EB after a dozen or so turns

[Carpathian Wolf]

Just wanted to share my impressions of the game and afterward put some questions forward.

First off I want to say, great mod. Wow. Playing RTW vanilla compared to EB is like jumping out of a wheel barrel and getting into a BMW. Great work and I can't wait to see what is done for medieval 2.

Ok my first "oh wow" moment was in my first battle. I started a campaign for Dacia since historically they are a faction I like and I wanted to start out small before moving onto something bigger. I might do several campaigns at once. Anyway the oh wow moment was when I was going to Sarmisegetuza and the AI attacked me and on the map there was a forest...an actual forest you had to zoom down to ground level to really see. Next the combat between the troops seemed much more realistic. I hated the vanilla way troops moved like they were a school of fish in a fish tank. The fighting felt slower but more realistic. Like you could feel each individual troop you are commanding and you had to work to win your battles.

The recruitment is so expensive but I see where they were going with that. I also like how the characters get much more varied traits. Before if you got 7 or 10 it was a lot. Now my characters have like 20 or 30 characteristics that really do affect things.

Now I have a question. Is there a way to do the classic Roman checkerboard formation with the Romans with the Princepes, Hastati, Triarii etc? Or do you just have to get each individual unit and put them in place as best you can...

[ISA Gunner]

Glad you find EB to be an amazing mod! Although only a fool would not.
Anyway, unfortunately you do have to set up the formations yourself. This however, is an excellent guide if you're playing as Rome.
http://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showth...=Roman%20guide
How to structure your armies historically, how to position your legions in battle, how to conquer historically etc. Great guide. Helped me out a lot and made playing as Rome a lot more fun.

[torongill]

There is a way to have the checkerboard formation, you need to install Marcus Camillus' player formations with the appropriate buttons. This is the thread: http://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showth...Formation-Mods
I suggest you install Sinuhet’s 7.0 AI Battle Formations and Marcus Camillus's Player Formations with the new buttons. I don't advise you to install Darth Formations, because his AI tries to outflank too much, to the extreme of not having a battleline, which is ridiculous.
I'm not blowing my own horn, but I disagree with a few of Quintus Sertonius's ideas, mainly about the Polybian legion, you can read about it here:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...60#post6774560
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...38#post6780338

[Carpathian Wolf]

Thanks very much! Very helpful! A few small questions. Is the Sica of the Dacian skirmishers an AP weapon?

And in EB are there any drawbacks to an AP weapon? Does the "fire arrows" option trade in accuracy and rate of fire for armor piercing quality (fire) and causing panic?

I noticed in RTW you need to alt click with your cav to take out their melee weapons.

What is the difference between that and them using their lances? Is there ever a time you prefer to use the lance in melee over the melee weapon?

My Dacian Light Phalanx, i saw that they have spears and a sword. What's the trade off of using one over the other? How can I control which they use?

I noticed that some units (such as the Romans I used in historical battle) will throw only one javelin and then charge into the battle even if they are the 2nd line and in guard mode. Is there a way to stop this? It's really annoying.

[Entropy Judge]

And in EB are there any drawbacks to an AP weapon? Does the "fire arrows" option trade in accuracy and rate of fire for armor piercing quality (fire) and causing panic?

No idea on the Sica, and I don't remember the site that had the unit information. :/ Anyway, there aren't any real 'drawbacks' to AP weapons, but they do tend to have lower Lethality (chance to kill instead of knockdown) than non-AP weapons. So, against well-Armoured units, you'll get more hits with AP than non-AP weapons; depending on the amount of armour, one may be better than the other.

Fire Arrows have a decrease in Accuracy and Rate of Fire, but they don't get an AP effect, only the Morale effect.

I noticed in RTW you need to alt click with your cav to take out their melee weapons.
What is the difference between that and them using their lances? Is there ever a time you prefer to use the lance in melee over the melee weapon?

That's true for all units that have two weapons - for example, the Roman infantry have the Pila for their Primary, which is why simple Right-clicking has them throw. Alt-clicking simply charges with their melee weapon.

Anyway, cavalry-wise: Lances have a huge Charge bonus, but a low actual attack, though they do tend to be AP weapons. For example (and I'm making this up, since I can't check the stats), Brihentin - Gallic Heavy Cavalry - might have an AP Lance attack of 4 with a Charge bonus of 26, which is great for the initial charge. Once in melee, however, the attack is still only 4, and it's slower than the 12 Attack Sword they also have.

My Dacian Light Phalanx, i saw that they have spears and a sword. What's the trade off of using one over the other? How can I control which they use?

Spears are good against Cavalry, but have a penalty against other Infantry units. Like Cavalry, use Alt-clicking to switch to the Secondary Weapon.

I noticed that some units (such as the Romans I used in historical battle) will throw only one javelin and then charge into the battle even if they are the 2nd line and in guard mode. Is there a way to stop this? It's really annoying.

If you want them to throw both pila, you can either put them on Fire at Will, or you can manually halt them after they start moving forward to charge and have them attack again. FaW mode is probably a bit faster/easier, since trying to get them to halt and throw again usually has them shuffle around to get the formation right again.

[torongill]

I'm not really sure what do you call a sica if it's the curved polearm weapon of the thracian peltastas or the drapanai, yes, it is Armor piercing and also has really terrible lethality(.26 to .28, whereas the gladius of the romans has 0.11-0.13).
The drawbacks of the AP weapons in EB is the same as in the basic RTW - if a weapon has AP properties, the combat calculations lower the armor defence of the target in half, so if for example you fight a hoplite with 12 armor with an ap weapon like the falx, his armor will be calculated as 6. But when fighting an enemy with 0 armor, there's no bonus to the ap weapon. Also some AP weapons have lower lethality than non-ap.
The fire arrows are more inaccurate(if you can describe the carpet-bombing arrowfire of the archer units as accurate in any way ) and have lower rate of fire. The trade is their terrifying nature.
About cavalry, with alt+click you force them to use their sidearms. While some of them have ap properties, the thing is that when charging with their close combat weapons, the cavalry has less charge bonus, sometimes just half of the lance-charge one. The charge bonus you see in the description of the unit is for the primary weapon, i.e. spear/lance. EB is really made in such a way to force you to employ your cavalry in hit and run to hit again method Plus, some units have much more lethality of their lances as opposed to their sidearms. This is from my EDU, which has slightly modified stats for the equites consulares(early roman general bodyguards):

;237
type roman cavalry eqvites consvlares
dictionary roman_cavalry_eqvites_consvlares ; Equites Consulares
category cavalry
class heavy
voice_type General_1
soldier roman_cavalry_equitesconsulares, 6, 0, 1.4
officer ebofficer_roman_early_standard
mount saddle horse light
mount_effect elephant -1, chariot +2
attributes sea_faring, general_unit, hide_forest, hardy, ;no_custom
formation 1.5, 4, 3, 6, 3, square
stat_health 1, 1
stat_pri 7, 30, no, 0, 0, melee, simple, piercing, spear, 160 ,0.4
stat_pri_attr ap
stat_sec 12, 15, no, 0, 0, melee, simple, slashing, sword, 0 ,0.16
stat_sec_attr no
stat_pri_armour 14, 14, 3, metal
stat_sec_armour 0, 0, flesh
stat_heat 4
stat_ground 0, 0, -4, -2
stat_mental 15, disciplined, highly_trained
stat_charge_dist 40
stat_fire_delay 0
stat_food 60, 300
stat_cost 1, 1777, 0, 80, 120, 1777
ownership seleucid, slave


As you see, the roman bodyguards have 0.4 lethality of their lances and 30 charge bonus = 37 attack with 0.4 lethality. You can see very well that the combination of the primary weapon+its charge+its lethality makes for a devastating first charge. There's one low point, of sorts - the delay between consequtive attacks is 16 seconds(represented by 160 tenths of a second), so you can't just charge, retreat to dress ranks and charge again. The second charge will be done with sidearms, meaning 27 attack with 0.16 lethality
Also, while in a melee against cavalry, I tend to fight with spears, since the spear attribute gives a bonus against cavalry, as I've already said.
As for your dacian phalanx, the spears have more attack points but suffer a penalty against infantry. But they have more pushing power than swords, which is a good thing if you're trying to keep your formation.
If you have BI enabled, these spearmen usually have the ability to make a shieldwall, which is visually like the hoplite phalanx and in a shieldwall with spears they are great for keeping enemy at distance.

[Carpathian Wolf]

The Sica is from the Dacian skirmishers. The first unit on the Getai roster.

http://www.europabarbarorum.com/fact...tai_units.html

What is "BI enabled" ?

[torongill]

No, the sica doesn't have ap properties. I think only the drapanai, the axemen and the thracian peltastas and the elite thracian infantry have ap melee weapons. check the EDU.
BI is the Barbarian Invasions expansion for RTW. It's possible to play it, if you have one of the submods of EB. I use it because of the shieldwall formation(when you have hoplites in the shieldwall, it looks exactly like a hoplite phalanx and I love that ).

[Carpathian Wolf]

I bought RTW with steam so I have BI.

[athanaric]

The sica is classified as a "good" short sword (like the gladius), which means no AP but decent enough lethality and attack.

The Getai are the best Barbarian faction for starters, because they have the most fail-safe unit roster (although I find the Germanic units more interesting). Plus, they have easy access to Greek, Skythian, Celtic, and Germanic units. A good choice.

[Ludens]

It should also be noted that the large AP weapons (rhomhaia, falx, Celtic two-handed swords and especially two-handed lances) are slower in combat than most other weapons. The stats don't tell the whole story.

[Carpathian Wolf]

I like the Dacian diversity and they battle style seems to be very active and mixed. Out of all the "barbarian" factions they're the most varied in their units. Although I would have liked to see Dacian kataphracts like the Dacians had on Trajan's column. I know some were Sarmatian so maybe I can take over a Sarmatian portion of territory and hire from there.

[Marie Louise von Preussen]

I had a guide on the quicunx, and quite a detailed one if you ask, but I think it was erased. Anyway, if you want to preserve your formations while marching, line up your troops in quicunx, select all, press g to cancel the group, then press g again to group units separately. They won't mess up when they move.

[Carpathian Wolf]

So i've had a bit of a history with Macedonia. I started out at war with them using the Getai and I sent my diplomat to shake his fist at them for money in exchange for a truce. Come back several years later and I find that they're still kind of a runt surrounded by Epirus and the Greeks to the south. I keep asking them for money and they don't give it to me so I send a Getai army and I sack Pella and killed Antigonus. Was kind of epic, he died in a sea of Drapanai. Anyway I send my diplomat to another Macedonian city and offer the city back if they become my protectorate. They refuse so instead I go try to give it to Epirus in exchange for a bunch of tribute. And they being my allies reply that they think that i'll give them the city but that i'll take it back afterward. So I break my alliance with them as well.

What gives? Why wouldn't they want freaking Pella? Isn't that what the their King wanted? Pella is really nice, still in the early game and it's making almost 3,000. That's more than all my other Getai cities combined. But I still have 2 cities in the south of the Balkans to take and I want to take some lands in western Anatolia too. At the same time I have the Sarmatians north east of me floating about and their armies look pretty vicious. I've been keeping a small mobile army. Almost every city i've taken I have besieged with a smaller force to draw the enemy out. Once I had a small force of skirmishers and archers and I drew the entire enemy army out, retreated all my troops except the general who ran into the enemy city gates as some enemy units were retreating, captured all the gates so their army couldn't get back in and I capped the city.

[Faramir D'Andunie]

Not exactly sure what confused you. However, keep in mind that the AI in Rome is higly uncooperative and tends to believe the human players to be its greatest threat no matter what. And usually refuses to sign a ceasfire even when doomed.

Oh there was a Forced diplomacy mod, highly recomend it if you like a roleplay element, allows you to have the AI accept any diplomatic offer or so. Check it out!