Surprisingly bad units

[Intranetusa]

Almost every unit in EB is useful, even if they suck. I often find myself hiring ridiculously expensive and also absurdly weak Pontus Spearmen when I am desperately in need of men in my excursion into Asia Minor. I guess these bastards have a monopoly on the merc market...so the quality of products they offer declines. >_<

[Joszen1]

@ gamegeek2, I hear you, I was just venting cause I lost a pretty important battle and needed something to blame. As I saw it my Hastati had failed to live up to Roman standards of bravery.

@ Centurio Nixalsverdrus, , I am ok. Maybe I'm just not a very good general and will never succeed in conquering an entire map without losing a single battle. I hear you on the historicity though, but shouldn't Hastati become Principes -with experience - if everything were true to reality? I am humbled and will start again, making much use of Hastati. I will also write a nice AAR about it so my historical inaccuracies can be further lambasted. (Bear in mind I am a South African so what I know I have found out in on my own time).

@ Intranetusa, indeed, for all things there is a season. But I don't think that is the point of this forum, I think it offers the opportunity for EB players to discuss how they have been seriously surprized (in their own idiocy) and 'let down' by a particular unit. All the units have a purpose because this is a superb, awe-inspiring mod!

[cultist]

Wow,i feel like in Mythbusters.
Keep it coming boys.
*goes to

[Cute Wolf]

Hippies always beat hastati in a headlong charge!!! hastati is the crappest crap for the romans... even Rorarii is better than them...

[A Terribly Harmful Name]

Hippies always beat hastati in a headlong charge!!! hastati is the crappest crap for the romans... even Rorarii is better than them...

I've NEVER seen that. Hippeis are possibly the crappiest cavalry in the game: they can barely rout Akontistai without losses, let alone Hastati.

[Centurio Nixalsverdrus]

Overhand-spear cavalry generally sucks. What can you do with them besides chasing routers? Even Asiatikoi Hippeis with their axes suck in comparison to similarly equipped cavalry that uses its spear underhand.

[Ludens]

Hippies always beat hastati in a headlong charge!!! hastati is the crappest crap for the romans... even Rorarii is better than them...

What battle difficulty are you playing at? Battle difficulty higher than medium gives insane attack bonuses to the A.I., thus completely throwing off units balance. This cannot be modded, unfortunately, so the recommended battle difficulty for EB is medium.

[Cute Wolf]

Medium... just place your hippeis in 2 horse deep formation, in the front of a line full of hastati, charge them, and they'll send half of the hastati flying without wings....

Hastati is only good when you face all-crap infantry line (consists of spearmen), but why bulit hastati if you can get princeps with a bit more investment and maintenence costs?

But now I solve the problem myself, I cut the hastati's wage down to 200, and now they're worhwhile troops...

[Lysimachos]

but why bulit hastati if you can get princeps with a bit more investment and maintenence costs?

Why training them? Because they were the less experienced part of the roman troops and training them is realistic and you can see that we want realism, as we are playing a realism mod. Else we wouldn't do it, would we?

By the way, I don't think Hastati are surprisingly bad. They are supposed to be worse than Principes and who would be surprised about that?

[Ludens]

Medium... just place your hippeis in 2 horse deep formation, in the front of a line full of hastati, charge them, and they'll send half of the hastati flying without wings....

In my experience, ordinary hippeis are crap chargers. Prodromoi could do this perhaps, but not hippeis, and certainly not when the hastati are standing still and bracing themselves for a charge. Sure, with repeated charges and enough patience, the hippeis will eventually rout them but not before losing a significant number of men, probably more than it costs to recruit a new unit of hastati.