light spear balance (vs. swords) in 1.2

[Drapezhnik]

O.K. I adapted this Mini Mod for Europa Barbarorum with Barbarian Invasion. Here it is http://www.filefront.com/14084091/export_descr_unit.txt

[Mykingdomforanos]

Hi all, nothing very useful to add to the discussion, but Ive just come back to EB (played V1.0 a bit 18 months ago as Casse and then moved to the awesome and underrated Getai) and was looking through the export_descr_unit to see whats changed in 1.2.

Well I did a melee only (no javelins, synchronised frontal charge) custom battle (grassy flatland, 1 exp, 1 blacksmith upgrade) between Kluddobro (675 mnai cost, 200 0.1 lethality swordsmen) vs Imannae (675 mnai, 200 0.13 lethality light_spear/skirmishers).

Imannae beat them comfortably, they look fantastic value units once they get some experience (fast, top stamina, 6 long-range javelins) and I still fail to see the point of swordsmen with 0.1 lethality.
Balroae (like Imannae except 2 points better) likewise owned some significantly more expensive Midlander Champions, losers again with piddly 0.1 shortswords. They had better stamina but I dont believe this was decisive.

So on my very light testing Id say 0.1 lethality swordsmen are pointless (especially without ap) but I dont yet know how light_spears stack up against others.

Sorry not much help but just glad to be back playing EB!

Edit: Tested with Drewski's minimod and it certainly balances better, a fairly subtle difference but a fair one IMO. Before Batacorii would win average victories over Botroas 0.225 swordsmen, now Botros win close or average victories.
Have only tested light_spear units though.

[king of thracia]

Of interest might be this passage:

Your servant has also heard that in military strategy and tactics three things are important. First there is the nature of the ground, second the training of the troops, and third the advantageous use of weapons.

According to the Ping Fa, where there are waterways fifteen feet wide, chariots cannot pass. Where rocks are piled up among the mountain forests, and rivers circulate between hills covered with woods and thickets; there the infantry arm comes into its own. Here two chariots or two horsemen do not equal one foot soldier. Where there are rolling hills, wide open spaces and flat plains, there chariots and cavalry find their use, and ten foot soldiers are not as good as one horseman. Flat places intersected with gorges, and abrupt declivities affording wide outlooks - commanding positions such as these should be held by archers and crossbowmen. Here a hundred men armed with hand-to-hand weapons are not equal to one archer. When two forces oppose one another on a plain covered with short grasses they are free to manoeuvre back and forth, and then the long halberd is the right weapon. Three men with swords and shields are not as effective as one so armed. Among reeds and rushes and thickets of bamboo, where the undergrowth is rich and abundant, short spears are needed. Two men with long halberds are not as good there as one with a spear. But among winding ways and dangerous precipices the sword and shield are to be preferred, and three archers or crossbowmen will not do as well as one swordsman...

Excerpt from a memorial by Chhao Tsho to the emperor of Han, 169 BC

[A Terribly Harmful Name]

Of course, you could argue that a crossbow could be worth three halberds on an open field, and indeed it was. We could also glance at how much China was better than the rest of the world at 169 BC, using halberds, crossbows and iron lamellar cuirasses - A little more and they would invent the blast furnace - While the Romani and Greeks had linen, leather and bronze combined with self bows and shortswords. The best Greek crossbow was only a toy.

[Watchman]

Iron mail.
Longswords.
Composite bows.
Highly advanced artillery.
And, oh, IIRC the Chinese had only rather recently gotten onto the iron bandwagon, almost a millenia or half after western Eurasia.
And the western Eurasians had *abandoned* lamellar a few centuries earlier presumably for no other reason than not having liked it and junk.

lol fail, or troll

[A Terribly Harmful Name]

Iron mail.

Known but not adopted by the Chinese.

Composite bows.

Do you really want to get me started into Nomadic Cavalry and styles employed by the Chinese?

Longswords.

Huh, so the Romans did not use longswords in a large scale. Either because they found to tactical application to it, or because they "didn't know it"... You know where my money is.

Highly advanced artillery.

LOLWUT?

Teh Wiki, your fastest source evah, knows it:

The Chinese also developed catapults and siege crossbows very early. The earliest documented occurrence of ancient siege artillery pieces in China was the levered principled traction catapult and an 8 feet (2.4 m) high siege crossbow from the Mozi (Mo Jing), a Mohist text written during the 3rd - 4th century B.C by followers of Mozi who founded the Mohist school of thought during the late Spring and Autumn Period and the early Warring States period. Much of what we now know of the siege technology of the time came to us from Books 14 and 15 (Chapters 52 to 71) on siege warfare from the Mo Jing. Recorded and preserved on bamboo strips, much of the text is unfortunately extremely corrupted now. However, despite the heavy fragmentation, Mohist diligence and attention to details which set Mo Jing apart from other works, ensured that highly descriptive details of the workings of mechanical devices like Cloud Ladders, Rotating Arcuballistas and Levered Catapults, records of siege techniques and usage of siege weaponry can still be found.[1]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Militar...ary_technology

Don't get me started on fortress work: Moh-Ti also wrote about highly advanced defensive fortifications.

And, oh, IIRC the Chinese had only rather recently gotten onto the iron bandwagon, almost a millenia or half after western Eurasia.

Don't know it... Where is the source?

And the western Eurasians had *abandoned* lamellar a few centuries earlier presumably for no other reason than not having liked it and junk.

Lamellar junk...? LOL I know who the troll is. The Romans adopted a fairly similar armour with the Segmentata, and it was still inferior to your average lamellar cuirass, which BTW did not reach Europe yet unless you could provide your source again.

[king of thracia]

Iron mail.
Longswords.
Composite bows.
Highly advanced artillery.
And, oh, IIRC the Chinese had only rather recently gotten onto the iron bandwagon, almost a millenia or half after western Eurasia.
And the western Eurasians had *abandoned* lamellar a few centuries earlier presumably for no other reason than not having liked it and junk.

lol fail, or troll

These two apply properly to China. The east and the steppe are missile dominated after all. This is probably the reason for lamellar as well, which is technically different from and superior to scale. Further down the passage, there is an interesting and revealing exposition of the merits of the Huns vs the Han armies and tactics.

In anycase, spear use is corroborated. We can see from the Romans themselves that they are unwilling to engage the phalanx in frontal assault.

[A Terribly Harmful Name]

These two apply properly to China. The east and the steppe are missile dominated after all.

Yep, and indeed the use of longswords and mail was a matter of taste after all. The East properly rather equipped its warriors with as much lamellar and scale they could get as late as the Middle Ages and beyond, lamellar being far more protective. And of course better forged, since we all know that Han mettallurgy was superior.

Not to sound like a sinophile but these indeed are basic historical facts. More so the siege engines, which were being widely employed since the beginning of the Warring States period - Which also saw armies with millions of men in them, if my readings are correct.

In comparison during the V century Greek poleis lacked even decent siege engines, judging by the facts of the day. The Romans favoured ladders until very late too - That someone can argue that post-Warring States China "did not" have such technology betrays ignorance of these facts, and which a reading of Moh-Ti alone and the abundant Warring States literature on war and fortifications debunks neatly.

[satalexton]

You cannot compare the greeks and romans against the seres. They have wholy different circumstances thrown at them back then, and thus their development are geared towards the specific foes they face.

As a pastoral society constantly faced with raids from nomads from the west and north. They are at a disadvantage when it comes to archery. But utilizing the industrial capability of a settled society, they can mount a composite bow with a heavy draw weight onto a stock and mechanism. That way, even the average citizen farmer can rain powerful missles accuratly against a far better trained HA, with just basic drilling and training when not in the fields.

It's not a matter of 'who is better', it is simply adapting to each's scenario accordingly. Who would be stupid enough to invent heavy mail and big shields with short sword to go against a bunch of HA?

[Mykingdomforanos]

Anyone done any more testing and got views on wether Drewski's mod is "balancing"? I felt it was, I just cant see what the point of shortswordsmen is.

Ive just started a new campaign without it, due to lack of "peer review" support for the light_spear fix, so I guess it must be better off as it is, Im too lazy to have done any more testing lol

[Kevin]

Does this count for units like the Celtic short swordsman? I imagine it being hard to reach a person with a spear using a tiny "dagger." Also, what about the secondary sword of phalanxes?

[seienchin]

You cannot compare the greeks and romans against the seres. They have wholy different circumstances thrown at them back then, and thus their development are geared towards the specific foes they face.

As a pastoral society constantly faced with raids from nomads from the west and north. They are at a disadvantage when it comes to archery. But utilizing the industrial capability of a settled society, they can mount a composite bow with a heavy draw weight onto a stock and mechanism. That way, even the average citizen farmer can rain powerful missles accuratly against a far better trained HA, with just basic drilling and training when not in the fields.

It's not a matter of 'who is better', it is simply adapting to each's scenario accordingly. Who would be stupid enough to invent heavy mail and big shields with short sword to go against a bunch of HA?

Exactly.
Survival of the fittest. The one who can adopt to his surroundings the best.
The greeks and roman had no heavy artillery in the EB frame, because they didnt need them. Nobody had them and they slowed the already slow hellenic style armies down.
The siege of syracus on the other hand shows, that the greek had the knowledge to easily build siege equipment. The romans started to do so, when the circumstances were right. Like the legions around the limes, with their torsion weapons.

[Intranetusa]

Known but not adopted by the Chinese.
Do you really want to get me started into Nomadic Cavalry and styles employed by the Chinese?

They did have both around EB's time period.

After Kublai Khan died, the empire quickly broke up into pieces, and disintegrated shortly afterwards. Only the vast imperialist domains of various European powers can be called great empires.

Most of the empires under Mongol control kept their territory intact (abet fractured) and lasted about 200 years. Most Imperialistic European empires lasted less than 100 years.

If the Mongols were bad administrators, then whatever the Europeans were doing was far worse.

[siegfriedfr]

Sorry to revive such a dead thread but the downloadable files being unavalaible, i'm trying to understand what was done here to recreate my own modified EDU:

What was changed exactly? "light_spear" attribute entirely removed, or 4 attack power removed from the base AP?

Thanks.

[Drewski]

Sorry to revive such a dead thread but the downloadable files being unavalaible, i'm trying to understand what was done here to recreate my own modified EDU:

What was changed exactly? "light_spear" attribute entirely removed, or 4 attack power removed from the base AP?

Thanks.

All I did was take 4 attack away from all units with the "light-spear" attr., which in EB includes phalanx units too.

I've personally done masses and masses of individual tweaking since, as taking 4 away, isn't that much more balanced than it was originally. (It's still better imo). For instance the low levy units (e.g. levy hoplites, levy Celt spear) are ridiculously overpowered with the default EB attack, and taking 4 off them makes them perform more realistically against mid level swordsmen, for example. However, mid and elite spearmen aren't quite as good as they should be with 4 attack taken away, and a lot need a sliding "tweak" scale.

So there you go ;)

[siegfriedfr]

Yes i've been editing my EDU and i tought that a flat out removal of 4 attack on medium/elite hoplite was crippling compared to other units. So i've done -4 for untrained, -2 for trained and -1 for highly trained.

What other tweaks have you been doing?

Thanks for the answer!

[Drewski]

Yes i've been editing my EDU and i tought that a flat out removal of 4 attack on medium/elite hoplite was crippling compared to other units. So i've done -4 for untrained, -2 for trained and -1 for highly trained.

What other tweaks have you been doing?

Thanks for the answer!

That's quite similar to how I have them (even though I've taken each and every unit on individual merits, with cost also taken into consideration). I tend to forget some of the minor tweaks. The other main one, is taking the 5 shield away from Phalanx units (which gets doubled in phalanx mode, to make them almost impervious to missiles). It's a tiny little shield too if you look ! I have basic phalanx with 2 shield value, and elites 3. Works ok for me, playing as phalanx based nations, and against them.

I also remember making Balearic and Rhodian Slingers slightly better (something like 5 extra stones each, and an extra point of attack), to show their elite status, and making Spartans slightly better (36 men base and an extra point of attack)- the Spartans I just wanted to be the best hoplitai ;)

[Metaluis90]

hi everybody, I've just read the whole discussion between drewski and watchman about which weapong would perform the best... It was really enjoyable, let me tell you both :)
anyway I wanted to know if the shieldwall ability (additioned by the BI.exe) compensates this lack of defense, or I-don't-know-what-it-is that everybody is praising-complaining about...

As far as I know, this attack bonus to the spearmen was given due the fact that a proper phalanx (or hoplitic) formation couldn't be properly represented in the RTW engine, then, in my humble opinion, the reduction of this base attack would be legitimated


Another thing, the other day I was making 1v1 units fight just out of fun, myself always using the praetorian cohort... anyway, what make me astonished was that the elite heavy spearmen for the seleukids BEAT THE SH1T OUT OF my pretorians... is it that normal? I mean is used them in a flat, desertic map, with no advantages for any sides apart form the numbers (pretorians' got 83 soldiers, against 63 of the spearmen, if I remember correctly) another thing, my praetorians were on guard mode! is it normal?

[Drewski]

hi everybody, I've just read the whole discussion between drewski and watchman about which weapong would perform the best... It was really enjoyable, let me tell you both :)
anyway I wanted to know if the shieldwall ability (additioned by the BI.exe) compensates this lack of defense, or I-don't-know-what-it-is that everybody is praising-complaining about...

As far as I know, this attack bonus to the spearmen was given due the fact that a proper phalanx (or hoplitic) formation couldn't be properly represented in the RTW engine, then, in my humble opinion, the reduction of this base attack would be legitimated


Another thing, the other day I was making 1v1 units fight just out of fun, myself always using the praetorian cohort... anyway, what make me astonished was that the elite heavy spearmen for the seleukids BEAT THE SH1T OUT OF my pretorians... is it that normal? I mean is used them in a flat, desertic map, with no advantages for any sides apart form the numbers (pretorians' got 83 soldiers, against 63 of the spearmen, if I remember correctly) another thing, my praetorians were on guard mode! is it normal?

Glad you found it of interest :)

Those Elite Selec Spearmen (I'm guessing you mean the Basilikou) have full mail body armour (19 armour in game) and 34 total defence (ouch). They have a much better attack too than the Praets, who don't have an AP weapon, and only .13 lethality. Those Basilikou will beat the stuffing out of just about anything. So no real suprise there..

[Metaluis90]

I slightly read something about that in their unit description... they are stated as the best assault unit of the world (or something like that) but is the difference between units that different? I mean you are not talking about a standard legionary, we are talking about the pretorians, the elite of the elite of the roman empire. I mean, I really dont want to look like a roman fanboy, altough i do love the history of this civilization... but has the difference must be that overwhelming? When I stopped that battle the basilikou got 40 of their men, while the pretorians only 20 or less, in big unit scale

out of topic, I got a problem downloading both your mod and BI.exe mod made by Drapezhnik!
when i want to download yours, it says that there's a missing file, or the file cannot be find (in the mozilla browser, translated to English "File not found") and in Drapezhnik's one, Filefront says there is a unexpected error, or something like that... If only you could reupload the file, i would really appreciate it :)

[siegfriedfr]

In other words drewski, can you post your current Edu please? :)

[Drewski]

In other words drewski, can you post your current Edu please? :)

I can do that no problem, but make a copy of yours before overwriting, as {see above posts} : loads of little tweaks here and there. I don't have the basic original "-4 off all light_spear" anymore, it was on my old PC, and I had a dedicated gaming machine custom made in April (which is still very nice ;))

Uploaded my current EDU to filefront here

[Metaluis90]

hey, thanks a lot man! I'll now install it using the suggestion of Watchman for winmerge

[siegfriedfr]

I can do that no problem, but make a copy of yours before overwriting, as {see above posts} : loads of little tweaks here and there. I don't have the basic original "-4 off all light_spear" anymore, it was on my old PC, and I had a dedicated gaming machine custom made in April (which is still very nice ;))

Uploaded my current EDU to filefront here

Thanks!

Whay did you remove 1 attack to horse archers units tho? Too powerful?

[Drewski]

Thanks!

Whay did you remove 1 attack to horse archers units tho? Too powerful?

My way of thinking was this:- the horse archers and geographically local troops had basically the same weapon. I know that the HAs were extremely good at firing while moving, but you won't ever convince me that they were just as accurate, as a well trained man firing from a stationary base, i.e. foot archers. Missile attack in RTW really means accuracy, as all missiles have a lethality of 100% if they strike their target. Therefore I made HA have 1 less missile attack.

They are still completely nasty to use or face ;)

Oh btw , I just remembered I replaced Casse Bodyguards with Rycalawre instead, just found the Chariots too frustrating/annoying.

I did warn you of quite a few odd changes here and there....

[Metaluis90]

would you mind to enlist those changes, Drewski? :)

[Brave Brave Sir Robin]

I slightly read something about that in their unit description... they are stated as the best assault unit of the world (or something like that) but is the difference between units that different? I mean you are not talking about a standard legionary, we are talking about the pretorians, the elite of the elite of the roman empire. I mean, I really dont want to look like a roman fanboy, altough i do love the history of this civilization... but has the difference must be that overwhelming? When I stopped that battle the basilikou got 40 of their men, while the pretorians only 20 or less, in big unit scale

Praetorians are far from the elite soldiers in this game. TAB's should slaughter them. I would think Carthage has at least 3 units capable of beating them (Elite Liby Phonecians, Iberian Assault, Sacred Band), Arche 3 as well (TAB's, Hypaspistai, Peltastai Makedonikai), I would think Solduros, Carnutes, and Gaesatae would beat them, maybe even Neitos. In fact there are probably about 20 better units, maybe more.

[Drewski]

would you mind to enlist those changes, Drewski? :)

I'm sorry, I didn't keep a list (since ithe edu is just for me)....I think I've metioned most of them. There may be some other very minor tweaks I've forgotten.

[siegfriedfr]

I'm sorry, I didn't keep a list (since ithe edu is just for me)....I think I've metioned most of them. There may be some other very minor tweaks I've forgotten.

Drewski, After this fix most spear/swords have similar atk value but most sword have twice the lethality (0.13 vs 0.225) making swords clearly superior. Whats your opinion on this?

[Drewski]

Drewski, After this fix most spear/swords have similar atk value but most sword have twice the lethality (0.13 vs 0.225) making swords clearly superior. Whats your opinion on this?

It's only the Celtic longsword that has that lethality, all the Spanish/Roman/Hellenic/Punic/Various shortswords are somewhere around .13 lethality. Plus all the spears get a big boost vs mounted. I didn't change anything to do with lethality....