4, Cost340 and Upkeep110
GCs have Att7, Chrg7, Def8, Mor4, Cost330 and Upkeep110

As you can see the stats are roughly similar but the MCs have 2 big advantages:
1)A javelin ranged attack at Att6, Range50, Ammo6
2)Fast speed

I can't see sacrificing both of these for an extra point or two of attack/defense and a better charge, for basically the same cost and upkeep.
Tried 1 unit of GC once and frankly I can't see any use for them, that is any use that a unit of MC cannot do better. Their stats would indicate that they are better when used in a charge (perhaps a charge to the rear of an enemy unit). However I've found them as fragile as MCs when doing so. Expect to lose a few units once they get bogged down.

If we look at the Roman tech tree, we find that the situation is completely reversed (with Equites available from basic L1 Stables and Cavalry Auxilia available from L2 Stables). This appears to me to be more logical as I cannot understand the reason why players would tech up to a higher level only to find an inferior unit which serves little or no purpose relative to lower tech tree units.


2)Archers (AR) Vs Heavy Peltasts (HP)
ARs have Att(M/R) 3/7, Chrg2, Def2, Mor4, Cost190 and Upkeep170
HPs have Att(M/R) 5/7, Chrg2, Def11, Mor4, Cost350 and Upkeep170

Again we see that both units have roughly the same stats except for defense where HPs have a very significant 9 point advantage.
However considering the fact that we are trading a ranged attack with Range120 and Ammo30 (for AR) for a ranged attack with Range50 and Ammo6 (for HP), we are giving up an incredible amount of long range bite.

Also take into account that HPs cost considerably more (350 Vs 190) and need a higher level Practice Range (L3 for HP Vs L2 for AR) and it becomes clear that the unit has little functionality apart from providing the choice of having a tougher and more expensive Peltast unit.

In battles, you do not really expect your skirmishers to melee at first opportunity. You expect them to whittle down the opposition from a safe range and only melee when ammo is exhausted and the situation is dire. Perhaps in skirmisher Vs skirmisher battles, that extra defense for HPs might see some use but otherwise, it appears to be that archers are the overwhelming favorites in almost all situations, owing to their substantially longer range and higher ammo.


As mentioned in other threads, cavalry cost and upkeep is too low. A Large Town can produce either Hoplites or Militia Cavalry.
Hoplites cost 440 (11/man) with upkeep 170 (4.25/man) whereas
Mil.Cavs cost 340 (12.593/man) with upkeep 110 (4.074/man)

It is unusual that a unit which needs a replenishable supply of javelins and also to tend to their steeds (which are fast at that) would need less upkeep/man than a regular grunt unit.
I therefore propose that Militia Cavalry be switched with Greek Cavalry on the tech tree and their cost/upkeep increased (say perhaps to about 1.5X current values).

There are a number of forum members which believe that archers should be nerfed. The fact that you can get them fairly early and the high damage they can do, makes them overpowered.
I open the discussion to what exactly should be nerfed/adjusted (Ammo, Range, RangedAtt, Cost, Upkeep, etc), providing historical basis if possible (since archers were said not to be particularly dominant during this time period) and their position on the tech tree.

There is historical precedence for this. While the Romans employed equites (wealthy horseowners) as a sort of early medium cavalry, most cultures would have lighter javelin cav as their base cav level.

The units you are comparing are for different purposes. The javelin cav on light horse is very effective in skirmishing, but looking at its stats reveals it is a lot weaker in melee. The full charge value of the militia cav is 8 vs. 14 for the Greek cav. And that makes sense as the greek cav are spear armed and on medium horse (the heavier horse will add more as well because of the higher "momentum" stat of the mount.) Neither is going to be particularly effective in melee (although almost all cav units seem to have inflated melee stats.) One thing does stick out, that 4 shield stat for the militia cav. I didn't think any greek cav really used shields at that time? I'll have to look into that a bit. Even despite that, the Greek cav still have an advantage of 2 on defense.

The Equite stats are a bit inflated, they are getting credit for a large shield although they have a small.

As you have said, all the cav upkeep costs are ridiculously low. Cav were very expensive to maintain in the field--keeping them fed in large groups is no mean feat. Any time you read about large cav forces, forage is the primary concern and often limits the size of the cav force, or at least how long it can remain in the field before it must be moved on before the horses begin breaking down to an irrecoverable state. (Upkeep must be easier than an elephant though...which needs 350 to 500 lbs of forage a day! Imagine the associated "clean up" costs.) Upkeep for the horse should probably be based primarily on type: light, medium, heavy, general's bodyguard as well as on whether or not the horse carried substantial armour (cataphract.)

Obviously ranged units should have a higher upkeep than comparable melee units. Javelin units should be cheaper than archers (javelins are cheap compared to the rather complex arrows), but stronger horses should of course be more expensive than lighter horses (eat more).
For the Greeks the HP and AR should perhaps share the slot, or the HP could even be relegated down to level 1 but be dependant on some other building as well, perhaps level 2 Barracks? And they most definately should be cheaper in upkeep (they are after all lightly armed despite the bigger shield), at least compared to the archers.

But I agree that some units are strangely placed here. Perhaps the Militia Cav should be nerfed in melee?

I'm not so sure about javelins being cheaper. The Pila, for example, is quite complicated (with that weak spear neck and all). A poorly made javelin is just as bad as a poorly made arrow, and there is much more material required for a javelin.

Just the wood itself would be an issue. An arrow requires considerably less mass of wood than a javelin, due to size. Finding the right wood of the right length and preparing it for a javelin would be considerably more effort than for a single arrow.

The only element I can think of that might make an arrow more expensive is the feathers. That cost would depend on what type of feathers that are used, whether the supporting faction has farms for birds for those feathers or not, etc.

Thanks for the replies. It would be nice to have more difference between the units (javelin skirmishers being more skirmish-worthy and melee units being more melee-worthy) and that each unit has a certain role to play in the army and justifies their position in the tech tree.

Therefore I thoroughly support Red Harvest's suggestion to take away the shield from Militia Cavalry. It would make them weaker in melee and confine them more to just being skirmishers and rout chasers, instead of vying with Greek Cavalry for melee and it would better justify their lower spot on the tech tree once they are nerfed.

I believe that armor piercing pila were designed to break once thrown so that enemies could not pick them up and rethrow them against Roman soldiers. Not sure if regular javelins are also designed in the same fashion. If javelins are not easily reusable for the most part, it makes sense that part of their upkeep/cost be reflected in maintaining a ready supply.
I recall vaguely that in the medieval times, arrows shot from longbows could be fitted with different warheads (ie barbed). Not sure if that is the case in the R:TW period but fashioning different styled warheads does sound rather expensive. Come to think of it, I suppose most bows used during this period were shortbows(?) (I'm just guessing though so please correct me if I'm wrong) with Eastern Horse Archers having earlier access to composite bows.

Sharing the slot for AR and HPs is completely fine with me. I don't think having a slightly stronger peltast at a L2 Practice Range would unbalance the game (they still inflict roughly the same casualties but are better equipped for melee). I believe most players would still go for Archers anyway.
Heavy Peltasts get a +3 for Armor and also +3 for shield (+5 Vs +2) over Peltasts. Armor needs maintainence so some additional upkeep would be logical. As for how much that should be, that's debatable.
Currently, Heavy Peltasts cost 350 (8.75/man) with upkeep 170 (4.25/man)
whereas regular Peltasts cost 180 (4.5/man) with the same upkeep 170 (4.25/man).

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Originally Posted by hoof

I'm not so sure about javelins being cheaper. The Pila, for example, is quite complicated (with that weak spear neck and all). A poorly made javelin is just as bad as a poorly made arrow, and there is much more material required for a javelin.

Just the wood itself would be an issue. An arrow requires considerably less mass of wood than a javelin, due to size. Finding the right wood of the right length and preparing it for a javelin would be considerably more effort than for a single arrow.

The only element I can think of that might make an arrow more expensive is the feathers. That cost would depend on what type of feathers that are used, whether the supporting faction has farms for birds for those feathers or not, etc.

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Well the pilum was just that, an expensive weapon. It was made for a single hard hit, its construction wasn't mirrored in the Hasta Velites (normal javelin). Normal javelins were made for harassment rather than killing (of course that would be nice too). Thus a javelin wouldn't need to be of good quality wood, damn it could even be gnarled if the supply of wood was low. You are still able to throw a gnarled stick rather accurately and with the head first. Its head wouldn't need much more metal than a few arrows (which in total brings the archers up as more expensive in metal). You mentioned the feathers yourself.
Arrows need to be of at least some quality of wood as if they aren't you risk them splitting when fired (apparently the longbows had a bad tendency to split arrows). And it can't be gnarled as the arrow would not only be impossible to let loose (bumping into the handle or hand) it would also go nowhere and would it got there not hit with the head first or with any power.
Further arrows is that much smaller, having a much smaller tolerance towards faults, and the maker would need to be that much more dexterous than the javelinmaker.

Also javelins are much easier to find after practice than arrows, so we have to assume the archers would lose many more arrows in practice than the skirmishers would (we must assume that the units actually practice to keep up their skils and that this is part of the upkeep). Also we have both firearrows and normal ones (all others have been left out of the game so we only need to consider these two), that is 100% more diversity in arms compared to the javelins.

So all in all I would indeed consider arrows to be more expensive, not individually, but in total. 30 arrows > 6 javelins in cost.


The normal Peltast could perhaps get an upkeep cut to mirror its lower level of equipment. But archers should be more expensive than both. The armour and shields of the two peltasts would most likely be stored until needed, so the wear and tear wouldn't be that much more expensive for a HP compared to a P.

The one big advantage those heavy peltasts have is armour/shield rating. However, with friendly fire the way it is, you can't use HP's to proper effect, nullifying the defensive advantage. HP's are an interesting comparison with velites. Velites get a 7 missile rating, same as the peltasts (and both get 5 melee. Velites get a lower armour/shield stat as they should. Another small advantage of the HP's is that they are "highly_trained" vs "untrained" for velites and the greek archers.

I'm already on record about the archery missile rating being too high across the board. I don't think an arrow should get the same missile rating as a javelin. Why? First, historically in this time period, javelins were more effective military weapons than archery (early on, the entire Punic War time frame...this changes some time around the Marion reforms or later.) Second, from game balance, the archers have more range and 5 times as many missiles. Third, if you had to make the unfortunate choice of getting hit by one, which would you chance: the javelin from a "highly_trained" peltast, or an arrow from an "untrained" archer with a self-bow? (I'm making the assumption that "chance of a hit" differs from the missile attack rating.)

The archer "flaming arrows" option really should make all archer units cost a hundred more apiece, plus considerably more upkeep. Heck, it is one of the few anti-elephant devices available. And they also will rout just about any unit that has poor morale.

If friendly fire is fixed, then HP's and other skirmishers begin to have a useful place on the field. Archers benefit as well, but by less of a margin since they are meant to be used at range, not up close like javelin skirmishers. However, to fully address the problem, archery needs seriously toned down as well. They should be good for specific tasks (at least early on) but less useful than javelin units on the field. If late RTW archers (elites) were as effective as the present "vanilla archers" (with vanilla archers far less) then it would probably be more representative.

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Originally Posted by Red Harvest

I'm already on record about the archery missile rating being too high across the board. I don't think an arrow should get the same missile rating as a javelin. Why? First, historically in this time period, javelins were more effective military weapons than archery (early on, the entire Punic War time frame...this changes some time around the Marion reforms or later.) Second, from game balance, the archers have more range and 5 times as many missiles. Third, if you had to make the unfortunate choice of getting hit by one, which would you chance: the javelin from a "highly_trained" peltast, or an arrow from an "untrained" archer with a self-bow? (I'm making the assumption that "chance of a hit" differs from the missile attack rating.)

The archer "flaming arrows" option really should make all archer units cost a hundred more apiece, plus considerably more upkeep. Heck, it is one of the few anti-elephant devices available. And they also will rout just about any unit that has poor morale.

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Agreed. I was thinking of reducing the ranged attack to 5 or 4 with melee at 2. It is said that archers are "drawn from the peasant classes" and are basically "skilled hunters". Hoplites have a melee of 7 with the spear, which they train with primarily. I wouldn't expect a band of archers recruited from peasant hunters to have as high a ranged attack as the melee rating of regular soldiers who have received formal training.

Carrying 30 arrows sounds quite reasonable to me or does anyone want to decrease this? Might also want to check the range to see whether 120 is reasonable.

Also agree that the "flaming arrows" aspect should result in more cost/upkeep. Apart from elephants (of which I can certainly testify that flaming arrows work very well), siege towers can be burnt down too though I've read that it may take quite a bit of time.
Even if you raise the cost by hundred to 290, archers still look more than worth the deal. But I feel increasing the upkeep might hurt if raised too much though. Currently Hoplites are at 170 and Armored Hoplites at 210 for upkeep. All that added armor probably takes quite a bit of maintainence. I would settle for archers being somewhere in between for arrow supply and flaming arrows. Maybe 200?
Unit stats are quite easily moddable I believe, so we can test out how any suggestions here work out.

The only reason I'd support any sane ammo limitation at all is because of the AI's stupidity and the system's limitations, honestly. IRL, if an archer really wanted sixty arrows, he could carry them in battle without too much trouble. The thing is, they usually didn't need sixty arrows, because their enemies wouldn't be sitting around in the open getting shot to pieces. They'd be out of range, or behind some kind of defensive barrier, or charging in for the attack. So I wouldn't really favor arrow limitations as a means of nerfing archers. Instead, I would like to look into range, accuracy, and lethality.

Come to think of it . . . aren't bows all but useless in the rain? Archers supposedly get some small penalty in precipitation now, but I haven't really noticed it. My impression was always that wet bowstrings wouldn't be properly taut or something, so you couldn't use bows in the rain. Brief Googling turned up this, which sounds authentic: "He can't shoot in the rain (his bowstring will get wet and stretch) and anyway his arrows won't fly true (see below)." If we could just make archers unable to fire in wet conditions, that would be more than nerf enough—in the north, at least, they'd be unable to fire half the time.

-Simetrical

This is what I hate bout RTW. They got the rain destroyin archery rite in MTW....

Increasing the archers upkeep to 200 would be ok, but then the HP and Peltasts would still need a lowered upkeep, to perhaps 140 and 160 repectively. They are after all only 30 dinarii cheaper per turn. Not much really, and definately not worth it.
Making the archers having the same rating as the slingers would be good I guess, it would also help the slingers a bit as they were supposed to be better than archers in general.

What does the 'highly_trained' line mean? Formation, responsiveness or actually capabilities? Tell tell tell... ~D

Archers could indeed fire in the rain, not much of a problem there. The bowstring would stretch a bit and it would impact on power and range, but accuracy would still be good enough as the archers could compensate for hte rain's impact on the arrow. Wind on hte other hand was far worse for accuracy. It normally strikes in gusts and is thus impossible to counteract or interpret properly.

The training spec is part of the "stat_mental" The training part refers to how "tidy" the unit formation is (that's what it says in the file.) I'm not sure that it has a morale effect. There is a numerical value for base morale starting at zero for peasants and going up to 14 for Spartan hoplites and the gladiator units. Also included in the stat is a "discipline" level.

IIRC the heavy peltast unit formation is rather tight order for a javelin unit and that reflects its training...I think.

Shouldn't any composite bow type units also have serious trouble with rain? I thought one of the limitations to composite bows was that rain was hard on the bow itself?

I need to do a test of rain vs. dry for archery. In game I've seen some impact of rain on archer effectiveness. As a result, during the frequent "showers" in the north section of the map I stop firing and pull back waiting for it to let up (with horse archers.) With horse archers vs. infantry I can empty my quivers so I would prefer to do so in the best weather possible.

Composite bows would have problems with cold and damp weather if it was for weeks on end, as it is in spring and autumn in the north, but just because it rains for a few days they need not fear. And using them in battle would of course requite the archer to take extra good care of the bow after the battle, but again not really a direct problem.

Applying sufficient layers of laquer, or some other water-proofing measure (medieval composite-horn-stave crossbows usually used birch-bark wrapping) does away with the structural-integrity problems. The Chinese and Japanese apparently used that method. The issue with the strings getting wet is a little unavoidable, but depends on the materials employed - weren't animal tendons used too ? AFAIK those don't "wet" all that easily...

'Course, a rather bigger problem is going to be the simple issue of the mass of raindrops messing up the arrows' flight paths and momentum. Heck, you didn't need too much wind before there were issues...

I miss having strong winds and bad weather which really made a difference in S:TW. I still remember waiting for a lull in the weather where my archers would be able to inflict more casualties across bridge battles. Also recall that heavy rains used to reduce visibility and therefore range.
Sadly, I don't notice this much in R:TW (the wind factor isn't there I believe but I'm less sure about the rain factor). These might have been taken away just like the "only the first few rows of archers can fire" rule, which would have been a pity.
I doubt if we can easily fix these issues though if the exe hasn't been hardcoded to factor in wind and rain variables...
Anyway it would be nice to bring back the wind factor with arrows being affected a bit more than sling bullets.

Slingers currently have a missile rating of 4, melee of 3 and have 40 ammo at 80 range. I feel any nerfs we apply to archers should also be partially applied to slingers. They may have less missile rating than archers but having more ammo makes up for it and from what I've seen while Rhodian Slingers are brutally effective even regular, garden variety slingers can easily take out a whole grunt unit standing still in the town square and then some.

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Originally Posted by zhuge

Slingers currently have a missile rating of 4, melee of 3 and have 40 ammo at 80 range. I feel any nerfs we apply to archers should also be partially applied to slingers. They may have less missile rating than archers but having more ammo makes up for it and from what I've seen while Rhodian Slingers are brutally effective even regular, garden variety slingers can easily take out a whole grunt unit standing still in the town square and then some.

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Honestly, slingers should be good. They were and are. They could carry a lot of ammo obviously, so that is perfectly ok. Should they hit you in the side where the shield can't help then you are going down, so that is ok too. Against a shielded front they aren't all that dangerous, and a unit can certainly survive the attack. If anything slingers should have the same range as archers as they were reputedly better in that department, and often they were used as archer-hunters. Hardly possible with worse range.

Both archers and slingers should cause significant casualties if they hit the unshielded side and rear.

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Originally Posted by Kraxis

Honestly, slingers should be good. They were and are.

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Ok. But if they are going to share roughly the same ranged attack rating as archers then they should have their cost and upkeep increased... if we stick with increasing archer cost to 290 and upkeep to 200 as discussed previously, slingers are getting off a bit easy for a cost of 150 and an upkeep of 170. They might not have fire ammo and having slings and bullets instead of bows and arrows does sound a tad cheaper. However they also carry small shields and still have to undergo some sort of training so IMHO, a slight hike in cost/upkeep would serve balance purposes better.

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Originally Posted by zhuge

Ok. But if they are going to share roughly the same ranged attack rating as archers then they should have their cost and upkeep increased... if we stick with increasing archer cost to 290 and upkeep to 200 as discussed previously, slingers are getting off a bit easy for a cost of 150 and an upkeep of 170. They might not have fire ammo and having slings and bullets instead of bows and arrows does sound a tad cheaper. However they also carry small shields and still have to undergo some sort of training so IMHO, a slight hike in cost/upkeep would serve balance purposes better.

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Slingers should be very cheap in upkeep. Most would have gotten their initial "training" as a kid. Their military training shouldn't be that difficult and their choice of weaponry makes for very inexpensive ammo, easier to get than bronze or iron arrowheads plus the rest of the arrow. Slings are much easier to make than bows. They use daggers for close in work, no armour and the smallest possible shield. The vanilla slingers use fired clay projectiles, vs. lead bullets for the balearics and rhodians. But for everyday use (practice) they could sling all sorts of small stones.

They are fairly well handicapped with a range of 80 vs. 120 for vanilla archers. That cuts their firing time almost in half when the enemy rushes them (because they will start falling back when the enemy hits about 30 yds or so.) So I'm not sure why vanilla archers should get both higher missile attack and the range advantage in the current game. That really piles it on for archery vs. slings.

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Originally Posted by Red Harvest

...Upkeep must be easier than an elephant though...which needs 350 to 500 lbs of forage a day! Imagine the associated "clean up" costs... (cataphract.)

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GAH!

Vanya sez... Cleanup is done by the conquered... On Vanya's orders, they drop to the ground and use their toothbrush as a spoon and eat the 'phant doo from the fields the day before Vanya indulges in a nice, tidy game of miniature noggin golf.

Note to Self: Make sure to use FRESH heads with miniature noggin golf... Once they start to decompose, they get soft and it becomes harder to drive them a hearty distance.

GAH!