Wall Combat

[Drewski]

actually, hoplite type (without phalanx mod, or any mod that take their +4 attack value) is the most effective troops to be used on stone wall (not large), as my current KH campaign against Romani.... they could take down even pedites extraordinarii out of the city wall...

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

but most of them die falling... in large wall, they're not as effeective

Mind being more specific RE the example you're thinking of ?

The above one.

For personal experiences, I've recently just about completed a Mak campaign. I have all phalanx and spear at -4 of base EB 1.2 values, and also have modified the Phalanxes, so that now Elites have 3 shield, and the rest 2 shield- down from 5 shield (which get doubled in Phalanx mode)..

And the battles felt just about perfect. The Phalanxes took some casualties (as they should), but performed admirably overall. Honestly, given the base Eb 1.2 stats, there is only one word for Phalanx units- Insane.

[Watchman]

That sounds more like the effect of the hoplite-types' high soldier mass value combined with the "boost" that effect receives from the "light_spear" attribute though... (and just FYI, "spear" in comparision gives right crazy "push" boosts...) I'll have to look into that to see how it works out (maybe tomorrow when I'm not stone dead tired), although I can't say it sounds particularly unexpected, but IIRC the hops are wont to get their asses kicked as appropriate when faced with superior units on the open...

[Celtic_Punk]

No....it doesn't quite simply (as proved by examples above...Run of the mill Hoplitai defeating an elite unit of much better quality is just one example)

the only hoplites that can't do that are levy hoplites. Classical hoplites and better wreck havoc on even good phalangites.

[Drewski]

the only hoplites that can't do that are levy hoplites. Classical hoplites and better wreck havoc on even good phalangites.

Not if you take 4 attack away, then they are quite balanced.

[Watchman]

Didn't you have some funny notions about what constitutes as "balanced" for spearmen, though, or is my memory playing tricks on me...?

[Drewski]

Didn't you have some funny notions about what constitutes as "balanced" for spearmen, though, or is my memory playing tricks on me...?

No that was you.

[Watchman]

Uh-huh.

[DaciaJC]

Didn't you have some funny notions about what constitutes as "balanced" for spearmen, though, or is my memory playing tricks on me...?

Do you mean this thread? It isn't a funny notion but appears to be a simple mistake on the EB team's part. Easily fixable.

[Watchman]

Yes, that one exactly. And as should be obvious from the debate that went on there, the issue is anything but "simple" - even without going into the argument about the IRL use of spears in infantry fighting.

So meh.

[DaciaJC]

Yes, that one exactly. And as should be obvious from the debate that went on there, the issue is anything but "simple" - even without going into the argument about the IRL use of spears in infantry fighting.

So meh.

Looking purely at the numbers, which was the issue to begin with, the whole thing appeared to be, at least to me, rather straightforward. If you want it summed up in a few sentences...

back in earlier versions of EB, the spear attribute was used. this gave the -4 attack penalty you are talking about. all spear units at this time were given +4 to their attack score to cancel out that penalty. however, starting at EB 1.0 the spear attribute was changed to light_spear. this does not give -4 to attack. for whatever reason, the EB team decided to leave the +4 attack for spear units.

[Watchman]

And just how many times am I going to have to repeat that whatever the EDU Guide says, it just doesn't seem to work that way in practice ?

In testing units with "light_spear" both killed enemies and died themselves much slower than their peers with "spear", period. Deal with it.

[Cute Wolf]

Originally posted by Zett
What about Hoplites? They have no Phalanx ability, removing their bonus would make them singnificant weaker. The engine can not represent their Hoplite fightingstyle, so they should get a +4 defence instead.

This was the problem of all the argument... remove the "+4 bonus" or keep them intact...

[Celtic_Punk]

And just how many times am I going to have to repeat that whatever the EDU Guide says, it just doesn't seem to work that way in practice ?

In testing units with "light_spear" both killed enemies and died themselves much slower than their peers with "spear", period. Deal with it.

in this case this means they make combat much less efficient. Fighting with a spear is just that. Swords make quick work of a human. Using a spear in close combat is anything but. So (in)advertantly (i love making up words) the EB team has made it more realistic.

[Watchman]

That't complete and utter bullshit.

[Alsatia]

That't complete and utter bull****.

SILENCE!!!! CENSOR YOURSELF!!!

I think this is not the time to talk filth.
(Sorry if I start sounding like those posh english ladies giving a lecture to children on how to behave)

[Watchman]

Walks like a duck, quaks like a duck... I calls it a duck.

[Alsatia]

?????

[Watchman]

If it's pure first-rate organic fertilizer, I'm going to call it such. kthx.

[Maion Maroneios]

OK, I didn't understand any of this I'm afraid

Maion

[Watchman]

I expressed to CP that in my opinion he, to paraphrase the immortal words of Judas Priest, "talks a motherload of crock", and Alsatia had something against that.

Whatever, sod that. I ran the tests. Custom battle, me defending a standard stone wall as the Macs, with a slew of diverse "assault infantry" types they now have on their roster - Agrinians, Peltastai Makedonioi, Hypaspists, heck, even Golberi Curoas (those shortless Celtic merc swordsmen) for the record. AI attacks with a bunch of Hoplitai.
End result, a pretty wholesale massacre of Hoplitai. The Peltastai and Agrinians pretty summarily butchered theirs (losing about 25 out of 120 and 40 out of 160 men in the process, respectively), the Celts had a harder time at it (70 out of 200 men left), and oddly enough the Hypas seemed to have the hardest time at it even before one errant bunch of enemy Hops that was supposed to attack the wall elsewhere but came up this siege tower instead after theirs burned up halfway to the wall - and they fought the whole wall battle with their spears, as I could never convince the buggers to use their swords...

So yeah.

How about you whiners take your BS about the +4 spears being "overpowered" and smoke it in a pipe ? kthxbai.

[Drewski]

I expressed to CP that in my opinion he, to paraphrase the immortal words of Judas Priest, "talks a motherload of crock", and Alsatia had something against that.

Whatever, sod that. I ran the tests. Custom battle, me defending a standard stone wall as the Macs, with a slew of diverse "assault infantry" types they now have on their roster - Agrinians, Peltastai Makedonioi, Hypaspists, heck, even Golberi Curoas (those shortless Celtic merc swordsmen) for the record. AI attacks with a bunch of Hoplitai.
End result, a pretty wholesale massacre of Hoplitai. The Peltastai and Agrinians pretty summarily butchered theirs (losing about 25 out of 120 and 40 out of 160 men in the process, respectively), the Celts had a harder time at it (70 out of 200 men left), and oddly enough the Hypas seemed to have the hardest time at it even before one errant bunch of enemy Hops that was supposed to attack the wall elsewhere but came up this siege tower instead after theirs burned up halfway to the wall - and they fought the whole wall battle with their spears, as I could never convince the buggers to use their swords...

So yeah.

How about you whiners take your BS about the +4 spears being "overpowered" and smoke it in a pipe ? kthxbai.

And what precisely did you expect to happen, when you give the ai a bunch of Hoplitai to attack stone walls and yourself a (generally) bunch of LV4 4 and LVL 5 Mic troops to defend it?

Did you really expect the Hoplitai to summarily take the day? No offence, but its hardly the most scientific of tests. I've lost the best part of Elite units, against stuff like Pelasts and Archers, in some assault situations on walls. Walls are a little bit strange, plus they involve so many more factors than "regular" combat.

Now as much as we have disagreed Watchman, I'm all for finding out what the hardcoded elements of Spear and Light_Spear are. I admire all the testing you have done, its a pain in the ass (I know from doing it too). No-one has any absolute empirical evidence for ANY -4s, +4s or whatever. However I've been cajoling Aradan into explaining his exact testing methods (to produce the EDU guide) recently. He has explained them quite thoroughly, and they are very logical. They seem to (almost) prove his EDU guide information.

I'm genuinly interested to know your own test metholodgy, as I guarantee he is too, if they produce results counterintuitive to his....

I'm considering pestering CA, until they give in and tell me what those hidden bonuses are.....

[Watchman]

And what do you think the figgen Pedites Extraordinarii referred earlier are - garrison levies...? I'm guessing in terms of combat power they'd be about on par with the Agrinians.
Should also tell you a bit what REAL assault troops do on the walls againt the Hoplitai - a postulation that has been made in this thread being that the Hoplitai are supposedly *the* guys to use on walls...
Conversely the Golberi Curoas aren't exactly what I'd call high-end troops; they're the *weaker* of the two Celtic basic swordsman types, and they annihilated the Hoplitai pitted against them with a comfortable enough margin.

And no, can't say I was expecting much different. The only ones I wasn't certain about were the Curoas, as their resiliency is a little so-so so I wondered if the Hops would be able to plain grind them down.

As for my methodology, it basically consists of custom-battling the units involved against each other with minimal player interference and observing the results. Repeat ad nauseum until I figure I've figured out the underlying patterns present.
Ditto in this case. I just gave the AI the siege equipement, parked my units a bit out of the way so the Hops had enough room to get onto the walls (and to minimise the effects of the siege towers' archery) and then just pointed my guys at them and let the individual battles play out without further interference.
Good enough for determining the overall trends, I'd say.

[Drewski]

And what do you think the figgen Pedites Extraordinarii referred earlier are - garrison levies...? I'm guessing in terms of combat power they'd be about on par with the Agrinians.
Should also tell you a bit what REAL assault troops do on the walls againt the Hoplitai - a postulation that has been made in this thread being that the Hoplitai are supposedly *the* guys to use on walls...
Conversely the Golberi Curoas aren't exactly what I'd call high-end troops; they're the *weaker* of the two Celtic basic swordsman types, and they annihilated the Hoplitai pitted against them with a comfortable enough margin.

And no, can't say I was expecting much different. The only ones I wasn't certain about were the Curoas, as their resiliency is a little so-so so I wondered if the Hops would be able to plain grind them down.

As for my methodology, it basically consists of custom-battling the units involved against each other with minimal player interference and observing the results. Repeat ad nauseum until I figure I've figured out the underlying patterns present.
Ditto in this case. I just gave the AI the siege equipement, parked my units a bit out of the way so the Hops had enough room to get onto the walls (and to minimise the effects of the siege towers' archery) and then just pointed my guys at them and let the individual battles play out without further interference.
Good enough for determining the overall trends, I'd say.

I was just reporting what Cute Wolf said, and he meant The Hoplitai on Defence. (I'm sure I don't need to point out the differences between an offensive and defensive "wall" battle).

I assume you remove Fatigue and Morale effects for testing purposes? Allow no "charging" etc? Fatigue makes a big difference to combat, especially with general low lethality of EB units.

[Watchman]

Mind explaining to me what's the difference between defending and attacking units once both are on the wall and duking it out ? The last I saw it's pure meatgrinder at that stage...

Fatigue and morale tend to be either irrelevant anyway, eg. when observing the general combat behaviour differences between "spear" and "light_spear", especially as I used the same units for both, or *very* relevant such as when comparing the performance of specific units, so I usually leave them in. And for example in the wall-combat test the Peltastai, Curoas and Agrinians all wiped their respective Hoplitai opponents out so fast fatigue had no time to become an issue...
The Hypas *do* have better stamina than the Hops, but then again, they were the ones with most trouble anyway.

[athanaric]

And what do you think the figgen Pedites Extraordinarii referred earlier are - garrison levies...? I'm guessing in terms of combat power they'd be about on par with the Agrinians.
Should also tell you a bit what REAL assault troops do on the walls againt the Hoplitai - a postulation that has been made in this thread being that the Hoplitai are supposedly *the* guys to use on walls...
Conversely the Golberi Curoas aren't exactly what I'd call high-end troops; they're the *weaker* of the two Celtic basic swordsman types, and they annihilated the Hoplitai pitted against them with a comfortable enough margin.

Are you sure the Golberi Curoas/Bataroas are weaker than the Enoci Curoas/Botroas? Because their armour is much better (the "Southern Gallic Swordsmen" are unarmoured after all).


My experience is that Hoplitai, even the Epilektoi, aren't particularly good on walls*. Swordsmen and axemen are way better in this respect.


*The Thorakitai Hoplitai, Iphikratous Hoplitai and the Hoplitai Indohellenikoi are quite decent on walls because of their swords, however they are not a classical form of Hoplitai (as in: overhand spear+argive shield).

[Drewski]

Mind explaining to me what's the difference between defending and attacking units once both are on the wall and duking it out ? The last I saw it's pure meatgrinder at that stage...

Fatigue and morale tend to be either irrelevant anyway, eg. when observing the general combat behaviour differences between "spear" and "light_spear", especially as I used the same units for both, or *very* relevant such as when comparing the performance of specific units, so I usually leave them in. And for example in the wall-combat test the Peltastai, Curoas and Agrinians all wiped their respective Hoplitai opponents out so fast fatigue had no time to become an issue...
The Hypas *do* have better stamina than the Hops, but then again, they were the ones with most trouble anyway.

I understand why you leave morale/fatigue on when comparing the overall performance of a specific unit, fair enough. Note though, that if a unit has to heave a siege tower,then climb it (while under fire), then (even though you apparently gave the ai units some room to mount the walls unmolested) charge into battle, especially as the ai runs everywhere, it will be tired before combat even starts. While the wall defenders are set and waiting, fresh.

Just try an extreme version, where you have an army camped atop a steep hill, and the ai has to march across the whole map to get there. Even Elite Phalanx units are so exhausted/pissed off by the time they reach your lines and melee, they start dropping fast and then run away if another unit even breathes heavily on them..

[Watchman]

Are you sure the Golberi Curoas/Bataroas are weaker than the Enoci Curoas/Botroas? Because their armour is much better (the "Southern Gallic Swordsmen" are unarmoured after all).

*checks names*
Bugger. Make that Enoci Curoas, the topless dudes in spiky 'dos - I always get the two names mixed up...

Note though, that if a unit has to heave a siege tower,then climb it (while under fire), then (even though you apparently gave the ai units some room to mount the walls unmolested) charge into battle, especially as the ai runs everywhere, it will be tired before combat even starts. While the wall defenders are set and waiting, fresh.

Units don't run anywhere when pushing a siege tower, I'll remind you. And whatever fatigue they now may accumulate piling into the 'tower posthaste is I suspect largely negated during the waiting time when the top floor fills up.
Not that they'd gotten even close to "tired" by the time they were on the wall, and as mentioned most of the welcoming parties that arrived to evict them slaughtered the lot within not too many minutes.

By the time the last few surviving hoplites might have started getting meaningfully tired the point was entirely moot.

[Cute Wolf]

@ Drewski
Very well, If u try to put hoplitai on defence mode, they will start pushing these pedites extraordinarii fall on the street... even if they should attack, putting the defence mode on will made them into effective "bulldozer" that can tackle anything, save drapanai and other 2 handed infantry killers...

[JinandJuice]

I was under the impression that hoplites on defense mode won't push as hard as they would on non-defensive mode.
BTW, do phalanxes gain a defensive bonus (defensive skill/armor/shield) when they're on phalanx mode?

[Alsatia]

I dont know anything at all abotut phalanx bonuses except it keeps the enemy in place, butchering them in the process.

Any hoplite I put on the walls (with exception of levies and others) normally massacre the oncoming people, especially on ladders. Then you can get an easy heroic. Haven't tested them on the gauls and germanies yet.