My first thoughts about EB

[cython]

Hello,

First I'd like to say the people behind EB have done suberb job in bringing this module to life! Well done! :D

Howerver, I would like point a few points after I've played the module with Macedonians:

with medium difficulty in Battles and Hard on Campaign Map

1) Why Macedonians start with such a bad economy? It's like -10000/turn... Clearly my options were either disband most of my army or become over aggressive... I ve choosed the second and in turn 1 i charged to Spata, Athens & Ambrakia (it took me 3 Heroic Battles to kill Pyros)... anyway it took me about 20 or so turns till cash was flowing into my treasury. From what i know Macedonians should not have such a bad economy... right? At least they should have one city above 6000...

2) Missile troops & cavarly don't seem to be effective (at least on my compter... even though I have a clean install + of RTW w patch 1.2 & EB without altering anything else)

We all know that:

Archers are good vs Infantry (includes spearmen)
Cavalry are good vs Archers & light infantry (no spearmen)
Spearmen are good vs Cavarly
Infantry are good vs spearmen

However, the first two are broken in EB

There were cases were archers (Toxotai) emptied all their ammo onto a unit of rebel Taxeis Hoplites only to kill one man (i highly doubt that this is realistic)... even worse image two Toxotai and two peltasts (the good ones) empting all their ammo one a unit of Taxeis Hoplites (the peltasts were firing from the flank of the enemy) only to kill 10!?

Afetr a few battles i stopped having archers, missile arttack 2 is like ...

And cavalry does not kill units... it only break morale when you flank the enemy... Cavalry was actually so bad that Etairoi (Fresh) alone could not take care a unit of peltast (Tired) or a charge of Etairoi onto a unit Taxeis Hoplites from behind, who were fighting my infantry, could only kill only 5 men! I am sorry but it does not make sense, a charging heavy cavarly can inflicte far more damage only from the momemtum it has...

3) Even with all the above obstacles i have manage to form a small empire consisting 20 provences with a lot of vistories... but my most skilled generals during the whole game was Antigonos with 3 stars (but quickly reduced to 1 as he was getting older), and X (i dont recall his name) 1 star after coming victorius in many battles (most of the time were tough battles like 4:1 or 2:1 against me)

Any comments? Am I doing something wrong? Anyone facing the same problem?

Cython

[GMT]

If your hetairoi aren't killing any infantry then there's definitely something wrong with your game... or mine! These guys were ripping my infantry apart in my KH campaign!

Try fighting a custom battle against them to find out how deadly these guys are.

Edit: and yeah IMO archers and slingers are definitely underpowered.

[fallen851]

I'm working up a new EDU text that is re-balanced along the lines of what you've said. I've done a lot of research into the EDU, but I'm working it up for 1.5, so when EB switches over, I'll finish it.

[Teleklos Archelaou]

Archers and slings are good against infantry - *if* you are hitting them from the sides or better yet back - or if they have no armor/shields. If they have good shields or armor, they can sit there and let you shoot at them from the front all day. You'll have to learn to manouver the troops better to have ranged units be effective or just make sure they aim for guys with little armor.

There is a patch in the traits thread that will help you get command stars more quickly than you might currently.

Good luck!

[Geoffrey S]

Use missile units on flanks and the rear of units, or aim for the units with less armour. In my Baktrian campaign they're particularly effective against Pantodopoi and other missile units.

Hetairoi wouldn't break peltasts since they are a spear-armed unit. Use cavalry for the shock effect: keep them in reserve, wear down the enemy and when their morale starts to lower charge them with all the cavalry you can, force a breach. Historically well-formed infantry had little trouble stopping most cavalry, you really need your own infantry to break formations and cavalry to break morale.

[abou]

I find weaker missle units such as slingers good for pinning an enemy and then flanking with heavier infantry or cavalry. If they turn they take fire on the flanks or the rear which damages morale or they get struck by the flanking units.

[Dayve]

In my Makedonian campaign i can recruit archers and slingers with 2 experience chevrons, making toxotai have 4 attack and slingers 5... They're kind of effective when used against infantry, but against hoplites they suck... However i have a rebel killing army made up of ten units of 5 missile attack slingers, you should see it when they all fire at once... Usually drops 20 men instantly, but against hoplites they will kill only 5, against the better hoplites (Iphrikates) then they might kill 1 if all 10 fire at the same time...

I don't care if this army is unrealistic, the amount of rebel popups i get is unrealistic, 3 per turn even though my cities are all green happy face... Screw that... Watching 10 units of slingers firing all at the same time is beautiful.

[Ludens]

1) Why Macedonians start with such a bad economy?

This is intentional, and applies to almost all factions. Most nations seemly could not afford to run around with multiple armies, so the EB team increased the upkeep from all units. This also makes your armies more valuable; as a loss is expensive. Basically, at the start of the game you are faced with a simple choice: either use your units or disband them. Especially get rid of fleets: they are criplingly expensive and in a 1:1 encounter the A.I. always wins (at H and VH anyway).

Makedon was in a bad position at the start of the game. They had barely recovered from the Galatean migration or Pyrrhus of Epirus burned down their capital. Antigonus just regained it the start of the game. As soon as you can get your mines operative you will be able to get a steady cashflow (too much actually, the team is planning to decrease mine income again in the next patch).

2) Missile troops & cavarly don't seem to be effective (at least on my compter... even though I have a clean install + of RTW w patch 1.2 & EB without altering anything else)

The missile part has already been adressed (though I agree missile effectiveness can be somewhat fickle in EB), but the cavalry problems stems mainly from the broken charge value in R:TW 1.2. There is no way to properly balance this: either you get cavalry that ploughs head-on through heavy infantry or you get cavalry that can be stopped by a single skirmisher. This should be fixed by the port to 1.5.

[econ21]

This is intentional, and applies to almost all factions. Most nations seemly could not afford to run around with multiple armies, so the EB team increased the upkeep from all units. This also makes your armies more valuable; as a loss is expensive. Basically, at the start of the game you are faced with a simple choice: either use your units or disband them. Especially get rid of fleets: they are criplingly expensive and in a 1:1 encounter the A.I. always wins (at H and VH anyway).

This is a very important point and the EB team should put it in bold capital letters of any readme/documentation for the mod. (Unless you understand the clever design and intention it represents, you will tend to find the mod frustratingly hard to begin with).

But one quibble - is it really true the AI fleets win 1:1 encounters at higher difficulty levels? That was true in v1.0 RTW and was why I was reluctant to play above medium campaigns. But at some stage it was changed and I have not noticed an imbalance in naval battles even on VH campaigns (and since I play a lot of EB & RTR, I'd conclude that the change was implemented by 1.2).

[Ludens]

But one quibble - is it really true the AI fleets win 1:1 encounters at higher difficulty levels? That was true in v1.0 RTW and was why I was reluctant to play above medium campaigns. But at some stage it was changed and I have not noticed an imbalance in naval battles even on VH campaigns (and since I play a lot of EB & RTR, I'd conclude that the change was implemented by 1.2).

I haven't really checked it after some naval disasters in 1.1; but since auto-calc is very much skewed in favour of the A.I. at VH campaign difficulty and naval battles are auto-calc I don't see why not. That said, it does feel better after 1.2, but this may be because I only engage at overwhelming odds. If the A.l. engages me, I always get trashed.

[nikolai1962]

Always use cavalry en-masse or not at all. One unit of Hetairoi isn't going to do much, but two or three units will (especially in a "triangle of death" - surround the enemy, hit the rear with one before charging with the other two units, bound to break most enemy units very easily). If that gets too expensive, just use Hippeis Thessalikoi, they're like mini-Hetairoi.

Scary how effective this is. Even with 3-4 horse archers charging from different directions. Infantry just vapourizes.

Another thing is to to stagger charges. One unit charging slightly after the first seems to be very effective.

Personally i find moving archers etc round the flanks a bit silly. Can't recall ever reading that in a history book. Missile troops are good against enemy missile troops and cavalry though. Horse archers are a different story of course.

[O'ETAIPOS]

1) Why Macedonians start with such a bad economy? It's like -10000/turn... Clearly my options were either disband most of my army or become over aggressive... I ve choosed the second and in turn 1 i charged to Spata, Athens & Ambrakia (it took me 3 Heroic Battles to kill Pyros)... anyway it took me about 20 or so turns till cash was flowing into my treasury. From what i know Macedonians should not have such a bad economy... right? At least they should have one city above 6000...

Macedon army is way to big - cutting many units is necesary - for more hist. accurate situation check myAAR - in 5th paragraph there is list of troops I havent disbanded (multiplied by ten for more "historic" look, gen bodyguards are added to amount of Hetairoi)
Macedon was on the edge in this year. Phyrros was controlling most of Macedon itself and vast areas of Thessaly. If he had wisely choose targets, by the end of year he had chance to eliminate Antigonos and control whole greece.

2) Missile troops & cavarly don't seem to be effective

There were cases were archers (Toxotai) emptied all their ammo onto a unit of rebel Taxeis Hoplites only to kill one man (i highly doubt that this is realistic)... even worse image two Toxotai and two peltasts (the good ones) empting all their ammo one a unit of Taxeis Hoplites (the peltasts were firing from the flank of the enemy) only to kill 10!?

And cavalry does not kill units... it only break morale when you flank the enemy... Cavalry was actually so bad that Etairoi (Fresh) alone could not take care a unit of peltast (Tired) or a charge of Etairoi onto a unit Taxeis Hoplites from behind, who were fighting my infantry, could only kill only 5 men! I am sorry but it does not make sense, a charging heavy cavarly can inflicte far more damage only from the momemtum it has...

As many people wrote here - hit enemy from behind. Phalanx units are almost invulunerable to missles from the front, but try placing somebody behind them...
Toxotai are useless in battle field, they only make good garnison troops. Spendotenai are much better.
Cav charge is broken, but few things you should consider
-charge downhill is much more effective than uphill.
-multiple charges from many sides should crush enemy, while single charge is good only against lowest level skirmishers

3) Even with all the above obstacles i have manage to form a small empire consisting 20 provences with a lot of vistories... but my most skilled generals during the whole game was Antigonos with 3 stars (but quickly reduced to 1 as he was getting older), and X (i dont recall his name) 1 star after coming victorius in many battles (most of the time were tough battles like 4:1 or 2:1 against me)

Candidate for good general should be sharp/charismatic/vigorous if you chose other he will not develop well. Getting stars is very hard and it is OK as not everybody could become Aleksandros

[Shorebreak]

With EBs balancing I can almost see why ancient armies like the Romans and Greeks had relatively small proportions of missiles and cavalry.

Although the Romans deployed few archers, it was not due to their ineffectiveness... The Romans were plain poor at archery, as well as fighting on horseback. This is why we see them employ mercenaries in these areas time after time, with the most famous example being Numidian cavalry at Zama. On the other hand, later Greek armies were particularly known for their cavalry, especially horsemen from the Aetolian League, which were said to be the best in the region (I'll have to check Polybius on that). Rome may have lost the 2nd Macedonian war had it not been for their help. With these facts in mind, it seems that EB infantry was given primacy to force historical deployments, not to provide an accurate portrayal of true combined arms tactics.

Although I am very new to EB, I also think the current balance is a bit skewed, since it doesn’t accurately portray the effect of combined arms on the battlefield. Archers are a key part of any balanced army, as they functioned as artillery with both direct and indirect capabilities. Look at Crassus' fate as a prime example of their effect on heavy infantry. Perhaps a purchasable upgrade to archers bow strength during the course of a campaign would help with this, as archers would initially be weak and fail to penetrate anything, but gain strength (in the form of penetrating power) as time goes by. Perhaps add the modern concept of suppression into the mix as well. In the end, we should see similar results to that of early English battles against the Scotts (One was Falkirk, although I forget the other two battle names, sorry!), where heavy infantry was herded via arrow fire into a particular fighting area, engaged with infantry and then flanked with cavalry.

As to cavalry, i belive the formation of the opposing infantry should be the deciding factor, not their armaments. A horse is simply not going to charge into a solid wall of anything, more so if they are armed with massive spears. Yet even hoplites should be vulerable to a cavalry charge if they are not in formation; a problem which persists in both the vanilla version and EB.

While I dont know if these two tweaks are feesible, I think these they would cause the game to portray combined arms tactics more accurately on the battlefield.

[Teleklos Archelaou]

Greetings shorebreak. Always happy to welcome more folks in here who are interested in EB.

You won't find one of my Hellenic armies without some archers and slingers, but I know better than to use them where they won't be of any use. That's why everyone hates those Eranshr Aristabara units - good bows and spears on the flanks are just nasty.

[QwertyMIDX]

No one said that Greek cavalry was bad, just that it made up a small percentage of Greek armies, which it did. Infantry troops were the vast majority in every greek army, even ones (basically all the armies after the classical period) in which cavalry was usally the key to victory.

Also, you can decimate a heavy infantry army with eastern horse archers, who use composite bows (rather than the selfbow common in the west) and are stated to reflect this. In fact any unit with some sort of composite bow (including the Cretans when they show up) is much better at taking down heavy infantry than the selfbow units of the west.

As to making formations more important, there's really not a thing we can do stats wise to make this work any better.

[Elthore]

Formation density does greatly affect cav vs inf battles i find.
I just fought a battle where there were a couple of tough pezhetairoi pinned by weaker pontic phalangai. I charged the back of each pezherairoi with kappadocian and leuce epos cavarly (4 cav vs 2 inf). Then halfway during their charge the pikes faced the cav and started hurting the cav badly, at this point, I ordered the phalangai to break formation and charge the enemy pikes. With 3 units pushing on each pike, they all broke formation and no longer pointed their spears at my cav and were cut down much quicker.

[QwertyMIDX]

Oh yes, formation density definatly matters, but there's not anything I do stat-wise to make it matter more or less or in a different way. I was saying I can't really adjust it.

[cython]

Sorry for my late reply but i was working....

1) Thanks for your replies and advices... things look better now as i understand the reasons behind EB changes (from vanilla)

2) I stopped all together using archers and slingers in my field armies since they were useless and i use more infantry... I do not say that i prefer archers, who are able to cast the rain of death as in the vanilla but i equally i do not prefer to have units that they hardly kill anything. I mean right now i simply form a solid line of phalax and start moving to the enemy not caring about their missile troops since they will not be able more 10 soldiers... ( which in my opinion it is not realistic )

The greeks didn't really wanted to use archers or be an archer because it wan't (from their perspective) an honorable way to fight (they preffered homiarian battles & Paris was the bad example). And that's an extra reason why Philipos (father of Alexander the Great) kicked their ^$&* since he used more practical & strategical ways of thinking i.e.

main line: the first version of phalanx
behind the main line archers & war machines
and the flanks were protected by cavalry and/ or other types of infantry

so till the greeks of south were able to reach the phalanx they had substained heavy damage by those "unworthy" archers only to be finished of by the combination of cavalry & phalanx

Thanks again for your replies

Cython

[Orb]

If you simply attribute the Greek lack of archery to culture, how come several heroes are archers.

Herakles, Bellerophon and Philoktetes spring to mind and possibly Orion.

You could also suggest apollo and artemis as archers.

I think it's just that the Greeks simply weren't good archers, their bows were much less effective than spears. Bows and slings were still used, but mainly as a way of preventing cavalry from causing too much damage (working from Nicias' speech about taking bows and slings to counter the Syracusan horse).

so this kind of puts a sock in the cavalry counter archers theory.

this is all 150 years before eb, so it could no longer apply

[QwertyMIDX]

Most greeks (in the west) were still using selfbows during EB's time frame. Selfbows just aren't very effective weapons, slings are much more effective. Trying using slingers, you'll find them much more effective.

[Sdragon]

Try playing as a Gallic faction. Archers and javelins will rip your troops to pieces.

[fallen851]

I really hate how the EB team (and their followers) defend against criticism.

Problem:

even worse image two Toxotai and two peltasts (the good ones) empting all their ammo one a unit of Taxeis Hoplites (the peltasts were firing from the flank of the enemy) only to kill 10!?

Proposed Solution:

Archers and slings are good against infantry - *if* you are hitting them from the sides or better yet back...

... people seem to keep saying hit them from the sides, but he did.

And that is against Taxeis Hoplites, whose decription I will now quote from Teleklos Archelaou (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=52095)

They can be expected to hold a line against most light and medium infantry, though they can be cut to pieces by missile troops, as they have virtually no protection from missiles other than their shields.

Problem:

a charge of Etairoi onto a unit Taxeis Hoplites from behind, who were fighting my infantry, could only kill only 5 men!

Proposed Solution:

A cavalry charge to the rear of an engaged unit is perhaps the easiest and surest key to winning a battle.

... again people keep saying charge from the rear, but he did.

And now I quote from the EB team again (from The Wizard specifically) for the description of Hetairoi, (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=49152)

They are still able to give a decisive blow to the flank and rear of any infantry.

This is why I believe the entire unit system is flawed. QM has said to me many times to point out a situation where the result doesn't meet what is supposed to happen. Well here is two situations that dont match the description of what your EB members have said.

But rather than go through the whole system with them, I'm just making my own, so the point of this post is to show that there is no point in anyone pointing out the flaws in this "perfect system", the flaws will just be defended irrationally and in an ad hoc manner that contradicts their previous posts by the zealots and EB team members who claim that any other system would be unrealistic. Besides, even if they change it, it would take quite a long time to get QM to change everything that needs to be changed.

[Geoffrey S]

Strange. Missiles have functioned precisely the way I expected them to thus far: effective against low armour, useless against units with decent shields and such.

Does it matter which flank is attacked with missiles, the shield side or the other side?

Charges are bugged in 1.2, so that's bound to be unpredictable.

[QwertyMIDX]

You are aware that there is an element of randomness in the calculations that RTW uses right? In the exact same situation different things will happen if you play it over and over again. I've broken enemy armies with cavalry charges to the flanks more times than I can count, but there have been a couple of times when the charge just wasn't that effective. Of course the way we had to compensate for the broken charge in 1.2 exacerbates this, and hopefully cavalry will be a bit more well balanced in 1.5 when we actually have a charge stat to work with. But really, would you want or expect the same thing to happen every time?

As for missile units, firing in the rear or the right flank (shield-less) is certainly quite effective. I just tested it again and my greek slingers can kill 6 or so TH’s a volley. Either way though the port to 1.5 will require rather serious missile rebalancing to deal with the bug/feature in 1.5 with archers/slingers and heavy infantry, so you may get a bit of your wish.

[fallen851]

You are aware that there is an element of randomness in the calculations that RTW uses right? In the exact same situation different things will happen if you play it over and over again.

This is not intended to change anyone on the EB team's opinion. It won't no matter how I phrase it because my opinion holds no weight, partly because of how I have treated the EB team before, and partly because of the way they view me. So this is intended for anyone else who cares.

QM and Ludens you're wrong. That isn't a personal attack, it is a fact. There is little randomness (at least in 1.5). I did many, many tests and the same thing happens, every time.

For instance, due to the fact I've decided to rebalanced EB when it comes out for 1.5, I've done a lot of research, particularly into the charge bonus, and why armor acts differently vs missiles some of which can be found here https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=62744

And what I found was that the same thing happened over and over again. For instance I've since done about 10 more runs, but these 6 runs showing a unit of 100 gauls in a warband with 5 armor factor (0 in the defensive skill and shield factor) standing still and take 5 shots from a chosen archer warband with an attack of 20 is not signficantly different:

Computer Controlled Archers:(units stood still)
Run #1: 81 Gauls remaining after 5 volleys
Run #2: 78 Gauls remaining after 5 volleys
Run #3: 78 Gauls remaining after 5 volleys
Run #4: 80 Gauls remaining after 5 volleys
Run #5: 82 Gauls remaining after 5 volleys
Run #6: 80 Gauls remaining after 5 volleys
Average: 79.833 repeating

When I ran an ANOVA test, there was no signifcant differences (though I knew there would not be before I ran the test...). Sure there is obviously some randomness, because during one test they lost 18, while another 22, but I'm assuming these small differences are not what you speak of.

The results for the charge bonus aren't up there yet, but my testing there (where I setup my unit in a set spot and let the AI cavalry charge) shows exactly the same thing, no significant difference between what happens in the 15 tests I've done charging from the rear. The unit loses about the same about of men every time, and another ANOVA test shows no significant difference between tests. Please note some of those tests are not valid (the ones comparing armor types in melee) because I had the warcry on the units before I retested, and warcry appears to lose its effects after a certain period of time, so the side what warcries first does worse in battle.

I invite you to test what I did. If it comes out differently, send me the replays. The differences are in what happens in the battle, not some magic randomness.

[econ21]

Fallen851 the post you cite from QM talks about randomness in the result of cavalry charges, not archery. He is not wrong about that, since melee combat in EB is essentially a moral contest. Whether cavalry breaks an enemy with a flank attack will depend on a lot of morale modifiers such as command stars, relative casualties, fatigue, positional factors etc. These things will not be fully captured by a simple cold "one-on-one" custom battle experiment. The actual initial casualties are almost secondary - they are certainly much lower than I've experienced in Goth's all factions mod for BI[1] where a whole unit can die in 3 seconds in similar circumstances. In my experience with EB, either the defenders break quickly or it soon gets ugly for the cavalry.

[1]Goth's mod is excellent, BTW, although as you can tell the combat model differs substantially from EBs.

[QwertyMIDX]

I would say something, but I seem to have been beaten to the proverbial punch.

[fallen851]

Fallen851 the post you cite from QM talks about randomness in the result of cavalry charges, not archery. He is not wrong about that, since melee combat in EB is essentially a moral contest. Whether cavalry breaks an enemy with a flank attack will depend on a lot of morale modifiers such as command stars, relative casualties, fatigue, positional factors etc. These things will not be fully captured by a simple cold "one-on-one" custom battle experiment. The actual initial casualties are almost secondary - they are certainly much lower than I've experienced in Goth's all factions mod for BI[1] where a whole unit can die in 3 seconds in similar circumstances. In my experience with EB, either the defenders break quickly or it soon gets ugly for the cavalry.

[1]Goth's mod is excellent, BTW, although as you can tell the combat model differs substantially from EBs.

This is exactly what I mean with EB's response to criticism, it is like you guys don't even read or think about people's posts.

Whether cavalry breaks an enemy with a flank attack will depend on a lot of morale modifiers such as command stars, relative casualties, fatigue, positional factors etc. These things will not be fully captured by a simple cold "one-on-one" custom battle experiment

I hate to quote myself, but if you had read you would have seen:

The differences are in what happens in the battle, not some magic randomness

Everything of what you said, is not randomness, it is what happens on the battlefield. Morale, fatigue, positional factors and command stars are not random conditions. Your general's command stars do not randomly go up and down during battles do they? I dare you to answer that question, but I don't think you will.

I shouldn't even have repond to the first part about cavalry charges because it was in my last post. I did charge bonus tests, and guess what? There was no randomness. Every time barbarian cavalry hit a warband from the rear there was a certain number of losses. There was a little bit of variance, but not much.

I would really love to see some replays of all this randomness, it simply doesn't exist. If a battle goes a certain way, and everything happens the same the next time in terms of movements and decisions, the outcome will be the same. It is how replays. If you take a replay, and then go and change the stats of units, the replay will look totally different. That is because the replay repeats all the movements made, losses will differ slightly. Replays are not movies, they are repeat battles fought in the same way. Now take that replay and watch it over and over it will differ slightly, but the result will always be the same (unless it is so close that a couple of men makes the difference). If you watch a replay of a cavalry charge into a flank over and over, one time it won't kill 200 men, and the next time only 5 men, that randomness does not exist in the RTW engine, I'm sorry, but it doesn't.

As a final response, anticipating your next post, your not actually going to tell me that men dying has nothing to do with morale? Deaths effect morale, perhaps it is the most powerful factor? Thus if cavalry is only killing 5 men hitting the rear of a unit, it isn't doing as much damage to the morale as it did 25 kills.

[Ludens]

QM and Ludens you're wrong. That isn't a personal attack, it is a fact.

Your accusation that the EB team is unable to rationally discuss their system is a personal attack.

The EB team has clear ideas of how thing should work, so they are not going to be swayed by a few observations that something is wrong. Only when you can prove that a situation regularly gives illogical results then they might change their mind. For example after repeated complaints that peltasts were overpowered compared to hastati and thurephoroi Qwerty reexamined their stats. I don't know if they have been corrected in 0.74 but he did announce they are going to be weakened. However, AFAIK no-one ever did systematic archery tests to prove they were indeed underpowered. If you did I, for one, would be happy to see them. Unfortunatly, it is very hard to balance cavalry charges in 1.2; and this is a rather futile excersize anyway since the mod is going to move to 1.5 in the next build.

Lastly, if I interpret Qwerty and econ21 correctly, they did not say that under similar circumstances unit performance can differ significantly (which is obviously wrong) but that in a campaign differing circumstances can have a very pronounced effect on performance.

[fallen851]

I'm not the only one to complain about the EDU file, it is a common complaint. How many threads have we gone over this?

I do not think there is a conspiracy against me to thwart my great ideas. I don't care if you like what I think. What upsets me is how you guys respond to criticism. It is not consistent, it is done on an ad hoc basis (see above quote by Telesos and The Wizard). Your vague, you change the subject, and claim authority (we've done the testing so we know what happens and you don't).

So what did I do? I went out and did the tests, did the research, and you're previous statesment are incorrect. But you guys never give up. QM has claimed in the past there is randomness in how the shield armor is applied (Macroi's thread in which he stated talking to EB memebers was like "pulling teeth"... I'm not the only one). I must have done at least 20 tests with the shield armor, and I found it is equal in melee combat to both the normal armor factor and the defensive skill factor, and 7/8ths as effective against missiles. That is not random. Is it weird? Sure, but if you do the tests, you figure out what is going on. Later in the conversations (ad hoc) QM stated he hadn't done tests in awhile, and he wouldn't have the time to do them, so the shield stats stayed the way they were, flawed. Why are they flawed? Because they are based on the untrue premise that the shield application has randomness.

Oddly enough, those who have criticized EB have began very cordial, but when the EB simply argues with the methods I outlined above, people become irrate. Then of course the EB team lays on the "personal attack!" key they have must have on their keyboard. Either that is happening (what I described above), or (as you might argue) people are coming on here and demanding things be changed, and when you prove them incorrect, they resort to personal attacks.

I don't care if you change things because I can change it myself, in fact I don't think many people care that much, they come on here to contribute to making this mod more realistic, and when they are on the recieving end of the personal attack key, they simply change it themselves and leave.

Now I will do what you said Ludens, and do comprehensive testing of the archery system, but let me tell you right now what I'm going to get for an answer "the archer stats are fine, they shouldn't be powerful". This is purely a judgement call. You may think it is realistic, you may think cavalry charging the rear of a unit and killing 5 men is realistic, I don't know what you think, but as long as you have that arguement, you guys have proven a willingness to use it. And you will always have that arguement, so all the criticism raised against you, by many others and myself, falls on deaf ears.

I personally believe many of the people who have criticized EB to the extent I have learned this lesson long before I did to simply give up. To them it simply isn't worth the time, and we have gone through thread after thread, and most them aren't around anymore. Perhaps I was harsh when I said people were "zealots" of EB, but it seems they come into a thread and then start ranting about "Your not using the units correctly!" completing disregarding the idea the unit could be flawed!

If your not willing to see a problem, you won't see it.

You guys don't want to see the problems in the EDU text, and even more importantly, you want to think you guys are very cordial when dealing with criticism. Well, then where are all the critics?