Warbands need a rebalance???

[GiveWarAchance]

Also to consider before nerfing the poor Gauls is the warbands are the only strong unit the Gauls have so if they are nerfed then the Gauls maybe too weak.
In my MP game with me as Gauls, my superior warbands...were hit on 3 sides by the numerous enemy so they don't seem overpowered

With all due respect, most units won't do well if hit on three sides and outnumbered 2-3 to one. I think that if you look at how warbands do 1-on-1 vs other heavy infantry, they are too resilient, I guess because of unit size.

I know that but what I mean is the Gauls are hugely outnumbered so it is inevitable that they get surrounded so any nerfing will doom them completely.

[76mm]

I know that but what I mean is the Gauls are hugely outnumbered so it is inevitable that they get surrounded so any nerfing will doom them completely.

Really depends on the situation; all of the games I've played against Gauls (AI) they have greatly outnumbered and outflanked me, not vice versa. For your issue, the problem could be their cost, not their effectiveness.

[MikeC_81]

Superior Warbands are among the most expensive units in the game. I wonder if they are overcosted if anything given their propensity to chase and are unmaneurvable. I am also unsure whether there is enough real data to show whether much of anything is or is not unbalanced. The game is less than a month old.

Yes... I don't necessarily think they are too cheap points wise. I think it is more their battlefield performance that might be just a tad bit too effective at punching holes in the line of anything not Roman or Phalanx. I usually look at Hoplites here.

I don't see how really.

You can have almost 4 Merc Hoplites for every 3 Warband. The Warband will enjoy approx +110 PoA on the charge and which makes them a small favourite to win the combat, ~35% tilt assuming all else is equal according to the manual. If, and I stress, if, they win, the hoplite has to make a morale check at an extra -1 penalty on the die roll. After impact, in subsequent melee, Warbands have no PoA advantage on Merc Hoplites at all except deep ranks PoA, and a smallish Combat Strength multiplier. Even if they win, they no longer inflict morale tests with their extra negative modifier.

If you look at veteran hoplites which are equal in points, hoplites get Superior status cutting down the Warband's impact PoA to 60 or so making them even less likely to lose the most dangerous element of the Warband. Even if they lose, with superior status they are more likely to avoid fragmenting on the loss. The Warbands are now underdogs since the Merc Hoplites have a +50 modifier advantage due to being superior and the Warbands only recompense combat strength bonuses which should not be super high unless the Hoplites took a lot of casualties from an unlucky roll.

Even in the worse case scenario where Warbands fragment opposing heavy foot, its not like the unit just melts away. The Warband will have to keep attacking to grind it down giving you a turn or two to bring up support. There will definitely be times when massed Warband charges will wreck an opposing heavy foot line of mediocre quality like hoplites but isn't there an onus on the opposing player to deploy properly to avoid or minimize mass warband charges against his force? Especially since you should have some points advantage to buy troops to help screen your own heavy foot?

For all their prowess on the charge and large numbers, Warbands come with what I consider severe penalties. Unlike merc or veteran hoplites, they have an annoyingly high propensity to chase routing enemies making them liable to over extend. They are also un-maneuverable meaning that they don't get their free 45 turn that hoplites get while under command of a general making the chase problem even worse. You have to spend considerable time turning these warbands to take advantage of any kind of break through in the enemy line.

As I mentioned previously, it has been less than a month. Give players time to play, especially since PBEM is the only option and games will take more than a week to complete and see what is working or not working. Games against the AI which quite honestly is incompetent at times is no good judge of balance. You can wreck AI heavy foot armies with Warbands all you like but real players with real strategies and plans will produce different results. At any rate, just looking at the current state of Warbands vs other heavy foot from the math, limited play time, and the eye test so far, I have severe doubts about Warbands being overpowered in any way.

Phalanx can deal with heavy warband heavy assault but is not very common see heavy warbands assaults failing VS other heavy foot and if you start with a cohesion test in impact the melee could be the door to fragmenation or even break.

I dont really like the excesive size of heavy warbands and pike units, the number of soldiers have to much impact in results and offer an extra bonus to this units... they are expensive but the size made them a very valuable assault unit... and defensive unit because you can have 3 VS 1 and they manage to survive more than any other heavy foot unit in game (even superior romans).

Now warbands have a clear advantage VS non pike heavy foot, need a balance but at same time pike need something to... think this is the base game and we are going to see very special armies in future... medieval armies have WTF armies like Swiss that could be a big lol... and wait see the longbow units... if they go first for inmortal fire could be interesting see how they are going to deal with hoplite armies VS the asian medium foot armies... with mounted bows in heavy cavalry units.

What on earth is the point of having everything perfectly balanced? If Warbands were "the same" has any other heavy foot, why bother making the distinction. Just make a catchall heavy infantry unit and be done with it. Strategies and tactics come from the inherent imbalance between units and the skill of the game is playing up the advantages your own side brings, while impairing your opponent's ability to bring the advantages his own troops have. That is why we play the game and devise clever tactics to inflict on each other. Otherwise, lets just roll a dice, forget fiddling with units. On 1-3 Warband army don't break through and loses. On a 4-6 Warband army does break through and wins. There perfectly balanced.

Warbands have a clear advantage against non-Pike, non-Roman, heavy foot but are also significantly more expensive and come with negative traits. You pay a big premium and have to put up with annoying behavior to get the powerful Impact charge. Now have fun trying to set up this powerful charge against your opponent and have fun finding ways to minimize or disrupt his ability to make a mass charge of a warband line.

[SnuggleBunnies]

Warband heavy armies also tend to lack skirmishers, forcing them into less than ideal pre battle positions.

[jomni]

I think the large warband size reflect the command and control structure of the barbarians. Less tactical leaders so they battle as much bigger groups. If we reduce the size to same as Romans, it implies they have more commanders with their own initiative. Clearly they shouldn’t be organized like the Romans. I think barbarians should have less maneuver units and this is a way to simulate that. It adds more flavour as the other poster said. Also a routing warband unit leads to more rout points which is actually not good for them. So easier to rack up rout points against them if things go your way than more numerous small units.

Though the proposal to make the superior warbands smaller does seem to have merit. They shouldn’t be numerous. They are experienced enough to operate in smaller groups.

[jomni]

I know that but what I mean is the Gauls are hugely outnumbered so it is inevitable that they get surrounded so any nerfing will doom them completely.

Really depends on the situation; all of the games I've played against Gauls (AI) they have greatly outnumbered and outflanked me, not vice versa. For your issue, the problem could be their cost, not their effectiveness.

Balance (and points) should only be assesss when a battle is fought between sides of equal points. Is your experience against the AI? Fighting the AI which have increasingly more points than you as you increase difficulty should not be the basis of assessing the power vs cost equation. It may have bad effects on MP, SP at lower difficulty levels and historical scenarios. As many have said warband armies tend to generally have less units vs a non-warband army (unless it’s Rome).

[GiveWarAchance]

I know that but what I mean is the Gauls are hugely outnumbered so it is inevitable that they get surrounded so any nerfing will doom them completely.

Really depends on the situation; all of the games I've played against Gauls (AI) they have greatly outnumbered and outflanked me, not vice versa. For your issue, the problem could be their cost, not their effectiveness.

Balance (and points) should only be assesss when a battle is fought between sides of equal points. Is your experience against the AI? Fighting the AI which have increasingly more points than you as you increase difficulty should not be the basis of assessing the power vs cost equation. As many have said warband armies tend to generally have less units vs a non-warband army (unless it’s Rome).

I played a game against the Gauls (AI) and got whooped and they had about the same # of units as me playing Scots but I lost mostly cause of the smaller weaker Irish/Scottish units that were easily trashed & routed.

I played as the Gauls against human Carthage where I my Gauls were outnumbered almost 3 to 1 in overall units. I got whooped mostly cause my units were dogpiled by several units each and even the supposedly OP warbands were soon routed. I only had 6 infantry against a full enemy army and they also had more cavalry plus elephants to overrun me with. But I should also admit that player was very good and far better at the game than me so that also was a factor hehe. I also admit a couple of the warbands did hold out admirably against 3 enemy units attacking together for a 2 to 3 turns before routing. If the warbands were made any smaller/weaker, then it would have just amplified the disaster to a titanic level.

[76mm]

Balance (and points) should only be assesss when a battle is fought between sides of equal points. Is your experience against the AI? Fighting the AI which have increasingly more points than you as you increase difficulty should not be the basis of assessing the power vs cost equation. It may have bad effects on MP, SP at lower difficulty levels and historical scenarios. As many have said warband armies tend to generally have less units vs a non-warband army (unless it’s Rome).

I am not saying that games against the AI should determine whether units cost too much. I am saying that units power and cost are different issues, and that if someone is saying that he is getting routed because he is outnumbered, then the issue could be cost rather than power.

As to the point that it is "too soon to change anything", no one is demanding changes right away, but I do think that it's appropriate for players to raise perceived issues for discussion. Isn't that what gaming forums are for?

[Cheimison]

As to the point that it is "too soon to change anything", no one is demanding changes right away, but I do think that it's appropriate for players to raise perceived issues for discussion. Isn't that what gaming forums are for?

You mean they're not for endless flame wars over unprovable and trivial historical facts?

[MikeC_81]

As to the point that it is "too soon to change anything", no one is demanding changes right away, but I do think that it's appropriate for players to raise perceived issues for discussion. Isn't that what gaming forums are for?

I have played competitive multiplayer games at various competitive levels of all sorts my whole life. RTS games like Starcraft and Company of Heroes; Card games like Magic the Gathering and Hearthstone; 2D fighters like Street Fighter 3 and Marvel vs Capcom 2; table top wargames like Warhammer Fantasy, and De Bellis Antiquitatis. I played these casually and in tournament settings where you fork over real money to enter and play so everyone plays for keeps. There is always talk of imbalanced this or that in any given game out there. There is always vocal minorities who say this or that should be looked at.

In my long experience of gaming, the fundamental truth is that it takes a long long time to actually find out if something is truly overpowered and many times what appears to be an imbalance is only caused by the fact that the player base has not yet formulated or mastered the appropriate techniques or counters to the given situation that is deemed to be "unbalanced". It may be because the skill floor for the countermove is much higher than the skill floor of the attack (in this case Warbands) in question.

When I say not enough time has passed, I mean that there hasn't even been a meaningful time to identify whether a unit is potentially overpowered or not. You are literally at level 1 of this discussion pointing out that Warbands have a major edge on Impact vs mediocre heavy foot like Merc Hoplites. You haven't even thought about levels 2,3, and 4 of game balance and considered:

a) which army lists have large enough numbers of Warbands to make this an issue.
b) which hoplite heavy lists are negatively affected
c) whether these hoplite lists in question have enough access to enough support troops that could help mitigate the Warband threat
d) whether these Warband heavy lists have access to support troops which could negate a hoplite's army ability to compensate within its available resources
e) whether Warbands have negative traits which a Hoplite army could use to counter tactically

Nor have you or anyone else thought about what this means with relations to Warbands and other heavy units like Pikes and Roman heavy foot. Would nerfing Warbands mean the balance between Warbands vis a vis Pikes and Romans now need to be revisited? When I am saying 'its too soon'. I am saying titling a thread "Warbands need a rebalance" without even a cursory examination of even some of the points I have listed is pretty irresponsible. I am all for discussion but the signal to noise ratio is pretty bad sometimes.

[76mm]

You mean they're not for endless flame wars over unprovable and trivial historical facts?

Same difference of course!

As to "trivial"--this stuff is important! As we speak thousands of digital legionaries and pikemen are probably being slaughtered by these overpowered barbarian hordes! I often wonder how Richard sleeps at night with that weighing on his conscience?

[76mm]

In my long experience of gaming, the fundamental truth is that it takes a long long time to actually find out if something is truly overpowered and many times what appears to be an imbalance is only caused by the fact that the player base has not yet formulated or mastered the appropriate techniques or counters to the given situation that is deemed to be "unbalanced".

Obviously. So that means that no one can discuss the topic until it has been gamed out by "experts" for months?

Nor have you or anyone else thought about what this means with relations to Warbands and other heavy units like Pikes and Roman heavy foot. Would nerfing Warbands mean the balance between Warbands vis a vis Pikes and Romans now need to be revisited? When I am saying 'its too soon'.

I can't vouch for anyone else, but I have indeed thought about this--see the thread "Resilient Gauls". I'm not demanding a change. I'm not even saying that I'm sure a change is necessary. I'm saying that Gauls seem to play out differently than in FoG 1 and that to me, at this point, they seem awfully resilient and can absorb more damage over a more sustained period than I would have expected.

I am saying titling a thread "Warbands need a rebalance" without even a cursory examination of even some of the points I have listed is pretty irresponsible.

Irresponsible? I can't agree with that--"premature" is about the strongest word I would consider using, and I'm not sure it is appropriate either.

I am all for discussion but the signal to noise ratio is pretty bad sometimes.

Welcome to the interwebs...

[JorgenCAB]

I don't see how really.

You can have almost 4 Merc Hoplites for every 3 Warband. The Warband will enjoy approx +110 PoA on the charge and which makes them a small favourite to win the combat, ~35% tilt assuming all else is equal according to the manual. If, and I stress, if, they win, the hoplite has to make a morale check at an extra -1 penalty on the die roll. After impact, in subsequent melee, Warbands have no PoA advantage on Merc Hoplites at all except deep ranks PoA, and a smallish Combat Strength multiplier. Even if they win, they no longer inflict morale tests with their extra negative modifier.

If you look at veteran hoplites which are equal in points, hoplites get Superior status cutting down the Warband's impact PoA to 60 or so making them even less likely to lose the most dangerous element of the Warband. Even if they lose, with superior status they are more likely to avoid fragmenting on the loss. The Warbands are now underdogs since the Merc Hoplites have a +50 modifier advantage due to being superior and the Warbands only recompense combat strength bonuses which should not be super high unless the Hoplites took a lot of casualties from an unlucky roll.

Even in the worse case scenario where Warbands fragment opposing heavy foot, its not like the unit just melts away. The Warband will have to keep attacking to grind it down giving you a turn or two to bring up support. There will definitely be times when massed Warband charges will wreck an opposing heavy foot line of mediocre quality like hoplites but isn't there an onus on the opposing player to deploy properly to avoid or minimize mass warband charges against his force? Especially since you should have some points advantage to buy troops to help screen your own heavy foot?

For all their prowess on the charge and large numbers, Warbands come with what I consider severe penalties. Unlike merc or veteran hoplites, they have an annoyingly high propensity to chase routing enemies making them liable to over extend. They are also un-maneuverable meaning that they don't get their free 45 turn that hoplites get while under command of a general making the chase problem even worse. You have to spend considerable time turning these warbands to take advantage of any kind of break through in the enemy line.

As I mentioned previously, it has been less than a month. Give players time to play, especially since PBEM is the only option and games will take more than a week to complete and see what is working or not working. Games against the AI which quite honestly is incompetent at times is no good judge of balance. You can wreck AI heavy foot armies with Warbands all you like but real players with real strategies and plans will produce different results. At any rate, just looking at the current state of Warbands vs other heavy foot from the math, limited play time, and the eye test so far, I have severe doubts about Warbands being overpowered in any way.

I think you missunderstood what I meant. I did not mean the warband is problematic from a points perspective just a tab bit too powerful to how I imagine the average Hoplite units to work. A Warband will beat the average Hoplite unit quite often even if it fails the initial charge.

If the Gaul attack it will break of if it ever looses a fight and then it will be able to impact again and every loss on the Hoplite erode their melee advantage a small but at a time. So, all in all, Hoplites are relatively weak against warbands. Perhaps not from a points perspective, but that was not why I made a comment about it.

[Cheimison]

Hoplites (as opposed to phalanx) seem to be kind of wimpy in game.

[nikgaukroger]

Hoplites (as opposed to phalanx) seem to be kind of wimpy in game.

Could be worth having a look at what their historical performance was against the troops they meet in FoG II currently to see whether it is getting it right. Would give a basis for any suggested tweaks.

Of course, the current FoG II period is certainly one where the traditional hoplite was on the way out, or had already gone. However, as the Carthaginian spearmen were to all intents hoplites I guess they'd be a good place to look.

[nikgaukroger]

Of course, the current FoG II period is certainly one where the traditional hoplite was on the way out, or had already gone. However, as the Carthaginian spearmen were to all intents hoplites I guess they'd be a good place to look.

And of course I have missed mentioning one really obvious source - looking a little earlier than the period FoG II currently covers we have Phillip fighting Greeks for a pike vs hoplite comparison

[Scutarii]

The problem is that only heavy foot that has a chance now VS warbands is pike unit... with time they can defeat warbands... but more based in the lower effect of warband impact over them and that pike units are even bigger than warbands.

To be clear, a warband heavy foot average can impact over a hoplite unit average and made it become fragmented and pushed back... and a more commom disrupted result ... if impact made the 480 soldier unit lose 50-60, the attacker 720 soldier unit lose 10-15 and next time you have a non swordsmen unit VS a swords unit with first disrupted or fragmented... cost 16 points less is not a great advantage for the poor unit that cant deal with the bigger unit impact.

Relation cost-effectivity favour a lot warbands, heavy or medium, and to be low discipline units they roll very easy over disciplined units trained to fight like one man.

Lack of skirmish is a problem for barbaric armies BUT no decisive, you can deal heavy casualties to enemy warbands but they mantein the initial impact advantage over non pike heavy foot and they still have more soldiers to lose in a long combat if they fail... something that is very rare.

The fun part is that in Cartago armies the veteran africa spearmen are not a lot more effective than the gauls even when they are superior and with more armor... but the size and swordsmen ability made them practically like the "best" cartago heavy foot unit.

[nikgaukroger]

The problem is that only heavy foot that has a chance now VS warbands is pike unit...

My experience to date is that legionarii are also pretty good against them - especially the post- Marian ones.

[Scutarii]

I experience with legionary units and they are capable to stand VS warbands and even defeat them BUT warbands in general finish with them in long term because you need crack warbands with lucky attacks apart but medium warbands are very effective VS the roman support medium foot that you use to complete roman heavy foot armies.

Maybe first step is see how superior warbands with reduced size and cost impact in game, if they are still competitive i dont see bad a reduction in warbands size and price to base these armies in numbers and not in the actual model, if they are weaker one thing to compensate could be add more javelin units.

[JorgenCAB]

I experience with legionary units and they are capable to stand VS warbands and even defeat them BUT warbands in general finish with them in long term because you need crack warbands with lucky attacks apart but medium warbands are very effective VS the roman support medium foot that you use to complete roman heavy foot armies.

Maybe first step is see how superior warbands with reduced size and cost impact in game, if they are still competitive i dont see bad a reduction in warbands size and price to base these armies in numbers and not in the actual model, if they are weaker one thing to compensate could be add more javelin units.

I don't see how Warbands being more powerful than medium Italian foot troops is in any way a relevant argument, they just simply should be.

The only relevant argument to the combat power of Warbands that I would question is how effective they would be against a Greek Hoplite army in reality. Here I sort of feel they are a bit too strong, but that is just my opinion. The problem is that we just don't have much of any real record of Gallic warbands fighting Hoplite armies to know much about it.

Warbands are not too good against Roman legionaries and if Superior warbands are made into regular sized units I think everything would fall into place with this subject.