Oh dear....The unbeatable RTW 1.3 Spear Warbands

[HoreTore]

After finishing my BI Saxons campaign, I thought I'd see what had changed with vanilla RTW, so I started a Julii campaign.

well, now I'm at war with the Germans. I've take over the austrian province, and they keep attacking me there with spear warbands. The problem is, they've become simply UNBEATABLE. I charged on of them with 6 units of Principes/hastati, 2 at the front, 1 from behind and the rest at the flanks. Easy kill, right? Not this time...instead of routing like a good barbarian, the spears routed ALL my 6 units while losing about 8-10 members. This is just one example, similar things happen all the time.

Anybody know what's up?

[Red Harvest]

You should have been able to kill them with pila alone. You did use all your pila, correct? The spearwarbands have very little armor, small shields, and they move slowly in phalanx...so they make excellent pincushions.

With 1.3, charging the spears is probably not a good idea anymore frontally. You should be able to carve them up rapidly from behind, particularly if you used your pila.

[econ21]

Sounds interesting. I recall being surprised that in v1.2, German spear warbands can walk over hastati with impunity. The key with the phalanx was always to pin at the front and hit in the rear or flanks.

Are you sure you managed to hit them in the rear without them turning to face you?

I don't see how only 2 units at the front could effectively pin 6 phalanxes if you were fighting them simultaneously.

If you had to fight them simultaneously because the AI maintained a cohesive front that would be a great improvement on v1.2!

[HoreTore]

It was relatively late in the battle, so I had already used my pila.

Oh, and it was just one unit of spear warband(I managed to isolate one unit on the left as the other reacted to my flanking move on right of his line) , vs. my 6 hastati and principes(4 hastati and 2 principes afaik). 2 of them charged the front first, and just after that the other units hit. A couple of seconds later, and they all routed...

Oh, and from my experience so far, they are very good at maintaining a cohesive front, I'm really struggling to break it up and isolate units.

[phred]

one spear warband routing 6 hastati/princepes?

That sounds like the spear warband is getting a morale bonus.

What difficulty are you playing? Were there generals involved - or captains?
Spear warbands get bonuses in the snow, forest, scrub and sand - perhaps that made a difference.

[Puzz3D]

...instead of routing like a good barbarian,

LOL

The was a problem with charge in v1.2 where spearmen in phalanx formation would die when the men charging them hit the ends of the spears. This has been fixed in v1.3, and now it's the man who charges into the spear who gets killed instead. This fix might also be affecting regular non-phalanx spearmen, but as I recall Germanian spearmen can form phalanx. You might do better by not frontally charging into spearmen.

In a Julii campaign using large units (80 man hastati), I'm using hastati against gaul who use a lot of spear warband, and I'm doing ok but suffer more casualties than I did in v1.2. I think this is because the warband are not routing as easily possibly because they don't take as many casualties in the charge. I generally put hastati in guard mode and don't make frontal charges on warband. However, I did loose one big battle doing that against mostly spear warband when I had 850 men under a 3 star general (4 equites and all the rest hastati) and Gaul had 850 men under a 2 star general. They routed the whole left side of my single line of hastati while I fiddled around on the right. I think I could have played better and made it a closer battle, but I expected my hastati to hold longer. To open the battle I charged two barbarian cavalry on my right with 2 equites an lost that skirmish badly at which point all the Gaul warband infantry charged. Overall, I lost 800 men and my general, who died towards the end of the battle after all was lost, and I killed 350 Gauls. A few turns later I came back with a 1500 man army under a 2 star general and wiped out the remaining 500 Gauls. I lost 200 men.

The few fights I've had against Macedonia levi spearmen, Macedonian hoplites and some Thracian phalanx units showed that pre-marian Roman infantry (hastati, pricipes and triarii) could not defeat them frontally.

Note: Late in a battle fatigue can be a factor which reduces combat ability and morale. Also in the previous games, if one unit routs it gives a morale penalty to nearby friendly units, and the enemy units get a morale boost.

[HoreTore]

Well, I didn't expect the 2 frontal units to kill of the phalanx, they only charged to ensure the phalanx didn't turn to face my flanking units. It was the rear and flank charges I would have expected to rout the one spear warband...

And I'm playing on VH/VH, and had a 3 star general(altough he was on the other side with my right flanking force). It was a nice clear summer day to, and in open space.

Oh, and all my units were "warmed up", while the Spears were Fresh. at the start, all my units were Eager, can't remember the morale status of the spear warband..

[Bob the Insane]

Could it be that the VH bonuses work properly on the battlefield now? Only applying to the AI units?

[HoreTore]

Could it be that the VH bonuses work properly on the battlefield now? Only applying to the AI units?

From my experience so far: Yes.

Haven't tested it tho, this is just my observation from fighting the Gauls and Dacians.

[A.Saturnus]

I'm using hastati against gaul who use a lot of spear warband,[...]

Gaul doesn´t have spear warband, only the germans have it. Or am I mistaken now??

[Red Harvest]

My guess? Fatigue, casualties, and resultant morale effects from both. Since your guys had been heavily engaged, they were probably quite tired. Back in 1.2 I routed 8-10 units at a time this way late in a battle with only a unit or two.

The warband with lower armour should be less susceptible to fatigue if the armour effect of fatigue is working right. Terrain might play a role, the warband could get some bonuses on certain turf.

Morale falls as you take casualties (at least it did in MTW) it dropped 1 pt, per increment or something like that as soldier count fell 10%, 20%, 50%, etc. I've seen this info posted.

[Kraxis]

Yup, and if the two units that cahrged hea on got their chargebonus back in their faces and suffered a heavy hit initially they could have been brought close to routing, then when they did break they simply borught the others with them in a chainrout.

[Grimmy]

A tactic that's working well for me is the left oblique charge.

I get my infantry squared up as best I can with my left flank matching head on to the enemy's right.
When the enemy gets to within charge range I charge each of my infantry on a left oblique into the enemy which leaves me one infantry on my left to swing into the right flank of the first enemy infantry unit.
Then all my horse units envelop the enemy right and charge the enemy infantry from the rear along the line. When an enemy breaks I dont persue (if given the choice lol) and continue with my horses leap frogging down the enemy line in charges to the rear.
If there's enough horses I'll break one or 2 off and hit enemy missle troops and or start harrassing the enemy general. If not I try to speed break as many enemy infantry as possible so that my infantry can continue to collaps the enemy line on their own once the horses have to pull off to defend against enemy missle and general and/or enemy horses.

If my line is short on my right, I'll hold the last of my right flank infantry back as a blocker to either deny or at least delay the enemy in rolling up and collapsing my flank.

Sometimes it's a race to see who can roll up which flank the fastest.

Of course, I play on med/med cause I'm a scardy cat..so this prolly wouldnt work for all y'all hard corps players.

[antisocialmunky]

I really hope you didn't charge the front with hastati, being worned out and with people running is not very good.

[player1]

Why are they unbeatable?

Look stats:

type             warband spear german
dictionary       warband_spear_german      ; Spear Warband
category         infantry
class            spearmen
voice_type       Light_1
soldier          warband_spearman_german, 60, 0, 1.2
officer          barb_standard
attributes       sea_faring, hide_improved_forest
formation        1, 1, 2, 2, 5, square, phalanx
stat_health      1, 0
stat_pri         9, 5, no, 0, 0, melee, simple, piercing, spear, 25 ,1
stat_pri_attr    spear, spear_bonus_8
stat_sec         0, 0, no, 0, 0, no, no, no, none, 25 ,1
stat_sec_attr    no
stat_pri_armour  3, 3, 5, leather
stat_sec_armour  0, 0, flesh
stat_heat        3
stat_ground      2, -2, 3, 2
stat_mental      4, impetuous, trained
stat_charge_dist 30
stat_fire_delay  0
stat_food        60, 300
stat_cost        1, 510, 200, 60, 80, 510
ownership        germans

See something missing?
Yes secondary attack.
This forces the game to use same phalanx stats for them even outside phalanx (including when flanked or so), not to mention that if you try to fight with them outside phalanx that they have sillty attacking animation (bashing with spears up in the air).


The fix:

stat_pri         9, 5, no, 0, 0, melee, simple, piercing, spear, 25 ,1
stat_pri_attr    spear, spear_bonus_8
stat_sec         5, 4, no, 0, 0, melee, simple, piercing, sword, 25 ,1
stat_sec_attr    no

I reverse engineered secondary stats by looking other phalanx unit. Those with attack of 9 have secondary stat of 5, and all of them have charge bonus lower for one point then showed in primary attack.

[Jambo]

Player 1, will you be making a general bug fixer (i.e. not tweaker) for BI/1.3 at some point again?

Also, do you think it would be useful to have a thread opened just for the standard text file fixe such as this one, the Spanish general, the rebel archer, etc, etc...?

[The Stranger]

Why are they unbeatable?

Look stats:

type             warband spear german
dictionary       warband_spear_german      ; Spear Warband
category         infantry
class            spearmen
voice_type       Light_1
soldier          warband_spearman_german, 60, 0, 1.2
officer          barb_standard
attributes       sea_faring, hide_improved_forest
formation        1, 1, 2, 2, 5, square, phalanx
stat_health      1, 0
stat_pri         9, 5, no, 0, 0, melee, simple, piercing, spear, 25 ,1
stat_pri_attr    spear, spear_bonus_8
stat_sec         0, 0, no, 0, 0, no, no, no, none, 25 ,1
stat_sec_attr    no
stat_pri_armour  3, 3, 5, leather
stat_sec_armour  0, 0, flesh
stat_heat        3
stat_ground      2, -2, 3, 2
stat_mental      4, impetuous, trained
stat_charge_dist 30
stat_fire_delay  0
stat_food        60, 300
stat_cost        1, 510, 200, 60, 80, 510
ownership        germans

See something missing?
Yes secondary attack.
This forces the game to use same phalanx stats for them even outside phalanx (including when flanked or so), not to mention that if you try to fight with them outside phalanx that they have sillty attacking animation (bashing with spears up in the air).


The fix:

stat_pri         9, 5, no, 0, 0, melee, simple, piercing, spear, 25 ,1
stat_pri_attr    spear, spear_bonus_8
stat_sec         5, 4, no, 0, 0, melee, simple, piercing, sword, 25 ,1
stat_sec_attr    no

I reverse engineered secondary stats by looking other phalanx unit. Those with attack of 9 have secondary stat of 5, and all of them have charge bonus lower for one point then showed in primary attack.

yup that must be it...i dont have BI but the problem ussually lies in forgotten things in the txt files.

and gaul only has warbands no spearwarbands wich are phalanx units

[player1]

Player 1, will you be making a general bug fixer (i.e. not tweaker) for BI/1.3 at some point again?

Maybe...
Currently I'm busy actually playing BI and having some fun, so it's not 1st priority (in the meantime I do notice and report bugs I find).

And also Civ4 is close and I'm Civ addict.

Also, do you think it would be useful to have a thread opened just for the standard text file fixe such as this one, the Spanish general, the rebel archer, etc, etc...?

Definetly, that's one of the things that gave me inspiration to compile the fixes.

[Ciaran]

Well, then BI also changes a lot of statistics, because in v.1.2 the German spear warband do have a secondary weapon (a knife or very short sword) and use it. That spear_bonus attribute is new as well.

[player1]

Lack of seconday attribute is bug that creeped from 1.0 version (fixed in 1.2 too).

[Puzz3D]

yup that must be it...i dont have BI but the problem ussually lies in forgotten things in the txt files.

and gaul only has warbands no spearwarbands which are phalanx units

Gaul has spear warbands in v1.3. They aren't quite as strong as the german spear warbands:

type barb infantry gaul
dictionary barb_infantry_gaul ; Warband
category infantry
class light
voice_type Light_1
soldier barb_infantry_longshield, 60, 0, 1.2
officer barb_standard
attributes sea_faring, hide_improved_forest, warcry
formation 1.2, 1.2, 2.4, 2.4, 5, square
stat_health 1, 0
stat_pri 7, 4, no, 0, 0, melee, simple, piercing, spear, 25 ,0.73
stat_pri_attr light_spear, spear_bonus_4
stat_sec 0, 0, no, 0, 0, no, no, no, none, 25 ,1
stat_sec_attr no
stat_pri_armour 3, 2, 5, leather
stat_sec_armour 0, 0, flesh
stat_heat 3
stat_ground 2, -2, 3, 2
stat_mental 4, impetuous, untrained
stat_charge_dist 40
stat_fire_delay 0
stat_food 60, 300
stat_cost 1, 420, 200, 50, 70, 420
ownership gauls


The lack of a secondary weapon is obviously intentional.

I would remove phalanx ability from german spear warband. The animation is then correct, and principes defeat them in melee. Without shooting pila, I got this battle result in cusom battle on flat ground after removing phalanx abilty from the german spear warband:

principes: cost 490, chg/att/def = 2/7/16, 82 men deployed, 94 kills
german spear warband: cost 510, chg/att/def = 5/9/11, 122 men deployed, 49 kills

[CBR]

I just ran a series of 1.2/1.3 tests and if there is one difference then it would be that 1.3 phalanx units are less likely to do silly wheeling while engaged. As long as they dont do that then there were no real difference between 1.2 and 1.3 that I noticed. Frontal fighting is deadly for the Hastati in both versions.

Going up to VH in 1.3 turned the fight into a quick rout for the Hastati.

Giving the Warband a secondary weapon doesnt seem to change the overall result either.

So I guess that means you just have to careful now the difficulties work properly


CBR

[Sheep]

You might do better by not frontally charging into spearmen.

GENIUS!

LOL

[antisocialmunky]

Agreed, best advice ever unless you're pruning some branches of your family tree.

[Ciaran]

Puzz: Phalanx units require a seconday weapon, because the phalanx pike isn´t part of the model, but is added when a unit has phalanx ability. You can make almost any melee infantry a phalanx unit, simply by giving them this ability in the formation line. No other melee infantry - as far as I know - can have a secondary weapon, the roman pilum-using units are an exception of sorts, but the pilum is the primary weapon, too, like javelins or bows with other ranged units.

[player1]

Gaul has spear warbands in v1.3. They aren't quite as strong as the german spear warbands

They are not Spear Warbands. They are warbands with spear. Big difference, since Spear Warbands are phalanx unit.

I would remove phalanx ability from german spear warband. The animation is then correct, and principes defeat them in melee. Without shooting pila, I got this battle result in cusom battle on flat ground after removing phalanx abilty from the german spear warband

I would think otherwise since that has you just get same gaul warband, but for some reason difference stats.

Why would german warband have higher attack then gaulish one?