missile units

[jhhowell]

I have a few questions about EB's missile units.

1) Archers - why should I build any? To the best of my knowledge, they are inferior to slingers in every way - lower range, less ammo, weaker stats (esp. accounting for slingers AP), and needing the same or higher level MIC. Since EB skirmishers vaporize elephants, the fire arrow ability just isn't much of an attraction (anti-elephant duty was all I ever used it for in vanilla, anyway). I'm probably missing something, though.

2) Do the Romans ever get any artillery? Carthage has a 3-cubit bolt thrower in Gades in my game, but Rome with a top level Camillan MIC can't build any equivalents. Not that I'd necessarily want to, at this point, it just seems slightly odd that Carthage and (I believe) some Hellenic factions have the option while I don't... Perhaps this is an artifact of Rome having late units coming after reforms, while other factions with no reforms get access to every possible unit they can build as soon as they build up their MICs?

3) Not so much a question as a comment: the FAQ says that the AI doesn't spam slingers. In my game, the Celtic factions and Epirus do. Epirus is the worst offender, keeping their two cities at population 500 as they crank out more and more slingers and archers. For most of the game a stack has been sitting outside one city, fifteen units of which nine are slingers. Recently another stack came out to sit next to them, nine units of which seven are slingers and two are archers. The Celts may be getting better, it's hard to tell as their war is in a bloody and active phase at the moment. But for quite some years my spies saw armies moving around consisting entirely of Lugoae and slingers in roughly equal proportions.

[Foot]

Romans didn't have the technology to build artillery (which was a very advanced knowledge) until much later in their history. For the time being you can steal it off the Hellenes, as the Romans did in history. When you get to the marian reforms you will be able to build artillery.

Foot

[Kralizec]

I have a few questions about EB's missile units.

1) Archers - why should I build any? To the best of my knowledge, they are inferior to slingers in every way - lower range, less ammo, weaker stats (esp. accounting for slingers AP), and needing the same or higher level MIC. Since EB skirmishers vaporize elephants, the fire arrow ability just isn't much of an attraction (anti-elephant duty was all I ever used it for in vanilla, anyway). I'm probably missing something, though.

The archers in the western half of the map are, pretty much, inferior to slingers. In the eastern half of the map however there are some very good archers (some IMO better then slingers). Any type of archer is useful in defensive siege battles because they can use flaming arrows to destroy siege towers and rams, so I like to include some as garrisons in my frontier cities.

2) Do the Romans ever get any artillery? Carthage has a 3-cubit bolt thrower in Gades in my game, but Rome with a top level Camillan MIC can't build any equivalents. Not that I'd necessarily want to, at this point, it just seems slightly odd that Carthage and (I believe) some Hellenic factions have the option while I don't... Perhaps this is an artifact of Rome having late units coming after reforms, while other factions with no reforms get access to every possible unit they can build as soon as they build up their MICs?

They can get them in Hellenic settlements, and they can get them in their homelands after the Marian reform (I think...)

3) Not so much a question as a comment: the FAQ says that the AI doesn't spam slingers. In my game, the Celtic factions and Epirus do. Epirus is the worst offender, keeping their two cities at population 500 as they crank out more and more slingers and archers. For most of the game a stack has been sitting outside one city, fifteen units of which nine are slingers. Recently another stack came out to sit next to them, nine units of which seven are slingers and two are archers. The Celts may be getting better, it's hard to tell as their war is in a bloody and active phase at the moment. But for quite some years my spies saw armies moving around consisting entirely of Lugoae and slingers in roughly equal proportions.

That's strange, I haven't seen that with either Epeiros or the Celtic factions myself. I did see the Romani recruit armies with droves of slingers in one campaign, but that was because I had raided some of their cities and destroyed their barracks, and they can always get their slingers from their governors' residence.

[Lovejoy]

I think we should find a way to differate(zomg sp???) archers from slingers. As it is now, slingers is just the same thing as archers exept stronger and better.

I recommend having archers fire longer and stonger(?), while slinger fire shorter and weaker, but on the other hand, much faster. They should be cheaper too.

But what do I know, maybe smoeone else got a better idea`?

[QwertyMIDX]

I recommend having archers fire longer and stonger(?), while slinger fire shorter and weaker, but on the other hand, much faster.

It wouldn't be accurate if we did that. Slingers generally out ranged archers and were more effective against armor. Archers are more effective against unarmored units though, as they are in EB, at least shot for shot.

[BerkeleyBoi]

I have also seen celtic factions spam slingers when i was invading the mainland as the casse. full stack armies of the avereni and aediu would have at least half be slingers. made it very hard for my infantry-chariot based army to attack until i lured them into an uphill battle.

i know this has been talked to death, but i still think slingers mess up the balance of units a little bit. with that said, it is usually up to the player to use self control to not use too many since the ai is usually ineffective with their slinger usage.

[LusitanianWolf]

In my last invasion to Epiros thy stacked lots and lots of slingers but were stupid enought to not build any cavalry or fast spearmans to protect them from my Equites =)

[Sakkura]

1) Archers - why should I build any? To the best of my knowledge, they are inferior to slingers in every way - lower range, less ammo, weaker stats (esp. accounting for slingers AP), and needing the same or higher level MIC. Since EB skirmishers vaporize elephants, the fire arrow ability just isn't much of an attraction (anti-elephant duty was all I ever used it for in vanilla, anyway). I'm probably missing something, though.

Archers beat slingers, slingers beat heavy infantry and heavy cavalry. If you bring a mix of archers and slingers while the enemy only brings slingers, your missile units will generally beat theirs, and then your slingers will be free to tear into the enemy's heavy infantry or cavalry.

But of course, some of the archers in the west are just plain crap.

[Watchman]

The barbarian ones make decent light infantry though. It helps to think of them more as an upgrade over the low-end javelin-tossers, they're way less vulnerable to cavalry than most light troops due to their spears, and can still put a real hurting on unarmoured units for little cost.

[jhhowell]

Thanks for the replies, everyone!

I'll keep an eye out for eastern varieties of archers as my spies explore Seleukia. It figures that the competent archers would be out that way; so far I've only seen toxitai and looked up the Celtic ones since I'm close to the auxilia MIC level to build them in Marseilles. Though I like Watchman's point - one or two Celtic archers would indeed make nice protectors for slingers, in case some cavalry slips by. Such a clever thought that I wonder if that's what the historical Celts actually did with them...