Rock/Paper/Scissors vs Stone/Javelin/Arrow

[Darius]

Now normally I never really get too worked up about simple things like this but it's been bugging me now that I've played all the different factions. Seeing as some are incapable of fielding either a slinger unit or an archer unit or a skirmisher unit, it always feels like I'm at a huge disadvantage. Normally I'd just say it's just how history was, but then again, there are a few discrepancies.

In my mind, I always felt that this game made slingers seem like a bunch of people who wished they were archers. They were only something you would use because either you didnt have the ability to recruit archers yet, or because you simply couldn't. They have a rather short range and they have a somewhat small attack factor. Yet from what I've read, slingers could often throw just as far or at least close to the range of your typical archer. Not to mention you'd figure a large, heavy, blunt object would have a better effect against armored units than arrows would.

The same goes for Javelin units in a way. I just feel like they are some rag tag group who were so poor, they could only afford to throw sticks, because apparently stones were so expensive back then (yes im being sarcastic) and therefore had to work with what they had. As if that's not bad enough, they seem to take their good old time to throw those accursed sticks, and then they have to run like a dog with its tail between its legs as their range is so pitiful. I dont know about you, but I can sure as heck throw a stick farther than five feet without taking forever to do it.

Oh and then of course there is the whole friendly fire issue. You'd swear all missile units were composed of the ex wives of your front line soldiers, because they are awfully eager to shoot them all in the back. I mean, these guys have been campaigning together, training together, living together, doing all things with one another, youd think theyd hesitate to take even a DIRECT ORDER to shoot into a melee, if not REFUSE outright. Instead, my missile units slaughter an entire company in order to shoot that SINGLE ROUTING PEASANT! If I had the option, my archers would be getting introduced to decimation quite frequently.

[drone]

Oh and then of course there is the whole friendly fire issue. You'd swear all missile units were composed of the ex wives of your front line soldiers, because they are awfully eager to shoot them all in the back.

There have been a few threads about this topic, with a lot of historical (and hysterical) debate. Most people seem to think that the archers are too powerful for the time, and the slingers and jav throwers got the shaft, as it were. Some slingers do quite well in the game though.

The javelin foot troops are pretty much worthless, I have only found 2 uses for them. On rare occasions, the AI does let me toss javelins into infantry winth impunity, and sometimes I can use them to move the enemy's lines around. The other use is to bait the enemy cav into charging them, while running them back through a good infantry formation to tear the cav up.
Of course, during sieges you can use up the javelins by throwing them into the town square, but some consider that cheating...

I pretty much have to micromanage all missile troops to prevent friendly fire and skirmish issues. I always turn fire at will off, and usually skirmish as well. I don't think there is any way around it, maybe the patch will fix some of it. As for the ranges and attack abilities (and fire rate, I think), these can be modded as you see fit.

[Zorn]

I also think that slingers and javelin units are useless the way they are.
I would like to see a balance between range and power of a weapon.
So a bow would have a great range, but does very little damage, whereas a javelin has a very short range, but does trendemous damage.
Slings would be in the middle of both extremes (or change sling and bow here - I leave that discussion to the history-experts)
That way scirmishers would get a reward for the risk they are entering when they get so close to the enemy.

[Red Harvest]

All valid points. The archer units having the highest hitting power and still having great accuracy is way off base of the way they seem to have been at the time. I think the biggest problem is that across the board archers were given either too much hitting power/penetration or (and?) their accuracy is too high. So by comparison other missile units are too weak. In my last battle a single unit of vanilla Egypitian bowmen just killed 18 of 80 archers in its first volley, at max range on level open ground. That's insane, even for a 120 man unit. This was just on "hard" not "very hard." I can't imagine even the very best archers of their time being able to pull off that feat, let alone a bunch of conscripts.

The friendly fire issue is amplified for shorter range units, since they might get off 1 volley vs. the enemy, then 2 or 3 into the backs of their own men. A longer range unit might get off 2 or 3 volleys before shooting their own men in the back (or if you have time you might be able to pull them back without fratricide after a volley or two.) Friendly fire really increases the "usefullness" differential among the ranged units.

If CA fixes the way javelins throw their first volley (the VERRRRRYYYY long delay) and friendly fire, I think they will be about right. (Dangerous if you have to stand there and take their fire.) It might make sense to give them a few more javelins so that they don't run out so rapidly, rather than increasing javelin killing power. In this I assume CA also cuts back archer accuracy so that they work in a relative sense.

Pila seem about right. Getting off two pila volleys causes a fair amount of damage. The casualties and disorder is certainly enough to hamper the effectiveness of the opponent in the coming melee.

I'm thinking of extending "vanilla slinger" range out to about 100 yards from its present 80. That would help with some of the issues. The vanilla archers should have no more "battlefield presence" than a vanilla slinger for most factions. They should also be more expensive to recruit and maintain.

Later elite units should have trouble reaching the hitting power of current "vanilla archers." And don't get me started on their trump card, "fire arrows."

[Spino]

I agree with the assertion that archer units, particularly the high end ones, are ridiculously overpowered. I also agree that the time it takes all missile units to reload and fire is a tad too slow. Although I take greater exception to the painfully long time it takes a missile unit to switch from 'firing/reloading' mode to 'run like hell' mode when faced with charging infantry and cavalry.

But the main problem with javelins is that they do not possess armor piercing capabilities. This is a marked change from Medieval where javelins possessed AP capabilities and therefore posed a far bigger threat to armored units. Why CA opted to opted to remove the AP modifier is a little mysterious because with the default non-AP settings there is little reason to purchase or hire javelin equipped units instead of their sling and bow equipped counterparts. Sure, the average javelin unit is better in melee than the average archer or sling unit but the point to building these units other than their low price is their missiles, not their muscles.

Modify the game by adding the 'ap' modifier after the 'thrown' text for all javelin unit entries in the export_descr_unit.txt file. It is the single most effective change you can make for javelin units. The AP modifier means that a successful hit on an enemy unit automatically halves its armor rating before damage is applied, a much needed bonus when facing heavily armored troops.

[BDC]

Rhodian slingers are pretty nasty. Downhill into the flank or rear of almost any unit and the dead pile high.

I was always under the impression that slingers outranged archers in real life.

[LordKhaine]

Slingers seem good for killing power, but they suffer more from FF than archers due to their more direct firing arc. They work well for stone wall defense, but they cannot compare to archers in open field battles. Since they must be placed in front of the battle lines, you just cannot leave them alone as much as you can with archers.

Javelins on the other hand are pretty useless. They just lack the ammo or killing power to take their pound of flesh.

[Blitz]

I think that by far javelin is almost as good. i mean javelin is not really useless. For example if you are playing a roman campaign and enemy are charging at you u can use the fire at will mode from your hastati or principes or any other type of unit that have javelin. Even though they only have very little ammo they can do a tremendous damage to the enemy if you use it properly. From what i think is that it work well against charging infantry.

[LordKhaine]

Well in the case of the frontline roman troops the pila are very useful. But in those cases the pilum is a secondary function, used to soften up the enemy before the melee commences. But for dedicated skirmishers, the javelin is their primary function. And they're lucky to cause more than a handful of casulaties with ranged fire. And what else can they do? aside from chase down routed enemies?

I never have more than a couple of skirmishers in my army (couple of units that is, not single soldiers ) . And even then only if I cannot field any other archers or frontline troops.

[Orvis Tertia]

Regarding javelins, isn't the time period of this game the twilight of military javelin use? It's my understanding that javelins were abandoned in favor of bows because bows were more effective. And if that was the case, then I would assume that armor became more resistant to javelins (shields especially), which might explain the choice to make javelins non-armor-piercing.

I admit that slings rather baffle me. I know very little about their actual use, but the in-game representation makes sense to me. Rhodian slingers are deadly. Most slingers, however, are less desirable than archers, especially because of the sling's flat arc of fire. Archery survived well into the Middle Ages (or beyond?) but slings disappeared. Improvements in armor certainly were a factor in the change, as were improvements in the bow.

As is the case today, warfare is a constant race of technology. In this era and for many to follow, it was all about what weapons and tactics could beat the armor and tactics of the day. Rock paper scissors (but there is always a better pair of scissors to be developed).

So history shows that the archer lasted longer than the slinger and javelineer. (In broad terms.) Makes sense to me that the archer should be better than the slinger, who is better than the javelineer.

Is the archer too strong? Maybe. But I can see an argument for "maybe not." Personally, I am inclined to use my ranged troops to soften up the enemy as much as possible before a charge. If I can expend all of my missiles before engaging, great! But the era of RTW is (arguably) all about the infantry, and to a lesser extent cavalry. I can't think of a famous battle from this era that was swayed by ranged weapons (not counting horse archers, which are much different from archers). So maybe the problem is that most of us are not aggressive enough with our infantry because we are used to using our missiles to soften up the enemy first (as we do in Medieval TW).

If there is one problem that my above suggestion calls to mind, it is that ranged troops are maybe a bit too fast on foot. If a unit of hastati can run after a unit of slingers all day and not catch them, then maybe there is a problem. Light infantry should be able to catch up with a unit of skirmishers. The most frustrating battles I have had have consisted of my infantry against an enemy army of, say, one cavalry and a few skirmishers/archers.

[Ziu]

I can not seem to find any reference to archers units in early roman armies.
Horse archers yes, but foot archers seemed to have been mixed in with the general skirmishers. If this is true, and not just bad research on my part, then archers units would be a tad over represented in the game.

[Darius]

The only solution that I can possibly imagine is to make it so that FF will not occur with in a certain range of any missile troops, like a safety zone. Think of it as an area in which it is a simple matter for said missile unit to fire just slightly around or over the nearby troops. The bubble could be small enough to prevent people from easily firing into a massed melee at point blank range, but large enough to prevent units passing through them not to be shot upside the head or for, lets say, two HA units to pass through with out hobbling each others mounts.

Of course in order to prevent missile unts from mindlessly firing into the back of a melee, maybe make it so that "Fire At Will" mode would know to rule out firing at units that are currently engaged with your own. However that would still leave the slingers liable to shoot through your unengaged units to get at the enemy, for which I so far have no solution to stop.

[Red Harvest]

Orvis Tertia,

A lot of this has to do with what time period one is interested in. From about 500 BC to 100 BC archery was not all that great from what I've gathered so far. I doubt very many of our campaigns get past that. Later the bows were improved and adopted by more and more successive cultures. The compound bow had been around a long time, but not every culture employed it militarily, and even when they did many were not that successful. There were exceptions: cretan archers were very effective for one. But when you consider all those Persian archers vs. the Greeks and later Alexander's Macedonians, you don't get much of an impression that archers were as powerful as we are seeing. The fact that Rome didn't seem to field "homegrown" archers during the time of the Republic is telling. Later they did field archers, but much of this came in response to the Parthian horse archers, who had an even more powerful compound bow that did well vs. armour. Carthage used lots of Balearic slingers, but few archers.

I suspect that the bow/arrow as a military weapon had not yet reached a state of development that made it more desirable than slings or javelins, except in the hands of the very skilled/or in a few cultures. It would be more challenging to get uniformly equipped and trained archers than slingers, javs, swords, or spears. Since most armies were not fully professional at the time (or at least were not put together with the intent of that), archery would be more challenging to incorporate properly. Much farther back (up to about 1200 BC) one of the deciding factors in chariot warfare was that the better equipped chariot riders also had much more expensive/difficult to make compound bows that gave them a considerable range advantage over foot archers. Since the charioteers were either elite or nobility, one gets the sense that good archery was not something accessible to the masses of the army. But anyone could use a sling and get performance equivalent/better than the primitive bows available to the masses.

Javelins and slings were not super powerful either, but the generals of the RTW time period who wrote about such things preferred the range and effectiveness of slingers over most archers they had at their disposal.

Javelins were probably nearing their zenith at this time, true. But they had also metamorphised into heavier pila employed by the infantry. And these stuck around longer with Roman armies. The javelins (with units such as peltasts) were used to "develop" the enemy position, drive in opposing skirmishers, protect vulnerable flanks of hoplites and such. They could wear down an enemy. Several of Sparta's defeats were dealt by small forces of peltasts wearing down isolated hoplites. Mounted javelins were very common. The Numidian mounted javelineers were extremely deadly even to other cavalry despite being very ligtly protected and having little for defense other than a fast horse, leather shield, and their missiles.

Like you, I also have a hard time citing major battles of the time that were decided primarily by ranged weapons except for a few like Samarkand (actually a rather small engagement, though important) and Carrhae (which is substantially later and forced a change of army composition for Rome.) The ranged weapons were usually much more of a secondary supporting role rather than pivotal. However, there are a number of small actions where Greek hoplites were taken apart by sustained skirmisher harrassment.

[HarunTaiwan]

The reason the bow beat the sling out is cost of training.

It takes a long, long time to train a slinger.

Archery is much easier.

But a sling should beat arrows at this time period.

Slinger's lead pellets are like bullets!

[Darius]

Actually archery was for more difficult to learn than the use of the sling. Not to mention the ammunition could be found on the ground, and the sling itself consisted of simple leather. In fact, archery at this time period was often thought to be a sport for the nobility I believe in certain cultures.

[Kraxis]

Actually archery was for more difficult to learn than the use of the sling. Not to mention the ammunition could be found on the ground, and the sling itself consisted of simple leather. In fact, archery at this time period was often thought to be a sport for the nobility I believe in certain cultures.

Yes, intially it is easier to use the sling, but if you want to be accurate with it, then you have to train from childhood, as opposed to archery where you can be fairly accurate if you train every day for couple of months.
Also slingbullets were made of lead, stonebulllets were used (baked clay was also used), but generally only in a fashion that they were cut to fit the sling (thus the picking up of stones was only done when the ammo had been depleted for some reason). When the slinger picked up stone he would notice a remarkable drop in accuracy and range.
And sling were more than 'a piece of leather'. Often they were made of several layers of various types of leather and in several pieces stitched together. And each slinger would have three or more slings to use at various ranges. Indeed even that would not make the slings more expensive to make but it would certainly make them more expensive than what some consider them to be.

What I have read is that slingers not only outranged archers, they also outkilled them. This is certainly not true for RTW where the opposite is true unless we take in elites vs vanillas.

When we talk about javelins, I find it baffling that many many archers have a much higher ranged attack than the javelins, meaning that each arrow is more deadly than a javelin... Excuse me, I would be more conserned about that rather big javelin than with that little arrow. So not only have the archers a massive rangeadvantage over the javelins but also a poweradvantage as well as a 5 times ammo advantage (30 to 6).
Also I find it rather annoying that I can't employ my javelins in the fashion I found them to be the best in, in MTW, to use them behind my battle line. In MTW they could be positioned behind your main fighters and pelt the enemy who was fighting my men. Yes I would lose a few men, but now I lose more men than my enemy. I can't even use them in the other great fashion of MTW, to throw into an engaged enemy's back, as that too will cause heavy losses to my men. In fact I should just charge in my skirmishers and not deal with their javelins at all... Rather poor implementation of javelineers I think.

[zhuge]

When we talk about javelins, I find it baffling that many many archers have a much higher ranged attack than the javelins, meaning that each arrow is more deadly than a javelin... Excuse me, I would be more conserned about that rather big javelin than with that little arrow. So not only have the archers a massive rangeadvantage over the javelins but also a poweradvantage as well as a 5 times ammo advantage (30 to 6).

Agreed. The fact that regular peltasts have 6 for ranged attack whereas archers have 7 is really odd. By virtue of having longer range, archers tend to keep their numbers better and by having more ammo, they tend to level up faster as well in fights where they can use up all arrows.
Peltasts on the other hand can be rather tricky to use well. The best way I've found so far is to get an enemy unit to pursue a nearby friendly unit, get that friendly unit to run past the peltasts and have the peltasts fire into the back of the pursuing enemy. Of course it's not always possible or easy to setup this scenario. Against charging cavalry, especially fast cavalry, trying to squeeze in a shot means getting caught in the rear and forfeiting the entire unit. All in all, it means peltasts probably have a poorer chance of getting off good shots as compared to archers, which translates to lower kills.

Comparing melee attack, both peltasts and archers have 3, so there's no advantage here either and attempting to use peltasts in melee is a casualty prone affair anyway. Peltasts can probably scoop up some kills by pursuing and killing infantry routers as they are fast but the same can be said for archers.

As peltasts are routinely unable to match archers in number of kills, archers will gather more XP relatively, under most circumstances and therefore as the game progresses the power gap between the 2 units will widen. A bit of a vicious cycle really, which can hardly be good for balanced gameplay.
As the game stands currently, archers and heavy cavalry are probably amongst the easiest units to maintain and level up consistently due to the sheer amount of kills they can inflict.

As we are nearing mid-Jan, the patch may probably be just a week away. I am certainly anxious to see if any tweaking has been done regarding this old topic.

[Red Harvest]

You know, thinking about the experience and upgrade bonuses, perhaps archers should start out with really poor missile attack for vanilla units (probably no more than a 3). That way they would typically end up at 5 missile attack after a missile upgrade and a little combat experience. RTW is so stacked towards giving huge offensive stats that I can't help but wonder if that is also distorting archery so much.

[Watchman]

AFAIK archery turned out to be the deadliest of the three antique missile weapons. Slings actually did tend to have more power at shorter ranges, and had the nasty habit of battering shields into matchsticks, but in long-range killing power a major bruise and a few broken ribs just don't compare to a yard of wood and a sharp metal point in the lungs.

Sling bullets to the head were nasty, though. Medieval commanders found peasant slingers useful in sieges, and when the Spaniards rampaged in South America the sling was just about the only native weapon they were truly worried about - a hit could kill or blind even through a steel helmet.

That aside, I understand that both slingery and archery are rather demanding pursuits and it takes lots and lots of practice to become proficient in either. Well, peasants chase off beasts and hunt small birds with them, so they get their practice right there, and hunters (usually also peasants) get their archery practice "on the job" too; commanders found both useful.

However, especially with the more powerful bows - longbows and composites - the effective range appears to have been rather greater than even the best slingers could aquire. I have, for example, read that around the Persian Wars the maximum effective range of Persian archers (with composite bows) was about a hundred meters. Well, that worried the Greeks enough that they instituted the sport of 100-meter Dash In Armor specifically to counter it; it paid off in at least Marathon, and probably elsewhere too. Sure, the hoplites were pretty winded after that spurt, but by that point they were in close combat where the archers were understandably reluctant to shoot into (or they might well be in close combat with the archers, an even better result).

Javelins always suffered from poor range and the fact that they flew so slowly open-order troops could easily dodge them; they worked better against close-order troops who had to deal with the javelins poking through their shields as well as they could (armor helped) and soldier on.

Notice that the Roman pila were (well, one of the pair anyway, the other was for longer ranges) specifically weighed for extra impact at the expense of range with a lead ball under the "socket". This plus their very long, thin heads meant they punched through most anything, hence the AP ability in the game. (The Cilician Mercenaries with their harpoons have the same, incidentally; dunno if their range is longer.)

On the other hand, javelins were cheap and cheerful and simple to use, hence their popularity among the poorly-equipped sections of Roman and Greek armies.

[Red Harvest]

Slingers had a range of over 100 meters from what I've read. Even though the "art of slinging" has long since been lost, modern tests with novices seem to confirm this. The composite bows of the time seem to have had effective ranges of 100 to 150 meters. For each type of weapon the extreme ranges are much more than this of course.

I suspect that in this period you would find that (other than the horse archer cultures) many times as many potential soldiers had access to/experience with slings as had access to composite bows. So making a recruit into an effective slinger would be more likely than making them into an effective archer. I don't believe you would be after marksmen either. You simply need folks that can stand in formation and volley to given ranges in a general area, and repeat. Sure you would practice individual marksmanship and try to improve their skill level, but what you really want is to get a large number of shots into a "box" at once, rather than picking specific targets. The elite types would be the truly accurate ones compared to typical militia/conscripts.

The real historical comparison in RTW should probably be between the elite slingers, and the standard archers. The Achaeans, Balearics, Thessalonians, and Rhodians were renowned slingers. They should definitely outrange vanilla archers and be more deadly as well. In RTW the elite slingers have a small missile attack advantage, but the same range as the weakest archers. So rather than being used to drive off weak archers, they will often be held back to protect themselves as they are more expensive and a more difficult asset to replenish.. I'll grant elite archer units greater range, since to me they represent later more advanced bows. I'm not sure what to make of the merc. Cretans greater range. I suppose it would be fine if the missile attack value was not so high (11!) It should probably be slightly higher than the standard archers since this would apply at a greater range. (Same could be said for the Balearic/Rhodian slingers--give them a missile attack of about 6 or 7 vs. their present 9.)

I'm kicking around the following:
Vanilla slingers: range = 100, missile attack = 3
Elite slingers: range = 120, missile attack = 6
Vanilla foot archers: range = 100, missile attack = 4
Elite foot archers: range = 150, missile attack = 6

I haven't thought through the horse archers that carefully yet. Since they come from archer dominant cultures with good bows, and the units are smaller, I'm less inclined to adjust the vanilla horse archers as much. I've been playing the horse archer factions so I have a feel for their predicament. The upper end types could probably use small trimming to their missile attack values. On the other hand javelin cav seem about right in their punch and range.

I'm not keen on boosting the javelin numbers too much. I think the pila are about right and the javelin aren't too bad as weapons. There is a problem though, when comparing to pila we see both higher missile attack for the pila, plus armour piercing, while the pila has the same range (50 yards/meters.) No it doesn't, it is 35 not 50, wish I could read It's sort of a "double whammy." Pila should hit hard and that iron tip will be powerful, but Pila range should be shorter than javelin (although it seems short enough in the game due to the delays), so perhaps the jav range should be extended by 10 or 20 yards. This would give them a chance to actually get off a volley now and again without being run down... It should take awhile to inflict casualties with javelins, which is why I want to leave the AP and missile attack alone. If it weren't for friendly fire and timing issues, they would probably be about right. However, it might make sense to given them another 2 javelins (a boost of 33% in their eventual kill potential.) That would make them more effective as harassers--a typical use where they proved effective--without giving them short term advantage.

[Kraxis]

Xenophon writes in his Anabasis that their 250 something Rhodians (previously hoplites so obviously not the elite slingers) managed to drive off thousands of Persian horse archers due to better range and killingpower. The horse archers were scared of the slingers... And he continues to like the slingers all the way through the march, they do very well at a crossing of a river if I'm not mistaken. But remember that these were apparently the guys that were not good enough to be merc slingers, so they had to become hoplites.

Thus I'm inclined to give vanilla slingers a slight advantage in range:
Vanilla slingers: Range 110
Elite Slingers: Range 130
The archers should stay the same as Red presents, but I'm willing to let the Elite Slingers have AP (the slingbullets were something all armoured men feared as it cuncussive effects were astounding). That way, all in all the elites are rather much equals. Archers have better range, flame arrows and better basic attack, but the slingers deal better with armoured foes. Thus a wellbalanced army would have both in its employ. If AP can't be tweaked it is perhaps not so great to do this (instead of halving the armour I'm thinking of a 0.7 modifier).

About javelins... Well 10 more in range won't hurt, but will help the javelineers a lot. 2 more ammo is nice, but I don't think that is where the problems are (I seldomly use up their ammo). Upping their basic attack to 9 (and upping the Illyrian Mercs to 11) on the other hand would be good. I equate that into about 30-40 kills generally if all javelins were used against a medium armoured enemy (Warband head on for instance). Of course this elevates FF a lot.
Pila range is in fact 35 (as opposed to javelins of 50), and since we have made javelins stronger they need a slight boost, perhaps a basic attack of 12-13? Maybe 40 in range? But later legionaries would have better pila so of course they need to be better thna the first ones. And then we have a problem as the pilum is already where I want it to be. Could it be that it should just stay where it is and be happy that it has AP?

By the way, not all peltasts are equally weak. The macedonians, seleucid and thracian peltasts are rather powerful in melee, as are the Velites (the same units actually). The barbarian javelineers (excluding the spanish) are quite possibly the most useful of them being stong in attack (better charge also) and missile. It is the peltasts of Egypt, Carthage, Armenia, Pontus and Spain that are the weak type.
Then of course there is the Mercenary Peltasts and Heavy Peltasts which both are quite useful in melee, not to say that the Illyrians are any less useful with their stronger missile and attack+charge.
The Cilicians on the other hand are rather hard to get to use their harpoons, which they also have two of, as their formation is that unformed type (round). That means the unit covers a lot of space, and thus it is hard to get them to use their weapon properly, especially in Huge and Large settings.

[Red Harvest]

Kraxis,

You are right about the pila. I originally thought the range was 35, then checked the file...read it wrong as 50...DOH!!! So my "fact checking" before posting was actually self defeating because I was sloppy, LOL at myself.

I did some tests with 65 range for Carthaginian peltasts and that helped the javs to get off one round vs. charging Gaul warbands in skirmish (before they couldn't manage to get off that one shot.) It also allowed them to retreat and throw again. I still think it is CA's hardcoded order delay for the first round that is causing the trouble for skirmishers (and pila attacks.) Because the pila already has AP and it seems OK, I probably wouldn't adjust it. It might not be bad to adjust the peltast/jav missile attack up a notch or two though.

I hadn't tested the Cilicians. It might be easiest just to change their default unit formation. The "horde" formation is awful for skirmish units--since they are already handicapped. Plus the Cilicians are "untrained" so they are looser as well (training defines how "tidy" the unit formation is.) The range calcs are made from the middle or rear of the formation to the middle of the opposing formation from what I've seen putting archers in column during tests. Their effective range is much shortened by a long formation (vs. wide.) This also explains why large dispersed units like jav cav are so hard to shoot at in cities...both you and the target tend to be in column. Even though you might have individuals almost touching, the units don't want to shoot.

I'm still trying to work out what ranges I like best. I tried setting the vanilla slinger attack and range the same as vanilla archers at present. With the same exact settings the slingers seemed to get slightly (~10%) fewer kills than the archers vs. Gaul warbands who have light armour (4 tests of each.) I think that is OK and is probably caused by the difference in penetration. So increasing the base slinger range to 110 or 120 with 3 missile attack and decreasing the vanilla archer range to 100 with 4 attack might be a decent representation. It causes me some other headaches though...

I'm not sure what to do with elite slingers if I increase vanilla slinger range so much (to 110 or 120.) They should have more range in a relative sense, but I think their current kill rate is already too high--hence cutting them back to 6 on missile attack. So if I move them up to 130, 140, or 150 range I might make them too strong again and need to cut their missile attack some more. I agree about the armour piercing of the lead bullets, but am not sure of all the consequences.

I'll have to work on this some more. I wonder what 0 attack does...curious...

[Kraxis]

Naw... I think it is safe with 130 range and 6 in attack. AP perhaps, but if it is too strong then away with it.

Vanillas with 110 range are quite a bit strengthened, but if we put javelins at 65 they have only 15 in range over a javelin...
With 3 in attack I can't believe they would cause much more than a dent in Roman or Greek units head on. They are already rather weak against them with 4. I think it would equal out.

Also, I have considered a thing.
One of the reasons the javs are so weak is because there is no real elite type for them. There are the Rhodians and Balearics for the slingers and plenty for the archers, but only a weak representation for javs in the Illyrians.

[Red Harvest]

Negative values, and zero for missile attack all result in zero...and no missile ability. That makes the bottom of the range clear. The entries appear to be integer only. 0.6 and 1.5 give values of 0 and 1 respectively.

I did a test on medium diff/large units with Roman archers (81 men total) at 1, 4, and 7 missile attack at 120 range vs. Gaul Warband (122 men total) on the grassland map with "calm" summer weather specified. I left them in skirmish and fire at will and counted the kills from their first 5 volleys as the warband approached. Each time the warband stops and does a war cry right about the time the 2nd volley strikes. They take another volley while making a racket, then advance into two more volleys before I halt the kill count. They squeeze off another two rounds before they withdraw.

Results for 4 tests each:
Missile attack 1: 7.5 kill average (5 three times, and 15 once!)
Missile attack 4: 15 kill average (12 - 18 range)
Missile attack 7: 27.2 kill average (24 - 32 range)

I was surprised at how many kills they got with only 4 attack, (and even 1 attack started to deal some kills as the range closed.) Yes it doesn't sound like much, but two units working together will cause quite a bit of carnage this way in a very short time. Considering that 7 is the default vanilla archer...I'm satisfied that archers have a lot more hitting power than they should. Gaul warband only have 2 armour but they do have a 5 shield, so they are relatively well protected. The decent hoplites and armoured hoplites should fair a bit better with their armour. My vague goal is to have acceptable casualty levels for a good hoplite phalanx absorbing 5 volleys each from 2 archer units. Losing 10% or so would be a reasonable facsimile of what I've read so far. It would definitely weaken hoplite combat effectiveness to take that many casualties, but would not be crippling. If the hoplite has to chase around taking even more punishment, they are going to lose all combat ability, just as they should.

I am definitely going to change the Cilicians to square formation. They just don't work as pila bearers in a round formation. The range is far too short for that to work, and they are spread all over the place.

Did you notice that the bull warriors get very good pila attack? I attribute this to being a representation of the soliferrum pila

[Kraxis]

Results for 4 tests each:
Missile attack 1: 7.5 kill average (5 three times, and 15 once!)
Missile attack 4: 15 kill average (12 - 18 range)
Missile attack 7: 27.2 kill average (24 - 32 range)

I was surprised at how many kills they got with only 4 attack, (and even 1 attack started to deal some kills as the range closed.) Yes it doesn't sound like much, but two units working together will cause quite a bit of carnage this way in a very short time. Considering that 7 is the default vanilla archer...I'm satisfied that archers have a lot more hitting power than they should. Gaul warband only have 2 armour but they do have a 5 shield, so they are relatively well protected. The decent hoplites and armoured hoplites should fair a bit better with their armour. My vague goal is to have acceptable casualty levels for a good hoplite phalanx absorbing 5 volleys each from 2 archer units. Losing 10% or so would be a reasonable facsimile of what I've read so far. It would definitely weaken hoplite combat effectiveness to take that many casualties, but would not be crippling. If the hoplite has to chase around taking even more punishment, they are going to lose all combat ability, just as they should.

Interesting... But I have some experience with AH and archery. They are virtual stone walls, I had a unit of Balearics, a unit od slightly depleted Cretans and two of Roman Archers try to dish out damage to some Armoured Hoplites and Hoplites. I tried to concentrate some fire on one of the AH units, but they lost between 0 and 1 man each time my massive volleys hit. So I can safely say that they are far from being in danger as it is, thus I find the values you chose in first post are rather acceptable.

I am definitely going to change the Cilicians to square formation. They just don't work as pila bearers in a round formation. The range is far too short for that to work, and they are spread all over the place.

Did you notice that the bull warriors get very good pila attack? I attribute this to being a representation of the soliferrum pila

Given that the Cilicians actually need their pila attack to be any good, it is a good change. Too bad some of the brawdy feeling goes away but at least they will now be more like they should be (how I wish that if you put them on ships they would help in seabattles).
The Bull Warriors and Scutarii both have quite powerful jav attacks, of 13 and 12 each. That is better than the good old pre-Marians legionaries which have 11. And it is indeed meant to represent the quite deadly soliferrum. I like it.

[Spino]

The reason why Bull Warriors and Scutarii have such high pilum attack ratings is because they are Spain's only decent infantry and that faction needs all the help it can get. Futhermore Bull Warriors are considered an elite unit, thus the justification for making their pilum attack on par with the Marian reform legionaries. Rather odd though that CA created 'Spanish Mercenaries' which are essentially downgraded Scutarii with lower melee, less armor and a lower pilum missile rating. Clearly CA did not want Carthage or any other faction fighting for Iberian territories to be able to field units that can match 'true' Scutarii. This is in contrast with Hoplites and Mercenary Hoplites which are essentially the same with regards to their stats.

[Red Harvest]

Kraxis,

I did some tests a few days ago on the armoured hops. The 4 missile attack looked about right for the archers. Like you say, they can walk right through it. They fare a bit worse vs. the Cretans, but are still awfully strong. Regular greek hoplites were taking what I considered a balanced amount of casualties. The Balearics were weaker than I liked. As a result I'm experimenting with the Balearics/Rhodians having AP, but the lower missile attack (6 vs. 9)--essentially cutting their kill rate against lightly armoured but holding it about the same against heavy armour (since AP halves the armour defense.) In phalanx from the front the armoured hops were very tough nuts to crack with vanilla units.

I've been playing as Briton with modded ranges. Not a whole lotta shooting going on as I wiped out Germania and am squaring off vs. Gaul. My slingers with 3 missile attack and 110 range have been a bit deadly despite that low attack (and no armour piercing.) Sometimes I kill 10 screeching women with a single volley from one low exp. unit--granted the women are easy targets, but that is still a really high hit percentage. I think I'm going to cut their range back to 100, the same as I've set the vanilla archers (and many chariot archers.) That will let the archers and slingers duel a bit.

I cut 1/3rd or more off the missile attack of nearly all vanilla archer units (including elephants.) I did give Scythia and Persia a break, I set the base level Scythian and Persian horse archers at 5 attack and 110 yard range. I didn't want to break their backs. (I also reduced my high modded cost for cav upkeep for their light horse--all other factions are paying more for their cav upkeep in my game: 100 more for heavy horse, 80 for medium, 60 for light, etc.)

I haven't gotten to see too much of the increased javelin skirmish range effect yet...since I don't have any as Briton. The AI did seem to be able to hit some units with skirmishers this way. I've only applied the 65 range to foot units. I figure the mounted units have sufficient effective range already because of speed and the Cantabrian circle.

I left most elite mounted archers at 120 range--since they should have good compound bows. But I cut their attack by a third. Elite foot archers are getting 150 range and the 1/3rd cut. I still think their kill rates will be way too high, but its a start.

[Kraxis]

Interesting...
I only wanted longer range for the slingers because that is what they had compared to archers, if it is unbalancing then it definately needs to go. But troops with no armour and no shields should of course be sitting ducks for ranged troops, so I think it is fair enough.

AP forthe elite slingers is something I fully support, they were after all considered better at getting at armoured enemies [than archers], while perhaps not as deadly against normal troops.

I can accept the low cost for the Scythian HA, but rather than the Persian cav, which is an elite, shouldn't it be the eastern horse archers? Those were the troops used after all.

What about the basecost and upkeep of arcehrs compared to javelineers? I made the argument that archers are more expensive in general than javelineers in upkeep.

The mounted javelineers should indeed have a shorter range (unfortunately we have to consider them stading still), they wouldn't be able to use their entire body to weigh in into the throw, only the upper body. Naturally it would give a shorter throw.

Elite archers... Those with long ranges before? I don't consider the Archer Auxilia to be elite, and they should perhaps only get the range but an equally weak attack as normal archers.
Personally I would make Cretans the best archers, mostly because I have always liked them, but also because they are rather weak fighters, unlike the Chosens, Pharaohs and Foresters. Those three should somehow be hampered, just like the Jannisary Infantry didn't have Longbows in MTW. I don't mind good archers being able to fight good too, but they shouldn't be able to outshoot every other good arcehr out there. Besides, Cretans are mercs, thus available to all and none at the same time. Much more fair. So an attack for them around the 8-9 range would be good (making certain that even normal javelins are more deadly in 1v1 with an arrow), the others stepping downwards from there.
Good archers should be good, just not the ancient machineguns we see now.