Slitherine

rbodleyscott wrote:

Witan wrote:

Light units can often cause disruption to the enemy, then I move them out of the way and charge them. They're one step closer to being broken. If my plans work, that is

The problem is, that light units are only good in disrupting elephants and cavalry. If you play against an infantery nation, you have nearly no chance to disrupt enemy units with your missile troops.
After the opinion of the devs that works like intended, but in my mind, it is really a bit to difficult. Besides parthain and steppe people, especially for nations like india, that use massive amounts of missile troops as main line.

Believe me, Indians have no problem shooting the enemy to hell. Try them.

The AI doesn't seem very good at it. I've run over 2 Indian armies with Seleukids pretty much by rolling straight at them with the heavy foot

Human players are, of course, always a different matter

nikgaukroger wrote: The AI doesn't seem very good at it. I've run over 2 Indian armies with Seleukids pretty much by rolling straight at them with the heavy foot

Human players are, of course, always a different matter

Just one thing to point out - Indian archers are not light foot, they cannot evade. That is why it is very easy to run into them. But you will suffer from massed fire before you catch them. I was playing campaign as Bactria against them (3rd difficulty lvl) and while I was able to force them to melee some of my units suffered heavy losses. Once I charged three units of cavalry (xystophoroi) into five units of indian archers and was one tile short:) In the end one of my units made it to melee, one was routed and another one fragmented

Attempts to nerf or boost various factions so that they are all equally likely of victory not only always fail (see every TBS & RTS game ever) but are a silly concept to begin with.

If you have different factions then they should have differences & some of those are inevitably going to be more useful than others.

Considering we're also dealing with history, attempts to make universally equal factions becomes even more absurd.

The Roman Republic were not military equals with the Ligurians in the time period depicted by the game (before this the Romans used to be a standard Hoplite army & before that they used to be a tribal, warrior army).

However an ineptly handled Roman or genius Ligurian with 'combat multipliers' like beneficial terrain &/or intelligence advantages may still pull off an upset.

This can happen "accidentally" with the current system (I've had Veteran Pike units smashed by Javelinmen) or deliberately via scenario design... perhaps there could be room for allowing weaker powers the ability to somehow secure/purchase additional such advantages (terrain options, enemy has fewer commanders, all friendlies are harder to spot until they move, enemy is tired/hungry etc).

However the idea of giving factions depicting hill tribes elite troops that they didn't have just to make things "fair" is genuinely silly.

KOB001 wrote:Attempts to nerf or boost various factions so that they are all equally likely of victory not only always fail (see every TBS & RTS game ever) but are a silly concept to begin with.

.............

However the idea of giving factions depicting hill tribes elite troops that they didn't have just to make things "fair" is genuinely silly.

Don't worry, we are not going to balance the factions to make things "fair". Some of the historical armies really were crap, and these nations tended to be the conquered, not the conquerors.

Even some conquerors relied on numbers for victory (e.g. The Ottomans) and others relied on their strategic mobility to arrive at the battlefield with "more points" than the enemy (e.g. nomad armies), or their superior logistics and unity of purpose to arrive at the battlefield with more points than the enemy (e.g. Romans).

Sometimes it is fun to try to win with one of the "crap" armies. And it's the last refuge of the player who has "beaten the game".

But nobody is forcing anyone to play with them.

However, we do plan to adjust the Parthian list, because it currently does not allow some known Parthian army compositions.

rbodleyscott wrote:However, we do plan to adjust the Parthian list, because it currently does not allow some known Parthian army compositions.

Good to hear you're not worried about making everything "fair".

I'd certainly not rush things with regards to any changes you plan with the Parthians.

I have no idea why some people are saying they're weak... I've only fought them a few times so far but found them amongst my tougher opponents when fighting the AI.

It's like fighting a stinging cloud of bees & I can usually say goodbye to anything that I move into the open which isn't a heavy infantry Phalanx.