Dogs

[Khuyildar]

How do you people use dogs? Or do you use them at all? I think they're fairly powerful, because they chewed through two spear warbands head on in one recent battle killing everyone, and regenerated to full strength afterwards .

[Lucidor]

How do you people use dogs? Or do you use them at all? I think they're fairly powerful, because they chewed through two spear warbands head on in one recent battle killing everyone, and regenerated to full strength afterwards .

Like you do... They are insanely powerful. I let them in first through a battered gate to clear of a little people from the inside.

[Deecie]

As Scipii I used them to great effect against elephants; elephants seem to get spooked very easily by incendiary pigs and war dogs.

War dogs are also good as kamikaze's to break enemy formations; the dog trainers gain experience from fighting, not the dogs themselves (or so I understand), so as long as the trainers survive, they're good, expendable, easily retrainable units.

War dogs can pretty much charge right UNDER the spears in a phalanx formation and bite right away at those evil barbarians. Even if they don't get past the spears, having them right in front of an infantry or cavalry charge to break up the formation a bit is a great help.

[Loopy]

I'm trying to mod the wardogs to change them from rottweilers to Golden Retrievers, the best dogs ever. They will lick the ankles of the opposing forces and make them drop their weapons and run away.

[Khuyildar]

War dogs are also good as kamikaze's to break enemy formations; the dog trainers gain experience from fighting, not the dogs themselves (or so I understand), so as long as the trainers survive, they're good, expendable, easily retrainable units.

LOL, yeah, the game considers the dogs as some sort of projectiles . When I put the mouse cursor over a unit of dogs, it always shows only the number of dog trainers.

I've also realized the dogs are a bit too über. Scythian 120 "man" dog units with 3 exp (straight out from a city with a lvl 3 temple) are like homing missiles.

[TinCow]

Dogs are very lethal against unarmored or lightly armored units. Against heavy infantry or cavalry they are much less useful. Wardogs ripped apart the Gauls, Brittons, Spanish and Germans when I played as the Julii, but they are much less effective against the Greek hoplites in my current Brutii campaign.

[Upward Mobility]

How do you people use dogs? Or do you use them at all? I think they're fairly powerful, because they chewed through two spear warbands head on in one recent battle killing everyone, and regenerated to full strength afterwards .

Dogs are... well... I really don't want to use the b-word (broken), but they are so ridiculous, IMO, that I restrict myself to a maximum of one per army, if that. In fact, in my current game, I have a total of one unit of wardogs, and I got them from the Senate for free.

That being said, I usually only use them during sieges, after I get a hole in the wall or have the gates busted open.

[Shottie]

Ive never used them before. I think that a group of dogs charging armoured swordmen can be affective until the swordmen start swing but in RTW that doesnt happen to often I dont think. But I think I will try the dogs when i attack a city, or maybe as a defence?

[Theodoret]

I use them to chase down routing units and skirmishers, but they are also pretty good if you wait until your main battle line is coming into contact with the enemy and then release them. They will mess up the enemy formation.

Personally, I think the best thing in the game is to see the uppity 'we can't be bought like goods at a market' enemy general being savaged by rottweilers.

[OctavianAugustus]

oh come on guys
the war dogs are NOT THAT GOOD
they are balanced just fine

please play test your assertions before you come postings "i am sure about this " on the forums

go into Custom battle and try out some even matched battles

i had 4 units of wardogs vs 3 units of gaul warbands
and the warbands Creamed the wardogs easily ok!!??

ive played many battles w/ the wardogs and they are NOT UBER ok?
they are medium

wardogs on their own are ripe to defeat

simple unarmoured soldiers can beat wardogs in 1on1 battle
ive never won

BUT...if you send in a group of soldiers vs 2 groups of soldiers
then release the wardogs BEHIND them...you will probably always win

i usually have 2 or so groups of wardogs per stack of soldiers

agian, if i hear anyone say Wardogs are overpowered
IM Going to post agianst you because you obviously have NOT playtested
in custom battle

in 10 battles of wardogs 1on1 vs random infantry units of various factions

the wardogs won only ONCE!!!!

they get slaughtered without proper support

the developers of RomeTW arent that stupid come on guys

agian War DOgs are NOT overpowered

they only tip a battle in your favor if you use them With Proper support units like infantry or calvary

but they do seem however to die less often from friendly fire of arrows...

so if you want your archers to have a little extra time to pick off enemy units...sacrifice some war dogs to bog the enemy down while your archers wear down the enemy....

playtest before you comment....

[Divico]

I never really knew what to do with them. I have some units sitting in towns. Better get them out in the field against the Gauls.

[Tyburn JIG]

To my mind dogs are fine just the way they are.

I sincerely hope the vocal minority don't achieve their goal of nurffing this unit to suit their own personal preferences.

@Khuyildar

As mentioned in above posts,dogs are good for various jobs on the field.One thing that works for me is sending them against chariots(particularly the archer variety).Seems to get them in a right little mess....spinning around in circles rather than trampling my lines.