EB - Questions and first thoughts

[Ksifos]

must be just you they bleed and die like all the rest you might just have to adjust a bit if they bring armoured you use rhodoi ig they bring less armoured kretai will do

remove them from italy/sicily and they´ll pay you nicely for peace (or they should)

Probably it's the fact I deal with them for the first time.And since I face their Italian units who have defeated Senatus, (thus are full experienced) they are VERY STRONG ;-)
That's the goal, throw them back where they belong, hehe.I 'll keep you posted.

fomalhaut - I am facing late era armies (I am around 210BC) so Carthage throws the best it can produce.But their stats seem a bit high, that's why I asked about overpowering their units.AFAIK Carthage was never about military tech rather than tactical power, alliances/ vassalages with locals and numbers.But maybe I am wrong since haven't studied them in detail.Can't agree more with you about the Sacred Band.Their design isn't nice.

What you said about their secondary weapon is puzzling me as of lately.For example I use a lot Thorakitai Hoplitai who have the option (controllable by the player) to switch to their makhaira.Now this mode in close fight should be quite lethal, at least for attacks aiming at the back of enemy units - but aint.I am just trying to figure our its use.But maybe again it's not deployed inside the game engine the way it should be.

[fomalhaut]

I am discussing short spear pike phalanx's in the style of Iphrikates reforms. They rarely work because they always switch to their secondary rather than staying in formation.

And well, yes historically Carthage was more about what you stated than military superiority par se, BUT! these reforms represent Carthage after learning much from Rome. So in your history, Carthage learned greatly from the SPQR it conquered and now probably has a semi professional military.

remember, only the general outline is historically accurate. everything else is up to you :-)

[Ca Putt]

atm I've got a KH campaign with a lot of roleplay ongoing but I rarely find time to play and for some reason EB is experiencing uttery regular CTDs lately :(

those high stats are probably because of the experience, but the Poeni have some nasty tricks up thier sleeves. the elite pikemen can get as annoying as AS Agyraspidai, and the other troops generelly are of good quality. personally I had some problems with elite liby-phonician Infantry(the guys with axes) as they really causes some casualties amung my epilektoi and Spartiatai :(
tho I never faced the iberian attack infantry and only small contingents of elite african infantry. after I destroyed Carthage(oh arrent we all the same) and most of their coastal centers, they started spamming Garamantian Infantry like hell.

on Carthagian Military:
well they are the rich kid on the block - not the strongest but they can pay guys to fight for them and when it comes to a firefight, they have the most expensive gun...

[Ksifos]

fomalhaut - sorry I misunderstood.Still I am puzzled why are hoplitai on sword so inefficient? Any possible thoughts?

Ca Putt - I had this funny battle where two Carthage armies (around 6000 in total) besieged fresh conquered Rhegion (next to Sicily).I had three cavalry units inside and a full stack outside, next to the city so it was me around 20' doing circles with the Prodromoi on the center square and about 2000 enemies chasing me(their VERY GOOD STAMINA proved vital) while my reinforcements initially being delayed, finally appeared on map, entered the city and after a fierce battle prevailed :-P Anyway I managed a Heroic victory but...after loading campaign map, CTD :-(( So now where to find the courage to do this again? :-P

Before I also had many CTDs but troubleshooting showed me I needed to patch the game with the units missing.Now less CTDs most after battles :-/

[Ca Putt]

arrrrrghh, now those are the most annoying! personally I often auto_win those - tho often enough I refight them as autowin often has much more causualties and almost never kills the enemy FM. but what was his army composition? full of elites? levy only or regular army? did the carthagians sent elephants against you already - In my campaign carthagians only had one unit of elephants left when I came which WAS the garrison of the westernmost settlement on sicily and I autoresolved it because I was sick of siege battles for a while^^
Yeah prodromoi are very good medium cavalry, can run around for houres, also usefull for charging!

the thing i remember best about battleing carthage was that Kyrene got attacked all the time by huge stacks(from both sides) which resulted in me garrisoning a fullstack + a avant garde made out of cavalry in/in front of it. It was a good idea to destroy the recruitment centers as that took out the feenemkin which really are dangerous when on walls. oh and the siege engines

I actually had it quitte stable a year ago, gotto look into that in more detail.

[fomalhaut]

@Ksifos its not that the hoplite swords are ineffective, but i don't want swordsmen, i want spearmen presenting a cohesive formation of spears. imagine if Macedonian Phalanx's just switched to swords instead of keeping their sarissae out! or if Hoplite Phalanx's always switched to swords like the Hypaspitai do. Use Iphrikatai Hoplitai which i know the KH can train and watch them, even in guard mode, turn into an unorganized mass.



MAN! fighting elephants is soooo fun. Carthage sent two units of them, i had my Peltasts hidden in the grass with auto fire off, they were hidden behind my line of Phalanx and Egyptian Swordsmen. As soon as the Elephants got to the point where even if they ran away they would still get shot, my peltasts appeared from the grass and absolutely destroyed both units! what was left rampaged through the Carthaginian lines while i laughed.

These were elite level (2 silver chevrons) peltasts though, they were auxilaries in Legio I which had experienced a lot of battles. i transferred them to another army since its nice to have experienced units help with a fresh army of regionals (Machimoi and Ethopians)

[Ksifos]

Ca Putt - Well consider me a masochist, but vital battles I am willing to replay and this one is such, hehe.The Carthage bring those poeni elite spearmen (many), elite heavy cavalry, elite pikemen and sacred band (few).And these guys are all veterans, meaning couple of bronze or silver chevrons.They die HARD! I only found one elephant unit as a garrison and ...take notice: I attacked with 1200 men vs 2(!) elephants and lost 216 men, lol (autoresolved).

Athanaric - The Hoplitai when attacked the enemy mainly used their push from behind tactic.Meaning their 'weight' as a unit was pushing the enemy line backwards.The front line of the phalanx was using mostly the sword because they were "in touch" with the enemy.Pushing with the Hoplon (shield) and stubbing with the Xiphos /Kopis (Spartans).I guess you already know these but it's actually unrealistic that Hoplites are so inefficient with the sword.I know the engine has limits still a better value in attack (0,11 is like archer's dagger) maybe would be fairer.I am not complaining just my opinion ;-)

Fomalhaut - Macedonian phalanx was a lot different than the Hoplitai phalanx.The first one was looking to keep the distance, while the latter wanted to come in touch with the enemy.So in the macedonian case yes the sword and the shield were secondary.But in the hoplitai case, both the hoplon and the xiphos were important items in their tactics.Don't get me wrong I do not intend to get into historical arguments with you.It's just I feel something is missing :-)
Didn't confront Elephants in the open yet and to be honest I had my doubts of how easy or hard would be to deal with them.Plain peltasts you say? That is good.Really good! :-)

Anyone of you in KH campaign or having a save with a big progress.I would like to have a clue where my limits should be, if any, haha.

[athanaric]

fomalhaut - I am facing late era armies (I am around 210BC) so Carthage throws the best it can produce.But their stats seem a bit high, that's why I asked about overpowering their units.AFAIK Carthage was never about military tech rather than tactical power, alliances/ vassalages with locals and numbers.But maybe I am wrong since haven't studied them in detail.Can't agree more with you about the Sacred Band.Their design isn't nice.

In the game, Carthage AI, like any other factions, spams elites. Especially those pikemen which make it steamroll Rome. Extremely annoying.

What you said about their secondary weapon is puzzling me as of lately.For example I use a lot Thorakitai Hoplitai who have the option (controllable by the player) to switch to their makhaira.Now this mode in close fight should be quite lethal, at least for attacks aiming at the back of enemy units - but aint.I am just trying to figure our its use.But maybe again it's not deployed inside the game engine the way it should be.

The Kopis/Falcata/Makhaira weapon has inferior lethality in EB, which is somewhat balanced by an AP trait. This means that Thorakitai Hoplitai should only really switch to their swords when facing heavy infantry such as Classical Hoplites or elite units. Sometimes they can be advantageous versus heavy cavalry (especially cataphracts) too, but the spear has a higher lethality and a decidedly higher attack vs cavalry.
The lethality scale of swords in EB is:
- "crap sword" (short sword of cheap units, sometimes even heavier units such as certain swordsmen around the Caucasus) 0.1 - high attack
- Kopis/Falcata/Makhaira 0.11 - always AP, high attack
- "quality short sword" (e.g. Gladius, Xiphos) 0.13 - high attack
- "long sword" (usually wielded by elites or "Barbarian" swordsmen) 0.225 - medium to high attack value
- common falx 0.26 - always AP
- heavy, two-handed sword or Rhomphaia 0.385 - always AP

Peltastai and Iphikratous Hoplitai have a 0.13 lethality sword. Same for Indohellenic Hoplites.