Missile weapons, in need of nerfing?

[Quinn Inuit]

O.K., I think we may need to reduce the effectiveness of our missile troops. I was going to write this yesterday, but our power went out right when I started typing.

Here's what we've got right now:

Slingers
Normal: 2
Elite: 3

Archers
Normal: 4
Elite: 5

Javelinmen
Normal: 6
Elite/German: 7
Elephant: 8 (they're right above people chucking pointy things at their heads--I think that deserves an extra point)


However, the more I read about different battles, the more I find that missile troops didn't have a huge impact. Even at Carrhae, the missile troops seem to have mostly tied the Romans down and ground them down; it was the cataphracts that really did the killing. Also, the adoption by the Sarmatians of armoured lancers makes no sense if the horse archers of the Scythians (whom they gradually displaced) were more effective as a decision arm.

Therefore, I propose reducing the strength of archers to 3-4, at minimum. Do you think we should make slings 1-2, archers 2-3, and javelins 5-6?

[Apex]

I absolutely agree. Although the missiles power has been reduced in compare to previuos mods and vanilla, I think they are still a bit too powerfull. They should be mostly effective only when firing to the rear or to unarmored units, or inceidary fire. Especially on VH battle maps AI's missile are really crazy powerfull in compare to mine.

I think archers and slingers having 2-normal, 3-elite is just enough considering that they have to gather an experience to became an effective missile troops. Plus don't forget weapons uppgrade.

Javelinmen maybe 4-5. They are not heavy pilas and I don't know how good training javelinmen got. I think they were recruited from poorest classes. If you grab a guy from street and let him throw a javelin you wouldn't be impressed I quess. Again, an exp. and weapon uppgrade would make a difference. What do you think?

[Mogan]

Yeah, they definitly need nerfing. Normal javelineers with three bronze chevrons and one weapon upgrade have 10 attack. I think that's overpowered.

[Juan_de_Marco]

I agree!

more melee scrums.


(seriously, for realism. okay and for fun too )

[Caesar Augustus]

O.K., I think we may need to reduce the effectiveness of our missile troops. I was going to write this yesterday, but our power went out right when I started typing.

Here's what we've got right now:

Slingers
Normal: 2
Elite: 3

Archers
Normal: 4
Elite: 5

Javelinmen
Normal: 6
Elite/German: 7
Elephant: 8 (they're right above people chucking pointy things at their heads--I think that deserves an extra point)


However, the more I read about different battles, the more I find that missile troops didn't have a huge impact. Even at Carrhae, the missile troops seem to have mostly tied the Romans down and ground them down; it was the cataphracts that really did the killing. Also, the adoption by the Sarmatians of armoured lancers makes no sense if the horse archers of the Scythians (whom they gradually displaced) were more effective as a decision arm.

Therefore, I propose reducing the strength of archers to 3-4, at minimum. Do you think we should make slings 1-2, archers 2-3, and javelins 5-6?

I agree, missile weapons should definitely be taken down a notch or two, currently they are slightly off the ideal balance, IMO. I think we want them at the point where they'll hurt unarmoured units alot, but should be significantly less effective against heavily armoured troops. Obviously for AP troops we want them to be much more effective versus heavy infantry.

Would it be worth reducing the ammo for slings and archers too?

[Quinn Inuit]

O.K., scrums it is!

Wow, I'm surprised at the outpouring of support. I had no idea this suggestion would be that popular.

I can remove the ability to upgrade missile weapons, but I can't do anything about the XP boost, sorry. That's actually come up here before. It's a pain, but it's hard-coded.

I'd like to keep missile numbers roughly as they are, since I think they reflect the correct ammo amounts now. One exception: I think too many units have four javelins.

I've always gotten the impression that arrows made a bit more of an impression than sling stones, hence the higher attack. Does anyone know anything about that? Right now I'm leaning toward reducing the archer attack levels to 3-4.

I'm against reducing javelin attack levels anymore, at least for the moment. Since you only get 4 javelin attacks (as opposed to 20-30 arrow attacks), I think it makes sense to make them a little more powerful. Plus, it was a pretty popular weapon.


One thing I totally forgot in the first post: with the reduced morale numbers, the missile morale reduction will be proportionately much more important.

[Juan_de_Marco]

That sounds about right; missiles were not nearly as lethal as hand to hand combat. but for morale, oh boy, empires have been lost that way I think though that arrows or stones did not make a big difference in lethality (hence attack) but more in the social way: you did not need to be a professional soldier to throw stones - shepherds and countryside people in ancient are usually assumed to be able to wield a sling, while shooting an arrow over a distance and hitting a target at least requires some basic training.

[JaNuZ99]

As someone who loves his infantry i love the idea

Hand to hand over missiles any day!

[leemyster]

Even though i'm a bit of a missile fan i would say that a decrease of 1 for most slingers and archers would be good. Though considering some missile are quite weak already i would prefer them to be kept. If low damage missiles e.g. tracian/gallic slingers are reduced then the recruitment should be put down as the slingers would be poorly trained.

However, you should try to retain the l33tness of certain missile units e.g. cretan archers, rhodian/baleric slingers, numidian cavalry etc. Either these are kept the same or their recruitment/upkeep is increased thus meaning players cant just spam purchase loads of elite missile units instead of recruting the cheaper local missile units.

Also, for german infantry take away their 4 javelins and replace it with 2. To compensate for this i feel the attack for german infantry should be increased as its a bit silly that german spearman have the same attack as warband considering that the germans were feriocous warriors.

[Carados]

O.K., I think we may need to reduce the effectiveness of our missile troops. I was going to write this yesterday, but our power went out right when I started typing.

Global warming for you.




The biggest problem is the experience and weapon bonus. We can migate this to some extent by removing the weapon bonus, but this isn't perfect because it leaves some units at a disadvantage - disabling weapon upgrades for principles for example. We could ignore this for combat infantry because they only get two shots anyway. Alternatively, we could just remove weapon bonuses altogether and just stick with the armour upgrades, reaching level 3 rather than 2 (and, as a by-product, ever so slightly improving the odds against missile fire)? Perhaps a bit over the top that though.

The reality is that, no matter how low we put these attack values, once the unit gets a couple of experience points they'll start hitting units hard. 3 exp slingers have a range attack of 4, 6 experience strike at 7. Because the attack power is so low to start off with, the apparent strength of experienced units is magnified greatly. 1 to 4 is a 300% increase in power. Now take a javelin at attack 6 with 3 experience - 9 attack: that is only 50% more powerful. Quite a stark contrast. When you enter the 10+ range, which is typical of infantry melee attack, that 3 experience provides only a 30% bonus to attack, at best.

I have two more "solutions" on top of the weapon upgrade removal. The first one would be to double unit stats. This effectively halves the bonus that experience gives to units and thus reduces the overall power of them all. Um... I forgot what the other "solution" was, hah! Anyway, the problem with doubling stats is that it greatly decreases the survivability of unarmoured units against missile fire. In the absence of a shield, a unit getting hit would suffer double casualties because defence skill is ignored (it's worth pointing out that with a shield the unit would suffer the same number of casualties since doubled shield is against double attack - theorectically speaking anyway).


Out of interest - what experiences have people had against the Berber armies in Africa?

[Caesar Augustus]

Good points Carados

Versus Numidia in Africa, my experience in regards to army composition is generally 4 - 6 Libyan spearmen (I think these probably ought to be faction units for Carthage by the way - I don't know anyone else who used them?), a couple of units of desert infantry (the ones that look alot like sparabara), a massive contingent of faction and AOR skirmishers - at least 6 - 8, 3 - 4 slingers, and a couple of units of jav cav. I don't know how typical this is for everyone though?

[Ramiro]

ABSOLUTELY AGREE

In fact i have to confess that when i HAVE to win a battle a usually do it by rellying heavily on misilistic units (even playing as barbaric factions). Usually my archer and sling units have more experience than my elites. It is unconcious, but sometimes it feels like cheating.

In RTR FoE the slingers units DO NOT gain experience, this could be implemented to the archers and javelins (specially of certain factions like barbaric ones)

[Seleukos Nikator]

what about horse archers?
sarmatians/scythians and parthians (AI) are always very weak in my campaigns and tend to lose. will you nerf the HA's too?

[Mogan]

I think all units should be able to gain experience, since a man using a sling for a long time will gradually become better. But I suggest we remove all weapon upgrades for missile units except one for archers and javelins. That way, we'll evade the problem of super-missile units anhilating virtually any unit you throw at it.

[Caesar Augustus]

Hmm, I think if the effectiveness of missile weapons is reduced, then the troops using them will gain experience more slowly (this is assuming experience is based on kills).

Presumably the effectiveness of horse archers will be reduced too. Slightly off topic - I heard somewhere that horse bows were smaller than regular bows, and as such were slightly more powerful but with significantly shorter range. Does anyone know if this is right?

What are the weapon / armour upgrades supposed to represent in game, and how historical are they?

[JaNuZ99]

Hmm, I think if the effectiveness of missile weapons is reduced, then the troops using them will gain experience more slowly (this is assuming experience is based on kills).

Presumably the effectiveness of horse archers will be reduced too. Slightly off topic - I heard somewhere that horse bows were smaller than regular bows, and as such were slightly more powerful but with significantly shorter range. Does anyone know if this is right?

What are the weapon / armour upgrades supposed to represent in game, and how historical are they?

I'm no expert but before i lent it to a friend of mine i was the proud owner of The ancient world by Richard A. Gabriel, in the book there was a topic on calvary, specifically calvary in the east is talked about actually;y, even a brief excerpt on camel calvary, but anyways here's the google.books link to the chapter

here

In here the author does mention some stuff about mounted calavry, idk if it'll be of much help, but i'd thought you might like a look.

also for the Armour/weapons this is only my personal opinion, so it can be said its speculation on my part, but arn't the upgrades supposed to signify things such as the gradual change of armaments as cultures encountered other cultures on the battle field, how Rome for example changed not only its military system but like the Greeks changed their style of Armour, helmets,swords, the material used (ie. bronze,silver.. not sure about the gold though) I particularly think of the gladius which is supposed to be a remake of the sword used by the spanish merc Carthage employed in tis armies during the first punic war, or how the pilum was remade so that once thrown into an enemy it could not be thrown back by him becuase the shaft broke or something of the sort.

I'm finding this article very educational regarding weapons and amour for the romans at least, it gives me a basic idea of the weapons employed by them and even goes on to compare Rome and Macedon's armies during the Macedonian wars

here

[Seleukos Nikator]

Presumably the effectiveness of horse archers will be reduced too.

uh, please don't do this. sarmatians and parthians won't stand a chance to develop. they are inferior right now; if you nerf'em, they will tend to lose in between 10 years from campaign start.

[Sardaukar One]

However, the more I read about different battles, the more I find that missile troops didn't have a huge impact. Even at Carrhae, the missile troops seem to have mostly tied the Romans down and ground them down; it was the cataphracts that really did the killing. Also, the adoption by the Sarmatians of armoured lancers makes no sense if the horse archers of the Scythians (whom they gradually displaced) were more effective as a decision arm.

I don't know about that. When Anthony's general, Ventidius Bassus, counter-attacked the Parthians in Asia Minor in 39 BC, the cataphracts got annhilated. What was missing? The reliance on HA's as the main arm!

The Parthian HA's caused much misery to the army of Crassus. They wore them down, harrassed them from all sides and gave them no rest. For every one soldier killed, they may well have injured three or four.
The result being a further reduction in effectiveness.
Without the HA's the cataphracts don't do diddly. Certainly, the cataphracts make it possible for the quick kill.
Without the cataphracts, maybe Crassus' army scrapes back home? Maybe! But I doubt it!

[Sardaukar One]

As for the topic, I think that pike units seems to take way too much damage from the front.
It would be one think if my units were being peppered from the flank and rear, then I don't have a problem with taking casualties. But typically, I seem to take obscene casualties from the front.

I also think javelin and pilum armed troops do too much damage.

Saying that, I don't think they are too out of whack.

Also, if the enemy archers also have M-16's, well, thats what your cavalry is for!

Go get em cataphracts!

[Carados]

Do you play on VH though? There is absolutely nothing we can do about that +7 attack bonus, more so since we do all our balancing on medium battles.

uh, please don't do this. sarmatians and parthians won't stand a chance to develop. they are inferior right now; if you nerf'em, they will tend to lose in between 10 years from campaign start.

Not neccessarily. The Sarmatians will be capable of hording and they'll also be the first to adopt the cataphract.

The Parthian problem comes down to stopping the Seleucids from overwhemling them early on. I've taken away all of those gold shield units that were garrisoning all the settlements. They'll start off with just two concentrations of troops in Syria and Mesopotamia.