hastati's pila won't kill a single hoplitai haploi in frontal phalanx attack

[F for Fragging]

As the title says, start a custom battle, choose hastati as your own and hoplitai haploi for the other side. Let the hoplitai haploi attack you in phalanx formation, order hastati to fire at will. Allow the hastati to throw two volleys of pila. None of the hoplitai haploi will be killed by the thrown pila. Isn't this a bit strange?

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

When in formation phalanxes have an insane amount of sheild armor. It is just waisted to use missiles on the front of a phalanx. I agree that it is a bit retarded though.

[fallen851]

Missles are underpowered in EB in many people's opinion.

The EB team disagrees.

I'd say in real life those pila should kill a few, but whatever. The EDU text balancing is the worst part (which is why I'm rebalancing it...)of the wonderful mod in my opinion.

[Kugutsu]

At worst you would expect 2 volleys of pila to seriously disrupt the phalanx formation due to pila getting stuck in shields and screwing up the manouverability of the affected troops and those around them. As this can't really be modelled in EB, a few kills really should happen instead. No effect at all is a bit unrealistic.
Against arrows (from the front), the phalanx should be pretty well protected, but heavy javelins are another matter.

[MeinPanzer]

At worst you would expect 2 volleys of pila to seriously disrupt the phalanx formation due to pila getting stuck in shields and screwing up the manouverability of the affected troops and those around them. As this can't really be modelled in EB, a few kills really should happen instead. No effect at all is a bit unrealistic.
Against arrows (from the front), the phalanx should be pretty well protected, but heavy javelins are another matter.

Keep in mind that the first volley would remove the shields of many soldiers in the front rank, making them very vulnerable to the second volley.

[keravnos]

Hoplitai comes from hoplo or the round shield. Made from Bronze reinforced from within with single or mostly double skin, mostly that of cow. Arrows couldn't penetrate it. Pilae didn't either. Pilae worked on the wooden shields with the iron boss that Lusotannan, Iberians, Averni etc, but rarely on hopla. It would have to be a very strong, really near and applied to exactly the right angle to achieve armor piercing status.

EB's results are fine.

[MeinPanzer]

Hoplitai comes from hoplo or the round shield. Made from Bronze reinforced from within with single or mostly double skin, mostly that of cow. Arrows couldn't penetrate it. Pilae didn't either.

I would argue that the name hoplite came more from the complete equipment (i.e. hoplon) of the soldier, rather than the shield (which took the more specific title of "hoplon" later).

Argive shields were not solid bronze; they were a bronze sheet facing a wooden shield framework to which were attached all the bits on the inside. If they were made of solid bronze with simply a lining of skin on the inside, as you suggest, they would be way too heavy.

I think your comments are very generalized. I've never seen a single test conducted on the ability of missiles to penetrate different shield types, but I highly doubt that pila could not penetrate an Argive shield.

Pilae worked on the wooden shields with the iron boss that Lusotannan, Iberians, Averni etc, but rarely on hopla. It would have to be a very strong, really near and applied to exactly the right angle to achieve armor piercing status.

EB's results are fine.

Do you have any evidence for this? How do you know it would have to be very strong and thrown from a short distance? Again, hopla were wooden shields with a bronze facing, not pure bronze.

[Kugutsu]

The hoplon cant possibly be solid bronze. Working on a size of about 32 inches (80cm) across and about 1 cm thick, that makes a volume of about 5000 cc. (I am assuming the shield is flat and of equal thickness throughout. I know its not, but it makes the calculations easier...)
The density of bronze is about 8g/cc, so the shield would weigh in at about 40kg. I cant believe that they lugged that weight around, and thats just the shield...
If a pila struck even a solid bronze hoplon straight on, there should be a fair chance of it penetrating. If it was a glancing blow, then it would probably slide off.

Edit: which in itself could be a problem: a pila glancing upwards into the face will be unpleasant, and if it glances downwards, it could impale a leg or foot. Not lethal, but enough to put you out of the battle...

Shouldnt it be an aspis anyway?

[Kull]

The EDU text balancing is the worst part (which is why I'm rebalancing it...)of the wonderful mod in my opinion.

Flame you? Why bother. Let your own words do the roasting. I'd say that "messed up" is a pretty good parapharase of that statement.

[Thaatu]

I wonder if there are any backup developers for EB once the current ones break down... You guys need a press secretary, like the former white house one who could make the press cry from frustration. That should ease some of the pain. Give him a ring, he might be available.

My thought about this is I find it strange that generally arrows and javelins have the same damage. That may be because I started with RTR and it has a whole different arrow/javelin balance. I don't know much about the calculations behind these, so I'm really not fit to comment.

[HFox]

I think it is a compliment to the team that people have to go to such detail to try and find areas of weakness. Notice i didnt use the words fault or error here.

Sure every now and again someone will find something that needs tweaking, but generally I've seen bugger all found.

If people do want to report something strange......they should test it more than once before reacting as a rule and give clearer context. Just posting before they have reproduced the 'observation' at least twice is something that should be avoided.

I wouldn't expect a swathe of casualties from the Roman tactic, as the tactic in this case was to impair and disrupt the formation NOT kill swathes of hoplon. They did this so they could get close in and THEN destroy the phalanx.

I just think this is someone overreacting because they are passionate about something, just as the team are.

The problem was the tone of what was typed :) it came across in a non constructive manner that probably wasnt intended.

So guys...get back to .81 please...were desparate out here

[keravnos]

As the title says, start a custom battle, choose hastati as your own and hoplitai haploi for the other side. Let the hoplitai haploi attack you in phalanx formation, order hastati to fire at will. Allow the hastati to throw two volleys of pila. None of the hoplitai haploi will be killed by the thrown pila. Isn't this a bit strange?

What would be strange to answer your question is for a unit, ANY unit to be facing Romans without some right tools to fight them with. Do you suppose those guys were there just to die? Or should all EB factions be nothing more than Romani fodder? I have played and enjoyed the Romani, IMMENSELY. I also like the fact that in EB, even if you are ROME, basically the biggest sword and shield war machine ever, you have to WORK for your conquests, not have it handed on you in a silver plater, and have the whole world running if you throw them some pilae. I mean face it guys. It all boils down to a simple question. Do you want WAR, or a walk in the park?

[MeinPanzer]

What would be strange to answer your question is for a unit, ANY unit to be facing Romans without some right tools to fight them with. Do you suppose those guys were there just to die? Or should all EB factions be nothing more than Romani fodder? I have played and enjoyed the Romani, IMMENSELY. I also like the fact that in EB, even if you are ROME, basically the biggest sword and shield war machine ever, you have to WORK for your conquests, not have it handed on you in a silver plater, and have the whole world running if you throw them some pilae. I mean face it guys. It all boils down to a simple question. Do you want WAR, or a walk in the park?

How you want an army to play should have no bearing on its historical accuracy. Having no men die from two volleys of pila, even directly to the front of a hoplite phalanx, is historicall inaccurate.

[Orb]

The first poster said 'Hastati'. Camillan Hastati would have no special effect (wouldn't they throw hastae rather than pila - pointless anecdote: it depresses me that the main UK textbook for Latin says that the first centurion is a primus pilus - "meaning 'First javelin'". Seriously, you'd think they could tell the. Judging by the initial poster's tone, I'm not sure.

Having no men die from two volleys of pila, even directly to the front of a hoplite phalanx, is historicall inaccurate.

How many men do the phalangites represent? Are the Hastati firing at long range (probably yes)? What size is Fragging playing on?

[paullus]

Having no men die from two volleys of pila, even directly to the front of a hoplite phalanx, is historicall inaccurate.

Historically inaccurate? We can talk reconstruction, sure, but I haven't seen the "historical" argument yet...

That said, I agree that hoplitai haploi shouldn't be impervious to the pila, though I suspect (and someone who knows game mechanics better than I should confirm or deny this) the pila lower morale and make the battle end more quickly.

You could test this by doing that custom battle twice, once with the legionaries firing pila before impact, once with them waiting until impact to begin sword combat. See if the battle lasts longer the second time. I'd wager it does.

[MeinPanzer]

Historically inaccurate? We can talk reconstruction, sure, but I haven't seen the "historical" argument yet...

That said, I agree that hoplitai haploi shouldn't be impervious to the pila, though I suspect (and someone who knows game mechanics better than I should confirm or deny this) the pila lower morale and make the battle end more quickly.

You could test this by doing that custom battle twice, once with the legionaries firing pila before impact, once with them waiting until impact to begin sword combat. See if the battle lasts longer the second time. I'd wager it does.

You're right. I was wrong to say it's historically inaccurate, but it is unrealistic.

Apart from that: may I take it that the hoplon shield was coated with layer of bronze? If so, then there's just one more question to answer: could contemporary arrows penetrate such shields?

If not then you may conclude that the pila wouldn't have hurt those guys very much: a pilum would need far more kinetic energy to penetrate the shield than an arrow would - and a skilled archer can 'provide' his arrows with much more kinetic energy per mass than any javelin throwing guy is able to 'provide' for his javelins.

You'd have much more succes 'striking' those guys at their helmets...

I don't know for sure, because I don't have any hard data to back that up, but I would imagine that arrows could pierce the hoplon, but not penetrate it. And as far as hindering the soldier's shield, piercing is all the pila needs to do.

I'm not upset. It's just ho hum, another day of defending ourselves against baseless accusations. Somebody makes the bogus statement that pila don't kill ANY hoplites, and does anybody out here actually test it to see if it's true? Did you? Why of course not, it just validated your theory that our EDU is completely messed up. And almost everyone else just immediately assumed the statement was true. "What pila can't kill any hoplites? Well EB has gotten it wrong again!" What a load of horse hooey.

To be fair, others came out do defend not having any hoplites killed by two volleys of pila as well, which is what drove me to respond.

And TA is correct to remind people that we are under no obligation to provide ANY answers to ANYBODY out here. And certainly not when it is couched as a demand ("so where are those stat people anyway?!?!")

I think EB is by far the best RTW mod out there, and definitely the closest to being historically accurate, and I derive a lot of enjoyment from it. Is it so wrong to want to make it as accurate as possible?

Yeah, I got ticked off, and I still am. I just posted that we (talking to the other EB members who had posted) should let the stat guys answer it - and immediately (within two minutes) our new friend posted "well what is their reasoning?". If they don't get around to answering something (not just them, but anyone) inside EB after a couple of days, it's not a really big deal, but we ask for something again then. But two freaking minutes is too long to wait - there had to be a response "well..." within that two minute window. If I say we will let the stat guys respond, then posting TWO MINUTES LATER "well what is their reasoning" is going to really irritate me and is not going to get them to post.

The reason I posted "what is their reasoning" is because you said:

Let the stat guys handle this. Not like this hasn't been raised before.

So I thought by you saying "it's not like this hasn't been raised before" that it was a topic that you were familiar with and could explain because it had been brought up several times before. I'm sorry if it sounded like badgering.

None of that matters to a few folks zonks. It makes coming to the public forum a lot less interesting to me though. My interest in constantly defending the mod from post after post of complaints from about two or three people total sure has dwindled.

I find it very ironic that you say in the FAQ that:

The project was born over a year ago, when the thought was that the team could provide as much historical information as possible to help CA portray the barbarian factions as more than just a bunch of drooling, naked neanderthals. When it seemed clear that CA wasn't accepting outside help, the team became determined to turn this research into a mod.

And here people are trying to provide more information about historical accuracy and you get very defensive about it.

[blacksnail]

And here people are trying to provide more information about historical accuracy and you get very defensive about it.

It's all about presentation, mang.