My first thoughts about EB

Hello,

First I'd like to say the people behind EB have done suberb job in bringing this module to life! Well done! :D

Howerver, I would like point a few points after I've played the module with Macedonians:

with medium difficulty in Battles and Hard on Campaign Map

1) Why Macedonians start with such a bad economy? It's like -10000/turn... Clearly my options were either disband most of my army or become over aggressive... I ve choosed the second and in turn 1 i charged to Spata, Athens & Ambrakia (it took me 3 Heroic Battles to kill Pyros)... anyway it took me about 20 or so turns till cash was flowing into my treasury. From what i know Macedonians should not have such a bad economy... right? At least they should have one city above 6000...

2) Missile troops & cavarly don't seem to be effective (at least on my compter... even though I have a clean install + of RTW w patch 1.2 & EB without altering anything else)

We all know that:

Archers are good vs Infantry (includes spearmen)
Cavalry are good vs Archers & light infantry (no spearmen)
Spearmen are good vs Cavarly
Infantry are good vs spearmen

However, the first two are broken in EB

There were cases were archers (Toxotai) emptied all their ammo onto a unit of rebel Taxeis Hoplites only to kill one man (i highly doubt that this is realistic)... even worse image two Toxotai and two peltasts (the good ones) empting all their ammo one a unit of Taxeis Hoplites (the peltasts were firing from the flank of the enemy) only to kill 10!?

Afetr a few battles i stopped having archers, missile arttack 2 is like :wall: ...

And cavalry does not kill units... it only break morale when you flank the enemy... Cavalry was actually so bad that Etairoi (Fresh) alone could not take care a unit of peltast (Tired) or a charge of Etairoi onto a unit Taxeis Hoplites from behind, who were fighting my infantry, could only kill only 5 men! I am sorry but it does not make sense, a charging heavy cavarly can inflicte far more damage only from the momemtum it has...

3) Even with all the above obstacles i have manage to form a small empire consisting 20 provences with a lot of vistories... but my most skilled generals during the whole game was Antigonos with 3 stars (but quickly reduced to 1 as he was getting older), and X (i dont recall his name) 1 star after coming victorius in many battles (most of the time were tough battles like 4:1 or 2:1 against me)

Any comments? Am I doing something wrong? Anyone facing the same problem?

Cython

If your hetairoi aren't killing any infantry then there's definitely something wrong with your game... or mine! These guys were ripping my infantry apart in my KH campaign!

Try fighting a custom battle against them to find out how deadly these guys are.

Edit: and yeah IMO archers and slingers are definitely underpowered.

I'm working up a new EDU text that is re-balanced along the lines of what you've said. I've done a lot of research into the EDU, but I'm working it up for 1.5, so when EB switches over, I'll finish it.

Archers and slings are good against infantry - *if* you are hitting them from the sides or better yet back - or if they have no armor/shields. If they have good shields or armor, they can sit there and let you shoot at them from the front all day. You'll have to learn to manouver the troops better to have ranged units be effective or just make sure they aim for guys with little armor.

There is a patch in the traits thread that will help you get command stars more quickly than you might currently.

Good luck!

Use missile units on flanks and the rear of units, or aim for the units with less armour. In my Baktrian campaign they're particularly effective against Pantodopoi and other missile units.

Hetairoi wouldn't break peltasts since they are a spear-armed unit. Use cavalry for the shock effect: keep them in reserve, wear down the enemy and when their morale starts to lower charge them with all the cavalry you can, force a breach. Historically well-formed infantry had little trouble stopping most cavalry, you really need your own infantry to break formations and cavalry to break morale.

I find weaker missle units such as slingers good for pinning an enemy and then flanking with heavier infantry or cavalry. If they turn they take fire on the flanks or the rear which damages morale or they get struck by the flanking units.

In my Makedonian campaign i can recruit archers and slingers with 2 experience chevrons, making toxotai have 4 attack and slingers 5... They're kind of effective when used against infantry, but against hoplites they suck... However i have a rebel killing army made up of ten units of 5 missile attack slingers, you should see it when they all fire at once... Usually drops 20 men instantly, but against hoplites they will kill only 5, against the better hoplites (Iphrikates) then they might kill 1 if all 10 fire at the same time...

I don't care if this army is unrealistic, the amount of rebel popups i get is unrealistic, 3 per turn even though my cities are all green happy face... Screw that... Watching 10 units of slingers firing all at the same time is beautiful.

I personally like the balancing of cavalry and missiles in EB - I think it is both realistic and good for gameplay. If you are used to playing vanilla RTW, you might almost want to dispense with heavy infantry altogether - missiles can mow down the enemy and a few good cavalry can chain rout whole armies. EB restores heavy infantry to its historical primacy in ancient battles and makes you work harder for victory against the AI. With EBs balancing I can almost see why ancient armies like the Romans and Greeks had relatively small proportions of missiles and cavalry.

Maybe missiles and cavalry should be a little more powerful, I don't know. I'm happy with the balancing in a variety of games (EB, RTR, even BI seems not too far out).

But nonetheless, I do know I still want to use missiles and cavalry in EB. Missiles give you the chance to hurt the enemy without getting hurt back - and they are particularly good against unarmoured troops such as many skirmishers that are hard to kill otherwise. A cavalry charge to the rear of an engaged unit is perhaps the easiest and surest key to winning a battle.

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1) Why Macedonians start with such a bad economy? It's like -10000/turn... Clearly my options were either disband most of my army or become over aggressive... I ve choosed the second and in turn 1 i charged to Spata, Athens & Ambrakia (it took me 3 Heroic Battles to kill Pyros)... anyway it took me about 20 or so turns till cash was flowing into my treasury. From what i know Macedonians should not have such a bad economy... right? At least they should have one city above 6000...

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It makes the game, you know, harder...

Besides, Makedon at this stage was still recovering from the Gallic invasion of Greece in 279BC (at least, I'd imagine that they're still recovering at this time), hence why most of their armies are basically levies and such.

When starting out as Makedon, I find the best thing to do is disband all of your useless troops. Things like Hetairoi on Mytilene and such. Just disband pretty much all of your cavalry except for those you need in your armies (about 2 units per stack is enough early on). That won't be enough to get you out of the red; in fact, by the time you take the rest of Greece, you can expect to be a good 20,000 or more in debt, but once you have the mainland and the surrounding islands (Crete and Rhodes) you'll start to pull in a ton of money fairly quickly and you can eventually replace your army with phalangites and such.

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2) Missile troops & cavarly don't seem to be effective (at least on my compter... even though I have a clean install + of RTW w patch 1.2 & EB without altering anything else)

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Western archers sucked at this point in history.

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There were cases were archers (Toxotai) emptied all their ammo onto a unit of rebel Taxeis Hoplites only to kill one man (i highly doubt that this is realistic)... even worse image two Toxotai and two peltasts (the good ones) empting all their ammo one a unit of Taxeis Hoplites (the peltasts were firing from the flank of the enemy) only to kill 10!?

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That's why you hit the enemy's flanks, rather than the front where that big shield is.

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And cavalry does not kill units... it only break morale when you flank the enemy... Cavalry was actually so bad that Etairoi (Fresh) alone could not take care a unit of peltast (Tired) or a charge of Etairoi onto a unit Taxeis Hoplites from behind, who were fighting my infantry, could only kill only 5 men! I am sorry but it does not make sense, a charging heavy cavarly can inflicte far more damage only from the momemtum it has...

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Always use cavalry en-masse or not at all. One unit of Hetairoi isn't going to do much, but two or three units will (especially in a "triangle of death" - surround the enemy, hit the rear with one before charging with the other two units, bound to break most enemy units very easily). If that gets too expensive, just use Hippeis Thessalikoi, they're like mini-Hetairoi.

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3) Even with all the above obstacles i have manage to form a small empire consisting 20 provences with a lot of vistories... but my most skilled generals during the whole game was Antigonos with 3 stars (but quickly reduced to 1 as he was getting older), and X (i dont recall his name) 1 star after coming victorius in many battles (most of the time were tough battles like 4:1 or 2:1 against me)

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It is intended to be extremely hard to gain command stars. Don't be surprised if your best general has only 4 stars at most. Again, the aim is to make the game much harder for the player, since the AI is quite retarded.

There you go, I think that addresses all of your points.

You shouldn't be using cavalry to charge at anything that is even remotely capable of fighting in hand to hand combat unless it is already engaged anyway, and then you should wait until it is shaked before charging, steady at the very least... Although for a factions elite troops steady is too early because they will simply turn and start to fight back.

Things you can charge at with cavalry to get rid of them from the field are archers, (not the ones armed with spears for melee fighting obviously) slingers and peltasts like velites and akontistai... But remember that some peltasts are armed with spears for secondary use so charging at those isn't a good idea...

Also i find that missile units are very good against enemy cavalry... Especially slingers it seems... 1 volley from 1 units isn't effective but if you have 2 units and concentrate them on the enemy cavalry they will hurt it badly... Not that enemy cavalry is a problem since the AI has no idea what to do with it...

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Originally Posted by cython

1) Why Macedonians start with such a bad economy?

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This is intentional, and applies to almost all factions. Most nations seemly could not afford to run around with multiple armies, so the EB team increased the upkeep from all units. This also makes your armies more valuable; as a loss is expensive. Basically, at the start of the game you are faced with a simple choice: either use your units or disband them. Especially get rid of fleets: they are criplingly expensive and in a 1:1 encounter the A.I. always wins (at H and VH anyway).

Makedon was in a bad position at the start of the game. They had barely recovered from the Galatean migration or Pyrrhus of Epirus burned down their capital. Antigonus just regained it the start of the game. As soon as you can get your mines operative you will be able to get a steady cashflow (too much actually, the team is planning to decrease mine income again in the next patch).

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2) Missile troops & cavarly don't seem to be effective (at least on my compter... even though I have a clean install + of RTW w patch 1.2 & EB without altering anything else)

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The missile part has already been adressed (though I agree missile effectiveness can be somewhat fickle in EB), but the cavalry problems stems mainly from the broken charge value in R:TW 1.2. There is no way to properly balance this: either you get cavalry that ploughs head-on through heavy infantry or you get cavalry that can be stopped by a single skirmisher. This should be fixed by the port to 1.5.

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Originally Posted by Ludens

This is intentional, and applies to almost all factions. Most nations seemly could not afford to run around with multiple armies, so the EB team increased the upkeep from all units. This also makes your armies more valuable; as a loss is expensive. Basically, at the start of the game you are faced with a simple choice: either use your units or disband them. Especially get rid of fleets: they are criplingly expensive and in a 1:1 encounter the A.I. always wins (at H and VH anyway).

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This is a very important point and the EB team should put it in bold capital letters of any readme/documentation for the mod. (Unless you understand the clever design and intention it represents, you will tend to find the mod frustratingly hard to begin with).

But one quibble - is it really true the AI fleets win 1:1 encounters at higher difficulty levels? That was true in v1.0 RTW and was why I was reluctant to play above medium campaigns. But at some stage it was changed and I have not noticed an imbalance in naval battles even on VH campaigns (and since I play a lot of EB & RTR, I'd conclude that the change was implemented by 1.2).

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Originally Posted by cython

1) Why Macedonians start with such a bad economy? It's like -10000/turn... Clearly my options were either disband most of my army or become over aggressive... I ve choosed the second and in turn 1 i charged to Spata, Athens & Ambrakia (it took me 3 Heroic Battles to kill Pyros)... anyway it took me about 20 or so turns till cash was flowing into my treasury. From what i know Macedonians should not have such a bad economy... right? At least they should have one city above 6000...

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Macedon army is way to big - cutting many units is necesary - for more hist. accurate situation check myAAR - in 5th paragraph there is list of troops I havent disbanded (multiplied by ten for more "historic" look, gen bodyguards are added to amount of Hetairoi)
Macedon was on the edge in this year. Phyrros was controlling most of Macedon itself and vast areas of Thessaly. If he had wisely choose targets, by the end of year he had chance to eliminate Antigonos and control whole greece.

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Originally Posted by cython

2) Missile troops & cavarly don't seem to be effective

There were cases were archers (Toxotai) emptied all their ammo onto a unit of rebel Taxeis Hoplites only to kill one man (i highly doubt that this is realistic)... even worse image two Toxotai and two peltasts (the good ones) empting all their ammo one a unit of Taxeis Hoplites (the peltasts were firing from the flank of the enemy) only to kill 10!?

And cavalry does not kill units... it only break morale when you flank the enemy... Cavalry was actually so bad that Etairoi (Fresh) alone could not take care a unit of peltast (Tired) or a charge of Etairoi onto a unit Taxeis Hoplites from behind, who were fighting my infantry, could only kill only 5 men! I am sorry but it does not make sense, a charging heavy cavarly can inflicte far more damage only from the momemtum it has...

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As many people wrote here - hit enemy from behind. Phalanx units are almost invulunerable to missles from the front, but try placing somebody behind them...
Toxotai are useless in battle field, they only make good garnison troops. Spendotenai are much better.
Cav charge is broken, but few things you should consider
-charge downhill is much more effective than uphill.
-multiple charges from many sides should crush enemy, while single charge is good only against lowest level skirmishers

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Originally Posted by cython

3) Even with all the above obstacles i have manage to form a small empire consisting 20 provences with a lot of vistories... but my most skilled generals during the whole game was Antigonos with 3 stars (but quickly reduced to 1 as he was getting older), and X (i dont recall his name) 1 star after coming victorius in many battles (most of the time were tough battles like 4:1 or 2:1 against me)

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Candidate for good general should be sharp/charismatic/vigorous if you chose other he will not develop well. Getting stars is very hard and it is OK as not everybody could become Aleksandros

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With EBs balancing I can almost see why ancient armies like the Romans and Greeks had relatively small proportions of missiles and cavalry.

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Although the Romans deployed few archers, it was not due to their ineffectiveness... The Romans were plain poor at archery, as well as fighting on horseback. This is why we see them employ mercenaries in these areas time after time, with the most famous example being Numidian cavalry at Zama. On the other hand, later Greek armies were particularly known for their cavalry, especially horsemen from the Aetolian League, which were said to be the best in the region (I'll have to check Polybius on that). Rome may have lost the 2nd Macedonian war had it not been for their help. With these facts in mind, it seems that EB infantry was given primacy to force historical deployments, not to provide an accurate portrayal of true combined arms tactics.

Although I am very new to EB, I also think the current balance is a bit skewed, since it doesn’t accurately portray the effect of combined arms on the battlefield. Archers are a key part of any balanced army, as they functioned as artillery with both direct and indirect capabilities. Look at Crassus' fate as a prime example of their effect on heavy infantry. Perhaps a purchasable upgrade to archers bow strength during the course of a campaign would help with this, as archers would initially be weak and fail to penetrate anything, but gain strength (in the form of penetrating power) as time goes by. Perhaps add the modern concept of suppression into the mix as well. In the end, we should see similar results to that of early English battles against the Scotts (One was Falkirk, although I forget the other two battle names, sorry!), where heavy infantry was herded via arrow fire into a particular fighting area, engaged with infantry and then flanked with cavalry.

As to cavalry, i belive the formation of the opposing infantry should be the deciding factor, not their armaments. A horse is simply not going to charge into a solid wall of anything, more so if they are armed with massive spears. Yet even hoplites should be vulerable to a cavalry charge if they are not in formation; a problem which persists in both the vanilla version and EB.

While I dont know if these two tweaks are feesible, I think these they would cause the game to portray combined arms tactics more accurately on the battlefield.

Greetings shorebreak. Always happy to welcome more folks in here who are interested in EB.

You won't find one of my Hellenic armies without some archers and slingers, but I know better than to use them where they won't be of any use. That's why everyone hates those Eranshr Aristabara units - good bows and spears on the flanks are just nasty. :grin:

No one said that Greek cavalry was bad, just that it made up a small percentage of Greek armies, which it did. Infantry troops were the vast majority in every greek army, even ones (basically all the armies after the classical period) in which cavalry was usally the key to victory.

Also, you can decimate a heavy infantry army with eastern horse archers, who use composite bows (rather than the selfbow common in the west) and are stated to reflect this. In fact any unit with some sort of composite bow (including the Cretans when they show up) is much better at taking down heavy infantry than the selfbow units of the west.

As to making formations more important, there's really not a thing we can do stats wise to make this work any better.

Formation density does greatly affect cav vs inf battles i find.
I just fought a battle where there were a couple of tough pezhetairoi pinned by weaker pontic phalangai. I charged the back of each pezherairoi with kappadocian and leuce epos cavarly (4 cav vs 2 inf). Then halfway during their charge the pikes faced the cav and started hurting the cav badly, at this point, I ordered the phalangai to break formation and charge the enemy pikes. With 3 units pushing on each pike, they all broke formation and no longer pointed their spears at my cav and were cut down much quicker.

Oh yes, formation density definatly matters, but there's not anything I do stat-wise to make it matter more or less or in a different way. I was saying I can't really adjust it.

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Originally Posted by econ21

But one quibble - is it really true the AI fleets win 1:1 encounters at higher difficulty levels? That was true in v1.0 RTW and was why I was reluctant to play above medium campaigns. But at some stage it was changed and I have not noticed an imbalance in naval battles even on VH campaigns (and since I play a lot of EB & RTR, I'd conclude that the change was implemented by 1.2).

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I haven't really checked it after some naval disasters in 1.1; but since auto-calc is very much skewed in favour of the A.I. at VH campaign difficulty and naval battles are auto-calc I don't see why not. That said, it does feel better after 1.2, but this may be because I only engage at overwhelming odds. If the A.l. engages me, I always get trashed.

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Always use cavalry en-masse or not at all. One unit of Hetairoi isn't going to do much, but two or three units will (especially in a "triangle of death" - surround the enemy, hit the rear with one before charging with the other two units, bound to break most enemy units very easily). If that gets too expensive, just use Hippeis Thessalikoi, they're like mini-Hetairoi.

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Scary how effective this is. Even with 3-4 horse archers charging from different directions. Infantry just vapourizes.

Another thing is to to stagger charges. One unit charging slightly after the first seems to be very effective.

Personally i find moving archers etc round the flanks a bit silly. Can't recall ever reading that in a history book. Missile troops are good against enemy missile troops and cavalry though. Horse archers are a different story of course.

Sorry for my late reply but i was working....

1) Thanks for your replies and advices... things look better now as i understand the reasons behind EB changes (from vanilla)

2) I stopped all together using archers and slingers in my field armies since they were useless and i use more infantry... I do not say that i prefer archers, who are able to cast the rain of death as in the vanilla but i equally i do not prefer to have units that they hardly kill anything. I mean right now i simply form a solid line of phalax and start moving to the enemy not caring about their missile troops since they will not be able more 10 soldiers... ( which in my opinion it is not realistic )

The greeks didn't really wanted to use archers or be an archer because it wan't (from their perspective) an honorable way to fight (they preffered homiarian battles & Paris was the bad example). And that's an extra reason why Philipos (father of Alexander the Great) kicked their ^$&* since he used more practical & strategical ways of thinking i.e.

main line: the first version of phalanx
behind the main line archers & war machines
and the flanks were protected by cavalry and/ or other types of infantry

so till the greeks of south were able to reach the phalanx they had substained heavy damage by those "unworthy" archers only to be finished of by the combination of cavalry & phalanx

Thanks again for your replies

Cython

If you simply attribute the Greek lack of archery to culture, how come several heroes are archers.

Herakles, Bellerophon and Philoktetes spring to mind and possibly Orion.

You could also suggest apollo and artemis as archers.

I think it's just that the Greeks simply weren't good archers, their bows were much less effective than spears. Bows and slings were still used, but mainly as a way of preventing cavalry from causing too much damage (working from Nicias' speech about taking bows and slings to counter the Syracusan horse).

so this kind of puts a sock in the cavalry counter archers theory.

this is all 150 years before eb, so it could no longer apply

Most greeks (in the west) were still using selfbows during EB's time frame. Selfbows just aren't very effective weapons, slings are much more effective. Trying using slingers, you'll find them much more effective.

I really hate how the EB team (and their followers) defend against criticism.

Problem:

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Originally Posted by cython

even worse image two Toxotai and two peltasts (the good ones) empting all their ammo one a unit of Taxeis Hoplites (the peltasts were firing from the flank of the enemy) only to kill 10!?

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Proposed Solution:

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Originally Posted by Teleklos Archelaou

Archers and slings are good against infantry - *if* you are hitting them from the sides or better yet back...

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... people seem to keep saying hit them from the sides, but he did.

And that is against Taxeis Hoplites, whose decription I will now quote from Teleklos Archelaou (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=52095)

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Originally Posted by Teleklos Archelaou

They can be expected to hold a line against most light and medium infantry, though they can be cut to pieces by missile troops, as they have virtually no protection from missiles other than their shields.

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Problem:

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Originally Posted by cython

a charge of Etairoi onto a unit Taxeis Hoplites from behind, who were fighting my infantry, could only kill only 5 men!

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Proposed Solution:

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Originally Posted by econ21

A cavalry charge to the rear of an engaged unit is perhaps the easiest and surest key to winning a battle.

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... again people keep saying charge from the rear, but he did.

And now I quote from the EB team again (from The Wizard specifically) for the description of Hetairoi, (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=49152)

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Originally Posted by The Wizard

They are still able to give a decisive blow to the flank and rear of any infantry.

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This is why I believe the entire unit system is flawed. QM has said to me many times to point out a situation where the result doesn't meet what is supposed to happen. Well here is two situations that dont match the description of what your EB members have said.

But rather than go through the whole system with them, I'm just making my own, so the point of this post is to show that there is no point in anyone pointing out the flaws in this "perfect system", the flaws will just be defended irrationally and in an ad hoc manner that contradicts their previous posts by the zealots and EB team members who claim that any other system would be unrealistic. Besides, even if they change it, it would take quite a long time to get QM to change everything that needs to be changed.

Strange. Missiles have functioned precisely the way I expected them to thus far: effective against low armour, useless against units with decent shields and such.

Does it matter which flank is attacked with missiles, the shield side or the other side?

Charges are bugged in 1.2, so that's bound to be unpredictable.

Try playing as a Gallic faction. Archers and javelins will rip your troops to pieces.

You are aware that there is an element of randomness in the calculations that RTW uses right? In the exact same situation different things will happen if you play it over and over again. I've broken enemy armies with cavalry charges to the flanks more times than I can count, but there have been a couple of times when the charge just wasn't that effective. Of course the way we had to compensate for the broken charge in 1.2 exacerbates this, and hopefully cavalry will be a bit more well balanced in 1.5 when we actually have a charge stat to work with. But really, would you want or expect the same thing to happen every time?

As for missile units, firing in the rear or the right flank (shield-less) is certainly quite effective. I just tested it again and my greek slingers can kill 6 or so TH’s a volley. Either way though the port to 1.5 will require rather serious missile rebalancing to deal with the bug/feature in 1.5 with archers/slingers and heavy infantry, so you may get a bit of your wish.

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Originally Posted by fallen851

I really hate how the EB team (and their followers) defend against criticism.

Problem:


Proposed Solution:


... people seem to keep saying hit them from the sides, but he did.

And that is against Taxeis Hoplites, whose decription I will now quote from Teleklos Archelaou (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=52095)



Problem:


Proposed Solution:


... again people keep saying charge from the rear, but he did.

And now I quote from the EB team again (from The Wizard specifically) for the description of Hetairoi, (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=49152)



This is why I believe the entire unit system is flawed. QM has said to me many times to point out a situation where the result doesn't meet what is supposed to happen. Well here is two situations that dont match the description of what your EB members have said.

But rather than go through the whole system with them, I'm just making my own, so the point of this post is to show that there is no point in anyone pointing out the flaws in this "perfect system", the flaws will just be defended irrationally and in an ad hoc manner that contradicts their previous posts by the zealots and EB team members who claim that any other system would be unrealistic. Besides, even if they change it, it would take quite a long time to get QM to change everything that needs to be changed.

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about the second part. You don't use your, well at least I don't, for killing lots of non-routing units. No I use them to get them routing. Once the units rout you can kill them i one two three. But some poeple seem to forget that even the best katapracts or the hetairoi, sacred band cavalry aren't medievel knights.

This is also partially about the first part:
A battle isn't won by who will kill the most units in direct confrontation. A battle is won by morale. Archers and cavalry can be crucial for thing like this. (of course it's the same with (scythed)chariots, elephants, gaesatae (except for their good fighting their scaryness is a big part of their toughness)).

Ofcourse it's not only about making the enemie scared but also about making sure your units won't. (keep the general close, chanting (carnute cingetos for example), Champion units (Casse))

About the first part: I use my archers always fom behind with flaming arrows. The eastern archers are quite good, but the western aren't (no composite bows). Therefor I use alot of javelin armed troops. Mala gaeros and peltestai come to my mind.

fallen851, please refrain from getting personal. These particular cases can be explained by something other than a failure in the EB stat system. For example, shields do not only protect the front but the left side as well. Since cython does not specify which flank he was attacking, it is possible that the shield bonus still applied. Secondly, charge bonus in 1.2 is completely FUBAR, and no proper balancing can be done until the game has been ported to 1.5. Lastly, if you think the EB team is unresponsive to criticism, then you have seen nothing yet.

I do agree BTW that missile effectiveness can be somewhat unpredictable.

Anyone can take my comments about unit strengths and weaknesses with a grain of salt. I'm first and foremost a historian and a philologist, but not a military historian for sure. Still, I believe what I said is valid and I see nothing that needs me to go back and try to correct it.

If you want to pick and choose from my 8,000 posts on this forum on EB (ooh, ooh! it's really not 8K yet!) and try to find inconsistencies as massive as this one (where I apparently said something so outrageous in stating you should use ranged troops on the wings against heavily armored troops for more effect, and then much earlier I said taxeis hoplites were the weakest of all hoplites and only had a shield and helm really for protection, and thus compared to others were more susceptible to ranged weapons - what is wrong with that?), then go right ahead.

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