A question of weapon types...

[.Nero.]

Playing as the Getai, I was taking a settlement with an army of the initial phalanx and archer unit types. Early in the battle, my phalanxes were engaged by falx-armed troops, with around 13 defense, made up of 12 skill, 1 shield and 0 amour. A single unit did a lot of damage to my two phalanx units before a simultaneous charge by two generals routed them. later in the same battle, my archers were firing on a unit of the same type, which had sat in the town for the entire battle. When the falxmen charged them, and they couldn't escape, had them engage in melee, in the hope that they would survive long enough to reinforce.

To my surprise, they not only defeated them, they routed them in seconds flat, before any troops even had a chance to reinforce.

The point is, i believe that fact that their missile weapon type is used for melee caused this bizarre slaughter, as they fought with an effective defense of one. Given that the falx was a weapon designed to slice unarmored men in twain with ease and convenience, perhaps an attempt should be made to counter this, hopefully without reducing missile effectiveness against such troops?

[QwertyMIDX]

They don't use their missile weapon in melee, that was a 1.1 bug.

[QwertyMIDX]

They don't use their missile weapon in melee, that was a 1.1 bug. The Falx is made to slice through armor too, not to chew up quick unarmored men.

[Gealai]

Well the falx is perfect for slicing up unarmord enemies too, however in this occasion your men might have been already very tired and outflanked, so that they fled on contact.

Gealai

[pezhetairoi]

I'd think so too. Playing now as the Getai the units have been behaving exactly as they were expected to, with the drapanai ripping up the right types of troops and the toxotai getting cut up as they should be.

[QwertyMIDX]

Obviously a Falx can kill an unarmored person too, but it really comes to the fore when fighting heavily armored opponents. Weapons like the Falx, 2 handed axe, 2 handed sword, etc. tend to be very good at smashing or slicing through armor, the draw back being that they are rather unwieldy and since it isn't too hard to predict the attacks that will be made with them, dodging the attacks is the way to go. Getting out of the way is something a lightly armored solider would be better at than his heavily armored counterpart, whose armor is little more than expensive dead weight against the Falx and other weapons of that ilk.

[Zero1]

Thats a morale issue, I've seen enemy troops who could normally slaughter the ones I'm using to engage them rout on contact when I'm besieging a town, especially if they're the only ones left. It happens when you've already slaughterd or routed a bunch of their buddies and its sort of like a chain reaction, and their morale plummets, and at that point they'll pretty much rout from anything.