A bit of an Unbalance

[sum1won]

Ive found the veterans to be a bit too good- or more accurately, the roman elite infantry which they pay thought he nose for, to be mediocre at best. Veterans are also a bit too strong, crushing most troops they run into. 3 Praetorians at lvl 6 should not break to 4 units of lvl 5 vets in a battle where they are on an equal footing. (They had approximately equal support fire). Legionaires should be able to take on vets 1-1, but they are unable to- they hold their own with upgraded weapons and armor, but only just. Warriors are able to take on hastiti in open ground (with a 2-1 advantage), but auxila cannot take on vets easily even in rough terrain- the my vets routed the auxila of a certain player when forced to root them out of a forest. These units were at an equal level, and neither was level to fight the other especially. On top of this, I have seen utterly rout units of fanatcs at an equal level. I attributed this to arrow fire, but after looking at the scores, I realized my ranged units did almost no damage at all.

Frankly, I think that rome needs a revamp, or that people should try not to play rome vs. celt games for a little while yet. As things stand, the celtic troops are better by a great deal, and I would be most appreciative if somebody could prove me wrong. However, unless somebody says they dont mind, Im going to choose the same side they do, just to give them a fair chance.

While Roman vs. Roman battles may be interesting, as are Celt vs. Celt, Roman vs. Celt have been very one sided so far- the only thing that has made up for roman weaknesses are the elephants. If you are the celts vs. a Roman army, try to make your list not totally brutal- use limited use units more often than you would. Units like spearmen, for example, or militia(whose role is can be filled almost as well, and at half the price by peasents), or sub fanatics for your veterans.

Note that this assesment applies only to multiplayer, not singleplayer, where the high levels of the troops can throw things off.

And apologies to slitherine if they are offended by this- multiplayer can often show up some imbalances not obvious normally, and Im hoping that they will releasea patch fixing this as a result.

[xaziv]

Yeah they are pretty imbalanced... i mean romans have elephants... but elephants cost a lot... and their archers are more expensive... and praetorians totally arent worth 1200... i believe you were referring to your battle w/ me when you ownt my praetorian legions with your vets... Putting 3600 denari into 3 legions of infantry, you would expect them to be good enough to take on many legions of veterans... its not like they werent upgraded either.

With celts you get cheap archers and good infantry units...

[IainMcNeil]

There is no problem with this feedback - we want to know if things are unbalanced!

Although its all been tested thoroughly, the game mechanics are continually changing during development, so some of the testing is of limited use. It's not until final release when the code stops changing that you can get a final view of how things work & if we fix any bugs it could again intefere with the balance!

I'd like to hear more peoples views on this but have no problems with adjusting them if there is a consensus. Veterans may be a bit over armoured & fanatics a bit vulnerable.

[sum1won]

I think that one thing that may be contributing is that veterans have an agility of 20, but a melee armor of 14(?). Fanatics have no armor, and they have an agility of 15. More importantly, roman troops have a very low melee concuss for the most part- the only way they can reliably kill a few celts is via the pilums, which is not too easy if the celt player takes a few precautions in the form of peasents or light cavalry. Celts have a decent concuss, though, so they peirce roman armor very effeciently- even warriors are decent at this. So when a unit of veterans wanders into the forest, the auxila are only doing a few damage a hit, and though they hit more, the celts do about 20 damage a hit.

This is unlike warriors, who when catching veterans in the woods, do peirce their armor, and can take them out, albeit with some losses.

And Xasiv, the battle with you definitely got me thinking, and afterwards I remembered some other battles where the roman opposition got clobbered.

[miki]

I also think that Celts are a bit overrated.

I haven't played online yet, but the Celtic campaign is easier than the Roman by far.

If you compare Warriors vs Auxilia performance, you'll see that Warriors are a lot more deadly than Auxiliary infantry, they can hurt everybody even in the open. And they are cheaper.

Celtic Veterans seems to be better than Legionaries also...

Best Regards
Miki

[IainMcNeil]

Anything else seem out of balance? Any skills too good or too weak?

Any skills you feel are missing that should be added?

[miki]

Hi Iain,

I have been thinking about this issue. Celts (warbands) overran Romans (blades) in many, many times in the past. What saved the day for the Romans -sometimes- was organization (drill and morale) and skill (fighting techniques, maneouver and weaponry). Its a bit complicated but:

Killing factors are perhaps a bit underated for the Roman side/overated for the Celts. I know this will sound contradictory, but I have mixed feelings here. Perhaps, the best way to bypass this feeling is purely educational (it would surprise a lot of people the great number of defeats Rome suffered from Gauls). Nevertheless, I humbly think this "umbalance feeling" can be solved by:

1-A way to depict better Roman C&C (bonuses to drill, Legate with more command points?). This way, the Romans would better exploit (gaining local superiority) the inevitable gaps in the Celtic front?

2-A way to depict the impetuous and almost unstoppable Celtic Charge would be a new killing/concuss factor only applicable when "charging" actually. Call it a Bonus Charge.

Just my 2 silly euro cents.

EDITED: By the way, the most feared units I fought against in the Roman campaign (in hardest), were those pesky Greek hoplites/spearmen (levels 15 to 19). They were simply awesome. You can deal with Celts a huge lot easier, if you compare...