Lusotana Campaign

[TvFootball]

Hello, Im playing a Lusotana campaign and its is fantastic. It is 250 BC and I have conquered all of Iberia besides the Numantia. I was going to attack it but the adviser told me they are good allies and would rise a large army if I attacked them so I backed off. Anyway, the Auedi have attacked my city Emporion. When they did, the adviser popped out and was going to say something but I missed because it was during the turn. Does anyone know what he says? Is there some way to get it?

Thank you

(Now to destroy those Gauls )

[The Stranger]

most likely he said that the numantians have honoured the alliance and have raised an army to fight off the invaders. its somewhere in the southern part of the region. i dont really know how it works tho, that army never helped me out and even attacked me once when i was too close to it. perhaps you can bribe it cheap...


about the lusotannan, i played it too, was in roughly the same situation as you are now around the same time, tho i had to fight romans instead of the aduei. but i am very dissapointed by the unit roster :S specially the native units are nothing fierce. i have modded the dosidataskeli back in because otherwise its just a bit meh

[Brave Brave Sir Robin]

Problem is that falcata lethality is too low compared to other ap weapons like axes. Raise it and the kopis to 0.13 or 0.14 and see what a difference it makes.
Plenty of Luso units are good though, they just skew towards irregulars rather than elites.

[The Stranger]

might be but they are bloody expensive compared to the roman infantry but not much if any better than the roman units. The diversity of their units is just a bit dissapointing :S

i know that heavy weapons have a higher lethality than light weapons, but light spears have higher attack than light swords even tho the sword unit is generally more expensive. does the sword unit have a higher attackrate? because lethality is usually the same.

take the loricati scutarii, one of the heaviest spanish infantry around if you do not want to go the elite ampakaro. They cost about 2k denarii and almost 500 for upkeep. They are only 1 defensive stat better than the Polybian Hastati, same attack but with lower lethality (so yes perhaps its a good idea to upgrade all these lethalities of falcata and kopis) The moral and discipline stats are identical. The only thing that is siginificantly better is the javelin throwing and charge. And for that you pay almost double the price. Ofcourse this might all be historical, the scutarii are good regular infantry and its probably very accurate that the spanish only had a few elite units. But I do wonder why the Roman infantry is so freaking cheap! Is that historical or just to give the AI Romani an edge and represent their dominance in the field?

[Blxz]

Luso's are very powerful. And the cost should be compared against the fact that you are sitting in one of the richest area's of the map.

[The Stranger]

once you get those mines up and running but thats easier said than done. anyway cost should be related to equipment and training. upkeep to being irregular, regular or elite (in the end that is usually similar to length of training and quality of equipment). and this is generally well balanced in EB, but the romans are a weird exception.

[athanaric]

Luso's are very powerful. And the cost should be compared against the fact that you are sitting in one of the richest area's of the map.

With one of the weakest tech trees in the game. Sure you'll roll in cash once you've united Iberia, but there is always the nagging feeling that SPQR or Carthage could make five times the money by doing the same thing. Kinda irrational, I know, but I'm just that focused on economy.

once you get those mines up and running but thats easier said than done. anyway cost should be related to equipment and training. upkeep to being irregular, regular or elite (in the end that is usually similar to length of training and quality of equipment). and this is generally well balanced in EB, but the romans are a weird exception.

Roman units are "balanced differently" to reflect the idiosyncrasies of their faction's military policy. Maybe somebody else can come up with a more detailed response. Apart from that, elite units such as Ambakaro are quite expensive to raise for a people with limited economical and technological capabilities - you need hand-crafted high quality arms and armour for each of those soldiers, which is easier said than done, even taking into account advanced Celtic metalworking techniques. All the more as there needs to be a solid economical base for these undertakings.
And don't forget the AP bonus of falcatas, which gives your units quite an edge versus Roman units. In my experience, Lusitanian and other Iberian units are quite decent against Roman and Carthaginian armies. It's other barbarians they have problems with. Sure you can decimate those Gauls with javelins, but once they are upon you even the (mid-tier) Bataroas will eat through any of your units with little effort, thanks to equal skill combined with superior lethality. And no armour to speak of, rendering your AP advantage useless. Also, their fear units. TBH I've had little trouble defeating the Lusotannan with Swêboz, Casse, or Aedui. Those battles are mainly annoying due to hardcoded issues, i.e. skirmishing related bugs and the AI's retarded but effective habit to throw missiles in close combat.

[The Stranger]

i understand that the roman military works different than the lusotannan, but atleast early on it works pretty much as the greek states (not carthage cuz they relied on foreign mercs mostly) and the greek states core infantry is still a lot more expensive than the roman core infantry.

[Brave Brave Sir Robin]

i understand that the roman military works different than the lusotannan, but atleast early on it works pretty much as the greek states (not carthage cuz they relied on foreign mercs mostly) and the greek states core infantry is still a lot more expensive than the roman core infantry.

Roman recruitment is completely different from Greek recruitment. If we take the Greek city-states for example, they could never hope to match the manpower Rome could call upon anytime in our timeframe and perhaps 100 years earlier. The larger Hellenistic powers focused more on training for small cores of, undoubtedly well-trained Macedonians and Greeks, but focused much less on the arming and training of native populations. Therefore, the core of their armies were still limited in size, unlike those of the Romans who deployed their Italian allies in much the same way as their own legions. The fact that Rome could suffer consecutive crushing defeats (i.e. Second Punic War) and still field large armies speaks to how successful they were in this respect.

[team_kramnik]

Romans get a flat 20% to represent their big and rich middleclass. A class that had mostly disappeared in greek society by 280 BC. Apart from javelin throwing and charge Iberian units get better stamina and the ability to hide in long grass. This makes them lots of fun imo but cost-effective they are not. They also play more like greek infantry with specialist roles like skirmish (Iabarannta, Caetranann), defense (Gestikapoinann, Scortamareva) and assault (Caetrati, Ambakaro, Roscaithrera).

As attack infantry in your factional roster Ambakaro are your only option. But 2 of them are usually enough to wipe out whole armies provided the enemy is pinned and they get some javelin support. I have no other EB unit seen kill as fast as Ambakaro. And yes swordunits get faster attack though it differs from unit to unit.

In general for attack pick units with a dense formation. Caetrannan have absolutly terrible killrates thanks to their loose formation. But humble Caetrati are good enough to flank a late roman army thanks to high attack speed, resonable good formation and ap swords. Against lightly armored enemies it might be a better idea to use a longsword unit like Roscaithrera or Milites Ilergetum. Units with lots of light javelins like Iabarannta should do well too.

Edit: Unit Skeletons which give an idea about attack speed

dunaminaca
skeleton fs_javelinman, fs_swordsman

scortamavera
skeleton fs_javelinman, fs_o_f_spearman

roscaithrera
skeleton fs_fast_javelinman_big, fs_fast_swordsman_big

ilergeta
skeleton fs_fast_javelinman, fs_fast_swordsman_barb

asturainaxemen
skeleton fs_fast_javelinman, fs_fast_swordsman_barb_slash

Dosidataskeli
skeleton fs_javelinman_big, fs_slow_spearman_big

caetratii
skeleton fs_fast_javelinman, fs_fast_swordsman_barb

iberian_infantry_milites
skeleton fs_fast_javelinman, fs_fast_spearman

scutarii
skeleton fs_fast_javelinman, fs_fast_spearman

loricati_scutarii
skeleton fs_javelinman, fs_swordsman_barb

gestikapoinann
skeleton fs_fast_javelinman, fs_fast_o_f_spearman

ambakaro
skeleton fs_semi_fast_javelinman, fs_semi_fast_swordsman_barb

iberian_missile_velites
skeleton fs_fast_javelinman, fs_fast_spearman

Iabarannta, Gaesamica
skeleton fs_fast_javelinman, fs_fast_spearman

caetranann
skeleton fs_fast_javelinman, fs_fast_swordsman_barb

iovamann
skeleton fs_fast_javelinman, fs_fast_swordsman

northern_skirmisher_siluri
skeleton fs_fast_javelinman, fs_fast_o_f_spearman

[athanaric]

I'm fairly certain that Roscaithrera have "normal" swords with 0.13 lethality. Milites Ilergetum are excellent, though.

[konny]

TBH I've had little trouble defeating the Lusotannan with Swêboz, Casse, or Aedui. Those battles are mainly annoying due to hardcoded issues, i.e. skirmishing related bugs and the AI's retarded but effective habit to throw missiles in close combat.

I can only confirm that. In my last Roman campaign I quited when I was at constant war with Lusotans, the Aedui, the Dacians and Carthago for some twenty years.

Of those four opponents the Lustonas looked best but fought worst. Their bodyguard it rather pathetical; no match even for Eqvites, and a joke in combat compared to the battletanks of the other three factions. When this faction has no access to the east coast of Spain it is not able to raise any other cavalry of note. And that also is to be raised from regional MICs.

Balearic Slingers are only available as mercs, in return they get access to dunno how many javeleeners, of which the AI loves to raise each and every of them. Then there's a bunch somewhat mid-to-low-level spearmen, of which I have the impression that all have an extremly low moral - when attacking the Spanish units have a tendency to break much faster even than Lugoae.

The only unit that was able to deliver at least some damage were the Scortamareva. The Ambakaro are simply to few in a unit to not go gown under a salvo of pila or the attack of a fresh unit of Pedites Extraordinarii.

[moonburn]

you should use the hillfort soldiers and the illergetes and the iberian medium cavarly and even the basque ultra armoured if you can get them back into the game if you only use lusitanian native troops ofc you´re going to be missing alot of diversity you must use the iberian full rooster and not just the lusitanian native rooster

[The Stranger]

well the iberian heavy cav is good, but like i have pointed out the heaviest iberian infantry, the loricata scutarii is no match for even polybian hastati (cost-effectiveness that is, they are slightly better individually but at 2x the cost, and they will get owned by 2 hastati easy). im not debating the historical accurateness of this, but i was just a bit dissapointed, even more so when i found out that the dosidataskeli were taken out, a unit so awesome it would tip the balance back in their favor. i have modded them back in but somehow the feeling has gone. and yes the epones ambakaro (and generals bodyguard) were a big dissapoinment.

[Brave Brave Sir Robin]

Ambakaro Epones (and most sword wielding javelin cavalry) is underwhelming for several reasons.
1. Cavalry secondaries are too weak compared to lances. It is actually better to use the lance in vanilla EB. We added +3 attack across the board for cavalry secondaries for MP.
2. Javelin cavalry missile attacks are poor. 8 javs for each man in the unit isn't going to do much damage at all with their current attack modifier. For MP we added +'s depending on the unit considering the extra momentum a jav would get being thrown from a moving horse.
3. Again falcatas and kopides are weak compared to axes. Raising lethality on these weapons is a good idea.

After implementing these three factors across the board for all cavalry, I found Ambakaro Epones to be one of, if not the best anti-heavy cavalry unit in game. Without this, they are a crap unit that costs an arm and a leg. Most other skirmisher cavalry without spears are the same way. Although there are some changes in MP that might not be for everyone, these changes are relatively needed to make a lot of units in SP worthwhile, especially the sidearm using skirmisher cavalry.

[konny]

you should use the hillfort soldiers and the illergetes and the iberian medium cavarly and even the basque ultra armoured if you can get them back into the game if you only use lusitanian native troops ofc you´re going to be missing alot of diversity you must use the iberian full rooster and not just the lusitanian native rooster

Not me. I am talking about that faction being run by the AI and that way has about the worst line-up in the entire mod.

I myself had only once started a campaign with them, but also quitted very fast because of the extremly limited possibilities in recruiting anything good in the starting provinces. I think that was before the sheppard slingers made it in and you had absolutly no missle from the MICs.

[Lysimachos]

Not me. I am talking about that faction being run by the AI and that way has about the worst line-up in the entire mod.

That's an interesting point considering that Lusotannan AI does exceptionally well against other AI factions.

[The Stranger]

in almost all my campaigns i have seen them losing vs the romans and carthage tho :S

(i did give rome a boost tho by increasing their numbers of all infantry to 60/240)

[Ca Putt]

I assume this is because of their AP bonus which apparently is valued high in autocalc.

[Brave Brave Sir Robin]

And also because they can build high quality factional units throughout all of Iberia. Armies of Scortamareva and Ambakaro are dangerous.

[team_kramnik]

I'm fairly certain that Roscaithrera have "normal" swords with 0.13 lethality. Milites Ilergetum are excellent, though.

True, my bad.

Not me. I am talking about that faction being run by the AI and that way has about the worst line-up in the entire mod.

I myself had only once started a campaign with them, but also quitted very fast because of the extremly limited possibilities in recruiting anything good in the starting provinces. I think that was before the sheppard slingers made it in and you had absolutly no missle from the MICs.

A Lusotann army is very capable:

Iovamann: cheap garrison

iabarannta: Javelinners are great! They kill weakly armored enemies, stall most attackers or chase light cav.

caetranann: They look cool. Am I the only one who picks units like that? They have a bad formation but that can be neutralized by letting them fight with other units. They also have 6 javelins.

Gestikapoinann: Solid, fast and cheap spearmen. Great addition to flanking teams and good enough to hold most sections of a line.

Scortamareva: One of the most heavily armored line-units and they can keep up with a Luso army.

Ambakaro: Long range javelins, high morale and ap swords. Deadly assault unit. Don't let them become the target of heavy javelins or a heavy infantry charge. But you also don't use your FMs to frontally charge a phalanx line, do you? Also don't let them throw javelins when using them as assault troops.

Ambakaro Epones: They are not weaker than similar units like Hetairoi Aspidophoroi or Tarentines. High price is not a problem as Luso armies should be mostly infantry and you get them for free as Bodyguards. Of course you can raise their stats and let your medium cavalry cut down cataphracts. And then conquer entire empires with just 2 units of FMs. That they need a boost in mp is of course reasonable.

Lusotannan units all have their uses. They just lack units who are good at everything so it's no surprise the ai misuses them.

[Nightmare]

anyway cost should be related to equipment and training. upkeep to being irregular, regular or elite (in the end that is usually similar to length of training and quality of equipment). and this is generally well balanced in EB, but the romans are a weird exception.

Depends on what you mean by "generally well balanced." Across the board, units get less and less cost efficient as you climb the tech tree. By the time you've hit "elite" you are well into "grotesquely cost inefficient."

well the iberian heavy cav is good, but like i have pointed out the heaviest iberian infantry, the loricata scutarii is no match for even polybian hastati (cost-effectiveness that is, they are slightly better individually but at 2x the cost, and they will get owned by 2 hastati easy).

Yup, here you are running into the "cost effectiveness issue" I outlined above. Works that way with every faction.

You are always better building levee units as any faction rather than teching up and building anything else. Since I personally don't like playing the game with nothing but generic levee spears or whatever, I "corrected" the issue by taking the stats that the MP folks use and applying them to single player. This seemed to generally improve cost-effectiveness by a fair bit across the board for all factions as you tech up.

If you are interested in the modifications, just PM me. They would be a serious pain to do by hand but I've already edited the file and can send it to whoever wants it.

[The Stranger]

i was talking about the cost balanced to their status, not the cost balanced to their skill or usefullness.

well one thing ive always wondered about is defense skill, you have some mountain irregulars with higher defense skill than some heavily trained elites. and some superior or even elite faction units such as the pontikoi thorakitai or the ptolemaic galation guard unit with lower morale or equal morale as a normal levy... but eb just has too many units for me to bother with rebalancing stuff like that :P

i do like what they have done with charges and missile units. strong from the side but alot weaker from the front.

levies are quite good its true, definitly the archer spearmen and the phalanx ones but comparably units such as the thorakitai are most definitly very cost efficient. and 1 hetairo will still kill 2 prodromois or light cav which are half the price in a frontal charge.


but ye early on you can better spam cheap units but in campaign you will reach a point where you have so much money to spend it doesnt matter what u build. and also the point of elite units is more their morale and shock power than cost effectiveness. when the line is wavering you want to throw in your elite units to break the enemy or hold your own line. ofcourse the brunt of your army would be this low level trooper

but perhaps raising their unit from 30 to 40 would balance it out?



i just ran a quick test

1 spartiate = roughly 4 haploi in both cost and upkeep

1 vs 4 the spartan loses

2 vs 8 the spartans win


both times i allowed myself to be surrounded. i lost all my spartans the first time and 71% the second time. but they are definitly worth the money but just require special use and thats quite historical.

[Blxz]

The thing about the stats is that you want to consider why they were made that way. Defense skill, for example, gives you protection from the front and the right (your weapon hand). This defense ONLY works in close combat and does nothing against missiles. So a unit that is lightly armoured possibly with no shield but is still very capable in melee needs a way to actually work. In the current stat system (which is unmoddable, only the stats can be changed...not the effects) the team has created units that work in a certain way. So it is very important to understand why something was stated in a certain way. (and I won't even go into invisible stats like unit spacing, model attack speed and AP, to name a few).

As for Nightmare's views, my opinion is well documented but I'll say it again in a concise way.
I think he is missing the point. The game is not designed to be arcade style balanced where 1 mnai of currency equals a certain combat efficiency. The costs change based on a number of factors. Some are cost of equipment. A lamellar inlaid leather coat is not twice as good as a regular leather coat even though it costs twice as much.
Other factors are historical unit availability. The pricing helps to keep the AI in check. An AI that is very limited in how moddable it is. (unfortunately)
Finally, a single stack can consist of only 20 individual units. A stack of cheap levies is cost effective but may fail when you eed it most. You cannot increase its power any more than a total of 20. BUT if you do need MORE power then you are free to use other units. They are not as cost effective stat-to-cost as the levies but they have higher stats so, for a premium price, you can actually increase the maximum power of your fullstack of troops.

Entirely optional and you, as the player, need to make the strategic choice (don't forget retraining radius).

[The Stranger]

another test 1 hypaspistai vs 4 haplois (again same recruitment and upkeep)

my hypaspistai killed the enemy general and the haplois routed when about 50% of both armies were dead (54/123 losses on my side vs 370/649 on their side). and again i allowed myself to get almost totally surrounded, in a chokepoint the massacre would be bigger.

ye i agree, and the quick test i ran showed the following

elite units fight until death, they dont run like your levies will so even tho 2 spartans are about as cost effiecient as 8 haplois (and also cost about as much in terms of recruitment and upkeep, lets not go into details of teching up, training time in turns or number of soldiers vs city population) they can be relied upon to hold the line more effectively because they fight until death and they will be able to resist a charge of from flanks or rear better. and thats where you should use them and thats where they were used historically, on the weakest/most important parts of the battle where their morale and prowess would carry the day.

no doubt 2 spartans and 4 haploi will totally annihilate 12 haplois. and im sure that 1 spartan on a chokepoint will hold off 6 haplois easy.


i just ran another battle, 1 spartan in a village street vs 4 haplois. i lost 37 spartans and killed about 580 haplois with every haploi unit breaking around 15 units left of the 160. heroic victory and all. so in such a situation its obvious why youd want to take 1 spartan over 4 haplois and why they are definitly more cost efficient in certain situations (in every way except the tech thats required to get them).

its really about how and where you use them.


those thrakian romphoiblabla unit is such a beast! only unit that beats them so far in melee is the ordmalica (but that one has been removed from campaign XD) and the thraikian unit does much better vs heavily armoured elite units.

[Nightmare]

i was talking about the cost balanced to their status, not the cost balanced to their skill or usefullness.

The cost-inefficiency should be upwards of "grotesquely cost inefficient" once you start teching up, no matter which way you want to look at it (status or skill/usefulness).

well one thing ive always wondered about is defense skill, you have some mountain irregulars with higher defense skill than some heavily trained elites.

I noticed similar things myself when I first started playing. My first post here was titled something like "Riff-raff units too strong?" I had numidian skirmishers in robes and sandals murder the most elite cavalry I could field as carthage.

but ye early on you can better spam cheap units but in campaign you will reach a point where you have so much money to spend it doesnt matter what u build.

If you are playing to play the best game you can play, keep building the cheap units even at this point in time. Of course, if you are playing for other reasons (fun, role-playing, etc) just do what you want.

and also the point of elite units is more their morale and shock power than cost effectiveness. when the line is wavering you want to throw in your elite units to break the enemy or hold your own line.

If you are playing to play the best game you can play, just have 4 or 5 more units of the cheap stuff for every elite you could field, and throw THEM into the fray instead. But again though, if you are playing for fun, for role-playing reasons, for historical accuracy, etc. just do whatever you want (i.e. field elites).

As far as your tests go, if I understood you correctly you were able to get cost-effectiveness out of elite units. This surprises me quite a bit. I was never able to get even remotely close to this in unit testing. Can you tell me how you conducted the tests? Were they "fair?"

At any rate, if your tests show elites as being cost-effective, then good for you, and I suppose you have no reason not to use them provided you have the funds.

[The Stranger]

i did my tests on grassy flatland

and i picked units according to price and upkeep e.g. 1 spartan/hypaspistai costs about 3500 mnai and around 800 upkeep and 4 haploi cost about 3400 mnai 200 upkeep for each haploi is 800 upkeep total. i use no upgrades and its on medium so no cheats on any sides.

then i marched my unit across the map and attacked, the ai enveloped me completely attackin from all sides with 3 haploi and keeping the general on the side for a little bit (wouldnt matter because i was already completely surrounded) and the general joined the battle around halfway

like i said, i lost the spartan vs the 4 haploi on open ground but won it hard in a choke point

the hypaspistai won vs the haploi on openground tho, so i didnt bother to try a chokepoint. i am reluctant to test the elite units which have javelines because the ai screws up with javelins.


however i ran another series of tests and all the elites are more or less equal to each other, but the thrakian rompoblabla is killing them all hard! and they are cheaper in both reqruitment and upkeep. i think they are the most cost efficient heavy infantry killer in the game. the elites would do better vs cav i think tho and cheap unarmored infantry.

hmm perhaps not true, i just did a 1 rompha vs 4 haplois and the romphas won it. and their cost is more 1 rompha = 3,5 haploi...

and im sure i can use them better in expert maneauvers.

i might run some cavalry tests later. i would like to run some more infantry tests but not all factional units are available in custom battle. does anyone know how to fix that?


also the hypaspistai switch to their spears in close combat, which is making totally no sense but whats even weirder is that they are more effective that way than when using their swords...

[athanaric]

however i ran another series of tests and all the elites are more or less equal to each other, but the thrakian rompoblabla is killing them all hard! and they are cheaper in both reqruitment and upkeep. i think they are the most cost efficient heavy infantry killer in the game. the elites would do better vs cav i think tho and cheap unarmored infantry.

If you aren't bored yet with testing you could compare them to Sreni Pattya Yoddaha and Kluddargos. Those three units are almost identical stat wise, and I'd like to see which one is "best" on the battle map. Strategically, the Rhomphaiaphoroi are best because they're recruitable in the center of the map and every faction can have them.

also the hypaspistai switch to their spears in close combat,

Well that's an engine issue.

which is making totally no sense but whats even weirder is that they are more effective that way than when using their swords...

That's unlikely. Probably a subjective impression?

[The Stranger]

looking at the raw data the brits should win. ill post results in abit.

kluddargos vs rompha = 74 kills for kluddargos and 37 kills for rompha (rompha rout after general is killed)
kluddargos vs rompha = 114 kills for kluddargos vs 116 kills for rompha (kluddargos rout)

kluddargas vs pattya =110 kill for kluddargos vs 102 kills for pattya (pattya rout)
kluddargas vs pattya = 98 kills for kluddargas vs 79 kills for pattya (kluddargas lose general but pattya rout shortly after)
pattya vs kluddargos = 110 kills patty vs 85 for kluddargos (kluddargos rout)

rompha vs pattya = 65 kills for rompha vs 101 kills for pattya (rompha rout after dead general)
rompha vs pattya = 52 kills for rompha vs 99 kills for pattya (rompha rout)
rompha vs pattya = 35 kills for rompha vs 83 kills for pattya (rompha rout after dead general)

this is weird, the rompha have 2 more charge and should be better statistically... i dont understand why the pattya are beating the rompha so hard but are losing vs the kluddargos.

ah i think i know why the pattya are doing so good, they are the least armoured of the 3...
the sreni pattya win it for some strange reason even tho they are statistically the least (least charge which seems very important in this case)

what i have noticed is that the pattya model is the most effective. after the charge both the kluddargos and the rompha do a sort of regrouping and like 20 men go to the back without fighting, the pattya unit doesnt do it and thus uses the men more effectively.

and about the hypaspistai swords, ye that was a mistake. the swords are better but not as much as i had hoped. i tried it a few times and now ive decided to mod out the spears as secundary weapons because its more the constant switching that makes it ineffective than whatever weapon they are using themself.

[Nightmare]

i might run some cavalry tests later. i would like to run some more infantry tests but not all factional units are available in custom battle. does anyone know how to fix that?

Yeah. You have to open the EB start menu file and click the multiplayer version of EB, not single. Or, if you use that fancy-schmancy launcher, multiplayer might be on that as well.

also the hypaspistai switch to their spears in close combat, which is making totally no sense but whats even weirder is that they are more effective that way than when using their swords...

I believe if you click on the unit you want to control, and then hold down ALT amd right click the unit you are fighting, they will then use their secondary weapons in the fight (assuming that's what you want to do).

When you finish all these tests, give us your final assessment on whether these elites are cost-effective or not. As far as I know, nobody has ever denied that they are not cost-effective in head up fights, but rather bring up points like "they can hold a critical point in the line" or "they never break" etc. But hey, if you can somehow achieve a different result, lets hear about it, and more power to you.