Liby-Phoenecian Phalanx and other spear units

[Prince of Judah]

I've been noticing, despite efforts to correct it by changing unit stats, that spear units are highly disadvantaged, (unrealistically in my opinion) against sword or axe infantry. Hannibal's Libyan phalanx did extremely well during the punic wars. If you read Livy carefully you can infer that 2 or 3 roman armies were crushed in italy between 212-211. Anywho, supposedly sword infantry get a + 4 attack bonus vs spears, but if this were true, then compensated defense or attack statistics should negate this. It does not. Polybian hastati absolutely crush Liby-Phonecian Hoplites. Hastati with 80 men vs LPHoplites with 120 men. The game itself called it a "Crushing Defeat" when one on one. this seems totally off the wall and unrealistic, as well as unhistorical.

[Quinn Inuit]

Well, how did the battle go? If you let the hastati surround your LPH, then it's probably going to go badly. Did you autocalc it? If so, on what difficulty?

In the next version, things will change a bit.
First, we'll have reform Carthaginian infantry. When you say that Hannibal crushed Roman infantry a few times, bear in mind that he wasn't just using spearmen.
Second, hastati will be 120-size units.
Third, hastati will be a little weaker than they are now, especially compared to a unit as heavily-armoured as the LPH.

Remember, spearmen historically didn't do that well against Roman legions. There's a reason Hannibal re-armed his LPH in Italy. Spearmen are just one part of what made the Carthaginian army effective. Those guys will hold the Romans in place as long as you need them to while you grind them down with your superior cavalry and barbarian allies.

[Prince of Judah]

You are correct. But by Hannibal's, I also mean his father's. The LPH were established during the first punic war and at the time they were only militia, and they were able to score one or two defeats on the romans. LPH set to 3 rows of men still lose against polybian hastati, even though they surround them. I am not totally convinced that it was the phalanx that failed against roman infantry per se. On paper, phalangites can easily crush hastati, and likely defeat principes and triarii. It appears that Hamilcar's LPH phalanx was the reason for the victories. If you up the size of hastati I can definitely see LPH being utterly crushed. Oh by the way, it wasn't autoresolve. The game calculates LPH to be slightly advantaged vs polybian hastati, but in game the polar opposite is the case.

[Quinn Inuit]

That is weird.

O.K., I just ran a couple of tests. It's not the lethality value of the pilum that's causing it, or the light_spear or short_pike attributes. Might be the class of the unit....

[Prince of Judah]

i eagerly await your conclusions. Please note also that Carthaginian Sacred Band do not have the hardy trait. They tire quickly and don't crush hastati like they should. In fact they Lose to the hastati with aproximately even casualties.

[Carados]

Hoplites get a -4 modifier in shrubs.
Hastati have a lethality value of 0.25 for their swords.
LP-Spearmen have a lethality value of 0.2 for their spears.

The Sacred Band won in my case, but they still suffered 50% casualties.

[Quinn Inuit]

The lethality values are actually equivalent--they're what you need to balance the skeletons. My only concern was that the hastati pilum lethality was bleeding into the sword lethality, but it's not.

Also, that's a good point about rough terrain, but I've been conducting my tests on the grassy flatland map, which hopefully doesn't have that.

[Quinn Inuit]

Ah hah! It's the skeleton! The EB overhand skeleton has a different attack rate or something, so the lethality rate is unbalanced.

[Quinn Inuit]

O.K., it looks like any units using the europa barbarorum skeleton fs_o_f_spearman need their spear lethality bumped up to 0.33.

However, after all of the unit watching I just did, I think I like the fs_s1_hoplite skeleton better, and it's properly balanced at the current level. Fortunately, the only two units that are affected here are the LP hoplites and the Sacred Band, so if you just switch those to S1's skeleton, you're fine.

[Prince of Judah]

will either of you release a hotfix? Also, I would like to point out that LPH are weaker than generic hoplites. They should be at the very minimum equivalent to generic hoplites, since LPH were pretty elite historically.

[pannonian]

will either of you release a hotfix? Also, I would like to point out that LPH are weaker than generic hoplites. They should be at the very minimum equivalent to generic hoplites, since LPH were pretty elite historically.

Just go into dmb and change the skeleton for Sacred Band hoplites and Liby-Phoenicians. Compare with the other hoplites until you see what Quinn is on about, then copy and paste.

Edit: Just make sure you back up your dmb file before you do this.

[Prince of Judah]

Alright I'll take a look. I've changed this type of data before so I should be able to figure it out.
EDIT:
With the correction, Sacred band still lost with 3 men during the rout.

[Quinn Inuit]

So you changed their skeleton to fs_s1_hoplite? I ran that skeleton against the EB skeleton with the LP stats changed to that of the hoplite unit (except with the doubled lethality on the LPs) they were fighting and the battle was almost dead even.

[Prince of Judah]

yes it was almost even for me to. Yes i changed the skeleton. But the sacred band actually still lost.

[Quinn Inuit]

Bizarre. I'll have to do more testing on that. I really thought S1's was twice as lethal.

In the meantime, change the skeleton back to the original and just double the lethality. I tested that very carefully.

Now, bear in mind that it will still fight a little different because it's a spear unit, but the cav bonus you get makes up for that. Theoretically, you can also replace the primary weapons attributes on the two units with "no", but I think that papers over the genuine differences between sword and spear units.

[Quinn Inuit]

Darn it, I swear that worked last night, but tests tonight indicate that tripling the lethality to 0.60 is called for with the S1 skeleton.

Correction:
That originally said EB, but I was mistaken about which skeleton I had on. The EB skeleton actually seems to need a lethality of 1.0 or so.