Regarding Spears and Cavalry

[hoof]

It could be even simpler than that, do Armenian Heavy Infantry have a sword as a secondary weapon? If their spear is used both for phalanx and non-phalanx use, then they should get mount_bonus when not in phalanx mode (unlike hoplites that don't use their spears except for in phalanx).

That would make everything consistent:

-mount_bonus is used for non-Phalanx hand-to-hand combat only, and applies anytime that unit uses a spear for non-Phalanx fight
-spear would apply to any unit that can form a phalanx, and would enable the "phalanx" button
-long_pike would be a modifier to the spear attribute, making the unit use long_pike tactics (more rows involved in combat, longer engagement distance, etc)

I would suspect that "short-pike" would have 1 fewer rows in the phalanx than normal hoplites, and engage closer in.

[Spino]

The TWC thread on spear units also covered the reasons why Eastern Infantry, Libyan Spearmen, Triarii, Auxilia Infantry, etc. possess a +4 'mount_effect' but not the 'spear' or 'short/long_pike' classification. It seems that units with the spear classification (regular or long or short pike variety) generally perform poorly versus non-spear infantry in melee. The biggest strength of true spear units is their ability to resist and kill cavalry. The one caveat is that units with the long_pike classification generally get the best of all enemy units (spear, non-spear or mounted) because of the length of their pikes, their greater numbers and the additional ranks that lend their pikes to the fight.

Since hoplites are pure 'spear' units they seem to rely solely on their numbers and extra fighting ranks to beat non-spear units. Armenia's Heavy Spearmen have both spears and the +4 mount_effect probably because it is that faction's only decent anti-cavalry spear unit and it helps to offset their smaller, 80 man size.

Actually in light of how well 'long_pike' equipped units perform I think the 'short_pike' classification might make those units perform too well so CA opted to stay with the vanilla 'spear' classification. I would be interested to see the results of testing with the three spear types. You would think that long pikes would have one more row fighting than short pikes who have one more row fighting than hoplites.

One thing I am certain of is that for non-spear 'spear' units the +4 mount_effect is woefully inadequate against most cavalry.

Wait, did this post answer anyone's questions? I'm not thinking straight because I'm starved! NEED FOOD!

[nameless]

Just a question, I was trying out the capabilities of the Auxilla to combat Calvary compared to Legionary Cohort fighting Calvary. This was set on medium. In both tests the romans won. The Auxilla suffered 38% casualities but Legionary Cohort suffered only 8% casualties.

Also looking at the numbers and bonuses, the Auxilla's fighting strength is 5 and a bonus of 4 which gives it an attack of 9, equal to that of a Cohort except the Cohort has 22 armor while the Auxilla has 17. So....are these spearmen even worth it? or is it better to jack up their bonuses?

[bubbanator]

Well, Auxilia are lightly armored which gives them a big dissadvantage when cavalry charges them. Plus, the cohorts attack is quite a bit stronger than auxilias, even with the bonus.

What you should do, is set auxilias stats to be exactly the same as the cohorts. Have the attack and deffense the same and then run some tests. This should give you some more accurate results to see if the mount_effect actually does anything.


On a side note, I think that it would be hillarious to make archer auxilia 'super-units' with insane attack and deffense, give them the mount_effect bonus, along with armor piercing and body piercing arrows, area effect (like onagers, i assume) and give them the launching property so that men go flying everywhere when they get hit

[nameless]

I gave the Auxillia 9,22; the same as a cohort and the Auxillia suffered only 5% casualities this time while the cohort again suffered 8%.

I'm thinking of just leaving the stats at 5,17 and then jacking the bonus from +4 to +10 or something. Calvary is just too powerful in this game.