New unit balancing

[seienchin]

After reading and posting in a lot of threads, which discussed the unit balancing and what people really annoyed about the Original EB, I thought about making this small adjustments to the EB export_descr?_unit file. It really changes the experience and there are still a lot of improvements to make and I would be really happy to get a lot of feedback about this.

Here is the link to the file
http://www.filefront.com/14463831/export_descr_unit.txt

Just copy it in the data folder of EB and in the sp game edu backup. After making a copy of your old file of course.

Changes:
Phalangitai have now less man and less shieldvalue. But their spears have higher lethality rates. Making them deadlier from the front, but easier to kill, esspecially wirh javelinnes. Expect your levy phalangitai to die really fast because of their lack of armour.
Skirmisher cavallery has more attack power(light cavallery, +2,middle +4) and ap weapons, making them deadly from behind and at least stronger than normal infantry from the front.
I reduced the cost and upkeep of ships, elefants and siege artillery around 50% making them apear much more often in the campain.
I also altered the stats of some units which were useless by now, like spartians or the pontian thorakitai (They are elite now!).
Enjoy and tell your friends.

PS: My EB Version is the Alex version, with legion names, but it should work with other versions too.

[Mediolanicus]

Comments on the changes:
- Phalangitai
--> Less men?? I don't really agree with that. You can only play on huge than or you won't even a phalanx...
--> reduced shield value. I agree, it is a tad too high.
--> Increased lethality. The Phalanx is a defensive formation so I don't know if that's a good idea.
--> They certainly should be easier to kill with missiles, but staying power was their main strength in battle.

- Skirmisher Cav
I won a Heroic battle in my Epirote campaign today against the Romans. I didn't chase any of the routing units - the Romans still had ~850units left at the end.
My main killers were:
1unit of experienced Cretan archers : 203 kills - 3 casualties
1unit of experienced Molloson Agema : 226 kills - 5 casualties
1unit of experienced Indian Elephants: 140-160 kills - 6 casualties
1unit of freshly trained Hippokontistai : 410-440 kills - 24-26 casualties
Okay, they had support from Tarantine Cav against the accensi and infantry support against the Rorarii, but still, the skirmishes cav can be real battle winners without your improvements.

- the cost and upkeep
--> This I will try. Although I see elephants and seige equipment quite a lot in my campaigns. The seas are empty though, even with reduced pirate spawn values.

- Spartans and Pontic Thorakitai
--> The Spartans already were elite and the best hoplite in the game together with the KH bodyguards. Sure they can be beaten by more "modern" elites, but Sparta was on its way back.
--> The Pontic Thorakitai could use a boost indeed.
--> What I did, was reducing the attack values of all spear units with 4 points and those of the Phalangitai with 5. The result is that spear armed units still preform great (my levy hoplites, samnite hastati and phalangitai still kill everything) AND sword armed infantry like the Bruttian infantry and the Pontic Thorakitai now preform better!

Looks like a good unit balance, except for the skirmisher cavalry - which already can make their kills, but should have any real staying power in melee IMO - and uber-eliting the Spartiatai, which IMO is only good for Sparta-fans and not for unit balancing.

[seienchin]

The Phalangitai are still as big as a post marian roman cohort. Trust me it works.
I have to disagree on the phalanx beeing a defensive formation. It was not. It was a wall of spears marching forward and pulling and killing the enemies. But dont worry they are still not killing machines. Just a little bit more dangerous. Before you could just pin the phalanx with really crappy infantry on guard mode. That didnt work in really as the wars of alexander showed!! Please keep that in mind.
It was also a debatte in the forum to make Phalangitai more frightening to the enemy. By making them kill more men per second they defintly have a bigger impact on the morale of the enemy

Of course skirmisher cavallery gets a lot of kills. But this is because of they can haunt down fleeing enemies so could. But their fighting value is really low. Esspeccialy in the east horse archers are way more usefull. I now made them a little bit more usefull.
I mean a man throwing a javelinne is at least more dangerous than a man running on foot throwing a javelline.

And dont get me wrong, I didnt make the spartans or the thorakitai much better. Just a little bit. Its a nuance.
My main focus was on skirmisher cavallery, new costs for the ships, elefants etc. and of course the phalanx. Give it a try