Are skirmishers too powerful?

[Warlord 11]

I don't know about you, but when a chunky spear gets lobbed into the air and impales me, I die.

Can I test that?

[Chester]

I think the AI stacks Javelin troops when it's in dire need of troops and money is a problem.

[infierno]

i find em underpowered... in a battle i did, i just engaged enemy phalanx ( the red dressing greeks one) and sourrounded with peltastai by the back

every volley to their back killed only 2-3 enemys (large unit scale)

[EdwardL]

VS. Elephants, skirmishers are very overpowered. Hopefully that will be corrected.

[Dayve]

The AI stacks skirmishers all the time, full stop. Carthage and Iberia are the worst for it... I fought a Cartheginian army last night, this is a great example, it was a full stack... I counted 10! units of Iberian Velites... 2 Numidian Javelinmen, and a further two units of mounted Numidian javelinmen... The rest were various infantry types, mostly levied citizen militias though... What's more, their reinforcements who also joined the battle had a further 5 units of Iberian velites and a couple of units of elite African swordsmen and a couple of elite african spearmen...

I know it's difficult to get the AI to recruit good balanced armies because when i modded my game i gave every unit +15 morale and +15 defence skill (I haven't modded EB, this was when i modded vanilla months ago) and every faction recruited their absolute cheapest troops... I had to remove town militia because AI armies consisted of 15 units of them... Gaul would recruit only spear warband, Greeks would recruit only militia hoplites... When i removed these units as an experiment the AI moved on to the next cheapest crappest unit which was skirmishers... And armies consisted of 50-60% skirmishers... Like what is happening with Carthage and Iberia now in EB...

Is it possible to do anything about this or, thanks to CA's rushing and lack of care, are we stuck with it?

[jerby]

they're not over powered....
In dayve's 1st (startign post)scenario: every thought that 2 kgs of wood with a pointy end can penatrate a shield? or teh sheer blunt trauma of such a hurled chunck?
liek you said, no armor except a shield. and if teh unit only has shield as defense than they're extremly vulnerabel form flanking-fire

infierno: those greeks sound like Hypaspistai. with teh red cloak/cape....Hypaspistai are heavy armored..very heavy...you can't expect to decimate a unit with 25-def. this scenario si different from dayve's because you enemy-unit has a big def. even at their back (total defense minus shield, minsu skill. i'd guess they have about 18 def left...)

agree'd with edward tough. effective is one thing, total slaughter in 2 volley's another. personally it's a challenge for me to sue them correctly, But the AI doesn't manouvre their ellies aroudn my skirmishers...

[khelvan]

This is a byproduct of unit recruitment as it is currently constituted. Skirmishers and levy troops are the only thing the AI can build in many cases. We're still working out the details of unit recruitment and you will see improvements in this area in the future.

[QwertyMIDX]

In terms of unit cost tweaking the Celtic factions (2 Gauls and the Casse) are the farthest along. Problems with their armies should be less frequent, although the work on costs and stat tweaks isn't done yet and even more importantly, as Khelvan said, the recruitment system isn't finished yet.