This ignorant statement about the lack of imperviousness of the Phalanx against archer units, says it all. No need for further comments... :rolleyes:Quote:
Originally Posted by Morindin
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This ignorant statement about the lack of imperviousness of the Phalanx against archer units, says it all. No need for further comments... :rolleyes:Quote:
Originally Posted by Morindin
mount effect bonuses do not seem to be working. i tested this in a previous thread. I'll bump it.
there is a separate anti cav bonus: stat_pri_attr spear
The file describes this as a bonus against cavalry but penalty against infantry. I have not tested this, but casually it does seem that hoplites in phalanx mode do do better than normal infantry, as long as you don't constantly let the cav charge and charge again.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ulstan
you need to run a test.
This is not a test. merely an example. There's high variance in battle results, especially when units are relatively even. (snowball effects)
in my tests, units with mount_effects bonuses such as triarii and auxilia do not better than their normal counterparts (principes, hastati) against cavalry.
I have not tested phalanx units since I rarely use them.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Morindin
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dorkus
Do people read entire topics or just pick up small parts ignoring the entire context?Quote:
Originally Posted by Morindin
As for my tests being "scewerd" Red Harvest, YOUR experiances are scewered because they all FULL of external factors that can influence what happens. What you are experiacing is not nessesarily what someone else might be experiancing, which is WHY you remove all such external influences.
The 'problem' with archers in your game could be:
1. AI using Phalanx's poorly.
2. Experiance variations.
3. Terrain advantages.
4. Greek Temple Bonuses that add +3 to archers.
5. Many other things.
To simply make a broad sweeping claim of how overpowered they are will get us - the community - no where.
Many people play this game under many different circumstances, and your claims of overpoweredness unsupported by fact are clearly wrong for me in my games, my experiances, and even controlled tests.
Tests - removing all external influences and all things being equal - show that the elite archers are NOT overpowered. if you are finding them overpowered in your own experiances and the way YOU use them, then, why dont you MOD THE GAME THE WAY YOU LIKE IT?
Don't know if you're talking to me or not, but I'm not red harvest.
I did a few quick runs just for suggestive purposes.
Mac cav vs. armored hoplites 5 runs. Normal unit size (42 man unit including general iirc)
Armored hoplites won all 5 battles.
Average: 37 remaining (35-39)
Triarii won 2 battles (7 and 14 men remaining) and lost 3. Counting a loss as 0 remaining,
Average: 4.2 remaining
I don't know where you get the idea that triarii are better than armored hoplites against cav. Triarii are terrible units.
Sorry to all about the sidetrack on archers...I had not intended to derail the thread, but Morindin is here and is determined to try to refute anything I write. This is the last I'll post about it in this thread.
Morindin,
I've run the tests in custom battle, with base level units. My cretan archers killed just shy of two men per volley in 4 tests. I counted 10 volleys and killed 17 to 19 armoured hoplites during that time. How you only killed a couple, I don't know. Could be poor technique since you are shooting your own men in the back and blocking the archer LOS. I tried placing the archers beside my infantry (both sides) and in front with indistinguishable results--of course the AI had a part in that.
A couple of things did pop out at me:
1. The archers did best near the end of their range? I was frequently killing three per volley at range. Since I usually advance my archers to pepper the repositioning army, I am getting a lot of kills before they start the advance. Accuracy should be terrible at extreme range, and the velocity should be lower resulting in fewer kills. However, until they switched to phalanx, they were taking about the same number of casualties per volley along the march.
2. Upping the experience of the archers to three chevrons had no impact on kill rate. (This also happened in MTW, although there, high valour missile units would tend to fire a bit quicker rather than suffering morale effects from fatigue and fear--so in some circumstances they could really shine.)
3. When the unit switches to phalanx as it closes (perhaps the last 40% of the march) it is less vulnerable to missile fire, despite the close range. There is some basis for this aspect from what Kraxis has said.
4. The phalanx always turned to face the archers rather than infantry...this seemed a bit odd, since sometimes had the archers slightly behind (but to the side) of my infantry. I intended to test left vs. right for shield effects, but was unsuccessful because they turned. I could create a test for this with multiple archer units, but have not.
5. It looks like everyone is firing on every volley even at very odd angles? MTW was superior in this regard that some could not fire (and in some cases very few fired.)
6. If you turn off skirmish, and wait to the last second to pull back, the idiots stand there and try to squeeze off a last shot, then get stuck in melee (ala their friendly fire behaviour, where you need to hit halt as well then order them to run.) You can't disengage after that unless you hit skirmish again.
Overall, first impression is that the missile model appears to be dumbed down vs. MTW. Accuracy does not diminish much at range. While I haven't tried testing this explicitly, I've noticed the same in battles, where getting closer just made my archers more vulnerable, rather than effective.
Quite the contrary.
The missile model is much smarter.
Too smart possibly.
In S&M, most of the time you couldn't hit a moving unit, as the missiles aimed at where the enemy were at launch, which generally meant that if they were lucky, archers would hit a few of the back of a unit but most of the arrows flew over the heads of the whole unit.
Crossbows & Arbs did better because they fire flatter trajectories meaning that they often would actually hit the front of a unit.
Rome seems to use a calculated aim point at the least.
ie the archers judge the speed/direction of the enemy unit & aim for a point of intercept with their arrows.
I'm actually suspicious that arrows may even be 'guided'.
I don't think there are ranks or anti cav bonuses in RTW, or if there are, they are borked.
Yes, I noticed that, Hoom - the archers are no longer shooting at where a charging unit used to be and so are appreciably better.
Red Harvest, Cretan archers killing 2 armoured hoplites per volley does not sound excessive to me. I don't know about you, but I seldom get ten volleys off at the AI. It seems more aggressive on the battlefield than in STW and MTW. An AI army usually charges me en masse rather than stand around to get shot (the plaza being the notable exception). I agree missiles are probably a little powerful compared to what I suspect was historical, but so far it does not bother me so much.
Well this has gotten interesting. Thanks for all the input, people. If the bonuses are indeed broken then I will be talking about theory, not practise, theory which might not even be useful. As if writing for a brand new game wasn't hard enough. :brood:
Welp, that leaves me talking vague things like deep formations being nice against cavalry, instead of stating definite facts like the old MTW "form spears into four ranks and put on hold formation to get and keep their rank bonus of..." :froggy mutters a very unenergetic sounding Gah! which is barely worthy of the exclamation mark:
Some interesting discoveries about archers … you can derail the thread and see what archers can do if you want. I need solid battlefield information on what is best for each unit type, plus those mechanics like how archers aim.
BTW froggie;
I wanted to make more intensive test first, as I did most of them in the demo but a junior patron already brought this up in the EH.
The "interwoven" phalanx of Mikemyers64
http://img85.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img85&image=Phalanx.jpg
My experience:
Now this is a devastating formation and with some finetweaking it becomes outstanding and kinda cheap, and this has to do with the rankbonus system.
Due to the fact that the "phalanx" bonus of the units overlap the overlapping pikes form some sort of barrier which the enemy usually is simply unable to get through. I will soon post my testranges..
Two narrowstreched two-three ranks interwoven phalanxunits are incredibly stronger than two relativ deeper ones, standing with no gap side by side. Both cover the same ground but the interwoven one is simply outstanding.
Made some interesting test already in the Demo with the SBI. I put three SBI units in two ranks into the same space and waited for the Romans after a brigde. After melee was joined no single Roman was able to come even close to the first line, I sustained to the repeated cav hopping charges all in all 5-6 losses and maybe only 1-2 from the infantry.
After a a battle which was best described as an outright slaughter I checked the individual killing stats and what did I see? All of the Phalanxes got a very similar number of kills and losses...
A incredibly usefull tactic for lowlevel phalangite units, especially with the Levy ones...
Cheers
OA
HAHA that looks hilarious. You know the game's got a problem when overlapping units work better than single units in deep formation.Quote:
Originally Posted by Oleander Ardens
Here a test of Long Shield Cavalry (Carthage) vs. Standard Greek Hoplites.
http://www.longasc.de/Stuff/0000a.jpg
http://www.longasc.de/Stuff/0001a.jpg
http://www.longasc.de/Stuff/0002a.jpg
http://www.longasc.de/Stuff/0003a.jpg
http://www.longasc.de/Stuff/0004a.jpg
http://www.longasc.de/Stuff/0005a.jpg
http://www.longasc.de/Stuff/0006a.jpg
Might have turned out otherwise as the Cavalry had height advantage, sorry for that.
I want to add: I only charged FRONTALLY.
If I would have hit the sides of the slow turning turtles called Hoplites, they would have been butchered even more.
Up the experience of those Cretan Archers to three silver or three gold chevrons and their kills should increase dramatically. In my tests with various missile units vs. elephants (pre-patch variety) I found that 4 units of Egyptian Pharoah Bowmen couldn't put a dent in a single unit of War Elephants after a ridiculous number of volleys. I repeated the test but jacked up the PB's experience to the maximum, three gold chevrons. Then I saw elephants dropping in the second volley!Quote:
Originally Posted by Red Harvest
Oops, I hit post instead of preview!
Regarding number 4 this is such a serious problem and such a silly thing for the AI to do. I've seen phalanx units turn to chase my Horse archers! How ridiculous! They never catch them and will often route after awhile because of their distance from their general and the lack of friendly units in the area. Quirks like this completely ruin the AI's battleline cohesiveness, especially when attacking.
I think number 6 has to do with the time it takes for a unit to switch from it's primary to its secondary weapon and vice versa. For some reason it seems that infantry units have to be at a standstill for this to happen which is why you get that teeth gritting pause when you order legionary units to charge and they don't do it right away.
"1. The archers did best near the end of their range? "
I noticed this too. I had a fully valored up unit of roman archers start firing at a spartan hoplite phalanx. They left a trail of bodies behind them until they got close (steadily narrowing) at which point the arrows were coming at them pretty much level, and they just blocked everything with their shields.
When the arrows seemed to arc up into the sky, they killed a lot more.
It could have been them going into phalanx.
Anyway it was amusing to watch the phalanx fight the archers. They were stabbing away with their pikes the whole time, and half the archers meleeing and half firing. Eventually the phalanx drifted off completely to their left (I do n't know why) and had to execute a big wheel to come back and finish off the rest of the archers.
I ran a couple tests yesterday with triarri vs long shield cav.
I formed them up in a dense square and put them on hold.
I could see no difference when the cavalry charged frontally (where the presumed spear bonus would be in effect) or from the sides.
Either way, the density of the formation kept any horsemen from plowing straight through - they'd go half way through, get stuck, then killed, then the AI would pull away for another charge (which is good).
Best of wishes on your guidebook, FBE! The MTW one is famous, but it looks like the RTW picture is not (yet) as clear. In any event, I'm sure it'll be great! ~:cheers:
OK, since frogbeastegg says it is OK to talk about archers I'll add what I can at this point.
Spino, I think the reason they don't withdraw is that delay to fire the last volley--despite being told to run instead. This is a nasty part of the friendly fire effect, and very deadly. It could be related to getting units to throw pila and such, rather than running away in skirmish mode.
hoom, I agree about the lead effect being smart, but the friendly fire aspect (as mentioned above) is much dumber. And the lead effect is too often being used to shoot my pursuing units in the back! The ballistic effects really appear to have been greatly simplified and dumbed down. It can be tough to set up good static tests of this, so it could be masked by other things. I'm just not seeing the depth that we had in MTW with respect to archers. The effects might be present, but need some adjustment. It is still early.
One reason I find the Cretan archers so deadly is that they will draw in the cav. I will advance them to pepper hoplites or Roman infantry, and the AI will try to send its cav at me. (Hey, I do the same, so I can't blame it!) I lose some archers this way at times, but destroy the cav by charging my own numerous cav at it from different directions. After the cav is gone I can pepper the infantry again.
In my experience, a hoplite based infantry army will face at least 10 volleys before my Cretan archers withdraw (assuming they are not rushed by cav, etc.) Usually it takes more because they have to turn to match my line, etc. And I usually take higher ground, because my army is faster, so that slows them and should contribute to archery effectiveness (something I need to test as well.) The most effective volleys are the ones at range. Perhaps they don't get their shield bonus because of the angle of the arrows? If so, that seems a bit unlikely. They would raise their shields for protection. The AI usually has to do a bit of redressing of its lines preparing for march (as do I, but out of archery range), so the kills pile up. When depleted units get near my lines, and I start a counter charge, they often run. If the AI line is contiguous this is less likely. There are a lot of morale effects happening...things that don't show up with single units in custom battle.
I haven't tried the really high levels of experience yet (or weapons upgrades.) My cretan archers were killing well at one or two red chevrons so I tested at three. My half strength unit is at two silver chevrons now, though.
Indeed it does. There are somethings really amiss in the battle engine. The Hoplite/Phalanx/Spear lack of bonus against cav, is just the most obvious one.Quote:
Originally Posted by vodkafire
But there are balancing problems too. Look at the Egyptian Chariots (faster and invincible in melee against cav) or the Desert Axemen - with 11 ARMOUR!!!, although they are barechested and without greaves or braces... :rolleyes:
Fortunatelly, I'm moding the Egyptians to become the Ptolemaic Kingdom, so I won't have to deal with that ridiculous factors... :grin2:
One interesting thing:
Triarii < Hastati
Try a custom battle with everyone on base/vanilla. be the Triarii and attept to win against the Hastati. Every battle out of 10 or so I lost. IT was a close loss but a loss nonetheless. At first I was surprised but I guess the Swords > Spears thing comes up here, I just thought that the Triarii were a much more formidable force than that - it didn't matter how I arranged/charged/gaurded, I still lost.
triarii are terrible units. not worth the cost of the building. stick with principes and hastati until you're about to get the m reforms.
I never got Triarii in my short campaign - but if I did I'd only have two in each army just to take Cav charges - especially after that test.
they're not better against cav, though. test it.
Yeah I just did - Triarii even beat Cav when arranged 2 deep. Hastatii did beat cav - but they didn't have near the ratio of kills as the Triarii when in the same formation depth/charge and tactics of attack/defending. One of the best ways for both to take on cav is having a deep formation and taking the charge before signalling the attack. However, if you can catch the cav at a walk and you're charging you will take down a load of horses. All tests vs Equites.
Ok, quick note on spears, ranks and how many can fight. So far this is the rule:
Spear: front rank only.
Phalanx: front two ranks only.
Sarissa phalanx: first four ranks.
Not only do the longer weapons have more ranks fighting, they also engage from further away, thus keeping their formation better. So, when it comes to weaponry size does matter :tongueg:
I was shocked to find a Gaulish warband defeated my Equites on medium. I even think I even had a better general. Even when I charged a Gaulish skirmisher warband, I lost 20 Equites. They are clearly not cavalry to be used head-on if at all possible (I still love them, though).
BTW, I never got Triari either - the Marian reforms kicked in a year before. I fear they are to RTW what crossbowmen were to MTW. The one unit I started with was appreciated, but I suspect it was too slow to really serve much use as against the odd unit of cavalry. I kept it as a reserve and the only time I used it, it got flanked and butchered by swordsman as it tried raced to intercept enemy cav. I find a wall of Hastati with "fire at will" is probably the best thing the early Romans have against cav - it is not pretty, but it gets the job done and also serves against enemy infantry.
hastati have inferior base stats. compare 1 armor principes to triarii and you'll see no difference at all.
Triarii are not anti cav units.
btw, in my tests (and others'), it's far better to charge the horses as they charge you.
triarii have high charge so theoretically should do better than principes. But inf seem to get stalled when charging cav, so i don't think the cahrge bonus matters that much.
I asked about spear/pike effects vs. cav in a mod thread Jerome was answering.
***
Spears/pikes vs. cav. We are seeing some odd effects where spear units don't seem to do that well vs. cav. (compared to sword infantry), and horses jump over phalangites, etc. Where should this be adjusted (file and stat), and is it working as intended by CA?
Jerome answered:
The default spear vs cavalry bonusses are hardcoded. It may be a balancing issue - I'll ask someone to investigate. Alternatively, you could use the 'mount_effect' entries in the unit database to boost the combat performance of specific units against mount categories or individual mount types. These are applied on top of the default bonus.
***
End of quote
Here is what I see in stats:
Triarii get a +4 vs. cav as do some other spear units. When I charge triarii, they hold up better than hastati. Phalanx units don't seem to get a "mount_effect" vs. cav. Now the phalanx formation might...but it seems very inconsistent in that regard.
Some or all of the following should be changed:
1. Spears usually have weak offense, the +4 mount_effect just starts to get them back to other infantry attack strength...obviously this makes NO sense vs. cav! Heavy infantry are often more effective than spears.
2. Supporting ranks do nothing for most units, cav or infantry. That sucks and is non-historical. Needs patched based on spear/pike unit type. Even base infantry should dislike long thin lines because they have no support.
3. Cav should not get charge bonuses vs. spears unless it is in the rear 180 degrees or so (not within the front 180--could be 240/120 etc. but the concept is the same.)
4. Phalanx units should not disorder so easily.
5. Phalanx units should be able to overlap to form long continuous lines (as they were used!) This would only apply when in phalanx formation. It would make them very, very difficult to turn, but harder to flank at unit scale. This would negate some of the rightward drift and make them difficult to puncture when properly handled. Of course if a section was depleted by a unit getting thin or routing, a gap would form and the formation would be cut in two--this could be exploited. Something like this would give us a taste of phalanx warfare as intended.
6. The overlapping unit effects are a severe bug. Too many men can share the same space, and they are not being penalized for it. Instead they are rewarded.
7. The tendency for cavalry to jump needs to be toned down a bit.
Head to head cav vs phalanx its not uncommon for almost the entire front row of the cavalry to jump the spears & land in the 2nd/3rd row, resulting in the switch to swords.
Tone it down a bit so that maybe 5 or less out of 20 horses would jump & all of a sudden I think cav will get mashed head on.
I really like the way Horses jump - but I think that only 2 or three at most would actually land in the middle - the rest of the front row that jumps would probably be skewered by the pikes.
And would you really want to be that poor soul in the middle? Chances of getting out don't seem very good.Quote:
Originally Posted by Colovion
I hate horses jumping into the phalanx. Anyway.
With non-spears, the greatest way to whip cavalry is to bog them down with troops.
2 hastati can bog down a longshield for a while, and while the horsemen are standing, the foot troops kill them.
Anyway, with Phalanx the best way to use them is (the Ace Tacticus thing at .Com gave this out) to have them march though the enemy to a point beyond them, no attack, just march to the space behind the enemy. I may whittle the ranks with some arrows and cavalry charges, but when said and done, its effective. The phalanx works only when you can use it as the anvil.
Poeni Infantry are like super spear phalanx guys, because, they can hold thier footing. Damned good.
However, my experiance is to lure the phalanx against the my troops. Then take cavalry (Equites may work) and have them charge straight at the phalanx flank.
Shaving them off like a field of wheat and a laser that can cut the wheat at the stalk. It murders them. But you need to pull them away, because the rue of all cavalry is to be stuck. Then thier just killed.