throwing spears

[jerby]

now i finbally can start my own topic i'll bring up teh issue i polayed around in other people's topic, sorry for the off-topic stuff.

throwing spears are pretty usefull in the game. nobody uses peltast. they are only slightly stronger than archers but have a lot less range and ammo. the biggest joke is teh thureophoroi: it can be trained AFTER archers, are more expensive than archers, but a lot weaker. spear have a lot more mass than an arrow and at the range spears are thrown they should be more powerfull than teh arrow wich at max range is pretty much just falling out of the air with a lot less force.

what shoudl be changed IMO:

- make spears have the knock down: having 3 kg smacked at your ( already heavy) shield will (50/50) knock you down, liek happens with chariots runnig over your own.
- make archers less powerfull, maybe even non-armor piercing: I know Carrhae 'proves' arrows where, but it will surely amke spear more favorite.
- make spear armor piercing, maybe even negate all armor.
- make the range of thureophoroi more than any other peltast: it's an 'elite'peltast.
- make thureophoroi better in h2h.

I know the thigns I sias where nto all very historic correct, as kraxis pointed out, thanks again. but throwing spear should be more powerfull, it will balance the game more.

[Productivity]

If you don't like them so much, who do you say they are usefull?

- make spears have the knock down: having 3 kg smacked at your ( already heavy) shield will (50/50) knock you down, liek happens with chariots runnig over your own.

There is a serious difference between getting hit by a shaft of wood with a metal tip and getting hit with two horses and a charriot body....

Any chance of working on your spelling? Some of that was pretty awful as well, not asking for perfect spelling or anything, but when I have to stop and work out what the word is by reading the rest of the sentence there is a problem...

[RollingWave]

I kinda agree ... at the very very least peltast need to have either more ammo or a greater effect (bigger moral penalty) ... that or they should make better melee or be cheaper....

javilins aren't useless ... but is rather hard to use effectively... espically since archers are a lot more useful in RTW than MTW... it gives even less reason to use javilins.

[Zorn]

Even if they become both stronger and carry more ammo, they will still be inferior to archers.
Simply because if all other stats are equal, range decides it in favor of the archers.
I think that scirmishers need a much stronger punch than archers (with decent 10+ shots) to compensate for the risk they are entering.

[Blitz]

But i think that javelin troops are quite okay already, all you have to do is to make the enemy focus on your infantry and use your velites to flank and shoot them from the rear. Also javelin are quite useful in siege especially high walls.

I agreed that javelin should carry more missile, but it won't be realistic i mean imagine a person running around with 10 javelin and lets say 1 javelins is 3 kg?, he will tire out very fast. Also i have seen that they put their javelin on tehir own buckler, bucklers are small so there is limit to how many you put on it, if too much the buckler will be useless because if they went to melle they can't use the buckler effectively since its gonna be very heavy.

The romans would prefer them to wear armour and become heavy infantry instead of going to battle and died tragically because of overweight buckler

[mfberg]

If the velites would throw and retreat through your lines in order that would make things much better, until then I will put them in a square and use them to flank.

mfberg

[Zorn]

Of course, if you can bring them behind the enemy, they are usefull. But let`s face it, any unit you bring behind an enemy is powerful - and I guess every other unit would do more harm from such a position than a unit of scirmishers.
I agree that they can do a lot of damage when they are on a wall, but there are two massive drawbacks. First, with the blind angle on the foot of the wall, the area they can attack is very, very small. I have had scirmishers with ammo left after 30 minutes sieges. Second, if they have a good opportunity to shoot, they run out of ammo much too fast. I would much rather place an archer on a crucial part of the wall, wich starts shooting earlier, shoots longer, and can destroy towers. Again archers can do everything that scirms can, but much much better.
I also agree that the number of javelins they carry is realistic. But this is just one of the situations where gameplay should beat realism.
The last part is the retreat. Often enough the do retreat through my lines. That is fine, but they stop in the middle of my frontline, overlapping with my infantery and inflicting friendly fire.

[Slaists]

The best use I've found of velites in RTW, is to put them in loose formation, guard mode in front of my main battle line... Not very historical (except the loose formation part): but they're very effective at disrupring enemy cavalry charges. also, my hastati are free to unload their pila while the enemy is breaking through the loose velite formation. On top of that, velites are cheap to replace (much cheaper than hastati or principes) -not that money would ever be a problem for a human player in RTW.

anyway: what is thureophoroi? i guess, you're using some mod of RTW.

[The Stranger]

that is a nasty problem indeed

[Red Harvest]

Due to the pri/sec stat bug, all peltasts are getting a boost in their attack when out of skirmish mode. But once the bug is fixed it might not hurt to move heavy peltasts to 7 attack. Skirmisher warbands get a 6 for their secondary (melee attack.) Probably more important would be increasing their armour to 5 or so. After all, they have more armour than the typical barbarian infantry that are getting a 3 at the moment.

CA did a very poor job of balancing out missile troops in a historical fashion or even in a way that makes sense for gameplay. To add insult to injury, they included very backwards friendly fire effects, handicapping shorter range troops much more relative to longer range units. Plus there is the tendency of skirmishers to lack sufficient time to get off a single round before retreating or being overrun. And even if they were better balanced, the AI likes to do massed or trickled charges with very little skirmishing, making them superfluous.

Put it all together and we have
1. Javelin infantry/peltasts are of very limited usefullness probably about 10 times less effective than archers.
2. Vanilla slingers are of limited usefullness, and at keast 4 times less effective than archers.
3. Archers that are at least twice as potent as they should be for the time.
4. Pila seem about right.

Range is supreme in RTW because CA did not consider that longer range should pack a bit less punch at that range (plus FF and skirmish issues.) Instead, they ratchet up killing power with range for archers.

I've done a couple things to balance this and give foot javs/peltasts a job. First, I upped their range to 65 from 50. I think the "reaction range" is around 30, so the difference between their max range and reaction is increased from 20 to 35. This allows them to actually function as a screening force. I've considered increasing their missile attack as well, but have not due to the pri/sec attack bug. Another thing to do would be to bump up the ammo from 6 to about 8. However, with FF and skirmish the way they are, increasing ammo will rarely matter. I would give them armour piercing, but I want them to remain a bit handicapped against heavy armour (esp. compared to the pila.)

The other things I've done are to cut base level archer range from 120 to 100, and cut their attack from 7 to 4. The elite archers all took a 33% reduction in missile attack and I reduced their range to 150 from 170. (Parthian and Scythian base level archers were not given quite as much of a "haircut" for gameplay reasons.) I increased slinger range to 100. Now slingers can duel with archers. Merc slingers can tear into archers. I also reduced merc slinger missile attack by 33% for the same reason that I cut back all archers--but I gave them AP since they were effective vs. armour in real life.

[Oaty]

Well 1 thing javelins should do is slow down a charge from the enemy. As javelins had a second purpose to killing. If the javelin hit the shield, the carrier either had to take the time to break it out or ditch the shield. The javelin was'nt too heavy but stuck in a shield made it awkward to handle.

And on top of that if a guy dies or has to or is slowed down by the javelin the guy(s) behind him also slow down or go around.

Oh yeah and I came across a reference to a battle Hannibal was in and the Iberians used flaming pila............. just do'nt let Activision find out or you'll know what CA will be doing......

[Kraxis]

Jerby relax, archers are not armour piercing.

Anyway I'm inagreement with Red Harvest about the changes, in fact we more or less worked them out together.

I would at the very least up normal javelinattack to 9, and elites (Illyrians, Mercs and Heavies) to somewhere around 11-12.
The elite archers I would completely recreate, making Cretans the best (attack of 9) and less likely as mercs, the others decreasing in effectiveness, ending with Auxilia Archers who would be normal archers with long range. Also I would up the upkeep of archers compared to javelineers (perhaps not compared to the elite javs).
And most certainly I would change the name of the Hevy Peltasts to Thureophoroi (I find it strange that they have not gotten that name since the Thureos is mentioned in their description, compare to the mention of the Pelte with the Peltasts), and make them tougher in melee. They deserve it.

[jerby]

indeed kraxis.
someone metioned earlier that you wont be knocked down by trowing a spear, well the shield itself is heavy, the armor is heavy, i dont think you''ll be that flexible when you're suddenly hit by a jav. in roem total realism the jav ahs been beafed up. and it is renamed to thureophoroi

[Es Arkajae]

I think the thing that made MT missile system so good was the whole armour piercing missile thing.

I don't recall ever seeing an 'armour piercing' description for missiles in RTW, I know that melee troops get it such as axemen but for missiles is there one?

[Red Harvest]

I think the thing that made MT missile system so good was the whole armour piercing missile thing.

I don't recall ever seeing an 'armour piercing' description for missiles in RTW, I know that melee troops get it such as axemen but for missiles is there one?

Yes, pila get "ap". You can add it to others. Balearics/rhodians are a decent candidate for "ap". Javelins are working pretty well post patch.