Horse Archers should be rebalanced

**TheRazaman** · February 01, 2015, 11:01 AM

HAs desperately need to be hit by the nerf stick, for a few reasons:

The CAI doesn't seem to have any templates available to cope with a HA army. It also fails to adjust its strategic maneuvers to deal with a HA threat.
The BAI is even worse at dealing with HA hordes than it is against melee armies — understood that BAI is immutable. Even if, by chance, it fields an army equipped to fight HAs, it always improperly uses said army. Battles of 1 stack HA vs 2 AI stacks routinely end with no more than 150 casualties for the player (mostly from ff). The BAI is also impelled to Sally Forth vs missile superiority; incredibly stupid against HAs.
Unit upkeep compared to melee factions.

Extrapolating on #3 unit upkeep:
Rome Camillian Units

Roarii - 134
Italici Milites (Italian Leves) - 101
Accensi - 74

Massilia

Epistratoi Hoplitai (Leves) - 101

Parthia

Shivatir-i Pahlavig (Parthian Horse Archers)- 99

Playing as Parthia on VH/N you need no other unit than those basic HA for the first ~80-100 turns, by which time the game is all but over. They also start with 1 chevron upon recruitment from the beginning of GC. The only method I can envision is to raise unit upkeep for all HA's. This would force players to create more logical armies instead of relying on self-imposed house rules.

This may even make some realistic sense. Upkeep for a levy spear unit, having little armor to speak of, should not be higher than a unit cavalry who must always provide double-triple the victual because of the horse (even if the unit size is smaller than the melee). Perhaps upfront cost for a Camillian Hastati or Principes should be higher given the procurement of what little armor they did have, but after this time the upkeep should not be drastically higher than providing for a horse. Camillian hastati upkeep = 166, camillian principes = 222. But I'm no historian or military man, so I could be wrong here.

What do y'all think? just as a note, I find this to be even more important in KAM's experimental battle pack but it definitely applies to vanilla DeI as well.

**BroskiDerpman** · February 01, 2015, 11:06 AM

If horse archers are merged then make it a separate file rather then part of the main mod, any sort of archer with heavy armor deals well vs normal horse archers.

**TheRazaman** · February 01, 2015, 11:25 AM

Originally Posted by BroskiDerpman

...any sort of archer with heavy armor deals well vs normal horse archers.

Agreed. Yet how often does the AI do this? More importantly, on the rare chance it does have multiple units of something like Shivatir-i Parsig (Elite Persian Archers), the BAI is incapable of utilizing them correctly. The same one or two maneuvers by the player exposes these units and they can very easily be dealt with.
I'm not making a case for what a PLAYER would do to counter HAs, rather what the AI actually does.

edit: If its possible to create an army template for the AI to utilize against HAs that could go a long way to helping this problem. I'm just not sure this is doable.

**krunsh** · February 01, 2015, 11:36 AM

Thing is, if the whole game is balanced only with AI in mind, it might break it for multiplayer.

I haven't tested horse arches much though.

**Jin-** · February 01, 2015, 11:45 AM

Rebalanced? When they are finally useful and worth to use? Before DeI 1.0 they were just waste of spots in unit roster.

Before.
- Shoot once approaching infantry.
- Get stuck in what to do mode, skirmish or try to shoot second time
- Bye bye unit.

I know you can counter this by micromanaging them, but its still that 1 or 2 shots before infantry gets them again.
Arrow shooting is just stupid on Rome II, like there is some MMORPG styled cool down when soldiers just sit there doing nothing. Atleast on Shogun II and old TW games they drew their bows ready.

Now
- Range is good so they have time to shoot before infantry gets close
- Skirmish stance finally working because of the range

Counter
- Slingers
- Light cavalry
- Heavily armored troops and let them eat arrows

**TheRazaman** · February 01, 2015, 11:59 AM

Originally Posted by darknessjw

Rebalanced? When they are finally useful and worth to use? Before DeI 1.0 they were just waste of spots in unit roster.

You need to re-read my first post. I didn't mention anything about nerfing their range, skirmish ability, damage etc.. The main nerf, imo, should be to increasing their upkeep. And again, most of the counters you list are ones a PLAYER would implement. Have you played as a HA faction? The BAI is incapable of utilizing its units correctly against HAs. Also, heavy infantry is in no way a counter to HAs.

Originally Posted by krunsh

Thing is, if the whole game is balanced only with AI in mind, it might break it for multiplayer.

I haven't tested horse arches much though.

Only marginally I would think, and yes h2h campaigns will be most effected. But I think simply increasing the upkeep costs of HAs won't actually change much even in h2h mpc. The AI still controls army composition and grand strategy. This is why I didn't pose the idea of changing any HA battlefield stats — thereby keeping MP battles unchanged as well.

If you try HA factions in campaign they are incredibly OP because of the AIs limitations i.e. always Sally Forth from even walled settlements, incapable of protecting its foot archers, charging its sole unit of cav headlong into your stack of HAs etc etc...

**RollingWave** · February 01, 2015, 12:24 PM

I do note that the vanilla horse archers were indeed garbage, as even the supposed heavily armored once gets killed almost instantly .

But yes, a full HA army with mirco almost never lose AI doesn't have the concept of holding formation and just chase in every direction, inevitablly exposing it's foot archers to charge

**BroskiDerpman** · February 01, 2015, 05:12 PM

I'm more concerned about falxmen who have charge stats of cavalry and shred most units by charging thus eventually destroying the opponent's units later on cost effectively. (Many falx units have 220 men so thats good to grind it out with)

**KAM 2150** · February 01, 2015, 05:15 PM

Infnatry with higher charge value then cav will still be weaker then cav. Falx units should have the best charge from all infanntry, but they will go down SUPER fast from any ranged weapons.

**BroskiDerpman** · February 01, 2015, 05:24 PM

Falxmen are better than cavalry and much more versatile, just charge the cavalry and all should be fine. The range weapon fire can be negated if the thracian player brings meatshields like peltasts which negate enemy javelin fire and some archer fire. The falxmen also destroy roman infantry head on like they were nothing with the 220 men (large unit size) grinding it out against the romans in shield wall then there are also the elite armored falx units which complement the fodder falxmen pretty well. As thrace I just bring some cavalry as support for the falxmen so i dont get completely flanked.

**TheRazaman** · February 01, 2015, 07:31 PM

Originally Posted by BroskiDerpman

Falxmen are better than cavalry and much more versatile, just charge the cavalry and all should be fine. The range weapon fire can be negated if the thracian player brings meatshields like peltasts which negate enemy javelin fire and some archer fire. The falxmen also destroy roman infantry head on like they were nothing with the 220 men (large unit size) grinding it out against the romans in shield wall then there are also the elite armored falx units which complement the fodder falxmen pretty well. As thrace I just bring some cavalry as support for the falxmen so i dont get completely flanked.

Pro tip, check the tooltip units have less atk in shield wall.
3 vs 3 Roman Infantry (1 Cohors Praetoria + 2 Polybian Principes) vs Getae Falxmen, vanilla DeI, medium unit sizes (100/unit Romans, 150/unit Getae). No general skills used, each unit fought one on one.
Screenshots:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

The Falxmen have 35 Melee Attack and 55 Charge Bonus but they have 0 armor. Each Roman unit won handily. Either you're using different falx units and facing only Camillian Roman units or your tactics need serious work.

Originally Posted by KAM 2150

Infnatry with higher charge value then cav will still be weaker then cav. Falx units should have the best charge from all infanntry, but they will go down SUPER fast from any ranged weapons.

Thoughts on the HAs?

**StellarPhenomena** · February 01, 2015, 05:29 PM

The thracians are currently very good as their charge is as good as a cavalry charge and they have more men than the average unit, they also have the highest attack meaning they can take on even roman units frontally, their only weakness is that they have low armor which is easily made up for since thrace has probably some of the best peltasts in the game which can protect the falxmen from any significant missile harassment.

**BroskiDerpman** · February 01, 2015, 09:57 PM

Odryssian Falxmen

http://cloud-4.steamusercontent.com/...A297E8CA20C55/

http://cloud-4.steamusercontent.com/...DAEED50CCB0A0/

http://cloud-4.steamusercontent.com/...D922203C74DC2/

Roman infantry (The ones that don't fail)

http://cloud-4.steamusercontent.com/...D83F862B86EB6/

http://cloud-4.steamusercontent.com/...51D4E5A4F966D/

http://cloud-4.steamusercontent.com/...93887C68C4E28/

#1

We are using falxmen that actually don't die.

#2

You are using Top of the line Praetorian+Principes vs absolute trash of the trash.

#3

I apologize for not specifying which falxmen

#4

In a 40 unit army scenario with the falxmen man power and the general cheaper prices of Odryssia you have around 6k Odryssians vs around 4k Romans under the tournament rulesets I am running under.

#5

Rome 2 maps are puny so good luck facing that falxmen horde

#6

Do not criticize my tactics if you've never played against me before, at least give me suggestions on how to play better if you do.

#7

If shield wall is just a detriment then I would just remove it from DeI, hopefully it makes units at least hold out longer. If not please remove or change it.

#8

Beyond adjusting basic ideas testing 1v1 units is pointless when solving the problem of a composition vs composition issue.

#9

Falxmen do not need to be nerfed too hard but currently Parthia has the biggest chance of defeating Odryssia on a flat map preferably with desert terrain and exhausting the Odryssian push with fatigue.

#10

about horse archers even tough I do not want to argue any further I'll just copy and paste this from another poster

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

#11

StellarPhenomena also mentioned things about composition also so I'll copy and paste it too

"The thracians are currently very good as their charge is as good as a cavalry charge and they have more men than the average unit, they also have the highest attack meaning they can take on even roman units frontally, their only weakness is that they have low armor which is easily made up for since thrace has probably some of the best peltasts in the game which can protect the falxmen from any significant missile harassment."

KAM is free to change whatever he wants to change but I hope it is kept as a submod.

**TheRazaman** · February 01, 2015, 11:25 PM

You're asking for a falxmen balance for multiplayer battles. FFS my first post says HAs should have no other nerf than increasing upkeep — something that won't effect MPB idk why either of you decided to go off about battlefield stats.
If it's MPB balance you're striving for, an entirely new submod is required. The op is about balance to HAs in the CAMPAIGN.

Those falxmen have only 15 armor (I don't have the odrysians) so the ones I used as the Getae were the best available. The principes I used are essentially Rome's basic unit during GC (they also lack shieldwall). Using the legions is similar to the Hellenistic phalanx. Counter charge. Romans have pilum.

But, as others have pointed out, the best counter is missile fire. You say they have good peltasts, I say outrange them as they have only, what, 60-80 range? Your archers and slingers have 150-180. If you want to see how to counter the Odrysians as Rome or Carthage or Parthia or Suebi or Massilia or Macedon, feel free to add me on steam and we can ram heads in some MPB.

For the last time, stop hijacking the thread.

**RollingWave** · February 02, 2015, 03:25 AM

If anything right now HA's too weak in auto resolve. a full HA army even if it's just AI vs AI should usually win against most balanced army thrown at it, yet the auto resolve it will always lose.