EB Online EDU v2.1 - RELEASE!

[Kival]

You still do not understand that masses of arrows/stones does not mean that masses of them are able to hit the unit. You'll get nearly the same with just one or two slingers for one imperial archer. You're argument is wrong also because historical Rome used eastern archers in the imperial time! One could argue to exclude the imperial romans alltogether but not excluding only the archers. Something like "beeing famous for" does not mean much. Romans are also famous for their lorica segmentata though they do not have it in this timeframe.

To give you some quotes from the unit descriptions (I'll not do any deeper historical research for you here, you can do that yourself):

The imperial army's archers are more heavily armoured than their counterparts, with shirts of lorica squamata or hamata (scale or chain mail), conical iron or bronze helmets and small shields protecting their left arm. They use long ranged recurved composite bows with bone ends and bracers to protect their forearms from the sinew, together with multiple types of arrows: three bladed heads to inflict heavy wounds at un armoured targets, thin needle like, pyramidal shaped armour piercing heads and flaming arrows, carrying an ignition load in a kind of small metal cage incorporated into the arrowhead.

During the decades of his rule following the end of the civil war, Augustus reformed the imperial army significantly and created a standing army with 28 legions as its core. In many fields a systematic approach replaced the improvisation of the late republican era. Most important was that the auxilia, with its indispensable cavalry and archer units, became a regular arm of the professional army and its second base. Trained to the same high standards of the legions they should cooperate with, these excellent soldiers were equipped in the Roman fashion, and well commanded first by proven Centurions, transferred from the legions, and later by a corps of equestrian officers.

And so on... one could perhaps argue about the missile attack value but the armour is fixed because of historical reasons. If you want to stay historical and balance them more you could increase the cost (or decrease number for cohorts) which both still are the biggest problems.

[Brave Brave Sir Robin]

And so on... one could perhaps argue about the missile attack value but the armour is fixed because of historical reasons. If you want to stay historical and balance them more you could increase the cost (or decrease number for cohorts) which both still are the biggest problems.

I think a 5-10% cost increase on all cohort units would be sufficient and would stop the spamming we often see with Rome players, especially of first cohorts.

Actually, when I think about it, it makes more sense just to increase the cost of the first cohorts. Bringing more than 1-2 of them should not be cost effective as it currently is.

[-Stormrage-]

Forget historical accuracy for one second kival, The gameplay is suffering because roman archers are medieval tanks, to put it simple they need a decrease in armour for the sake of good gameplay , in GAMEPLAY slingers kill armoured units thats what they are there FOR, imperial archers are armoured units with no shield infact and right now even under concentrated slinger (ANTI-armour) fire they are not dying , this is faulty gameplay .

EDIT: ok i want to "argue about the missile attack value" increase slinger damage so we have something that can counter these imperial tanks. I personally dont think that will happen. hoe about decreasing the armour of all archer units (bosphorans scyhtians crytians imperials) so that they die a bit faster and at the same time they will still be balanced the best armoured will remain the best armoured, the only diference is they will no longer be tanks.

[The Celtic Viking]

If you want to forget about historical accuracy, boy are you playing the wrong game, Storm.

[Kival]

Forget historical accuracy for one second kival

No, I'll not do that.

The gameplay is suffering because roman archers are medieval tanks, to put it simple they need a decrease in armour for the sake of good gameplay , in GAMEPLAY slingers kill armoured units thats what they are there FOR, imperial archers are armoured units with no shield infact and right now even under concentrated slinger (ANTI-armour) fire they are not dying , this is faulty gameplay .

I've said something about this, too. You just ignored it, I don't know why. It does not make sense to reduce armour of this one unit because you think they should die more easily to them. In fact for the imperial archers one could argue to give them a shield after the unit description!

In fact slingers are better against them than archers and that's what defines them as AP-unit. If you want slingers to kill armoured units better, you'd have two possibilites:

a) Make a proposal for a higher attack value of slingers
b) Make a proposal for lower armour values for *all* units.

It's not logical to reduce armour for one unit with chain mail but not for another with chainmail!

You've done a) but you did not get many people to agree. So you can try to give better arguments but it will not help just to reiterate your old arguments.

[vartan]

If you want to forget about historical accuracy, boy are you playing the wrong game, Storm.

I was thinking that he's been playing the wrong game since day 1. I hope I'm wrong.

Storm if 1 volley got the amount of kills you wanted, I'd make sure to see to it they didn't. You realize how short a time span 1 volley is? You can't close that distance quickly enough. So to lose 90 percent of your men by the time you've reached that missile unit is not good. I hope you see how far-fetched your claims/desires/wishes are.

[Brave Brave Sir Robin]

I think it is also worth noting that archers are generally support units, not the main reason for victory. If archers rack up the most kills on the battlefield it is usually because they engaged in a missile duel first or maybe targeted some low armor units.

There are many ways to counter an opponent that brings superior archers as well. You can get him to waste most of his ammo on inferior and much cheaper archers and slingers or you can simply recruit extra infantry or cavalry and swamp his men so you can engage his archers in melee or drive them off. Too many people get suckered into thinking that missile duels decide battles. They typically don't. Usually they just force one player into doing something rash which is the cause of his defeat.

[antisocialmunky]

The Romans were able to recruit some of the best archers in the world and deck them out in the best possible equipment. Roman archers are extremely good but like all the top tier archers are low on ammunition (25ish). I mean, it is quite annoying that missiles are basically impossible to counter asymmetrically but its not as game breaking as it used to be with the ammo nerfs.

Slingers do need a slight buff. 1 attack slingers are basically worthless units.

[Lazy O]

Did they not use Syrian Archers? Do the syrian archers have 10 armor? Were not the kretkioi and bosporans supposed to be the best in the game? Inconsistencies....

[Kival]

@asm

With a chevron they are not useless but I'd think one could increase the attack of the 1-attack ones to 2-attack.
The roman archers have 30 arrows as the bospharans and syrians have, too. The cretans have only 25.

Did they not use Syrian Archers? Do the syrian archers have 10 armor? Were not the kretkioi and bosporans supposed to be the best in the game? Inconsistencies....

You could read <s>my quotes</s> the unit description and you would get an answer. In short: They are mostly eastern archers (syrians but not only syrians) but they get (slightly) better armour! They should still lose against Syrian archers because Syrians have 9 armour and 2 shield... you need to pay attention though because the shield does not always count as we know. Bospharan Archers are perhaps the only archers which surely will win a direct fight against the roman ones (they have 10 armour + 2 shield).

And there is no such thing as a "best archer", the top tier archers have different areas where they excel. The roman archers will perhaps win the most archer duels but they have less missile attack than cretans and elite dacian archers and so are less effective in killing other units.

@Vartan

Shall we discuss roster-questions and/or questions about factional units also here or somewhere else? I'd like to ask why pontos has lost the bosporans as factional units...

[Brave Brave Sir Robin]

I'd like to ask why pontos has lost the bosporans as factional units...

They havn't. Bosporans are listed under Pontos's factional unit list. You have to scroll down to see them. Maybe thats why you missed them there.

[Kival]

They havn't. Bosporans are listed under Pontos's factional unit list. You have to scroll down to see them. Maybe thats why you missed them there.

I really should sleep more...

[vartan]

I really should sleep more...

Hehe. Feel free to discuss anything here because these EDUs are directly tied to rosters as well as indirectly to factional lists. And these are of course all factors when it comes to EB MP in general.

[Vega]

Ok guys i just saw all posts about this edu but so many questions about SPQR?! Why you guys want to make it weaker and weaker, for the god sake, yes they have good infratry, and yes they have good archers, but what about cav ?? Cav is so uselles and expensive and about mercenaries, romani never hire phalanx mercenaries in their legions ?? I dont think so. I dont ever know why you just hate romani faction.. cheers :D

[Kival]

Ok guys i just saw all posts about this edu but so many questions about SPQR?! Why you guys want to make it weaker and weaker, for the god sake, yes they have good infratry, and yes they have good archers, but what about cav ??

What about cav? The Extraordinarii and Celtic ones are not that bad. It's only a question if the very low costs for (first) cohorts could really be justified for MP.

Cav is so uselles and expensive and about mercenaries, romani never hire phalanx mercenaries in their legions ?? I dont think so.

Could you give any excample where post-marian rome used phalangites? They cannot be used as wings and typically rome used allied troops/"Mercenaries" for the wings. They were at least not that common any more in marian times as Lazy stated below.

[Lazy O]

Ok guys i just saw all posts about this edu but so many questions about SPQR?! Why you guys want to make it weaker and weaker, for the god sake, yes they have good infratry, and yes they have good archers, but what about cav ?? Cav is so uselles and expensive and about mercenaries, romani never hire phalanx mercenaries in their legions ?? I dont think so. I dont ever know why you just hate romani faction.. cheers :D

It did not even exist by Marian times :D

[-Stormrage-]

Slingers do need a slight buff. 1 attack slingers are basically worthless units.

I love you man.

i think the best proposal for getting imperial archers, which are not sheilded, to die realistically to slinger fire would be to decrease all archer unit armour. OK i get that imperial archers were awsome great excellent archers, but that does not mean you make them tanks that wont even die to slinger fire. i hope you understand my issue here. Ill make it plain when i want to kill an armoured unit that has no sheild i get the unit which excells in killing armoured units , SLINGERS. what pisses me off is to see my slingers getting butchered by something they should easily Counter. I want you to put yourself in my situation, as saba i got 8 slingers witch chevrons for the sole purpose of killing the imperial archers of my enemy, so i come to the feild with 8 slings my opponent 4 imperial archers, i move my slingers to the side so 4 of my slingers target one of his imperial archers and the rest cant attack me. i make them run to attack the unshelded helpless archers. i look at 4 slingers discharging their stones i move to the imperial archer unit expecting it to get devestated. long story short they got 3 kills and got butchered. I dare anyone to tell me that i am wrong , that slingers were not meant to kill these, that imperials were historically armoured tanks.

[Brave Brave Sir Robin]

I love you man.

i think the best proposal for getting imperial archers, which are not sheilded, to die realistically to slinger fire would be to decrease all archer unit armour. OK i get that imperial archers were awsome great excellent archers, but that does not mean you make them tanks that wont even die to slinger fire. i hope you understand my issue here. Ill make it plain when i want to kill an armoured unit that has no sheild i get the unit which excells in killing armoured units , SLINGERS. what pisses me off is to see my slingers getting butchered by something they should easily Counter. I want you to put yourself in my situation, as saba i got 8 slingers witch chevrons for the sole purpose of killing the imperial archers of my enemy, so i come to the feild with 8 slings my opponent 4 imperial archers, i move my slingers to the side so 4 of my slingers target one of his imperial archers and the rest cant attack me. i make them run to attack the unshelded helpless archers. i look at 4 slingers discharging their stones i move to the imperial archer unit expecting it to get devestated. long story short they got 3 kills and got butchered. I dare anyone to tell me that i am wrong , that slingers were not meant to kill these, that imperials were historically armoured tanks.

Storm, I agree that slingers should be somewhat more effective against Imperial Archers than other heavy archers because they have no shield but you are missing the bigger overall picture. And that is?

That the counter to slingers is...wait for it...wait some more...

Archers! Archers will generally always beat slingers, even the lowly toxotai.

Its also worth noting that the Saba have no counter to heavy archers. If you want to win as Saba, you are probably going to have to bring elephants or at least fool your opponent into thinking you have brought elephants so they waste slots on skirmishers. Thats the deal with that faction and there is no way around it. A line of Sabaen soldiers are an archers dream.

[Kival]

i think the best proposal for getting imperial archers, which are not sheilded, to die realistically to slinger fire would be to decrease all archer unit armour.

Sorry, but you do not understand how armour values are calculated. You have a formula for that (Like this helm +2, chainmail +6, etc.). This are all just imaginary numbers but you should get the basic. Imperial archers get the exact amount of armour which is calculated for their equipment. For some units it's more difficult because they did not all have the same equipment but for the imperial archers it's fairly easy because they are very much uniformed in comparison to other units. So one could reduce armour for *all units* if you change the formula (for the example it would be perhaps only +1 for helm, +5 for chainmail). It would be wrong to give two units with the same armour different armour values!

I want you to put yourself in my situation, as saba i got 8 slingers witch chevrons for the sole purpose of killing the imperial archers of my enemy, so i come to the feild with 8 slings my opponent 4 imperial archers, i move my slingers to the side so 4 of my slingers target one of his imperial archers and the rest cant attack me. i make them run to attack the unshelded helpless archers. i look at 4 slingers discharging their stones i move to the imperial archer unit expecting it to get devestated. long story short they got 3 kills and got butchered.

That's not normal. One slinger unit does not get butchered by any archer unit and landed only 3 kills until he's butchered. They can surely lose but they don't do nothing in dozens of volleys.

[-Stormrage-]

i made them attack a volley each thats 4 slingers, they got 3 kills so i pulled them the hell out of there and got butchered as they were retreating, so on top of archers getting more armour they also got more range. we will wait until GG2 gets here and ask him what to do.

[Kival]

i made them attack a volley each thats 4 slingers, they got 3 kills so i pulled them the hell out of there and got butchered as they were retreating, so on top of archers getting more armour they also got more range. we will wait until GG2 gets here and ask him what to do.

How many units do you want to be killed by one volley? Be precise.

[vartan]

First, slingers should not be able to take out archers. You shouldn't be aiming at archers with your slingers to begin with. Second, even if changes are to be made, it isn't to the archers, it's to the slingers. By the way, you could give any unit the lowest attack integer of 1 and they'd still kill. If I understand the system correctly, it has a minimum chance to kill. There's a reason why even if your attack is lower than the enemy's armour, you can still kill that enemy. It isn't as straightforward as attack minus defense.

[-Stormrage-]

4 slingers SHOULD be able to DEVASTATE armoured archers VARTAN>\, especially since the archers in question have no hseild just tons of armour. I think the base attakc of the slingers hsould be raised to increase the chance of a kill on impact. i mean with 240 stones falling down on 80 men and only 3 dye, some of the stones must have hit them en but the men didnt die becuase they have so much armour. so that the man dies on impazt or atleast a 50 percent chance of death. 3 kills out of a possible 240 thats insane where the hell did the other rocks go lol. im assuming some stones hit but didnt do anything to the archer is that the way it should work ?

[Kival]

First, slingers should not be able to take out archers. You shouldn't be aiming at archers with your slingers to begin with.

I'd slightly disagree here, against heavy archers it's actually not a bad idea to use slingers.

im assuming some stones hit but didnt do anything to the archer is that the way it should work ?

Sure. Some attacks does not even hit (that's for missiles only), most attacks are stopped by armour, shield and defense (that's for melee only) and some attacks do not kill but only throw the enemy down (that's for melee only). That's the system. It would be crazy if every hitting stone would kill the unit.

Just to let you know: It's mentioned that in fact the imperial archers used shields, they should get MORE defense against missiles not less.

EDIT: Every reduction of armour would make the archer weaker against everything not only against slingers.

[-Stormrage-]

I have a friend that has experience with EDU's ill ask him about this .Maybe it is something more complicated then armour or attack maybe it has something to do with velocity, mass, weight ,(etc.), of the stone itself.

[vartan]

I'd slightly disagree here, against heavy archers it's actually not a bad idea to use slingers.

Trust me. You don't want to attack any archers with your slingers, unless you want to lose all of your slingers. Do you want to lose all of your slingers? That's the question. When you have a 60 man slinger unit against an archer unit of 80 men that was born to kill those 60 men of yours, is it really worth losing your 60 men and up to 600 or so mnai investment, only to take out 100 or 200 mnai worth of archers (a handful of men)?

[Kival]

Trust me. You don't want to attack any archers with your slingers, unless you want to lose all of your slingers. Do you want to lose all of your slingers? That's the question. When you have a 60 man slinger unit against an archer unit of 80 men that was born to kill those 60 men of yours, is it really worth losing your 60 men and up to 600 or so mnai investment, only to take out 100 or 200 mnai worth of archers (a handful of men)?

Perhaps this actually is what I want. The archers would devestate my more valuable units perhaps and it seemd to be useless to use a bad archer unit against them. It will have no chance at all, I thought, but now I've reconsidered it and the difference is not that big. I thought it would be like 3 vs 10 for the bad archer or 2 vs 5 for the chevroned slinger but one could actually chevron the bad archer and get a 4vs10 which would be the same as 2vs5.

[-Stormrage-]

Trust me. You don't want to attack any archers with your slingers, unless you want to lose all of your slingers. Do you want to lose all of your slingers? That's the question. When you have a 60 man slinger unit against an archer unit of 80 men that was born to kill those 60 men of yours, is it really worth losing your 60 men and up to 600 or so mnai investment, only to take out 100 or 200 mnai worth of archers (a handful of men)?

Ok, Vartan what if it is not a 60 man slinger against a 80 man archer, what if it is 240 slingers VS. 80 archers? and when you say archers are BORN TO KILL THESE MEN. The fact is VARTAN! that slingers are like wise born to kill this type of archer, does the word anti Armour mean anything to you. As archers are BORN to kill light units, slingers are likewise BORN to kill heavy unsheided units. As you stated the archers are doing what they are supposed to be doing slingers are getting devastated by archer fire, but our problem is heavy archers are NOT getting scratched by slingers. you claim that 80 man archers were born to kill 60 man slingers and i agree but are 240 slingers not born to kill 80 man archers?

[vartan]

240 slingers against 80 archers is overkill. Are you alright?

EDIT: Honestly, are you okay? Why are you attacking 4 to 1? No wonder you're losing your battles.

[Kival]

Stormrage you fail to consider that most slinger units are only levy troops not professional soldiers. They lack the training of the better archers. They cost less not without reason. Also you should understand that armour does not weaken a unit. A normal archer unit will win against a normal slinger and obviously the chances will not be better against an armoured archer. Slingers just have better chances to kill (very) heavy armoured units than archers but that does not mean they will win against heavy archers because the archers are also very good in killing the slingers. Another point you need to consider are the different ballistic curves. It's much easier to prevent units being hit by slingers than being hit by archers.

Your 240 slingers will kill 80 archers but not with ONE volley but with a dozen perhaps.