Warbands need a rebalance???

[Scutarii]

I post the video to show that even using atrezzo, not real pikes, a XXI century guy has problems to hit an individual target, imagine a guy from ancient period (smaller, with worst alimentation and health) using the real pike that is bigger and heavy trying hit in a melee pike VS heavy infantry an individual target...

My point is that pikes need a lot time of combat in "melee" to deal noticiable casualties to enemy, a lot more if we talk about pike VS pike, because pikes are not the best weapon for melee combats if you search deal casualties in short time, apart that unlike other weapons what prevent infantry retreat and break combat with pike units in the moment pike units are less mobile compared with other heavy foot??? even a viable tactic VS pikes is force them pursuit units in retreat to force they move leaving a good position, breaking line formation and offering flanks to enemy.

I started the thread to talk about the problem in game with warbands based in how their impact foot+size made them capable to defeat very easy practically all heavy-medium foot, pike appear later because is not less true that pike units have a strange performance being more nimble when they are assaulted by impact foot than when they are in melee... i see how warbands impact VS pikes and disrupt them forcing retreats... for me pikes need be hard to impact and lower casualties in melee in the moment a pike is not the best weapon for a melee... you can mantein enemy at range and deal damage but a pike is not a spear or a sword that is a fast attack weapon that can deal with more than 1 target... pike power is in the formation, not in the soldier that manage the pike apart that we can talk about mobility and why a pike unit can move at same speed than a warband or a legionary unit... i dont see easy move 1000 soldiers with a big weapon like a pike compared with a 500 soldier unit with swords-jabelins in a less dense formation.

[JorgenCAB]

I post the video to show that even using atrezzo, not real pikes, a XXI century guy has problems to hit an individual target, imagine a guy from ancient period (smaller, with worst alimentation and health) using the real pike that is bigger and heavy trying hit in a melee pike VS heavy infantry an individual target...

My point is that pikes need a lot time of combat in "melee" to deal noticiable casualties to enemy, a lot more if we talk about pike VS pike, because pikes are not the best weapon for melee combats if you search deal casualties in short time, apart that unlike other weapons what prevent infantry retreat and break combat with pike units in the moment pike units are less mobile compared with other heavy foot??? even a viable tactic VS pikes is force them pursuit units in retreat to force they move leaving a good position, breaking line formation and offering flanks to enemy.

I started the thread to talk about the problem in game with warbands based in how their impact foot+size made them capable to defeat very easy practically all heavy-medium foot, pike appear later because is not less true that pike units have a strange performance being more nimble when they are assaulted by impact foot than when they are in melee... i see how warbands impact VS pikes and disrupt them forcing retreats... for me pikes need be hard to impact and lower casualties in melee in the moment a pike is not the best weapon for a melee... you can mantein enemy at range and deal damage but a pike is not a spear or a sword that is a fast attack weapon that can deal with more than 1 target... pike power is in the formation, not in the soldier that manage the pike apart that we can talk about mobility and why a pike unit can move at same speed than a warband or a legionary unit... i dont see easy move 1000 soldiers with a big weapon like a pike compared with a 500 soldier unit with swords-jabelins in a less dense formation.

No... this is not really the case because a pike formation are not going to retreat in the same way a normal unit would to recuperate. They would most likely stay in contact all the time, even when resting... if the other side pull back they might stand still and rest but they would not tire in the same way since they rely more on body mass to simply push against the enemy.

You are thinking in a very small scale and completely disregard that you will have about eight men attacking in the same spot you have one at best one and a half man attacking in a none pike formation. Its not like you have one man with a pike fighting a man with a shield and sword alone. We are talking about formation fighting here. You are completely of the rails about the lethality of fighting a pike formation if you have no pikes yourself. Most likely your only option is to either fall back or get stabbed by the pikes, either is a bad idea. If you happen to fight in a very dense mass with lots of ranks behind you, perhaps even several formation standing behind each other there might be nowhere to fall back to, this would be completely disastrous if you don't carry your own pikes.

[Scutarii]

As i said pike is a formation weapon, this means is worst to work as indivual weapon... a spear is more capable in melee because his use is not limited to formation like pike... at same time is less effective compared with pike VS impact.

I dont say pikes cant deal damage in melee, i say that needs deal less damage at same time pike unit suffer less casualties because the melee is less melee if you compare sword VS sword or VS spears... pikes need a lower chance of a big damage (that extreme results of 50-60) but mantein a more lineal progresion in casualties with advantage for pikes and of course enemy cant deal them a masive damage if pike is firm and in open terrain.

[TheGrayMouser]

I have always wondered if push of the pike was as a term meant more of the pike ( as opposed to the shot ) were driving the enemy off the field, not literally, pikemen "pushing eachother". Or perhaps it was just a genteel term to mask the bloodiness of it all.

Anyway, if you put a bayonet to my chest and put pressure on it, your not pushing me, your friggin stabbing me!

I imagine, to literally push with a pike, the tip needs to grip something, no? later pike in the more modern era would have had plate armour, tassets to the thighs etc, armour that was made to deflect points ... The only grippage seems to be flesh. Now image a tip grips into you and your instinct would be to recoil back but your "pal" behind you is pushing you fwrd!
I dont know how much pushing from the rear ranks was done as standard operating procedure. I think even Thucydides scoffed at the idea of men pushing the front rankers in a hoplite phalanx was a good idea. Not to say it didn't happen though as things got hectic.
Also as no shields were being used either, flesh or metal armor is what pikes would make contact with...


Phalangists in this games era would presumably mostly have "soft" armor: lino-thorax and a smaller shield. I have little knowledge of these shields but they appear to have been suspended from the shoulder and would have been more of a passive defense. I can see shoving with thrusted pikes in this era perhaps more common as their is more "grippage" ( please excuse the term)

In the more modern era, there are contemporary artist drawings of pike battles, including the "bad wars" of swizz and landsknectes where both sides seem to have been willing to really go at it.
These drawing seem to show a confused melee where the front ranks appear to be pikemen literally face to face but their pikes are vertical ( like how you see modern re enactors, although they clearly do it for safety)
Artist convention? I wonder though, if two side were so bloodthirsty to reach each other, that at some point, unless your pike breaks or skewers someone, the only way for it to go in such a rapidly closing distance would be up. What carnage it must have been! perhaps if it got to this level of close action is where the push of the pike phrase came about?

The point is, there seem to be some views that pikes were some sort of a passive weapon. Although pike were 20 plus pounds , no doubt you can thrust with them with sufficent force to kill/maim. I don't think there was too much effective "bashing" though. The long lever, high mass and small space that your going to "swing your pike" to the left or right means real low speed, so it might sting but probably would not do much, especially to helmeted foes.

I can see if two foes wernt too exited about killing each other that both sides might stay at a stand off range and poke at each other ( ECW comes to mind) but if both side were more interested in closing and getting it done, then I would imagine casualties would start slow but rev up fast . Seems it would be hard to void the many # of points to your body's frontage that could injure you, and at some point during the scrum, your life would literaly be in the hands of your passive defenses: armor, shield as applicable.

The take away: warbands stats are just fine, leave them alone

[hjc]

After playing a few battles against the Germanic Foot Tribes, I too wonder if there at least needs to be a points balance change for warbands.

First game, pot-luck, was me as Thracians against the Germans. They handed all my men's heads to me on a plate - they fragmented every unit on first impact and usually broke it within two rounds of melee. 40% routed vs zero % routed.

So I decided to play as Romans against them. (Level 3 AI). I learned that trying to use javelins, archers, etc on Warbands is futile. They don't disrupt.

I got them to 54% broken and thought I might win, but no less than four routing warbands rallied. In the previous game five warbands rallied. In both my games not a single one of my legions rallied. Warbands have a huge ability to absorb punishment - they hold firm even when getting terrible combat results (no doubt because there's just so many of them they laugh off losing 40+ men on a roll). I know a few battles is a small sample size, maybe they just got lucky lots of times, or they have much higher morale.

So: is that working as intended? Are warbands meant to rally from broken often?

I wonder if they should be a little more expensive to buy. A Germanic army outnumbers the Romans (foot unit for foot unit, points even) and in a head to head open battle, I suspect warbands win every time. I don't mind if they're working as intended - but if so I don't think winning against them will be plausible on an even points open battle basis.

[76mm]

So I decided to play as Romans against them. (Level 3 AI). I learned that trying to use javelins, archers, etc on Warbands is futile. They don't disrupt.

I got them to 54% broken and thought I might win, but no less than four routing warbands rallied. In the previous game five warbands rallied. In both my games not a single one of my legions rallied. Warbands have a huge ability to absorb punishment - they hold firm even when getting terrible combat results (no doubt because there's just so many of them they laugh off losing 40+ men on a roll). I know a few battles is a small sample size, maybe they just got lucky lots of times, or they have much higher morale.

For what it is worth, this is very similar to what I experienced playing several very large Roman vs Gauls battles. Figured that their propensity to rally was just luck, but maybe not...

[MikeC_81]

It's just luck

[nikgaukroger]

After playing a few battles against the Germanic Foot Tribes, I too wonder if there at least needs to be a points balance change for warbands.

First game, pot-luck, was me as Thracians against the Germans. They handed all my men's heads to me on a plate - they fragmented every unit on first impact and usually broke it within two rounds of melee. 40% routed vs zero % routed.

So I decided to play as Romans against them. (Level 3 AI). I learned that trying to use javelins, archers, etc on Warbands is futile. They don't disrupt.

I got them to 54% broken and thought I might win, but no less than four routing warbands rallied. In the previous game five warbands rallied. In both my games not a single one of my legions rallied. Warbands have a huge ability to absorb punishment - they hold firm even when getting terrible combat results (no doubt because there's just so many of them they laugh off losing 40+ men on a roll). I know a few battles is a small sample size, maybe they just got lucky lots of times, or they have much higher morale.

So: is that working as intended? Are warbands meant to rally from broken often?

I wonder if they should be a little more expensive to buy. A Germanic army outnumbers the Romans (foot unit for foot unit, points even) and in a head to head open battle, I suspect warbands win every time. I don't mind if they're working as intended - but if so I don't think winning against them will be plausible on an even points open battle basis.

Very large battle against the AI on difficulty 3. Germans mostly Close Order warbands, only one was Superior. I took 4 elites in the Romans, rest nearly all Superior, 3 Spanish for a bit of cheap bulk and because there was some rough where fighting would happen, 4 cavalry and 5 LF.



Bit of a meat grinder with some Roman units hanging in against multiple warbands due to being Superior and Elite - even then some broke. Could well have gone either way but some morale drops for the Germans on seeing friends rout created enough weakness for the Romans to prevail.

No warbands rallied (in fact no routers at all rallied, which is not unusual in my experience).

Tough fight, felt about right to me.

[MikeC_81]

In a middle of a multiplayer game with Western Greek where I maxed out on hoplites vs an allin Warbands list, open terrain. Currently winning 30%-55%. Definitely a lot of room to make pursuit happy and unmaneuverable warbands ineffective.

edit: Link to the AAR. Still looking for more Warbands vs Hoplite games.

http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtop ... 93&t=80187

[hjc]

Bit of a meat grinder with some Roman units hanging in against multiple warbands due to being Superior and Elite - even then some broke. Could well have gone either way but some morale drops for the Germans on seeing friends rout created enough weakness for the Romans to prevail.

No warbands rallied (in fact no routers at all rallied, which is not unusual in my experience).

Tough fight, felt about right to me.

Meat grinder, yes. That pretty much sums up my experience, except for the rallying warbands. It was all feeling about right until then. So, perhaps it was just Germanic luck in both battles. Four or five warbands returning to the fray really swung the balance.

[76mm]

There are several separate issues being discussed in this thread:
1) Are warband-style armies underpowered in FOG2?
2) Are warbands, as individual units, overpowered in FOG2?
3) Are there any credible sources to the effect that Gauls were generally inferior to Romans in prolonged melee combat?
4) As a minor side issue, do routed warbands rally more often that routed Romans?

One of the reasons it does not make sense to conduct extensive "testing" before making any posts on a topic is that before doing such testing, you need to determine the specific issue to be tested, and how to test it properly. A few comments below:

1) As far as I can tell, this thread is not really about the issue of whether warband armies are over/under-powered, so the various AAR reports are not really on point. There are any number of reasons someone could win a battle vs warbands (especially vs the AI) that have nothing to do with whether individual warbands are overpowered.

2) It is still my suspicion that warbands as individual units are overpowered in the game, in that they can and do regularly defeat Roman legions in prolonged melee by just grinding them down (I don't have any particular opinion on hoplites or phalanxes at this point). In my view, further testing on this point would be appropriate, but how should it be tested? Individual legions/warbands duke it out in straight on attacks, in squares separated by water squares? Average Legion vs average warband, superior legion vs Superior warband, superior legion vs average warband, or what?

3) At least one poster here believes that there are no credible sources for the fact that Gauls were inferior to Romans in prolonged melee combat, and that any such characterization is a "trope" or even a "fantasy". Honestly, I have a hard time understanding this position, since this issue is commonly noted in one of the better-documented periods of ancient warfare. Sure, the sources were biased, but all ancient historians were biased. In short, if we don't know this about ancient warfare, how can we know anything at all about it? Why not stick to orcs and dragons? Would be interested to hear others' views on this topic.

4) Finally, regarding the issue about whether routed warbands rally easier than routed legions; after several battles, I don't think it is an issue of luck, but rather game mechanics--what I suspect is happening is that auto-routed units do not check for rally (they are totally wrecked), and most of the routed legions in my games were auto-routed after being ground down by the Gauls. Can anyone confirm whether auto-routed units check for rally?

[nikgaukroger]

2) It is still my suspicion that warbands as individual units are overpowered in the game, in that they can and do regularly defeat Roman legions in prolonged melee by just grinding them down (I don't have any particular opinion on hoplites or phalanxes at this point). In my view, further testing on this point would be appropriate, but how should it be tested? Individual legions/warbands duke it out in straight on attacks, in squares separated by water squares? Average Legion vs average warband, superior legion vs Superior warband, superior legion vs average warband, or what?

If you are worried about the 1 on 1 match up between 2 units types I am sure a simulation could be set up. The PoA factors are known, the cohesion test factors are known, so it would just need the random "dice rolls" for each to be added and then the simulation run a few thousand times to get a statistical result. I'm sure somebody with the inclination and spreadsheet could do it

4) Finally, regarding the issue about whether routed warbands rally easier than routed legions; after several battles, I don't think it is an issue of luck, but rather game mechanics--what I suspect is happening is that auto-routed units do not check for rally (they are totally wrecked), and most of the routed legions in my games were auto-routed after being ground down by the Gauls. Can anyone confirm whether auto-routed units check for rally?

IIRC if a unit is autobroken it is never coming back and they disperse after their initial rout (or pretty soon after).

[76mm]

If you are worried about the 1 on 1 match up between 2 units types I am sure a simulation could be set up. The PoA factors are known, the cohesion test factors are known, so it would just need the random "dice rolls" for each to be added and then the simulation run a few thousand times to get a statistical result. I'm sure somebody with the inclination and spreadsheet could do it

Duh, hadn't thought of this approach but sounds doable, although not sure I can figure out how to do it...would be cool to have a template spreadsheet which could be used for testing any combinations of units.

[keyth]

I just played the first battle of the Caesar campaign and my gut feel (and it's a majestic gut) is that average warbands are too resilient over time and hold firm too often against superior/elite opponents. I'm going to replay the battle and actually count a few things this time to get some accurate data rather than what I recall happened - I *think* that average close order warband 'survived' 6+ turns of losing melee versus superior legions.

[JorgenCAB]

I just played the first battle of the Caesar campaign and my gut feel (and it's a majestic gut) is that average warbands are too resilient over time and hold firm too often against superior/elite opponents. I'm going to replay the battle and actually count a few things this time to get some accurate data rather than what I recall happened - I *think* that average close order warband 'survived' 6+ turns of losing melee versus superior legions.

One reason can most likely be that they have a general close by in melee combat and that give them a rather good chance to 'hold firm' when they loose a combat round. Heavy foot with a general close by in melee are very resilient. To be honest I don't agree with the bonuses you get for having generals in melee. There was a reason for why generals tended to not be in the thick of things as military strategy and doctrines evolved. If you can have a good vantage point of the battle and actually command your troops you will have a serious advantage of an opponent that does not. The major reason generals went into battle was because they were expected to and that it made their troops loyal in a strategic sense. If you could have the loyalty without enter into battle it was way more effective for generals and high ranking officers to stay in the back doing what they were suppose to do. This is not really well represented in the game.

Long rant... but generals I think give too much of a defensive influence if engaged in melee, a single +1 modifier on a 2D6 roll are quite significant.

[lapdog666]

I just played the first battle of the Caesar campaign and my gut feel (and it's a majestic gut) is that average warbands are too resilient over time and hold firm too often against superior/elite opponents. I'm going to replay the battle and actually count a few things this time to get some accurate data rather than what I recall happened - I *think* that average close order warband 'survived' 6+ turns of losing melee versus superior legions.

One reason can most likely be that they have a general close by in melee combat and that give them a rather good chance to 'hold firm' when they loose a combat round. Heavy foot with a general close by in melee are very resilient. To be honest I don't agree with the bonuses you get for having generals in melee. There was a reason for why generals tended to not be in the thick of things as military strategy and doctrines evolved. If you can have a good vantage point of the battle and actually command your troops you will have a serious advantage of an opponent that does not. The major reason generals went into battle was because they were expected to and that it made their troops loyal in a strategic sense. If you could have the loyalty without enter into battle it was way more effective for generals and high ranking officers to stay in the back doing what they were suppose to do. This is not really well represented in the game.

Long rant... but generals I think give too much of a defensive influence if engaged in melee, a single +1 modifier on a 2D6 roll are quite significant.

i dont mind generals having those bonuses, but if general dies there should be considerably more negative consequences. currently its laughable in 89% cases

[JorgenCAB]

I just played the first battle of the Caesar campaign and my gut feel (and it's a majestic gut) is that average warbands are too resilient over time and hold firm too often against superior/elite opponents. I'm going to replay the battle and actually count a few things this time to get some accurate data rather than what I recall happened - I *think* that average close order warband 'survived' 6+ turns of losing melee versus superior legions.

One reason can most likely be that they have a general close by in melee combat and that give them a rather good chance to 'hold firm' when they loose a combat round. Heavy foot with a general close by in melee are very resilient. To be honest I don't agree with the bonuses you get for having generals in melee. There was a reason for why generals tended to not be in the thick of things as military strategy and doctrines evolved. If you can have a good vantage point of the battle and actually command your troops you will have a serious advantage of an opponent that does not. The major reason generals went into battle was because they were expected to and that it made their troops loyal in a strategic sense. If you could have the loyalty without enter into battle it was way more effective for generals and high ranking officers to stay in the back doing what they were suppose to do. This is not really well represented in the game.

Long rant... but generals I think give too much of a defensive influence if engaged in melee, a single +1 modifier on a 2D6 roll are quite significant.

i dont mind generals having those bonuses, but if general dies there should be considerably more negative consequences. currently its laughable in 89% cases

If the bonuses was given to units in the immediate vicinity then yes, but some generals can give it to half your army but when they die only units in one or two squares will suffer. The bonuses should be given to the same area that will suffer from their death, so one or two squares only.

[MikeC_81]

1) As far as I can tell, this thread is not really about the issue of whether warband armies are over/under-powered, so the various AAR reports are not really on point. There are any number of reasons someone could win a battle vs warbands (especially vs the AI) that have nothing to do with whether individual warbands are overpowered.

How can you argue this? It is absurdity in the extreme. Units are balanced within the army lists given. People don't smash Warbands vs YourUnitofChoice in a vacuum in this game. They build armies out of lists and then deploy them on the given terrain. The only logical thing to do is to look at what Warband heavy armies do vis a vis other lists they encounter. You want to argue Warbands are too strong yet you will ignore any evidence for or against they are balanced in a real game scenario.

2) It is still my suspicion that warbands as individual units are overpowered in the game, in that they can and do regularly defeat Roman legions in prolonged melee by just grinding them down (I don't have any particular opinion on hoplites or phalanxes at this point). In my view, further testing on this point would be appropriate, but how should it be tested? Individual legions/warbands duke it out in straight on attacks, in squares separated by water squares? Average Legion vs average warband, superior legion vs Superior warband, superior legion vs average warband, or what?

More absurdity. Say we run all the test we want and It turns out Warbands beat Hastatii/Princeps 1 on 1 some arbitrary numbers of times. What does that even mean in the balance context? Absolutely nothing except when you shove units head on, one to one with no other outside factors, one unit will win x% more of the time. Do we have battles where we run units one at a time? Your arguments are more absurd by the day.

Late Roman Legions cost 78 points. Regular Warbands costs 68 points. Should that mean that Legions win 14% of the time more often? How much is a premium should Superior morale have? How much of a premium should being maneuverable be? How much of a premium should disciplined troops who don't chase as often as Warbands chase should be paid?

3) At least one poster here believes that there are no credible sources for the fact that Gauls were inferior to Romans in prolonged melee combat, and that any such characterization is a "trope" or even a "fantasy". Honestly, I have a hard time understanding this position, since this issue is commonly noted in one of the better-documented periods of ancient warfare. Sure, the sources were biased, but all ancient historians were biased. In short, if we don't know this about ancient warfare, how can we know anything at all about it? Why not stick to orcs and dragons? Would be interested to hear others' views on this topic.

Your argument would have some shred of merit if this wasn't already baked in the game. The game is already living in this trope. Late list Romans have +100 PoA advantage on the Warbands in combat rounds subsequent to Impact that cannot be taken away. Warbands only have deep ranks and higher numbers count which can be whittled away. Legions are also more likely to rally out of Fragmented states while stuck in combat which is one of the biggest swings that could go your way, once again because they have superior morale status.

So really your call for obeying "history" is just your cover for not having a large sample size of multiplayer games where Warbands armies are regularly routing enemy heavy foot armies at an unfair rate to back up your argument. All this will emerge, as I have said given time.

[76mm]

MikeC, I don't understand or appreciate your apparent need to use insulting, disreptectful language in this discussion..."absurd", ""shred of merit"... OK... Do you know how to conduct a civil, respectful conversation? Is this how you behave all the time? Let's examine your points one by one:

How can you argue this? It is absurdity in the extreme. Units are balanced within the army lists given. People don't smash Warbands vs YourUnitofChoice in a vacuum in this game.

Your argument is not correct. My point is not whether army lists are balanced, or whether games against the AI are balanced, etc. Game balance can be achieved via several different independent mean, including points, number and type of overall troops, etc. For example, let's assume for a moment that warbands were found to be all-powerful, and could smash every other unit in the game with ease, but that a player could only have one warband in a battle, so in aggregate, opposing players could defeat an army with a warband about half the time, achieving "game balance". Would you consider this state of affairs to be satisfactory?

More absurdity. Say we run all the test we want and It turns out Warbands beat Hastatii/Princeps 1 on 1 some arbitrary numbers of times. What does that even mean in the balance context?...Your arguments are more absurd by the day.

My argument is no more absurd than your insistence on running extensive tests, and then not specifying what kind of test, and the complaining about the proposed use of a very common and appropriate form of testing. So what specific type of testing are you proposing? As addressed above, simple battle win/losses don't really address the issue.

Late Roman Legions cost 78 points. Regular Warbands costs 68 points. Should that mean that Legions win 14% of the time more often? How much is a premium should Superior morale have? How much of a premium should being maneuverable be? How much of a premium should disciplined troops who don't chase as often as Warbands chase should be paid?

These and other points issues address the issue of whether army lists are balanced, as described above. I don't know the specific answers to your questions, but do you think that they don't exist? How do you think the unit points were determined?

Your argument would have some shred of merit if this wasn't already baked in the game. The game is already living in this trope. Late list Romans have +100 PoA advantage on the Warbands in combat rounds subsequent to Impact that cannot be taken away. Warbands only have deep ranks and higher numbers count which can be whittled away. Legions are also more likely to rally out of Fragmented states while stuck in combat which is one of the biggest swings that could go your way, once again because they have superior morale status.

Where to start with this one? First, you repeat the assertion that the performance of Gauls vs Romans is a "trope", not sure why...do you have any source that backs up your argument that Gauls were the equal of Romans in prolonged melee combat? Second, you don't seem to understand the issue with warbands: the issue is not whether the Romans have a POA advantage over Gauls, or whether legions are more likely to rally, because neither of those issues matter given a bigger issue: that the warbands can keep taking the losses inflicted by the Romans while dishing out enough damage to the Romans that they will eventually auto-break. Most of my legions do not disrupt before auto-breaking, so any rally advantage is not helpful. And as indicated in another post, once auto-broken, units do not rally.

All this will emerge, as I have said given time.

What, exactly, will emerge? I have no agenda on this issue at all, I generally don't play Gauls or Romans during MP, as I am more of a phalanx kind of guy. I freely admit that further testing is needed and have, unlike you, offered proposals for what type of testing could be done. I really don't get your hostility on this topic, but don't expect to shout me down with claims of "absurdity", etc.

[TheGrayMouser]

Not to throw gas into this hot mess but can someone point out the actual sources that discuss "warbands" abilities in close combat? I assume people must be referring to Ceasars Commentaires.

I assume the notion goes something like this: tribal warrior types begin the fight aggressively but if they made no headway, they rapidly lost heart.

We know Romans appear to have been able to get fresh troops to the battle line, we just don't know how they exactly did it. As has been mention, it was proboably internal to the cohort ( so a century which has a small frontage would pull out and be replaced by a rearward century). They certainly did not swap out cohort size elements. It is also plausible that a second line cohort would swap out its own centuries with a cohort on the front line(not represented in the game even at the abstract level)

Similarly, could not a warband have done something similar in effect, just not the same in execution or even reasoning?
So a "rank" or two of a warband unit attack the roman cohort, they hack away until their energy/courage flags, those warriors fall back, but that does not stop a fresh wave of warriors rushing thru them to take a whack. A large "band" might be able to do this for some time.

Of course one could argue that I am merely trying to "explain away" a game stat or mechanic by making stuff up. I kind of am, although I always envisioned gauls etc fighting that way.

Any way, if one wants to tinker you can mod the game your way.
If I personally wanted to tweak warbands ( which I don't) I would consider increasing their auto break level.(if they are a separate class of unit it should be theoretically possible) They will still fight hard but in a war of attrition will quit(ie rout) quicker ( and wont come back with a rally)