Just some small suggestions ;)

[Tellos Athenaios]

First of all the Hughe numbers with Alexander appear to be on Alexander's request... not like the Athenians offering their service. This (immediate levying of local troops) is best represented through hiring Mercs.

The second thing is really: regional MIC means regional troops means getting the local populace on your side. Factional MIC means factional troops (citizens!) means getting your own people to take over the lead in all local affairs.

Since regional MICs are by culture group and therefore the Epeirotai can use the Mak & KH regional MICs I don't really see that aspect as an issue. Unless I am misreading the thread, of course.

Since factional MICs are a different structure altogether... And still: it is possible to use the factional MIC of some other faction: Epeirotai can use the KH MIC; AS can use the Ptolemaioi' MIC (and particularly vice versa is a nifty exploit - or at least that was the case when I beta teste 0.81a; one could recruit Hetairoi in Antiocheia this way); Maks and Baktria share MICs...

Thirdly a lot of the code and therefore building sharing is the way it is because it was most convenient or arbitrary chosen at an earlier stage. In this case the 2 MIC system is something which has got to do with EB 0.8 and the new engine restrictions of RTW 1.5. At that point the unit rosters looked widely different and while I haven't played the factions much enough to remember any particular similarities... I do recall that the Baktrians and the Maks did & do have considerable similarities in unit roster. I.e. both have pezhetairoi and thureophoroi (the latter is only available to Epeiros as of 1.0).

[Maksimus]

Ok, I agree with you Do you just said that it is all set-up like it was chosen among EB memebers - and that is fine realy - EB 1 is the best

Still, this is just a suggestion.. and I am waiting for 1.1 version to come, so I could mod a bit...

If you Tellos Athenaios could please just note me here I realy need this to know - so, are you people from EB done with regions and settlements names - so that no changes could be expected there.. Because I would start to make my notes.. - thank you

[konny]

First of all the Hughe numbers with Alexander appear to be on Alexander's request... not like the Athenians offering their service.

No doubt on that, it is what I meant: the land is conquered/subdued and the conquerer is able to demand the local forces to fight for him.

[Maksimus]

I just don't know why is it such a big trouble to set native units 'training limits' just to the region limit? That said, I mean that no matter whose building you recapture - you should be able to use it in the way YOU USE TEMPLES.. right?
I don't see the prob in that ? - do It is highly more likely that Romans or Greeks would destroy temples in Aegypt or Carthage and then built their own or even build their own no matter the temple that is already there.. why should there be any difference in barracks-system?

[Foot]

I just don't know why is it such a big trouble to set native units 'training limits' just to the region limit? That said, I mean that no matter whose building you recapture - you should be able to use it in the way YOU USE TEMPLES.. right?

Because then the government system would have no part to play in the recruitment system, which is very important for us. So we have to link recruitment to barracks and barracks to government. If you could just start recruiting units regardless of the government then it wouldn't be EB.

Foot

[Maksimus]

Because then the government system would have no part to play in the recruitment system, which is very important for us. So we have to link recruitment to barracks and barracks to government. If you could just start recruiting units regardless of the government then it wouldn't be EB.

Foot

Why not? The EB is not 'rich' by it's unit recruitments.. that is rare if you don't cheat.. I know that I am not taking towns because of units.. I take them because of money and posiblle access to sea trade.. the EB is that for me.. The limits of this kind just spread the resources in wrong direction, and they are irrational and 'funny' in a way..

I and I am sure most of players always take most of army resources to their capitals.. and you can't even build a road without goverment of your own? Right?
I realy think that the 'tweak' of 'training limits set on regions' would not make players underdevelop the town.. especially if there is a mine ..

note: Foot, please .. what about my question to EBs.. are there going to be land-region or names changed in 1.1 ? if you ignor this - it's quite alright

[NeoSpartan]

Mak there are 2 things u gotta remember:

1-MIC means Military Industrial Complex, and is represented by a RTW "barrack". The MIC of faction X is how that particullar faction is able to mobilize its citizens, nobility, and industries for the purpose of war making. And it is all directed by the Head/s of state. The in EB the MIC IS NOT! a training site.

2- Factional MICs are sometimes "shared" from faction to faction. This can be historically driven as is the case of Arverni and Aedui MICs (they both were allieances of tribes with a similar culture, language, and way of fighting). Sometimes, is kinda to engine limits..

3- Regional MICs are shared besed on CULTURE. Because regional MIC represent the mobilization of low-level citizens, and some elements of local industry. The "royalty" and other "rich" members are represented in the Factional MIC.

4- If you think about, conquering a people and then using that conquered population to fight with you is affected by LOT of different variables. Such as the political system in previous existance, (as Watchman noted, feudalism can be easy to control as long as you are able to win some of the nobles to your side), the culture of the faction, the way the faction produced soldiers etc....
--Lets take a look at a couple of examples in RL and see how EB's MIC system is able to simulate that:
--A: U as the Romans conquer Athens. After defeating their army now you have to deal with the local citizenry, the local aristocrats, rich merchants, religious leaders. In addition you are immidiatly submereged into local politics. Now that YOU have become the ruling head... now well.... you have to rule. Its silly to think that immidiatly you can (a) persuade the citizenry to fight for you, (b) convine the nobles to do the same and help bear the cost of financing the military, (c) convince the merchants to trade with you, pay new taxes, and use their facilities to help in the production of weapons, (d) convince local polititians and religious leaders to support and endorse your call to arms, etc.... See.... ITS COMPLITCATED! There are several ways of accompleshing this, BUT NONE are done in a matter of 3 MONTHS (an EB turn).
---EB represents this in several ways:
-----1st you need to establish rule of law and start building up communication and cooaperation between you and the local element of the newly conquered sociely, and the s**t they bring with them (religion, politics, economic issues, etc). In that time there is very little you can't do in game in terms of building, and (since ur Roman and they are Greeks) there nothing to train. However you can BUY local soldiers to fight for you, (mercs).
-----2nd you build a "goverment system" II, III, or IV. What does that mean? Simply type 2 means that ur making that people part of your faction. You are building COMPLEX ties between Rome and Athens since you are making Athens a province of rome. (NOTE: that Gov't Type II is posible becasue Rome historically conquered this area and made it a province.) As you move down the Gov't tier the ties your setting up become more simple. (REMEMBER: the specifics of type gov't I, II, III, IV vary from faction to faction as each faction had its own way of doing things. READ THE DESCRIPTIONS!! ))
---3rd Regional MIC means that you are setting up connections, cooperations, and you are directing elements of the citizenry, local merchants, and some influencial politicials. The Regional MIC I is a simple orginization of you calling on the poorests and easiest to persuade members of the citizenry to fight for you. That is why u get Acconstistae and Hoplitai Haploi. As you increase the complexity of the MIC you are able to get more influencial and wealthy people to work under your direction, hence u can train Hoplites (citizens of $$ who could afford their own equipment). HOWEVER, as you noticed regional MIC WILL NOT allow for the training of elite soldiers. Elite soldiers, like the the new Elite Hoplie, were among the richest, most policically connected memebers of society. And those people were pushed aside when u came in because they were your #1 opposition as they had the most to Loose under ur rule, and the most to gain under the previous rulers.

Example: B: Makedon conquer Athens:
-The same story as before HOWEVER... here u can set up a type I goverment which securely puts Athens under direct rule. This re-aligment of Athens will take time. Hence Type I takes LONG time to make.

Remember though the Factional MICs may be shared based on history OR game limits. So... keep an eye on that.


So as you can see... you CANNOT train men to fight after just coming over and city. Its not that simple. Not even today....

Look at Germany after WWII, or Afganistan/Iraq... How long and how complicated is it to RE-establish a fully fuctioning military? How long did it take Germanit to field their own Air Force?

[Tellos Athenaios]

If you Tellos Athenaios could please just note me here I realy need this to know - so, are you people from EB done with regions and settlements names - so that no changes could be expected there.. Because I would start to make my notes.. - thank you

Regions and settlement names are done for 1.0. Reason: any change in those names requires the script to be adjusted accordingly... And that's just too much work (with too much of a slip-up chance involved, such slip ups have been the cause for many a CTD from 0.7x through 0.8x) to start doing now when we actually want to throw much of the internal workings of the script overboard in favour of new, 'flashy' M2TW thechniques.

[Maksimus]

Mak there are 2 things u gotta remember:

1-MIC means Military Industrial Complex, and is represented by a RTW "barrack". The MIC of faction X is how that particullar faction is able to mobilize its citizens, nobility, and industries for the purpose of war making. And it is all directed by the Head/s of state. The in EB the MIC IS NOT! a training site.

2- Factional MICs are sometimes "shared" from faction to faction. This can be historically driven as is the case of Arverni and Aedui MICs (they both were allieances of tribes with a similar culture, language, and way of fighting). Sometimes, is kinda to engine limits..

3- Regional MICs are shared besed on CULTURE. Because regional MIC represent the mobilization of low-level citizens, and some elements of local industry. The "royalty" and other "rich" members are represented in the Factional MIC.

4- If you think about, conquering a people and then using that conquered population to fight with you is affected by LOT of different variables. Such as the political system in previous existance, (as Watchman noted, feudalism can be easy to control as long as you are able to win some of the nobles to your side), the culture of the faction, the way the faction produced soldiers etc....
--Lets take a look at a couple of examples in RL and see how EB's MIC system is able to simulate that:
--A: U as the Romans conquer Athens. After defeating their army now you have to deal with the local citizenry, the local aristocrats, rich merchants, religious leaders. In addition you are immidiatly submereged into local politics. Now that YOU have become the ruling head... now well.... you have to rule. Its silly to think that immidiatly you can (a) persuade the citizenry to fight for you, (b) convine the nobles to do the same and help bear the cost of financing the military, (c) convince the merchants to trade with you, pay new taxes, and use their facilities to help in the production of weapons, (d) convince local polititians and religious leaders to support and endorse your call to arms, etc.... See.... ITS COMPLITCATED! There are several ways of accompleshing this, BUT NONE are done in a matter of 3 MONTHS (an EB turn).
---EB represents this in several ways:
-----1st you need to establish rule of law and start building up communication and cooaperation between you and the local element of the newly conquered sociely, and the s**t they bring with them (religion, politics, economic issues, etc). In that time there is very little you can't do in game in terms of building, and (since ur Roman and they are Greeks) there nothing to train. However you can BUY local soldiers to fight for you, (mercs).
-----2nd you build a "goverment system" II, III, or IV. What does that mean? Simply type 2 means that ur making that people part of your faction. You are building COMPLEX ties between Rome and Athens since you are making Athens a province of rome. (NOTE: that Gov't Type II is posible becasue Rome historically conquered this area and made it a province.) As you move down the Gov't tier the ties your setting up become more simple. (REMEMBER: the specifics of type gov't I, II, III, IV vary from faction to faction as each faction had its own way of doing things. READ THE DESCRIPTIONS!! ))
---3rd Regional MIC means that you are setting up connections, cooperations, and you are directing elements of the citizenry, local merchants, and some influencial politicials. The Regional MIC I is a simple orginization of you calling on the poorests and easiest to persuade members of the citizenry to fight for you. That is why u get Acconstistae and Hoplitai Haploi. As you increase the complexity of the MIC you are able to get more influencial and wealthy people to work under your direction, hence u can train Hoplites (citizens of $$ who could afford their own equipment). HOWEVER, as you noticed regional MIC WILL NOT allow for the training of elite soldiers. Elite soldiers, like the the new Elite Hoplie, were among the richest, most policically connected memebers of society. And those people were pushed aside when u came in because they were your #1 opposition as they had the most to Loose under ur rule, and the most to gain under the previous rulers.

Example: B: Makedon conquer Athens:
-The same story as before HOWEVER... here u can set up a type I goverment which securely puts Athens under direct rule. This re-aligment of Athens will take time. Hence Type I takes LONG time to make.

Remember though the Factional MICs may be shared based on history OR game limits. So... keep an eye on that.

To this point everything is clear.. And I haven't made myself clear enuogh.. First of all, my impresion of using the regional MIC is based on my concluded tough that WHEN YOU bulid YOUR Goverment - YOU will be able to bulid and use ANY Barracks.. That is upgrade the enemy barracks as first option. The second would be that if maximum is already achived, you bulid a gov. and then use the barracks
That is not unrealistic at all... And when you make it a 'rule' that only if you built level 2 or 1 gov. and then be able to use it.. it would be nice..
It is just supposed to be conditioned in the script's .. like you use buildings (and barracks) 'IF' you have your goverment.. and that is all

So as you can see... you CANNOT train men to fight after just coming over and city. Its not that simple. Not even today....

Look at Germany after WWII, or Afganistan/Iraq... How long and how complicated is it to RE-establish a fully fuctioning military? How long did it take Germanit to field their own Air Force?

And don't make comparations of such kind, ancient warfare and sate run are more dependent on cultural differences than states today...

And, I will be breif here realy -
I have my Masters on Geopolitical studies of EU and Euroasia to come in weeks... so, I very well know what happend/happens in WWII and US Oil/Gas/Coca war's in the world...

France and US used SS soldiers for their campaigns in North/West Africa (like 1953 war in Algeria, and IndoChina, and Vietnam to lesser extend) Even today, in Algeria, natives are afraid of Europe.. The famos Nazi songs of Foreign Legion are still actual in debates (almost 65% of all France soldiers in their post WWII campaigns - were German Soldiers) ..UK used Nazi expirience and men in South and East Africa, India, Middle East and SSSR used them for Siberia (but in extend that could not be comaperd to the West).. NATO was found in 1949 with WestGermany that is still full of Nazis and in 1955 when WestG was officially accepted in ... - WarshawPact was formed and the Cold War started! And don't you belive otherwise in 10 december 2007 - Russia is pulling it's troops, strategic weapons and tehnic - back to European soil (in European part of Russia).. There, you have new Cold War once again!
And you know what? WPact and ColadWar would have never been if som nazi US generals didn't allow German officers and soldiers to be in charge of nuclear rockets in WestG as early as 1952!
Just, don't get me started here

[Foot]

To this point everything is clear.. And I haven't made myself clear enuogh.. First of all, my impresion of using the regional MIC is based on my concluded tough that WHEN YOU bulid YOUR Goverment - YOU will be able to bulid and use ANY Barracks.. That is upgrade the enemy barracks as first option. The second would be that if maximum is already achived, you bulid a gov. and then use the barracks
That is not unrealistic at all... And when you make it a 'rule' that only if you built level 2 or 1 gov. and then be able to use it.. it would be nice..
It is just supposed to be conditioned in the script's .. like you use buildings (and barracks) 'IF' you have your goverment.. and that is all

And that is what we used to have in 0.7x versions of EB. But 1.5 changed our ability to use the presence of buildings as conditionals for unit recruitment. We can't do what you suggest, because we used to be able to do but it is now hardcoded that we cannot.

Foot

[NeoSpartan]

Mak can u write in 1 or 2 colors next time.. the last part was a pain in the but to read but I did.

remember one thing, an EB turn is 3 months. 4turns = 1 year (3months x 4 =12months).

[Maksimus]

And that is what we used to have in 0.7x versions of EB. But 1.5 changed our ability to use the presence of buildings as conditionals for unit recruitment. We can't do what you suggest, because we used to be able to do but it is now hardcoded that we cannot.

Foot

And what do you think about making factions 'share' high-end buildings, like army and royal barracks.. to some extend.. like if you take Carthage with Macedon, you will be able to use Cathaginian royal barracks but without elites.. no? .. it would leave some space to fast wining campaign..

Also.. why don't all Hellenes share?.. like barbs do? Barbarians share do they not? Almost all barracks and regional bs? So how come Epeiros can't share with Seleucids or Macedon?

[Foot]

And what do you think about making factions 'share' high-end buildings, like army and royal barracks.. to some extend.. like if you take Carthage with Macedon, you will be able to use Cathaginian royal barracks but without elites.. no? .. it would leave some space to fast wining campaign..

Also.. why don't all Hellenes share?.. like barbs do? Barbarians share do they not? Almos all barracks and regional bs? So how come Epeiros can't share with Seleucids or Macedon?

Hellenes are split, culture-wise into west and east. West hellenes share the same regional barracks and east hellenes share a different one. Celts share the same barracks because they all have the same reforms. Celts do not share their factional barracks with any other barbarian faction.

EB is designed to be played slowly so that is the play-style that we support in how we design the game mechanics. You can either change the game mechanics yourself to fit your play-style, or you can put up with what we have put in there. We are not changing things to suit a faster campaign.

Foot

[NeoSpartan]

--dang!!! I took a while to type this thing up! Foot beat me to it...

Again its not a Barrack. Its Military Industrial Complex, a completely different ballgame. Like I said above u can't just roll in and start recruiting.

Anywho... back in .74 u could use say the Level 5 MIC of faction X to train regional/factional troops. HOWEVER, you were "supposed" to establish your goverment type 1st and THEN you could train. But, due to engine limits this didn't work. As long as u did not destroy the previous goverment you could train troops. A lot of people when ahead and did this and it was considered an abuse (IF you played in VH/M, remembers rules don't apply in VH/VH).
---Why abusing??? You were abusing because historically (and even today) a type of goverment had to be established to before you could train anybody. (again, its based on MIC not barracks)

In .8x and Foot explained:
Foot ""And that is what we used to have in 0.7x versions of EB. But 1.5 changed our ability to use the presence of buildings as conditionals for unit recruitment. We can't do what you suggest, because we used to be able to do but it is now hardcoded that we cannot.""

So the new system of Regional and Factional MICs was put in place. And ALSO in order to make up for the lagging in training troops. (since now u have to make a govt + MIC). The EB team REDUCED the number of turns needed to make a government.
--ex:
--------In .74 Type I Gov't took 20 turns (5years). Since u don't have to make a brand new MIC, once the gov't is done you can now use/upgrade the existing MIC.
--------In .8x and 1.0 Type I Gov't takes 10 turns!! (2.5years!!) However this is offset by the fact that you will have to make a new Faction MIC. (or if ur luckly just rebuild it)


Now....Regarding Celts, the only building that they share without issues are the Regional MIC. The Factional MICs are only shared between Arverni-&-Aedui for Gauls. Meaning if I take an Arverni settlement I can train troops right off the bat. And then upgrade the MIC to the next level.

Those are the only two that make historical sence in its truest term. Why KH and Mak don't share factional MIC, and why KH & Epiros do???? I am not sure, however I am smelling both historical reasons and engine limits.

In the case of Carthege, they generaly used Mercenaries in their armies. Their local populance rarely made up the actual "meat" of their armies. This is NOT how Epiros did their war fighiting.

[Maksimus]

Hellenes are split, culture-wise into west and east. West hellenes share the same regional barracks and east hellenes share a different one. Celts share the same barracks because they all have the same reforms. Celts do not share their factional barracks with any other barbarian faction.

EB is designed to be played slowly so that is the play-style that we support in how we design the game mechanics. You can either change the game mechanics yourself to fit your play-style, or you can put up with what we have put in there. We are not changing things to suit a faster campaign.

Foot

That is a clear answer. I am very glad I don't have to type twice so one can understand me. Now, I am 100% sure that those settings are a part of game mechanics and play-style EB team made.
Note: Alexander himself would have troubles finishing his campaign as far as EB game-play

be well!

[Treverer]

Note: Alexander himself would have troubles finishing his campaign as far as EB game-play

Dear sir,

remember that EB/RTW is strategic game and as such not representing all aspect of real life.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

A note to your light blue text (post 39): for the sake of humanity, one "cold war" was enough. And I hope (though "hope, love and faith are not scientific categories", as my professor used to say) there will be none again. Back to topic!

Yours,
Treverer

P.S. the text in light blue is easily readable if use a little trick.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Which means to select aforementioned text.

[Treverer]

Which means to select aforementioned text.

Hush! Let them young ones use their brain!

[NeoSpartan]

Hush! Let them young ones use their brain!

HEY! I was cramming for exams before the thanksgiving holiday I had to let the brain rest.

[Maksimus]

Ok.. I post this nice little picture to show how hard it is to beat anything with cavalry.. And I played this twice!

Here we have two of my cavalry units that charget at that average barb peltasts .. My Greek Cavalry charged full form front, and my Hellenic MC charged full from the flank! Both of those units are produced at my Homeland with +3 moral (and as you can see + armour and + 2 expirience for GreekC)

This is what happend to them right after charge::

That note is for those who acctually don't use cavalry much and can say 'oh.. well that is because you have VH settings' - no, I played on Medium and I have the same result ...



And I would understand if this was Barb cavalry /excluding the stepe/,... but this was successors cavalry.. They acctually hade 1/3 or 1/4 of an army made up of cavalry.. so did Carthaginians..

I will add + 50-100% attack to all hellenic/stepe/carthaginian cavalry with 25+charge right now ..

[Danest]

How often could the civilians in a town rebel in such a manner that it could completely overwhelm and expel the town garrison or local military? I find myself wishing that the rebellion would start very small, and then, perhaps, have to hire mercenaries from the local surroundings or something. Rebellions that start large are weird, though I can see them doing so from a game balance perspective (though, I'm not sure that this balance is realistic). Rebellions should need some time to grow, I'd think. But then I've seen some pretty weak rebellions too, once in a while.

[larsbecks]

Ok.. I post this nice little picture to show how hard it is to beat anything with cavalry.. And I played this twice!

Here we have two of my cavalry units that charget at that average barb peltasts .. My Greek Cavalry charged full form front, and my Hellenic MC charged full from the flank! Both of those units are produced at my Homeland with +3 moral (and as you can see + armour and + 2 expirience for GreekC)

This is what happend to them right after charge::

That note is for those who acctually don't use cavalry much and can say 'oh.. well that is because you have VH settings' - no, I played on Medium and I have the same result ...

And I would understand if this was Barb cavalry /excluding the stepe/,... but this was successors cavalry.. They acctually hade 1/3 or 1/4 of an army made up of cavalry.. so did Carthaginians..

I will add + 50-100% attack to all hellenic/stepe/carthaginian cavalry with 25+charge right now ..

1. The Komatai aren't average peltasts. They're decent infantry with armor, and shields.

2. Lance cavalry make the best chargers, like the prodmoroi in your picture, wich isn't one of the charging units. Overhead spears aren't going to have the best impact. Use them against non-armored units, rear charges, or chasing down fleeing enemies.

3. Don't charge from the front unless the enemy unit is exhausted or made up of armorless peltastai/akontistai/toxotai. If you really want a frontal charge try to put them on guard mode. They'll hit in layers. Do this with more than one unit all charging together for a lot of layers. And make sure they're lancers, not overhead spears like you did in your picture.

4. If you charge from the side make sure the enemy is pinned in front from infantry. And don't charge at a frontish angle, either, like in your picture. If you're charging from the side, come from the side or side/rear. Charge to the rear when possible. It will kill the enemy and demoralize them.

5. Re-charge. Once they hit and kill pull them out and charge again (if the enemy hasn't broken). Put them on guard mode so they stick together and all pull back instead of having a few of them linger around fighting when you want them to regroup and charge. And make sure you pull back at a distance far enough to compose as a unit and not rabble for the re-charge.

6. Don't expect a charge to be like a medieval knights charge. Horsemen at this period don't have stirups so they'll do some damage but won't kill everything that stands in their way.

7. If you leave your horses in the melee after the charge, switch them to their alternate weapons. They'll usually fight better with their sword/ax/mace than with the lance.

I play on hard and my cavalry always do well for me.

Here's your picture with visual tips:

[Thaatu]

And I would understand if this was Barb cavalry /excluding the stepe/,...

Actually both Celtic and Germanic cavalry were highly renowned.

but this was successors cavalry..

Actually they weren't successor cavalry in the sense. You had one unit of pure Greek cavalry, which wasn't as good as what the successors had, and one unit of Lonchoph... - nope, can't spell it - ...cavalry, which is designed for sustained melee combat, not charging.

Believe me, with elite cavalry you have no trouble routing the enemy. Or maybe I'm just better than Alexander (not claiming, nor denying)...

[Maksimus]

Thank you for the tip's larsbecks, I very much value your effort to do so.. still, I realy used my cavalry much.. and, on the picture - HellenicMC charged from the Flank .. that means (by me) , that they hit the left side of that unit - the side that had no front-men - and in a couple of second - that unit just 'moved a bit' so that it looks on the picture it was hit from the front..
Ok let me make it brief
this is my campaign on VH/VH


And this is new charge from the flank with 'tweaked' stats in the same battle


And Thaatu, you are my friend so I wont quote you I vrey much now you are willing to help.. still, you see that those were Hellenic MC, they are better then Successor's realy, with higher moral and shield.. and attack.. and see this other picture? In this one, all three 'tweaked' units (with +50and/or+100% attack) had almost the same result) were making a bit better - that is realy what I want - to make them a bit better .. just so thet they would act as they are present in the battle

[konny]

As far as I can see your cavalry has allready killed 83 of the enemies by own losses of 55 (if all units had been full strength).

You would do much better if you:

- Turn off wedge mode
- Change to swords after the charge when fighting infantry
- Do not attack infantry with cavalry without support of your own infantry That is the way Alexander and his successors fought.

But among your army I only see one unit of Hoplites or, to a lesser degree, the Cretians that would be fit to do so. So replace the Chaonion Agema with Deuteroi and raise some Peltastai or Thureophoroi with the money you save. I would also disband the Hippeis and replace the Lonchophoroi Hippeis with Prodomoi. That will save you even more money to raise more medium infantry.

Medium infantry is used to fight enemies like Komatai head on, but because you "forgott" to field them, you'll have to (ab-)use cavalry instead - so no need to complain on the stats of the cavalry when they don't overrun the foe in a situation they are not made for.

[larsbecks]

Here are the two unit cards. The Prodromoi are better charging units for a few reasons:
1. Better total charge attack value. 38 vs 31. This means they have a better chance of defeating the enemy's defence value.
2. better lethality value, .4 to .15. Once they defeat that defence value they have a higher chance to kill the enemy unit.
3. AP factor. The Prodromoi get the AP bonus against any armored unit thus increasing their chance of breaking through the armor and scoring a hit.
4. Stamina. Its not a huge difference but the Prodromoi can repeat charge a lot.

Also, try out massing your cavalry units when you charge them in and taking them out after the charge so they can regroup. Put them in guard so they keep together. And use them in concert with infantry. Cavalry=hammer, Infantry=anvil. In my Mak game I use 1 cavalry unit for every 2 phalanx units. Also, if you want to mod the game for very powerful cavalry charges, change the lethality value. Cavalry charges are strong enough to beat opponent's defensive value. With a higher lethality rating they'll kill more of the enemy on impact.

[Maksimus]

About this 'Alexander way' - I will just say that there were some battles that cavalry solved directly charging into infantry (front or rare) during Alexanders and Diadkokhoi war's especially in 'great' battles of Successor's wars .. and even Roman campaign's in Parthia (after arows there were heavy cavalry) - but like this - you have no option left

And I tend not to lose 30% of my army having the same type of units like my enemy -- my peltasts and medium infantry would have always have heavy looses the way you are proposing it
- this way is safer and much better because I use archers to drag enemy directly to my phalanx.. then run them down with cavalry ...

The whole point in these last post's are to show how cavalry is underpowerd in full charge against a single anemy unit - even if you have 3 nice cavalry units - even if you full charge and hit them from the flank - and even if you add +100% attack - you are still ending in lossing (always) at least 30-60% of your cavalry ..

For historical note - Alexander and Hannibal used elite cavalry alot and they came back with 60-80% of them - or atleast with greater % of lose infantry

So.. I don't realy play this way - This is an example of how it is imposible to break any infantry with a full charge (even if you do it 2-3 times)

[Maksimus]

Here are the two unit cards. The Prodromoi are better charging units for a few reasons:
1. Better total charge attack value. 38 vs 31. This means they have a better chance of defeating the enemy's defence value.
2. better lethality value, .4 to .15. Once they defeat that defence value they have a higher chance to kill the enemy unit.
3. AP factor. The Prodromoi get the AP bonus against any armored unit thus increasing their chance of breaking through the armor and scoring a hit.
4. Stamina. Its not a huge difference but the Prodromoi can repeat charge a lot.

Also, try out massing your cavalry units when you charge them in and taking them out after the charge so they can regroup. Put them in guard so they keep together. And use them in concert with infantry. Cavalry=hammer, Infantry=anvil. In my Mak game I use 1 cavalry unit for every 2 phalanx units. Also, if you want to mod the game for very powerful cavalry charges, change the lethality value. Cavalry charges are strong enough to beat opponent's defensive value. With a higher lethality rating they'll kill more of the enemy on impact.

Aha... so if I increase the lethality value - that would mean what? If I want them to be stronger - I increase the lethality value like up?
And how do I swich to sword?

[Thaatu]

larsbecks beat me to it. Also Prodromoi have higher armor, which is more important than defence skill. Maksimus, don't worry so much about the stats. They have a lot more into them than might appear. Instead read the unit descriptions and check there what is said about the unit's place on the battlefield. You'll find out that units actually fit in their places. It changed my style bigtime when I did that.

[larsbecks]

Lethality is the number in parenthesis in the edu at the end of the stat line. By doubling lethality you'll double your kill rate upon impact. Doubling attack value starts meaning less and less as the value starts reaching numbers that are far higher than any units defense stats. And switching swords is done by holding Alt when you attack.

Since I use the Prodromoi solely for charging I don't let them linger for melee. Cavalry charging is like boxing. You want to hit, find a good angle, and then hit again. You don't want to stand in there and start slugging it out. That'll just wear you down.

If you really want to retain your cavalry have at least 4 in a battle and keep them together. Don't let one charge from the front and one charge from the side. Have all 4 charge in the same direction, preferably from the side to rear areas, on a tired opponent. And try it out with guard on. Mass charging will also likely break an enemy unit into retreat. Once they start running away your 4 cavalry can then chase them down and kill them easily.