[EB MP]3.0 Thread - Testing and Updates

[Arjos]

While I can agree to don't use guard mode, since afaik it can't be nerfed, I hope the EDU won't get too arcade removing features (even the history backed ones)...

[antisocialmunky]

Imma gonna use teh guard mode.

[capomafioso]

is there way to disable guard mode? it would encourage tactics instead of sitting and waiting, and charging would be less of a death wish, this would probably remove the value of pikewalls however, as the best defence becomes offense. btw nakeys should keep scarey, catas probably shouldnt, but should get some other buff to maintain their price.

[Kival]

Some units are useless or at least not as useful as they historically have been without guard mode. Especially hoplites are no good without guard mode.

[gamegeek2]

The strength of hoplites was historically in their shield-wall formation. Guard mode is a fine substitute for shield-wall, as it functions similarly in-game.

[antisocialmunky]

Change the radius and increase charge to 20ish, it helps reduce the importance of guard mode as units won't spend all their time spread out and unable to concentrate mass.

[vartan]

While I can agree to don't use guard mode, since afaik it can't be nerfed, I hope the EDU won't get too arcade removing features (even the history backed ones)...

When I call a feature an arcade one it means it isn't historical. History and arcade are meant to be opposites here in the terminology.

Some units are useless or at least not as useful as they historically have been without guard mode. Especially hoplites are no good without guard mode.

The strength of hoplites was historically in their shield-wall formation. Guard mode is a fine substitute for shield-wall, as it functions similarly in-game.

Why the common misconception that history and game mechanisms need a one-to-one correspondence? That's not how it needs to work. There are always more than trivial ways and alternatives to this superficial shield-wall?-let's-design-a-feature-called-shield-wall approach.

Change the radius and increase charge to 20ish, it helps reduce the importance of guard mode as units won't spend all their time spread out and unable to concentrate mass.

Case in point. Don't know if it works or not, but it's an example of what I describe above. And I'm not sure if the whole the-engine-sucks-so-let's-keep-features argument holds too strongly.

[Lazy O]

You complicate things far too much. There really is nothing special about the Celtic factions without fear. Since they cannot really hold their own without it.

[Brave Brave Sir Robin]

Anyway, scary should be removed from cataphracts. Their major weakness was that they tired quickly when moving into position for charges. Now they can do a good job of scaring infantry by standing still behind the lines therefore doing away with this weakness somewhat. The 1 shield value means that they don't have to worry too much about slingers when standing still either.

[TheShakAttack]

No scary should not be removed from catas.

[vartan]

Forget scary. I don't know which genius thought up the idea of that feature in the first place.

You complicate things far too much. There really is nothing special about the Celtic factions without fear. Since they cannot really hold their own without it.

You complicate things by maintaining an extra feature. Removing features is called simplification. Adding or maintaining them is called complication. If a unit cannot hold its own without fear, that unit's stats need to be reviewed, and this should go without saying. You cannot and will not comprehend this train of thought until you stop thinking in a framework which uses an attribute such as fear. Remove it from the equation and try to think of what that system looks like. This is hard but not impossible.

[Arjos]

But vartan, scary barbarians is source backed, its removal would be going all arcade with the edu...

[Kival]

Why the common misconception that history and game mechanisms need a one-to-one correspondence? That's not how it needs to work. There are always more than trivial ways and alternatives to this superficial shield-wall?-let's-design-a-feature-called-shield-wall approach.

As long as we do no have another way to represent the function of hoplites, we should stay with guard mode. Only when we can find another way, we should thinking about deleting guard mode. One should not decontruct everything without any alternatives. If asms idea is working: perfect.

By the way I'm still not sure if it is possible to delete guard mode.

But vartan, scary barbarians is source backed, its removal would be going all arcade with the edu...

Indeed. What's the point of naked fanatics if not beeing scary (or/and perhaps inspiring). They surely did not have the best equipment, they had some fighting skill, sure, but without fear there is no reason to favour them before armoured troops. And as arjos and other already said, the scary effect of naked fanatics is not arcade or made up. It's pretty accurate historically.

[TheShakAttack]

Not this this has anything to do with the fear debate, but I wondered if you guys might be able to quote some sources as to when nakeds were found scary. With my limited knowledge, all I know is Telamon, where the nakeds did "impress" the Romans, but not in the way the game depicts it.... by lowering Roman morale. Elephants did that. Sources say that scythe-chariots did that pre-Alexander; but I haven't been able to find much re: nakeds. The info I've read indicates that they "inspired" their own troops more than they caused enemy morale to drop.

In that sense, I think Arjos' recommendation that fear be removed, and inspire (ie. eagle) adopted instead makes sense.

[Arjos]

all I know is Telamon

That passage says it all: the Romani were intimidated, but since they were naked missiles and pila annihilated them...
While if we take Carrhae, the panic was caused by the arrows forcing a tight formation on which the cataphracts inflicted many casualties...

Also if we compare the two, on one side you have the Romani actually scared and preferring to throw javelins; on the other you have the Romani trying to even charge at the cataphracts, because they saw how keeping ground was only working to the Parthian's advantage...
The two mentalities, imo, clearly show which was scary...

[TheShakAttack]

That passage says it all: the Romani were intimidated, but since they were naked missiles and pila annihilated them...
While if we take Carrhae, the panic was caused by the arrows forcing a tight formation on which the cataphracts inflicted many casualties...

Also if we compare the two, on one side you have the Romani actually scared and preferring to throw javelins; on the other you have the Romani trying to even charge at the cataphracts, because they saw how keeping ground was only working to the Parthian's advantage...
The two mentalities, imo, clearly show which was scary...

Ok, I was about to go to sleep till I saw this; so I'm blaming you for sleep deprivation, lol. I think you are taking a very subjective intepretation in comparingTelamon and Carrhae. Polybius did not say that the reason Romans used pila was because they were scared (ie. did not want to fight hand to hand). He does not say that Romans were scared and preferred to throw pila. What he does say is that the Gaesatae shield's were too small to be effective vs the pila volley. After suffering significant casualties, the Gaesatae (presumably) realised they were getting slaughtered and needed to do something, and they decided to charge the Roman lines. And were shrugged off.

It would have to be an incredibly stupid commander who gave the order NOT to use pila against an unarmored foe with small shields- especially considering that it was the standard Roman practise to throw pila before engaging in hand-to-hand.

In other words, the fact that they threw pila does not indicate that they did so because they were "scared" of fighting hand-to-hand. They were just following standard procedures; and a procedure which would be doubly effective due to a lack of enemy armor. If the Romans broke and fled when the Gaesatae charged, or engaged in hand to hand, it would be indisputable evidence of the "fear" effect as represented in RTW. That did not happen.

Its also interesting to note that in that particular instance, the Gaesatae were being prima donnas- one of the reasons Polybius gives for them taking off clothes is because they did not want them to get caught in the brambles. Polybius also mentions that they were "equal to their foes [Romans] in courage". Obv Polybius is not going to say anything bad about the Romans, but it is interesting to note that he commented that "Roman courage" was equal to Gaesatae courage.

The situation in Carrhae was very different. The cataphracts were on horses, and Crassus was acting like a moron. There was no way they could really rely on throwing pila against the cataphracts as they would need to brace, and because of limited amount of pila per man. Also, keep in mind that even against units that are very scary, professional soldiers will initially follow orders and only later on, "when the going gets tough" lose heart and flee. Very rarely is there a total break of morale upon sight of an enemy unit.

Lastly, Crassus was leading a body of professional troops (this was post Marian-reforms), whereas in Telamon, they were old school citizen levies.

As a post script, I'd like to add, I am not advocating for removal of naked fear (unless of course there are other factors like fear being removed generally). I was just curious about what the sources were. I felt I had to respond to Arjos' post since it took a very slanted view.

Also, I am not entirely sure they used pila since I seem to recall pila was adopted after Telamon- but I am using that word since Arjos did, and since he is a most learned chap.

[Arjos]

I must say that I'm not too sure about when the pilum first appeared, I thought was with the camillian reform post Allia...
As for my interpretation, Polybius was saying:

Very terrifying too were the appearance and the gestures of the naked warriors in front, all in the prime of life, and finely built men, and all in the leading companies richly adorned with gold torques and armlets. The sight of them indeed dismayed the Romans, but at the same time the prospect of winning such spoils made them twice as keen for the fight.

And yes in this case were javelin throwers, point is that they preferred to hail missiles against a relatively small band (compared to the whole host)...

While about Carrhae, Crassus' mistakes were more about the route taken and the poor scouting, as you said the army was made of professionals (even veterans from Gaul), they reacted in the best way possible, and despite the horrible situation they still charged to respond the cataphracts...
The retreat was sounded because they didn't have any weapon to retaliate against such numbers of cavalry and the wounded were piling up, the frontal charges didn't rout them: instead they counter-charged...

Looking at Magnesia for another example (and with non-professional troops), we see the 1.200 roman equites still charging towards the overwhelming royal squadron of Antiochos, and they routed only when they got outflanked...
All this didn't make the allied left panic, not even the camp guards: bottom line is that Romani had no second thought about facing cataphracts, but tried to avoid full confrontation with naked Keltoi, ofc they were easy targets for missiles, but at the same time any slash could've impaired their limbs, still this wasn't recommended...

Also considering how the Gaisatoi were much praised mercenaries, sought by various coutries, doesn't give the picture of a burden nor a useless component for an army, what really happened at Telamon was that the Insubres and Boii let them choose whatever they wanted, instead of supporting them...

[The Celtic Viking]

Its also interesting to note that in that particular instance, the Gaesatae were being prima donnas- one of the reasons Polybius gives for them taking off clothes is because they did not want them to get caught in the brambles.

Now I think that's completely unfair, so I'll come to the defence of these my glorious nudes and point out that that's quote mining. The full quote given by Polybius is this:

... but the Gaesatae had discarded these garments owing to their proud confidence in themselves, and stood naked, with nothing but their arms, in front of the whole army, thinking that thus they would be more efficient, as some of the ground was overgrown with brambles which would catch in their clothes and impede the use of their weapons.

My emphasis added. As you can see, they are reported to having done so for practical and tactical reasons, not out of some vanity of not wanting their clothes to get ripped (or whatever your insinuation is exactly). Please don't insult their honour as the Men of Men again.

[vartan]

But vartan, scary barbarians is source backed, its removal would be going all arcade with the edu...

You still don't get it? Ever tried designing a game? (It doesn't have to be a video game.) Just because certain real-life warriors were 'scary' doesn't mean you need to create a game mechanic called 'Fear Effect' in your game in order to illustrate this. In fact, you don't need to illustrate it so blatantly at all. You can do just fine making sure they act as 'fearsome' warriors by making them fight better by way of stats. That's called inheritance. The warrior's fighting ability stats inherit the fear feature as a modification, an adjustment.

As long as we do no have another way to represent the function of hoplites, we should stay with guard mode. Only when we can find another way, we should thinking about deleting guard mode. One should not decontruct everything without any alternatives. If asms idea is working: perfect.

ASM has stood out more than anyone else to me in terms of thinking of concrete possible ways of managing this issue. The truth is, though, you'll never see functioning hoplites in EB, and if they are still missing weaponry and any primitive shield-wall feature (which iirc is lacking in M2TW:K), then you won't even see it in EB II. So we'll have to drop the whole attempt at making hoplites function as hoplites and have them function as freelancing warriors dancing on the field with their aristeia instead of the traditional phalanx. Cause the phalanx won't be there. It can't be there.

By the way I'm still not sure if it is possible to delete guard mode.

You supposedly can using in-battle scripts but I'm against any 3rd-party stuff like that for security reasons.

[gamegeek2]

The way battle dynamics play out with fear-inducing cataphracts is excellent, and fits well with historical observances. The cataphracts are slow, clunky, and vulnerable in melee (particularly against lighter horsemen with AP weapons), but resistant to missiles and devastating upon impact.

[Lazy O]

Cataphracts are not slow. Light Cavalry barely outruns them. They can just sit around for the whole battle behind a line and they eat up every other cavalry in the game bar the Sacred Band and Lanceari/Ambakaro, couple this with superior missile power of the Hellenistic factions, they are basically invulnerable to all but the most crazy of tactics (hehe shak :P), wheares all other heavy cavalry are extremely vulnerable to missiles and barbarian factions get screwed even harder because they do NOT have missile superiority, cannot protect their flanks now(sorry robin, spear infantry does not work anymore with cataphracts :( ) and their already fragile morale is further disrupted by the presence of fear, previously being their only trump card.

That concludes my defense of the barbarian factions.

I would also like to say that balance is being skewed more and more towards the Hellenistic factions and normal horse archers are SHIT as the main component of steppe armies.

[Vega]

Forget scary. I don't know which genius thought up the idea of that feature in the first place

OK im that genius who begins this discussion, so i see that im not the only one who is GENIUS and dont agree with me, remove fear from catas and give them eagle...

[TheShakAttack]

Awesome. Lot's of juicy stuff to reply to.

First of all, @ TCV- I was only saying that tongue-in-cheek.

@ Arjos- you are still taking a very slanted view. The Gaesatae were acting as a rear guard, and they were facing "half" of the Roman army. As I said before, it would be very stupid of a commander NOT to use javs against them. It's like in EBO where you have falxmen/Bastarnae in front of you during skirmish stages and you choose NOT to use arrows/javs against them (where you have the option of doing so), and instead, charge them with infantry. Does that mean as a general you are scared of them, or you are making best use of resources? Undoubtedly there is some argument that these dudes were given some respect, but I wanted sources where their capacity to lower morale was clear.

@Lazy- I do not think catas slant dynamics signifcantly towards Hellenistic factions. Catas are pretty easy to counteract. I've played against hellenistic factions many times and taken non hellenic whilst doing so. I've even had battles against 4-6 catas (in a 2v2) with me and my ally as non cata factions, and it was pretty easy to beat them. Pontos, Carthage, Ptoles, Sweboz for instance are great anti-cav factions. I am not 100% sure how the barbs fare since I am still a noob at controlling celtic armies.

Also, catas are very slow and cumbersome. Try running around very tired cataphracts. They get to that state very quickly, recover stamina very slowly compared to other cav. When facing them, you just have to wait for an attack and keep ur cav/spears in reserve.

@GG2- I completly agree with you. Having said that, I admit to the proponents of cata fear removal that it is absurd that an exausted, severely depleted cata unit lowers morale in the vicinity when it is running around- however, the same can be said of exhausted, depleted naked unit. I personally use Gaesatae to do that many a times- run them around purely to use fear effect. In fact, if anything, I use it more with Gaesatae than catas, since catas are a very expensive unit, and I cannot really afford to run them around purely for using fear effect.

[Lazy O]

Remove shield values from armored archers please. And horse archers are a no no as the main component for steppe factions. FIX THIS GG2 I EXPECT BETTER FROM FELLOW SAUROMATAE

[Kival]

Remove shield values from armored archers please.

On which basis should shield value be removed? Bospharans, Cretans and Syrians do have shields, they used them, you cannot artificially remove them for any kind of gameplay reasons. I think heavy archers have their problems now because they are so expensive.

[Arjos]

you are still taking a very slanted view. The Gaesatae were acting as a rear guard

They were surrounded by two armies, they were the front line on that side, and it's not a slanted view, it wasn't common for the Romani to prolong the missile engagement as much, even against the Galatikoi, Vulso ordered such measures: it wasn't a good move to engage them in close quarters...

At Cannae the Gaisatoi are said to have been naked from the navel upwards, so maybe wasn't about the nudity, but the mobility these units had, and I think that falxmen worked the same way...
But their status still gave them a mental edge over the enemy...

Missiles were their weakness, and even superior armoured infantry avoided clashing with them, it was sure the right thing to do (throwing javelins at them), but at the same time this show how keeping a distance was preferable...

[Lazy O]

On which basis should shield value be removed? Bospharans, Cretans and Syrians do have shields, they used them, you cannot artificially remove them for any kind of gameplay reasons. I think heavy archers have their problems now because they are so expensive.

They make them invincible to arrows. Ok they were armored but still small shields will not have this big an effect.

[Kival]

They make them invincible to arrows. Ok they were armored but still small shields will not have this big an effect.

At least cretans and syrians are not invincible to arrows. Perhaps shield value for bosphorans should be reduced, I'd need to think about that but otherwise I can't see the problem. You propably did not bring your archers close enough?

[Arjos]

Just because certain real-life warriors were 'scary' doesn't mean you need to create a game mechanic called 'Fear Effect' in your game in order to illustrate this.

I disagree, "barbarians" were masters of psychological warfare, pure superiority in fighting skills would be an over simplification...

The cataphracts are slow, clunky, and vulnerable in melee (particularly against lighter horsemen with AP weapons), but resistant to missiles and devastating upon impact.

And how fear plays out in those parameters? Even without it they'd still be slow, vulnerable in melee, resistant to missiles and with a devastating charge...

[Kival]

The biggest problem with cata-fear is that spear infantry does not do very well against them. I'm no expert for cataphracts but should they not still have to avoid spear infantry?