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.

:baby: :baby: :baby: :baby: :baby: :baby: :baby: :baby: :baby: :baby:

:Sigh: I guess Fallen851 is not the only one who should refrain from getting personal. Silly me for trying to keep things polite here. :wall:

It was a good effort, I tried as well.

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Originally Posted by QwertyMIDX

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.

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This is not intended to change anyone on the EB team's opinion. It won't no matter how I phrase it because my opinion holds no weight, partly because of how I have treated the EB team before, and partly because of the way they view me. So this is intended for anyone else who cares.

QM and Ludens you're wrong. That isn't a personal attack, it is a fact. There is little randomness (at least in 1.5). I did many, many tests and the same thing happens, every time.

For instance, due to the fact I've decided to rebalanced EB when it comes out for 1.5, I've done a lot of research, particularly into the charge bonus, and why armor acts differently vs missiles some of which can be found here https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=62744

And what I found was that the same thing happened over and over again. For instance I've since done about 10 more runs, but these 6 runs showing a unit of 100 gauls in a warband with 5 armor factor (0 in the defensive skill and shield factor) standing still and take 5 shots from a chosen archer warband with an attack of 20 is not signficantly different:

Computer Controlled Archers:(units stood still)
Run #1: 81 Gauls remaining after 5 volleys
Run #2: 78 Gauls remaining after 5 volleys
Run #3: 78 Gauls remaining after 5 volleys
Run #4: 80 Gauls remaining after 5 volleys
Run #5: 82 Gauls remaining after 5 volleys
Run #6: 80 Gauls remaining after 5 volleys
Average: 79.833 repeating

When I ran an ANOVA test, there was no signifcant differences (though I knew there would not be before I ran the test...). Sure there is obviously some randomness, because during one test they lost 18, while another 22, but I'm assuming these small differences are not what you speak of.

The results for the charge bonus aren't up there yet, but my testing there (where I setup my unit in a set spot and let the AI cavalry charge) shows exactly the same thing, no significant difference between what happens in the 15 tests I've done charging from the rear. The unit loses about the same about of men every time, and another ANOVA test shows no significant difference between tests. Please note some of those tests are not valid (the ones comparing armor types in melee) because I had the warcry on the units before I retested, and warcry appears to lose its effects after a certain period of time, so the side what warcries first does worse in battle.

I invite you to test what I did. If it comes out differently, send me the replays. The differences are in what happens in the battle, not some magic randomness.

Fallen851 the post you cite from QM talks about randomness in the result of cavalry charges, not archery. He is not wrong about that, since melee combat in EB is essentially a moral contest. Whether cavalry breaks an enemy with a flank attack will depend on a lot of morale modifiers such as command stars, relative casualties, fatigue, positional factors etc. These things will not be fully captured by a simple cold "one-on-one" custom battle experiment. The actual initial casualties are almost secondary - they are certainly much lower than I've experienced in Goth's all factions mod for BI[1] where a whole unit can die in 3 seconds in similar circumstances. In my experience with EB, either the defenders break quickly or it soon gets ugly for the cavalry.

[1]Goth's mod is excellent, BTW, although as you can tell the combat model differs substantially from EBs.

I would say something, but I seem to have been beaten to the proverbial punch.

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Originally Posted by econ21

Fallen851 the post you cite from QM talks about randomness in the result of cavalry charges, not archery. He is not wrong about that, since melee combat in EB is essentially a moral contest. Whether cavalry breaks an enemy with a flank attack will depend on a lot of morale modifiers such as command stars, relative casualties, fatigue, positional factors etc. These things will not be fully captured by a simple cold "one-on-one" custom battle experiment. The actual initial casualties are almost secondary - they are certainly much lower than I've experienced in Goth's all factions mod for BI[1] where a whole unit can die in 3 seconds in similar circumstances. In my experience with EB, either the defenders break quickly or it soon gets ugly for the cavalry.

[1]Goth's mod is excellent, BTW, although as you can tell the combat model differs substantially from EBs.

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This is exactly what I mean with EB's response to criticism, it is like you guys don't even read or think about people's posts.

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Originally Posted by econ21

Whether cavalry breaks an enemy with a flank attack will depend on a lot of morale modifiers such as command stars, relative casualties, fatigue, positional factors etc. These things will not be fully captured by a simple cold "one-on-one" custom battle experiment

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I hate to quote myself, but if you had read you would have seen:

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Originally Posted by Fallen851

The differences are in what happens in the battle, not some magic randomness

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Everything of what you said, is not randomness, it is what happens on the battlefield. Morale, fatigue, positional factors and command stars are not random conditions. Your general's command stars do not randomly go up and down during battles do they? I dare you to answer that question, but I don't think you will.

I shouldn't even have repond to the first part about cavalry charges because it was in my last post. I did charge bonus tests, and guess what? There was no randomness. Every time barbarian cavalry hit a warband from the rear there was a certain number of losses. There was a little bit of variance, but not much.

I would really love to see some replays of all this randomness, it simply doesn't exist. If a battle goes a certain way, and everything happens the same the next time in terms of movements and decisions, the outcome will be the same. It is how replays. If you take a replay, and then go and change the stats of units, the replay will look totally different. That is because the replay repeats all the movements made, losses will differ slightly. Replays are not movies, they are repeat battles fought in the same way. Now take that replay and watch it over and over it will differ slightly, but the result will always be the same (unless it is so close that a couple of men makes the difference). If you watch a replay of a cavalry charge into a flank over and over, one time it won't kill 200 men, and the next time only 5 men, that randomness does not exist in the RTW engine, I'm sorry, but it doesn't.

As a final response, anticipating your next post, your not actually going to tell me that men dying has nothing to do with morale? Deaths effect morale, perhaps it is the most powerful factor? Thus if cavalry is only killing 5 men hitting the rear of a unit, it isn't doing as much damage to the morale as it did 25 kills.

I'm going to go out a limb here, but somehow I don't think all of these people (many of whom are not EB members) are all in some giant conspiracy to thwart your rational and level-headed attempts to change something. You seem much less willing to hear people come out against your stances than anyone else involved in this, and when anyone doesn't agree with you accuse them of not listening. It's really coming to the point where it's just not worth saying anything to you, unless I being worshipping you as the center of all truth in the universe I don't think you'll be satisfied. You just yelled at econ21 (better know as Simon Appleton) for being a partisan of EB soley for not agreeing with you. This is just getting out of hand.

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Originally Posted by fallen851

This is exactly what I mean with EB's response to criticism, it is like you guys don't even read or think about people's posts.

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Being the huge stat freak that you are, perhaps this data will shed some light on the real problem:

1) Number of EB downloads: 29,000

2) Number of non-sticky threads in the EB Org Forum in the last 30 days: 103

3) Number of posts in those threads: 2027

4) Number of posts complaining that EB's "entire unit system is flawed": 4 (all by you)

Draw your own conclusions.

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Originally Posted by fallen851

QM and Ludens you're wrong. That isn't a personal attack, it is a fact.

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Your accusation that the EB team is unable to rationally discuss their system is a personal attack.

The EB team has clear ideas of how thing should work, so they are not going to be swayed by a few observations that something is wrong. Only when you can prove that a situation regularly gives illogical results then they might change their mind. For example after repeated complaints that peltasts were overpowered compared to hastati and thurephoroi Qwerty reexamined their stats. I don't know if they have been corrected in 0.74 but he did announce they are going to be weakened. However, AFAIK no-one ever did systematic archery tests to prove they were indeed underpowered. If you did I, for one, would be happy to see them. Unfortunatly, it is very hard to balance cavalry charges in 1.2; and this is a rather futile excersize anyway since the mod is going to move to 1.5 in the next build.

Lastly, if I interpret Qwerty and econ21 correctly, they did not say that under similar circumstances unit performance can differ significantly (which is obviously wrong) but that in a campaign differing circumstances can have a very pronounced effect on performance.

I'm not the only one to complain about the EDU file, it is a common complaint. How many threads have we gone over this?

I do not think there is a conspiracy against me to thwart my great ideas. I don't care if you like what I think. What upsets me is how you guys respond to criticism. It is not consistent, it is done on an ad hoc basis (see above quote by Telesos and The Wizard). Your vague, you change the subject, and claim authority (we've done the testing so we know what happens and you don't).

So what did I do? I went out and did the tests, did the research, and you're previous statesment are incorrect. But you guys never give up. QM has claimed in the past there is randomness in how the shield armor is applied (Macroi's thread in which he stated talking to EB memebers was like "pulling teeth"... I'm not the only one). I must have done at least 20 tests with the shield armor, and I found it is equal in melee combat to both the normal armor factor and the defensive skill factor, and 7/8ths as effective against missiles. That is not random. Is it weird? Sure, but if you do the tests, you figure out what is going on. Later in the conversations (ad hoc) QM stated he hadn't done tests in awhile, and he wouldn't have the time to do them, so the shield stats stayed the way they were, flawed. Why are they flawed? Because they are based on the untrue premise that the shield application has randomness.

Oddly enough, those who have criticized EB have began very cordial, but when the EB simply argues with the methods I outlined above, people become irrate. Then of course the EB team lays on the "personal attack!" key they have must have on their keyboard. Either that is happening (what I described above), or (as you might argue) people are coming on here and demanding things be changed, and when you prove them incorrect, they resort to personal attacks.

I don't care if you change things because I can change it myself, in fact I don't think many people care that much, they come on here to contribute to making this mod more realistic, and when they are on the recieving end of the personal attack key, they simply change it themselves and leave.

Now I will do what you said Ludens, and do comprehensive testing of the archery system, but let me tell you right now what I'm going to get for an answer "the archer stats are fine, they shouldn't be powerful". This is purely a judgement call. You may think it is realistic, you may think cavalry charging the rear of a unit and killing 5 men is realistic, I don't know what you think, but as long as you have that arguement, you guys have proven a willingness to use it. And you will always have that arguement, so all the criticism raised against you, by many others and myself, falls on deaf ears.

I personally believe many of the people who have criticized EB to the extent I have learned this lesson long before I did to simply give up. To them it simply isn't worth the time, and we have gone through thread after thread, and most them aren't around anymore. Perhaps I was harsh when I said people were "zealots" of EB, but it seems they come into a thread and then start ranting about "Your not using the units correctly!" completing disregarding the idea the unit could be flawed!

If your not willing to see a problem, you won't see it.

You guys don't want to see the problems in the EDU text, and even more importantly, you want to think you guys are very cordial when dealing with criticism. Well, then where are all the critics?

I actually didn't say that shield points had any randomness I said "It's not a simple point for point relationship." Which apparently you now agree with, as your tests seem to have proved it doesn't work the exact same way as armor.

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Originally Posted by fallen851

I must have done at least 20 tests with the shield armor, and I found it is equal in melee combat to both the normal armor factor and the defensive skill factor, and 7/8ths as effective against missiles.

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Please try not to misrepresent me while you attack me. :2thumbsup:

:Sigh: fallen851, you have adressed none of the arguments I brought against your postition, instead arguing again that cavalry charge is not correct, even though I already explained why it is that way. You are actually acting like you accuse the EB-team to act.

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Originally Posted by Ludens

you have adressed none of the arguments I brought against your postition

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Originally Posted by Fallen851

Now I will do what you said Ludens, and do comprehensive testing of the archery system

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Did you read that part?

Now what are your other arguements? I addressed your first sentence, essentially stating that many critics of EB have given up because the EB team doesn't argue in a rational way. I can point to several people who no longer post on this forum that have criticized EB. I don't see many critics of EB anymore, which could mean one of two things #1 EB is perfect, #2 EB silences critics. You don't see a lot of critics of the government in North Korea do you? Those people gave up criticizing, because it wasn't worth it.

Did you read those parts?

QM, you're correct...

(I have no problem admitting I'm wrong, I've done it on several occasions with you, but in the past you did claim and I quote "'Your' overhand spear argument wasn't yours" to which I responded "Ugh. I never said the overhand arguement was mine. I never even used 'mine'. Read it this time." to which you simply ignored in your next post. When you're wrong, you sweep it under the rug like nothing happened. I have other post of you been shown you were wrong and not admitting it, which of course is a misrepresentation. So I guess it is ok for you to misrepesent?)


...you did say it wasn't a simple point for point relationship and you didn't say it was randomness. I shouldn't have put it that way, and should have antcipated your response. However you said it was something quirky about the way the shield values are calculated (also correct), leading me to believe you didn't understand the system clearly. So did you base armor values on a system you didn't understand clearly? Or if you did understand it clearly why didn't you tell people that then and end the discussion?

"I have not had time to re-run dozens of tests to demonstrate this, and I won't anytime soon, feel free to run your own if you'd like."

Did you know the shield provides 7/8th's the armor against missile than normal armor? My whole problem with you during that thread is that you wouldn't tell me why the shield is less effective beyond the AP, left, and rear issues, which is why I ran my own tests. The best thing about my case on this topic is I was right then about EB withholding information, or I am right now about the EDU system being flawed.

So if you didn't know the exact relationship the problem remains, if you didn't fully understand the system, the system is flawed.

None of that really matters though, that arguement was to point out I am not alone in criticizing the EDU text.

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Originally Posted by fallen851

Did you read that part?

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I did. You did not, however, adress my argument cavalry charged is bugged, nor any of the points I raised earlier in this thread.

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Originally Posted by fallen851

I can point to several people who no longer post on this forum that have criticized EB. I don't see many critics of EB anymore, which could mean one of two things #1 EB is perfect, #2 EB silences critics. You don't see a lot of critics of the government in North Korea do you?

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Hmmm. Now that you mention it...

https://img98.imageshack.us/img98/5901/kimjongil4bf.jpg

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Originally Posted by Ludens

I did. You did not, however, adress my argument cavalry charged is bugged, nor any of the points I raised earlier in this thread.

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Ok, the cavalry charge is bugged. What else do you want me to say? I'm not going to disagree. There are other ways to balanced that charge out from what I understand, but I don't work with the 1.2 system anymore, so I'm not an expert on that system, so I'll concede the point that QM probably knows what he is doing, and I was wrong.

Still my orginal point remains (please address), why have someone claim in a preview that a cavalry charge from the rear will rout any infantry when the system is bugged?

....*One year in the future*
"We have a great feature in our video game...!"

"Sadly it is bugged and doesn't work, but we will still write about how great it is!"

Doesn't that seem a bit odd?

Your last point in that last thread about econ21 and QM agrees with me. I said there was no randomness, they stated there was randomness. What they meant however agreed with me, or what I meant agreed with them, but stating it is random is incorrect, thus I was correct in stating there was no randomness. It isn't random, it is just battlefield conditions, which is what they meant, but not what they originally said. The game does not randomly set things like command stars, fatigue...ect.

Anyway, so you admit you read it, but I addressed your archery point and point about how the EB team, so I guess I didn't address none of your points, are you too proud to admit you are wrong now (please address)?

I guess with the picture Teleos put out, I need a "personal attack!" key like you guys? Still making jokes won't hide the fact that the fiercest critics of the EB EDU (other than me...) text only posted in like one thread on this forum...(please address)

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Originally Posted by fallen851

Ok, the cavalry charge is bugged.

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So why are you complaing that charge doesn't work as it should?

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What else do you want me to say? I'm not going to disagree. There are other ways to balanced that charge out from what I understand, but I don't work with the 1.2 system anymore, so I'm not an expert on that system.

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As far as I know, none of these solutions leads to balanced charges.

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Still my orginal point remains, why have someone claim in a preview that a cavalry charge from the rear will rout any infantry when the system is bugged?

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This is a beta. Not everything is working as it should be. The previews, naturally, reflect the final game.

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Your last point in that last thread about econ21 and QM agrees with me. I said there was no randomness, which is what they stated. What they meant however agreed with me, or what I meant agreed with them, but stating it is random is incorrect, thus I was correct in stating there was no randomness. It isn't random, it is just battlefield conditions.

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They meant random as in random conditions, not random results.

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Anyway, so you admit you read it, but I addressed your archery point and point about how the EB team, so I guess I didn't address none of your points, are you too proud to admit you are wrong now?

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I said arguments, not points. The archery point was not an argument. I admit that I disregarded your comments about EB's behaviour in the past, but I was rather annoyed that you seemed to think responding to the easiest bit of my posts constituted a full answer.

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I guess with the picture Teleos put out, I need a "personal attack!" key like you guys? Still making jokes won't hide the fact that the fiercest critics of the EB EDU (other than me...) text only posted in like one thread on this forum...(please address)

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Posting a picture that mocks your argument is not the same as a personal attack, I am afraid. Also, which fierce critics are you talking about? I only recall Macroi, Lars and LittleGannon. Off these, only Macroi actually played the mod.

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Originally Posted by fallen851

I guess with the picture Teleos put out, I need a "personal attack!" key like you guys? Still making jokes won't hide the fact that the fiercest critics of the EB EDU (other than me...) text only posted in like one thread on this forum...(please address)

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Seriously. Very seriously. I know you like a lot of things about this mod and we appreciate interest from you and any fans out there at all or just anyone who likes or is interested in the mod, but as volunteers who when it comes down to it don't have to answer to anyone but ourselves, why would we want to spend our time dealing with someone (anyone) who has no respect for anyone else here and who is this aggressive and downright ornry? It's like being a glutton for punishment to keep coming back and getting beaten up over this. Is it worth it? Who else is clamoring for a change? Provide an alternative set of stats if ours are unacceptable and thus provide a great service to the fans who are being deprived of a further degree of accuracy as you see it, but why keep bashing? It's the kind of thing exactly that causes people to lose interest in doing anything for the mod, and I would rather have our members ignore it than get burned out over dealing with it. It's sort of like having to go before a hostile jury (or maybe a single hostile juror) every time you click on certain threads, when there's no one that's saying you have to keep doing it. Would someone willingly keep doing that in their free time, for fun? You've made your aggressive, unrespectful stance clear before (this is in no way whatsoever a personal attack, as this has been clearly admitted to before - see below), and the only reason any members of the mod itself still visit a thread like this is to make it clear to other people who might view it that we do still keep trying and that we do have a system that we think makes sense and that we also have a bit of a sense of humor. That's being straightforward about this situation and why it's just plain tiring to deal with it.

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Originally Posted by fallen851

This community, not just EB's community, but the entire RTW community puts on an heir of "kindness" and "compassion" to other members, and tries to make it look like they "respect" each other with moderators warning people "bashing" and such, and it is a joke. It defends people who have a lot of posts and a reputation, and berates those use "smilies". I wouldn't be surprised if this post or thread is now censored to defend those same people.

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Originally Posted by fallen851

Everything of what you said, is not randomness, it is what happens on the battlefield. Morale, fatigue, positional factors and command stars are not random conditions. Your general's command stars do not randomly go up and down during battles do they? I dare you to answer that question, but I don't think you will.

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Fine, I'll concede your semantic point. It is not randomness. But it seems like that to the casual player (e.g. me) because we cannot directly observe the quantitative strength of these battlefield conditions. Sometimes a retreating phalanx charged in the rear will fold quickly, sometimes it will stand, turn and maul the attackers. Through casual play, I cannot directly observe the factors that account for the variation - hence my sloppy use of the word randomness.

But I am not sure where this pedantry takes us. The thread originally was about whether archery and cavalry kills too few people in EB. Honest people are going to disagree about that. I'd be interested in any test data you produce based on EBs EDU. But whatever the numbers are, since we lack corresponding real world data from ancient battles, people will still differ over whether the results are realistic. From casual play I am quite happy with EBs balance. I don't expect missiles or cavalry to kill many heavy infantry (except cav vs routers). But they do contribute to victory through other means. The missiles harass and pressure the enemy, providing the slight edge that can tip a tough fight. The cavalry frequently has decisive effects via morale and their superior mobility (although it doesn't always work - hence QMs and my inexact use of the term "randomness"). That just feels right to me, but I know others such as yourself may disagree.

However, what you seem to want to do with the thread is use it to attack the way the EB team responds to criticism. Given that I am not affiliated with the mod and am just an interested passerby, you'll have to exclude my semantic error from your indictment of the team. However, in my experience QM and others in the team have been friendly, informative and reasoned in dealing with questions and comments. I know from personal experience, some other mod teams are nowhere near so tolerant or mature.

Thanks for the support Econ, I really do try and be reasonable.

not to jump into the flame war or anything... but...
am i the only one that noticed that he's testing using 1.5, and EB is 1.2? I thought that made a fairly significant difference in the cav charges, and somewhat to the missle stuff...