How effective was the Pilum?

[The General]

Longbows didn't exist back then, at least not outside of India (I think). Anywho, the effectiveness of an arrow is dependent on mass and force. The Longbow has a massive, actually heavy arrow and alot of force and velocity, which explains why it was so effective against armor. The composite bow's arrow is not nearly as big, but it tends to make up for that in it's snap force.

Arrows and bolts tend to relatively light, especially when compared to javelins, and the main difference in the lethality between is the force driving them forward. Western bows tended to be shortbows, but longbows, crossbows and composite bows allow the archer to shoot the arrow with more force - which is why longbow arrows and crossbow bolts can penetrate armor.

I wasn't much thinking about the eastern scheme of things, but the west had fairly shitty archers and bows in general. The composite bow was a good deal better than predecessors, but at the same time, if it was so good, why didn't every soldier carry one?

Bow was the weapon in the east. Massed archery was practised by peoples like Persians and Chinese, and horse archery was the primary form of combat in the steppes.

However, combined arms tactics defeeat single-arms tactics. Horse archers are vulnerable to archers, archers are vulnerable to cavalry, which is vulnerably to spearmen...

And remember, it took ALL DAY for the Phalavans to defeat the Romans at Carrahae with volleys of arrows, where as in the Pelopenisan War, Spartan hoplites took on a number of Athenian peltasts and Javelineers on a certain island (can't remember ther name) off the southern coast of greece, and were defeated in several hours, then finished off later. The spartans were heavily armed and armored, but javelins clearly helped get around that.

There somewhere between 50,000 and 60,000 soldiers in the Battle of Carrhae.

In the Battle of Yarmuk, there were somewhere between 100,000 and 150,000 soldiers and the "battle" took six days to resolve...

As for the psychological edge, its difficult to represent that in RTW, but yes, it's really frustrating and irritating, and probably frightening, to not be able to fight back. But still, javelins still have the potential to cause a hell of a lot for damage than one or two casualties.

Missiles do cause morale damage - as do the casualties caused by them.

Note that I'm not arguing that javelins are bad - I just don't they suck in-game. A few hundred javelins cause a few dozen casualties (I'm playing on Huge settings).

In my opinion, one the simplest ways to make javelins more effective should be removing - or halving the shield bonus against javelins from front because of the fact that while the shield might save the life of the one carrying it, he'd lose his shield and be at a great disadvantage in melee (especially against someone with a large shield and a short sword...). However, the R:TW is incapable of that, just as it is incapable of depicting invidual soldiers losing their shields. Increasing the attack value raises casualties caused by everyone, from all directions.

Mnergh, it's been some time since I fought a battle as Romans, but I just can't recall that I would've had any particular problem with my javelins... Might be my memory, though.