Macedonian balance

[Ettore]

Playing 7.4 i noted Macedonian are very strong much more every other faction. Perhaps because their shield are still 5 or 6 more then Roman scutum that is now 3. I doubt that Macedonian phalanges had more armor then heavy sammintes or Roman or Gallic infantrry with chainmail.

[QwertyMIDX]

Phalanx units lose points of defense skill in exchange for a shield bonus, that way when you flank that it makes more of a difference compared to normal units.

[stalin]

Do you have to flank it from the shieldless (right hand side) then?

[QwertyMIDX]

It's better to, they also have secondary weapon penalties though so if you can get them to use whatever they have in addition to their pike it's better.

[Pritzl]

I'll be honest and say I find the phalanx units far too strong now. On the one hand, this is a good thing given how unwieldy they are to control. On the other, that still doesn't help the AI as much as it helps the human player. Using just 5-6 units of even mercenary phalangites to pin the enemy while my missile troops pepper the enemy and samnite shock troops/polybian legions flank them is a guaranteed heroic victory every time. It's gotten to the point that one of my stacks has gotten so powerful experience-wise no enemy will stand and fight - they all run either on the campaign map or battle map before contact is made.

[stalin]

Those mercenary phalangites are Phezateroii one of the best greek units and using those as romans sort of defeats the purpose of trying to get a challenging game. I only use mercs to boost small cities populations (buy and disband) the game is already easy as is. I agree that the phallanx factions are next to unbeatable when in human hands the AI can not deal with it. Pin with phallanx, round with peltrasts, pepper from behind and charge the peltrasts: presto auto-rout against any opponent especially if you take care of the 10 star general first (the one charging the phallanx head on).
But those issues can be blamed on CA not the mod team, raising the morale and increasing fatigue in the present build has made my game much much better.
The barbarian archers eat general's bodyguards for lunch that i find weird. Taken out of the skirmish mode they win one on one in melee nearly every time against rebel generals so i use them as a super unit patrolling the countryside looking for those dirty terrorists hiding in the vegetation
Try a unit of those (Sotaris?) against a unit of Equites romani and have them use their spears in melee even with 10-15 charges the archers win on medium

[QwertyMIDX]

I'm finally getting a chance to work with 1.5 stats and AI so hopefully things will be better for everyone now.

[stalin]

Oh don't misunderstand.Things are good. The BITC*Hing is just good quality betatesting. Beware of greeks bearing gifts though. 1.5 has its own problems.

[Pritzl]

Stalin, while I see your point, a) I wasn't complaining; b) I'm not going to limit my options just to give the AI a better chance. The challenge becomes winning for the least number of casualties. :wink:

Besides, I rarely play the game purely for the challenge - no AI in any game to date comes even close to being truly challenging. I play it for the roleplaying, and this particular general "hates clever-clever greeks" so he started off buying these mercs to throw them to their doom in battle saving his prized samnite shock troops the brunt of any initial onslaught as they were dwindling. Unfortunately the danged phalanxes did so well he ended up adopting them in lieu of his Polybian legions. However, he's the only one of two generals doing this right now. The other one is in North Africa and simply has to make do with whatever mercenaries are available. (the majority of legions are being diverted to Gaul and the Peloponese leaving him scrounging for men)


Speaking of Polybian legions, I'm quite surprised by the "excellent morale" of hastati and how it contrasts with how quickly they rout if things turn south. Quite frankly, I almost prefer the pre-Polybian hastati to these guys. Or perhaps the fact that I'm actually trying to faithfully reproduce the Roman checkerboard that's messing things up. (perhaps because of the gaps each unit has both flanks exposed as far as the game is concerned?)

[stalin]

I actually enjoy baiting the phallanxes with my hastati then fallling back so my checkerboard can swallow the units from the sides(after raping them with pilii). Leave them head on with a phalanx for a minute then they run like little girls, but so would I.

[Pritzl]

Well, that's the thing, it doesn't even require phalanxes head on for Polybian hastati to rout it seems. Scutarii, falxmen and caetreti (sp?) have all achieved this feat. So much so that I now make sure to commit hastati units in pairs vs. any single unit at all times and often will throw in a unit of principes for good measure.

[Leonidas480bc]

I started playing as the Greeks as i allways do and found out that the slingers are a killer unit (because they get armor peircing bullets/long range) my armies have 5 of them per stack. Against mercenary phalangites firing at them from the front i can hardly kill 1 with all 5 slinger units(60 per unit) fiiring. From the flank or rear i can normally do 3-5 kills, now here is the strange part i can kill 8-10 when they rout from behind with my slingers. the most vulnerable to sling bullets so far are cavalry. I allways concentrate my fire on the unit im going to charge my cav into, or to kill the enemy general.