Are skirmishers too powerful?

**Dayve** · 01-04-2006, 00:49

I'm noticing now as i start to fight against factions that use lots of javelineers, that they are extremely powerful... Sometimes even devastating, against my units which have large shields, i'm playing as the Romans...

Now i know that early hastati have no armour at all except for their helmet... But they have a massive shield... When my hastati are stood still and a volley of javelins is fired against them they take around 5-6 casualties each volley... (Large unit size) Now unless historically those javelins would penetrate Roman shields then this should realistically not be happening... The shield that the Romans carry is easily big enough to provide great protection againt missles... Especially slow moving missles like javelins, so if my hastati are stood in formation and raise their shields to stop javelins then barely any should get through... Where could they hit? They have a greive on their left leg, their shield is covering from their lower thigh up to their head, so unless they're unlucky enough to get one in the face then 6 men shouldn't be falling each volley...

Oh and one thing... I think Cartheginian and Iberian armies recruit WAY too many velites... I'm seeing full stack armies with over 10 units of velites in them... Although i know this might be difficult because i played around with units months back making them more expensive and stuff and i saw that the AI always recruits what's cheapest 90% of the time... Even if they are capable of recruiting better quality troops.

**Mujalumbo** · 01-04-2006, 01:24

Skirmishers too powerful?

I suppose a case could be made for it. I've won a lot of my phalanx battles as the Ptolemaioi and the KH with skirmisher and/or Theurophoroi/Peltasti attacks to the flanks.

Similarily, in some seiges, I've had akondistis <sp> hurl their entire payload of javelins into the rear of taxeis hoplitai and only cause a handful of casualties.

I dunno. The successor/Hellenic factions seem to have some excellent skirmishers.

**econ21** · 01-04-2006, 01:25

Skirmishers seem ok to me. I am certainly not tempted to rely on their firepower to win a battle (unlike archers in vanilla RTW or slingers in pre-6.0 RTR). I hardly notice the damage my own do to the enemy and enemy skirmishers tend to crumple quickly to my own infantry (Roman). Losing 6 hastati to a volley sounds ok to me - you could think of it as some javelins making the shields useless and the casualties accruing over more than one volley (RTW battles happen much more quickly than real ones obviously).

I agree about the AI going overboard on velites though. I just had to wade through 10 Carthaginian ones in Corsica (supported by only 2 poeni citizen militia). I large stack of slingers was more painful for my hastati etc to face though - perhaps rightly so.

**Sdragon** · 01-04-2006, 01:32

If the enemy has a lot of skirmishers I'll just give them the front of a hoplite to shoot, they'll cause very little damage and waste their ammo. They decimate light troops though, which seems fine to me.

**AggonyDuck** · 01-04-2006, 02:50

I've been finding enemy skirmishers mostly a nuisance, but that might be due to the AI's rather inefficient use of them.

**Justiciar** · 01-04-2006, 04:16

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

**Warlord 11** · 01-04-2006, 12:33

Originally Posted by Justiciar

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** · 01-04-2006, 14:00

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

**infierno** · 01-04-2006, 14:32

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** · 01-04-2006, 15:06

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

**Dayve** · 01-04-2006, 19:44

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** · 01-04-2006, 19:45

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** · 01-04-2006, 20:01

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** · 01-05-2006, 00:47

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.