Spears are very unbalanced

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Originally Posted by Tellos Athenaios

People seem to mix up a couple of things. I guess I'll be among them. Still:

-The Romans extensively used auxilia; ever though of what they got for equipment?
-The Romans extensively used local peoples to do the job for them
-The Romans had a bit of a Red Army mentality: "if the first 20,000 can't do it; we'll send in another 50,000" ... "and if that doesn't work -ouch- let's call upon anoth 50,000 or so". It's how they defeated Hannibal in the end; it's how they conquered Spain.
-By the time the Romans get going their neighbours have been seriously weakened due to infighting. In fact the only empire to draw upon equal resources they faced was Carthage. It's how they acquired Greece (mind you, the independent city states invited them to), it's how they massacred Gaul.

And when the Romans face a serious opponent: what does history teach us? Oh, yeah they get whipped pretty badly: ask Crassus how his newfound riches tasted. ~;)

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I don't know, Pyrrhos was regarded as a magnificent general but was only barely able to defeat camillan Roman legions, at proverbially great cost.

But true, the Roman legions should not really be superior to Hellenic armies. Their stats should just match them; this would simulate how the phalanxes were perhaps slightly better on level ground while the legion was more versatile and suited to rougher ground. (since the RTW engine can't simulate all the effects of terrain properly).

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Originally Posted by mighty_rome

And I get tired of people saying this kind of thing when all we want is more realistic stats for the Romani faction. I'm not a "Roman fanboy" by the way, I am an "Ancient world fanboy". I love playing as KH, AS, Carthage and Baktria. When I play against Rome I want it to be a challenge to defeat them. When I play as them I want them to have the stats they deserve. I'll say it again: EB 0.81 seems to have been more balanced, in my opinion.

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And i assume you have fought the new reformed legions extensively in your 1.0 campaigns to come to such decision? :laugh:

Seriously, to those who claim not to be fanboys, why do you keep ignoring the explanations given as to why the Romans shouldn't have so high stats?
And: have you actually tested the units in battle rather than just taking the OP's word for it?

Great care and deliberation was put into each and every unit and their stats, we didn't just roll a dice and put the results as stats ffs...

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Originally Posted by Basileos ton Ellenon

Yet, stats are too high.

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I think you misunderstood...spear units get -4 (off of the shown attack number) against sword-armed infantry.

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Originally Posted by mcantu

I think you misunderstood...spear units get -4 (off of the shown attack number) against sword-armed infantry.

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they put that kind of comments on /ignore...

While I don't want my Romans to turn into uber 1337 killing machines, I'm also wondering why the Evocati are barely better than the average dude.
Atm, they are clearly not worth the money (though I still hire them, just for the hell of it).

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Originally Posted by Sakkura

But true, the Roman legions should not really be superior to Hellenic armies. Their stats should just match them; this would simulate how the phalanxes were perhaps slightly better on level ground while the legion was more versatile and suited to rougher ground. (since the RTW engine can't simulate all the effects of terrain properly).

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They do, you know. All the pike phalanxes have a jolly -4 penalty in forests, "short spear" phalanxes like Iphicrateans -3; no Roman sword infantry have a worse forest penalty than -2, on top of which even the early Hastati have substantially higher hand-to-hand values than any but elite phalangites.

For some numbers, Pezzies have sword skill 9 with 0.13 lethality (pretty standard for xiphos), armour 10, defense skill 6 and shield value 5. In comparision Camillian Hastati, the very bottom of the Roman heavy infantry ladder, have sword skill 11 (with 0.1 lethality, typical of most shortswords), armour 5, defense skill 9 and shield value 4... plus pila, much freer movement, and something like half the cost. (Smaller units though.) Polybian ones upgrade lethality to 0.13 (ie. gladius hispaniensis), armour to 7 and have 2 point higher morale.

Cohortes reformata for their part have attack skill 12, armour 10 and still 2 points higher base morale than the Polybian Hastati... although their price tag largely matches the Pezzies too.

In conclusion, if the Romans can force battle in woods not only will the trees help screw up the physical cohesion of the phalanx, the Latins with their little pig-stickers will eat the Hellenics alive if and when they can get up close and personal.

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Originally Posted by blank

Great care and deliberation was put into each and every unit and their stats, we didn't just roll a dice and put the results as stats ffs...

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In all fairness though, there's a whole lot of consistency issues in some units' armour values (shields are more debatable). And don't get me started on the movement speeds.

Although, as it goes, I don't think too many of the Romani units have such issues. :sweatdrop:

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Originally Posted by blank

And i assume you have fought the new reformed legions extensively in your 1.0 campaigns to come to such decision? :laugh:

Seriously, to those who claim not to be fanboys, why do you keep ignoring the explanations given as to why the Romans shouldn't have so high stats?
And: have you actually tested the units in battle rather than just taking the OP's word for it?

Great care and deliberation was put into each and every unit and their stats, we didn't just roll a dice and put the results as stats ffs...

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You sure do seem to imply that anyone who wants realistic stats for Romani are a a bunch of ignorant "fan boys" who haven't done any research. You're wrong, and I also have to say that I don't appreciate your attitude. I haven't seen any satisfactory explanations yet, probably because there aren't any; the late Romani units are underpowered whether you want to admit it or not. You certainly don't.

You're obviously "anti-Romani" so I'll consider any further comments you make to this thread irrelevant.

romani in 0.81 were way too powerful. almost every core infantry unit was an elite, yet costed as much as a regular unit. there was no incentive for the player to use regional troops, especially once the marian era expanded the recruitment range of legionaires.

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Originally Posted by mighty_rome

I haven't seen any satisfactory explanations yet, probably because there aren't any; the late Romani units are underpowered whether you want to admit it or not.

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Underpowered ? Where ? If you ask me they're pretty much exactly what they were historically: disciplined professional grunts, well trained to fight in a certain (quite flexible) tactical system, solidly but not exceptionally equipped.

They were never all-around supersoldiers; the Roman commanders worth their salt knew it, and plugged the various gaps in their expertise with auxiliary specialists as well as padding out the by economic necessity somewhat low numbers with allies and auxiliaries. Properly deployed and commanded by a leader up to the task they certainly won wars often enough, but also often enough entire sections of a line might collapse in a rout and/or the Roman armies have to conduct bitter fighting retreats back to friendly territory. Green, inexperienced troops weren't ultimately that much better than anyone elses' (what now often noticeably better equipped than the rank-and-file of most other armies), and tended to need the example of grizzled veterans or the personal attentions of a respected commander to not turn tail in a tight spot.

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Originally Posted by Watchman

They do, you know. All the pike phalanxes have a jolly -4 penalty in forests, "short spear" phalanxes like Iphicrateans -3; no Roman sword infantry have a worse forest penalty than -2, on top of which even the early Hastati have substantially higher hand-to-hand values than any but elite phalangites.

For some numbers, Pezzies have sword skill 9 with 0.13 lethality (pretty standard for xiphos), armour 10, defense skill 6 and shield value 5. In comparision Camillian Hastati, the very bottom of the Roman heavy infantry ladder, have sword skill 11 (with 0.1 lethality, typical of most shortswords), armour 5, defense skill 9 and shield value 4... plus pila, much freer movement, and something like half the cost. (Smaller units though.) Polybian ones upgrade lethality to 0.13 (ie. gladius hispaniensis), armour to 7 and have 2 point higher morale.

Cohortes reformata for their part have attack skill 12, armour 10 and still 2 points higher base morale than the Polybian Hastati... although their price tag largely matches the Pezzies too.

In conclusion, if the Romans can force battle in woods not only will the trees help screw up the physical cohesion of the phalanx, the Latins with their little pig-stickers will eat the Hellenics alive if and when they can get up close and personal.

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Yeah, I haven't said anything definite about the basic cohorts either, basically because it would take some more extensive playtesting than I have to figure out if the cohorts are balanced right or not.

But I can still look at the regular cohorts and the evocati and plainly see that evocati need higher stats, since they cost a lot more than regular cohorts; right now all you get for the price hike is a better missile attack - every other stat is exactly the same.

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Originally Posted by blank

Great care and deliberation was put into each and every unit and their stats, we didn't just roll a dice and put the results as stats ffs...

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Well then explain to me why evocati, reenlisted veterans, have the same stats as regular cohorts on every point except missile attack. It would make more sense to me if they got perhaps a point in either defense skill or melee attack, and some higher morale.

Granted, I'd at least amp the skills and morale of the Evocati a bit. Whatever else they may be, they're also veterans who have served a full stint and voluntarily re-enlisted. Fighting is a motor skill; once learned such are never actually forgotten, and as Legionary vets AFAIK normally became farmers after honorary discharge it could be argued the fellows cannot be claimed to have gone wholly without exercise in the meantime.

And, of course, grizzled veteran volunteers who have more likely than not "seen the elephant", as it were sometimes quite literally, should of course be noticeably more confident about combat than fresh newbies.

Of course, age and any injuries suffered over the years count too...

~:mad . another thread about "weakling" romans and "conan" barbarians with "achilles" greeks.:wall:
How the hell romans won battles being outnumbered 1:4 or more and being such a weaklings, while UBER-SUPER-MEGA greeks and gauls with UBER-SUPER-MEGA spears always was in loosers???
(perhaps they were led by AI-captains:thinking: )

Just as always in such discussions, anti-roman guys (eb team) curve their line about this ^^crap, and even if here, right now roman veteran show them how he can easily beat almost every barbarian, they will say that barbarian won.:whip:

Anyway if I had a time, I would completely redone all stats.
:gah:

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Originally Posted by Sakkura

I don't know, Pyrrhos was regarded as a magnificent general but was only barely able to defeat camillan Roman legions, at proverbially great cost.

But true, the Roman legions should not really be superior to Hellenic armies. Their stats should just match them; this would simulate how the phalanxes were perhaps slightly better on level ground while the legion was more versatile and suited to rougher ground. (since the RTW engine can't simulate all the effects of terrain properly).

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All the points I was going to make have been made. But I think we're getting off-topic. I want to see a explanation of the gameplay in .8 and why the changes in the gameplay were necessary in 1.0. All we're doing mostly is measuring our phalluses here, comparing stats and historical knowledge. How does what happened in history related to gameplay and having fun?

Regarding my quote, with Pyrrhus, he lost because the terrain(woods, hills) he fought his pitched battles in were not suited to his heavy infantry and more numerous calvary. Also his elephants were used against him being scared by flaming spiked carts and velites.

Really in the battles with Pyrrhus, the Hellenistic army lost because the Romans had started using tactics rather than the individual strengths of its soldiers. Originally, the Romans had tried to defeat the phalanx by charging right at it in a bloody attempt to close the distance and chop off the spear points. Instead they made use of the ground to disrupt the line, flanked vulnerable units, and disrupted the line with pila.

Well, other than the evocata/reformata discussion, this thread has not shown any evidence for the positions of those fans who find the romans to be underpowered.

I will state again, we have a stat system which applies bonuses across the board. We feel that this allows for the best balancing. For those who disagree, unless you can throw up some evidence that shows that roman soldiers were superior swordsmen, brave as a bear or that their armour was made out of some incredible alloy, your complaints will bear no fruit and will only frustrate the EB team.

If anyone ever starts making ad hominen attacks against our team (Charge I am looking at you) I will start deleting posts. It is neither fair nor true that we have an anti-roman bias. That you feel that the romans are underpowered is serves just as much as proof of your pro-roman bias. Unless evidence starts coming quick and fast I will start thinking about locking this thread as I have no doubt that it will develop into a name-calling match.

I realise that Blank's comment was out of line and I will speak to him about it, but if you feel that a good response to his accusation of fanboy-ism is to accuse the exact opposite of him or any other EB member is to find oneself in a hypercritical position.

Start being civil and developing arguments, and I and the rest of the team would prefer it if you could show a bit more appreciation to EB for their efforts. We don't mind criticism, but I've been noticing a rather disrespectful attitude in how complaints have been raised. We write on a forum, but exist in the real world, so please be careful what you write as it can be misconstrued and feelings can be hurt.

Thank you,

Foot

To hard to win now with the Romans?

Sweboz stats suck compared to the Romans due to less armor and decent weaponry being availablie to them. But I love that! Because now I have to stay on my toes and find new tactics to defeat the Romans with skins of metal.

Anyways, even with this less equipment they did seem to give the Romans a run for their money in Teutoburg Wald.

The Roman stats seem fine to me as they are now. They were not super heroes. They were good fighters, all of 'em but not more so then any other (semi)proffesional troops. They won outnumbered battles because of their tactics and great generals. So if with this new stats you find yourself on the loosing end it's not because of the stats of your Cohorts but because of your skill (or lack thereof.)

I find an absurd when they say the average Roman legionary was just another ordinary soldier. Then I quote the battles Romani had with several barbarians that ended up in heroic victories against Buddica, the Parthians, and practically everyone who dared to raise their hands against the Post-Marian and Imperial legions. They keep telling: "Teutoburger Wald, Carrhae" but they ignore that Germany was just ignored later, and the victories over the Germans and their shiny barbarian infantry were just as crushing as the one against the Britons and the Parthians. Wasn't for Adrian's unwilligness to keep Parthia, and the general sense that Rome was too big, then Parthia would become a Roman province.

But no, they couldn't defeat the mighty Greeks in their shiny armour and invincible Phalanxes!

Pydna, Magnesia, etc... Just on a conquering party :P. Oh, but they didn't have a cavalry wing! Bollocks, the Romani didn't even need their cavalry wing. If a breach was ever spotted in the phalanx line, they would flood it 'till the whole line routed. The shiny Pezhetairoi wouldn't stand a chance against the 1000% more flexible Roman legion.

This case, against vastly superior barbarians, even "Naked" uber-soldiers, is the most impressive case of Rome being the master of infantry warfare. Do you think we could simulate such victory if EB was reality? No. The legionaries would probably rout, afterall they "have only be trained to raise night camps". Oh yes, and they'll give the excuse that IX Hispanica routed earlier, so watching this, we could conclude that the whole Roman army sucked and only the mass of bodies gave them victory. A mass of bodies rarely gave an effective victory... Remembers me of the Colonial armies of hundreds of men with machine guns defeating several thousand native warriors.

I do recognise that prior to the Marian Reforms, the army relied on numbers heavily. But after the Marian Reforms the legions became a professional force too expensive to be just used in superior numbers as route to victory. And then, the Roman victories on the field even prior to the Marian Reforms show a highly disciplined and effective force that was quite the opposite of today's EB legionaries.

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Originally Posted by Charge

. another thread about "weakling" romans and "conan" barbarians with "achilles" greeks.
How the hell romans won battles being outnumbered 1:4 or more and being such a weaklings, while UBER-SUPER-MEGA greeks and gauls with UBER-SUPER-MEGA spears always was in loosers???
(perhaps they were led by AI-captains )

Just as always in such discussions, anti-roman guys (eb team) curve their line about this ^^crap, and even if here, right now roman veteran show them how he can easily beat almost every barbarian, they will say that barbarian won.

Anyway if I had a time, I would completely redone all stats.

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It's imo very unfair to call the EB-team anti-roman. Some of the most knowledgeable men on ancient Rome that I know reside here. -Zaknafien comes to mind but there are others as well- and I'm sure they aren't biased against Rome. As a matter of fact it's one of the most complete factions of the game -though they're all complete now.
It's just nonsense to state that the Roman soldier would in any way be better than his Greek or Gallic counterpart. Mostly it was reverse. The Gallic society was based largely on warriors and individual honor. It can't be a great suprise then that their soldiers were individually beter than Romans. They were larger, trained with better melee-equipment, some might be called champions...
Whilst the strength of Rome lied in its legions, its organisation. Arguably it was the best the world knew at that time. Capable as a force to withstand the falanx -when they had learned its weaknesses and to withstand the charge of gallic warriors who mostly didn't use any tactics.
If the Romans won against greater numbers it was mostly due to their tactics and organisation, but when the enemy had organised itself, Rome's victories were less obvious...

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Really in the battles with Pyrrhus, the Hellenistic army lost because the Romans had started using tactics rather than the individual strengths of its soldiers. Originally, the Romans had tried to defeat the phalanx by charging right at it in a bloody attempt to close the distance and chop off the spear points. Instead they made use of the ground to disrupt the line, flanked vulnerable units, and disrupted the line with pila.

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The funny thing is that I didn't need more powerful Phalanxes to use tactics. Phalangitai always beat superior foes from the front, in EB 0.81. I find it a fallacy to say that we didn't need tactics as the Romani earlier: on the contrary, they had the balance to be competent, not uber, soldiers, and they wouldn't defeat a phalanx from the front. It was all great back in EB 0.8, regardless if you were Makedonian, Romani, or whatever. Now, however, Spearmen have been getting too many bonuses.

Looks like the thread is degenerating into a shouting match :no:

Anyway, I have confidence that the EB team is working to present as historical units as possible, including the combat performance. Especially now that members have agreed that the evocati may need to be looked at. Keep up the good work :yes:

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Originally Posted by Basileos ton Ellenon

Now, however, Spearmen have been getting too many bonuses.

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You mean like the -4 or so the "spear" attributes give when fighting infantry ? And IIRC my reading on the topic, the "light_spear" one - which each and every spearman in EB now has - penalized defense... :inquisitive:

I feel very sorry for the hassle of the 1.0 release. But I think I have understood the lesson? in order to not cause so much problems to people when you release a mediocre mod like EB we will surely stop to make public release on RTW and keep all the EB2 work for ourselves.
It's a good idea I think, because people won't have to suffer for our ugly skins anti roman bias and stupid stats.

Again I apologize for the release of 1.0 I sincerely hope that un-installing such a botched work won't take people to much of their time.

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Originally Posted by Tellos Athenaios

And when the Romans face a serious opponent: what does history teach us? Oh, yeah they get whipped pretty badly: ask Crassus how his newfound riches tasted. ~;)

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Crassus failed to get archers and skirmisher cavalry from the area. It wasn't the fact that they were facing a serious opponent it's the fact that he failed to plan properly.

The armies may not of been elites like the other factions had BUT they still generally had better training than other militia of the day. Although it did generally take them a while to get properly effective as a fighting force, the almost continuous fighting Rome took part in allowed a lot of men to see active service and a good portion of them that service lasted a good while, especially when they started to lessen the requirements for service in the army and many men started to see it as a career.

We know that the Romans were not supermen but even when they faced spear armed opponents they almost always came out on top. In a phalanx formation the spear is a lot more difficult to wield than a short sword, it has been shown that when you are in a phalanx, you don't aim for the man in front of you, you aim for the man to the left and depending on the length of the spear you're wielding, to the man the left and one behind, which gave the Romans an advantage.

Personally the balance in 0.81 was fantastic, granted the legions were a challenge but were by no means invisible, especially against cavalry. As a Roman player, if i were playing an MP battle i'd damn near wet myself if i failed the defeat their cavalry because i knew how fast my guys would rout from a cavalry blow, now i have to worry about some average hoplite turning one of my flanks before the cavalry even get involved. This has nothing to do with being a bad player, anyone who has faced me before will attest to me being good, this generally has to do with the balance being thrown out the window.

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Originally Posted by Charge

~:mad . another thread about "weakling" romans and "conan" barbarians with "achilles" greeks.:wall:
How the hell romans won battles being outnumbered 1:4 or more and being such a weaklings, while UBER-SUPER-MEGA greeks and gauls with UBER-SUPER-MEGA spears always was in loosers???
(perhaps they were led by AI-captains:thinking: )

Just as always in such discussions, anti-roman guys (eb team) curve their line about this ^^crap, and even if here, right now roman veteran show them how he can easily beat almost every barbarian, they will say that barbarian won.:whip:

Anyway if I had a time, I would completely redone all stats.
:gah:

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eh....first of all chill out.

Some battle statistics.

Roman-Hellenic battles:

a)Battle of Thermopylae (191 BC)

Romans: 20,000 infantry, 2000 horse, unknown but small number of elephants
Seleucids: 10,000 infantry, 500 horse, some allies (unknown number)

b)Battle of Magnesia

Romans:43,000 Romans + 6,000 Greeks, 5,000 horse, 16 elephants
Seleucids: 26,000 infantry (16,000 semi professionals) + 3,000 Galatians, 12,000 horse, 56 elephants

c)Battle of Heraclea

Romans: 30,000 plus unknown auxilia
Epirots: estimated 30,000-35,000

d)Battle of Asculum (279 BC)

Romans:20,000 +Dauni allies
Epirots:Not exact numbers, but considered equally numbered

e)Battle of Cynoscephalae

Romans: 32,500-33,400
Macedonians: 25,500

f)Battle of Pydna

Romans: 33,400 infantry, around 4,000 horse, 22 elephants
Macedonians: 44,000 infantry (21,000 phalangites), around 4,000 cavalry

This is for the 4:1 you mentioned against the "achilles" Greeks

Roman-Gallic

I couldn't find accurate numbers with a quick search so, I won't post them. Caesar tended to exaggerate the enemy forces so they are debatable. However, apart from Alesia, I have not found 4:1 overwhelming odds.

Punic Wars

First

a)Battle of Tunis (defeat)

Romans:15,000 Infantry, 500 Cavalry
Carthaginians: 12,000 Infantry, 4,000 Cavalry, 100 Elephants

b)Battle of Agrigentum
Romans: 40,000
Carthaginians: 50,000

c)Battle of Adys

Romans:15,000 Infantry, 500 Cavalry
Carth: 5,000+ Infantry, 500 Cavalry and unknown number of elephants

Second

a)Battle of Cannae (deafeat)

Romans:86,400–87,000 men
Carths: 40,000 heavy infantry, 6,000 light infantry, 8,000 cavalry

b)Battle of Capua (212 BC) (defeat)

Romans:8 Legions, approximately 40,000
Carths:approximately 2000 Numidians plus Capuan allies

c)Battle of Cissa

Romans:20,000 infantry, 2,200 cavalry
Carthies: 10,000 infantry, 1,000 cavalry

d)Battle of Geronium (draw)

Romans:4 legions + 4 in reserve
Carthies: 36,000

e)Battle of Cornus

Romans:20,000 infantry (2 Roman and 2 Allied Legions), 1,200 cavalry
Carthies:15,000 infantry,1,500 cavalry +Sardinians (?) + Elephants (?)

f)Battle of Dertosa

Romans:30,000 infantry, 3,000 cavalry
Carthies:25,000 infantry,4,000 cavalry, 20 Elephants

g)Battle of Herdonia (210 BC) (defeat)

Romans: 20,000
Carthies: 30,000


etc, etc

You get the point. I don't know about imperial Rome but in the times of the Republic, I find only its stubbornness and diplomacy impressive. The military is average.

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Originally Posted by Spendios

I feel very sorry for the hassle of the 1.0 release. But I think I have understood the lesson? in order to not cause so much problems to people when you release a mediocre mod like EB we will surely stop to make public release on RTW and keep all the EB2 work for ourselves.
It's a good idea I think, because people won't have to suffer for our ugly skins anti roman bias and stupid stats.

Again I apologize for the release of 1.0 I sincerely hope that un-installing such a botched work won't take people to much of their time.

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Give me a break. If none of us cared strongly for this mod, we wouldn't be here arguing about it. You must know that you have to be prepared to take critiques or even outright criticism about anything that gets released.

We're all here just trying to work out what's right and what's wrong with the new stats, because many changes have been made. We're all used to the older stats, and quite familiar with them, because I am sure I'm not the only one who played 0.81 for hundreds of hours.

We all have ideas about what units should be good, and in my opinion EB 0.81 had the stats a little more balanced. Maybe I just "got used" to them, but if you examine the stats you have to see that many Hellenic factions, as well as Carthage, get some incredibly powerful units compared to the Romani. There are three Romani units that are virtually identical, and one of them is an "Elite" unit. (Reformata, Imperatoria and Evocata). I'd also like to see the elite Carthaginian sword infantry more powerful but their spear-wielding elites are already amazing. I just wish the Romani could get a little more credit to represent their great training.

Don't you want feedback from the users of your mod? Yes, "negative" feedback isn't always fun, but our message is NOT "EB sucks". It is this: "EB rocks and we love it so much that we want it to be perfect". Unfortunately we all have our own opinions regarding what is perfect and what is wrong.

Basically, we're just voicing our opinions about what changes could be made to make it more realistic. We may not always be right, but you really don't need to get upset about it.

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Originally Posted by Decimus Attius Arbiter

All the points I was going to make have been made. But I think we're getting off-topic. I want to see a explanation of the gameplay in .8 and why the changes in the gameplay were necessary in 1.0. All we're doing mostly is measuring our phalluses here, comparing stats and historical knowledge. How does what happened in history related to gameplay and having fun?

Regarding my quote, with Pyrrhus, he lost because the terrain(woods, hills) he fought his pitched battles in were not suited to his heavy infantry and more numerous calvary. Also his elephants were used against him being scared by flaming spiked carts and velites.

Really in the battles with Pyrrhus, the Hellenistic army lost because the Romans had started using tactics rather than the individual strengths of its soldiers. Originally, the Romans had tried to defeat the phalanx by charging right at it in a bloody attempt to close the distance and chop off the spear points. Instead they made use of the ground to disrupt the line, flanked vulnerable units, and disrupted the line with pila.

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Well, the discussion centers around the post-Marian and Augustan soldiers.
I don't think the complaint is that Camaillian and Polybian troops are underpowered.

But it really sucks if the Roman Veteran Elites are significantly weakened to a point where they are no match for an enemy unit of levy phalangites.

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Originally Posted by Conradus

It's imo very unfair to call the EB-team anti-roman. Some of the most knowledgeable men on ancient Rome that I know reside here. -Zaknafien comes to mind but there are others as well- and I'm sure they aren't biased against Rome. As a matter of fact it's one of the most complete factions of the game -though they're all complete now.
It's just nonsense to state that the Roman soldier would in any way be better than his Greek or Gallic counterpart. Mostly it was reverse. The Gallic society was based largely on warriors and individual honor. It can't be a great suprise then that their soldiers were individually beter than Romans..

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So how does this justify the dumbing down of post-Marian Roman veteran elite units to a point where they have the same stats as some medium-tier infantry?

And the Romans fought in a coherent formation, shouldn't they at least get more morale bonuses and more armor than their Gallic counterparts? As for the Greeks, unless they were fighting elite hoplites/phalangites, most of the Greeks hoplites were still essentially farmers called out to fight.

(as for Greek mercs, the AI has a habit of spamming full stack merc armies anyways)

@The Internet: I would not quite say that Crassus merely lost because of his planning. In fact I think the Parthian general deployed some really smart tactics; and the Crassus was stupid enough to take the bait.

IIRC most battles the Romans won against the Parthians; and had more of a "massacre of civilians" to them; than an open field battle.

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@mighty_rome:

Yes: the Hellenes & Carthaginians get some really powerful units. At a cost. Litteraly: the use of Thorakitai Agematos Basilikou is prohibitively expensive. And do they beat Romani Legions? No, not really. Unit by unit yes, but not mina for mina. Why? Well, they're not even half the size!

Again and again: the Romani get some of the largest units of such strength compared to any other faction. The only ones close to that are Argyraspidai; and a couple of Carthiginian units.

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Now let us get back on topic: spear units have been given better melee abilities; because we felt (and that has been an old, very old, very often told) complaint about previous version of EB... the spear units performed decently against cavalry; but were just horrible in melee compared to swordsmen. Which was neither "fair" (balanced) or accurate. Really I'd like people to reconsider this: spearmen fighting in formation, sticking to formation, making good use of their shields & spears are the ancient equivalent of this: http://images.google.nl/imgres?imgur...%3Dnl%26sa%3DN

With humans instead of plants going in; but the end result was pretty much the same regardless. Very crude I know; still that's what they did.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Intranetusa

Well, the discussion centers around the post-Marian and Augustan soldiers.
I don't think the complaint is that Camaillian and Polybian troops are underpowered.

But it really sucks if the Roman Veteran Elites are significantly weakened to a point where they are no match for an enemy unit of levy phalangites.

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Waitaminnit... Elite? No, not really. Veterans, yes. Let's separate those words and then reconsider what you say... What on earth do you do with those veterans that makes them run from the first unit of levy phalangitai? Really that must be some horrible tactics: what you mean you simply charge right at the pointy sticks?

Seriously though: you do see that what you've written isn't exactly true, nor fair?