Carthagian garrisons & stuff

[Ygraine]

Hi!

Thanks for continuing to work on this great mod for Rome 2, many of us would have stopped playing the game ages ago otherwise!


My concern is why the militia hoplites were removed from the Carthagian garrison forces (in an older patch they had low quality hoplites) - there are so many sources out there claiming that they had adapted the greek fighting style, and their normal roster has many hoplite-like units.

Yesterday I had a battle where a small group of rebels attacked our settlement in a coop campaign (VH/N difficulty). One Edetani Noble group basically killed nearly the whole garrison alone. It didn't matter what we did... The Javelins ran out after only killing roughly 40~ men & we proceeded to block them in a tight street while charging/retreating/charging/retreating from the back with fresh units while letting the tired ones rest. Still that one group killed over 1000 men by itself & we lost the settlement.


Carthagian garrison spearmen are so damn useless right now, even at the tier 2-3 settlement that 1000~ men can't beat one group of 250 elite Edetani nobles. If we could get back the cheapest/weakest type of garrison-militia hoplite that they used to have (and like the greeks have) then perhaps we might have stood a small chance. I'm not expecting a garrison of a small settlement to beat a whole army, but this was a puny rebel force that beat a full tier 2-3 settlement garrison due to one unit. Point is, shouldn't they have levy hoplites like they had before if all these historical sources I keep getting when I Google the topic about them having the greek hoplite fighting style?

(How do you put pictures under spoiler-tags? Haven't been able to figure it out yet, so sorry for the big screenshot taking up the whole post)


Also, any one else that thinks Carthage is also gimped to the fact they only have javelinmen and no archers? (in regards of walled cities) Sure, javelins do slightly more damage, but have less ammo, less range and can NOT use fire ammo against siege equipment - further gimping them against say ladders and such. When I played my Parthian campaign, it was so damn easy to burn 1-3 ladders with 5+ parthian local archers spamming fire-arrows on the walls. Even the greeks have their toxotai and makes burning siege equipment easy (and it seems in fact most factions have archers).

I'm aware that it's not only Carthage, some other factions also have similar problems. Perhaps you could rework the garrisons slightly for balance? I'm not saying that all garrisons should be a copy of each other - but I'm sure you can admit how some factions with only javs or slingers can't do anything against siege equipment (at least slingers have tons of ammo and reach far... Javs are just meh in this regard & only decently good in open battles)

What do people think?

Thanks for your time.

[meerkatology]

u come to the problem that javelinmen are just in general compared to archers and even slingers.

they are supposed to be the lowest tier among ranged units anyway. the only advantange is somewhat stronger melee stats but for all intensive purposes it doesn't really matter.

maybe they should have more men per group like 100 instead of 88.

[Ygraine]

u come to the problem that javelinmen are just in general compared to archers and even slingers.

they are supposed to be the lowest tier among ranged units anyway. the only advantange is somewhat stronger melee stats but for all intensive purposes it doesn't really matter.

maybe they should have more men per group like 100 instead of 88.

Yeah I kinda agree on the javelins, although my main topic was the removed citizen hoplites from garrisons. Here's another picture showing that Citizen Militia (not garrison spearmen, they use what looks like the thureipoi shield) still using hoplons & have the fitting description that basic garrison hoplites have - yet they don't have the phalanx feature that the greek counterparts got (the one they had in a previous patch):

My suggestion is simply that Citizen Militia once again becomes basic weak garrison hoplites - while garrison spearmen can stay the way they are. That way they will have at least some hoplites, but not the full garrison like the greeks - which will fit both historically but also make the garrison a tiny wee stronger, actually being able to hold a street for a tad. Every one will be happy! (including Hannibal! )

I hope the dev-team sees this thread and at least takes this into consideration!

Have a wonderful day!

[luck_ponte]

How do you put pictures under spoiler-tags?

You can wrap spoiler tags by opening two sets of brackets ([][]), filling each with the SPOILER tag (the last one must be /SPOILER) and putting the content in between. Alternatively, you can go to the advanced options when posting, there is a button to wrap spoiler tags (its an exclamation mark in red), if my previous description was confusing or overall not helpful, you can click the button and see how the forum creates/handles the tags. Hope it helps. On the garrison part, indeed, I thought weird that Carthage didn't have hoplites on them. I'm probably fine with the javelinmen, but the lack of a more elite unit in the garrison (like swords for Rome/Barbarians or hoplites for Greeks) really hurts them when it comes to defense.

[CristoTheVicious]

I agree that Carthage's garrison could use some phalanx formation. Their garrison is by far one of the weakest in comparison, especially when looking at greek garrison where all of their units can hold entire army for 30 minutes while the player just outflanks with everything else he has got and do phalanx charges (40). Citizen militia could be given phalanx formation and maybe a little boost to attack (they have worse attack than the mob unit) It wouldn't really imbalance things, since one doesn't get many citizen militia per garrison.

About javelins though it feels like they are way too inaccurate (javelins are rather heavy and don't fly into the air like helium balloons ) Especially for javelin armed horseman; price similar to horse archers but they do so little damage that there is no point ever buying them (Unless you really can't buy cheap mercs, light cav or horse archers to vacuum shattered units)

[Ygraine]

You can wrap spoiler tags by opening two sets of brackets ([][]), filling each with the SPOILER tag (the last one must be /SPOILER) and putting the content in between. Alternatively, you can go to the advanced options when posting, there is a button to wrap spoiler tags (its an exclamation mark in red), if my previous description was confusing or overall not helpful, you can click the button and see how the forum creates/handles the tags. Hope it helps. On the garrison part, indeed, I thought weird that Carthage didn't have hoplites on them. I'm probably fine with the javelinmen, but the lack of a more elite unit in the garrison (like swords for Rome/Barbarians or hoplites for Greeks) really hurts them when it comes to defense.

Thanks! Yes - I totally agree. Some input from the devs would be appreciated. Maybe I formulated my thread in a weird way, but it seems so far not many have bothered to comment.

I agree that Carthage's garrison could use some phalanx formation. Their garrison is by far one of the weakest in comparison, especially when looking at greek garrison where all of their units can hold entire army for 30 minutes while the player just outflanks with everything else he has got and do phalanx charges (40). Citizen militia could be given phalanx formation and maybe a little boost to attack (they have worse attack than the mob unit) It wouldn't really imbalance things, since one doesn't get many citizen militia per garrison.

About javelins though it feels like they are way too inaccurate (javelins are rather heavy and don't fly into the air like helium balloons ) Especially for javelin armed horseman; price similar to horse archers but they do so little damage that there is no point ever buying them (Unless you really can't buy cheap mercs, light cav or horse archers to vacuum shattered units)

I concur! I hope Dresden or someone else sees this and considers adding back the phalanx function to the citizen militia like they had before. I still don't understand why it was removed in the first place, but the hoplons and description stayed as if they are hoplites.
About the jav cavs I agree, in my Parthian campaign the first thing I did was to disband all jav cavalry and never train them - even the basic horse archers are just so much better for the price.

[KAM 2150]

When their hoplite formation was taken out? I do not remember taking phalanx away from them ; P

Javelins are subject of experimental battles, in course on next two day I will do a lot of changes to them. Still, even now javelin are the strongest and most deadly ranged units even without those changes.

[Ygraine]

When their hoplite formation was taken out? I do not remember taking phalanx away from them ; P

Javelins are subject of experimental battles, in course on next two day I will do a lot of changes to them. Still, even now javelin are the strongest and most deadly ranged units even without those changes.

I believe they had it in 0.7 or 0.8 - if you check my second picture they still have the description and hoplon on them! Hopefully you'll give the citizen militia phalanx back for the next patch

Yeah, you're right - they are the strongest per missile. But due to such a low amount of ammo - I think they still get outmatched by toxotai and funditores.

Any thoughts on balance for garrisons and how some factions have it really easy to light siege engines while factions like Carthage (and Rome I think?) that only have javelins/slingers can't?

Thanks!

[zonks40]

If a garrison is stationed in a town or city as the result of a barracks being present, those troops should be regulars, any garrison as the result of an upgraded town/city should then be militia.