javelinmen a bit too powerful?

[adecoy95]

i am playing another game as crown of aragorn today, and after a few battles i realized (well, more like remembered) that their javelin-men just cannot be stopped! while in a prolonged battle, they probably cannot compete with crossbowmen for kills, they more than make up for it in how quickly they dispatch their enemy, the less soldiers attacking your own the better imo! i have seen entire units have their numbers cut in half in under 10 seconds, and not just spearmen, but all sorts of heavily armed foe.

combining this with their very fast recruitment rate you can easily have 20 stack armies with 9-12 javelin throwing units. plus they are soooooo cheap to maintain, something like 175 a unit!

on top of all of this, they are most defiantly not pushovers in melee, while i have not tested this extensively, they seem more than capable of going toe to toe with quite a few different units.

so far i have had some wins i just didn't think possible, i managed to take all of Italy with only 3 army stacks, mainly javelin-men guarded by a few pavise spear militia and some knights of Santiago as backup. i didn't even retrain my forces because i was cutting through the land so fast i just dident have time!

so, whats everyone elses view of the javelin-men?

[Ichon]

I think javelins have long been seen as some of the most powerful infantry. The javelin cavalry as well are general assassins. Not all factions have easy access to them and Aragon has fewer access to knights to make up for the Almaughvers which are probably the most powerful javelin men. Most of the other javelin infantries have poor melee stats being classed as skirmishers. Almaughvers are on of my favorite units though- based on Catalans and other rough Spanish fighters which traded raids with Moors for few centuries. One of the few infantries before pikes which were apparently able to defeat heavy cavalry charges sometimes.

[Lugiahua]

we should be glad there are no heavy javelinmen that are also good in melee...lol

[Rilder]

we should be glad there are no heavy javelinmen that are also good in melee...lol

Yeah that was the previous total war.

Of course (In EB at least I can't even remember vanilla) as pretty much every faction you could fill your front-line with Javelin thrower infantry, Javelins were common in those days, Heh.

[Ichon]

Almaughavars and Noble's Sons from Lithuania are the closest I think but the Noble's Sons have only 2 javelins.

[Dark Lord's Heir]

Javelins have saved my Empire from certain destruction many times. When the Turks tried to wrestle my castles away from me I always placed my Acritae and mounted Acritae near the gates and once their cavalry and infantry came through, they launched their javelins toward them, taking out lots of their cavalry/infantry and most of the time their general as well. I'm glad javelins are powerful but when I see them being able to kill heavy plated Late Era troops, it kinda makes me think if that actually happened historically. Anyone know if javelins were still effective by the time of Plate armored armies?

[Forever Steadfast]

I think it'd have to be one helluva sharp javelin, and he'd have to be one helluva strong man.

[adecoy95]

I think it'd have to be one helluva sharp javelin, and he'd have to be one helluva strong man.

i was thinking the same thing, javelins couldn't possibly me more effective than crossbows in real life could they?

[Ichon]

Plate that could completely stop a javelin with a steel tip was actually more rare than you might think from how fast plate spreads in SS. All plate is not created equal. Also there is alot of confusion between partial plate and full plate which actually developed quite late. Most "plate" armor before 15th century was not "full plate" and offered many vulnerabilities. Even after the widespread adoption of full plate it took awhile before high quality steel which was impenetrable to most missile weapons was developed. Even fewer people could afford the highest quality armor which offered such protection. As the armor industry became more industrialized (which led prices to drop) gunpowder weapons arrived and the same metal working technologies were applied to them. Soon all but the best armors became much less useful (though not useless) against gunpowder weapons.

i was thinking the same thing, javelins couldn't possibly me more effective than crossbows in real life could they?

The difference in weight makes up for the difference in velocity for quite awhile. Arrows and bolts travel about 30-70% faster than a very good javelin throw- even more for a poor throw. However they also weigh about 1/8 or so less. World record javelin throws with modern javelins achieved speeds of 30 meters a second while bows do a range between 40 and 55 meters a second depending on the quality of the bow and the archer. So the very best javelin thrower is not that much slower than average archer. Of course javelin is much heavier and it travels less distance and while drag affects it more it is also much higher mass. Amateur javelin throwers can achieve speeds of 20-25 meters a second which is about half the archers but they are throwing something that weighs 6-10x as much.

[Forever Steadfast]

Expert javelinman.

Ignore the top caption. :/

[Lord Humungus]

Yeah, javelins are one of the most cost effective light infantries. Almughavars, acritae, catalans, lusitan javelinmen - these should be used as your main infantry in EE instead of useless spear militia (who can't kill AI general even if outnumbering him 100 to 1).

[SirRobin]

To answer the original poster: yes, I find them a bit too powerful, as their javelins are devastating and they are also good in melee.

Tuning their attack value down a notch might help..

[k/t]

High-end compound bows usually boast a 300+ feet per second arrow speed, at least soon after the arrow leaves. That's 100 m/s. I think a good quality, powerful bow in medieval times would have been able to do something comparable without any trouble.

Also, RC is a well-thought out system based on physics. The attack and armour values weren't randomly picked.

[SirRobin]

Also, RC is a well-thought out system based on physics. The attack and armour values weren't randomly picked.

The attack values reflect both the weapon and the skill of the soldier, as far as I know. So we could turn down the value to reflect troops specializing in throwing the javelin, rather than fighting with it in melee.

The issue is not that the thrown javelins are too powerful, but that the javelinmen are very capable in hand-to-hand fighting as well.

If the above is historically correct, then some other factor could be adjusted to tone them down a bit - perhaps unit replenishment rates and/or cost. Or decrease the unit size.

Or perhaps decrease the amount of javelins each soldier carries to, say, three.

.

[Ichon]

High-end compound bows usually boast a 300+ feet per second arrow speed, at least soon after the arrow leaves. That's 100 m/s. I think a good quality, powerful bow in medieval times would have been able to do something comparable without any trouble.

Also, RC is a well-thought out system based on physics. The attack and armour values weren't randomly picked.

The 300 fps is for modern high end compound bow with high carbon arrow. Probably at least 30% more efficient than natural materials of most bows.

Also that is the velocity immediately after leaving the bow- it slows down right after that.

http://archeryreport.com/2009/12/arr...ference-chart/

Lots of info here on weight and mechanics of the arrow and how heavier vs lighter arrows work.

[preachercheeze]

Historically, the Almughavars where indeed feared by knights because of their deadly aim and brutal ways... There is a chronicle that depict how a knight charged a single Almughav that calmly just aimed his spear and hit the horse dead-on... the knight flew out of the saddle and the Almughav just cut his throat with his butcher-like knife...

It's too bad that there ain't a limit on the number of particular units you could have... In Empire, that is possible, but not in this game AFAIK... Then it could be more historically correct by just managing to recruit maybe 15 units as maximum.... to better depict the small numbers of real Almughav men that served the Aragonian crown....

[RollingWave]

yeah at this point their damage seems too high... on a realistic level the issue was that men can't carry that many javelin and their range is probably even shorter, but the problem is if we set the range any shorter it beomces too hard to handle effectively.

[Moritol]

And after all you can easily counter javelinmen with any other range unit because of their armour.

[Andytheplatypus]

but the problem is if we set the range any shorter it beomces too hard to handle effectively.

What does that mean?

[Ichon]

What does that mean?

Due to current animation sets as previously mentioned. Since the unit starts to load and then aim, then loose... by the time they are just entering step 2 the enemy has closed the gap. As far as I understand it even with new animation sets there is some hard coded obstacles. So the easy solution is just to extend the range a bit. Which I'm fine doing because I think most cavalry already move to fast into a charge already. Range could be smaller and cavalry move more slowly and it would be better.