Polybian Principes VS Cohors Reformata Cost

[Ca Putt]

A greave on the leading leg makes the difference between a weakspot and a place not to stab at(tho hitting the foot would be sufficient to keep the chap from running^^) however I'd guess the second point is due to better quality armor.

[Basileus_ton_Basileon]

I concur. Personal equipment will always triumph over mass-produced copy-cat made-in-Roma equipment.

[Ca Putt]

There are indications(or as some people say proof) that it was commonplace for marian veterans to save (part of)their salary and loot to buy better equipment.

[Basileus_ton_Basileon]

hence we have the evocata.

[Sdragon]

Yep, that leg with the greave is the leading leg. The part of your body which is pretty much the closest to the enemy. Pretty sure having 1 gives +2 armour but the second only gives an additional +1 on top of that.

[Ludens]

AFAIK the first greave gives +2 armour, and the second one gives no bonus.

The EB-stat system is based on the idea that the body is mostly covered by the shield, so armour is most effective on those bits that are sticking out: the head and the lower-half of the leading leg. The trailing leg, on the other hand, is the part of the body that is farthest from the enemy. Should an enemy weapon get past the shield, it's still more likely to hit the body or upper leg, so greave on the trailing leg would not add much protection. The team felt it was too minor to include in the stat system. Double greaves appear only on units that are already pretty well armoured, anyway.

[vollorix]

The armour of the most units might be as realistic as possible concerning the actual situation in the time frame of EB, but there are two things which make this "realism" quite unrealistic game wise:
1. The armour is the primary value which is considered in autocalc, and therefore the disadvantage of unarmoured units is quite obvious.
2. The defence skill doesn´t not have an overall protection like armour does; on the battlemap this simply leads to unbalanced results.
One can´t make it perfect due to the limited RTW engine, and every one has his own view on different things, but the main goal of EB, to realisticly represent ( in game: on the campaign/battle map ) leads to very undesired results ( one simple example: Lusos rampaging their way through Gaul; their lowest levy unit has an armour value of "4" ( iberi milites, 240 men ), while the best armoured gaulic swordmen have a value of "5" ( Bataroas, 200 men ).
I, for my part, think that there is a descrepancy between the historical realismus, and the ingame situation. And i don´t want to start talking about "Triari spam" of the Romans ( "14" armour value, meaning "game over" for any barbarian faction ). As much as i love EB, and appriciate the hard and dedicated work of all team members who have been involved in making this modification possible, i wonder why there were never made needed fixes for the balancing the factions ( not everyone can mode even the EDU, but moding EDB with the complicated EB system is quite difficult ).
I hope, in EB II the approach will be more sofisticated concerning the unit balancing.

[kidpacific]

AFAIK the first greave gives +2 armour, and the second one gives no bonus.

The EB-stat system is based on the idea that the body is mostly covered by the shield, so armour is most effective on those bits that are sticking out: the head and the lower-half of the leading leg. The trailing leg, on the other hand, is the part of the body that is farthest from the enemy. Should an enemy weapon get past the shield, it's still more likely to hit the body or upper leg, so greave on the trailing leg would not add much protection. The team felt it was too minor to include in the stat system. Double greaves appear only on units that are already pretty well armoured, anyway.

Is there some threads or links explain the EB-stats system?