Advice need - 15 questions

[Jurand]

Ave EB Veterans,

First – kudos for the EB Team for your work. I find EB as the most impressive mod ever. I really appreciate that you stick to history – the more accurate it is, the better. I especially like the govt concept and all the buildings. I am excited about EB2 and keeping my fingers crossed for you to have time and dedication to make this mode come true .

Second, I have some questions. I have read the FAQs and guides, so they I hope my questions are not trivial. In case they are I will be grateful if you can give me a link where I can read about these issues .

1. Cavalry charge:
1.1. I have read that “follow through matters the most” - what does it mean? Is it “run through” –you click not on the enemy unit, but behind it, or you make another charge with another unit. In the latter case: should I withdraw the first unit and then charge, or should I lead another charge into the group of fighting people (i.e. into the back of my first unit)?
1.2. How quickly does the “charge bonus” dissipate? 5 seconds?

2. Friendly fire
2.1. How far behind my own troops should the archers be positioned so that they don’t shoot at the back of their comrades?
2.2. Is there a difference between slingers and archers as far as above distances are concerned? (maybe sling shots have more parabolic trajectory, so the distance is smaller?)
2.3. If the archers are put at „Fire at will” mode and a friendly unit is approaching their target, will they change shooting to another target, or they will shoot their fellow unit?

3. Units’ features
3.1. What does the feature „training” do? Is a “highly-trained” unit more likely stand in formation? Or does it move faster?
3.2. How does the cohesion of a unit influence the fighting? F.i. are the loosely formed units more likely to lose morale?
3.3. How deep should a unit’s formation be – for instance for Hoplitai: 4 ranks, 6 ranks? I have read that for the archers to shoot the best is 3 ranks.

4. Hiding in the woods
4.1. Assume that my units hide in a wood and I want them to go through the woods to encircle the AI troops. Will the AI spot this move instantly, or only from a close distance? Does it differ for cavalry and infantry?

5. Sieges
5.1. Why should you bother to build walls in your cites? You will not use them and they are expensive. My experience tells me that it is always better to fight in the open terrain than allow the enemy to put up a siege.
• First, the walls don’t add much – you can approach walls with little loses and AI is very good at doing it. The siege equipment is also very good, no problems going up the walls.
• Second, you cannot maneuver in the city – AI is very steady at storming the city, difficult for it to make serious mistakes.
• Third, your archers and skirmishers do little damage even if you put them at the walls.
• Forth, leaving a city for fight put you in a difficult position for maneuvering.
5.2. Related question: I always storm a city as soon as possibile (if a spy opens the gates – immediately, if not – I wait just one season). What are the benefits of waiting, but the (minor) loses for the defender which accrue in the meantime? (of course, sometimes you are afraid of the enemy inside (elephants?), so you’d like him to go out of the city and fight in the open).

6. Cities
6.1. Government bonuses: Where can I read what are the benefits of different govt buildings? In this thread somebody presented SPQR/Seboz/Makedon – where can I find this data?
6.2. Where can I read about relationships: loyalty <> public order <> happiness?
6.3. Population and income. I could not discern a link either between population and farming income, or population and tax income. It seems to me that the cities have a defined numbers and you can increase this income only through buildings. As far as trade is concerned – I also see very tenuous relationship. Am I right?
6.4. In general: I would expect higher differences in income between large cities and small town. In one game, my Ptolemai have Alexandria of 20K size and Paraitonion of 2K size, but the income (both very high taxes, Alex has some income-improving buildings) are 3,4K and 1K minnai, respectively. I find this difference too small, economies of scale should exist.

7. Other
7.1. Assassins: does anybody use them? They are extremely cost-unefficient – high upkeep, and very low chances to kill anybody. Of course, you can train them on enemy captains, but until they get some experience you will pump a lot of money in them. Waste of money, better to put up an army.
7.2. Autobattles: I like the concept “you have brain, the computer gets stars” for FMs. But in this case a human player cannot resort to auto-battles, since he always looses or suffer such loses that even a small battle can change the balance (I play VH/H – I find myself always striving to get any surplus). But at some point there are so many battles (f.i. when Ptolemai fights AS) that you’d like to resort to autocalculations for some of them. Do you know if somebody made a mini-mod which supports human players in auto-battles?

Thanks in advance for the answers

[athanaric]

1. Cavalry charge:
1.1. I have read that “follow through matters the most” - what does it mean? Is it “run through” –you click not on the enemy unit, but behind it, or you make another charge with another unit. In the latter case: should I withdraw the first unit and then charge, or should I lead another charge into the group of fighting people (i.e. into the back of my first unit)?

It means that you should attack units that are standing still or marching slowly, and choose a direct way, i.e. your cavalry unit should be facing the targeted unit before you order the charge.
Under no circumstances should you order them to "run through" the enemy unit. Not only is this considered cheating in multiplayer mode, but it is also suicidal. Only chariots and elephants can realistically run through enemy units and still inflict damage - though they have a nasty habit of getting stuck in a blob of infantry and getting cut to quivering shreds.

2. Friendly fire
2.1. How far behind my own troops should the archers be positioned so that they don’t shoot at the back of their comrades?
2.2. Is there a difference between slingers and archers as far as above distances are concerned? (maybe sling shots have more parabolic trajectory, so the distance is smaller?)

Archers should be placed a few metres behind friendly troops, and should cease firing if the target approaches your line.
Slingers logically have a flatter trajectory and should not be placed behind your line at all.

2.3. If the archers are put at „Fire at will” mode and a friendly unit is approaching their target, will they change shooting to another target, or they will shoot their fellow unit?

They will cease firing at an enemy unit that is engaged in melee with one of your units, unless specifically ordered not to.

3. Units’ features
3.1. What does the feature „training” do? Is a “highly-trained” unit more likely stand in formation? Or does it move faster?

AFAIK they will lose morale at a slower rate.

3.3. How deep should a unit’s formation be – for instance for Hoplitai: 4 ranks, 6 ranks? I have read that for the archers to shoot the best is 3 ranks.

The archer part seems to be true. With melee units, it depends on the situation. Your ranks should be deep when facing a cavalry-heavy opponent, so as to better withstand charges from any side.

5. Sieges
5.1. Why should you bother to build walls in your cites? You will not use them and they are expensive. My experience tells me that it is always better to fight in the open terrain than allow the enemy to put up a siege.

Walls can help with countering cultural maluses or low public order. Also, the enemy might launch a surprise attack where you don't expect them. In which case stone walls are very practical.

• First, the walls don’t add much – you can approach walls with little loses and AI is very good at doing it. The siege equipment is also very good, no problems going up the walls.

Not true. In my games, the AI regularly gets shot to pieces when attacking stone walls. You can defend walled cities with just a handful of archers and other infantry against vastly superior AI forces.

• Second, you cannot maneuver in the city – AI is very steady at storming the city, difficult for it to make serious mistakes.

City fighting is bugged as hell, that's right. The AI makes a lot of mistakes though.

• Third, your archers and skirmishers do little damage even if you put them at the walls.

Not true, see above. Archers and other missile troops on walls can brutally decimate enemy troops. You need to put them on guard mode and then individually select targets that are in range.

5.2. Related question: I always storm a city as soon as possibile (if a spy opens the gates – immediately, if not – I wait just one season). What are the benefits of waiting, but the (minor) loses for the defender which accrue in the meantime? (of course, sometimes you are afraid of the enemy inside (elephants?), so you’d like him to go out of the city and fight in the open).

Storming a city always costs you more lives, unless the garrison is very small and can be destroyed by missile troops that are out of range of the defensive systems.

6.4. In general: I would expect higher differences in income between large cities and small town. In one game, my Ptolemai have Alexandria of 20K size and Paraitonion of 2K size, but the income (both very high taxes, Alex has some income-improving buildings) are 3,4K and 1K minnai, respectively. I find this difference too small, economies of scale should exist.

To figure out the real income of the city, look at the income tab in the city details. The numbers displayed on the strat map are sometimes misleading.

7. Other
7.1. Assassins: does anybody use them? They are extremely cost-unefficient – high upkeep, and very low chances to kill anybody. Of course, you can train them on enemy captains, but until they get some experience you will pump a lot of money in them. Waste of money, better to put up an army.

I use assassins to counter enemy assassins (they always try to kill your governors if they don't have an army nearby) and spies that might cause unrest in your cities. Also, diplomats that are trying to bribe my troops. Sometimes enemy generals that have fled from a battle and left their infantry as a roadblock for pursuing troops. Sometimes I destroy enemy barracks so as to deter them from spamming troops. I don't assassinate governors though because that's gay.
All in all, assassins are worth the expense, though not in all situations.

7.2. Autobattles: I like the concept “you have brain, the computer gets stars” for FMs. But in this case a human player cannot resort to auto-battles, since he always looses or suffer such loses that even a small battle can change the balance (I play VH/H – I find myself always striving to get any surplus). But at some point there are so many battles (f.i. when Ptolemai fights AS) that you’d like to resort to autocalculations for some of them. Do you know if somebody made a mini-mod which supports human players in auto-battles?

You should set battle difficulty to medium, otherwise your game is unbalanced. That said, only some units can reasonably be used for autoresolve, especially phalanx pikemen and heavy cavalry FMs.

[TheLastDays]

The above post explains most of your questions very well, just a few clarifications:

Town income:
The numbers you see displayed under the town model on the strategy map relly are misleading, because not only is income of bigger towns naturally higher but military upkeep is scaled to city size.
That means a huge city will pay for a significantly larger amount of your forces and this is measured into the stratmap numbers you see.

A very much simplified example:
Town A has size 10 and income 1000, since it has only size 10, it pays 50 for your regular troop upkeep
Your largest town, town B, has size 1000 and income 10000, nut since it is your biggest town, it pays for the majority of your forces, so let's say it pays 9.500 per turn
1000-50=950
10000-9.500=500
Stratmap Numbers: Town A: 950, Town B: 500
So sometimes in this engine it looks like a bigger town even has less income than a small town but in fact that's not the case

Battle Difficulty:
Unfortunately auto-resolve is governed by campaign difficulty not battle difficulty and therefore is rarely a good solution when playing on VH

[Jurand]

Thanks a lot for this info, athanaric and TheLastDays - it helps

I might have been not clear enough, so just some more words:

Cities’ income: I knew that the number under the town model on the strategy map misleading and I didn’t mean it. I meant the numbers you can see in the city scroll – trade, taxes, mining. If you look at them the income of a big city is still very small compared to the income of a small town.
What I am relly interested in is: what is (if any) the link between
• population and farming income
• population and tax income
• population and trade
or cities have defined numbers for above and you can increase it only through buildings?

Some outstanding questions – maybe somebody other will know:
1.2 Cavalry charge: How quickly does the “charge bonus” dissipate - 5 seconds? Ergo: when should I order a unit to withdraw after the charge? Or maybe I can see some graphical effects?
2.2 Friendly fire: so you never put slingers behind a line of infantry? You put them in front?
4.1 Hiding in the woods: Assume that my units hide in a wood and I want them to go through the woods to encircle the AI troops. Will the AI spot this move instantly, or only from a close distance? Does it differ for cavalry and infantry?
6.1. Government bonuses: Where can I read what are the benefits of different govt buildings? In this thread somebody presented SPQR/Seboz/Makedon – where can I find this data?
6.2. Where can I read about relationships: loyalty <> public order <> happiness?

[vollorix]

Government bonuses, as all other buildings features, can be found in EDB ( export_describe_buildings.text ).

[Taedius]

1.2: The number I've seen is 5-10 seconds, to ensure that every horse has stopped charging.
2.2: Yes, slingers should not have friendly units in front of them when shooting.
4.1: Only units that are sitting still are hiding. Once they move, they're spotted. If you can get them behind hills, it's a different story (at least enemies behind hills tend to be invisible to me), but that's not an option on most maps. Too few hills around.

Edit: For more info the cavalry charge, and the use of cavalry in general, see Ibrahims excellent guide:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...-using-cavalry..

[TheLastDays]

Thanks a lot for this info, athanaric and TheLastDays - it helps

I might have been not clear enough, so just some more words:

Cities’ income: I knew that the number under the town model on the strategy map misleading and I didn’t mean it. I meant the numbers you can see in the city scroll – trade, taxes, mining. If you look at them the income of a big city is still very small compared to the income of a small town.
What I am relly interested in is: what is (if any) the link between
• population and farming income
• population and tax income
• population and trade
or cities have defined numbers for above and you can increase it only through buildings?

Some outstanding questions – maybe somebody other will know:
1.2 Cavalry charge: How quickly does the “charge bonus” dissipate - 5 seconds? Ergo: when should I order a unit to withdraw after the charge? Or maybe I can see some graphical effects?
2.2 Friendly fire: so you never put slingers behind a line of infantry? You put them in front?
4.1 Hiding in the woods: Assume that my units hide in a wood and I want them to go through the woods to encircle the AI troops. Will the AI spot this move instantly, or only from a close distance? Does it differ for cavalry and infantry?
6.1. Government bonuses: Where can I read what are the benefits of different govt buildings? In this thread somebody presented SPQR/Seboz/Makedon – where can I find this data?
6.2. Where can I read about relationships: loyalty <> public order <> happiness?

1.2 Yes, it's 5-10 seconds and you can see it in the tooltip that you get by hovering your cursor over the unit, while they charge it says "Charging"
2.2 yes, put them in the front, "Fire at will" off when you move them back to safety... then you can move them out later again to flank and shoot the opponent's units in the back
4.1 already answered ;)
6.2. Public order is the overall attribute that describes how "orderly" your towns are. If it's too low you'll have a revolt on your hands.
Public Order consists of a number of different factors: Happiness, Law, Repression (garrisoned forces) all add to Public Order while Unrest, Squalor, Culture Penalty reduce Public Order
So... you could have a town that's very unhappy by whatever reason but it could still be "orderly" because you maxed out a lot of "Law"-Buldings or your governor has a bunch of law-increasing traits/ancillaries...

The effect of the whole maths is, that some Public Order buildings only work in certain situations...
For example public health reduces squalor... so if you have a big town that has a massive amount of squalor this will decrease public order. Bulding sewers will then raise public health, reducing squalor and thus raising public order.
In a town that has no squalor (too small, a lot of public health stuff alredy built and recently upgraded governors building), building the same sewers won't have an effect on public order.
An ancillary that reduces unrest will only help in a town where unrest is the problem, not in an overcrowded one, where squalor is likely the problem.
Happiness always works, as it just raises public order ;)

Now I'm not sure what you mean by loyalty. The stat system of generals in the RTW engine doesn't have it but it has traits for loyal and disloyal characters that will, for example, raise or lower their cost to being bribed

[Ludens]

Loyalty is mentioned as a building-effect of certain temples, but it doesn't seem to do anything.

[Rahl]

For example public health reduces squalor... so if you have a big town that has a massive amount of squalor this will decrease public order. Bulding sewers will then raise public health, reducing squalor and thus raising public order.

Health does not reduce the squalor level, it will stay the same. What it does is giving +0.5% population growth and 5% public order. That means on the long run public health does not help raising public order, because for every point in population growth, you will get one squalor level that reduces public order. Though on the short term it will help the public order and since the 3rd level gives law a bonus and health reduces the chances of plague it's never bad to build some aquaeducts and baths.

[vollorix]

It´s just my observation, and i haven´t undertaken long time studies, actually, but the loyality feature seems to affect two things:
1. Your "disloyal" generals tend to become "treacherous" quite fast; if such a general is in a town with some kind of loyality building ( temples, mostly ) this will slow down this effect
2. Sons coming of age tend to be rather loyal in their primary characteristics, and i think the adopted generals do, too.

[TheLastDays]

Health does not reduce the squalor level, it will stay the same. What it does is giving +0.5% population growth and 5% public order. That means on the long run public health does not help raising public order, because for every point in population growth, you will get one squalor level that reduces public order. Though on the short term it will help the public order and since the 3rd level gives law a bonus and health reduces the chances of plague it's never bad to build some aquaeducts and baths.

Yeah the big problem is the increase in pop growth. That's why public health is a very short term solution, I should have probably pointed that out... The problem is that in the short term it may raise public order but +0.5% pop growth will translate into more and more citizens, even more when the town is already huge, and that'll just increase squalor later on by even more, so I try to avoid the public health buildings... the problem with that is plagues... although sometimes a plague will actually help keeping pop levels down ;)

[Ludens]

It´s just my observation, and i haven´t undertaken long time studies, actually, but the loyality feature seems to affect two things:
1. Your "disloyal" generals tend to become "treacherous" quite fast; if such a general is in a town with some kind of loyality building ( temples, mostly ) this will slow down this effect
2. Sons coming of age tend to be rather loyal in their primary characteristics, and i think the adopted generals do, too.

Interesting, I didn't know that. It's probably not the result of the loyalty-bonus, though. The triggers that modify character traits respond to the buildings themselves, not their effects. The team must have added a loyalty-boosting trigger for these temples.

[vollorix]

Well, in vanilla, Eb or any other mod, if my memory serves me right, children coming of age in settlements with even the slightest sign of corrupion ( insuffitient law ) tend to become flexible, financially irregular etc. This is not absolute, of course, but i always try to let them come of age somewhere in the core provinces. Also ( the turn before the birth ):
- retraining/training of units often causes superstitious trait
- if a temple is beeing built in the settlement, the young man will almost for sure become some religious trait ( reverent, devot )
- buildng an academy lead oft to atheistic traits ( especially if the temple in the town doesn´t match the town size )
- when enough public health buildings are present, particullary sewers and public baths ( depending on the town size, again ), a young men tends to be rather charismatic
etc. etc.
These aren´t the only factors, but if they do not contradict with EB random character creation, they seem to affect the youth coming of age.
Btw: i seem to have figured out what causes the "wellcoming to the foreigners" trait! I hate it, actually, a lot, and the reason is quite simple: building auxilla barracks ( especially if the factional barracks are underdeveloped ), leads to this nasty freakin´trait :(
All my Baktrian FM became that one, after a couple of turns they spent in the towns conquered from Seleucids ( since you can use their "eastern greek" buildings, except the factional barracks, and they love to build them up to the highest level, i used to keep them ). Those who stayed in towns where i´ve destroyed the auxilla buildings right after conquest ( eastern culture = useless for Baktrians ), all became "distrusts outsiders" trait. That is why all my client rulers, if i bother to recruite one, wellcome foreigners most of the time!