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Thread: Barbarian nerf version 2!

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  1. #4

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    Kempion... in the real world, archers don't advance on enemies...

    Having been a long time fan of the history of warfare, I can explain in broad terms how armies have fought for ages:

    Ranged units are in the back (or intermixed with melee units when they were still javelins and slings because of the flat tragectory of those weapons compared to the arched firing of bows) of formations of infantry units. They would fire upon the attacking enemy gettign in range or if attacking move into range, stop, start firing to cover infantry.

    Mounted units (calvalry, elephants, chariots, etc) would be first strike units hitting the enemy infantry before it could close on the friendly infantry and retreating when needed. Often they would strike again if things favored their side or they would act as constant harrassers to enemy formations. Or for heavy calvalry (such as knights on horseback or cataphracts) they were expected to literally run over whatever was in their way & come out the other side of enemy formations. While not exactly historically accurate Braveheart mentions this as the reason why the scots would lose to the english every time they stood up to them.

    Infantry where the keys to combat and mounted and ranged units were to provide support for infantry. Infantry was usually a polearm of some sort, such as spears, pikes, etc. Swords were an officers weapon of last resort for much of history as much as they are romanticised in modern culture. Roman troops for example used spears with short swords (like the more gladiatorial gladius) as a backup when things got to upclose and personal.

    When they came into play 'mechanics' were also support units, usually stationed behind the archers as they had even greater range. They were stationary and woudl be lost if the infantry lines broke and the enemy moved into the area they were placed (they were far to slow to ever get away, more so against mounted units).

    Their were also speacilty units: javelin infantry (carried a pack of 5 or 6 javelin's and then used a smaller weapon in melee), horse archers (calvalry with short bows used as harassing forces), chariots (javelin or shortbow for the 'passenger' as well as carrying a spear for melee use), elephants (usually carried bowmen, slingers, or javelin units with spears and knives as a backup), axemen (axes were very common weapons and good ones could be thrown as well as used in melee). Their are other, but those illistrate how blurred these lines could be.

    However having said all that... Infantry would take the brunt of the damage after calvalry was done, and ranged units would suffer few casulties unless the enemy had archers as well. If anything this game failed a long time ago when they made ranged units non-support and let 1 infantry unit of each type act as a buffer for ranged units to dominate. Their are plenty of games with complex formulas for intermixing unit types... This game however isn't like that the formula is much to basic and doesn't work right for using strategy at all... It's been 'who has the most ranged units?' since the 'oh we are in beta, but now were live!' days. The most complex strategy was layering single infantry units to give ranged more time before opposing infantry closed. If they wanted to seriously improve things, we'd gain options for troop formations and other things that actually allow tactics to be used... As it is right this moment however their is no point of attacking anyone in this game! The amount of loss for one attack will make taking a town impossible. Massed infantry could do it, but their losses vs archer towers and other defenses woudl be extreme. The only safe targets (even more!) becomes new player with no real defenses (200 AT, 10 or 11 traps, etc). Anything past that and the defenders ahve extreme advantage.
    Last edited by theshadow99; 06-01-2009 at 07:44 AM.

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