Originally Posted by
Antiochos VII Sidetes
Tier 1 units get shredded by Tier 2 units in seconds, and this isn't really great for battles. Still, compared to the main issues with FoTE's battles, this is a small and manageable problem.
Well probably i shouldn't do this since you seem not to listen, but ok, let's try again. Tier 1 units are not a problem, they are pretty balanced for either ranged units or cavalry. You just didn't notice that most "tier 1" units are light or medium class what makes them pretty bad against archers. I don't see it unlogical.
Originally Posted by
Antiochos VII Sidetes
Battles are essentially broken.
Broken or just don't meet your taste? That's essentially difference.
Originally Posted by
Antiochos VII Sidetes
Firstly, missiles are ludicrously powerful. In an age where archery very rarely decided battles.
Make better research, there were many battles where ranged units made a difference (not decisive, but pretty annoying enemies), read Ammianus, Procopius, Jordanes and study - for example - siege of Andrianople (after Adrianople's battle). And of course start using formations to make units not fragile vs. arrows. This works even for light ones .
Originally Posted by
Antiochos VII Sidetes
Secondly, perhaps even more critical is the utter uselessness of cavalry. This was an era when the Hunnic mounted warrior dominated Europe
That was an era when authors overestimated hunnic military due to religious interests (like calling Huns "apocalipse raiders"). Especially roman christians. The fact was Huns just harrased settlements with terror then attacked hungry armies that had no aprovisation. Their "brilliant" tactics was just bribing smaller germanic tribes to get infantry which mostly fought for them. Huns, if took part in any battle at all just used massively archers to flank and spread chaos in enemy lines. Whenever they attacked frontally, they lost every single battle. In fact there were very few real battles that clashed Huns vs. Romans or germanic tribes that were not subject to Huns. Romans had their own usurpers' problems so they mostly defended cities, payed tributes or allied with them while germans just stepped back to avoid confrontation.
Originally Posted by
Antiochos VII Sidetes
Empire developed advanced cataphract forces to counter their gathering foes.
Notitia Dignitatum, neither any ancient authors don't support that (false) view. In fact WRE had only one catafract unit, stationing in Britain to be more funny, ERE about 10. Even Clibanarii units were rare (about 15 units totally). Ammianus strictly states that roman tactics vs. Sassanid cavalry was just to avoid them or use obstacles to stop them (like metal nails).
Originally Posted by
Antiochos VII Sidetes
Now, the initial cavalry charge is acceptably powerful -- it can be effective to drive home a cavalry charge into enemy foot. The real problem comes in withdrawing
Engage your foot troops to counter enemies then use cavalry, repeat (if needed at all) and watch easy winning.
Originally Posted by
Antiochos VII Sidetes
I am no rookie in TW -- I win my battles. But the casualties are ridiculous and essentially ruin the balance of any given battle.
Seriously? You seem to be pretty bad in manual battles. You can't observe standard differences between unit classes, you have no idea how to counter siege units, probably use formations wrong way (if at all) and do a lot of complains while none are real problem.
Originally Posted by
Antiochos VII Sidetes
It encourages a battle where you suicide your already pathetically fragile cavalry onto their artillery in an attempt to mitigate this insane issue.
That's why i dare to say you are awful tactician. Try just to engage enemy units then just flank artillery with cavalry. Or just use battle "cheat" to move units out of artillery range so while rest of army starts battle, they will be still crawling their machines for no use. You probably din't even noticed that AI stops shooting artillery when units fight in melee. But i suppose you try (like in vanilla) use 10 units vs. 17 rebel units, so, yes, this might be problematic.
Originally Posted by
Antiochos VII Sidetes
I only bring these issues up because I almost always play Divide et Impera, as does everyone else -- but the reason this is so is because Attila is such an arcadey and vanilla experience compared to the perfection found there. Normally I wouldn't care, but I am on a Late Antiquity kick and I felt these concerns needed to be broadcast. I know that others probably play this mod and put it down after an hour due to these issues.
Rome II mechanics is way different from Attila, any comparison doesn't make sense. And stop minding your own poor gaming in the name of any collectivity. That's pretty lame and i'm in contact with many ppl who enjoy playing this mod (especially FotE+EP revised combo).
Originally Posted by
Antiochos VII Sidetes
If this game ever gets another update, roster upgrades are not the way to go. These issues should probably be the priority, because until then all the glorious Comitatenses in their shining armor will just be sprites sitting on the modders' desktops. That is, until some new player picks up the mod and finds them being shredded by 10 Alemannic archer units in an army of 15 units.
At first - FotE and EP are closed projects, only bugs are fixed. Only FotE + EP Revised is developed still and this is my own, private project which mostly is done to satisfy my taste and way of seeing things, however i spend a lot of time really studying old sources and trying to make the game as balanced as possible. Forcing AI to stop overrecruiting archers is not possible, but it is possible to use VH or Legendary mode to make AI smarter and having enough money to build good armies.
If my way of handling game balance doesn't satisfy your taste then i'm sorry, mind doing your own mod to fix things your way.
Anyway every single old sources state clearly that Alammans, Goths or any other germans were just rabble, not armies, if romans were not able to squish them that was because romans had to engage armies against internal affairs:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Lake_Benacus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Fano
So that what happened with every german "invasion". They entered defenseless territory and spread small detachments who were hard to find and pursuit. In fact romans were still reforming their military from 250 to 496 AD and never finished it, while later ERE didn't have to fight them, so their military went totally other way, still being good enough to trample Vandals and Ostrogoths in one glimpse.