Uber Peasants?

I just did some tests for something that has been bothering me in fights in my campaigns, tests were britain vs. scotland, on VH (custom battle) me being britain, single click on opposing platoon.

Peasant vs. spear militia
Ran it three times, first time my general died within a short period of time, second time theirs did, third time both died in quick succession. every battle resulted in an enemy rout with my platoon taking approx 1/3-1/2 losses (huge unit sizes)

Peasant vs. Town Militia
Same as above.

So... all my stacks running around with militia are going to be disbanded and replaced with peasant mobs. What gives? it does appear that the unit stats are quite ... off. or another bug is influencing the unit performance dramaticailly (the anti-blob clipping?) this was conducted on grassy plain, in the open, and the units had good cohesion throughout the fights so its hard to see how...

comments?

this is an old problem, i used them in RTW to screen/protect my archers and arty from flanking and cav, they seem to be just as useful in this version, also good to have them engage elites to allow you to charge from behind with your cav ect...

also just ran

Peasants vs. Billmen and Peasants vs. militia billmen

they beat the militia, and just barely lose to the regulars.

Moosehead, those results do not surprise me.

Well I haven't run any definitive tests, but was rather suprised that 3 spear units, & 3 archer units, got held & pretty much decimated by a single peasant unit. That was m/m btw...

The real difference is that most of those crappy militia type units do get a bonus against cavalry, which makes all the difference in most of my campaigns.

Still, the stats indicate that Peasants should not be doing much damage. Perhaps killing 20 Militia.

Also Town Militia don't get a bonus to figthing cavalry, so I suppose they are officially the worst unit now.

I have had peasants hold pretty well against me. I have charged them, hacked them, shot them up and they hold. If only my shiny, arrogant Imperial Stormtrooppers of Axe Death had such staying power. :sweatdrop: But soon, hordes of unarmored killer peasants will sally forth from my castles to sweep all before them! My General :charge: will whip :whip: them forward into glory!

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Originally Posted by Kraxis

Still, the stats indicate that Peasants should not be doing much damage. Perhaps killing 20 Militia.

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Yes except CA seems to have messed up the battle engine. Now animations are the thing and actual stats appear to be meaningless for some units.


CBR

Hmmm... I do remember that the masses of Pilgrims I used to weaken the Danish troops in Stockholm were pretty determined to win. They suffered huge losses to the Danish general, but weakened him enough for my regulars to finish him off easily.

So perhaps a Pilgrim vs Peasant test is in order.

Off to do that.

a theory is that since their morale is so low they can have a chance to make your army chain route..that's the only thing i can think of.

Yes, I have noticed the same thing: peasants versus spear militia with peasants feeling "victory is a definite possibility", until my general charged them in the back. It's surprising that the large shield militia yields does not seem to come into equation at all.

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Originally Posted by CBR

Yes except CA seems to have messed up the battle engine. Now animations are the thing and actual stats appear to be meaningless for some units.


CBR

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Must be it...

I just ran through a considerable number of tests of Peasants vs Town Militia and then Peasants vs Sergeant Spearmen. Medium.

Well, the Peasants won every single battle with the Town Militia.
'v' indicates victory, Peasants are first.

v60 - 45
v71 - 34
v60 - 35
v70 - 40
v81 - 45

Average:
68 - 40
Peasants win by an average of 28 soldiers each time.

Peasants vs Sergeants
85 - 81v
v56 - 43
v94 - 81
70 - 71v
70 - 66v

Average:
75 - 68
Peasants win again, yet this time I would say that it is in fact even. The differences are too small.

So Peasants = Sergeant Spearmen in melee.

I plan on doing a reverse where I'm facing the Peasants. But that will have to wait.

Try Peasant archers v militia spears or Longbowmen v Armoured sgts :inquisitive:


CBR

Peasants win vs spears because peasants are (crappy) shock infantry. Basically the game treats them like a (really bad) unit of swordsmen, and swords beat spears.

Spearmen aren't meant to do well vs other infantry in melee... they're for absorbing cavalry charges, and that's it.

Also, I don't believe the game factors shields into melee calculations... They're only factored in as a defense against missiles from the front.

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Originally Posted by Musashi

Peasants win vs spears because peasants are (crappy) shock infantry. Basically the game treats them like a (really bad) unit of swordsmen, and swords beat spears.

Spearmen aren't meant to do well vs other infantry in melee... they're for absorbing cavalry charges, and that's it.

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Well, at least in the animation, peasants use a pitchfork... Are pitchforks supposed to beat spears? Anyway, seems like an easily moddable thing: change the weapon type to "spear" for pitchfork.

And Peasant archers just have knives.


CBR

I seem to recall an "issue" that I had like this similiar to the OP's issue, which I think I wrote off as a bug, forgetting that it's actually a "feature". My humble suggestion is that this begs for some kind of "alt-alt-attack" command, whereby we can hold a key and then click a single unit, then the group will all attack that single unit. I shall stick that in the "patch wishlist" thread.

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Originally Posted by Musashi

Peasants win vs spears because peasants are (crappy) shock infantry. Basically the game treats them like a (really bad) unit of swordsmen, and swords beat spears.

Spearmen aren't meant to do well vs other infantry in melee... they're for absorbing cavalry charges, and that's it.

Also, I don't believe the game factors shields into melee calculations... They're only factored in as a defense against missiles from the front.

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Town Militia doesn't get a bonus against cavalry... So they are busted up twice...

Town Militia has better equipment than Peasants and some training. They should be walking all over them... in time. Instead we see a clear Peasant victory.
And Sergeant Spearmen are pretty good spearmen, yet Peasants can match them.

Something is not right at all.

Have you checked other factions' peasants?

I'm at work and can't check myself, but I distinctly remember not building Turkish peasants because their attack and defense stats are only 1, as opposed to English peasant stats which are much higher.

I havent noticed this on the field (VH), but I did notice peasant slaughtering Scottish Higlanders when they defended the walls against them. Mind you, my Highlanders were allready on the wall, not jumping inbetween the peasants) and had a bit or armor (light mail or leather). Now if peasants are shock troops, they shouldnt win from Highlanders, not in my book..

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Originally Posted by phred

Have you checked other factions' peasants?

I'm at work and can't check myself, but I distinctly remember not building Turkish peasants because their attack and defense stats are only 1, as opposed to English peasant stats which are much higher.

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The English Peasants are 3/4 stats, a long way from the 5/7 of the Town Militia.

But fair enough, I will try the Turkish peasants, which I summe has knives. But I don't think that will help much since the Peasant archers seem to be able to do the same.

[EDIT]
Nope... didn't make much of a difference.
The Turkish Peasants are indeed 1/1, yet they won with 105 kills to my 63 (I changed sides to see if the player might have something to do with it, apparently not).
In fact the Peasants matched my chargekills, despite the fact that the Town Militia should have dishing out more significantly.

I'm beginning wonder as well if the shield does have an impact on melee. But even with the loss of the shield the Town Militia should have bested the Turkish peasants (if not the English).

I've seen numerically superior dismounted knights fight peasants on the walls with the peasants decimating the dismounted knights! WHen I ran the cursors over the units it was saying the peasants "were confident of victory".
WTF?

I guess this goes into the patch wishlist....
I had to re-adjust my tactics to match these crazy peasants, treating them like more than "cannon fodder" as the game describes them. I still can't believe that I have to pay special attention to peasants. :dizzy2:

Well, I guess.. The Seventh Samurai (and the Magnificent Seven, the American remake) teach us that in the end, the peasant wins..

I think Peasants are too strong. I mean in RTW they routed pretty quick when faced with pro soldiers...here they are not bad at all...maybe they were too poor in rome, but this is the other end of the spectrum.

Has anyone added the uber peasants to the bug list?

The combat mechanics of this game need some serious reworking imho.

Unit stats do make a difference as long as only peasants are fighting. I tested Moors peasants (1/1/1 at/def/ch) against English peasants (4/3/1), both with me as the English vs CPU Moors and vice versa, and the English peasants almost always won. E.g for me as the English vs CPU Moors:

English kills/Moors kills
w44/18
w65/26
w35/16
w39/23
w45/41
w51/36
w63/43
w41/27
w42/13
w64/45

vh difficulty, single click on the enemy, grassy plains.

Maybe something is wrong with the spearmen and town militia model animations? Maybe a similar problem to what makes the dismounted English footknights unable to attack cavalry once engaged?

During one of the tests I also saw the 'front-line only charge' bug. I saved a replay of it. I don't know if I can attach it here - PM me if you'd like me to email it to you.

you can upload and link replays...?

This discussion prompted me to do some testing of my own.


Peasants vs Peasants

100 -- v60
v79 -- 110
v67 -- 100
v55 -- 79
v87 -- 100

Avg casualties caused by Peasants: 83.7

Spear Militia vs Spear Militia

v41 -- 84
v61 -- 91
v55 -- 85
v71 --116
103 --v86

Avg casualties caused by Spear Militia: 79.3


Peasants vs Spear Militia

v69 -- 131
v42 -- 106
v66 -- 118
v42 -- 80
v69 -- 130

Avg casualties caused by Peasants: 113
Avg casualties caused by Spear Militia: 57.6

:dizzy2:


Feel free to check my math, it's late here and I'm sober!

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Originally Posted by Veresov

I've seen numerically superior dismounted knights fight peasants on the walls with the peasants decimating the dismounted knights! WHen I ran the cursors over the units it was saying the peasants "were confident of victory".
WTF?

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Never judge any unit against another from just a wall battle. Almost anything can hold out against an attack from even the best of knights on the walls. All they have to do is just not break and be in guard mode. The towers are what actually kill the enemies, the peasants just facilitate the towers giving them lots of stationary targets.

Spear militia and peasants should be nearly the same. They come from the same level tech building, one's from the castle one's from the town. I would almost hope the basic castle unit would beat the basic town unit. But killing the sergeants is strange indeed.

Something I've noticed in doing a lot of testing. There's huge differences in abilities if you or the ai is playing the unit. You can test for example gothic knights and lancers playing both against each other. You will win most of the time with both units. Also the AI has the inability to form a proper charge against another melee unit when they are both moving towards each other, this causes a lot of havoc for tests. Also spearmen have always been finicky, in RTW a lot of their power seemed to be related to the density of the formation. I noticed this in EB a lot more often then vanilla, seeing some spear units with relatively low stats plow through elites when they had the lowest spacing setting.

In those tests with spearmen always make sure their in guard mode, and make sure their in a very deep formation. Width seems to be less of a factor as long as you keep a solid formation.

Well thats all for now, off to do some tests with them. Just keep in mind there's a lot more going on then just the unit's stats, there always will be.

I have posted the replay of the 'only front rank charging' bug at filefront (sorry about all the advertising you have to wade through):

http://www.filefactory.com/file/9ce4ba/

It seems to happen when a couple of men in the front rank charge out ahead of everyone else. The unit tries to re-group during the charge and for some reason one rank (not actually the front rank, maybe the second rank?) keeps on charging while everyone else gets left behind.

The problem isn't that peasants are too effective killers. They always were - in Shogun Ashigaru had very decent stats, in MTW a peasant flank charge was a real threat too, they had a nice charge bonus to go with their crummy stats... But in both these games, they turned and ran anytime they got casualties. 10-20 men dead in a 100-strong peasant unit in MTW was enough to make them collapse.

In M2TW, with the all-around increased morale, they don't run anymore, and win through sheer numbers+flanking in the end, even when they are listed as "Low Morale". That's what ought to be changed to make them "useful only not head-on", as they were in all TW games except Rome.

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Originally Posted by Kobal2fr

The problem isn't that peasants are too effective killers. They always were - in Shogun Ashigaru had very decent stats, in MTW a peasant flank charge was a real threat too, they had a nice charge bonus to go with their crummy stats... But in both these games, they turned and ran anytime they got casualties. 10-20 men dead in a 100-strong peasant unit in MTW was enough to make them collapse.

In M2TW, with the all-around increased morale, they don't run anymore, and win through sheer numbers+flanking in the end, even when they are listed as "Low Morale". That's what ought to be changed to make them "useful only not head-on", as they were in all TW games except Rome.

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I am 100% in agreement with you about this ^_^

Peasants are cheap and numerous light infantry, and as such are useful for flanking, soaking up damage, and bulking up an existing line of battle. This, combined with the fact that they can only be upgraded to padded armour, means that as the game wears on they become ever weaker against more modern units. They do, and ought to do, a perfectly good job of holding walls - remember that they are the castle equivalent of town militia, and as such may be expected to be somewhat tougher than their pitchfork-waving graphics might suggest.

That said, the key problem with them ought to be that they turn and run very quickly once they start taking casualties. I agree that if their morale could be lowered yet further, peasants would be what they should be - a nasty threat if attacking from the flanks, but not able to go toe to toe with professional soldiers.

Finally a little gripe about the peasant model. Pitchforks? I'd rather see a motley assortment of bill-hooks, voulges, and other plowshares-beaten-into-servicable-weapons. Not just, well, plowshares. Scythes would be quite handy too. The agricultural implements make them look weaker than they are. In my view, unless you have specialist attacking infantry like the English billmen, peasants are a perfectly respectable unit to use as infantry flankers early in the game.

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Originally Posted by Beefeater

The agricultural implements make them look weaker than they are.

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Mmm I think nobody wants to be on the wrong side of a scythe, especially one that's in untrained hands !

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Originally Posted by BigTex

Never judge any unit against another from just a wall battle. Almost anything can hold out against an attack from even the best of knights on the walls. All they have to do is just not break and be in guard mode. The towers are what actually kill the enemies, the peasants just facilitate the towers giving them lots of stationary targets.

Spear militia and peasants should be nearly the same. They come from the same level tech building, one's from the castle one's from the town. I would almost hope the basic castle unit would beat the basic town unit. But killing the sergeants is strange indeed.

Something I've noticed in doing a lot of testing. There's huge differences in abilities if you or the ai is playing the unit. You can test for example gothic knights and lancers playing both against each other. You will win most of the time with both units. Also the AI has the inability to form a proper charge against another melee unit when they are both moving towards each other, this causes a lot of havoc for tests. Also spearmen have always been finicky, in RTW a lot of their power seemed to be related to the density of the formation. I noticed this in EB a lot more often then vanilla, seeing some spear units with relatively low stats plow through elites when they had the lowest spacing setting.

In those tests with spearmen always make sure their in guard mode, and make sure their in a very deep formation. Width seems to be less of a factor as long as you keep a solid formation.

Well thats all for now, off to do some tests with them. Just keep in mind there's a lot more going on then just the unit's stats, there always will be.

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In my game, the wall I assaulted had town militia on one end and peasants on the other. My dismounted knights cut through the town militia like butter, with very few casualties. Tower missile weren't causing a lot of casualties either. My knights were completely on the wall and engaged the peasants after the town militia was wiped out. I had about 40 knights versus 30 peasants. My knights went from 'confident of victory' to 'defeat' the minute they engaged the peasants. The peasants actually drove the knights back, forcing some off the wall, and were knocking down the knights. Wow...

Something is seriously wrong with this. Is the point of this game to build huge peasant armies and forget about 'better infantry'? I don't think so.

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Originally Posted by Kobal2fr

The problem isn't that peasants are too effective killers. They always were - in Shogun Ashigaru had very decent stats, in MTW a peasant flank charge was a real threat too, they had a nice charge bonus to go with their crummy stats... But in both these games, they turned and ran anytime they got casualties. 10-20 men dead in a 100-strong peasant unit in MTW was enough to make them collapse.

In M2TW, with the all-around increased morale, they don't run anymore, and win through sheer numbers+flanking in the end, even when they are listed as "Low Morale". That's what ought to be changed to make them "useful only not head-on", as they were in all TW games except Rome.

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I think that the point is that, based on the stats and the information you have in the game, spearmen militia and town militia are better than peasants in every way, and yet peasants beat those units, with all else being equal.

It would be nice if the stats you are given correctly reflected how effective a unit is in combat.

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Originally Posted by grinningman

I think that the point is that, based on the stats and the information you have in the game, spearmen militia and town militia are better than peasants in every way, and yet peasants beat those units, with all else being equal.

It would be nice if the stats you are given correctly reflected how effective a unit is in combat.

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That much is very true, and not just for peasants, I'll gladly grant you that.

The stats certainly don't make sense, probably because there is a slew of factors we're not given... (cf. the post regarding exp'd archers, who are better shooters than newbie ones, even though their missile stat doesn't change) So why give stats at all, he ? Yeah...

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Originally Posted by Kobal2fr

The problem isn't that peasants are too effective killers. They always were - in Shogun Ashigaru had very decent stats, in MTW a peasant flank charge was a real threat too, they had a nice charge bonus to go with their crummy stats... But in both these games, they turned and ran anytime they got casualties. 10-20 men dead in a 100-strong peasant unit in MTW was enough to make them collapse.

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In STW/MTW unit combat power was based on stats alone. Even if you modded their morale so they never would run, they would still get slaugthered by other units because they had crap stats. Even the worst spears in MTW had no problems defeating peasants.

The Yari Ashigaru were nothing like the MTW peasants as they actually had spears and anti cav bonuses. But they were still the unit with the
lowest melee stats and morale and could expect only to defeat guns.

Combat results have always been pretty intuitive as one could look at stats and judge which unit was stronger. Now we see results that doesnt make any sense at all.


CBR

I tested English peasants against Janissary heavy infantry. Admittingly the ratio was just over 2:1 in the peasants favour but they still beat the Turks. The field was littered with peasant dead about 1700. The Janissary lost just over 900. The problem I felt was the peasant moral. At no time did they faulter unlike the Turks. The Janissary heavy infantry are about the best you can get as infantry hence the number they killed. Surely if untrained peasants experienced a slaughter by professional troops they would leg it pretty damn quick!. :wall:

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Originally Posted by Fearless

I tested English peasants against Janissary heavy infantry. Admittingly the ratio was just over 2:1 in the peasants favour but they still beat the Turks. The field was littered with peasant dead about 1700. The Janissary lost just over 900. The problem I felt was the peasant moral. At no time did they faulter unlike the Turks. The Janissary heavy infantry are about the best you can get as infantry hence the number they killed. Surely if untrained peasants experienced a slaughter by professional troops they would leg it pretty damn quick!. :wall:

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Not sure how you got that result. Even in custom battles spear militia will own them.

One of the problems is that they seem to have higher morale then they should have. Their actually fighting it out with knights absorbing 75%+ casualties and not runing. They've always been good cheap melee units but their morale made them risky to use in bulk.

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Originally Posted by Veresov

In my game, the wall I assaulted had town militia on one end and peasants on the other. My dismounted knights cut through the town militia like butter, with very few casualties. Tower missile weren't causing a lot of casualties either. My knights were completely on the wall and engaged the peasants after the town militia was wiped out. I had about 40 knights versus 30 peasants. My knights went from 'confident of victory' to 'defeat' the minute they engaged the peasants. The peasants actually drove the knights back, forcing some off the wall, and were knocking down the knights. Wow...

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When the knights turned to attack the peasants, did they turn their backs to a tower? Lots of factors on the walls, always be careful up there when using expensive troops.

I just tested the Peasants against the tough Italian Spear Militia (second best spear unit I could think of in a hurry, after Armoured Spearmen).

Well, the Italians won each time, but only just.

However, when I tested against both Highlanders and DFKs, the Peasants lost as they should, rather soundly. Generally not killing very many of the better melee troops.

So I'm beginning to think it might not be the Peasants, but the spears that are wrong. Wall are of course a different story as a lot of other stuff play in.

In a campaign I sent 2 pilgrim units against one of the better Arab spear units (forgot the name). It was a straight up street fight so based on stats I figured the pilgrims were done for. Instead they slaughtered 50 spearmen and broke the unit in exchange for about 30(?) casualties. In disbelief I had to recheck to make sure I wasn't looking at fanatics by mistake, since they look similar. Nope, these were pilgrims, with stats literally one tenth of the unit they slaughtered.

So pilgrims are 10 times more effective than tercio pikemen, who typically can't fight their way out of a paper bag....:dizzy2:

The pilgrims didn't win through numbers - they were fighting in a constricted alley, and therefore unable to bring more men into contact.

The pilgrims didn't win through outflanking - I watched closely and saw enemy flanks covered by buildings the entire fight.

The pilgrims didn't win through enemy error. It was a straight up fight, the AI didn't try to disengage or turn the formation. The spearmen were hitting back facing the right way and standing behind their shields. And they dropped like flies.

The pilgrims didn't win by causing morale damage through higher numbers. The spear unit didn't break until it was nearly wiped out by casualties.

The pilgrims didn't win because they were fresher than their opponent. The spear unit was well rested and had been waiting in reserve.

The pilgrims were simply better fighters, pound for pound. This represents a severe game imbalance.

Its the dreaded shield bug. The shield doesn't add armor to your stats, it takes it away. Therefore, an unshielded Peasant is more Uber than they should be against shielded regulars.

Remember that most of the posts in this topic were made in November 2006, which was the same month the game was released. No one was aware of the shield bug at that time.

i know the peasants are overpowered but i dont think it was an accident i think someone had a cruel sense of humor and got a kick out of it.

the only peasants that i would actually say should have some ability in a fight are the ones with pitchforks. in reality a pitchfork is a nasty polearm/ spear. maybe even deadlier than a trident when the tips are sharpened nice and pointy. which a soldier has plenty of time to do when not in combat.

but the guys with daggers should be fodder to the utmost and not much better than a mad cat.