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Thread: Arrows, achaemenid tactics and medes

  1. #1

    Default Arrows, achaemenid tactics and medes

    Greetings all, long time Europa Barbarorum player here, and by long time i really mean it.
    This is my all time favorite game and leisure time spender, i love this mod so much that i'm really thinking to get a tattoo with it.
    Elegies apart, the few times that i actually posted here was in posts regarding the remaking of the Persian Empire (another old obsession of mine).
    Because of this and having read a bit about the military tactics that were employed by the Achaemenids, as much as we could gather them, i have a question about arrows first.
    Loving the game too much and also largely agreeing with the policies taken and the artistic vision of the team, i don't want to suggest to having the damage of the arrows raised by a bit.
    Instead i want to ask if there is a mod that raises arrow damage a bit.
    Or even better, if there is such a thing as attaching a moral penalty to mass arrows?
    That would be as good, if not even better.
    From a historical point of view, treating the classical case of hoplites vs immortals, no greeks won by admiring the cloud of arrows or until the enemy ran out of arrows. They used their battle strategies very intelligently, firstly by trying to remove the advantage of the cavalry, or remove the advantage of arrow ballistics or both.
    As i understood it, the persians lost battles against the greeks because they either they placed too much trust on their arrows while the enemy closed in faster to melee them or being denied cavalry because of rough terrain. Also Alexander with phalanxes natural bonus against arrows and cavalry
    I just want to recreate an environment where 2 units of archers would be enough to rout a unit of hoplites if they could not reach the archers fast enough. In game i need more like 4 or more units.
    But maybe i am doing it wrong, i am not a particularly good strategist, as emulating the persian armies i place a lot of archers behind a line of sparabara and expected a mass rout Please feel free to share your favorite persian tactics that are inspired from history at least.

    The second question, will we ever see Atropatkan in?

    Thanks and good health to all!
    All life is problem solving ~ Karl Popper

  2. #2

    Default Re: Arrows, achaemenid tactics and medes

    If you want your archers to have a higher kill rate, change the primary weapon attack factor in EDU (mods\EBII\data\export_descr_unit.txt). It wasn't much of a test, but I set up a custom battle of the Persian Archer (Kamandar i Pars) vs. the Sweboz Archer (only one unit on each side). Using an unmodified EDU, the Persian attack factor is 5, and the Persians were able to kill 40 Germans before running out of ammo.

    Next I increased the value from 5 to 10 (see code excerpt below) and ran the same test. This time the Persians killed 60 before their arrows were gone. So that's something you could modify yourself, although you probably want to run more tests and try different values to get your "archer vs hoplite" sweet spot.

    Code:
    stat_pri                10, 0, medium_arrow, 180, 25, missile, missile_mechanical, piercing, none, 0, 1
    EBII Council

  3. #3

    Default Re: Arrows, achaemenid tactics and medes

    Thank you for the tip Kull. A great starting place.
    Is there a line somewhere there that affects the moral impact of arrows too?
    All life is problem solving ~ Karl Popper

  4. #4

    Default Re: Arrows, achaemenid tactics and medes

    Quote Originally Posted by Cultist View Post
    Is there a line somewhere there that affects the moral impact of arrows too?
    I don't know of any way to attach morale effects to weapons. You can alter the morale of individual units in EDU, and I suppose you could try giving the "frighten_foot" attribute to your archers, but I doubt it would have much effect at arrow-distance.
    EBII Council

  5. #5
    alex33's Avatar Centenarius
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    Default Re: Arrows, achaemenid tactics and medes

    Quote Originally Posted by Kull View Post
    I don't know of any way to attach morale effects to weapons. You can alter the morale of individual units in EDU, and I suppose you could try giving the "frighten_foot" attribute to your archers, but I doubt it would have much effect at arrow-distance.
    I don't know much about the coding side of things but isn't frighten_foot more for melee units?



  6. #6

    Default Re: Arrows, achaemenid tactics and medes

    Didn't the flaming arrows give a moral hit? Maybe that is the trick.
    Anyway, boosting damage a bit and giving them a bit more arrows did the trick to my liking
    All life is problem solving ~ Karl Popper

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