[EB MP]3.0 Thread - Testing and Updates

[TheShakAttack]

OP ? if something is good at what it is supposed to do it is not OP. And i thought u ugys were all about Historical accuracy well the falx was historically good at doing what it does "OP" as u call it. everytime i suggest somehting someone tells me "oh no sotrmrage but that is not historically accurate we dont care if its good for gameplay its not historical" . you guys are all . History is NUMBER 1 historocal accuracy is NUMBER 1. Why are you now hiding behind the banner of "for gameplay puposes" . EB isnt about fair gameplay its about historical accuracy, according to you.

Calm down buddy. I think what everyone is saying/thinks is that there needs to be some sort of a balance between the two. My only problem is that where this “line in the sand” is has not been made very clear. Historically, the legions were incredibly powerful and good at what they do. So were the elite successor phalanxes, catas, and horse archers. But if you represent they in a purely historical mindset, then the game becomes boring and loses its diversity. You have to have some balance between gameplay and history.

[antisocialmunky]

@Wolf

I guess I misremembered them. In Vanilla they were extremely good melee shock infantry that happened to have arrows. However as they are modelled, they should probably just be medium quality archers, cost ~1200, have no armor, and be good in melee.

@Stormrage

Well, he's talking about adding AP on to the current stats would be imbalanced and unrealistic so while you could model it with AP or without and still have an accurate representation.

[TheShakAttack]

@Wolf

I guess I misremembered them. In Vanilla they were extremely good melee shock infantry that happened to have arrows. However as they are modelled, they should probably just be medium quality archers, cost ~1200, have no armor, and be good in melee.

Lol, i wrote a rather large post as to why they should not be medium quality (in terms of missile attack/range/accuracy). Keep their armor low, that's no prob though.

[LusitanianWolf]

Lol, i wrote a rather large post as to why they should not be medium quality (in terms of missile attack/range/accuracy). Keep their armor low, that's no prob though.

The problem is that same as persian's: not every single indian archer would be a bow master or be equiped with a steel longbow and you only have one unit to represent both levys and elites.... But I agree that they should be at least of good quality, and excelent for their price.

1) Keep falx as “low attack + AP” to make them anti-armor personnel. There are other ways to take down lightly armoured infantry. Making falx less effective against them, whilst very unrealistic, would be an acceptable sacrifice in my opinion. I get the feeling most ppl used them v heavy armor anyways. They won’t miss the effectiveness v light armor.
2) Taking away AP from falx, as I understand it, makes them less effective against highly armoured units. Even if u substitute high attack/lethality, it is unlikely to cover it unless you make them grossly overpowered.
3) Lastly, if falcattas remain AP, why not falx was my question. Surely falcattas would also be just as good v unarmored opponents. Deal with falx same way (if not more AP) as falcattas have been dealt with.

Yes, that would be another way to represent them, thats a choice that needs to be made.

[TheShakAttack]

The problem is that same as persian's: not every single indian archer would be a bow master or be equiped with a steel longbow and you only have one unit to represent both levys and elites.... But I agree that they should be at least of good quality, and excelent for their price.

Only thing I was saying is that they should have bow stats at same level as good quality composite bows. Not that the unit should be bow masters, or the best in the game, or anything like that. Re: the rest, i agree. good quality, excellent for price.

[antisocialmunky]

The real problem is there is no way to change weapon damage since they are all 1 lethality 1 HP of damage. So the only metric you can change is accuracy.

[TheShakAttack]

The real problem is there is no way to change weapon damage since they are all 1 lethality 1 HP of damage. So the only metric you can change is accuracy.

Learn something new every day :) Thanks for that. Well, in that event, I remember GG2 classified bows into different categories, my argument was bamboo longbowmen should be in same category as a good composite bowmen.

[antisocialmunky]

I guess you need to basically have accuracy stuff for all combinations of skill + weapon.

[-Stormrage-]

Indian archers in vanilla were OP in vanilla because they could kick the ass out even of catas!

1)They die like flies before they reach the enemy lines.

2)Catas are not meant to fight in melee, they are hit and break hammer.

[LusitanianWolf]

1)They die like flies before they reach the enemy lines.

2)Catas are not meant to fight in melee, they are hit and break hammer.

1 They are not mean to reach the enemy lines but to be in the back as archers and help in melee as needed.

2 Your right but I said catas as I would say anything else. It was fun for the first times to get heavy cavalry butchered by archers but I dont think that's their purpose. If it was me I would give them high attack, nice lettality but low discipline, morale and defense so they can be effective in some short fights but defeated when encountering disciplined enemies. Its completely exasperating, when playing as sweboz to defeat enemy phalanx only to get butchered by archers in melee, belive me ;)

[antisocialmunky]

1 They are not mean to reach the enemy lines but to be in the back as archers and help in melee as needed.

2 Your right but I said catas as I would say anything else. It was fun for the first times to get heavy cavalry butchered by archers but I dont think that's their purpose. If it was me I would give them high attack, nice lettality but low discipline, morale and defense so they can be effective in some short fights but defeated when encountering disciplined enemies. Its completely exasperating, when playing as sweboz to defeat enemy phalanx only to get butchered by archers in melee, belive me ;)

Well they were absolutely ridiculous and like pandas, they were melee infantry first before their actual function of being archers or phalanx in the panda case.

[-Stormrage-]

luso u were saying indian longbowmen are OP, i am saying no they arent becuase they die to arrows before they can even touch any of your units. By saying this i am proving they werent OP , OP is when a unit is so good that nothing can counter it.

They have like 3 armour, if u dont bring archers to kill them thats your problem. as i said.

Indian archers in vanilla were OP in vanilla because they could kick the ass out even of catas!

1)They die like flies before they reach the enemy lines. I said this to refute your claims , that indian longbowmen were OP.

2)Catas are not meant to fight in melee, they are hit and break hammer. i said this to show you that a smart person wouldnt leave his cataphracts fighting in melee he would pull them back thus , if u leave your catas fighting in melee against AP units ofocurse they will "kick the ass" out of them.


Now moving on, i think They should get AP back with the lethality and the attack and everyhting they had. Becuase they were not unbalanced or OP to begin with, they did not need balance between historical accuracy and gameplay becuase they were balanced from the start.
There things are 3 armour no sheild- i dare anyone to tell me they are OP or Unbalanced. 3 armour with no sheild is now OP too you, but a 10 armour archer is not OP, heck you even want to give them +1 sheild. now we got 10 armour 3 sheild archers we got 10 armour 1 sheild, 7 armour 1 sheild. but when u here there is a 3 armour no sheild archer with an AP attack u go crazy. When i was saka i had a hard time just keeping these guys alive. i rememeber they were so fragile i used to keep them by the red border line so vega's 10 armour imperial archers wouldnt make them shish kebab. that is what has now become OP ?

[Brave Brave Sir Robin]

Yeah in no way were Indian Archers OP. By taking them, you are virtually ceding the missile duel to your enemy who can then content himself with using cheaper archers to pick them off rather easily. Their rather low morale also meant that they would break if charged by cavalry or after losing a decent percentage of their unit. I'm not sure what they will be priced at for 3.0 but earlier edus had their price around 1100 which is pricy for unarmored archers. Even if their sole purpose was to act as a falxman type unit, they are disadvantaged in that you cannot recruit more missile units to stop your foe from shooting up your unarmored flankers, and they have significantly lower morale.

[-Stormrage-]

Indian longbowmen:

stat_pri_armour 3, 11, 0, flesh (armour,defense skill,sheild)

This is the OP unbalanced unit your all afraid of.

, on the matter of falxmen give them AP back and lower attack or lethality.
stat_pri_armour 12, 12, 1, metal , wow look at that high armour low sheild , hmmm maybe we should use some AP slingers. hmm i think your right.

What happened to your common sense you forgot simple Rock paper scissors.

Indian longbow men light armour no sheild -- shish kebab them with archers.

Rompharoi high armour low sheild (1) -- Swiss sheese them with slingers.

Stormy's Archer/slinger rants are starting to make sense now huh .

Well GG said archers and slingers are fine as is . So you have no problem giving AP back to indians and Rhomphs .

[-Stormrage-]

Well they were absolutely ridiculous and like pandas, they were melee infantry first before their actual function of being archers or phalanx in the panda case.

They are only ridiculous if u were ridiculous enough to let them live past the missile phase.

The real problem is there is no way to change weapon damage since they are all 1 lethality 1 HP of damage. So the only metric you can change is accuracy.

Increase range and missile attack ?

"The Hindus tribes west of the Indus are famed for their use of massive longbows made from cane and strung with tough silken bowstrings. These bows allow them to launch arrows at a tremendous range" - www.europabarbarorum.com. 170 is not a tremendous range i hope its fixed in 3.0.

[LusitanianWolf]

luso u were saying indian longbowmen are OP, i am saying no they arent becuase they die to arrows before they can even touch any of your units. By saying this i am proving they werent OP , OP is when a unit is so good that nothing can counter it.

They have like 3 armour, if u dont bring archers to kill them thats your problem. as i said.

Well, I play most with Lusos who only get slingers and Sweboz who (before v3) only had crappy archers and lack of armoured manpower so you had to spare them since you need the slots for infantry and zerg rush If you wanted to have any chance agaisnt civ factions. But I agree that units like Cretans or Roman are even worst to fight agaisnt. Is just that, at least on my oppinion indian archers should be good archers with decent melee skill, not shock infantry that happens to have bows. But I gess this is just my oppinion and I respect yours.

2)Catas are not meant to fight in melee, they are hit and break hammer. i said this to show you that a smart person wouldnt leave his cataphracts fighting in melee he would pull them back thus , if u leave your catas fighting in melee against AP units ofocurse they will "kick the ass" out of them.

Again, I was meaning heavy cavalry at general, not only catas. They should be able to kill engaged heavy cavalry but not to survive a charge and after defeat it singlehanded at melee. I may be remembering wrong but I think they did this in old EDUs.

[Brave Brave Sir Robin]

Slingers are great against archers. They cost less and make them waste all their arrows. This was the important fact I learned playing mainly Lusos over the past month.

[gamegeek2]

Yeah in no way were Indian Archers OP. By taking them, you are virtually ceding the missile duel to your enemy who can then content himself with using cheaper archers to pick them off rather easily. Their rather low morale also meant that they would break if charged by cavalry or after losing a decent percentage of their unit. I'm not sure what they will be priced at for 3.0 but earlier edus had their price around 1100 which is pricy for unarmored archers. Even if their sole purpose was to act as a falxman type unit, they are disadvantaged in that you cannot recruit more missile units to stop your foe from shooting up your unarmored flankers, and they have significantly lower morale.

With no restrictions on missiles, the inability to bring more missiles is not a problem anymore.

[-Stormrage-]

Again, I was meaning heavy cavalry at general, not only catas. They should be able to kill engaged heavy cavalry but not to survive a charge and after defeat it singlehanded at melee. I may be remembering wrong but I think they did this in old EDUs.

they have 9 morale, 3 armour no sheild, u expect them to surivive a cata charge? remeber cata charge is AP so that will cuthte 3 armour into 1.5 armour.

[-Stormrage-]

With no restrictions on missiles, the inability to bring more missiles is not a problem anymore.

factions that have ap have the crappiest archers in the game, excuse the language, i feel it best describes things nowadays. Those factions are Baktria and Saka. Further more If a player brings say 10 archers 5 indiands and 5 others to protect them. Do you think he will win?
1) he will have significantly lower infantry then his enemy . If he uses the 10 slots for infantry he will have no cavalry.
2)if he brings cavalry he will have even fewer slots for infantry.
So i think no sane mind would do this.

I must admit it was a very clever argument, that never crossed my mind.

[antisocialmunky]

They were pretty different with +1 chevron. If you could avoid having them completely shot up, they kicked some major butt. But yeah, you basically ceded missile superiority though 5 Cata, 5 Light Cav, 10 Indian archer steppe army was always pretty amusing.

[vartan]

2)Catas are not meant to fight in melee, they are hit and break hammer.

Who told you this lie?

[-Stormrage-]

Its basic knowledge.

[vartan]

Its basic knowledge.

No. It's not "basic knowledge". I don't work with "basic knowledge" here, sorry.

[antisocialmunky]

About everytime cataphracts have gotten into prolonged melee with infantry, its gone not very well. Aurelian, during the last major battle against the Alamanni charged a mix formation of horse and infantry with his Cataphracts and heavy horse which was repulsed with relatively high casualties as the horses were killed from beneath the cataphracts. They then routed and crashed into his right flank which only managed to be reformed due to the discipline of his troops.

Additionally the Sassanids never really managed to successfully invade against Romans because the Romans were reliably able to defeat heavy horse (unless you are a fat rich guy) and the Romans were only usually defeated on campaign by the inability to hold Armenia and Mesopotamia because they had to spread themselves so thin in the cases of Anthony and Trajan.

Funny enough Aurelian made the members of the cataphract units that did not rally back to him dress up as women after he won the battle.

[gamegeek2]

About everytime cataphracts have gotten into prolonged melee with infantry, its gone not very well. Aurelian, during the last major battle against the Alamanni charged a mix formation of horse and infantry with his Cataphracts and heavy horse which was repulsed with relatively high casualties as the horses were killed from beneath the cataphracts. They then routed and crashed into his right flank which only managed to be reformed due to the discipline of his troops.

Funny enough Aurelian made the members of the cataphract units that did not rally back to him dress up as women after he won the battle.

This is correct. Cataphracts seem to have been resisted by prepared infantry very well, as they are now. Infantry being flanked or hit in the rear are not prepared.

They do however seem to have crushed other cavalry most of the time assuming the other cavalry were unsupported, such as at Panion and at Magnesia, where the Seleucid cataphract charge broke the Roman left, but then pursued the Romans back to their camp.

Additionally the Sassanids never really managed to successfully invade against Romans because the Romans were reliably able to defeat heavy horse (unless you are a fat rich guy) and the Romans were only usually defeated on campaign by the inability to hold Armenia and Mesopotamia because they had to spread themselves so thin in the cases of Anthony and Trajan.

Correction: the Parthians did not succeed at invading against romans. The Sasssanids, on the other hand, conquered large swaths of territory, at one point overrunning the entire Levant, Egypt, and much of Anatolia.

[antisocialmunky]

That's because Khosrau I reformed the cavalry into lighter heavy lancer/horse archer hybrids and deemphasized the cataphracts.

Also I want one of what the Sassanid Knight is shooting: http://www.kavehfarrokh.com/wp-conte...century-AD.jpg

http://www.kavehfarrokh.com/news/nab...ent-world-war/

[gamegeek2]

That's because Khosrau I reformed the cavalry into light heavy lancer/horse archer hybrids and deemphasized the cataphracts.

Correct; later Sassanid armies were optimized for campaigning. He probably drew more of the Dhiqans into service to do so. Regardless, EBO armies seem to not greatly emphasize cataphracts as the main shock too, either, with plenty of hybrids employed where possible, and supporting lighter cavalry in wide use; at least that's the direction things seem to be heading in, especially with Hayasdan and Parthia, and I have little doubt that once I wrap up the Seleucids they will be greatly using the Medians as well.

[raest]

re: indian longbows: they're definitely NOT on par with good quality reflex composites. for example, a good (not exceptional) quality turkish or mongol composite bow (of course, those 2 are probably the pinnacle of composite bows) had greater range and power than your average english longbow (which is clearly superior to a cane longbow). i really don't see how or why would a cane longbow be better in any way (other than cheapness and ease of use) than a reflex composite bow from the steppe. and i don't see how the fact that the bow was a well respected weapon in indian society factors in. the japanese also revered the bow and used longbows, yet their bows pale in comparison to pretty much every composite bow out there. it's also worth noting that a steel self bow is worse than an equivalent wood self bow because of the properties of the material (less of the "spring" force is transferred via steel) and were probably a social symbol or whatever more than anything else (the main (only?) advantage is that the steel bow requires waaaaay less maintenance and were more "resistant" to weather changes. although it's waaaaaay more dangerous when it breaks). another thing worth noting in the longbow vs composite is the arrows. in EB's timeframe the vast majority of steppe arrowheads were of bone (bronze became dominant only very late in the EB period, if not even later) and while i have no sources on what the indian used for arrowheads, i wouldn't have trouble believing that most of their arrows would have iron/steel tips due to the advanced metallurgy that was a prominent feature of the area for quite a long time. and it's reasonable to assume that the longbow arrows were heavier (although considerably slower), just like their english "counterparts". btw i completely agree that the indian longbowmen should be significantly cheaper (besides the sword, i don't see anything that would justify such a hight price)

re: falxes: from a purely realism/historical standpoint it makes no sense to have them be AP since the forward-curving tip was the only thing capable of doing that (and very likely the main reason why the romans reinforced the helmets). unfortunately, the very simplistic nature of the TW engines doesn't lend itself well to recreate the dynamics of combat (especially the overly simplistic AP thing. let's face it, the falx would be next-to completely ineffective against something like the Dosidataskeli or the Grivpanvar... and giving it the AP would make them overly effective against such units. which is very unrealistic but perhaps a necessary "sacrifice"?) so i wouldn't have much objections against the falx getting the AP because, let's face it, there's only a handful of units in the EB roster that have adequate limb protection against the weapon (although those same units would suffer the most vs the falx due to the bollocks RTW implementation of AP).
another thing to consider: if the falx really was such a fearsome weapon, why did it "die" with the dacians (assuming that later polearms weren't inspired by the falxe)? why didn't the romans use it (considering they were wont to adapt and use tech that was "better")?

btw, the AP attribute does not take 1/2 of the armour in consideration. it actually adds (armour-1)/2 to the attack. just sayin...

[vartan]

This is correct. Cataphracts seem to have been resisted by prepared infantry very well, as they are now. Infantry being flanked or hit in the rear are not prepared.

They do however seem to have crushed other cavalry most of the time assuming the other cavalry were unsupported, such as at Panion and at Magnesia, where the Seleucid cataphract charge broke the Roman left, but then pursued the Romans back to their camp.

I was informed that there is at least one cavalry unit from the "West" that defeats cataphracts: Sacred Band of Carthage.

EBO armies seem to not greatly emphasize cataphracts as the main shock too, either, with plenty of hybrids employed where possible, and supporting lighter cavalry in wide use; at least that's the direction things seem to be heading in, especially with Hayasdan and Parthia, and I have little doubt that once I wrap up the Seleucids they will be greatly using the Medians as well.

RTW unfortunately takes the "shock" out of "shock cavalry" when it comes to medium and light cavalry. They are instead, at the moment, best used to add bulk in the melee in cav vs cav.