EB - Questions and first thoughts

[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]

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.

Hoplon actually means weapon, not shield. That said, their spear is their more characteristic and more important weapon, so the team decided to just leave the sword out except for some hoplite units who were more likely to use their swords.

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 ;-)

A dagger actually has 0.04, which is far worse. Nonetheless these curved swords are underpowered and one should probably increase their lethality by a few points to 0.12 (like Thracian sabres) or even higher. The thing is, this weapon is really common in EB and you would be spending a lot of time changing the stats of hundreds of units in your EDU.

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! :-)

Javelineers of any kind is what really kills elephants in EB. Mounted skirmishers, like Dahae or Cantabrian skrimishers, are especially effective.
Don't bother with archers, unless there is a chance they can make them run amok with fire. Arrows won't kill elephants. Siege engines OTOH, like Scorpions, can one-shot elephants even at a long distance, but they aren't cost-efficient (costing even more than elephants...).