[Brainstorming] the role of units and classes.

[Thorfinn the Shallow Minded]

26 minutes ago, Yekaterina said:

I assume you want 1.5x counter by default? You can have it tonight ( or morning of 3rd June in Honduras)

That approach would be haphazard.  With their current stats, units are already designed to have a built in counter system, and that would merely put it on steroids.  

As a couple critiques of Lion's system (keeping in mind that I do have a heavy amount of bias to my own)

You list sword cavalry and and spear as counters to melee cavalry.  I assume that only one of those applies?  

Slingers and skirmishers are listed as archer counters.  What differences are there between the two?  

Pikemen and spearmen are listed as anti cavalry.  Is there any other difference between them.

Also, there is no accounting for ranged cavalry, which oftentimes plays a large role in the meta.  

I'm not a fan of swordsmen countering spearmen personally as it does not accurately reflect history.  Legions were able to beat phalanxes primarily due to a flexible chain of command structure that made for more manoeuvrability; that's why at least in my mind the advantage of swordsmen should be that of an all-rounder, not particularly good against anything but not easily countered either.  That all said, it's an understandable abstraction.

If we compare with mine, I tried to consider ways of making the broad categories still simple and working along the rock-paper-scissors idea of infantry beats cavalry which beats ranged.  Ranged cavalry make the whole system a bit more complex as there isn't a clear fifth category to try to turn the rock-paper-scissors into rock-paper-scissors-Spock-lizard.  

[LetswaveaBook]

@Thorfinn the Shallow MindedCan you explain why swordsmen are an all-rounder? It seems like spearmen are in the same way an all-rounder with a bonus against cavalry.

[Lion.Kanzen]

5 hours ago, Yekaterina said:

I assume you want 1.5x counter by default? You can have it tonight ( or morning of 3rd June in Honduras)

 

If I have a free hour.

[Lion.Kanzen]

4 hours ago, Thorfinn the Shallow Minded said:

You list sword cavalry and and spear as counters to melee cavalry.  I assume that only one of those applies?  

I haven't tried anything yet.

 

The idea is to put the Hellenistic cavalry in a superior position over the Roman cavalry.

 

Which is historically correct. At least the Pyrrhic Wars tells us that.

[Lion.Kanzen]

4 hours ago, Thorfinn the Shallow Minded said:

I'm not a fan of swordsmen countering spearmen personally as it does not accurately reflect history.  Legions were able to beat phalanxes primarily due to a flexible chain of command structure that made for more manoeuvrability; that's why at least in my mind the advantage of swordsmen should be that of an all-rounder, not particularly good against anything but not easily countered either.  That all said, it's an understandable abstraction

I haven't done that yet, I need to test the basic roles first. The rest I will do based on technologies.

Currently Sparta beat me up vs my Iberians they use a rush of hoplites and cavalry.

 

I played very confident, I must try again to see what happens. basically i don't need swordman sounds absurd.

Even in AoE 1 and 2 the swordman was more useful.

 

[Thorfinn the Shallow Minded]

5 hours ago, LetswaveaBook said:

@Thorfinn the Shallow MindedCan you explain why swordsmen are an all-rounder? It seems like spearmen are in the same way an all-rounder with a bonus against cavalry.

Swordsmen would be faster and have better pierce armour while still trading well against spearmen.  Their role would still be slightly anti-cavalry focussed, having the ability to catch them out better than spears.  At the same time ranged units could kite them, but those tactics would be less effective and harder to do.  Spearmen being hard countered by swordsmen would be bad in my opinion since they lack the ability to properly chase and hence counter the primary unit that they are designed to counter.

[Lion.Kanzen]

this would be easier with bonuses in the formations.

For now I will try what Thorfinn says.

but how should a classic phalange vs a legion of hastati work?

[Thorfinn the Shallow Minded]

2 hours ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

but how should a classic phalange vs a legion of hastati work?

Good question.  I did a bit of atlas editor testing of sword versus spear to check results.  

In 1v1 the swordsman won with 20 hp left, which seems close, but increased numbers reveals it becoming increasingly lopsided.  

This came to the point where with 20 vs 20, there were 18 swordsmen left with roughly 50% of their hitpoints remaining.  

I would say that the 1v1 result should end with the swordsman left with 10% hp left.  Maybe that number could be 15%, but the fights should be fairly close.  

This might make the swordsman seem comparatively useless, yet with extra pierce armour and movement speed, I would think their utility outside of this situation would be able to be seen.  That all said, in the case of hastati specifically, a better situation would be in which the hastati first hurl a volley of pila, which would add yet another variable into the equation.

[Freagarach]

20 hours ago, alre said:

it's just that we never considered the idea seriously

Nah, it was considered, considerably. It's just that prior to A24, there was no such thing as "turning" in the simulation, and instant turning makes directional damages a lot less fun. Do note turning is still only implemented on movement, not e.g. when switching targets whilst attacking.

[Lion.Kanzen]

5 hours ago, Thorfinn the Shallow Minded said:

which would add yet another variable into the equation

there are many variables that are yet to appear in the form of features.

 

How about a test with units of range 

Hoplites and slingers vs Swordmen Hastati+ skirmishers.