EBOT 2012 July

[Arjos]

More to the reason why HAs need to be statted as the harassers they were and not mounted sharpshooters with sniper rifles XD

[gamegeek2]

If you think HAs are bad now, play vanilla for a spell and you'll see how far we've come...

[Lazy O]

Vanilla has a limit of 2 horse archers. I think they are fine right now , Of course when you let yourself get surrounded by an army of them you are asking for trouble .

[Brave Brave Sir Robin]

And the old legacy rules for EBO restricted just how many you could bring and also forced you to bring some infantry IIRC. With no infantry to attack, there is really nothing you can do now except hunker down and wait out an arrow storm. Recreating Carrhae is not the most fun thing to do.

[Lazy O]

Not quite correct, taking arjos as an example, his army quite clearly revolves around 3 units of cataphracts .

[gamegeek2]

And the old legacy rules for EBO restricted just how many you could bring and also forced you to bring some infantry IIRC. With no infantry to attack, there is really nothing you can do now except hunker down and wait out an arrow storm. Recreating Carrhae is not the most fun thing to do.

Regardless of whether individual battles are "fun" or not (that of course is entirely personal perception though I generally agree with you), the current situation is an huge improvement over vanilla EB. If this becomes a legitimate problem, where everyone decides that HA is the best strategy and brings 5+ of them to a battle every time they can, then we can address is, but right now I don't feel it's nearly that much of a concern.

However with the legacy rules, every battle using a steppe faction that I played was a Carrhae re-enaction. No exceptions. Now you have flexibility and you have competent foot archers to counter annoying HA.

[Arjos]

Now you have flexibility and you have competent foot archers to counter annoying HA.

But with such high accuracy, HAs have really little to no problem, unless incredibly outnumbered by foot...
I remember reading of bands repelled by a handful of archers lol
And anyway that an horse archer has that accuracy is sci-fi, they shot towards concentrations of enemies: the law of great numbers did the killing (even though, really was just harassing, heavy lancers did the dirty work), not the accuracy...

Not quite correct, taking arjos as an example, his army quite clearly revolves around 3 units of cataphracts.

Shhhh! Don't say it out loud, people are still mesmerized by the smoke screen of infantry or horse-archers XD

[Brave Brave Sir Robin]

Haha, I know his army revolves around cataphracts but they are impossible to catch and kill by nearly all cavalry without infantry support. And if you wildly chase after them, you get shot up by the shadowing horse archers. With the removal of ap from the kopis, the list of cavalry that can actually defeat cataphracts 1v1 in melee is probably only 2 or 3 anyway.

The other issue here is that cataphracts don't tire as fast as they should nor move as slowly as they should but that is not easily correctable, or in the case of tiring, hardcoded.

The other problem with HA as they currently stand is a weight of numbers issue. The 73 man and 66 man units create some issues because in a giant cavalry swarm, they outnumber anything civilized factions can hope to bring to bear and often can rout opposing cavalry simply through the weight of numbers morale penalty. In my battle with Arjos, you may notice that my generals BG turns to countercharge an incoming mass HA charge of probably 300-400 cavalry men and even though only about 6-7 of the bodyguards die in the charge, they rout even standing immediately in front of my infantry. I don't think the numbers should be changed, but this only adds to the current issue.

[Arjos]

I don't think the number of cavalrymen is a problem, lots of units will always be lots of units anyway...

With the removal of ap from the kopis

Aye, that's part of the "saddest days in EBO history" :P

[Lazy O]

Get ap back then . And make jav cav as cheap as horse archers .

[Brave Brave Sir Robin]

Light jav cav (ie Numidians) are already cost effective against anything other than horse archers. They don't need a discount, horse archers just need an accuracy reduction. Basically, in order to have a decent amount of accuracy, horse archers should have to be moving within 30 meters of their target, not running at 80 and picking guys off.

On a side not, managed to defeat Capo again. Victory on the ladder. Lets get some more tournament matches going this month guys! I need to catch Arjos in +/-!

[Lazy O]

Light jav cav (ie Numidians) are already cost effective against anything other than horse archers. They don't need a discount, horse archers just need an accuracy reduction. Basically, in order to have a decent amount of accuracy, horse archers should have to be moving within 30 meters of their target, not running at 80 and picking guys off.

On a side not, managed to defeat Capo again. Victory on the ladder. Lets get some more tournament matches going this month guys! I need to catch Arjos in +/-!

Nein !!! This only becomes apparent when you go full steppe, in a normal army with infantry, they will be underpowered for no reason at all .

[gamegeek2]

Aye, that's part of the "saddest days in EBO history" :P

Are you freaking kidding me? Do you remember how lopsided the battles were between the otherwise rather comparable Brihentin and Hippeis Xystophoroi? How the Azad cataphract unit was made utterly unplayable except against barbarians by armor-piercing kopides? How in general cataphracts were considered rather useless before this change (if I recall correctly)?

AND it makes no sense for the thing to have AP.

[The Celtic Viking]

Are you freaking kidding me? Do you remember how lopsided the battles were between the otherwise rather comparable Brihentin and Hippeis Xystophoroi? How the Azad cataphract unit was made utterly unplayable except against barbarians by armor-piercing kopides? How in general cataphracts were considered rather useless before this change (if I recall correctly)?

AND it makes no sense for the thing to have AP.

Except for that last sentence, I wholeheartedly agree. I'd have preferred an attack/lethality loss, though; now they're just on the other side of the spectrum instead.

Edit: oh, and except for that point about cataphracts though. The scary cataphracts were more OP than anything else, so while they had that trait I'm glad the kopis was OP too. It gave non-cata factions a chance. In this case, a second wrong didn't exactly make a right, but it did lessen the impact of the first.

[Kival]

How the Azad cataphract unit was made utterly unplayable except against barbarians by armor-piercing kopides?

I disagree. Cataphracts were not useless, the Azad cataphract unit just was not good in melee (!) against armoured cavalry with kopides.

[Arjos]

What's wrong about keltic cavalry losing to armour piercing weaponry? Afaik the former was renowned for the trimarkisia (each "knight" supported by two mounted attendants), so basically numerical superiority and they performed pretty badly against germanic cavalry: I really don't see the "Brihentin should be the non plus ultra" point...

As for cataphracts, in what fantasy world did you pick that they were invulnerable in melee? They had weight in the charge and were basically missile proof, but when caught by more agile cavalry in melee, they got shredded...

AND it makes no sense for the thing to have AP.

In your preferential view sure, in reality no :D

[Brave Brave Sir Robin]

Are you freaking kidding me? Do you remember how lopsided the battles were between the otherwise rather comparable Brihentin and Hippeis Xystophoroi? How the Azad cataphract unit was made utterly unplayable except against barbarians by armor-piercing kopides? How in general cataphracts were considered rather useless before this change (if I recall correctly)?

AND it makes no sense for the thing to have AP.

I think you may be referring to Lonchophoroi because they are a more similar unit to Brihentin but I personally have no issue with Brihentin losing to Lonchophoroi or for that matter any upper tier Greek Cavalry. They were better against light cavalry if that was any consolation.

The Azad cataphract used to be the most popular of the cataphract units back when fear existed for these units. They were cheap and excellent chargers. All that heavy armor is a detriment in a close melee. Which brings me to your next point, cataphracts should be bad in melee, especially against cavalry with ap weapons. And cataphracts were never considered useless, in fact many of us refused to use them because they were so strong with the fear attribute.

And finally, while I'm not firmly against the kopis losing ap, I did actually prefer when the weapon had the ap quality. You used to tout that units like Hetairoi could beat cataphracts in melee, somewhat of a selling point for such an expensive unit. Well, they get ground to pieces by cataphracts now.

[Arjos]

in a normal army with infantry, they will be underpowered for no reason at all.

That's just wrong, 2 riders are deadly, since everyone picks the uh or h ones and for a reason: sharpshooters on horseback XD

[Brave Brave Sir Robin]

That's just wrong, 2 riders are deadly, since everyone picks the uh or h ones and for a reason: sharpshooters on horseback XD

Playing as AS, I regularly rack up 400+ kills with just 2 units of Dahae Riders in one of my standard armies. I'd like to see heavy cavalry do that on a normal basis!

[Arjos]

BTW just for a laugh, since most of the posts gave me that reaction anyway :P

One is AP and the other isn't, spot the differences!

(little hint there isn't any XD)

[gamegeek2]

I would like to remove AP from falcatas as well, but I'm afraid there would be an even bigger shitstorm.

And if you look at cavalry kopides they aren't nearly as curved.

[Arjos]

For cavalry I might even agree, but infantry should have it and if the distinction can't be made, they should keep AP or at least give them decent stats, right now a kopis has like 10 attack at best lol!

[Kival]

Why should Cavalry-kopides and infantry kopides even considered the same weapon when they are so different? Only because the same name is used? If gamegeek's picture of cavalry-kopides is accurate for the average cavalry kopides, I would vote for no-ap for cavalry kopides but ap for infantry kopides (and falcata).

[The Celtic Viking]

Agreed from my side as well.

[Arjos]

Whoever made that model had a sabre in his mind...



Both these are cavalry kopides, as you can see even the longer "slender" version, still has more weight on the tip...
I don't know if in melee it's somewhat less effective, compared with the momentum of a running horse, so I honestly don't know if it "loses" the AP effect in that case (since the hit would be slower)...

Maybe we can stat the cavalry kopis as a longsword, bringing back the AP to the infantry kopis; mind you I don't even know if it's possible :P

[Brave Brave Sir Robin]

Why wouldn't that be possible? All stats are tied to the edu entry for each specific unit.

Would anyone be opposed to lowering the cost of the heavy Hellenistic cavalry in this case too as well as some of the more elite Gallic/German cavs? Units like Remi, Galatian Heavies, Hetairoi, Thessalians, Molosson, etc are far too expensive compared to the lesser cavalry, especially compared with cataphracts. This is part of the problem especially for factions like Makedonia and Epeiros in that their elite cavalry is relatively fragile and extremely expensive.

[Arjos]

I thought weapons' stats were fixed :P

Anyway, yes certain heavy cavalry is way too pricy, so are light archers over 1k too...
Also the Roxolani and the Sauro BG aren't cataphracts at all lol (not nearly as missile proof as what basically is the same unit in another faction)...

But let's move to a different thread, this is going way too off-topic :D

[gamegeek2]

still has more weight on the tip...

Is this really a passable argument for the dramatic game-changing effect you're trying to push? A little tip-weight leading to a weapon being decisively less effective in a fight between naked men compared with a simple straight sword but far more effective than a straight sword when each has a helmet, breastplate, and greaves? I thought tip-weighting was supposed to improve slash damage when one comes into contact with flesh?

The infantry-cavalry distinction I don't mind. Just note that the kopis and falcata are fine stabbing weapons and work a lot more like swords than axes, though they can have the bite of the latter.

right now a kopis has like 10 attack at best lol!

Hmm, let's take a gander:

type hellenistic cavalry generals bodyguard
stat_sec 15, 22, no, 0, 0, melee, simple, slashing, sword, 0 ,0.24

type hellenistic cavalry hellenikoi kataphraktoi
stat_sec 13, 25, no, 0, 0, melee, simple, slashing, sword, 0 ,0.24

If you are referring to infantry well then...

type roman infantry auxilia peditesextraordinarii
stat_sec 12, 6, no, 0, 0, melee, simple, slashing, sword, 0 ,0.24

Aside from this unit there are no Tier 4 (EB stat-wise) infantry armed with kopides. So that explains your statement, along with the fact that only Celts, Germans/Balts/Slavs, and Celticized Iberians receive the "barbarian bonus" to atk/def.

[Arjos]

I thought tip-weighting was supposed to improve slash damage when one comes into contact with flesh?

I was speaking of the cavalry longer ones, and I SAID I'm not sure if it happens or not, but I would imagine it was designed to work with the horse's run momentum...
The weight distribution helps the slash and gives a greater impact force...
But as you pointed out (even though with a poor image), the blade is different and in a chaotic close-quarters struggle, I figured the longer sword, wouldn't make it easier to strike with a full arc...

A little tip-weight leading to a weapon being decisively less effective in a fight between naked men

That's an engine issue, if you can give them accurate stats without AP, go ahead, but looking at what the kopis became (a useless weapon), there's need for more work, imo it's the tier that limits everything...

Just note that the kopis and falcata are fine stabbing weapons and work a lot more like swords than axes, though they can have the bite of the latter.

Exactly why no one is speaking of giving it axe-like stats, but a shared feature...

Aside from this unit there are no Tier 4 (EB stat-wise) infantry armed with kopides.

I had in mind troops like the Samnitici, Thorakitai Hoplitai etc...
And my stance on the tier system is well known XD

[gamegeek2]

Kopides are useless but straight swords and gladii aren't? Were spears pushed too much?