1.3 RTW Comments

[Red Harvest]

I've fooled around with a couple of 1.3 RTW campaigns so far, fought maybe a dozen large battles on VH/VH. I'll start listing some comments, and perhaps add to this later. I haven't looked at stats changes yet. Edit: Bugs/major problems in bold.
1. There are some apparent improvements in fluidity of the campaign map (wasn't giving me trouble before, but it is different now.)
2. Pirates are tough and abundant early on. They rule the seas making land invasions tricky (at least on VH/VH.)
3. AI still seems to do many of the same things on the tactical map. So the differences there are not vast. I haven't noticed the generals being as suicidal, though. Incremental improvement I suppose.
4. Spears do seem to work better vs. cav., and charging spears frontally with cav is now quite dangerous.
5. Still not seeing many storms at sea.
6. Strategic AI still leaving settlements less protected than prudent. I'm finding stacks of Carthaginians doing nothing in forts.
7. Still can't combine fleets sometimes? And then can combine the same fleets later?
8. Ships don't seem any more inclined to sink from combat than before.
9. Roman diplomacy might be more complex, if you ally with nations the Senate views unfavorably you might lose your Roman alliances.

Lots of things to check...haven't explored much at all yet, and no controlled experiments. I probably should try another faction.

Adding Items:
10. Archers still charge infantry at times without really firing. This became apparent when the AI threw its Cretan archers into my meleeing Hastati. I could see this if the Hastati had been alone on a flank, but my unit was backed by cav, etc. What a waste of a great missile unit.
11. The AI still won't skirmish very often. It can't seem to trade javelin volleys or counduct much of an archery duel.
12. Base archer power is still several times greater than it should be. I had forgotten how much better my mods to velocities, ranges, and missile attack made the game feel/look in 1.2. I'm really missing those changes now. I know CA pared down the elites, but they should have whacked the rest to about the level of base slingers.
13. There is a MAJOR memory leak that gets worse as a session continues. Difficult to shut down the game after a few hours.

More items:

14. Marius' Reforms now occur early again. I had them happen in 242. (I would have rathered that CA would have added a second starting period and map to the RTW campaign as part of BI.)
15. I've been listening to the speeches again. They are far more varied and colorful than when I started playing. There are several that I've never heard mentioned before (I had heard quite a few zingers, and some related here.) Something about slapping an ass (as in donkey I presume) comes to mind
16. Wardogs still pose absurd difficulties, because they still can't be targeted directly. Your men end up trying to charge after the handlers, so dealing with the dogs themselves is a passive affair. So on VH, where they have plenty of morale they just keep killing and killing in AI hands. Very annoying.
17. AI doesn't use its war cry at times. In defense it seems to, but when advancing/attacking it forgets to stop and do this.
18. AI archers often won't fire at units within range, even when the archer is stationary. It is most obvious with the longest range archers.
19. AI won't use its pila.
20. Pila can still stop an enemy charge cold--charge doesn't seem to register against them as they raise their weapons. Then they unload into the now stationary chargers point blank. Seems a bit wrong to me.
21. AI is having great difficulty launching naval invasions now. Scipii and Brutii stacks are building up instead, and not being landed.
22. AI still fails to use "overkill" numbers of troops to confront the player (when available.) For example, it might have two stacks within a few hexes of a city it will siege, yet it will send in just enough men to have superiority (based on autocalc.--so with Rome post Marius it might be using far too few men.) While much improved, it is still getting defeated in detail because it won't use full stacks when it easily could.
23. Two new horse skeletons (speeds) have been added. So now we have (fastest to slowest):
fs_fast_horse = light horse
fs_medium_horse = medium horse (and "generals horse") New!
fs_horse = heavy horse
fs_cataphract_horse =cataphract horse New!

[KSEG]

>9. Roman diplomacy might be more complex, if you ally with nations the Senate views >unfavorably you might lose your Roman alliances.

Isn't this supposed to be a bug?

[ChaosLord]

7: You still can't put admirals with stars in the same stack as another admiral with stars, really annoying. Its gotten so that even with the rarity of ships with stars if I have one or two already I just disband it.

9: I'm not sure if its a bug or a feature actually. They might have decided the fixed alliances hurt the Houses when expanding. IE Scipii or Brutii making an alliance with the Gauls while the Julii were waging war with them and then making them at peace by default and things like that. I think that even with losing the alliance you can't attack them and keep the line of sight view, so its not a big effect really.

[Puzz3D]

3. AI still seems to do many of the same things on the tactical map. So the differences there are not vast. I haven't noticed the generals being as suicidal, though. Incremental improvement I suppose.
4. Spears do seem to work better vs. cav., and charging spears frontally with cav is now quite dangerous.

I felt these two things were major problems in RTW v1.2 battles, and make a big different in the RTW v1.3 battles. The AI will attack your cavalry with spears whenever it can so that's more dangerous now, and the AI flanking is going to work better since the front lines will fight longer without the suicide general. Even simply turning a unit to absorb a flanking attack is going to expose its flank longer to other AI units, and the AI tries to take advantage of those exposed flanks. The fixes to the charge and reduction in charge bonuses of many units also means units will not rout as quickly.

[nameless]

7: You still can't put admirals with stars in the same stack as another admiral with stars, really annoying. Its gotten so that even with the rarity of ships with stars if I have one or two already I just disband it.

9: I'm not sure if its a bug or a feature actually. They might have decided the fixed alliances hurt the Houses when expanding. IE Scipii or Brutii making an alliance with the Gauls while the Julii were waging war with them and then making them at peace by default and things like that. I think that even with losing the alliance you can't attack them and keep the line of sight view, so its not a big effect really.

YOu know you could simply just bring that ship into port and build it into a fleet with warships.

[Red Harvest]

YOu know you could simply just bring that ship into port and build it into a fleet with warships.

Not a wise move when he has "zero or negative stars." Usually this is a problem with small units that get pounced upon during transfers etc. Better to disband a unit, than rebuild it and saddle it with a crummy admiral who you can't really see.

[Red Harvest]

I felt these two things were major problems in RTW v1.2 battles, and make a big different in the RTW v1.3 battles. The AI will attack your cavalry with spears whenever it can so that's more dangerous now, and the AI flanking is going to work better since the front lines will fight longer without the suicide general. Even simply turning a unit to absorb a flanking attack is going to expose its flank longer to other AI units, and the AI tries to take advantage of those exposed flanks. The fixes to the charge and reduction in charge bonuses of many units also means units will not rout as quickly.

Yes, battles are a little more costly, but even on VH/VH I'm not losing battles. Okay, I lost one, but it was a wreckelss siege attack against those stone walls of Syracuse trying to get the measure of how things were. I had no business even attempting it with 1 vs 1 manpower and them having greek hoplites, archers, and a higher star family vs. my hastati, some velites and two family members, but I nearly won. I actually would have won, but I let some guys get stranded in a bad spot and cut to pieces while attending the other end of the battle--so I came up a unit short of what I needed. I ended up losing my leader flanking the last full unit of greek hoplites in the square.

[Puzz3D]

Yes, battles are a little more costly, but even on VH/VH I'm not losing battles.

Something's not right. I'm playing on M/M and loosing battles, and I've been playing total War for 5 years. I won my last battle with 1000 men under a 2 star general against 1400 Britannians under a 3 star general, but it took over half an hour using many hit and run attacks on their skirmishers. I think I actually only won because their general was killed about 20 minutes into the battle. I killed 1000, but lost 500 men.

I'm at 170 BC in this Julii campaign with 28 provinces, and it's extremely difficult to expand due to the economics. I only just now got full control of the Iberian peninsula. I just established a 6k profit each turn, but I don't think it's going to last and Britannia has just started attacking me. I have several cities with 70% happiness and no way to improve it. Brutii attacked Egypt in Asia Minor, but there is no way I can take advantage and take a few cities because I can't raise the troops to go there. It might not be a good idea anyway because Egypt is strong and will kick Brutii out soon.

I don't know what's different about our playing styles, but I'm having a very interesting campaign. I play with no retraining.

[IceTorque]

I play on VH/M and I have found the battles in 1.3 to be fast and easy with my hastati being able to rout most units with their pilums before they even engage in melee.
I have only played a short vanilla campaign before quitting
and deciding to port my WarMap mod over to v1.3 which i found surprisingly easy to do thanks to alpacaa's HGT converter and the much improved -show_err reporting in v1.3. so no more vanilla for me.

[Puzz3D]

I play on VH/M and I have found the battles in 1.3 to be fast and easy with my hastati being able to rout most units with their pilums before they even engage in melee.

Why can't my hastati do that on medium? The only units I can rout with pilum are the low quality troops, and even then it takes more than one unit thowing pilums to do it. Maybe there's something wrong with VH.

[IceTorque]

Why can't my hastati do that on medium? The only units I can rout with pilum are the low quality troops, and even then it takes more than one unit thowing pilums to do it. Maybe there's something wrong with VH.

I also had roman archers behind my hastati and i quit the game well before the marion reforms as i thought it would just get even easier with legionary cohorts and archer auxillia.

[screwtype]

Something's not right. I'm playing on M/M and loosing battles, and I've been playing total War for 5 years. I won my last battle with 1000 men under a 2 star general against 1400 Britannians under a 3 star general, but it took over half an hour using many hit and run attacks on their skirmishers. I think I actually only won because their general was killed about 20 minutes into the battle. I killed 1000, but lost 500 men.

I'm at 170 BC in this Julii campaign with 28 provinces, and it's extremely difficult to expand due to the economics. I only just now got full control of the Iberian peninsula. I just established a 6k profit each turn, but I don't think it's going to last and Britannia has just started attacking me. I have several cities with 70% happiness and no way to improve it. Brutii attacked Egypt in Asia Minor, but there is no way I can take advantage and take a few cities because I can't raise the troops to go there. It might not be a good idea anyway because Egypt is strong and will kick Brutii out soon.

I don't know what's different about our playing styles, but I'm having a very interesting campaign. I play with no retraining.

I've started a couple of 1.3 campaigns on M/M, and my experience is very different. I am just steamrolling every battle with ease. The last four battles I fought I was actually outnumbered, and didn't lose a single soldier in any of them!

The one thing I have noticed about this game compared to 1.2 is that units don't seem to rout so quick, but then maybe I've just got used to RTW's quicker routing by now. My general's already got more stars than I can poke a stick at so maybe that's why my units aren't routing at all.

I never intended to start a M/M campaign, but I just installed a new mobo and RTW's been crashing all the time, I only started this campaign to see if the game was stable and didn't bother changing any of the options first.

[screwtype]

BTW, one thing I have noticed with 1.3, and that is that you can still blockade an enemy port and not be attacked by that faction's shipping. I blockaded the port of Carthage with just one ship and even though there must have been a dozen Carthaginian ships within an inch of the port, not a single one tried to raise the blockade. How stupid is that.

I also noticed the same silly phenomenon of your ships running into neutral ships during their move and thus having their movement ended for that turn. What the heck is the reasoning behind that? The ocean isn't big enough for two ships to pass each other in the same turn? I missed completing a couple of Senate missions because of this nonsense.

[Red Harvest]

BTW, one thing I have noticed with 1.3, and that is that you can still blockade an enemy port and not be attacked by that faction's shipping. I blockaded the port of Carthage with just one ship and even though there must have been a dozen Carthaginian ships within an inch of the port, not a single one tried to raise the blockade. How stupid is that.

Yes, I've noticed that still seems to be the case. I've not yet had my blockaders attacked.

I also noticed the same silly phenomenon of your ships running into neutral ships during their move and thus having their movement ended for that turn. What the heck is the reasoning behind that? The ocean isn't big enough for two ships to pass each other in the same turn? I missed completing a couple of Senate missions because of this nonsense.

It seems to be that neutral always presents the opportunity for combat, so they "square up." Probably reasonable as it represents a defensive posture against a potential threat.

[screwtype]

It seems to be that neutral always presents the opportunity for combat, so they "square up." Probably reasonable as it represents a defensive posture against a potential threat.

These are six month turns. It makes no sense to me.

BTW the range of ships also seems to be a lot shorter than I remember. I think a ship's range should probably be effectively infinite. Is there a way to mod a ship's movement range? If so, I might have to do it.

[Jambo]

The naval side of BI/1.3 has taken a big dunt with the increase in the pirate spawn rate. Mid-late game there's essentially no AI ships and instead what you have is a multitude of top-of-the-range pirate stacks. Lessen the pirate spawn rate and you find a much more rewarding naval game, blockades and all..

[Puzz3D]

My general's already got more stars than I can poke a stick at so maybe that's why my units aren't routing at all.

I guess that's the difference. I don't take my best general and steamroller the AI. The best battles are when the generals are closely matched, and the strongest AI generals I've encounted are 6 stars with most in the 2 - 4 star range. All of the Total War games give too much combat boost to the units via the command stars, and when there's a big disparity in power between the two armies there isn't much need for tactics.

[Red Harvest]

I guess that's the difference. I don't take my best general and steamroller the AI. The best battles are when the generals are closely matched, and the strongest AI generals I've encounted are 6 stars with most in the 2 - 4 star range. All of the Total War games give too much combat boost to the units via the command stars, and when there's a big disparity in power between the two armies there isn't much need for tactics.

I played another campaign today as the Brutii on VH/VH. Not really much challenge in the fights. I fought down a star or two in about half the battles (had some no star guys who I put in action.) I managed to lose two battles in which I had poor odds. The determining factor in both? The AI's flaming arrows caused insta-rout. It is one of the few "exploits" the AI has over the human. Morale differences on VH seem to be behind it, same as it was in previous RTW. It is pretty gamey the way flaming arrows work. I had modded out flaming arrows for a multitude of reasons (historical, gaminess, and performance aspects) and probably will again. Unfortunately, it also makes the AI weaker.

I'm just using normal Roman units and merc spears, mixed forces. The changes to cav/spears are nice, but really only get it to about the point I had modded it to in 1.2.

Haven't had much trouble polishing off the Macedonians and Greeks. The AI might have been trying to keep a line better with its phalanx units, but it was seriously undone by lack of skirmishing. This allowed my merc peltasts and velites (as well as hastati pila) to tear up the incoming phalanx units, mostly routed them at the instant of contact.

It is about time to try this from a non-Roman faction again...

Adding Items:
10. Archers still charge infantry at times without really firing. This became apparent when the AI threw its Cretan archers into my meleeing Hastati. I could see this if the Hastati had been alone on a flank, but my unit was backed by cav, etc. What a waste of a great missile unit.
11. The AI still won't skirmish very often. It can't seem to trade javelin volleys or counduct much of an archery duel.
12. Base archer power is still several times greater than it should be. I had forgotten how much better my mods to velocities, ranges, and missile attack made the game feel/look in 1.2. I'm really missing those changes now. I know CA pared down the elites, but they should have whacked the rest to about the level of base slingers.

Another I forgot:
13. Autocalc is still awful about letting small forces escape. When you pounce on a couple of peltasts or archers with a half stack of cavalry and autocalc, the enemy should be gone, not slinking away to block your path again!

[Red Harvest]

The naval side of BI/1.3 has taken a big dunt with the increase in the pirate spawn rate. Mid-late game there's essentially no AI ships and instead what you have is a multitude of top-of-the-range pirate stacks. Lessen the pirate spawn rate and you find a much more rewarding naval game, blockades and all..

I'm at mid game as the Brutii, and I've swept out the pirate fleets with triremes. I have oodles of money. There aren't that many pirates in the eastern med. The pirates were more a problem in the central med from what I've seen so far.

I like the pirate fleets as a threat to me, but they are clobbering the AI early on. Historically, those pirate fleets were a big problem. Unfortunately, battles on the seas are still not decisive...arrggg. I have to beat the same stack half a dozen times to kill it.

What is still missing is weather on the sea. The real world enemy at sea is the weather. The weather destroyed several huge Roman fleets during the 1st Punic War, full of troops too! The losses were absolutely staggering, the equivalent of losing Cannae several times...and this when Rome was a much smaller power.

I've been seeing a number of small "stranded" AI fleets carrying armies. They sit in the same place for many turns. I think what is happening is the area they want to take is too well defended, so they sit in limbo. (In this campaign the Scipii never could take Syracuse for example.)

And of course we need a naval scale adjustment so that 1 bireme or 1 trireme can transport a single unit of infantry, or 2 of them can haul one cav. Larger boats (two turn builds like quinquiremes) would be allowed to haul more. I'm going to have to use this sort of rule for my own actions to keep the game challenging. (Also should take more than 1 unit to blockade the larger levels of ports.)

[Puzz3D]

11. The AI still won't skirmish very often. It can't seem to trade javelin volleys or counduct much of an archery duel.

The AI skirmishes me with slingers and javelins when it has them. I haven't seen any AI archers because I've been fighting against Gaul, Britannia, Spain, Carthage and Thrace. Thrace may have had some archers.

12. Base archer power is still several times greater than it should be. I had forgotten how much better my mods to velocities, ranges, and missile attack made the game feel/look in 1.2. I'm really missing those changes now. I know CA pared down the elites, but they should have whacked the rest to about the level of base slingers.

Well I don't kow about weakening archers. They get a lot of kills againt low armored units, but I had 3 archers firing at a sacred band inf unit that was marching towards me, and the archers didn't get a single kill. This was large units, so the archers were 80 men each.

13. Autocalc is still awful about letting small forces escape. When you pounce on a couple of peltasts or archers with a half stack of cavalry and autocalc, the enemy should be gone, not slinking away to block your path again!

This doesn't happen when using auto-calc against rebels. At least, I've never seen it happen, and I always auto-resolve against rebles.


I've noticed a couple of problems in battle with AI controlled units:

They tend to get exhausted in battles where the AI is the attacker. This is really bad in battles where the AI has two armies, and one has to come from a long distance. I just had a battle vs Britannia, who had 300 men under a 3 star general and 1400 reinforcing men under a captain which had to come across the entire map. I set up at the back since I only had 1100 men under a 2 star general, but once the AI's 1400 men arrived they were in no shape to fight and routed easily. In only two battles have I set up towards the back of the map, and I probably won't do that again.

The other issue is that the AI will often send units forward piecemeal, and those units are easy to defeat. I've had some open field battles which I expected to be good turn into easy wins because of this AI tendency. It happens in virtually all battles where the AI sallies from the gates of a city.

[Jambo]

Yeah, for me fatigue is one of those tough choices as to whether I play with it on or off. Like Puzz I've had some battles against the AI in which I was expecting a real tough fight and in fact turned out to be slaughters.

In one such battle (VH/H) my relatively large garrison defence of 1000 troops killed >5500 (from 3 AI armies) while defending a siege assault from a horde faction. The one army with the siege equipment breached my defences with siege towers, rams and sap points, and so after dealing with the initial army I decided to retreat to the centre square to face the rest...

While I relaxed and regained unit stamina in the city plaza, the other 2 AI armies charged all the way round my wall defences to enter through the breaches. By the time the chosen swordsmen, horde spearmen, etc, reached my plaza they were tired or exhausted and a simple charge from the 3 family members I had in the plaza routed the lot. Several thousand troops routing from the city plaza with 3 family members in pursuit = mass slaughter.

Without fatigue on I would have definitely lost as there's no doubt the charging of the AI reinforcements round the walls was their doom.

[screwtype]

I've never noticed the AI getting fatigued before. How do you know they are fatigued? Is it just your assumption?

Personally I see the opposite problem occurring. The AI just doesn't hurry fast enough, especially when it's sending reinforcements. I've lost count of the number of AI cities I end up taking uncontested because a reinforcing AI army comes to the city's "rescue" and the defenders then sally forth. Because either the reinforcements or the sallying army or both advance toward you so slowly, it's really easy to destroy one army and then the other in turn, leaving the city undefended. I see this as quite a major problem for the AI, it makes taking cities absurdly easy.

[Red Harvest]

I've never noticed the AI getting fatigued before. How do you know they are fatigued? Is it just your assumption?

Personally I see the opposite problem occurring. The AI just doesn't hurry fast enough, especially when it's sending reinforcements. I've lost count of the number of AI cities I end up taking uncontested because a reinforcing AI army comes to the city's "rescue" and the defenders then sally forth. Because either the reinforcements or the sallying army or both advance toward you so slowly, it's really easy to destroy one army and then the other in turn, leaving the city undefended. I see this as quite a major problem for the AI, it makes taking cities absurdly easy.

Fatigue is a big factor for the AI. When it has multiple armies, it doesn't wait to connect its forces and attack as a combined army. This leads to defeat in detail of fatigued clumps. Fatigue saps morale and it reduces kill rate as well as running speed. So when the fatigued army reaches the player's line it ends up routing easily. (Many units don't even reach the line.) My units behave the same way if I treat them like that.

[Red Harvest]

14. Marius' Reforms now occur early again. I had them happen in 242. (I would have rathered that CA would have added a second starting period and map to the RTW campaign as part of BI.)

[Puzz3D]

I've never noticed the AI getting fatigued before. How do you know they are fatigued? Is it just your assumption?

When the enemy units get close, you can see their fatigue condition with a mouseover.

Personally I see the opposite problem occurring. The AI just doesn't hurry fast enough, especially when it's sending reinforcements.

That's another problem I've seen in every battle where the AI has two or more armies. The AI army which is close to you doesn't wait for the other army unless they are very weak. The AI seems to be designed to charge even with somewhat weaker units. This might be good in certain tactical situations, but it's bad in situations where the AI has reinforcements coming up. I think this may also be what's prompting the AI to make the piecemeal attacks with its stronger units. Sallies are particularly bad because the AI units come out of the gate one at a time.

I may do what Jambo suggesed and turn off fatigue to help the AI. This will actually just bring the AI's units onto an equal footing with my units in erms of fatigue since fatigue is never an issue for my units because I play with no timer and can rest as much as necessary.

[Red Harvest]

Well I don't kow about weakening archers. They get a lot of kills againt low armored units, but I had 3 archers firing at a sacred band inf unit that was marching towards me, and the archers didn't get a single kill. This was large units, so the archers were 80 men each.

The Sacred Band have 11 armour with 5 for a shield. Archers shouldn't be too successful against them. I just did a test, same old miserable AI... I suspect you either got unlucky, or the AI stayed in phalanx and took fewer casualties than normal.

Player: 3 Roman archers, AI: 1 Sacred Band
Conditions: Grassy flatland, midday, calm weather, summer, medium

I put the archers in line centering on the front of the approaching SB. I halted the count when my center unit retreated in skirmish mode. Starting with 82 men, the SB fell to 75, 73, and 74 in three successive tests--not taking flank fire as best I could tell. Note: The AI was mostly staying in non-phalanx march although it would lower its spears repeatedly.

Tried this from the other side, wanting to approach in phalanx. The "brilliant" AI of course aligned its three archers into three lines in column--the worst possible formation other than three columns in column. It then marched up to skirmish range, jumbled its forces, then scattered without firing a shot. I then extended into a long line, and managed to clip one of the units and slaughter it as the others finally peppered away at me from the flank and rear. I took serious casualties as I fought out of phalanx. Then more casualties advancing on and pinning the next unit before slaughtering it. With about 35 men left, the AI decided it could whip my SB in melee with its lone remaining unit. I lowered my spears and made short work of it.

I hope that BI's AI is better, as RTW's AI is still AWFUL! RTW's AI simply can't use missile units effectively. Has anyone run a similar test with appropriate units in BI? I would really like to hear what the archers do.

[Jambo]

I think judging the AI as awful based on a 3 archers vs 1 sacred band test is a little presumptious. I can't remember ever being in that situation in the RTW or BI campaign. Fight the AI using two standard balanced armies and then judge how the various components interact.

[Puzz3D]

The Sacred Band have 11 armour with 5 for a shield. Archers shouldn't be too successful against them. I just did a test, same old miserable AI... I suspect you either got unlucky, or the AI stayed in phalanx and took fewer casualties than normal.

The AI sacred band did stay in phalanx while advancing. It's possible they had an armor upgrade. I don't know.

I put the archers in line centering on the front of the approaching SB. I halted the count when my center unit retreated in skirmish mode. Starting with 82 men, the SB fell to 75, 73, and 74 in three successive tests--not taking flank fire as best I could tell. Note: The AI was mostly staying in non-phalanx march although it would lower its spears repeatedly.

How is this an argument for reducing archer effectiveness? On average you got 3 kills from each archer. I'll try this test myself later today.

Tried this from the other side, wanting to approach in phalanx. The "brilliant" AI of course aligned its three archers into three lines in column--the worst possible formation other than three columns in column.

In RTW, the shape of the formation doesn't matter very much. If one man can fire then all the men in the unit fire even if they are out of range and all with apparently the same effectiveness. I guess men further back might be a little more likely to miss since they are farther away from the target.

[Red Harvest]

I think judging the AI as awful based on a 3 archers vs 1 sacred band test is a little presumptious. I can't remember ever being in that situation in the RTW or BI campaign. Fight the AI using two standard balanced armies and then judge how the various components interact.

No, it isn't presumptuous, the AI sucks with standard armies too, this is confirmation of what I see in battle. This is a simplified test. If the AI can't handle the force properly in the simplest test, it isn't going to do much better on the field. Hence, the AI charging it's Cretan archers into my Hastati without firing a shot. It is the same problem we had with the AI before in RTW. In fact, the test gets right to the heart of the matter. It's not like I've run one test and made the conclusion. I did the same sort of thing in 1.1, 1.2, and in MANY, MANY battles. I ran the test to try to understand what I was seeing in battle.

The RTW AI can't use missile units with effect. There are a host of issues about that and some of them clearly reveal that those doing the AI design didn't figure out a way to render the skirmishing of the time. Heck, it even showed in the scripting of the demo.

Examples: Look at default army formations, the skirmishers are often in the rear, bass ackwards.

I've not yet done a javelin test of the same, but in a recent battle vs. a nearly all javelin army (with rebel bodyguard general) it used its javelinmen as melee vs. my infantry. It didn't skirmish and try to inflict maximum casualties or disrupt me before being forced to engage.

It comes down to this: Do ranged units use their weapons effectively under AI control? The answer is a resounding "No!" They still close to skirmish range, then go "Oh crap! What am I doing here?" I haven't retested in 1.3, but in previous versions they did the same thing vs. CAVALRY 1 vs. 1.

[Red Harvest]

How is this an argument for reducing archer effectiveness? On average you got 3 kills from each archer.

Considering these were bottom end archers with no experience or missile upgrades, they inflicted substantial casualties when used frontally against one of the best protected units in the game. From the flanks and rear they of course completely slaughtered them (I let the guys march on through after the test and let it run out without giving any more commands.) Of course, we have the old problem of men firing at extreme oblique from the end of a column as well.

Those archers should be next to useless against these guys frontally. Historically, archers did not have that much impact vs. a formed phalanx. Even the compound bows in use by the horse archers at Samarkand had trouble vs. the phalanx. It was when the men broke that they were cut down.

The problem is not so much with the heavily armoured, as with the moderately/lightly armoured, where the kill rate gets out of hand in a hurry. A couple of volleys, and a unit is useless. In my last 1.3 campaign I found it rather easy to cut down Spartans with a single unit of Cretans--who now have the same missile attack as Roman archers, though more distance.

Vanilla archers should be very ineffective. They represent novices with indifferent equipment.

In RTW, the shape of the formation doesn't matter very much. If one man can fire then all the men in the unit fire even if they are out of range and all with apparently the same effectiveness. I guess men further back might be a little more likely to miss since they are farther away from the target.

Yes, I understand the weakness of the missile model with respect to formation. I don't believe there is distance attenuation; accuracy is not directly modified for distance (there was not any noticeable in 1.2.) The slight attenuation observed was explained best by the angle of the arrow strikes vs. the target--it appeared to be solely a hit box issue since the profile is smaller at and angle than perpendicular. I did some tests with various spacings, ranges and missile velocities and such to confirm this.