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Thread: Skirmishers judged to be irrelevant?

  1. #1

    Default Skirmishers judged to be irrelevant?

    Great job on the units and textures, loaded up as every faction in the Vandals campaign and looked over the units they had at start, looking forward to playing them all.

    Playing as the Mauri in Vandals campaign just had a few questions...

    On turn 2 the Romans completed their domination? I guess that does not really matter... I kept playing regardless.

    The main question I had is if all the javelins are as useless as the Mauri's? Fought 3 battles so far after building up to 50,000 gold and all the structures Mauri can currently build. 2 vs Vandals, and 1 vs Brigands.

    The Ihaggern- light cavalry javelins- were able to kill 20 of 250 Gemutan-light infantry javelins with light/\ medium armor) brigands with their entire javelin amount throwing down from on top a hill. So repeated charges eventually worked against the rebel brigands and I moved on thinking it was just bad luck.

    Fought a small battle against a single enemy general in a city and got lucky, the general must have ran into a spear or something because he died in about first 30 seconds and the rest routed to be slaughtered with nearly 0 losses.

    Then going to capture Tingis was able to completely surround the central square from 4 sides without fighting the AI and 17 javelin units used all their javelins on some Vandal heavy infantry and 1 general. The general charged out and killed about 150 men but was then killed and his bodyguard also died. The Vandal heavy infantry advanced to their front and killed/routed 2 Mauri units but took 1 missile loss only from 15 units- 10 light infantry missile att 5 and 5 cavalry missile att 7) firing their complete supply of ammunition into their rear. At least as best I could tell hovering mouse over the Vandals units after each javelin launch even if a bit more than 1 it was definitely less than 5.

    Now I think that typically most TW games make missiles kills too easy and most mods follow suit. I agree skirmishers should have problems penetrating heavy armor, especially slings and arrows. However with at least 4 javelin units each side and rear for 2 units to take only 1 loss after however many attempts it takes to exhaust ammunition seems extreme. Why even bother to put javelins in then? The AI will completely waste its skirmishers units trying to get javelin kills and being run over by charges.

    The Vandal heavy infantry eventually won the battle but were down to less than 40 men left and I did not want to get my generals killed so retreated to try again next turn with reinforcements. I can see 500 heavy infantry killing 2000+ mostly light infantry in close combat pretty easily but having something like at least 80 javelin throw attempts kill 1-5 men seems a bit too far in the other direction of making missiles irrelevant. I hope the composite bows of the Huns do way more damage than that. Will load up as Romans next and see how their battles go.

    If it could be more that a heavy infantry unit takes 7.5% losses from a full skirmisher unit firing its complete supply of javelins from the front and 15% loss from the rear which would be 18 men out of 250 for frontal and 37 men from rear. That still leaves the fighting power of the heavy infantry intact but does give some use for skirmishers. As it stands most skirmishers would seem to be useless and just recruiting a core of heavy infantry and a few cavalry are all that is necessary. Even the light infantry only taking 20 losses from javelins thrown downhill seems a bit weird, a few more losses than the heavy infantry but assaulting up a hill vs cavalry throwing on a downward charge repeatedly only killing 12.5% of 250? 100 cavalry throwing 4 spears each means that is 5% kill rate. That seems a bit low in almost optimal position. Only thing could have been slightly better is if the light infantry were backing up the hill, but still- this is light infantry not heavy infantry.
    Last edited by Ichon; May 29, 2010 at 04:07 PM.

  2. #2

    Default Re: Skirmishers judged to be irrelevant?

    Sorry, dont have the time at the moment to read this in detail and answer, but me or another team-member shurly will.

  3. #3

    Default Re: Skirmishers judged to be irrelevant?

    NP- since these campaigns are still leading towards development of a grand campaign just offering the idea of perhaps bumping up some missile stats a bit since almost all infantry are much more heavily armorer, even light infantry has a bit more armor. Missile units did not disappear from battle and even as armor improved so did spearheads, arrows, etc. 5 on a missile vs 20+ defense is basically making missiles irrelevant. Most missiles should do relatively less damage (no slingers or archer killing an entire army even shooting from on top a hill) than vanilla TW but making them incapable of killing less than a handful even in optimal situation actually makes including them pointless and also puts AI at a disadvantage because it does not realize how worthless they are.

  4. #4
    midnite's Avatar Citizen
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    Default Re: Skirmishers judged to be irrelevant?

    Quote Originally Posted by Ichon View Post
    NP- since these campaigns are still leading towards development of a grand campaign just offering the idea of perhaps bumping up some missile stats a bit since almost all infantry are much more heavily armorer, even light infantry has a bit more armor. Missile units did not disappear from battle and even as armor improved so did spearheads, arrows, etc. 5 on a missile vs 20+ defense is basically making missiles irrelevant. Most missiles should do relatively less damage (no slingers or archer killing an entire army even shooting from on top a hill) than vanilla TW but making them incapable of killing less than a handful even in optimal situation actually makes including them pointless and also puts AI at a disadvantage because it does not realize how worthless they are.

    welcome Ichon
    once the team finishes with ATW Conquestus B we will take a look at the bugs and unit balancing issues for the IB2 main campaign.
    memory of Midnite, Pumpkin, Bear, Pip and Pepper -- 4/2/10, 5/24/10, 11/27/17, 11/11/18 and 1/15/19

    Under the esteemed patronage of Elrond

  5. #5

    Default Re: Skirmishers judged to be irrelevant?

    To state this first: I wasnt involved in the Vandals campaign, but joined the team later on the britannia Campaign.
    Itīs also been now quite somewhile, that I found time to play the Vandals Campaign.
    Anyway Iīll try to reply as good as I can.
    Also please keep in mind, that this is still something a beta. As midnite stated, when a first release of Conquestus Britanniae is done, we will return to Vandals again.

    Quote Originally Posted by Ichon View Post
    Playing as the Mauri in Vandals campaign just had a few questions...

    On turn 2 the Romans completed their domination? I guess that does not really matter... I kept playing regardless.
    Cant say anything to that. If it hapened to me i forgot and probably did the same as you: played on.

    The main question I had is if all the javelins are as useless as the Mauri's? Fought 3 battles so far ... 2 vs Vandals, and 1 vs Brigands.

    The Ihaggern- light cavalry javelins- were able to kill 20 of 250 Gemutan-light infantry javelins with light/\ medium armor) brigands with their entire javelin amount ...

    Then going to capture Tingis was able to completely surround the central square from 4 sides without fighting the AI and 17 javelin units used all their javelins on some Vandal heavy infantry and 1 general. The general charged out and killed about 150 men but was then killed and his bodyguard also died. The Vandal heavy infantry advanced to their front and killed/routed 2 Mauri units but took 1 missile loss only from 15 units- 10 light infantry missile att 5 and 5 cavalry missile att 7) firing their complete supply of ammunition into their rear. At least as best I could tell hovering mouse over the Vandals units after each javelin launch even if a bit more than 1 it was definitely less than 5.

    Now I think that typically most TW games make missiles kills too easy and most mods follow suit. I agree skirmishers should have problems penetrating heavy armor, especially slings and arrows. However with at least 4 javelin units each side and rear for 2 units to take only 1 loss after however many attempts it takes to exhaust ammunition seems extreme. Why even bother to put javelins in then? The AI will completely waste its skirmishers units trying to get javelin kills and being run over by charges.
    ...

    If it could be more that a heavy infantry unit takes 7.5% losses from a full skirmisher unit firing its complete supply of javelins from the front and 15% loss from the rear which would be 18 men out of 250 for frontal and 37 men from rear. That still leaves the fighting power of the heavy infantry intact but does give some use for skirmishers. As it stands most skirmishers would seem to be useless and just recruiting a core of heavy infantry and a few cavalry are all that is necessary. Even the light infantry only taking 20 losses from javelins thrown downhill seems a bit weird, a few more losses than the heavy infantry but assaulting up a hill vs cavalry throwing on a downward charge repeatedly only killing 12.5% of 250? 100 cavalry throwing 4 spears each means that is 5% kill rate. That seems a bit low in almost optimal position. Only thing could have been slightly better is if the light infantry were backing up the hill, but still- this is light infantry not heavy infantry.
    I never played with the mauri and dont have the vandal files installed atm so I cant look at their stats.
    Generally the unit need a thorough look. And there have to be changes made for shure.
    Also missiles, and especially javelins have some probs in M2TW they work much better in RTW.

    But generally I see missiles as something to soften up the enemy, bringing them out of good order, bringing down, trashing their shields and killing some.
    If it is impossible or at least hard to win a battle with just skirmishers against solid heavy infantry it is just fine to me. Skirmishers and Archers are support-units, they help my other troops winning the battle, have special tasks, but they are not decisive.
    I also think you go too much for the armour. Especially with missiles the shields are more important. Look at the enemies stats. If you are fighting infantry with big shields, it would naturally reduce effectivness of your javelin-troops. To really hurt them hit them in the back, maybe risking being on the other hand smashed by their Cavalry ... Your kill rates from behind isnt so bad? Is it?

    Another thing maybe your opponent was a 2 hitpoint unit? There are some in the mod and I may be the strongest supporter to go more for that concept.
    As I said i dont have the edu there now, but the Vandal Heavy Spearmen and their Heavy Sword-Infantry are likely be 2hp units. So your javelins did not so totally bad a job on softening them , but you were lacking a hardened troop to finish them off.
    Additionally there needs to be availability and costs of units to be taken in consideration. For now if I recall it right there are far too many available in short time, especially of the stronger ones and I never had money probs.
    Than the maurii may also be a somewhat "neglected" faction yet. Play romans against the germanics and I guess you will find it better arranged.

    Please note, that these are personal opinions, no "official mod-statements"

    Thank you for your detailed input.

  6. #6
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    Default Re: Skirmishers judged to be irrelevant?

    In this case you must also understand that the missile weapons of this time were veruta and lancea. This is not a complete slaughter with pila raking down and dismembering an entire enemy army like in the defeat of boudiccea. These were made so make a shield or leg useless. Maybe a plumbata in the face if your lucky. Also, the Mauri did not have acess to the rescources the romans and vandals had, and therefore were ill equipped and poorly trained. Thats why the Mauri did't capture Mauretania, and the romans held onto the province till the 8th century.

  7. #7

    Default Re: Skirmishers judged to be irrelevant?

    is there a way to make javelin's have more power at shorter range? i thought javlins were used to punch thru armor/ weigh down shields with there weight/ make formations tuff with huge log in mans sheild behind you poking you in ass, etc. so if a unit was surrounded in a city square like ichon said they would be pretty successful.
    i don't know if there's a way to make a unit that takes a volley of javilens come thru unharmed but with each consecutive volley take many more hits (sheilds become useless, more javs find weak spots).
    can't wait for LAST KINGDOM

  8. #8
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    Default Re: Skirmishers judged to be irrelevant?

    Quote Originally Posted by worldsdead View Post
    is there a way to make javelin's have more power at shorter range? i thought javlins were used to punch thru armor/ weigh down shields with there weight/ make formations tuff with huge log in mans sheild behind you poking you in ass, etc. so if a unit was surrounded in a city square like ichon said they would be pretty successful.
    i don't know if there's a way to make a unit that takes a volley of javilens come thru unharmed but with each consecutive volley take many more hits (sheilds become useless, more javs find weak spots).
    for the most part yes, i agree - but to an extent. When attacked from behind yes. otherwise not really

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