Poll - EB New Units

[b0Gia de Bodemloze]

Hello fans, i would like to ask your opinion about new units of Eb.
So please tell us first what units you think are missing from Eb and then what units you would like to see in Eb.
Regards,
EB Team

[OJ33DA]

b0gia, glad to see you back on the scene! I personally don't find issue with the current roster of units, instead I feel that balancing what's already there should take priority.

[mephiston]

b0gia, glad to see you back on the scene! I personally don't find issue with the current roster of units, instead I feel that balancing what's already there should take priority.

Hi OJ33DA,

Balancing is already taking place:

I'm balancing the EDU on the basis of the 4.0 MP EDU, which is thought for MP play and so tries to be as fair as possible.

However, since this mod is focused on historical accuracy, only that much can be done to give a chance to all factions. It's not possible to artificially bump stats regardless of the historical performance of a unit: for this reason, one of the ways in which you can "help out" underdog factions is to give them new units.

[OJ33DA]

Hi OJ33DA,

Balancing is already taking place:

I'm balancing the EDU on the basis of the 4.0 MP EDU, which is thought for MP play and so tries to be as fair as possible.

However, since this mod is focused on historical accuracy, only that much can be done to give a chance to all factions. It's not possible to artificially bump stats regardless of the historical performance of a unit: for this reason, one of the ways in which you can "help out" underdog factions is to give them new units.

Makes sense...

I noticed that there is still room for more units, assuming that 500 is the max; what has perplexed me for a while now, being that EB is supposed to be historical, is the absence of 'medium pike' phalanx units. There are only 'long' and 'short' but no in between. I've read at least one source that stated that the trees required to build the long pikes were not in high enough supply, or something similar to that statement (can't remember), so that some phalanx companies were equipped with pikes that weren't as long as the infamous 'long pike.'

I'm not sure of their utility, but said 'medium pike' phalangites, according to some post in the RomeII subforum, fought more aggressively than their 'long pike' brethren. I would like to see more representation of said units.

[mephiston]

First of all, I'd like to know which unit you're referring to when talking about "short" pikes, because I may think we're playing a different game.

Seriously though, all "successor" pike units use the traditional long sarissa, while other non-Macedonian phalanx units wield either the traditional Greek doru (in case of units coming from Greek cultural basin) or some other iron-pointed spear (frameae or gaesa, I guess, in case of Celtic units).


The main problems when facing such a dilemma come from how much credit you want to give to the sources.

You have Asclepiodotus writing that the sarissa should be "no shorter than 10 pecheis [cubits] so that the part that projects forward of the line is no less than 8 pecheis", and then Aelian saying that it should be "no shorter than 8 cubits" but maybe missing a passage in the text when he's referring to the part that projects forward as well. However, Polyaenus states that the garrison of Edessa was armed with sarissae 16 cubits in length at the end of the 4th century BC; Polybius seems to confirm this by saying that sarissae in the Macedonian army defeated at Pydna (168 BC) were shortened to 14 cubits from the 16 cubits of ancient times. Aelian himself, two chapters after the sentence I cited before, states that "the length of his [the phalangite's] pike was initially 16 cubits, but in truth it ought to be 14 cubits"!!! Then Theophrastus is cited to support the claim that the sarissa was 10 to 12 cubits in length in the aftermath of Alexander's death (Sekunda, Heckel and Jones, mainly).

At this point, add to this mix the fact that all those writers were writing in different times, using different sources, referring to different periods. Consider also that the aforementioned unit of measurement, the pechus or cubit, did NOT have a standardised definition throughout the Hellenistic period. Hell, it was different even from city to city (see Attic cubit or Olympian, or Peloponnesian, cubit, for example)! The result, as you can imagine, is a God-awful mess.


All in all, I see no way the claim made in some RomeII subforum (which, by the way, says absolutely zero about the historical accuracy of the claim itself; how they can derive that said phalanx fought much more aggressively it's a total mystery to me. Could you post the link please?) can be supported. Yes, probably the length of the pike didn't have a true standard in the Hellenistic period. Yes, probably there was a trend in the length of the pike: earlier pikes seem to be shorter, later pikes seem to be longer, which makes sense because you want to get an advantage in phalanx fights. Would these considerations require the addition of a specific "medium pike" unit, different from the other standard Macedonian Syntagmata, given the fact that it would open the door to a number of other historical considerations needed to design and implement the unit into the game with specific reforms? My personal answer would be that no, it's not worth it.


OTOH, how do you feel about Celtic units @OJ33DA? For example, I feel the Casse roster is severely lacking variety, after the removal of the Dubosaverlacica and Goidilic units.

[OJ33DA]

I did some tests (not with EB but with RS3, which I'm trying to mod) and I've found that, if any phalanx unit has their 'long_pike' removed and forced to fight any other 'long_pike' unit, it creates a whole range of issues that are probably most at fault with the RTW engine. Needless to say, when the pikes meet, it screws up formations BADLY to the point where even a levy pikeman (with long_pike removed) can best a pezhetairoi. Given the limitations (bugginess) of the RTW engine, I feel that regardless of historical considerations, it's a better move to have all phalanx units be 'long_pike.' I spent many hours adjusting all kinds of stats (Mass, radius, ATK, etc.) to try to get the two pike units to play "nice," after all, RTW Vanilla manages to get it done, and I theorize that the only reason why it works it Vanillia is because of the high lethality; I frankly don't have the will to test it but that's what it probably is.

Regarding the Celtic units, I can't say. I don't see a problem with them, but if the general consensus is that they need more units, you wouldn't find me disagreeing.

Also, I noticed that it's been pretty dead in the Rome mod forums, has everyone moved to EBII?

[mephiston]

I did some tests (not with EB but with RS3, which I'm trying to mod) and I've found that, if any phalanx unit has their 'long_pike' removed and forced to fight any other 'long_pike' unit, it creates a whole range of issues that are probably most at fault with the RTW engine. Needless to say, when the pikes meet, it screws up formations BADLY to the point where even a levy pikeman (with long_pike removed) can best a pezhetairoi. Given the limitations (bugginess) of the RTW engine, I feel that regardless of historical considerations, it's a better move to have all phalanx units be 'long_pike.' I spent many hours adjusting all kinds of stats (Mass, radius, ATK, etc.) to try to get the two pike units to play "nice," after all, RTW Vanilla manages to get it done, and I theorize that the only reason why it works it Vanillia is because of the high lethality; I frankly don't have the will to test it but that's what it probably is.

Regarding the Celtic units, I can't say. I don't see a problem with them, but if the general consensus is that they need more units, you wouldn't find me disagreeing.

Also, I noticed that it's been pretty dead in the Rome mod forums, has everyone moved to EBII?

Ah, now I understand: you probably refer to the long_pike attribute when talking about "long pikes", while referring to the absence of long_pike when talking about "short pikes". I see.

However, the long_pike issue is a non-issue TBH. Every single Macedonian-type phalanx in the game has the long_pike attribute in the EDU, and only those have it (and I agree with you that they should). Phalanx fights are not that easy to analyze, too. How did you perform the tests? What formation the phalanxes were in? Specifically, what was the depth of the formation? Were they in guard mode? Did you issue the attack order or let them engage without doing anything else? In which unit scale you were playing? Were the phalanxes also the respective general's units?
I'm not saying random stuff, mind you: each one of these factor influences the outcome of a phalanx fight. Plus, I don't really know how units are statted in RS3: I can't say without proper testing if the long_pike attribute truly plays a relevant role in the outcome of the battle MORE THAN other factors (other stats, formation, depth, guard mode, attack order). I agree that rtw.exe doesn't like pike formations as they get screwed up easily. However, that's something I haven't experienced in a long time because I haven't played single player since ages, while in multiplayer if your opponent takes proper care of his phalanxes the issues aren't that big.

What do you mean by "RTW Vanilla manages to get it done"? I haven't seen fundamental differences in phalanx behaviour between EB and RTW, barred the kill rates due to lower defences and higher lethality in general. Maybe I overlooked something though.

EBII in general provides a better single player campaign experience in every possible way, due to the superior engine at the modders' disposal. In my opinion it falls short in the battle map, because of the different engine as well: to me it simply doesn't feel right to fight battles in M2TW and in EBII as well, being it for unit cohesion, morale or something else I don't know. EBI in my opinion has proven to be much better battle-wise, as there are still online players fighting while (from what I understand) EBII multiplayer scene is pretty much dead. You also need to consider that the last official EBI release is 10+ years old, and that's saying something about the longevity of the game.

Just out of curiosity, how did you adjust the stats? What's the final result you came up with?

[OJ33DA]

Sorry for not being entirely clear in my first post. Here is what I mean by 'short, medium, and long' pikes: 'short' being all units (mostly hoplites in EB1.3c) with the short_pike attribute, 'long' being all units (phalangites in EB) that have the long_pike attribute, 'medium' being any phalanx-capable unit that has neither short_pike or long_pike therefore the length of the spear is visibly medium to short and long_pike.

The issue I have run into, in my testing with RS3, is that any phalanx-capable unit that has their long_pike taken away automatically has more pushing power than their long_pike brethren. Normally, I'm surmising, because of the high leth in Vanilla, the medium-pike phalanx units will die (or take heavy casualties) before reaching the base of a superior enemy long-pike pikemen, however, because of their lower leth in RS3, the medium-pike pikemen are able to reach the base of the long-pike without taking too many casualties. And since the the medium-pike pikemen have (what seems to be) more pushing power, they will keep pushing through the long-pike pikemen formation until the enemy becomes disordely, and at that point, the medium-pikemen will slaughter the long-pikemen. Through this method, a greek levy pikemen were able to beat pezhetairoi.

Here are the stats of the units and what changes I made:
Anything not colored was kept constant. Blue means value was constantly changed. Orange means value was only changed once. Red identifies values that were removed. Green identifies comments.

Testing performed on: RS3 3.1, ALX engine; Large unit size; Guard mode off for both units (Ai doesn't use Guard mode); head-on 1v1 collision between units; both were General unit; both in 'phalanx' formation; both in tight formation; Attack order (single Rclick) issued for both units (I assume the Ai did the same)

Results: Greek levy breaks cohesion of pez unit, then proceeds to butcher them.

Stats:

type greek levy pikemen
dictionary greek_levy_pikemen
category infantry
class spearmen
voice_type Light_1
soldier greek_levy_pikeman, 60, 0, 0.86 ; changed mass to several extreme values (0.86, 0.6, 0.4, 0.1, 1.33, 2.4, 4.6, etc.)
officer greek_levy_pikeman
officer greek_officer
officer greek_flutist
attributes sea_faring, hide_forest, can_sap, hardy
formation 0.9, 1, 2.4, 2, 10, square, phalanx ; changed formation depth to 6
stat_health 1, 5
stat_pri 16, 7, no, 0, 0, melee, blade, piercing, spear, 25, 0.405 ; tested on 25 and 1 min_delay
stat_pri_attr long_pike, spear, spear_bonus_6 ; removed long_pike
stat_sec 8, 7, no, 0, 0, melee, blade, slashing, sword, 25, 0.477 ; made this equal to stat_pri min_delay
stat_sec_attr no
stat_pri_armour 7, 16, 10, leather
stat_sec_armour 0, 1, flesh
stat_heat 1
stat_ground 0, 0, -6, -2
stat_mental 16, normal, highly_trained
stat_charge_dist 1
stat_fire_delay 0
stat_food 60, 300
stat_cost 0, 888, 292, 45, 63, 111
ownership barbarian, nomad, carthaginian, eastern, parthia, egyptian, greek, roman

--------------------VERSUS-------------------------

type pezhetairoi pikeman
dictionary pezhetairoi_pikeman
category infantry
class spearmen
voice_type Heavy_1
soldier pezhetairoi_successors_pikeman, 60, 0, 1.024
officer pezhetairoi_successors_pikeman
officer greek_officer
officer greek_flutist
attributes sea_faring, hide_forest, can_sap, very_hardy
formation 0.9, 1, 2.4, 2, 10, square, phalanx ; changed formation depth to 6
stat_health 1, 5
stat_pri 18, 9, no, 0, 0, melee, blade, piercing, spear, 25, 0.405 ; tested on 25 and 1 min_delay
stat_pri_attr long_pike, spear, spear_bonus_10
stat_sec 10, 9, no, 0, 0, melee, blade, slashing, sword, 25, 0.477; made this equal to stat_pri min_delay
stat_sec_attr no
stat_pri_armour 13, 21, 10, leather
stat_sec_armour 0, 1, flesh
stat_heat 2
stat_ground 0, 0, -6, -2
stat_mental 21, normal, highly_trained
stat_charge_dist 1
stat_fire_delay 0
stat_food 60, 300
stat_cost 0, 2600, 735, 131, 183, 325
ownership seleucid, egypt, slave

[mephiston]

Oh, gotcha. The problem here is the spear attribute. It's a known problem that units with spear attribute get a huge pushing power, so it's not recommended to give that attribute to any unit at all. Most spear units in EB have light_spear instead.

Also, I'm not sure that the AI doesn't use guard mode: in EB it certainly does. It doesn't toggle it, that's for sure: but some AI units enter the battle in guard mode and finish the battle still in guard mode. What unit were you commanding in these tests? Did you repeat them in reverse?

SPOILER: short_pike will be removed from hoplites in the new version.

[OJ33DA]

Thank you, I will do additional testing with light_spear, guard mode on, and I'll trying deepening/widening default ranks for both units to see whether that affects anything.

Interesting that the EB team plans on removing short_pike; may I ask what made you guys come to this decision? I know that it's buggy and ugly, to say the least, is that part of the reason why?

P.S. I've noticed that in the EDU for EB 1.3c, many weapons have a min_delay of 0. Has the EB team noticed a difference between the values of 25 and 0? I personally don't notice one and I've read that setting min_delay to 0 simply resets the value to 25 (never tested it out though). Personally, I like using the value of 1. I've made tests (1v1 matches) where a unit with 1 min_delay performs better than a unit with 25 min_delay.

[Uesugi1971]

Please get rid of Bruzzi infantry in Italy. It's unrealistic to see them under Roman command since they were despised and destined to non combattant services.

[mephiston]

I'd just prefer to leave any pike attribute (both long_pike and short_pike) alone apart from the true Macedonian phalanxes: too many issues and too small benefits. Also, what qualifies hoplites so different from any other shieldwall spearmen to have a unique formation? I'll play with unit radii to better simulate the cohesion of the formation: it's far easier to balance, and it doesn't require to tackle the barbarian shieldwall units with secondary swords, as they have a backup weapon that requires a rather loose formation to be employed.

Please get rid of Bruzzi infantry in Italy. It's unrealistic to see them under Roman command since they were despised and destined to non combattant services.

That's simply not true, considering EB's starting date.

[Uesugi1971]

Bruzzi in Arpi or Capua is a sore eye imho since Bruttium is nowadays Calabria and Bruzzi came from here and nowhere else. Italic infantry might have had a better sound.

[mephiston]

Bruzzi in Arpi or Capua is a sore eye imho since Bruttium is nowadays Calabria and Bruzzi came from here and nowhere else. Italic infantry might have had a better sound.

Now we're reasoning. I'd lean towards your opinion: Bruttians in Arpi is definitely too stretched to be realistic, so your claim to remove them from there is okay for me. I'd keep them recruitable in Capua though, because after all it's not too far away from Bruttium. That's not my job, I'm in charge of the EDU stat balance: if a team member decides to listen to you, I certainly won't complain.

[Uesugi1971]

Well, Bruzzi came to life as a tribe of their own by seceding from the Lucanians confederation because they were the lowest class - Lucanians too seceded from Samnites - and since Lucanians like Bruzzi were warlike and well known as mercenaries in Southern Italy (Alexander of Epyrus, Olympia's brother, was assassinated by one of them) why not Lucanians? After all the units' graphic look is more Lucanian then Bruttian.

[mephiston]

Right, they were mercenaries, and their presence in the Roman as well as in the Carthaginian armies is per se a reason to include them. They also fought in a coalition against Alexandros ho Molossos, as you mentioned, just two generations before EB's start date.
I don't know what seems more Lucanian than Bruttian in their equipment: I mean, as you said, they're so close to the Lucanians in culture and geography their grave goods look so similar. The bronze belt on the Pezoi Brettioi model looks suspiciously similar to the one found in the grave at Treselle, though, so I guess they took that one as an inspiration for Bruttian belts.

Why this animosity against Bruttians? You don't like Kalabria?

[Uesugi1971]

Right, they were mercenaries, and their presence in the Roman as well as in the Carthaginian armies is per se a reason to include them.

That's why. Amongst the Italics, they were the only ones to side totally with Carthage, hence the harsh punishment SPQR gave them after. Nothing against Kalabria, but since its town is Reggium iirc - a greek city who greatly suffered their raids - it made sense to me limit their presence here.
About military panopliae found in graves. Bruzzi had two warrior classes - the swordcarriers and spearscarriers. The first was the wealthiest, the latter the poorest.While lucanian ones were homogenous almost in kind, panopliae in bruttians grave sites show this duality in warriors' status. The Treselle model was not bruzzian or lucanian in se - I prefer to define it the oscan type, round shaped compared to the more arcaic and square shaped - and quickly discharged in favour of the previous - latino-faliscan one .
https://www.deviantart.com/panaiotis...n-01-300149116

[OJ33DA]

Will this new EB (v1.32) fix all the bugs from EB 1.2 and 1.31c release? I know that bogia mentioned they'd start from scratch but idk how "scratch" they plan to go.

Also, will the hoplite long spears (the ones that clip through the floor) be changed? They look pretty bad; no offense to the OG EB team.

[b0Gia de Bodemloze]

Will this new EB (v1.32) fix all the bugs from EB 1.2 and 1.31c release? I know that bogia mentioned they'd start from scratch but idk how "scratch" they plan to go.

Also, will the hoplite long spears (the ones that clip through the floor) be changed? They look pretty bad; no offense to the OG EB team.

This is generic or specific units. Please give more details and screenshots.

[Uesugi1971]

Ok my wish list so far
A - solve the Bruzzi issue - rename delete change aor I do not care much just fix it
B - rename the slavic spearman. It doesn't have sense snce the emering of Slavs in eastern Europe dates fron mid II century bc to mid II century ac
C - fix the siege tower and ambush bugs that plagues spear troops an saka familiars
D - more units to britons
E - give parthians the 130 bc military refom