Just wanna say thanks (and a couple of comments)

[Plow5655]

I've been playing Exrm obsessively for a few days now and it really is an amazing improvement even over RTR, which is great in its own right. I really like the smaller armies and slower gameplay, because in RTR a big stack victory didnt feel like that much of an accomplishment, in fact after the first few rounds small stack battles became quite rare. so Gameplay wise I really approve (don't know much about the time period so I can't speak for accuracy).

A couple of suggestions:
1. Slow Down the Ptolmeys and Seleucids, rather than large, cumbersome, corrupt, and decadent empires they are monolithic powerhouses bent on world domination. Also as I mentioned elsewhere one tends to swallow the other, creating a Mega-empire too early in the game. Maybe weaken their cities or give a large chunk of them to rebels so they have to spend the early game uniting their empire similar to Rome. (maybe not accurate though)
2. Give the gauls some tactical help. their units are still absolute garbage. I realize they did lose the war, but I thought it was more to lack of unity that impotent soldiers.
3. Bring back exploding pigs (kidding)

[Arkaeyn]

Yeah, the Gallic swordsmen and warbands rout at the drop of a hat, particularly at any kind of flanking. The only time they ever really went toe-to-toe with my Romans moderately successfully was on a bridge battle that just turned into a scrum.

You should check the "slowing down the game" thread for some discussion about the mega-empires.

[Quinn Inuit]

I'm glad you're enjoying this.

I agree that the mega-empires need work.

What we may need to do is give the Gallic units higher starting moral to balance out the fact that they are undisciplined and so lose morale more rapidly. I mean, the swordsmen are the Gallic line unit.

I should create an exploding pigs social group. That would be awesome.

[Plow5655]

Couldn't you just get rid of the undisciplined trait? I realize they maybe weren't disciplined historically but game wise its a real deal-breaker for the gauls. Also giving them ridiculously high morale to compensate for their losing it so quickly doesn't seem any more accurate.

Why do the units break so quickly anyway, even units with low morale such as Hoplite Levies seem to hang on much longer. does it have something to do with their unit formation?

Also if swordsmen are the line unit, what are warbands? they are good for absolutely nothing.

[despot_of_rhodes]

I never use swordmen as a line unit - the warband can hold the line much better, imho. The warband is fast - you can catch even tired cavalry, almoust any bowmen and often skirmishers with them. They are also good "general bodyguards head hunters".

But i think, the point is wrong here: Warbands are levys, they are equal to what the town watch was in vanilla and compared with them, they are really cool. In vanilla, gauls used to have bit of armour, lether armour at least, i´d say, the swordmen should become some, if even velites got 2

What Gauls need, since they lack infantry missile troops like Germans posess, are better stats for their medium & elite troops.
Medium troops may be still impetous, but so is the Marci Swordmen, and this unit is one of my favorite, if i have to look at the unit costs/upkeep due to lack of cashflow.
But their elite should be really good ( i hate it, to fight against the Greek general bodyguards, the are dismounted, but fight to the last, having horribly good stats. Wasn´t it supposed to give the Gauls a recruitable genral foot unit? ( cheaper then the greek one, with bit less armour perhaps, but same stats + maybe frightning effect on enemy units - just an example ).

[Quinn Inuit]

Couldn't you just get rid of the undisciplined trait? I realize they maybe weren't disciplined historically but game wise its a real deal-breaker for the gauls. Also giving them ridiculously high morale to compensate for their losing it so quickly doesn't seem any more accurate.

Why do the units break so quickly anyway, even units with low morale such as Hoplite Levies seem to hang on much longer. does it have something to do with their unit formation?

Also if swordsmen are the line unit, what are warbands? they are good for absolutely nothing.

Well, we're going to redo the swordsmen to make them the line unit. That seems to be how the Gauls fought. The warbands will be the militia equivalent.

I disagree, and think higher starting morale makes sense. These are barbarians, motivated mostly by individual glory and clan feuds. They'll enter a battle with high spirits, but can quickly become dismayed if the tide turns against them. I look at the Battle of Watling Street as a good example of this.

Ah, found the problem with the hoplite militia. They had disciplined instead of low. They should keep highly_trained for formation purposes, though.

I never use swordmen as a line unit - the warband can hold the line much better, imho. The warband is fast - you can catch even tired cavalry, almoust any bowmen and often skirmishers with them. They are also good "general bodyguards head hunters".

That's interesting. I didn't realize that. I think they may need to be slowed down.

Besides speed, why can the warband hold the line better?

But i think, the point is wrong here: Warbands are levys, they are equal to what the town watch was in vanilla and compared with them, they are really cool. In vanilla, gauls used to have bit of armour, lether armour at least, i´d say, the swordmen should become some, if even velites got 2

What Gauls need, since they lack infantry missile troops like Germans posess, are better stats for their medium & elite troops.
Medium troops may be still impetous, but so is the Marci Swordmen, and this unit is one of my favorite, if i have to look at the unit costs/upkeep due to lack of cashflow.
But their elite should be really good ( i hate it, to fight against the Greek general bodyguards, the are dismounted, but fight to the last, having horribly good stats. Wasn´t it supposed to give the Gauls a recruitable genral foot unit? ( cheaper then the greek one, with bit less armour perhaps, but same stats + maybe frightning effect on enemy units - just an example ).

We were talking about giving the Gauls a general foot unit, but decided against it. I will improve their stats, though. They're a little underpowered ATM. We're going to try to give them missile infantry, too.

[Scutarii]

Warbands hold better because of: higher defense than swordsmen, and they have a far denser formation. The swordsmen are so loose... Decent flankers, I suppose, but they honestly suck pretty hard right now. They need a serious boost.

[despot_of_rhodes]

The higher morale of the warband.
The higher defence.
Like Scutari said: Warband is packed in tight formation, while swordmen aren´t.
When it comes to deployment, warband got very good stamina and fast moving, they don´t tire that fast and i can chase my foes down quit well - the swordme are very quickly tired.
Last but not least: If Gauls were a quite civilized people, why the hell to all their standard units fight naked, aside the fact that they don´t wear any armour? Is armour something, that was invented only by others? I don´t get it, seeing naked fanatics, ok, seems reasomable, but, no matter how cold, they still would fight naked

[Quinn Inuit]

I see. I'll make the swordsmen dense, too, then. Wien1938 made a strong case that that's how they fought.

TBH, I don't have the slightest idea how Gauls were armoured. I only looked up their arms. I tend to just leave things as they were in RTRPE unless I run into a source that indicates otherwise.

For the record, I do know that they had naked fanatics, though their use declined during this period. I also know that the use of heavily armoured soldiers of the chieftains increased proportionately (more or less), and these will be represented by TIC Ambacti as soon as I get time to add them in. I have no idea how the line soldiers were armoured.

[Scutarii]

I would give them a bit of armour. Maybe 2 - 4 points...

Oh, and another thing: For the elite German Swords (the berskerer ones), it says in their description someting about them wearing armour, but they have a 0 armour value.... For their best unit, I would give them at least a 4 for Armour, the germans didn't send Nobles into battle wearing no armour.

[Quinn Inuit]

Oh, good catch. I'll definitely give the Germans 2-3 pts of armour.

Still not sure about the Gauls. I'll research that some more.