Units and their stats

[Alannon]

I am not sure where to put it, but I have a few questions or things I've noticed.

First of all, the militia garrisons of the seleucids, and perhaps of other hellenics too, do not match their icons. As such their lighter spearmen are shown as light hoplites with aspis shields. In truth they are very weak thureos spearmen. It's just a noticable thing with some garrisons.

Now, I wonder why spartan hoplites come as somewhat weaker than athenian logades swordsmen and hoplites? They've higher stats, but the armour of the logades seems to tip everything in their favour, because even royal spartans are at heavy disadvantage here. Also, why spartan legionaries have so poor stamina even compared to the hellenic ones, let alone romans?

After testing spartans I realised that if I am to choose, then athenians can do the same but a lot better. They've better fleet, better hoplites and more variety in swordsmen, better swordsmen too.

And last question, what are the aspidophoroi hetairoi about? What is their features? By looking at the rough stats the late hetairoi are better, even in melee. Do the shield hetairoi belong to the "early" period then, or there's some hidden strength in them? What's their utility?

And lastly all these questions come from me because I play this mod in multiplayer campaign, so some kind of balance is vital to me. I would enjoy playing spartans even though their weaker in single player, but in MP another player will just abuse my weaknesses. And spartan hoplites, with the lack of hoplite formation will lose without difficulty to worse hoplites with better armour and legionaries (Who with their weapon deadliness are just OP, but that's my opinion. I don't see how the gladius is more deadly than kopis, or how legionary discipline is ultimately better than that of hellenic legionaros, drilled for the exact same purpose.). Speaking of which maybe you shouldn't combine thorakitai swordsmen with the legionaroi after all? Make the former a stylization, and the latter an actual fantasy hellenic reenactment of roman legions, with weapon deadliness and similar equipment and idea.

PS: Wondering that if spartan hoplites' armour is nerfed on purpose, why is it lesser than athenian? They look the same all-in armour, bracers, shinplates and breastplates.

[FlashHeart07]

As Im not the battle balance expert I cannot answer many of your questions. But bear in mind that this mod havent been balanced with MP in mind. Not entirely that is, therefore looking at unit balancing from a MP point of view will always have the units seem out of balance.

[Alannon]

That's true, but I just want to find out why athenians are stronger than spartans? It may not have been intended I think, for spartans do have higher attack and defense stats. But armour seems to play too important advantage for athenians. Maybe if armour was equal, then spartans would be stronger than athenians by an amount, though they'd lack many other advantages athenians have and quite rightfully.

[Ivan_Moscavich]

First of all, sparta was hardly a military power at this point in time anyways. They werent super soldiers like that hollywood movie.

Secondly, spartan hoplites already have better stats than athenenian hoplites.

Comparing basic spartan hoplites to athenian logodes is apples to oranges.

A better comparrison would be royal spartans or heros of sparta to logodes units. Of which i believe the spartan units are better in all stats than athenian logodes units.

[Alannon]

Okay, I did some testing. First of all, spartan heroes lose drastically to custodes praetorii and armoured legionaries. At first minute they score more kills, but they end up having 40 men versus 90 romans, at normal size units (150 men max).
Then I tested heroes of sparta versus logades. And what I've discovered is that despite superior stats, heroes of sparta lose to logades as well. It seems that armour affects everything even more than weapon deadliness does. Despite far superior stats, heroes of sparta lose to the spear logades. Logades have 50 armour and heroes have 40. I assume that legionaries and praetorians have huge advantage also due to the armour. I'm only wondering why spartan armour is 40 and not 50, which is decisive, while their equipment looks very heavy, with closed corinthian helmets and bracers, legplates.

[SquirrelP0acher]

Okay, I did some testing. First of all, spartan heroes lose drastically to custodes praetorii and armoured legionaries. At first minute they score more kills, but they end up having 40 men versus 90 romans, at normal size units (150 men max).
Then I tested heroes of sparta versus logades. And what I've discovered is that despite superior stats, heroes of sparta lose to logades as well. It seems that armour affects everything even more than weapon deadliness does. Despite far superior stats, heroes of sparta lose to the spear logades. Logades have 50 armour and heroes have 40. I assume that legionaries and praetorians have huge advantage also due to the armour. I'm only wondering why spartan armour is 40 and not 50, which is decisive, while their equipment looks very heavy, with closed corinthian helmets and bracers, legplates.

Well they definitely cannot realistically be expected to come even close to beating either of those units. Your talking basically Imperial Roman Units using the best heavy armour available at the time, more so for the Armoured Legionaries, against an elite Spartan unit that doesn't even use linothorax and are technically wearing cloth besides their high armor rating for balance.

[Alannon]

Heroes of sparta wear muscled cuirasses or whatever they're called, helmets and legplates with bracers, plus they are wrapped in capes. How is that a predate to the use of linothorax? Besides, my main point about the athenian logades and that they are superior to heroes of sparta despite lower stats, only due their armour.

Logades armour is 50. Heroes of sparta armour is 40. Only because of that one bit they lose. Even though visually their armour looks the same if not heavier, and they are even called "super heavy infantry", while being lighter than logades in fact. it's confusing and not very logical. If they've less armour, then they should have less armour visually. I just think it wasn't intended or taken into account, that 10 points of armour are more important than around twenty-thirty points of other stats combined.

[SquirrelP0acher]

Heroes of sparta wear muscled cuirasses or whatever they're called, helmets and legplates with bracers, plus they are wrapped in capes. How is that a predate to the use of linothorax? Besides, my main point about the athenian logades and that they are superior to heroes of sparta despite lower stats, only due their armour.

Logades armour is 50. Heroes of sparta armour is 40. Only because of that one bit they lose. Even though visually their armour looks the same if not heavier, and they are even called "super heavy infantry", while being lighter than logades in fact. it's confusing and not very logical. If they've less armour, then they should have less armour visually. I just think it wasn't intended or taken into account, that 10 points of armour are more important than around twenty-thirty points of other stats combined.

That's still not going to compare to even the crappiest segmentata. We're talking a 200+ year difference in equipment.

[KAM 2150]

Their equipement is not on par with equipment of logades. I do not think that any Spartan unit has armour made of anything tougher then bronze, while Athenians have armours made of better materials. Although Athenians should still be behind Spartans (who are also faster then Athenians). To be honest, I doubt that there was much or any difference between Spartans and other Greeks at this point. I just balanced unit armour to match their look.

Deadliness on Romans is not OP and just because there are units in other nations that are stylized as "Roman", they are not Romans. Kopis is no match for Gladius in terms of utility in tight formation combat. You can give top Navy Seal equipement on regular rank and file soldier, sure, he will be better then without it, but he still has no trainining to be as effective as Navy Seal. Just because some dudes tryed to copy Roman style, it never ended with them being on par with Legionares. Also in last patch, Thorakitai and Thorakitai legionares were merged into single unit which they historically were. You wrote that you see no reason why gladius is better then kopis or Roman discipline better then Greek, then I suggest you to dig a bit more into books as it was exactly the case. When Greeks saw what gladius can do to human body they were shocked.

aspidophoroi hetairoi are late Macedonian hetairoi, they replaced shock version of Hetairoi, but even Roman cav was able to beat those guys. Of course for balance sake they are a bit better, although I intended to give them more melee attack then regular late Hetairoi and move them into missile cavalry tree, which they in fact were. If it not the case, I will look into it.

[Alannon]

Well, personally I don't think we've any units from the first century AD that are hellenic in the mod. While we've roman segmentata units. So basically all other nations are left behind them simply because most of them didn't survive to that point. Not sure if that's good or bad, considering that in the campaign, even single player, they may well survive. Anyway, we'll just avoid playing certain nations in MP to make it more balanced.

As for shield hetairoi, they're considering melee cav and they have only one or two javelins, so not much of a missile. I think late hetairoi beat them. Fortunately I'm content with the seleucid cav.

And as for my whine about balance and the outdated spartans, it's mostly because reforms could allow for some sci-fi here. Yes, let hellenic legionaroi be a poor imitation, but give them "imperial" reforms too if they conquer enough provinces. So they can get better armour or something.

[Ivan_Moscavich]

This mod isn't in the business of it just adding a bunch of fantasy units for the late game. If you want that, you can try the radius mod.

That said, the still perfectly possible to beat other factions even in human multiplayer when your units have a disadvantage just by exercising better tactics. Every faction has a weakness, and every faction can exploit a strength.

As for the late heteroi being heavy skirmisher cavalry, I think you did that for Epirus, but not Macedon or the Seleucids.


Edit: Honestly the Greeks states as they are represented are anachronistic. There shouldn't be an Athens, there shouldn't be a Sparta, there shouldn't be hoplites. The bulk of them should be using pikes or mobile light troops right off the bat and be part of leagues, not independent city-states. But we can't do that because the bulk of the DEI audience expects them to be there.

It is a little hard to balance units for the current game, which were already completely outdated over 200 years before the start date of the Grand Campaign.

[FlashHeart07]

So "solve" it by adding what if units through reforms?

[Alannon]

Well, curently imperial roman segmentata legionaries would be guests from the future, fighting bronze-clad spartans and various hellenics.

[KAM 2150]

Still, I think it would not be much hastle to add some "steel" cuirasses for Royal Spartans hoplites I guess.

[Ivan_Moscavich]

For balancing purposes I suppose.

Though maybe that would be better on the heroes of sparta. Seeing as right now there isn't really much of a difference between royal Spartans, and heroes of Sparta.

[CristoTheVicious]

I think comparing any faction to Romans is wrong. They were super overpowered in vanilla and they still are in DEI. If You are playing multiplayer campaign, I'd suggest restricting Romans to AI only, unless Your friend is 4 year old, then maybe he can fail as Romans. Roman AI is easily beatable just like any other faction, because... well, they are AI. However, if You let Your opponent pick Romans, then attack him before he gets the apulian swordsmen or first reforms, after that it's gg.

[FlashHeart07]

Why is it that everytime something is not perfectly balanced we should begin to restrict. What is the purpose of different units and factions if in the end they are all more or less copies of each other? I can agree on that a single unit or two may need or could for the sake of gameplay be tweaked but still. I dont want to play a faction and the only difference from any other faction is unit visuals

[Ivan_Moscavich]

I can't even give you rep with a snarky remark flasheart. Need to spread more rep apparently.

"Hence the giving a single buffed unit with a campaign cap if 2 in order to stiffle the ."

[KAM 2150]

Heroes of Sparta represent "old" Spartans if I remember.

By the way, bronze armour is more expensive then steel armour. At first bronze was easier to use but as soon as tin became harder to get, metalurgist put more effort into working with iron. When they found out how to make steel, bronze was simply more expensive, heavier and less tough material to use. Advantage of bronze is that it is much less corrosive.

Also remember that ther is bronze, iron and steel. Bronze and iron are almost the same in terms of toughness, but they are both beaten by steel. Also to make stuff from iron you just need.....iron, while to make bronze you need both copper and tin. Take out the source of either copper or tin and bam, you can't make stuff from bronze. And mostly copper and tin are not found in the same place

This is how I remember it, hope I didn't butcher some facts there.

[Alannon]

Well, if you up royal or heroic spartans a bit in terms of armour, I'd be happy. And look into their legionaries. I'm not a great fan of sparta, just want to have a fair choice between them and athenians. Athenians already have far better swordsmen.

In general it'd be nice to just compare different units against each other for you Kam. You do a great job, but there are minor tweaks that could be done I think. Especially when you take into account how the unit looks, what role it has and what stats it has for those. Not always it strikes me as logical, but there are so many units that you probably need more people to watch all of them.

Also, my friend is complaining about caravans. For some reason in every auto-resolve battle they lose half the men, while other units may only use a few percents. We don't know why's that, maybe cos caravan stats are bad or their numbers. Can something be done about it? Because even with a huge advantage in auto-resolve, it is caravans that suffer almost all the casualties.