Offensive Spearmen vs Impact Foot

[kvnrthr]

These two capabilities have the same price, but it seems that impact foot is flat out better in most cases.

Pitting the two in a direct fight, the offensive spearmen gets +50 POA in melee, which while nice, will take many turns to bring a result.

The impact foot, meanwhile, gets +100 POA at impact and a -1 to enemy cohesion test. This is far more likely to disrupt the enemy quickly and take a unit out of the fight. Then the impact foot is free to go charging into another unit.

In fact, I think the impact foot is equal or superior to spearmen in fighting every type of unit except lancer cavalry. And even then, heavy impact foot is good enough against lancers, with 0 POA at impact and superior (due to combat strength mod) in melee. Depending on your point of view, they could be better than spearmen because they encourage enemy lancers to stick around for melee, while against spearmen lancers just bounce off.

Can anyone who has used spearmen against impact foot or vice versa share their opinions? In my limited experience I always prefer the impact foot in most cases, and happily charge a line of impact foot frontally into equivalent spearmen, knowing I will break through somewhere.

[MVP7]

Impact foot still relies on that one impact while spearmen get the advantage twice every turn after the initial impact. I haven't done the math but I think it generally balances out pretty well.

[kvnrthr]

Impact foot still relies on that one impact while spearmen get the advantage twice every turn after the initial impact. I haven't done the math but I think it generally balances out pretty well.

It would balance only if you averaged out all the effects over the average length of engagement.

The issue is that a spearman works very slowly. They don't even really win consistently in melee, drawing most of the time.

Meanwhile impact foot has the chance to win immediately, and then it is free to charge again.

Playing impact foot, I have no fear of extended melee against spearmen since I know I will roll lucky somewhere and help is on the way. The swordsmen are disadvantaged but you can leave them for 5 or 6 turns without much worry.

[MVP7]

Pretty sure average of all effects over average length of engagement is what you should be looking at when discussing unit balance . Extended melee can favor either side and spearmen armies have extra units to exploit it more often than heavy impact foot armies.

The most even match from armies of same time period is Veteran African Spearmen against Veteran Hastati/Principes. There the odds on impact are 47% for Roman win which leaves probably no more than 20-30% chance of Romans gaining meaningful advantage on impact. During melee the average odds are around 24% to 6% (affected by likely losses from impact) in favor of spearmen. Loss of cohesion is also more dangerous to Romans than spearmen as disruption drags Roman odds to 0% chance of winning and about 60% chance of loss, for the spearmen chance of loss when disrupted is only around 40%.

I ran 18 duels between Veteran African Spearmen and Veteran Hastati/Principes in hotseat with no external modifiers, both sides initiated half of the impacts and in case of either side pulling out the first capable unit would initiate a new charge. Out of those 18 duels 8 ended in close victory for spears, 7 ended with clear victory for spears and only 3 ended with victory for impact foot. The amount of samples is of course small (and the Romans unlucky) but I think it's still clear that impact foot doesn't have any clear advantage over offensive spear of similar price and capabilities.

Of course, heavy impact foot is pretty rare and most of it is high quality Roman units while most of classical heavy offensive spearmen are of much lesser quality and armour. This can easily cause the impression that the Romans, who are easily carving up the cheaper AI spearmen, are inherently superior unit type.

[MVP7]

I ran 6 more similar duels because the Roman performance seems suspiciously low. The results were 2 clear victories for spears, 2 close victory for spears, 1 clear victory for impact foot and one simultaneous autobreak which is something I don't remember seeing before .

The total tally is: 24 duels with 9 clear victories for spears, 10 close victories for spears, 4 clear victories for impact and 1 draw.

[Geffalrus]

The example you cited has the problem of involving units that have a lot of potential variables. To list the ones that jump out at me: Superior, Armor, and Heavy Infantry. Now, the armor value does kind of wash out since both have it. However, both superior and heavy infantry affect the likelihood of the unit failing a cohesion test. Both together make the unit incredibly sturdy. This works to the advantage of the Offensive Spear unit because they rely on a long extended melee for victory. Personally, I think a better test would be Scutari vs. Thureophoroi.

Both units cost 42, neither unit is heavy, so no bonus to cohesion rolls prolonging the engagement, and neither is heavy, so no penalty to cohesion for facing heavy or cavalry in the open. Personally, I think that is where you'll get a clear, unfiltered result of Offensive Spear vs Impact Foot.

Having used both Hoplites and Thureos recently in the tournament, I have a very strong......feeling, that hoplites are just more reliable at surviving in combat because of that heavy infantry bonus to cohesion rolls. It just makes them more likely to survive bad luck. Thureos, on the other hand, will crumble super easily in the wrong situation. Obviously, they have other advantages, but we're just talking straight fighting in the open. I'd never take hoplites into rough ground if I could help it.

[deve]

Geffalrus, WHen you compare thureos vs scutarii you should remember that scutarii is juicy target for mounted while thureos can be used to block shock cav, chariotts and elephants.
So yes I would bet on scutarri vs thureos (at least they have a chance to break them quickly) but it comes with extra headache since you need to avoid mounted and have other units to counter mounted.
ALl in all i would want to have impact units in infantry line collision. Even though spears would eventually win in more engagements but there will be at least one impact unit that will break spear unit quick and it will allow to destroy whole line with flank/charges charges. Spear units are more versatile though.

[MikeC_81]

There are advantages to Impact Foot that goes beyond the mindless mashing of an Impact Foot line vs a Spear line which make such comparisons suspect, not that understanding the odds is not important. Anyone who wants to play competitively should spend some time just mashing units together to get a feel for these numbers (or you can just look up the PoA table I made in the beginner's guide and memorize it) That is literally the least effective way to leverage the advantages of Impact Foot. If you were to distill into some sort of equal points battle where Impact Foot does nothing except execute a full frontal assault on a spear line, you are literally throwing yourself at the mercy of the RNG gods and praying for Impact to break the Spears.

Let's take a look at two equal points units that were suggested before, Thureos and Scutarii, both at 42 points. You could theoretically just line 10 of each up and have the Scutarii just charge and be done with it. But that would be an awful waste.

A better approach is to make use of ZoC rules and using ~ 2 Impact Foot to tie down 3 Spearmen so that you can then free up additional units to create an en echelon attack on the Spear line. Remember that a unit cannot pass through the secondary ZoC of a unit if it is not in combat. Also, note that an attacking foot unit that is defeated by a defending foot unit typically falls back. Should an Impact Foot player space out his line with gaps and stagger it backwards, he can shift additional units in a tight group to focus on the anchor unit of the spear line.

A +100 PoA advantage means that it is close to a 50/50 situation for the Impact foot to win. A singular Impact Foot unit might win, but fail to crack the morale of the spear unit and the spear unit's PoA denial effect on Swordsmen would then kick in bringing it to the Spear's advantage over the long haul. Typically, unless very lucky, the Impact Foot player who charges using his entire line vs Spears of equal quality will usually lose slightly more than he wins since its 50/50 to win in combat followed by a less than 100% chance to break their morale. Impact foot is very strong on in this regard but surprisingly this is not where their greatest power lies.

But how likely is a Spear unit on the anchor of a line likely to survive multiple hits from Impact Foot in a round? Or maybe over two separate rounds of combats because the Impact Foot player skillfully keeps a unit in reserve should the Spear unit roll well on morale that turns and survive Impact? It is not good at all. Can the Spears respond effectively in this case? They might since they should theoretically have an advantage on the far flank and along the centre of the line since the Impact Foot player had to strip units out of those areas to build his numerical advantage on the chosen flank.

It is here that the true strength of Impact Foot shows through. If the Spear line tries to push through the middle or counter envelope by piling on the far Impact Foot anchor unit, they come across a very big problem. They must initiate contact, suffer the same 50% chance to lose combat but this time with an added penalty. Should the spear unit lose, it will almost certainly bounce off the Impact Foot via fall back restoring the original ZoC control line preventing breakthroughs even if it is not a continuous line. There are clever tricks you can use to circumvent this issue but they all involve the expenditure of either time, to fully get around the flank of an Impact Foot line (whereas the Impact Foot line just needs to line up a 2 or 3 to 1 fight even if it is on the frontal arc for a good chance for success), or in additional units to backstop the attack spear unit from bouncing off the Impact Foot unit and thus ensuring that the ZoC is eliminated and allows a friendly spear unit to pass through the gap. So it is much harder for the Spear unit to convert a local numerical advantage as swiftly as Impact Foot. In addition, the Spear line trying to execute this kind of push puts themselves at severe risk of having some of their attacking units disrupted leaving them ripe for a counter-attack on the Impact Foot player's bound.

So between two players who understand the matchup, the approach to contact is critical. The Spear player will do his best through skirmishing and use of cavalry to keep the Impact foot line bunched up while the Impact Foot player is using the same to find and isolate segments of the Spear line to pile on a portion of his Impact Foot to effect a breakthrough. My extensive experience with Impact Foot suggests that the capabilities are roughly balanced assuming proper usage. Impact Foot that is unmaneuverable typically are worse than spears (like Warbands), while Impact Foot that is mobile and of good quality typically is better point for point than spears since they can maneuver well enough to create opportunities mentioned above and superior quality and armor help ensure that the Spear units that do manage to survive Impact round do not quickly push the Impact Foot off of them before help can arrive.

[MVP7]

High veterancy does indeed favor the long term performance of spearmen. I did 24 similar duels with Raw Hoplites and Raw Legionaries. The results were 12 clear wins for Hoplites, 2 close wins for Hoplites, 9 clear wins for Legionaries and 1 close win for Legionaries. In both tests it was surprisingly rare for the impact foot to be the first to break the enemy which would release them to flank the other opponents.

Duels between units are of course not the main thing to consider in balancing and far from the most important thing when it comes to outcome of battle. I'm mainly doing the tests to point out that adjusting the price of impact foot or offensive spear seems hardly necessary and impact foot definitely doesn't need a price increase or offensive spear price reduction. The concept of the Roman 'Raw' Impact foot still makes me scratch my head though. Would they really still count as "Raw" by the time they count as Impact Foot rather than Light Spear for example?

A few other things to consider about these unit types is that from around 3rd century BC to the turn of millennium the various Hoplites tend to be some of the cheapest units on the battlefield dominated by Legionaries, Warbands and Pikemen. In every other time period where offensive and defensive spearmen exist, like Rise of Persia and Immortal Fire, they are great units that often are near the top of the food chain.

[TheGrayMouser]

Analytics aside, if I have the choice in grabbing an impact foot unit or two versus an offensive spear or two, I will always take the impact. More versatile, poa is not dependent on being steady, and to deliver a possible decisive blow at impact can’t be denied as advantages.

[MVP7]

For me it would be hard choice between identical spearmen and impact foot (rare option if it even exists). If I knew the opponent had a lot of hoplites I would rather bank on high quality impact foot and if I knew the opponent had better quality impact foot I would probably try to overwhelm them with average to raw spearmen. Personally I think offensive spear is more versatile than impact foot which relies really heavily on the success of impact.

[Geffalrus]

Just to reiterate, I was pointing to Scutari and Thureophoroi because that matchup has no extraneous variables affecting combat or cohesion rolls other than the innate -1 to cohesion for losing the impact vs. Impact foot. You want to have the only variables be the impact and melee rolls.......and then whatever luck affects the cohesion rolls if/when the units lose. Anyway, I'm glad that MVP did use non-superior units in his tests, but I still think the heavy infantry variable is affecting any tests.

[TheGrayMouser]

For me it would be hard choice between identical spearmen and impact foot (rare option if it even exists). If I knew the opponent had a lot of hoplites I would rather bank on high quality impact foot and if I knew the opponent had better quality impact foot I would probably try to overwhelm them with average to raw spearmen. Personally I think offensive spear is more versatile than impact foot which relies really heavily on the success of impact.

Some good points there, in the end likely comes down to a players comfort zone and play style. I love the risking the roll of the dice to go for above average luck for a good impact with impact foot ! Spears sometimes make me feel tactically cramped...but I’m always loose as a goose with impact foot.

[kvnrthr]

Thanks for the comments.

I admit my views are colored by one match in the christmas tournament where my hastati/principes blasted through an enemy hoplite line, and granted it was not a fair comparison due to the better troop quality on the hastati.

I was interested in chance of immediate cohesion drop so I calculated it for varying troop types and quality. From the game manual, the game rolls two six sided dice and passes cohesion test if the sum is 6 or greater, once modifiers are taken into account. Superior troops reroll 1. Medium troops have -1 net modifier for losing to impact foot, heavy have 0 due to +1 for being heavy foot.

(assuming impact foot won impact combat)
Average Medium: 41.7% chance to fail cohesion test
Average Heavy: 27.5% chance to fail cohesion test
Superior Medium: 23.8% chance to fail cohesion test
Superior Heavy: 12.1% chance to fail cohesion test

Multiply those numbers by the probability of impact foot winning, which for equal troop price is usually 50% for +100 POA and you get the probability of cohesion drop from a charge.

It seems that the probability is not as high as I expected, although for average troops it is still quite high. Another case of bad rolls being more memorable than good ones?

On the other hand, Michael made a good point that impact foot are much less likely to bounce off when charging enemy spearmen while spearmen will quickly bounce off impact foot, which makes them more reliable in taking away ZOCs.

What I wonder is if the other -1 modifiers to cohesion test (>5% close combat damage, damage suffered significantly exceeds damage inflicted) can take effect at first impact. If it could, then the numbers would be very different.

[MikeC_81]

The numbers are a bit off. Whenever steady foot engage each other and there is a loser, there is almost always a pair of -1 CT modifiers in the form of "lost close combat badly" and "suffer more than 5% close combat damage". Back when I was doing the tests for the guide, I actually never saw a steady foot vs foot combat that didn't have both of those. Also, you forgot to include the fact that Superiors cannot reroll 1s multiple times.

The more accurate numbers are assuming no generals, no exposed flanks, and loser has not accumulated 25% casualties.

1) 72.22 (chance to fail)
2) 58.22
3) 62.19
4) 43.29

[kvnrthr]

Thanks for the clarification! So heavy foot losing to impact foot has a good chance of getting -2 modifier and medium gets -3? Those cohesion test modifiers are more important than I thought...

It would be nice if the cohesion test info was in the tooltip in the form of having X% chance to drop enemy cohesion, with all relevant factors spelled out. It took some digging in the manual to see it, unlike POA info which is explained more clearly in game.

[rbodleyscott]

Thanks for the clarification! So heavy foot losing to impact foot has a good chance of getting -2 modifier and medium gets -3? Those cohesion test modifiers are more important than I thought..

There is more difference than that between heavy and medium foot fighting heavy impact foot in open terrain.

Heavy foot get a blanket +1 CT modifier, and medium foot get a -1 modifier if fighting Heavies in open terrain.

So if the other modifiers amounted to -2, the heavies would end up on -1 and the mediums on -3.

Because the "two dice" morale system approximates to a normal distribution, with scores clustering towards the mean, and the final score to pass is close to the mean, that is a very significant difference in the chance of failing.

[Geffalrus]

On the other hand, Michael made a good point that impact foot are much less likely to bounce off when charging enemy spearmen while spearmen will quickly bounce off impact foot, which makes them more reliable in taking away ZOCs.

I think this is a very important point. Impact units are very reliable in their ability to AT LEAST land an Indecisive roll when attacking most units. Obviously, that's not ideal when you want to crush a unit frontally, but it's amazingly useful for flanking. Impact foot are more likely than Offensive Spears to stick around for melee and not bounce off. Which then opens up a subsequent flanking attack.

[MVP7]

But it should be kept in mind that, for infantry, offensive spearmen are not bad at charging, they just aren't as good as impact foot and pikemen. These units only really meet each other in battle from 4th century bc to the end of millennium and then pikes and spears again during late medieval period. Outside of those periods the offensive spear is still usually among the best infantry for charging when available.

[Geffalrus]

But it should be kept in mind that, for infantry, offensive spearmen are not bad at charging, they just aren't as good as impact foot and pikemen. These units only really meet each other in battle from 4th century bc to the end of millennium and then pikes and spears again during late medieval period. Outside of those periods the offensive spear is still usually among the best infantry for charging when available.

That's a very good point. My understanding is that Offensive Spears predate pikes and impact foot and are the dominant melee infantry in the Biblical Era, but then Pikes and Impact foot take over in Classical and Late Antiquity, and then Impact Foot remain up into Early Medieval. Do Offensive Spears ever come back into the army lists?