The doggies have gotta go...

I am seeing quite a few wardogs post patch. This is a negative. They really are not that historical, and certainly having 3 units of them in a stack is silly. Another problem is that they are replacing other "heavy" units that should be on the field. That is a big problem.

Battle problems: These dogs have very high attack. I'm sorry, but this is not credible when they are facing armed and armoured men. I would much rather face 2 or 3 of the biggest meanest dogs than one guy with a sword. When you try to kill the dogs, your men instead try to attack the handlers (who might be in another county by then.)

Solution: I'm going to delete them from the build file in most places (I might leave them in the highest level buildings as an exotic.) I think this will help the AI to build better armies of more realistic troops. I don't want them taking up some of the AI's "heavy" slots in its army.

Next up... head hurlers... I need to replace them with something logical. Haven't decided what to give the Brits in their place yet: skirmisher warbands, or some vanilla archers.

I've never seen wardogs used by the computer. Ever. Pre or post patch.

Don't forget the Wailing Wenches

......Orda

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Originally Posted by Khorak

I've never seen wardogs used by the computer. Ever. Pre or post patch.

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I used to see a stray dog now and again in earlier versions--most appeared to be "starter units" or Senate gifts. Now I'm seeing the Gauls field them all over as I attack with my Carthaginians, and in the same campaign the Romans were sending as many wardogs against me as they were equites. Obviously they were building quite a few.

Haven't reached Germania yet post patch, so I can't make a call on the screechers at this time...

I've encountered AI wardogs in 1.2 - strangely, GAUL wardogs, which was a surprise, I thought it had to be just a Roman unit. Never had a problem, though, I attacked the handlers before they could release the dogs and routed them.

One wardog unit in a stack is fine, but they should be supplemental units, not base infantry. They should be good against unarmored units, but pretty useless otherwise. Maybe you have the Gauls in a precarious economic position, and they are building the units with the lower upkeep.

Head-hurling had been ringing a bell with me for a while, but I finally remembered where I had seen it. Waaaaay back, Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, Deities and Demigods, Celtic Mythos. There is a paragraph about a lime-covered head, called a Tathlum, used as a weapon. I don't know which is worse, the fact that I'm that old, or the fact that I remember crap like this. The term "Tathlum" is used in Celtic myths, usually it refers to a magical stone.

The Julii keep having 2 or 3 doggy style units a stack against me now.
Modding them to be trainable only with Awesome Cavalry Stables or something sounds good to me.

wardogs!, keepthem in for comical effect ~;) its so funny seeing like thousands of em chaseing down one warband guy, jumping up biting the guys arse hehehehe, hhmm wasnt it some mad nazi scientist who created rotweilers/dobermans whatever, im not even sure they had those dogs, goanna have to check that one :book:

It wasn't a mad Nazi scientist, it was a 19th century German tax collector who needed something to scare people into coughing up their due taxes who first created Dobermanns. Rottweilers are a separate breed (and look somewhat like the Wardogs in RTW), and apparently their origins do go back as far as the Roman Empire, so it would make sense if the models were based on them. Apparently today's Rottweilers are the descendants of cattle-herding dogs used by the Roman Army, and in particular of those military dogs stationed in what is now Rottweil, Germany.

IMHO dogs are too good... ESPICALLY for the Romans, but even for other factions... let's see...

1.they have very low upkeep
2.as long as their handlers don't die they stay full unit after the fight...
3.they auto attack all enemies... this is espically imbal during seiges when they won't chase off the map...
4.they have very small unit size... meaning they can make ur melee line MUCH stronger cause u have so much unit fitted in that's hitting.
5.they have huge attack... espically if the unit involved is defending against other attacks.
6.they have a extermely noticable moral penalty ... ususally a dog into a big melee mess is almost as good as a chariot running through.. and chariots are often harder to use right.

usually... dogs with a good cav rush = instant win against most army that's not a big phalanx. or just much stronger overall.

Bizarrely enough they seem to be least effective against naked fanatics and screeching women who presumably don't suffer from the morale problem. They tuck in nicely to anything Roman on two legs.

They don't like attacking phalanxes. I would have thought it was pretty tricky to skewer a rottweiler at full tilt with long pole.

I've yet to see dogs be used by the AI either.

I think they're stupid so I don't build them. It feels nice to essentially limit the amount of troops I use because there's ones that really shouldn't be there in the first place.

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Originally Posted by Colovion

I think they're stupid so I don't build them. It feels nice to essentially limit the amount of troops I use because there's ones that really shouldn't be there in the first place.

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I don't feel so bad. I like playing as Brits and so I just think of them as horse substitutes. Makes up for the ridiculously flimsy chariots and lack of genuine cavalry. Not had any luck training them to climb ladders unfortunately.

I don't like "Making up for" units that aren't there with units that shouldn't be there.

The game is too easy to begin with, why should I help myself with fictional units?

Im having more of a problem with the german phalanxes, they seem to good for beeing build so early. 1 unit on huge can defend a settlement... (or cause lots of trouble getting in.)

EDIT: Remember that they mostly face barbarians and you. (whatever you play as)

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Originally Posted by nokem

...They don't like attacking phalanxes. I would have thought it was pretty tricky to skewer a rottweiler at full tilt with long pole.

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As a general rule dogs hate having long pointy things shoved into their face, it completely throws them off and they have a tendency to concentrate on the pointy thing instead of their intended target. The situation is exacerbated if the long pointy thing is the source of much pain. This is speaking from experience as a former veterinary assistant who, on occasion, would be called upon to wrangle a large nasty pooch possessing mucho attitude with a choke pole (long metal pole with noose at one end).

Given my personal experience I can say with great confidence that a wall of shields and/or spears would be a definite no go for a pack of attack dogs. Now if we were talking about lightly armed skirmishers in open order formation...

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Im having more of a problem with the german phalanxes, they seem to good for beeing build so early. 1 unit on huge can defend a settlement... (or cause lots of trouble getting in.)

EDIT: Remember that they mostly face barbarians and you. (whatever you play as)

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One of the big RTW mods (can't remember which one) handled this simply by removing the phalanx ability from the baseline German Warband unit and created a new unit, German Lancers(?), which is somewhat tougher, more expensive and can use the phalanx formation. Obviously it requires higher tech barracks to recruit.

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Originally Posted by Red Harvest

Next up... head hurlers... I need to replace them with something logical. Haven't decided what to give the Brits in their place yet: skirmisher warbands, or some vanilla archers.

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Don't Head Hurlers come from a temple? In that case it might be better to give the Brits some interesting infantry or cavalry. Falxmen might add something different to the British battle line, or gothic cavalry.

I've barely seen them, but I play RTR, where they elminate all the unrealistic units, such as wardogs, headhurlers, screeching women, etc. It's probably very possible to make them untrainable, but I don't know how. Ask the mod forum ;].

I already knew how to delete them from the build sequence so I've got the warhounds edited out now. I just commented out each line in export_descr_building.txt and it seems to work.

Haven't done the head hurlers as yet. I want to give the Britons a javelin unit in the next slot up on the missile unit tree above slingers. It looks like there is a peltast unit tucked away in the PAK files for Britons--I just have to figure out how to add it. I really wanted to have a thrusting spear armed javelin unit. Alas, CA does not have any in the game and it appears that a CAS edit would be necessary to convert the secondary sword/knife into a spear. I can add the spear skeleton, but I need to update the CAS to show it, unfortunately.

Hmm, just had another idea...some of the large shielded Gaul "naked fanatics" used javelins, thrusting spears, and swords. So perhaps a Naked Fanatic Skirmisher unit with sword would work in place of the Head Hurler...

I've copped the little razorbladed furballs a few times from the AI (Gaul).

Hungry little suckers ain't they?

Lol...Gaul....Le Pooch!! ~D

I used war dogs to great effect on two Roman armies that were attacking my Germans. I only had on unit of the dogs, but some pesky ballistas were being used to shoot at em (and killing people!) Once they started hitting the geneal unit I got worried.

I sent the war dogs out and they took care of the ballista unit real well...then while chasing the last guy they ran into a unit of Principes and they killed at least 15-20 principes.

The Romans had three units of dogs, too, but I think they died at the hands of my spear warbands.


So, I like the AI having ballistas, but I do think there are too many doggies.

However, I was pleased to find a good use for mine.

In my first 1.2 game, I came across a few Spanish villages entirely garrisoned with Wardogs. This was on huge unit scale, and the villages were at mininum population levels.

In a second game on large unit scale, the excess of Wardogs seemed to have disappeared, so I suspect unit scale may be a factor here.

I used dogs pre-patch as Julii but felt guilty - they were incredibly effective against barbarians; you could win a battle with seldom losing a man. I am glad to say I have weaned myself off them now.

However, post-patch the AI has started to use them whereas it did not before (it's also using higher tech troops more in general - it's fun facing chosen archers and swordsmen). It's not a biggie though - I only face 2 or so a stack. I am not sure if they have been toned down, but they seem to die quite easily and even the dogs rout whereas they never did when I unleashed them. Maybe they have been toned down?

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Originally Posted by Parmenio

In my first 1.2 game, I came across a few Spanish villages entirely garrisoned with Wardogs. This was on huge unit scale, and the villages were at mininum population levels.

In a second game on large unit scale, the excess of Wardogs seemed to have disappeared, so I suspect unit scale may be a factor here.

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Makes sense, since the units are small it was probably the only unit it could build with minimum population level.

Playing 1.2, Greek, hard battles, VH campaign, large units.

Attacked a full stack of Brutii without scoping it first. My combined arms army faced a roman stack with 6 (six) wardog units. Lucky for me, they mostly bounced against my hoplites. Seems I spent half the battle fighting dogs after most the enemy army had routed away.

there was something familiar about the wardogs horde movement and attack motion that i couldn't quite put my finger on. reading this thread made me realize what they are. zerglings.

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Originally Posted by Red Harvest

Next up... head hurlers... I need to replace them with something logical. Haven't decided what to give the Brits in their place yet: skirmisher warbands, or some vanilla archers.

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IMHO, they must recieve some type of archer unit. How idiotic is it for them to have archers on chariots but not on foot.

"Hey, Cynfawr! This chariot keeps jostling about and I cannot get a bead on that German. I think I'll hop off and give it a go."

"Listen, Voteporix. I've told you a thousand times, 'That's stupid.' Too stupid too even try. Quit wasting your time because that idea is really stupid. Christ, you're stupid for suggesting that."

:furious3:

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Originally Posted by nokhor

there was something familiar about the wardogs horde movement and attack motion that i couldn't quite put my finger on. reading this thread made me realize what they are. zerglings.

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That is sooooo true.

I just doubled the upkeep for the wardogs and upped training times to 3 turns. Dramatically reduces the AI's love for them - and mine. The occasional war dog unit - fine. More common than Principes and Equites in the early legions - wrong.

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Originally Posted by nokhor

there was something familiar about the wardogs horde movement and attack motion that i couldn't quite put my finger on. reading this thread made me realize what they are. zerglings.

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LOL! Better have Archimedes research some bunkers ASAP... ~;)

Cavalry chargers wipe out dogs easily. They only have 3 defence, so if they don't get a chance to attack they are dead meat walking.