Bruttian Infantry cost vs Samnite Spearmen cost

**applebreath** · 11-03-2009, 03:08

I'm playing a mod, which has many mods.

I noticed that Bruttian Infantry cost more than Samnite Spearmen. Both in upkeep and buying cost. But the stats of the Spearmen are better than the Infantry stats. So why would the Spearmen cost more? If this is the way it should be, what is the reasoning for it?

-Apple

**retep219** · 11-03-2009, 04:09

Probably it's the fact that the sword of the Bruttian Infantry causes them to have a lower attack stat (because spears have penalties in attack when fighting infantry) than the Samnites, when their prowess is actually similar. Although, when looking at the EDU entries, there actually isn't much of a difference besides the sword/spear. Samnites have higher armour/defence skill and only a slightly worse shield, as well as the same morale/stamina. It might just be that Samnites are most efficient costwise, although there are many instances in which one may prefer the Bruttian's AP javelins and swords to the Samnite's regular javelins and spears, especially in a Hellinistic army that is already too spear-heavy.

**antisocialmunky** · 11-03-2009, 04:54

I think there was a thread on the center that talked about how the Bruttian stats are somewhat borked and Watchman suggested some tweaks.

**seienchin** · 11-03-2009, 10:39

Yeah, but bruttian arent the worst.
The pontos thorakitai and the germanic heavy infantry (Costing 5000 in multiplayer) are useless...

**applebreath** · 11-03-2009, 12:51

I'm playing with the 1.2 mini-mod 3.1 (with some other mods). The mini mod has the following mod in it, https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=102115. It basically doesn't let you recruit Romans anywhere but in ROMA until the first reform. In the descript of that mod it says you can think of the Bruttians to be like the Hastati and the Samnites to be the the Priciples. The stats reflect this. Attack, defense, and moral is higher for the Samnites (by a decent amount). But the cost is 1487/372 for the Bruttians and 1262/316 for the Samnites, so I figured that had to be an error.

I can't think of a mod that would have changed these stats, so I'm at a loss as to why the stats are like that and what should they be.

Maybe retep219 has the right reason, but our EDUs seem to be different.

**WarpGhost** · 11-03-2009, 23:25

The Samnite/Bruttian costs would be ok, if it werent for the problem with how the EB team set up spearmen; as they stand, spearmen are much better than swordsmen, because the -4 attack penalty against other infantry is completely offset by the team giving all spearmen +4 attack compared to equivilant swordsmen! What really seals it is that spearmen have higher lethality than many swordsmen too (0.125-1.3 versus a large proportion at only 0.1).

There are a couple of discussion threads around, and 1 guy did create a mini-mod that rectifies it. It goes a long way towards making swordsmen competitive (without compromising spears effectiveness against cavalry).

**seienchin** · 11-04-2009, 00:35

Originally Posted by applebreath

I'm playing with the 1.2 mini-mod 3.1 (with some other mods). The mini mod has the following mod in it, https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=102115. It basically doesn't let you recruit Romans anywhere but in ROMA until the first reform. In the descript of that mod it says you can think of the Bruttians to be like the Hastati and the Samnites to be the the Priciples. The stats reflect this. Attack, defense, and moral is higher for the Samnites (by a decent amount). But the cost is 1487/372 for the Bruttians and 1262/316 for the Samnites, so I figured that had to be an error.

I can't think of a mod that would have changed these stats, so I'm at a loss as to why the stats are like that and what should they be.

Maybe retep219 has the right reason, but our EDUs seem to be different.

No I think you got it wrong...

The Samnite Spearmen are called samniti hastati for a reason. They are Hastati. The equivalent to the principes are the samnite heavy swordsman.

@Above me
Sword fighters still atack faster and are better on walls. But yes they are a little bit to mediocre against spearmen. I mean with a sword you can just cut of the spears of the enemies. I read something about the romans cutting of the front of the sarissa making them less usefull. Also in close quarter combat its easier to use a sword than a spear.

But as mentioned above, just try the germanic heavy warriors and Pontos Thorakitai and you know that something went wrong there.