stats of a unit of pezhetairoi

**jerby** · 10-04-2005, 18:40

hi there,

i was playing RTR just now, and i tested something real, really weird.
i did a test of maniples (1 unit of princepes) vs 1 unit of "pezhetairoi" i was the Pez.
so it was 41 vs 43. both units had 11 atk, and 32def ( the pezhetairoi is called "asthetairoi" dunno were that came from..)
i attacked, so a minor disadvantage. but i lost with 5 kills vs 30 (!!!!)

i know the maniple was somehow 'superior' but these were ordinary princepes, minor veterans..against to what RTR claims to be the top-notch pezhetairoi...

what i saw was the pikemen drawing themselves in to a ^ shape. but 5 kills is pathetic!

so my question is: what are the stats of a pezhetairoi? and is the pahlanx still a succesfull formation, still a fighting order of the day?

EDIT:the Question here is basically: is the phalanx still a murdering machine up front?

**Moros** · 10-04-2005, 19:26

always blame the stats are we.

**Reverend Joe** · 10-04-2005, 19:30

Did you, by any chance, back into the Princepes? Otherwise, that doesn't make sense. Or did you break phalanx?

**jerby** · 10-04-2005, 20:01

RTR 6.1
i just point n clicked...1 unit of asthetairoi, vs 1 unit of princepes.
phalanx didn't break up. but was pulled in to ^ -shape. at teh sides they went to swords..didn't have a choice.

it's inevitable that teh princepes wield around, so some should always drop pikes...
that fact if teh pikemen shoudl 'always' win this is discussable, since it's demise was primarly because of secundary reasons (mobility,etc..but definatly not fighting capability's up front!)

even if the princepes practically always would have won..5 casualty's!!!!

please, EB modders test how it's done in EB (current, or future version) and post them here...

**Sdragon** · 10-04-2005, 21:57

Not sure how this works. I played RTR 6.0 as Romans and had no problem. I then tried 6.1 as Macedonians then something ridiculous happened. I had around 2000 regular pikemen, 160 royal pikes and 700 or so Hoplites. The enemy had a general’s bodyguard with 3 exp and a total of 85 men.

So I figured I’d take advantage of stupid ai. I lined 2 pike men up in a street and used create archers to bait them in. Problem was by the time they used all their arrows they didn't kill a single enemy so no charge. 'OK' I though. I moved the pike men up side by side and took 1 step forward into the town centre. Sure enough the ai charged head long into the pikes and a massacre started. Problem was I was the one getting killed. After 100 men died and 0 kills I decided the pike formation wasn't helping so I turned it off. After 100 more died and a single kill gained, I decided to bring everyone to join in. I lost 1600 troops to this unit of bodyguards! They were all elite by the time I killed them all. Only won because the general died and the other 30 or so tried to run away and got swamped.

Point of the story is that 3HP and a stat list with everything with 20s and 30s in defence is bad balancing. I've yet to fight real heavy cavalry, I'm scared just thinking of it

Edit: I also don't think Pikemen and Hoplites get their full attack power. See how many strikes those guys land compared to other troop types? By rights they should butcher everything.

**econ21** · 10-04-2005, 23:34

Going in to Caligula with the EDU for RTR 6.1, I see:

Princeps - attack 11, defence 32

Pezhatairoi - attack 9, defence 26

So I am not sure where Jerby gets an equality in stats between the two units. Are they modded or something?

On paper, the Princeps is a far superior unit. It attacks the Pezhetairoi at -15 and is attacked at -23. In MTW, having a four point difference roughly doubled kill chances. If we believe the formula is similar here, but each point is worth half of an MTW point, the princeps will kill twice as fast. However, that would not seem to explain the differential losses Jerby reports. Plus, I would have thought that the phalanx formation should help the phalanx a lot.

I wonder if the discrepancy is due to some of the other stats? It can't be lethality - that's 0.3 for the sword and 0.4 for the pike.

Is it something to do with the swing speed? Mr Frost and Qwerty said that has big effects. The swing speed for the hastati is "0" (the fastest) while that for the pezhetairoi is 25. Mr Frost said a unit with swing speed of 25 gets roughly 10/25 of the kills of a unit with a swing speed of 10. So changing the swing speed to 0 may have a pretty big effect.

We really need Mr Frost or Qwerty to comment here!

PS: Anyone know what the swing speeds are for princeps and pikes in vanilla RTW? (I overwrote my original EDU file). If they are the same as RTR, then they may not be to blame.

**Xanthippus of Sparta** · 10-05-2005, 04:48

Originally Posted by jerby

( the pezhetairoi is called "asthetairoi" dunno were that came from..)

The Ashetarioi are the elite of the Pezhetarioi. You will also find the regular Pezhetarioi in RTR, they are the Macedonian 240 unit size (on huge) Pikemen.

i attacked, so a minor disadvantage. but i lost with 5 kills vs 30 (!!!!)

i know the maniple was somehow 'superior' but these were ordinary princepes, minor veterans..against to what RTR claims to be the top-notch pezhetairoi...

what i saw was the pikemen drawing themselves in to a ^ shape. but 5 kills is pathetic!

So you tested the units 1v1?

That was the reason why you lost.

Phalanxes (even one on one) have to have support on the flanks. In a battle, large numbers of interlocking phalanxes is impossible to beat from the front....as they should be. Aganist Legion-type troops like the Princepes, it will be hard for them to create many casulties because of the large shields carried by the Romans. However, they still will be able to pin the enemy line so it can be flanked by cavalry or other troops. Which is the realistic way to win aganist the Romans using a combined-arms Hellenistic army.