Research: Fixes for bugs in the unit file

[Epistolary Richard]

So I agree that the pontic pikes are intentionally made this way, but only due to several people pulling them each way and never getting the full control of the unit.
...
Also it is the normal practice that the devs work at different jobs. So some create the unit, some give it stats and some balance the units with costs at some point (hopefully after some balancetesting). So if a dev in the stat department by accident made the Desert Cavalry bigger the next guy in the cost department wouldn't know something odd was up, so he would just give them a 'correct' cost. This of course applies to the pontic pikes as well.

Hmmm... if this is the case then it would make it very difficult to determine what the original design intention was behind the unit because the costing will actually be balanced for the 'flawed' stats.

Nevertheless, we do what we can.

I think that we've come to a consensus on the following:
Roman Cavalry Auxilia - misleading name but not intended to be Post-Marian only and therefore shouldn't be changed in the community patch
Pontic Pikemen - incongruous unit size might be there for various reasons but the lower costing implies a smaller unit and therefore shouldn't be changed in the community patch

That being said, I'll certainly be looking to make some adjustments to my own personal game from the issues raised so far.


Large Desert Cavalry
I've done a side-by-side on this:

                   Desert Cavalry	Nubian cavalry
unit size	         40		27
mount		light		medium		
primary		7, 3, mace	9, 8, spear
attr		ap	
secondary	0		9, 3, sword		
pri armour	344 leather	064 flesh
sec armour	00 flesh	             01 flesh	
mental		4, trained	8, untrained	
cost		540		420

The Nubian cavalry seems pretty much superior in every respect (though slightly slower and more vulnerable to being shot at) apart from the ap ability.

The question is: do people think that the ap ability on its own makes up for the lower attack (7 lower charging, 2 lower in combat), 50% lower mental and is worth an extra 29% on the unit cost?

IMO no. So I think the 40 may have gone in by accident, but the cost has obviously been determined with the 40 unit size in mind.

Non-Roman legionaries

As for the legionaires...this one is tricky, because the basis for them is really Roman influence in their regions. When Rome began to enlist areas as allies, they started raising some of their own legions. Some of this predates the reforms (in the case of Numidia and perhaps Greece IIRC.) I don't think there is a single "correct" answer.

But given the Silver Shields are made to look like Legionary Cohorts I think it is far too much work to make them into a less able unit (would need another skin). Also this way they become a nice special unit. The Armenian and Numidian legionaries fit well enough and thus I see no need to change their recruitment.

I'm happy to concede this one. Damn silly to have all the references to them being copies of the Roman original though.

So, not for the community patch, but like hrvojej's cavalry auxilia I'll keep this one for my personal game.


Sarmatian Mercenaries
Let's have a look at this one. Sarmatian Mercenaries are obviously supposed to be identical to Scythian Noblemen and they are, except that they're missing:

mount_effect     elephant -8, camel -4

which is common across all other cavalry.
So, I agree with this. It's a bug and should be fixed.

Illyrian Mercenaries
I agree with this one as well. All the other peltast types have:

mount_effect     elephant +6, chariot +6

apart from the Illyrian mercenaries. It's a bug and should be fixed.


And another one to consider
Wardogs
Much as I'd like to see the mangey mutts put out of their misery...
As far as I can tell, the dogs resource doesn't do anything. To recruit camels, you need the camels resource; to recruit elephants, you need the elephants resource, but to recruit dogs you don't need the dogs resource.

I would suggest adding the dogs resource requirement to all the wardogs entries in export_descr_buildings:

recruit "barb wardogs briton"  0  requires factions {  britons, }  and resource dogs