umm...

[antisocialmunky]

Lol, I remember the time in EB .8 where my sphendontai mowed down half a unit of Prodromoi before it charged the slingers and were routed by the last point blank volley.

[Kromulan]

Hmm. . . I don't use slingers much. I may hire 1~2 as mercs during a campaign (except as Saba... who NEED them). This is mostly because my uneducated opinion is that they're too powerful.

Also, the lethality of charge cavalry in ancient battles was VERY dependent on circumstances. A charge into the rear of an engaged levy infantry was absolutely devastating. Frontal charges on prepared and disciplined infantry was suicide. The change I would make would be to give 2 different charge ratings: 1 very high (like we have in EB) for rear or flanking charges and 1 much lower for frontal charges. I doubt this is possible within the game engine.

As to the "units need to be more mortal", I disagree. I think all units should have their defense raised and attacks should stay where they are. Even with the relative nerfing EB gave everything but the missiles via the lethality changes, units still die too quickly. Ancient battles were not decided by which side killed more of the enemy, they were decided by which side's morale broke. It was only AFTER one side broke and ran that the killing would begin in earnest. Therefore, EB's approach of trying to decrease the kill rates in battles is the correct approach (imo).

[Cyrus]

I kinda agree with Vuk, on that missiles in general are greatly underpowered, at least for the human player, just a few days ago i tested this theory and had 2 alpine shortswordsmen fight each other, they trew their volleys and while mine killed 10 his killed 50!!!!!!!!!!! That was repeated with 2 thureophoroi, and ,while with less losses due to armor i still lost three times more that the AI.
P.S. the conditions were equal for both units, flat terrein, m difficulty and launching of spears commenced at ruffly the same second........

[cmacq]

Indeed the AI is not fair, and neither am I, so as fare for my time, I hereby dub this Vuk...

'Sling-Lord.'




CmacQ

[A Very Super Market]

When you fire javelins at the same time, you leave yourself open for attack if you are late, and they get some time to pull up their shields

Ad vice versa if you're early.

[HunGeneral]

Well I am by no means a specialist of ancient weapons. And I have no reliable sources or any real life experience on the effectivenis of such weapons - (maybe just a little with composite bows and I think in EB they are far from being underpowered).

My statement is mostly based on my experience with EB - I'm not sure wether missile troops are underpowered - it depends alot on circumstances. I also think that a unit of skirmishers kills more than 10 people per volley expecially if they are unarmored - in theory armored units should suffer about as many casualities unless they have shields (most armored troops do have them)

I also believe shields to be a quite strong defense against missiles - if Peltastai or any javelin throwing unit trows them at a steady unit of men with shields then they won't cause much damage. Same goes for archers and slingers. The picture however changes alot when they trow the javelins at the rear or side of the formation...

Conserning cavalry - I don't think there too strong - like sad earlier charging them in a line of prepared spearmen (even if light infantry) is not a good idea. If that happens then they most likely will suffer more casualities then they can cause.

Still I can't be sure how close this is to historical accuracy.

A few things which might unbalance testing and should be mentioned: like sad before the difficulty level EB has been made to be played on is Medium - because any other dififculty would give a large advantige to either side and woul upset balance.

- In campaign: the number of command stars a general has can give many bonuses to the abilities of their troops. The AI usually has more stars then your generals will get - this is ment to give the AI a chance of an equal fight against you (since the battle AI can make lots of nonsense).

Vuk. I think you should take this into consideration when testing troop performance - I'm not suspecting you don't know of these but since you haven't confirmed or denied this in your earlier posts I can't know for sure.
In no way am I atempting to insult you or doubt your knowledge. I'm just stating my thoughts.

[Cultured Drizzt fan]

I am not sure I understand your point Vuk, you say that slingers are not being given their historical role on the battlefield. but in all honesty slingers [to my limited understanding] were very rarely given a true role in a battle, there is a reason that slings are almost never mentioned in battle accounts. they just werent used enmass and used like other traditional units. slingers were mostly treated the same as skirmishers and most of the time had very little equipment. so realy EB has over emphasized slingers as a combat unit. I am not saying that slings arent powerful, I know they are and have had the chance to see its power first hand by someone who has used it for a long time. what I am saying is that in the battlefields of antiquity most often slingers were not treated as some super deadly elite missle corps, but as a irritant to the enemy [I may be wrong, as I said I am no expert, though I wish I was]

[bobbin]

If you feel the slingers are too weak try tightening up their formation in the EDU, this makes them a LOT more powerful, as i recall the EB team losened their formation a while ago as many people felt that they were overpowered.

As for the cavalry i feel EB is spot on, a frontal charge into braced spearmen will be ineffective while charging swordmen will cause more causalties while charges to rear and flanks will result in a massacare.

[Vuk]

I like how Vuk posts a few times, and then never comes back to this thread.

Pardon me for getting some sleep, I will be sure to stay awake all night at your pleasure next time.

I have not read all the post since I last posted here, but from what I have glancing over:
I am playing on the hard difficulty.
Slinger's roles on a battle field were in the back (usually on a slope) in a very loose formation. They usually were NOT skirmishers, as the main army would keep the enemy away from them. They were not some elite unit for the reasons aforementioned, and esp since they did little more than harras units with shields. They were also used a lot to defend walls. When I talked about roles though (as you will see if you reread my post), I was referring to the capabilities and roles of many units, not just slingers.
Also, as I have said many times before, those things are not hard coded in. By changing text files (with a little creativity) it is possible to represent units in a much more realistic light. First of all, the # of slingers would be lower to a unit. Slingers were often used enmass in the ancient world, but if you look at the musters in the Bible, the size of the specific units of slingers compared to infantry that were raised from the Tribes of Israel were quite small. (plus, regardless to say, there were many more units of infantry) And Israelites at this time were a shepherd people. 'Units' of slingers were drawn from individual families/tribes, and so were not very big. Also, I think that a bigger distinction needs to be made between professional and nonprofessional slingers, AND that the shield factor needs to be higher. I am sick of saying this, and I am making my own rebalance, so I am not gonna check this thread much/at all until I complete it.
Sorry, I do not mean to be arrogant, but I am doing no good arguing with the whole community over something they all believe. It is not like an intelligent twoway conversation, it is a fifty way conversation with two sides. That said, bye.