[EB MP]3.0 Thread - Testing and Updates

[gamegeek2]

I'll take your concerns into account.

[Kival]

baby steps, baby steps :D

You know that we are not happy with them after change and you were raging about them before they've been changed?

[Burebista]

getai :
rhomphs have 11 attack but no ap
Komatai agrianai - too damn expensive..1767

[TheShakAttack]

Rhomps have very high lethality and bonus vs cav though. They are getting AP back though afaik. Its a bit surprising that rhomp is getting back AP tbh.

[Vega]

Bring elephants back to rome roster please dont tell me that they didnt use them :P

[TheShakAttack]

That reminds me. Rome should get Tarantine cav as mercenaries.

[Vega]

I discussed on hamachi with some people about cata fear, also i wanna share my opinion to remove fear from helenic catas, i mean REAL catas should get fear effect :D, pahlava's and hayasdan's catas, or maybe just Grivnapar, personaly for me scariest unit in game next to elephantes, so what you think about this..? :)

[TheShakAttack]

I discussed on hamachi with some people about cata fear, also i wanna share my opinion to remove fear from helenic catas, i mean REAL catas should get fear effect :D, pahlava's and hayasdan's catas, or maybe just Grivnapar, personaly for me scariest unit in game next to elephantes, so what you think about this..? :)

I'd be happy with removing fear from AS catas. Not entirely sure about Baktria, since they did field some heeeavy cav.

[gamegeek2]

Wait, so better armed and armored cataphracts somehow aren't "scary" but their worse-equipped, otherwise identical Parthian Noble counterparts are?

[Vega]

Im posting again bcz i forgot to mention bactrian and saka catas as well :D they should keep fear wanna see your opinion about helenistics :D

[Arjos]

I ask what's scary about any cataphract?
People were afraid of their "heavier" charge, but what's scary of an oven-man?

Can't they get "inspire" instead and another stat tweak?

[Brave Brave Sir Robin]

I agree, cataphracts don't need the fear effect and I'd prefer to have it removed.

[vartan]

How about we stop using the fear effect altogether. It is a great effect for an arcade game, but I presume as we are aiming for historicity we might want to keep such a funny game mechanic out of the picture altogether. Right? =) [bring it on guys!]

[TheShakAttack]

Ok. I have to defend cata fear here. To put things in perspective, let's examine other units which have the fear effect. The two most absurd ones are chariots and uriodusios. Now, if I were a soldier, I'd be a lot more weary of oven-men crashing into my flank than seeing naked spearmen or outdated machinery like chariots. There would certainly be a psychological effect knowing that these guys who are crazy-armored on horses waiting to smash into somewhere. Certainly, fear would be greater seeing them and knowing they wait (even if behind enemy lines) moreso than seeing naked dudes or chariots standing behind the enemy line. Let's not forget that these bad boys were riding Nisean mounts, which were considerably larger and more powerful than most horses way back when.

All I'm saying is...compare it to some other units which have fear already.

@Vartan- I think that is a valid proposal. If you remove fear from whichever units have it, there would be no problems of inconsistency. Maybe let elephants keep them.

[|Sith|DarthRoach]

Worse equipped? I was under the impression that Greek cataphracts were equipped in roughly the same manner as their Iranian counterparts.

Although there are theories that they in fact lacked leg armor, apart from greaves.

[Arjos]

I think that all the fear units, historically, were actually more awe inspiring than scaring...
Exception for elephants, even though after few encounters everyone got accustomed...

[Brave Brave Sir Robin]

How about we stop using the fear effect altogether. It is a great effect for an arcade game, but I presume as we are aiming for historicity we might want to keep such a funny game mechanic out of the picture altogether. Right? =) [bring it on guys!]

Ok, I think this is a misguided attempt to do away with an imperfect game mechanic. We are slowly coming to a balance with EB Online, that is, making the majority of factions playable in multiplayer. Yes, there are clearly stronger and weaker factions, but nearly every faction is playable in its current state (Saba and Sweboz excluded though Sweboz somewhat less so). However, once the Eastern Hellenistic factions were completed, what do we see in nearly every battle being fought? Thats right, its almost always a mix of Baktria, AS, Ptolies, Makedonia, Epeiros, and KH being played with our Rome fanatics putting in their two cents as well. Lazy plays Carthage and I'd say there are two or three players who actively use the so-called barbarian factions of the west. Removing the fear effect from units like Gaesatae or Uridusios makes the latter useless and the former not very impressive anymore. Factions like the Casse, god bless them, rely almost soley on the fear effect and getting quick chain routs started or else they will be shot to pieces by an opposing army composed of javelin armed troops and archers waiting it out in guard mode.

In fact, guard mode is the main reason that I would stress that fear must be kept intact. Guard mode encourages camping and forming nice little lines of men for your opponent to dash his soldiers on, like waves on a rocky beach. It does not encourage being proactive or creative in your strategies. Since there are very few units that can win head on against any sort of medium-heavy infantry in guard mode, the only way around this, especially for many barbarians without great cavalry, is to create a localized fear effect which will help maybe break one of those guard moded units and disrupt the tidy lines.

And I will conclude by saying that the fear effect must be removed from cataphracts. (clever Cato reference :p)

[TheShakAttack]

Haha. Your Cato the Elder reference is appreciated :P

As I understand it, your argument is gameplay based rather than historically/logically based.

I disagree with your argument. The way fear is important to making Western barbs useful, so too is fear needed for Parthia and Hayasdan. Parthia and Hai do not have good effective armies once cata fear gets taken away. Western barbs have access to high morale, relatively inexepensive, high quality infantry coupled with very workable cavalry. P + H on the other hand have terrible infantry (Armenian nobles being the exception, but they are only 70 men and are expensive). Fear is necessary to complement the really poor infantry.

With regards to Casse: if saba and sweboz can suffer poor, lopsided, relatively unworkable rosters, why can't Casse too? It's not as if they were particularly awesome in pitched battles historically.

To put it in another way, it would be incredibly inconsistent and illogical to let celtic factions/units keep fear, saying they are unplayable otherwise, whilst removing cata fear from P + H.

And, prepare for war, for you have found peace intolerable. (Scipio quote there)

[-Stormrage-]

I ask what's scary about any cataphract?
People were afraid of their "heavier" charge, but what's scary of an oven-man?

Can't they get "inspire" instead and another stat tweak?

Watch Brave heart, look at the scotish mans face when they tell him "300 heavy cavalry" he wets his pants. "300 heavy horse?!?!!

seee cav were scary , braveheart says so

[The Celtic Viking]

With fear for Pahlava, AS, Baktria and eventually Saka, Hayasdan with fear is meaningless anyway. Pahlava and Saka work fine even without fear (see for example Lazy as Saka in one of the tournaments), definitely so for Baktria as well. The only ones who would need it are Sauros (who don't get it) and Hayasdan, who as I said are negated by the better ones having it as well.

So, no, your argument doesn't work there.

Oh, and Gaesatae + Uirodusios don't get scare because of gameplay reasons (although taking it away would, indeed, have the gameplay effect Robin describes). They get it because people who do not care about their own safety - which they appear not to do - are ******* scary opponents. It doesn't matter what equipment they've got - if you care about your life and your enemy appears not, he has a huge mental advantage over you. The fear factor for them is definitely warranted IMO.

---

BTW, if you allow me to brag, my indian kataphract elephants just had 956 kills. Beat that!

[Brave Brave Sir Robin]

Hayasdan would work fine without fear now as well. All they needed was a buff to their infantry which they received. Nothing more was needed. Over prevalence of fear makes some factions like the Lusotana difficult to play again. Almost every faction is capable of bringing some type of fear inspiring unit to the battlefield when previously it was only a handful along with factions that could get elephants if they so desired.

[TheShakAttack]

With fear for Pahlava, AS, Baktria and eventually Saka, Hayasdan with fear is meaningless anyway. Pahlava and Saka work fine even without fear (see for example Lazy as Saka in one of the tournaments), definitely so for Baktria as well. The only ones who would need it are Sauros (who don't get it) and Hayasdan, who as I said are negated by the better ones having it as well.

So, no, your argument doesn't work there.

Oh, and Gaesatae + Uirodusios don't get scare because of gameplay reasons. They get it because people who do not care about their own safety - which they appear not to do - are ******* scary opponents. It doesn't matter what equipment they've got - if you care about your life and your enemy appears not, he has a huge mental advantage over you. The fear factor for them is definitely warranted IMO.

---

BTW, if you allow me to brag, my indian kataphract elephants just had 956 kills. Beat that!

1) Looking at Lazy's result is not appropriate since its a different EDU. For one thing, HA have been significantly nerfed since then. Your other arguments re: cata fear are not backed up by reasoning or examples, so I will not respond to them. I will only say this:

The 2 Gallic factions are perfectly playable (I am not saying excellent) without fear units. The fear units make them particularly effective at certain strategies. Similarly, Pav + Saka + Baktria might be playable, but it will loose an imp edge. Why should 1 faction lose an edge and others keep them? Why is it ok for "barb" factions to have fear units, but not "eastern" ones?

You'll note I make no mention of AS. For the sake of gameplay, I think its fine if their catas no longer have fear.

2) Re why nakeds are scary. You did not follow the conversation. Robin was making the point that nakeds were imp, and the post u read was responding to him. Regarding your argument about nakeds, I do not disagree that it would be off putting to see guys who are so fanatic that they have come up naked to fight, not caring about dying or hurting their wee wees. What I am saying is that how can you argue that they should retain "fear" effect, whilst the historical equivalent of a tank does not? Try to understand that I am not saying cata should retain fear and celts lose it. I am saying for consistency's sake either everyone loses it (cept eles) or everyone keeps them along with nakeds and chariots.

Also, I'd like to point out that a lot of the factions Robin pointed out on his list (in last his post before this) are non cata factions. Catas certainly do not make the game unbalanced; they make life hard for the opponent. Same can be said of a barb fear rush.

[Lazy O]

Removing fear is retarded. What is the point of playing Aedui/Arverni/Casse/toalesserextentSweboz then? It completely makes them useless .

And how in bloody hell are Parthia and Hai useless without fear? Did Saka/Sauro not completely obliterate everything in June WITHOUT fear?

And roach basically did a 2v1 today with Parthia, not relying on fear effect, since the charge obliterates everything already. You have to realise giving scare to cavalry has a very negative effect because stuff like cata takes ages to kill and ruins balance.

[TheShakAttack]

POST RESPONDING TO LAZY:

June was diff EDU lazy.

Also, this is a really badly articulated post. I have no idea what you are trying to say about ruining balance or how saka and sauro winning in June has anything to do with Pav and Hai having fear.

You have also not bothered reading my argument. If you respond to what I've actually written, and bother to read it properly, I will do the same.

Calling Vartan's post retarded is not an appropriate reaction. He was just considering it and wanted our thoughts.

[The Celtic Viking]

Long version:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

1) Looking at Lazy's result is not appropriate since its a different EDU. For one thing, HA have been significantly nerfed since then. Your other arguments re: cata fear are not backed up by reasoning or examples, so I will not respond to them.

That it's a different EDU is the very point because it's them without fear. HAs are less powerful, yes, but that's because they were simply OP before.

Your other arguments re: cata fear are not backed up by reasoning or examples, so I will not respond to them.

???

You were saying Hayasdan need fear to be useful. I said Hayasdan, if useless without fear, are useless with fear because Pahlava, Baktria etc. have it too. I.e., your "solution" to making Hay useful doesn't make them useful at all, ergo it doesn't work as an argument for giving cata fear.

Are you really going to dismiss that out of hand as "lacking reasoning or examples", or did you just misunderstand me?

I will only say this:

The 2 Gallic factions are perfectly playable (I am not saying excellent) without fear units. The fear units make them particularly effective at certain strategies. Similarly, Pav + Saka + Baktria might be playable, but it will loose an imp edge. Why should 1 faction lose an edge and others keep them? Why is it ok for "barb" factions to have fear units, but not "eastern" ones?

Strawman.

You'll note I make no mention of AS. For the sake of gameplay, I think its fine if their catas no longer have fear.

And here I disagree with you. If an "oven man" deserves scary trait it deserves it regardless of whom it serves. (I don't think it's possible to take away scare from AS cats without also taking it away from Baktrian cats, which you did mention.)

2) You did not follow the conversation. Robin was making the point they were imp, and the post u read last was responding to him. Regarding your argument about nakeds, I do not disagree that it would be off putting to see guys who are so fanatic that they have come up naked to fight. What I am saying is that how can you argue that they should retain "fear" effect, whilst the historical equivalent of a tank does not?

I did follow the conversation. If you don't agree with making choices for gameplay reasons such as what Robin did, then don't make arguments like that. You did, and thus I responded to it. If you wanted to be rhetorical, and didn't actually mean what you said, then it's up to you to be clear about it.

Anyway, to answer the question, I can perhaps put it like this. Yes, I would be scared shitless if cats attacked my back. I would also be scared shitless if non-cat heavy cav charged my back. How significant is the difference? Not too much, I would think. The difference between naked infantry and non-naked infantry is that the nakeds show exactly what I talked about in my previous post: they care not about their own safety, they care not about their own lives. That is a significant difference from other infantry.

Considering that cav already cause fear to infantry when they a) are at their flanks/behind, b) are charging them, c) are smashing into them or c) are fighting them in melee, and cats can easily rout units by charging into their rear even without the fear trait, I don't think they quite warrant the fear effect. This is, indeed, coloured by how strong the fear effect is - I would if I could make it less powerful. Perhaps then I could agree with cats having fear, but not when it is as it is.

Try to understand that I am not saying cata should retain fear and celts lose it.

Please try to understand that I have never claimed that you do, nor said anything that implies that I think you do. I was explaining that if gamplay reasons were the only thing speaking for Gaesatae/Uirodusios etc. should have the fear effect, then I would be against it. Likewise I am against giving cats fear effect because of gameplay reasons, like you were arguing.

I am saying for consistency's sake either everyone loses it (cept eles) or everyone keeps them along with nakeds and chariots.

... what? Lets pretend, for argument's sake, that GG2 went crazy one night and decided to give all the spear-armed levies the scare trait. If I then said, hold on, they shouldn't have the scare trait! Would you then argue that, for sake of consistency, either everyone should lose scare (except ele) or everyone keeps them along with nakeds and chariots?

It doesn't make sense, nor is it even consistent considering that you for this must rely on the premise that the argument is directly against the scare trait.

Also, I'd like to point out that a lot of the factions Robin pointed out on his list are non cata factions. Catas certainly do not make the game unbalanced, if anything, they have helped with the balance.

I disagree.

Short version:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I would want cats to have something like a fear effect as opposed to more regular heavy cav, but I think that, as is, the fear effect is too powerful for them to earn it. They don't need it to be very effective anyway, and does provide fear, although no more than regular cav does now. Perhaps making their attack/defence/both higher instead of fear might be more called for. Naked infantry does need it though because it really is the only way to simulate the mental effect that their fighting style had. That's why I think it should be removed from cats and kept for nakeds.

[Arjos]

Even when you look at ancient texts about cataphracts, no one speaks of how scary they are, but rather how majestic is their appereance, plus mentioning how devastating is their charge...
While naked warriors get words of how inspiring they were for their comrades and "off putting, nerving" for the opponents...
As TCV said, when we pile rear attack, charge, already engaged and fear it becomes too much of an overkill...

[TheShakAttack]

Tcv a lot of what you have responded to was my post to ok lazy not your. I am on train atm, will clarify @ home.

[Lazy O]

First off my apologies to Gaius.

Armored Elephants have to be nerfed. 2 Akontisai emptied their javs on one unit of eles killing only 3. At a price of 15000 this is definately overpowered. I suggest a ban on this unit for now.

[TheShakAttack]

Long version:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

That it's a different EDU is the very point because it's them without fear. HAs are less powerful, yes, but that's because they were simply OP before.

Yes, and the vast majority of battles would have been won because they were simply OP. The fear does not compensate the nerf IMO. If you look at battles right now, Sauro are nowhere near as good as they used to be in JUne.

???

You were saying Hayasdan need fear to be useful. I said Hayasdan, if useless without fear, are useless with fear because Pahlava, Baktria etc. have it too. I.e., your "solution" to making Hay useful doesn't make them useful at all, ergo it doesn't work as an argument for giving cata fear.

I agree that with fear Pav and Bak would be better than Hai, but my point was not having fear makes Hai even more useless than they are right now.

Are you really going to dismiss that out of hand as "lacking reasoning or examples", or did you just misunderstand me?

I dismissed them out of hand because you did not explain yourself properly. I did not misunderstand you, you just did not give enough of an explanation to make clear what you meant. Now you have.



Strawman.

How is that a strawman? Having said that, with the further information you have provided, your perspective is much clearer and I would be inclined to express is less so as "Barb vs East"... I still feel it is a valid point. The fear makes each respective faction better at certain tactics which is historically, and should be retained thus or scrapped entirely.



And here I disagree with you. If an "oven man" deserves scary trait it deserves it regardless of whom it serves. (I don't think it's possible to take away scare from AS cats without also taking it away from Baktrian cats, which you did mention.)

This is a silly point. Whilst an "oven man" is not a desirable opponent, an "oven man" on a huge armored horse than can smash into you at high speed is a lot scarier.


I did follow the conversation. If you don't agree with making choices for gameplay reasons such as what Robin did, then don't make arguments like that. You did, and thus I responded to it. If you wanted to be rhetorical, and didn't actually mean what you said, then it's up to you to be clear about it.

Anyway, to answer the question, I can perhaps put it like this. Yes, I would be scared shitless if cats attacked my back. I would also be scared shitless if non-cat heavy cav charged my back. How significant is the difference? Not too much, I would think. The difference between naked infantry and non-naked infantry is that the nakeds show exactly what I talked about in my previous post: they care not about their own safety, they care not about their own lives. That is a significant difference from other infantry.

Considering that cav already cause fear to infantry when they a) are at their flanks/behind, b) are charging them, c) are smashing into them or c) are fighting them in melee, and cats can easily rout units by charging into their rear even without the fear trait, I don't think they quite warrant the fear effect. This is, indeed, coloured by how strong the fear effect is - I would if I could make it less powerful. Perhaps then I could agree with cats having fear, but not when it is as it is.

Ok. (1) Your post did not make it sound like you followed the conversation. I am in no way against deciding on stats based on gameplay- I am very aware a balance needs to be struck between historicity and gameplay. What I said previously in response to Robin was that Robin's post was highlighting the gameplay factors. He was shifting focus away from "what is scarier in real life" to how it works in EBO. A lot of my argument in the post you have quoted is therefore based on gameplay.

(2) I agree that any heavy cav flank attacks are scary; but i also think that catas would have more of a psychological effect due to how heavily armored they were in conjunction to the quality/size of their mounts. Enough of a psychological effect to warrant fear.

(3) I would also agree that the psych diff between naked and non naked infantry is larger than the diff between heavy cav and cata. But that does not address the point I was making. My point was: diff between catas on one hand, and, (for eg) nakeds and chariots on the other.

Please try to understand that I have never claimed that you do, nor said anything that implies that I think you do. I was explaining that if gamplay reasons were the only thing speaking for Gaesatae/Uirodusios etc. should have the fear effect, then I would be against it. Likewise I am against giving cats fear effect because of gameplay reasons, like you were arguing.

Ok. I'm glad you understood :) . In some sense I agree with you, that nakeds and chariots should not get fear purely for gameplay reasons, but, Robins post spoke mainly of gameplay reasons (he may well share your view that there are appropriate historical reasons as well), but I was only going on what the post said. Now, my reasons for cata fear are not strictly gameplay, though gameplay is the overwhelming part of it. I simply do not agree with nakeds and chariots having fear but catas not for reasons outlined.

... what? Lets pretend, for argument's sake, that GG2 went crazy one night and decided to give all the spear-armed levies the scare trait. If I then said, hold on, they shouldn't have the scare trait! Would you then argue that, for sake of consistency, either everyone should lose scare (except ele) or everyone keeps them along with nakeds and chariots?

It doesn't make sense, nor is it even consistent considering that you for this must rely on the premise that the argument is directly against the scare trait.

TCV, this is a silly point or rather, a silly way to express yourself. Your point basically relies on the assumption that GG2 went crazy and "just decided" to give catas scare trait, since in your example you are comparing catas getting scary to something as frivolous as levy spearmen getting it.

My argument is not against scare trait, it is for consistency. Either cats retain fear with nakeds, , or, it gets removed all together. I don't mind which. Or even Arjos' proposal that they inspire rather than cause fear.


I disagree [this was regarding the factions Robin posted as the most often used ones].

What? Here is what Robin posted: "Baktria, AS, Ptolies, Makedonia, Epeiros, and KH". How many factions have cata? 2. How many factions are non cata? 4. I would also add that Pontos is used often. They don't have catas, thats 5v2.

Short version:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I would want cats to have something like a fear effect as opposed to more regular heavy cav, but I think that, as is, the fear effect is too powerful for them to earn it. They don't need it to be very effective anyway, and does provide fear, although no more than regular cav does now. Perhaps making their attack/defence/both higher instead of fear might be more called for. Naked infantry does need it though because it really is the only way to simulate the mental effect that their fighting style had. That's why I think it should be removed from cats and kept for nakeds.

In some sense I agree with you. If it were possible to tweak the engine, I would happy for catas to lose fear and nakeds keep them on the condition that nakeds only cause morale drop to units they are fighting- not whilst they are standing behind enemy lines (as Uros are often used) or just chilling out nearby. Unfortunately, neither your proposal nor mine is possible. In that event, I stand by what I said: nakeds, chariots, druids lose fear with catas, or, catas keep them.

I hope that is clear?
OMG I HATE THIS FORMAT. lol. My post just ended up being part of the quote. I will try to rectify later. I'm tired now.

[vartan]

Calling Vartan's post retarded is not an appropriate reaction. He was just considering it and wanted our thoughts.

How dare someone insult the tournament god-king like that?!

I want to remind everyone that, believe it or not, you can actually give Armenian cataphracts the fear effect while removing it from the Pahlava. Remember, they're different units and so it isn't the case that both either have it or don't. This is not a suggestion, just a reminder for those claiming this or that about P+H combinations of fear or not.

Anyway, this is for Brave Sir Robin. My suggestion to remove the fear effect, while not an actual call to remove it but rather something to think about, was not misguided at all. You yourself said it best and surprised me with your observational self by pointing out another quite ruinous game mechanism, namely guard mode. In combination with use of the fear effect, we have such a problem, yes. But as we can all see, if you remove the fear mechanic while also removing the guard mechanic, you have essentially rid your game of this problem with both fear imbalancing as well as guard imbalancing. This is not about the volume of urine men peed on the battlefield upon spotting cataphracts, but rather about a gameplay mechanic which, in my thought, should have either 1) never existed, or 2) been improved upon (a non-trivial task). The truth is, when you balance your EDU with fear effects (and to a lesser extent, guard mode) in consideration, this is what happens. You get a situation in which you are now determining who gets which mechanic in order to find a balance, and then to justify it somehow, but never in a satisfying manner.

TL;DR Fear and guard go hand in hand in terms of their imbalancing effects. Remove both and you have removed such effects. Proceed to balance EDU knowing full well that fear and guard are out of the picture. If you would oppose this idea, resume justifying various combinations of imposing or ridding of these mechanisms. Good luck.