armour piercing Pikes?

**ZackRidesRed** · January 06, 2009, 06:15 PM

Shouldn't pikes have 'ap' in 'stat_pri_attr'?
I was thinking that would help account for the damage that they would do from charging the last few feet, being that they cant charge in game.

Also a 21ft long 15lb pike being thrusted by both arms of the pike-men would in my mind go right through most armour.

**Quinn Inuit** · January 06, 2009, 08:10 PM

Hmmm, hadn't thought of that. Anyone know why pikes don't have AP? AFAIK, they haven't since at least RTR6G, and I assume there must have been a reason for that somewhere along the line.

**pdanders** · January 12, 2009, 12:43 PM

Originally Posted by Quinn Inuit

Hmmm, hadn't thought of that. Anyone know why pikes don't have AP? AFAIK, they haven't since at least RTR6G, and I assume there must have been a reason for that somewhere along the line.

I would think it might cause the phalanx to become immensely overpowered... wouldn't they just cut right through the legions with AP?

**pannonian** · January 12, 2009, 01:06 PM

Originally Posted by pdanders

I would think it might cause the phalanx to become immensely overpowered... wouldn't they just cut right through the legions with AP?

They cause some worry with their ability to march right through a cohort with their pushing power, but they don't actually do much damage. At Pydna, they did actually make some headway against the legionaries directly in front of them, so the same in the game would be historically plausible.

**pdanders** · January 12, 2009, 02:15 PM

Originally Posted by pannonian

They cause some worry with their ability to march right through a cohort with their pushing power, but they don't actually do much damage. At Pydna, they did actually make some headway against the legionaries directly in front of them, so the same in the game would be historically plausible.

Yeah it certainly may have happened.. I'm more talking about game balance... Personally i have no problems with phalangites or hoplites being underpowered right now.. they seem to do just fine...

**Quinn Inuit** · January 12, 2009, 08:01 PM

That's true. I think the game balance is working pretty well right now, at least as far as unit strength goes. (I'm not quite happy with the barb factions yet, but Jamey's doing good work on those.) Maybe we should just leave them be.

**pannonian** · January 12, 2009, 08:26 PM

Originally Posted by Quinn Inuit

That's true. I think the game balance is working pretty well right now, at least as far as unit strength goes. (I'm not quite happy with the barb factions yet, but Jamey's doing good work on those.) Maybe we should just leave them be.

Do we have any idea how the Celts got so rich? Watchman mentioned it in a VV thread the other day, and your gripe has just made me wonder if we're shortchanging them in terms of economy. I know that Ireland was rich in gold, so if you include that in the superfaction, and have that trade with the other Celts, then it may pump up the economy a bit more. One thing that I've noticed is the importance of trade fleets - most ports only have a max of 1 fleet, and they're fairly average. The ports with multiple fleets are the moneymakers in my games.

**Quinn Inuit** · January 12, 2009, 09:08 PM

The Celts got rich? I didn't know that. I honestly have no idea where their money would've come from. If anyone knows, I'll work it in.

One of the things I did in 3.3....um...3, maybe, was reducing the number of ports with access to multiple trade fleets. Most of the multi-fleet ports are in civilized areas, but barbs rarely got L2 ports anyway, so I think it helped them on balance.

**fourganger** · January 13, 2009, 12:08 PM

AFAIK the Celts got "rich" through trade between tribes and trade with the Romans and Greeks- specifically it seems they bought in a lot of Roman quality goods (such as wine) and from Greeks mostly arms, and then traded these goods to other tribes at some mark-up.

This is how they operated, but I don't know that they were rich exactly.

**Wien1938** · January 13, 2009, 02:23 PM

Also very good land. Caesar sacked Gaul for millions.

**fourganger** · January 13, 2009, 04:33 PM

Originally Posted by Wien1938

Also very good land. Caesar sacked Gaul for millions.

Gaul's land in terms of fertility was better than Germany, but not as good as North Africa or Italy. Most of Caesar's earnings IIRC came from captured slaves.