Slitherine

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Indian cavalry is insanely cheap for what you get. I guess it's because India doesn't have anything else for melee cavalry and has also other major gaps in its army list.

rbodleyscott wrote:I should mention that I have had the benefit of seeing the beta discussion for the next DLC, where it has been suggested that a certain army with a lot of Raw troops is overpowered against its main historical opponent, and it was suggested that we should increase the cost of the units!

Does the raw unit heavy faction have only raw units available (as in it can't build a full sized army using only the regulars) or does it have the raw units on top of a good selection or average or better units of the same weight class? Are the raw units just some average unit type or are they from some relatively powerful class of units like the raw pike phalanx for example? I find it hard to imagine how the one extra unit for every 3 or 4 units would be enough to raise the total effectiveness of a raw army above that of an average.

MVP7 wrote:Indian cavalry is insanely cheap for what you get. I guess it's because India doesn't have anything else for melee cavalry and has also other major gaps in its army list.

rbodleyscott wrote:I should mention that I have had the benefit of seeing the beta discussion for the next DLC, where it has been suggested that a certain army with a lot of Raw troops is overpowered against its main historical opponent, and it was suggested that we should increase the cost of the units!

Does the raw unit heavy faction have only raw units available (as in it can't build a full sized army using only the regulars) or does it have the raw units on top of a good selection or average or better units of the same weight class? Are the raw units just some average unit type or are they from some relatively powerful class of units like the raw pike phalanx for example? I find it hard to imagine how the one extra unit for every 3 or 4 units would be enough to raise the total effectiveness of a raw army above that of an average.

It's a cheap version of an already cheap unit, and (because of the way the points system works) is 2/3 of the price of the Average version. It wins by flanking the units of the opposing army, which has large units and no cavalry.

rbodleyscott wrote: It's a cheap version of an already cheap unit, and (because of the way the points system works) is 2/3 of the price of the Average version. It wins by flanking the units of the opposing army, which has large units and no cavalry.

Ok that makes sense. That's one of the few situations where I can imagine picking cheap units over good ones myself.

MVP7 wrote:

rbodleyscott wrote: It's a cheap version of an already cheap unit, and (because of the way the points system works) is 2/3 of the price of the Average version. It wins by flanking the units of the opposing army, which has large units and no cavalry.

Ok that makes sense. That's one of the few situations where I can imagine picking cheap units over good ones myself.

Especially as the non-Raw version would not stand up to the enemy's units frontally for long either.

My two cents would be that Raw troops are balanced about right for cost and effectiveness. As the posts above say, it's how you use them that makes all the difference. Also, from a historical point of view, not winning tournaments or campaigns, several armies did field them so they should be represented, useful or not.

You don't have to be in on the Beta DLC to try an army with lots of Raw troops: Etruscans. It took me a lot of experimenting, but I've been able to win with them solitaire against Gauls and Romans at the Governor level. If you never take Raw troops then you will never learn how to best use them. That is one of the reasons that I like Auto Force Selection.

Good point. I did play a few interesting Etrucans vs Gauls MP games, and the wins were about evenly divided.

SnuggleBunnies wrote:Good point. I did play a few interesting Etrucans vs Gauls MP games, and the wins were about evenly divided.

You will likely have two additional generals so place them with your Raw troops for the cohesion test benefit.

I did some research for the benefit of this thread.
In my current battle in the Alexander campaign I am fighting the early Romans whose army is almost half raw legions, most probably cause it is about 320 BC in the Roman empire. This report includes actions involving 5 raw legions.

I fielded 4 phalanxs of superior quality or therebouts and 2 of them went up against raw legions.
One raw legion was prepped with an archer volley and an artillery rock was plopped into their midst, and then a phalanx attacked them frontally. It took 4 turns of losing about 80 rawbies each melee for the raw legion to break, and due to a triarii behind, they dispersed. The Romans counterattacked with a fresh raw legion against the same phalanx, again to the front due to other units on each side preventing flankings, which routed them (yes the phalanx routed) at a cost of only about a dozen raw legionnaires. In short, one veteran phalanx was seen off the field at the cost of one raw legion which is an extremely good trade for the Romans who's units radically outnumber the Greeks.

The second phalanx was led by Alexander the Great himself. He had advanced a couple of squares ahead of the rest of my line and was quickly surrounded by up to 5 Roman units amongst a fluid combat environment so he ordered his phalanx into a square. One raw legion foolishly attacked the square losing 180 rawbies causing the legion to immediately rout. Feeling cocky, Alexander unsquared and attacked a triarii in front of him. A raw legion on the left side of Alex put in a flank attack costing 102 Greeks for only a dozen or so rawbies while the triarii culled the phalanx by 104 troops over 2 turns at a cost of about two dozen legionnaires. In 2 turns, the triarii and 2 raw legions completed their attacks on Alex's phalanx causing the legendary commander and his unit to rout.

On a side note, my other 2 phalanxs were chopped down by regular hastati in prolonged heavy combat and seen off the field leaving me only ranged units and a couple of ragged cavalry units. In addition, two of my commanders have become casualties as well as Alexander himself leaving the battlefield in a hurry. To their credit, these 2 phalanxs fighting the hastati caused the Romans heavy casualties as well as a few routed legions. The rout % is at 50 for Alexander and 52% for the Romans on my last turn. Sadly, it is now the turn of my Indian archers to get beat up in relentless melee attacks despite careful efforts to keep them at a distance. The Romans are merciless and brutal even in their early state of the empire.

In conclusion, I consider the raw legions to be very useful, mostly for flank attacks and even for frontal combat if there is a need to delay strong enemy units, if one doesn't mind sacrificing the raw units as a trade for time coupled with a moderate chance of actually defeating those strong units using the raw units against them.

Interesting results GiveWarAchance. Do you really mean that a superior (pike?) phalanx went from steady to routing in a single frontal charge or were there other factors as well? Although, when you say the phalanx was routed at cost of just a dozen raw legionaries I guess the process had actually cost a full unit of raw legionaries on top of that dozen . Do you happen to remember what the win/draw/loss percentages for the melees between regular hastati/principes and your superior phalanxes and if there was some flanking, ganking, morale or terrain features that affected it?

MVP7 wrote:Do you happen to remember what the win/draw/loss percentages for the melees between regular hastati/principes and your superior phalanxes and if there was some flanking, ganking, morale or terrain features that affected it?

It doesn't matter if there was, the point is that the cheap unit was available to do the ganking, which it probably wouldn't have been if the enemy army had no raw troops, and hence less units.

The bottom line is that you can't gank an enemy unit if you don't have a spare unit to do it with!

And that is the value of Raw troops.

rbodleyscott wrote:[
It doesn't matter if there was, the point is that the cheap unit was available to do the ganking, which it probably wouldn't have been if the enemy army had no raw troops, and hence less units.

The bottom line is that you can't gank an enemy unit if you don't have a spare unit to do it with!

And that is the value of Raw troops.

I don't argue that. I have admitted in couple posts that, against an already outnumbered enemy, going raw instead of average might also work although with the current pricing I would still pick averages especially in campaigns.

I'm interested in how those superior phalanxes got so badly wrecked in prolonged melee and I don't think I have ever seen even an average heavy foot unit go straight from steady to rout (rather than auto-rout) in a single frontal charge.

MVP7 wrote:

rbodleyscott wrote:[
It doesn't matter if there was, the point is that the cheap unit was available to do the ganking, which it probably wouldn't have been if the enemy army had no raw troops, and hence less units.

The bottom line is that you can't gank an enemy unit if you don't have a spare unit to do it with!

And that is the value of Raw troops.

I don't argue that. I have admitted in couple posts that, against an already outnumbered enemy, going raw instead of average might also work although with the current pricing I would still pick averages especially in campaigns.

I'm interested in how those superior phalanxes got so badly wrecked in prolonged melee and I don't think I have ever seen even an average heavy foot unit go straight from steady to rout (rather than auto-rout) in a single frontal charge.

Low sample size + expensive shock troops that don't actually break the enemy units quickly due to a lack of of - 1 modifiers will generate scenarios such as these.

You can find corner cases for almost any unit out there that make them look good. Doesn't take away from the overall idea imo

MVP7 wrote:Interesting results GiveWarAchance. Do you really mean that a superior (pike?) phalanx went from steady to routing in a single frontal charge or were there other factors as well? Although, when you say the phalanx was routed at cost of just a dozen raw legionaries I guess the process had actually cost a full unit of raw legionaries on top of that dozen . Do you happen to remember what the win/draw/loss percentages for the melees between regular hastati/principes and your superior phalanxes and if there was some flanking, ganking, morale or terrain features that affected it?

That one phalanx definitely fought 4 rounds with a raw head-on and was victorious but was routed thereafter by a single frontal attack by a 2nd raw legion. I didn't see any other combat affecting the phalanx.

The ground is all open terrain with a bit of slope and forest on the fringes. Some of my cavalry and irregular had to fight uphill and got trashed accordingly. There is a large river to the south which hemmed in some units like my horse archers which dispersed but the Roman cavalry chasing them was literally shot to bits by Indian archers.

I have no idea about the stats of the phalanx vs hastatis because I wasn't planning to post about that, but I do know that the other 2 phalanxs were fighting at first 2 and then 3 hastati legions at the same time with some triarii following up cause they were very badly outnumbered. My 2 elephants also got surrounded, whipped and seen off mostly by hastati and triarii legions. One elephant has rallied to disordered but can barely move so it is unlikely to rejoin the battle. I had a few units rally which may temporarily save me from losing the battle. I had 3 irregular foot and they are currently being chopped down brutally by triarii, hastati and raw legions all working together. Not sure I can win with only ranged units left operational and some are getting beat up quite badly now, especially the hapless Indian archers that can't evade the swarms of legions coming at them thirsting for revenge after the Indians culled hundreds of legionnaires with heavy volleys of arrows, and so far one Indian unit has routed with another about to run (I started with 4 Indian).

GiveWarAchance wrote:[That one phalanx definitely fought 4 rounds with a raw head-on and was victorious but was routed thereafter by a single frontal attack by a 2nd raw legion. I didn't see any other combat affecting the phalanx.

The ground is all open terrain with a bit of slope and forest on the fringes. Some of my cavalry and irregular had to fight uphill and got trashed accordingly. There is a large river to the south which hemmed in some units like my horse archers which dispersed but the Roman cavalry chasing them was literally shot to bits by Indian archers.

I have no idea about the stats of the phalanx vs hastatis because I wasn't planning to post about that, but I do know that the other 2 phalanxs were fighting at first 2 and then 3 hastati legions at the same time with some triarii following up cause they were very badly outnumbered. My 2 elephants also got surrounded, whipped and seen off mostly by hastati and triarii legions. One elephant has rallied to disordered but can barely move so it is unlikely to rejoin the battle. I had a few units rally which may temporarily save me from losing the battle. I had 3 irregular foot and they are currently being chopped down brutally by triarii, hastati and raw legions all working together. Not sure I can win with only ranged units left operational and some are getting beat up quite badly now, especially the hapless Indian archers that can't evade the swarms of legions coming at them thirsting for revenge after the Indians culled hundreds of legionnaires with heavy volleys of arrows, and so far one Indian unit has routed with another about to run (I started with 4 Indian).

OK thanks. That phalanx routing is really peculiar. I guess it must have been an unlikely series of cohesion tests all failing against all the odds.

Getting outnumbered seems to be endemic for pike-heavy armies. I have not played that many battles with both pikes and legionnaires but I had a bit similar issues in Philip II of Macedon campaign where the enemy would often have literally twice as wide front as I did. I won all the battles but every every time it came down to my pikes butchering their way through enemies on the open ground in the center while the rest of my units on the flanks were desperately delaying half of the enemy force from flanking the pikes.

MVP7 wrote:Getting outnumbered seems to be endemic for pike-heavy armies. I have not played that many battles with both pikes and legionnaires but I had a bit similar issues in Philip II of Macedon campaign where the enemy would often have literally twice as wide front as I did. I won all the battles but every every time it came down to my pikes butchering their way through enemies on the open ground in the center while the rest of my units on the flanks were desperately delaying half of the enemy force from flanking the pikes.

Try an echelon attack - don't attack the enemy centre but one or other end of his line. Shift if necessary as you advance so that you overlap their line, then roll them up with your pikes. If they overlap you on the other wing anyway, it really doesn't matter how much they overlap you by.

Philip actually used echelon attacks historically but in a wide deployment. He put his his whole line on an awkward angle towards the enemy which caused the badguys to gradually trickle down towards the echeloned end and lose their cohesion except for their elite units which held position in line due to greater discipline and Philip was able to surround and destroy the few elite units after the enemy raw units had routed. That evening, Philip would get drunk with his generals and walk around the battlefield roaring profanity at the enemy dead lying about in heaps. That's what I read in the Alexander the Great book.

This picture is the area where my phalanxs fought the legions. You can see from the carpet of dead legionnaires and pikemen how intense the combat was. The Roman C in C cavalry are having a giggle as they chase 2 routing phalanxs off the field to the left.



This next picture is the southern portion of the battlefield. You can see my dead horse archers in the south where they were trapped in a bend in the river and annihilated. I seem to have one phalanx still alive. Two indian archers stay a safe distance away while they pot away at the badguys while one indian unit is being chewed up by some sadistic hastati.

I did 1 or 2 more turns and the enemy threw in the towel after multiple legions routed. Here is the final scorecard. Hopefully these losses will help dampen the Roman ability to oppress their neighbors. A few more battles like this would help with that, though a few more of these battles will wipe out Alexander's army too.