Slitherine

Shooting at armored cav with bows is 25% (no POA) , protected cav 44% (+ POA), unprotected cav even higher (++ POA) and LH 25%. I was playing against Bosporans and noticed that odds with bows against their unprotected bow-armed cavalry was 25% just the same as shooting at them if they were deployed at LH! The protected lancers yielded 44% odds. This is clearly a bug and it explains why Bosporans are nearly invincible.

Developers: please look into this and if it's a bug, please fix it in the coming patch.

Deeter

deeter wrote:Shooting at armored cav with bows is 25% (no POA) , protected cav 44% (+ POA), unprotected cav even higher (++ POA) and LH 25%. I was playing against Bosporans and noticed that odds with bows against their unprotected bow-armed cavalry was 25% just the same as shooting at them if they were deployed at LH! The protected lancers yielded 44% odds. This is clearly a bug and it explains why Bosporans are nearly invincible.

Developers: please look into this and if it's a bug, please fix it in the coming patch.

Deeter

This is not a BUG, it is a FEATURE!

Cavalry not armed with lances are assumed to be in a formation equivalent to a single rank in the TT rules and therefore bows, etc, shoot at them with no net PoA. (Note this allows non-lance armed cavalry to skirmish as well as making them less vulnerable to shooting.) Lance armed cavalry are assumed to be in the equivalent of a two rank formation and hence are more vulnerable to shooting if they are unprotected or protected. This is correctly described in the on line help:

Code: Select all

vs. unprotected cavalry   	 Longbow, bow, javelins, sling   	 +2   	 Unprotected  cavalry  lancers
vs. protected cavalry 	Longbow, bow, javelins, sling 	+1 	Protected cavalry lancers
vs. armoured mounted 	Longbow 	+1 	Armoured cavalry lancers or knights

(See the third column for the actual troop type the PoA applies to, not the "short" name in the first column.) This hasn't changed for the 1.2.7 patch.

Chris
(Satisfied Bosporan commander )

It may be working as designed but it's dead wrong! On the table top, you can put them in a single rank and gain protection from shooting but at the cost a melee effectiveness. In the PC game, they get all the advantages of skirmishing cav with none of the detriments and all at a bargain cost. They should be as vulnerable as other unprotected cavalry or pay heavily in points. As it stands now, they are cheap super troops availiable in abundance and that makes the Bosporan army list utterly broken. Small wonder the two players using Bosporans in the Lost World Campaign never lose battles and are getting bloated with captured provinces.

Deeter the Unamused

deeter wrote:It may be working as designed but it's dead wrong! On the table top, you can put them in a single rank and gain protection from shooting but at the cost a melee effectiveness. In the PC game, they get all the advantages of skirmishing cav with none of the detriments and all at a bargain cost. They should be as vulnerable as other unprotected cavalry or pay heavily in points. As it stands now, they are cheap super troops availiable in abundance and that makes the Bosporan army list utterly broken. Small wonder the two players using Bosporans in the Lost World Campaign never lose battles and are getting bloated with captured provinces.

Deeter the Unamused

Seems to me that this equally breaks just about any list that can get a significant number of non armoured cavalry that are not lance equipped if it is truly as serious an issue as you think. There are numerous lists that can get relatively inexpensive non armoured cavalry so I fail to see why you think the Bosporans are such a problem. They can get a maximum of 12 unprotected Bosporan horse archers on the mid period lists that the two of us are using in the Lost Worlds campaign and I'm sure there are a number of other lists that can get this much or nearly this much non armoured, non-lance armed cavalry. If anything, the Bosporans are penalized more than most other lists because they are one of the few lists that can get a large number of non armoured lancers (up to 12 protected lancers) that are penalized for not being armoured.

Chris

p.s. I guess this may explain why you weren't in a hurry to accept my fall battle challenge in Lost Worlds.

You are correct. I've been trying different things with my Seleucids to find a counter to your big shooty Bosporans without much luck. That's how I discovered this "feature" regarding the bow cav. I can barely field 12 mounted at all, let alone 12 bow cav who are essential melee skirmishers plus another 12 lancers plus about 50 skirmisher spam, etc. No other army gets this. Otherwise you'd see a lot more Parthians, etc.

I'm hoping features in the patch will even things out somewhat because fighting shooty armies with Seleucids isn't much fin. Once the patch is relased though, I will gladly take my chances with you.

Deeter the Intimidated

deeter wrote:You are correct. I've been trying different things with my Seleucids to find a counter to your big shooty Bosporans without much luck. That's how I discovered this "feature" regarding the bow cav. I can barely field 12 mounted at all, let alone 12 bow cav who are essential melee skirmishers plus another 12 lancers plus about 50 skirmisher spam, etc. No other army gets this. Otherwise you'd see a lot more Parthians, etc.

I'm hoping features in the patch will even things out somewhat because fighting shooty armies with Seleucids isn't much fin. Once the patch is relased though, I will gladly take my chances with you.

Deeter the Intimidated

You might consider trying trying the Parthian ally option to get more mounted and especially more LH. As far as the Pathian lists go, I like the Suren Indo-Parthians who are allowed Saka allies to give them a good number of cavalry horse archers like the Bosporans.

Chris

batesmotel wrote:

deeter wrote:You are correct. I've been trying different things with my Seleucids to find a counter to your big shooty Bosporans without much luck. That's how I discovered this "feature" regarding the bow cav. I can barely field 12 mounted at all, let alone 12 bow cav who are essential melee skirmishers plus another 12 lancers plus about 50 skirmisher spam, etc. No other army gets this. Otherwise you'd see a lot more Parthians, etc.

I'm hoping features in the patch will even things out somewhat because fighting shooty armies with Seleucids isn't much fin. Once the patch is relased though, I will gladly take my chances with you.

Deeter the Intimidated

You might consider trying trying the Parthian ally option to get more mounted and especially more LH. As far as the Pathian lists go, I like the Suren Indo-Parthians who are allowed Saka allies to give them a good number of cavalry horse archers like the Bosporans.

Chris

I've tried this and this helps make it a closer game, but even with the Parthian allies then the Bosporans still outnumber in terms of LF, LH and cavalry and ultimately BPs. It makes it very challenging to get to grips with and fight the Bosporans.

Things may be working as intended, but my point is the intention is at fault. Consider armored jv cav. They are at 25% just like unprotected bow cav. That's just wrong. At any rate, I'll take this to the tech forum.

Deeter

Regarding ways to beat Bosporans, I've had to ditch my beleved pre-166 Selucids so I can get some shooty allies, but I don't you get enough to crank of the huge volume of BGs that the Bopsorans get.

deeter wrote:Things may be working as intended, but my point is the intention is at fault. Consider armored jv cav. They are at 25% just like unprotected bow cav. That's just wrong. At any rate, I'll take this to the tech forum.

Deeter

Regarding ways to beat Bosporans, I've had to ditch my beleved pre-166 Selucids so I can get some shooty allies, but I don't you get enough to crank of the huge volume of BGs that the Bopsorans get.

If it makes you feel any better, Keith is busy herding most of my Bosporan army off the board in a 400 point game using Later Carthaginians. I out number him 47 to 37 BGs but he has enough protected offensive spearmen and elephants that he has pretty much the width of the board covered, and I'm running out of places to run. So if Carthaginians can do it, I would think Seleucids probably can as well. Pantherboy was able to do it quite handily in both LW and League battles with Illyrians as well although those were higher point games.

Chris

Makes sense. Seluecids are pretty expensive, so they can't fill the map with cheap heavy foot.

Deeter

batesmotel wrote:

deeter wrote:Things may be working as intended, but my point is the intention is at fault. Consider armored jv cav. They are at 25% just like unprotected bow cav. That's just wrong. At any rate, I'll take this to the tech forum.

Deeter

Regarding ways to beat Bosporans, I've had to ditch my beleved pre-166 Selucids so I can get some shooty allies, but I don't you get enough to crank of the huge volume of BGs that the Bopsorans get.

If it makes you feel any better, Keith is busy herding most of my Bosporan army off the board in a 400 point game using Later Carthaginians. I out number him 47 to 37 BGs but he has enough protected offensive spearmen and elephants that he has pretty much the width of the board covered, and I'm running out of places to run. So if Carthaginians can do it, I would think Seleucids probably can as well. Pantherboy was able to do it quite handily in both LW and League battles with Illyrians as well although those were higher point games.

Chris

Herding is fine if the troops are good enough to withstand the Lancers and you have enough to stop the Bosporans flanking and getting behind. Some of the 500 point games I've played have had huge maps where that is not an option. It's also painful if the map has a significant amount of steep hills too and then the Seleucid Pikes and Cavalry really suffer

Gauls would also give u a run for your money.

In a campaign or a league game, you don't have the option to choose an army like Gaul to counter a shooty army. You can only go with what you got. Morbio and I are both Seleucid, so that's what we've got to work with.

Deeter

deeter wrote:In a campaign or a league game, you don't have the option to choose an army like Gaul to counter a shooty army. You can only go with what you got. Morbio and I are both Seleucid, so that's what we've got to work with.

Deeter

In the League you get to play both armies so that should even out the advantage of one army over the other.

Chris

deeter wrote:Makes sense. Seluecids are pretty expensive, so they can't fill the map with cheap heavy foot.

Deeter

Would you really need to fill the map? You can buy 12 average pikes that can hold there own against a lancer , leave gaps in the line and you can cover 24 hexes of frontage... Fill the gaps with elephants / cats and full steam ahead!
Plus Seluecids get to buy at least 12 LF bows so you are reasonably well off in fire power as well...
No need to but the expensive Agryspid impact boys, their power would be wasted on lancers and lights anyhow so the saving could afford you all the light cavalry you want for flank protection....

Both the above comments are true. I'll just have to learn to like using a shooty army, which I don't at present, and learned to adopt ahistorial formations to drive shooty armies away. Sorry if I seem to be whining about this too much.

Deeter