Sword cav mercs are op, AS THEY SHOULD BE

[vinme]

they are a specialty, unit, just skimmed thru the dev thing dizaka started, they have no idea what they are talking about and im too tired/disinterested to adress every point , and argue over it since it would take hours.

ill adress only 2 points made.

1: 10 vs 10 spear vs sword mercs spearmen die, so that must mean sword merc  cavs are op.

2: sword merc cav almost beat skiritai commando, or are similar in strength so sword merc cavs are op.

first of all merc cav swords are a specialty unit, jsut like skiritai, that are only avalible p2, as all sword cav.

you have to take into account taht only a single civ has these units, carthage, no other civ has sword merceneries, and most civs have trouble massing cav merceneries given the production buildings cost too much like colonies 600, need to walk ,separate, to protect must spread out units ect.

carthage has extremely weak build, other than mercs, that is their SPECIALTY so ofc they must excell at it, as it is rn pikes are op, and sword inf are viable as well in inf battles, but spear inf is the weakest mele infantry right now, archers have become very weak again in a25, not as bad as a23 but not far from it.

carthage objectively even with this great unit sword merc cav is not even in top 5 strongest civs, everyone knows this as the cons balance out the pros.

10 spear shouldnt be able to beat a SPECIALTY unit that requires metal(so metal techs), additional production buildings(200 res),  and should be a stronger version of regular cav. keep in mind regular cav cost 1500 res for 10 unlike 1000 for spear.

i do believe 80 metal seems odd given 100/60 ratio of inf mercs then 60% of 150 is 90 but keep in mind that metal is expensive to mine compared to wood 0.75/0.5 so 50% more gain on wood than metal(less efficient, requires men for proper efficiency unlike wood/food that can be cut/gathered by women). 

and metal is more scarce than wood/food on standard maps.

so a civ SPECIALTY unit (stronger than 1500 costing standard counterpart) can beat 1000 costing standard counter units? nothing wrong with that.

2: sword merc cav can almost beat skiritai commando? that is not appropriate, but this is an issue with sparta balancing more so than it is about carthage balancing, also do keep in mind that sword cav, or cav in general are the direct counter to sword inf, given their high hack armor added with high dps/hp although sword cav hav 1 less hack armor than spear cav it has to be kept in mind that cav hitpoints mainly come from hp, unlike mele where it often largely comes from armor therefore 3 hack is high for cav, even if it is low for inf.

80 costing unit, that has far less traintime, and has far far superior movement speed(highly valuable stat) shouldnt be able to beat 125 costing unit(altho only small part of it is metal (35)) given they are both specialty units unique to their own civs.

to finish up i wanna mention 2 things.

first of all cav are generally far stronger in tgs, because of the large map movement speed stat appericates in value, as well as multiple targets, with far more openings for entry, atack, manuvering. ability to move your power quickly is very viable and complete lack of cooperation and coordination of teams only excacerbates this.

secondly if carthage cant do damage with this, 1 tool they have they are finished often given they mass a large amount, there are ways to counter carthage cav, and most other civs have equal or superior advantages/specialties.

other mercs are lagely underused, and i feel the res avalibility factor would come into play more so if people played more defensively, where accumulating float would be nessesary before a fight as to sustain training units but this wont happen a25 i think given extremely weak buildings, there are usually too many openings to close to turtule/play strategically and not agressively where larger army/better eco wins by default as you cant avoid fights if your defensive buildings deal less dps than archers, with 0 tech.

often people dont get mele damage upgrades, and hack armor upgrades which can give upto 50% advantage to carth sword cavs, often people dont secure farms via walling off, vision and men nearby, have spread out disorganized buildings,spread out disorganized units that are eazy to pick off.

you cannot run from mele cavalry, they are too fast so you often cant avoid lost fights, only solution is to have large enough groups.

try atacking carth player directly , if they are massing sowrd cav, as they will likely have a very weak base defended by archer/spear

 

 

 

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

We want to avoid one-trick pony. A civ should not be "ok" if it is op at one thing and bad at everything else. 

[vinme]

whats wrong with having extreme weak and strong points balancing each other out? is that not the point of the game? if there are no variations of stats, factors, ect then its no longer fun, then civs lose their uniqueness ect.

also it is not a one trick pony, carthage also has avalible to it other mercs sword inf merc, jav merc, sling merc all with superior stats altho ranged ones largely useless accuracy boost given p2 battles are too large and bad accuracy is probably even benefitial.

spear cav mercs are rarely used but also there.

also carth has elephants as well as all other siege, 2 great heroes and spear champs from temple.

while some of these things are all not as signficant without these things the only sword merc cav advantage wouldnt be enough to make carth viable.

 

 

[Jofursloft]

12 hours ago, vinme said:

you cannot run from mele cavalry, they are too fast so you often cant avoid lost fights, only solution is to have large enough groups.

How can you have large enough groups on biomes such as Aegean Anatolian, Arctic, Autumn, Nubia, Sahara, Steppe when playing in a 1v1 on a small map?

12 hours ago, vinme said:

try atacking carth player directly , if they are massing sowrd cav, as they will likely have a very weak base defended by archer/spear

They have a very weak base if you have at least 30+ soldiers to attack it. When you send your army, the carthage player will likely see it coming, so he will just retire his troups moving them around his territory, building towers, garrisoning in them and barracks, slowly damaging your army thanks to the range of archers (who can be kept near to the cc if we are talking about P1 and P2). In order to damage the carthage player you need then to have a big army, and when you move it away from your territory you 1) renounce to develop your eco 2) become extremely vulnerable to a sword cav rushes (that can rush immediately after your army passed your territory border and still be able to return to the base in order to support the defense against the counter rush) 

Edited September 28, 2021 by Jofursloft

[Jofursloft]

The ONLY way to counter a good carthage player is 1) making palizades around fields 2) playing in a biome that has a lot of wood so it allows you to have only 2 woodlines. 

Rushing with cavs is so easy (when you have more than 15 cavs), but defending it is so hard. 

[Player of 0AD]

I also think that sword cav is fine. It can gather only food, and mercs can't gather at all. So why wouldn't it be stronger than citizen soldiers which can gather everything...

[Thorfinn the Shallow Minded]

Could somebody clarify the spearman versus sword cavalry matchup?  How does rank 1 versus 1 play out?  Obviously in most cases sword cavalry cost 150 resources, meaning that engaging against spearmen with a narrow win is already inefficient, yet at the same time spearmen are extremely slow, meaning that cavalry rarely have to take these unfavourable engagements.  It is that problem that I believe makes sword cavalry difficult; their counter to them has no easy way of getting close enough to force fights.  The question that we maybe should ask ourselves is if spearmen are not an adequate counter, what is?

[clavz]

17 minutes ago, Thorfinn the Shallow Minded said:

Could somebody clarify the spearman versus sword cavalry matchup?  How does rank 1 versus 1 play out?  Obviously in most cases sword cavalry cost 150 resources, meaning that engaging against spearmen with a narrow win is already inefficient, yet at the same time spearmen are extremely slow, meaning that cavalry rarely have to take these unfavourable engagements.

the problem here is with the sword cav you can produce from the iberian embassy with carth, that is rank 2 and costs 80 metal. It is always hard to counter, but in early game other civs can't counter it effectively.

26 minutes ago, Player of 0AD said:

I also think that sword cav is fine. It can gather only food, and mercs can't gather at all. So why wouldn't it be stronger than citizen soldiers which can gather everything...

did you see some replay? @Dizaka posted several here:

 

Edited September 28, 2021 by clavz
didnt notice dizaka actually posted replays

[Dizaka]

39 minutes ago, clavz said:

the problem here is with the sword cav you can produce from the iberian embassy

The also come from the celtic embassy, sword cav.  You can choose 200 wood or 200 stone per building.  Using 200 stone + 200 wood gives you 2 sword-producing embassies in p2.

The interesting thing about Carthage though is I'd actually want the embassies p1 buildings.  This strategy is interesting and can be scouted.  Though I think the sword cav need to be weakend by anywhere from 10-25%.  I think the rush strategy should be viable - it makes carthage unique.  But I don't think it should be this dominating (though is should dominate more than a regular skrim cav rush).

Edited September 28, 2021 by Dizaka

[LetswaveaBook]

36 minutes ago, Thorfinn the Shallow Minded said:

 How does rank 1 versus 1 play out?

A rank 1 spearman has 48 HP remaining and promotes after fighting a rank 1 swordsman.

 

38 minutes ago, Thorfinn the Shallow Minded said:

yet at the same time spearmen are extremely slow, meaning that cavalry rarely have to take these unfavourable engagements.  It is that problem that I believe makes sword cavalry difficult; their counter to them has no easy way of getting close enough to force fights.  The question that we maybe should ask ourselves is if spearmen are not an adequate counter, what is?

In many RTS games issues like this arise. What players could do is to mix ranged units with their spearman, so that the ranged units can do damage from afar and the cavalry can't engage. Also mounted counter (spearman cavalry) could theoretically do something.

12 hours ago, vinme said:

altho ranged ones largely useless accuracy boost given p2 battles are too large and bad accuracy is probably even benefitial.

I want to clarify on this. I ran tests with ranged skirmishers. If we tightly pack the units together, then 40 advanced skirmishers are equivalent in strength to 48 rank 1 skirmishers. I also mad a little mod that removes the accuracy boost and then the 48 rank 1 units defeat the 40 rank 2 units and have 14 units remaining (Though some have low HP). This shows that for skirmishers, there is really some benefit for lower accuracy in massed fights. I haven't tested for other ranged units, so I can't comment on that. In these test I would estimate that the reduced spread is equivalent to roughly +15% attack.

 

13 hours ago, vinme said:

carthage has extremely weak build, other than mercs, that is their SPECIALTY so ofc they must excell at it

As @Dizaka just said, I agree that they must excel on the strategy and that it should remain viable. Though Carthage has its weaknesses and strengths, I think both need to be less extreme. I hope we can get a situation where both units are viable. However as @vinme said, it is not always just a sword cav merc problem, it is a problem that needs to be addressed on the entire roster.

[vinme]

12 hours ago, LetswaveaBook said:

A rank 1 spearman has 48 HP remaining and promotes after fighting a rank 1 swordsman.

 

In many RTS games issues like this arise. What players could do is to mix ranged units with their spearman, so that the ranged units can do damage from afar and the cavalry can't engage. Also mounted counter (spearman cavalry) could theoretically do something.

I want to clarify on this. I ran tests with ranged skirmishers. If we tightly pack the units together, then 40 advanced skirmishers are equivalent in strength to 48 rank 1 skirmishers. I also mad a little mod that removes the accuracy boost and then the 48 rank 1 units defeat the 40 rank 2 units and have 14 units remaining (Though some have low HP). This shows that for skirmishers, there is really some benefit for lower accuracy in massed fights. I haven't tested for other ranged units, so I can't comment on that. In these test I would estimate that the reduced spread is equivalent to roughly +15% attack.

 

As @Dizaka just said, I agree that they must excel on the strategy and that it should remain viable. Though Carthage has its weaknesses and strengths, I think both need to be less extreme. I hope we can get a situation where both units are viable. However as @vinme said, it is not always just a sword cav merc problem, it is a problem that needs to be addressed on the entire roster.

the part about ranged accuracy per rank up is interesting, how many times have you tested this? 0ad fights are extremely random, even 50 vs 50 equal fights can go either way with drastic variations, unless tested like 10-15 times and averaged out i wouldnt trust a result 100%.

also i was pretty sure probably bad accuracy could be good in large fights like 100 vs 100 as the misses could hit adjacent enemy unit, avoiding overkill but now that i think about it your result seems more accurate and i assume dead units will still have projectiles pass through them, giving same result of mis shots potentially hitting nearby enemies.

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

1 hour ago, Thorfinn the Shallow Minded said:

s if spearmen are not an adequate counter, what is?

Maybe Naked fanatic but if they costed the same lol.

@Dizaka

A while ago I had been discussing p1 mercenaries with the hopes to break the usual rush/ boom continuum.

I think the (1) and (3) solution would see them to be better earlier and versus smaller groups of units, since they would not have enough time to rank up despite the rank up advantage.

[vinme]

ppl have noted the spearmans inability to force an engage, this is as it should be, the main point is that the swords cant engage spearmen(assuming equal cost accounting for civ specialty, metal scarcity/minining inneficiencies, ect, ect.), yes mixing in ranged units is essential, depending on the size of the enemy army, usually more cav=more spearmen, even upto 60% spearmen comp i believe.

one of the main issues, i feel is completely useless and worthless spear cav, that just barely beat sword cav in 1v1 from what i recall, and jav cav as well, very insiginficant advantage, even less of an advantage in larger group fights as ranged units get an advantage of being able to atack at once, as enemy moves through, and around the living obstacles.

and even after all of this, spear cav are totally useless vs anything but cav.

i recomend boosting spear cav atack damage somewhere inbetween their current atack damage, and sword cav damage.

lets say change atack rate from 1.25 to 1 (this would boost dps by 20%) and reduce multiplier to like 1.5 or something.

 

[vinme]

13 hours ago, Jofursloft said:

How can you have large enough groups on biomes such as Aegean Anatolian, Arctic, Autumn, Nubia, Sahara, Steppe when playing in a 1v1 on a small map?

They have a very weak base if you have at least 30+ soldiers to attack it. When you send your army, the carthage player will likely see it coming, so he will just retire his troups moving them around his territory, building towers, garrisoning in them and barracks, slowly damaging your army thanks to the range of archers (who can be kept near to the cc if we are talking about P1 and P2). In order to damage the carthage player you need then to have a big army, and when you move it away from your territory you 1) renounce to develop your eco 2) become extremely vulnerable to a sword cav rushes (that can rush immediately after your army passed your territory border and still be able to return to the base in order to support the defense against the counter rush) 

i dont even know the biome names lol since they changed it all and added 50 different biomes but ill assume you are questioning the viability of having smaller groups on a low wood map.

about maps with thoes larger trees, scattered around thoes maps are largely broken, insofar as cav get a huge multiplier in value for obvious already stated reasons, and such rarely played maps are  never balanced/fair for all civs, generally these maps favour certain civs, so ppl should pick these civs, or for a challenge play a badly fitting one. for example naval maps favor civs like athen, with its op hero that is still rarely used or iber with the fireships, ect.

about maps with any amount of cuttable wood, consider getting baskets(+5) from storehouse as this reduces walktime, and allows for far higher concentration of units per woodline, abeit the woodline runs out sooner, then you move them to the next one, this allows ofc for larger groups on woodlines.

in 1v1 consider, that carthage requires a significant amount of time from investing start point > arriving with swordcav on your property.

this nessesitates that if one wants to start massing swordcav, one must p2 earlier as starting swordcav vis p2 ing at the conventional time, would lead you to engage the atack at basically a point when enemy is p3,or going p3, which is already too late, you can hardly mass swordcav if you cant deal damage as you STACK them, as this would be to inneficient to just mass 5 by 5 as all of them idle.

i usually p2 start at around 80-110 pop from what i recall and this allows me to atack enemy when their pop is far higher, not sure at what point but ill guess 120-160?  

i believe objectively valis nub 45 pop p2 build is.. nub. he has beaten many players with it purely because of the skill gap, conpensating for the builds disadvantage.

if enemy atacks you at that point, with 3 swordcav they have pretty much killed themselves, unless they click faster than you in which case they win either way eventually.

you should always have, unless enemy severely stunts their eco, more than 30 men to atack with, you can make 1 tower on woodline and palaside it off, if you really dont want him atacking your woodline with his cav(depending on cav count perhaps more towers are justified), or move to cc wood, ofc keep few men back to garison cc either way.

yes standard defense strategy against inf rush is generally very viable if done perfectly, but inf rushes(given superior men count) should not be underestimated.

p2 towers require enough time to build that if you see them, you can prevent them with ease with a larger army, p1 towers arent as strong, there are many many targets you can have, assuming he garisons his baracs, embassies, there are still houses and now he has less men as each barac would need 10 not to get cauptured(lets say you atack at 130 pop, with 70 men, blacksmith techs ranged, pierce, mele) you should be able to do a significant amount of damage, if playing properly and not wasting time, ofc most important aspect here is pre scouting so you know his layout, his woodlines, ect. if he sees you coming towers can still be captured, you should have a significant enough advantage given he will have far less men, and not enough swordmercs(if you atack asap when he starts massing), still thought 0ad is largely about luck so it can go either way. keep in mind lets say sword/jav have like 15-20% advantage if not more vs spear/archer in a direct fight, let alone at a surplus when advantage becomes geometric.

all women should be able to garrison given houses give 10/6 ratio of pop/garison capability, if you have at least 40% of your pop as  men(and you should have at least 50% when inf rushing ) you should be able to garrison all women, assuming everything is towered(not that expensive just woodline basically, 1-2 towers more than enough usually) towers protecting eachother, some within cc arrow range.

 

13 hours ago, Jofursloft said:

The ONLY way to counter a good carthage player is 1) making palizades around fields 2) playing in a biome that has a lot of wood so it allows you to have only 2 woodlines. 

Rushing with cavs is so easy (when you have more than 15 cavs), but defending it is so hard. 

palasides around fields should come after a certain amount of cav is seen, maybe 8 swordcav, and should cost minimal amount of wood as in a25 fields are extremely vunerable and you should have it largely walled off with buildings, thereofre more than 100-200 wood for palasides shouldnt be nessesary.

yes large wood biomes are bad for cav rushes.

atacker does have the efficiency advantage on micro/macro/stamina as they know what they are doing, when the action will happen while defender must process within a second or 2 what to do, then react to this suprise, while maintaining macro(eco) and this puts stress on stamina more so than atacking.

 

[a 0ad player]

hi,

i play mostly teamgames and i feel the sword cavalry / mercenary sword cavalry is a bit op. Spearmen as a direct counter are half as fast and about 1:1 tradable at worst.
A few tests on this resulted in:
- Spearmen (gaul) vs 20 cav (maury cav / rom champ)
- 1 spearman can defeat 1.3 sword cavalry units

1.3	spear vs cav
1.0	spear vs cav + all upgrades (for spear and cav)
0.6	spear (Rank1) vs cav (Rank3) + all upgrades
0.5	spear vs champ cav + all upgrades
0.4	spear vs champ cav + all upgrades + hero for defence

 

The potential for damage is very high and due to the high mobility relatively risk-free. Don't fight against collections of spearmen while ranged infantry units and women can be fought almost without loss. I agree that CS cavalry should be somewhat op (collection rate, ...) and especially the cathago sword mercenary cavalry is needed as a very vial strategy. Increasing the risk (less mobility, less robust) would make sense to me. For example, not applying the last stab resistance upgrade of the forge to sword cavalier and not letting the cavalry units overlap so much (footprint).
In teamgames, there are always unit accumulations against which the cavalry can be traded disproportionately profitable as soon as the high mobility can be used. Spearmen are not everywhere.