Three questions: Limit on unit amount? Is Gstraphetes to OP? is high arc arrow fire cheating?

[scipioafrianus]

1. Long time ago, more than a year ago, perhaps several years, I played DeI and I think I recall that the amount of some unit types was limited, for example you could only build a few pretorians etc. I have begun playing again and right now I have reached the first reforms for Nobiles campaign for Roma and I can now build Principes (Late), but there don't seem any limit on how many I can recruit, even though principes are very very strong units, and while being more expensive I feel that their very high moral, armor, melee att/def skill far outweighs their extra costs. Is there only a limit to elite units like Pretorians and such, or is there something wrong with my installation of DeI that has inadvertently caused me to be able to recruit limitless amounts of principes? Im sorry if this is mentioned in the manual or FAQ already, but I couldn't find anything about it.

2. Is gastraphetes a bit too OP? Even though they are high cost with a price like Principes, they have extreme range at 200 and compare that to for example slingers at 165 range (which is already pretty long), in fact they outrange city defenders, both towers and archers on the walls. They do high damage and are accurate, fire rate is not too shabby, also they have a good supply of ammo. On top of that they can be recruited without building any military buildings, so Baracks or Auxiliary barracks not needed. Though I must say that I like that it seemed that gastraphetes only became available for recruit in Sicily province, when I, as Rome,

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

conquered sicily, which ensured a non renegotiable war against Carthage. This I found presented a great challenge since the Basileion Odrysons, an eastern faction, quickly steamrolled all the greeks and then declared war on Rome, so I was basically figthing a two front war against two very powerful enemies.

Access to super units like the gastraphetes proved most useful in that respect

3: I have also found out a tactic for gastraphetes that I am not sure is considered cheating: Normally gastraphetes will fire in the lowest possible arc, that is firing directly on the enemy, to hit the target, but if there is an obstacle in the line of fire, say some buildings or a hill, they will fire in a high arc that will make the arrows rain down on the enemies. Arrows raining down on enemies seems very effective, from what I can see it looks like units are less effective at using their shields when arrows rain down near vertically. I have found no way to tell my gastraphetes to fire in the high arc, only way seems to be to force them by having their line of fire obstructed, else I would use high arc fire most of the time and everytime during sieges since it almost completely circumvents the wall cover. Is this realistic at all? Could gastraphetes fire in such a high arc irl, and still maintain the same range and accuracy? Is using gastraphetes with high arc fire on city wall defenders considered cheating?

[gornoviceanu]

OK, so..

1. Roman units are supposed to be OP because they were. If Principes would lose to standard Hoplites, then we would be talking about the Greek Empire, not the Roman one . That being said, there is a new population system in 1.2 and if you do not have the required number of people in the specific population class the unit draws it's soldiers from. Short answer: if you lose too many units of Principes or lose a high amount of men in each battle, you will run out of that population class and won't be able to recruit or replenish them for a while. So even if they are OP, you will have to take care of them or risk not being able to field as many as you require.


2. I find these guys a bit OP too but then again I have no knowledge of how efficient they were. Maybe someone else can shed light on the world's first crossbow.


3. Archers do that too, hell I have see javelin men use a higher arc when trying to throw over their own line. These, I don't consider as cheating. On the Gastraphetes unit.. I don't think a crossbow is capable of such a fire arc? If it is not, then yes, I would consider that as cheating. Regarding the shooting city wall defenders - if the city defenders are ON the wall, I think it is fine to use such a firing arc. If they are BEHIND the wall, then no - I think that it would be pretty much impossible to aim and correct your aim without seeing what you shoot at.

[scipioafrianus]

@gornoviceanu yes, I love the new manpower system, it's great and adds some wonderful depth to the strategy thinking I am not sure though that it is yet tweaked to optimal values. I have been recruiting lots and lots of units but manpower is still rising; on the other hand I am losing very few forces in my battles ( those tough Principes kick ass ) so that may just be the reason.

[Kolaris8472]

Gastraphetes should be a unique and powerful unit that's worth using, but they should come with a downside. Since they were supposedly a siege weapon the low rate of fire makes sense, unfortunately it seems the rate of fire isn't as slow as advertised.

High angle indirect shooting is completely broken as far as I'm concerned and I'm trying to figure out how to remove it. It's not simply the max elevation, since even 45 degrees at long range allows for arcing shots. Meanwhile slingers will never fire indirectly but they have 60 degrees max elevation. So there has to be something else that determines indirect fire capability.

[scipioafrianus]

Gastraphetes should be a unique and powerful unit that's worth using, but they should come with a downside. Since they were supposedly a siege weapon the low rate of fire makes sense, unfortunately it seems the rate of fire isn't as slow as advertised.

High angle indirect shooting is completely broken as far as I'm concerned and I'm trying to figure out how to remove it. It's not simply the max elevation, since even 45 degrees at long range allows for arcing shots. Meanwhile slingers will never fire indirectly but they have 60 degrees max elevation. So there has to be something else that determines indirect fire capability.

I agree on everything you said. I think I will stop using the high angle indirect shooting, it does feel like cheating. And yeah Gastraphetes should be unique and powerful, but the fire rate is still quite fast. I just checked and fire rate is set to 4, while slingers is set to 5, so the difference is minimal and makes Gastraphetes superior in basically any archer role. Perhaps give them fire rate of 2 + some more ammo + slightly more damage + lower their move speed a bit too (which is quite fast, they can successfully retreat from almost any but mounted units) would be more appropriate for their strong role as a besieging unit?

[scipioafrianus]

'Just found out there's a limit of 12 units to max number of Gastraphetes, seems fair

[Michaliscrete]

I don't think gastrafetes op. Straight ahead with hoplites they can kill 40 to 50 until run out of ammo and then they get slottered. And hoplites are not elite unit while gastrafetes are. Also i think they have limitations.

[scipioafrianus]

I don't think gastrafetes op. Straight ahead with hoplites they can kill 40 to 50 until run out of ammo and then they get slottered. And hoplites are not elite unit while gastrafetes are. Also i think they have limitations.

When you say straight ahead do you mean fire on a hoplite from the front? Because that would be foolish, a bit of waste of arrows Hoplites generally have good armour and shields, so they are not my first pick for arrow fire. But if you do fire from their right flank, and/or while they are moving (especially moving away from you) and you can decimate/break at least two medium quality hoplite units with one Gastraphetes. Or simply target their helpless light units first, archers javeliners, light infantry, and their cavalry, all that who can do nothing but stand around and die, or advance and die. Their range is unparalleled, damage is high, ammo supply decent and move speed as fast as any very light missile foot unit. But given that the high angle firing arc seems to be a bug, that is akin to cheating that does take away considerable power from the unit, that was a large part of me thinking they were OP. + as mentioned in my previous post I found out there's a 12 unit recruit limit, so that sets a natural stop gap on how effective their OP'ness can be used. I was considering putting 4 in each army, but with a limit of 12 I will settle for 2 in each instead.

[Maetharin]

Try playing with 41 unit armies, with this mod http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfile...n&id=318420643.
Because there are essentially double the units, it doubles the effects of PoR and Supply.
I usually combine it with the reduced upkeep cost submod and further increase recruitment points.

This way at least some semblence of DeI balance is preserved^^

[scipioafrianus]

Try playing with 41 unit armies, with this mod http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfile...n&id=318420643.
Because there are essentially double the units, it doubles the effects of PoR and Supply.
I usually combine it with the reduced upkeep cost submod and further increase recruitment points.

This way at least some semblence of DeI balance is preserved^^

The AI knows how to use 41 units in each army on the campaign map? Does it also mean that with allied reinforcement 2x41 vs 2x41 an battle on one map at the same time? And does it support Emperor Edition?

I wonder how my performance will be lol

[Maetharin]

Can you show the animations in a video Maetharin?

I can´t really show you the specific animations, as that would entail editing several hours of video material xD
I don´t even own the game, a friend of mine does, and I just saw that amidst the hopping and jumping about there are some animations which IMO would be useful.

The AI knows how to use 41 units in each army on the campaign map? Does it also mean that with allied reinforcement 2x41 vs 2x41 an battle on one map at the same time? And does it support Emperor Edition?

I wonder how my performance will be lol

Yeah, I´d avoid playing battles that big
Concerning the recruitment, I don´t think the AI specifically recruits 20 units per army,
I think it just does whatever the hell it wants.

I´ve seen 27 unit armies and 41 unit armies, as far as I can tell it just spends its money until it´s gone xD

[scipioafrianus]

I can´t really show you the specific animations, as that would entail editing several hours of video material xD
I don´t even own the game, a friend of mine does, and I just saw that amidst the hopping and jumping about there are some animations which IMO would be useful.


Yeah, I´d avoid playing battles that big
Concerning the recruitment, I don´t think the AI specifically recruits 20 units per army,
I think it just does whatever the hell it wants.

I´ve seen 27 unit armies and 41 unit armies, as far as I can tell it just spends its money until it´s gone xD

well it sounds like its worth checking out, thanks

[Ivan_Moscavich]

The weapon was invented in the first place to take defenders off of walls, so really, it's working as they should have historically.

Range wise, while the roman slingers and barbarian slingers around you are indeed 165, most greek and eastern slingers are 190 (210 for baelrics and rhodians) so that does even up the range gap if you head east.

I wasn't aware their cap was set to 12, last I knew it was set to 8. We may have to move it back down to 8 if that was changed accidently.

[scipioafrianus]

The weapon was invented in the first place to take defenders off of walls, so really, it's working as they should have historically.

Range wise, while the roman slingers and barbarian slingers around you are indeed 165, most greek and eastern slingers are 190 (210 for baelrics and rhodians) so that does even up the range gap if you head east.

I wasn't aware their cap was set to 12, last I knew it was set to 8. We may have to move it back down to 8 if that was changed accidently.

I felt it a bit OP that one Gastrafetes could fire in a high angle arc from very long distances thereby decimating several hoplite units that were otherwise hiding behind the ramparts on the city walls. But if we don't take the high angle long range arrow rain on city walls into account (because it feels like cheating imo) it does make it considerably less OP. In fact without high fire arc and just firing the direct low arc they almost don't kill anyone on top of the walls, even when firing on light troops; most arrows seem to fly over or hit the ramparts. As such they don't really work for me for taking defenders off walls in my experience, unless I use the high arc fire thing. However they are great for normal battlefields and especially great for the normal non walled settlements, where the AI begin with its forces clump together near the edge of the settlement; the Gastrafetes usually have time to move in and fire on them before the AI has time to retreat them to the towncenter, which almost always provokes the AI into advancing in a semi messy way which only gives the Gastrafetes opportunity to massacre even more. My guess is that because they take so high casualties from the arrows the AI has some trigger that tells it that it must attack. Based on my experience that they kill very few troops behind city wall ramparts with the normal low arc fire + their current awesome use in non-wall siege and on normal battlefields I would think that increasing their accuracy and damage while decreasing their fire rate considerably would be appropriate so that they become comparatively more useful for wall sieges. Just my final two cents on that matter I think

But I wasn't aware there was other archers with just as long or longer range; I haven't progressed that long to see those units yet, but it makes a lot more sense then. It is great that archers, and especially elite archers are very powerful ranged.

I counted 12 Gastraphetes units in my armies when it said that I had reached the maximum; so if that is a bug or something went wrong in my installation I know not.

[GMFH]

I have been able to recruit 12 as well in 1.2 with no submods.

[Veliky Kaiser Theos]

I find that the gastraphetes do more damage than archers due to the entirety of the unit firing in volleys, rather than glitching out and only a handful of men firing. It also looks quite pretty.

[Maetharin]

BTW, since Gastraphetes use animations from Attila, would it be possible to use humanoid warhammer animations too?
Most of them are pretty much over the top, but some IMO wouldn´t look too bad if they were usable.

[KAM 2150]

Only if they use same skeleton (which I doubt) but most of those animations are either unfit for Rome 2 or recycled from previous titles (Knights charging like spear cavalry in R2/Attila).

[Tenerife_Boy]

Can you show the animations in a video Maetharin?

[Dardo21]

There are unit caps to some units like the Praetorians, as well as army unit caps, meaning that you can only recruit 1 or 2 praetorians in each army for example, same goes for the first cohorts, and veteran legionnaires (and their imp counterparts).