Appea Gaedotos OP

[zukkus]

I have only DEI mod installed and am playing as Rome Junei. On about turn 80 or so (252 BC), one of the tribes in cisalpine invaded northern italy with 10 appea gaedotos in their 20 unit stack. They promptly steamroll everything in their way...

I looked this unit up on honga.net - it requires a tier 6 warrior code tech and a level 4 barbarian hall. This is out of a 1 region tribe that recently (5 turns before) conquered 1 region of its neighbor.

I've attached a picture with this units stats in battle:
Melee attack: 34
Melee Defense :95
charge bonus: 49
weapon damage: 20 (MAX)
weapon deadliness: 2
armor: 50
base morale: 84
health: 57

So this unit, according to honga.net costs 940 and has an upkeep of 140, my principes (late) cost in game 840 or so and 140 or more for upkeep. Yet their stats are lower.


So, can anyone explain to me why I should endure this masochism of low income, low happiness, worse units for the same price, all as rome? I registered here just to see if I have some settings wrong or if a recent nerf/buff spree caused some kind of major unintended imbalance.

As it stands in the campaign, its 252 BC, and this 1-2 region tribe has 20 units stacks with 1/2 their units being cost 1000, tier 6 tech, level 4 building spearmen with 95 melee defense. They were involved in a bloody war with their neighbor for 75/80 turns. I had my only spy watching and both sides lost tons of troops during the war. Now they have 2 regions and 10 super principes. Should i unistall this mod or what?

[KAM 2150]

Well, they are pumped up on bonuses if you haven't noticed. Those are not their base stats, although I can tell that their morale is for sure too high (looks like without a bonus their morale is around 75).

[muchandmore]

Those guys look way too powerful. Surely under no circumstances should barbarian imitation hoplites have better stats than actual hoplites?

[Augustusng]

I thought the hoplite phalanx ability was removed for barbarian "imitation hoplites."

[KAM 2150]

I thought that too ; P

[TheOrangeProject]

For starters, which difficulty are you playing on? Everything above are not the real unit stats. Also if the unit upkeep of the enemy is lower than most of yours then you are probably playing above normal campaign difficulty.

Besides that my triari have some better and some worse stats. Also their morale is easily explainable via techs and general traits. Besides that, as far as I can tell, the AI tends to mainly research military stuff.

Also no one forces you to play the mod. And if it is too hard, you should maybe lower the difficulty. Divide et Impera is not vanilla and you are not the first one saying it is too hard.

[tungri_centurio]

indeed you should lower the difficulty to normal,if you have problems with the campaign and battles.i followed that advice after my last try with rome,witch was a total disaster,getting gangraped from all sides with supersoldiers,and have a balanced campaign so far,maybe a bit to easy.

[Daergar]

Should i unistall this mod or what?

Probably, if you cannot come to terms with the development process, meaning every single thing will not be 100% correct all the time. If this impact your masochism or not is actually irrelevant.

If triple-A games continuously get away with launching in a beta state for 50 or 60 euro, surely even someone as entitled as you can take a step back and give a free-of-charge, distilled from pure passion and win, modification a little frakking slack?

And yes, obviously something is a little iffy with the mentioned unit. The horror, kill it with fire?

[geala]

The AI in the campaign map is obviously supported by scripted additional income and what else ever, and for good reason. Otherwise it would be a boring play because the AI would be restricted too much due to dump codes. That's for having a small tribe with many super units.

Maybe the stats of the unit are too high in some aspects. If you are annoyed only by one or a few units instead of throwing the mod away it's rather easy to change it yourself in the DeI packs with Pack File Manager. The stats are in the first pack, in the db, in the files of the land_units_tables and main_units_tables mainly.

[zukkus]

For starters, which difficulty are you playing on? Everything above are not the real unit stats. Also if the unit upkeep of the enemy is lower than most of yours then you are probably playing above normal campaign difficulty.

Besides that my triari have some better and some worse stats. Also their morale is easily explainable via techs and general traits. Besides that, as far as I can tell, the AI tends to mainly research military stuff.

Also no one forces you to play the mod. And if it is too hard, you should maybe lower the difficulty. Divide et Impera is not vanilla and you are not the first one saying it is too hard.

I think this is normal difficulty.

Probably, if you cannot come to terms with the development process, meaning every single thing will not be 100% correct all the time. If this impact your masochism or not is actually irrelevant.

If triple-A games continuously get away with launching in a beta state for 50 or 60 euro, surely even someone as entitled as you can take a step back and give a free-of-charge, distilled from pure passion and win, modification a little frakking slack?

And yes, obviously something is a little iffy with the mentioned unit. The horror, kill it with fire?

first of all, noone is siding with CA. Noone may ever side with CA again, lol...

Second, I was expecting alot more "L2P Newb" responses. Im actually encouraged that someone who thinks i sound entitled admits this unit is a little much

Third, this was my first start in this mod. It took me a few false starts to understand patrol vs occupation, realize the importance of governors, etc. I also experimented with a few different ways of conquering, peaceful vs looting vs using small armies to patrol while the big stacks move on etc.

Fourth, here are some things I really like about this mod:
-The land combat is probably the best. It feels authentic the way the 2 sides lock and there is no more spamming dumb buttons for bonuses. When 1 side breaks they generally pay a really high price, just like IRL. Charging into flanks and rear is appropriately devastating.
-Battles have time to develop into something much more tactical than vanilla.
-Unit cards are slightly better. While I dont mind the art of vanilla as much as some others, its clearly easier to see how well a unit is armored and what exactly it is in this mod and they look professionally done
-agents are way better and less arcadey
-4 turns per year is obviously better
-at the start of the grand campaign, garrisons seemed to be able to last more than 1 minute vs line troops, which makes games more interesting.
-ranged seems about right as opposed to vanilla where it was too powerful.


back to complaining... lol
The thing about this unit is... it totally pulled me out of the game with so much wtf. I thought either I'm doing something WAY wrong. Then I thought the AI has been buffed and human nerfed to a point where there is 1 narrow build/conquer order that must be followed. I took the slower battles and very low income and extremely high upkeeps to mean the mod was telling "hey player, dont expect to build the Colosseum with 10 full stacks in 5 years, this is a slower more realistic game". So I spent alot of time building up provinces and researching better infrastructure. Then 10 of these show up in a stack from a minor and it didnt make sense.

[TheRazaman]

back to complaining... lol
The thing about this unit is... it totally pulled me out of the game with so much wtf. I thought either I'm doing something WAY wrong. Then I thought the AI has been buffed and human nerfed to a point where there is 1 narrow build/conquer order that must be followed. I took the slower battles and very low income and extremely high upkeeps to mean the mod was telling "hey player, dont expect to build the Colosseum with 10 full stacks in 5 years, this is a slower more realistic game". So I spent alot of time building up provinces and researching better infrastructure. Then 10 of these show up in a stack from a minor and it didnt make sense.

You're playing overly defensive. By turn 80 you definitely want to have Cisalpina under your control (unless you've decided to go after Sicily and Greece first, which it doesn't sound like you did). You're correct that DeI is fantastic in slowing down the players pace and making us think about the administrative and economic sides of the campaign; far more so than vanilla, thereby increasing strategic thinking

It appears as though you are effectively managing those but at the cost of neglecting your military. Glancing at your units in that battle--I'm aware it's partially a garrison force--I would suggest rethinking your army composition and, overall, just being more attentive to that segment of the game. The Romans can be extremely powerful when utilized correctly. As you're new to DeI I would suggest checking out The DeI Scriptorium first and foremost to get a good grasp on the vast improvements DeI has made over vanilla, followed by the Guides and Strategy section for some useful tips (this one is optional).

As for that screenshot MY biggest surprise was the pronunciation of Appea Gaedotos. It says app-ee-ah guy-doo-tos. I would've thought it was app-ee-ah gye-doh-tohs (just recently started looking at Latin)

[Ritterlichvon86]

As for that screenshot MY biggest surprise was the pronunciation of Appea Gaedotos. It says app-ee-ah guy-doo-tos. I would've thought it was app-ee-ah gye-doh-tohs (just recently started looking at Latin)

C is pronounced as -K- in latin, when followed by a vocal.

ae is pronounced like the -uy- in "guy".

Gaius Julius Caesar, properly in international phonetic alphabet: ˈgaːjʊs ˈjuːlijʊs ˈkae̯sar

Now, for a little bit of exercise, pronounce Gaivs Jvlivs Caesar. Writing that in English, would be kuy-zar. Well, at least the majority of the population pronounces "Kindergarten" quite close to how it actually sounds in its language of origin. Btw, the German title "Kaiser" comes from good old Gaius Julius, and is a synonym for Imperator.

And please smack anyone over the backhead that ever writes "Cesar", or pronounces it "Tsizer", and call him a peasant!

[TheRazaman]

http://prntscr.com/5sajrl

Just so you know...This is mine on the campaign screen.

1) Why can these units use Phalanx? That's horribly historically inaccurate.
2) Why our are stats so different? 32 weapon damage vs 20 in his, everything is differnet.

The typical depiction of Gauls as frothing-at-mouth, half naked berserkers is overblown. Caesar's own The Conquest of Gaul offers the best evidence to the contrary. He explicitly states that the Helvetii form, and advance in, phalanx formation. Even though this is some 200 years after the start of Grand Campaign, the Gallic tribes should be allowed to utilize the phalanx with certain, high-tier, units.

C is pronounced as -K- in latin, when followed by a vocal.

ae is pronounced like the -uy- in "guy".

Gaius Julius Caesar, properly in international phonetic alphabet: ˈgaːjʊs ˈjuːlijʊs ˈkae̯sar

Now, for a little bit of exercise, pronounce Gaivs Jvlivs Caesar. Writing that in English, would be kuy-zar.

Right. When you use the guy example it makes sense. I equated Latin "ae" with the -ye- in rye (or as the entire sound of "eye").
As for Julius Caesar, from what I've read it would be pronounce--in English--as:
YOO-lee-us KYE-sahr
From my readings, the letter "s" in Latin was always pronounced as -ess- and never as a buZZing sound. ("in use" vs "he used" in English, the -s- is pronouced differently. The former being how it was used in Latin).

[Cambion]

The typical depiction of Gauls as frothing-at-mouth, half naked berserkers is overblown. Caesar's own The Conquest of Gaul offers the best evidence to the contrary. He explicitly states that the Helvetii form, and advance in, phalanx formation. Even though this is some 200 years after the start of Grand Campaign, the Gallic tribes should be allowed to utilize the phalanx with certain, high-tier, units.



Right. When you use the guy example it makes sense. I equated Latin "ae" with the -ye- in rye (or as the entire sound of "eye").
As for Julius Caesar, from what I've read it would be pronounce--in English--as:
YOO-lee-us KYE-sahr
From my readings, the letter "s" in Latin was always pronounced as -ess- and never as a buZZing sound. ("in use" vs "he used" in English, the -s- is pronouced differently. The former being how it was used in Latin).

Technically you're right, also nobody is really sure about that K or C thing. Germans btw pronounce Kaiser with a hard K of course, but Caesar with a sharp C, almost like a Z and ae like an Ä or A in English.

[Krieg_Boy]

Every barbaric tribe has its own OP unit, you need to make your own trategy to beat it.

I normally try to soften them as much as I can with missiles, lure them with light infantry and attack on the side, or back with some kind of elite troop.
And, to make this better, you need to have a spy in front of your armies to know what you will be against.

[muchandmore]

Presumably the issue here isn't that the difficulty is too high, its just that this particular unit is way too powerful, at least relative to its cost. Even without phalanx enabled it has better stats than Triarii!

[KAM 2150]

Nope, their stats are far worse then Triarii even without bonus from phalanx and with bonus from phalanx they are much, much worse then triarii. Again, look at base stats, NOT stats with experience, general skills etc. Although I haven't done stats for this unit myself, at first I think they simply have way to much morale, as all non fanatic units should have it under 65, especially barbarian hoplites, so they should have it around 55. Also from pictue above I can't quess their attack, but it should be around 17-20.

[meerkatology]

triarii > them. (u are reading phalanx mode stats on those barb units, put triarri in phalanx and read their stats...)

i've played rome on VH/M multiple runs so far - the barbarian tribes are always a joke in every campaign - i dunno what game u are playing sir. i beat their army losing 1:10 units in a 1v1/2v2. and routinely own them 1 stack vs 2 after marian.
the greeks are harder with their real hoplites but i always blitz them anyway. looking forward to fighting seleucids ... but i'm guessing its still going to be a joke when you are imperium 6+ with 10+ stacks of elite ugpraded units and despite deplomatic penalty for expansion, once you are imperium 5+ with a bunch of gold, all everyone else does is want to be my friend for gold. no one ever declares war one me , and the ones i declare war on just wants to pay me for peace/to be my client state...wtf

the game is still too easy once you are past early game

back on topic - hoplites kill slowly and move slowly. put your own units in formation to reduce contact line, then you got about 3 hours to flank with range etc and do various manuevers while thier hoplites win vs ur units.. very very.. slowly.

[Ahiga]

Just a recommendation - double check your difficulty setting. I just had a battle that had me seething with frustration, where I saw Celtic guys who were 100% surrounded rout only at 44/200. I was about to go change the moral table values a little - then I saw my battlefield difficulty had switched from normal to hard.

[Kirsch27]

The main problem here is that it seems the unit has been overlooked when the team was removing the phalanx ability from imitation/barbarian hoplites. That is where the 2 deadliness and most of those stat boosts are coming from. The white portion of the stat bar is bonus, the green is the base, in case anyone is confused about that. Their morale might be a bit beefy but the weapon damage is there because they lack the deadliness of actual hoplites I'd imagine. I think the unit would work just fine without the phalanx ability, perhaps a -5 or -10 to base morale is in order. I'm not sure how weapon damage scales to deadliness, 20 weapon damage and 0 deadliness might be a lot stronger than a lower damage and higher deadliness, but if it is not I see no problem there. I know deadliness is a very powerful stat, at least. Losing 2 deadliness is a big deal.