The justification I've seen here for the musket/carbine's -100 POA against cavalry as opposed to the Bow's 0 POA (-50 for armor 100, if I recall correctly) relates to rate of fire and the difficulty of using such weapons mounted. But do we actually have any primary sources corroborating this assumpt...

Swordsmen is a pretty bad capability, no clue why it's priced the same as Heavy Weapon. No melee POA against Spearmen, no impact POA at all. Doesn't negate armor POA like Heavy Weapon. The only advantage, if I recall correctly, was that Swordsmen POA would kick in against disrupted Pike and Shot whi...

This really isn't a relevant example. These were highly trained and disciplined 19th century European cavalry, not at all like 16th century Tibetans or Japanese. Furthermore, the Qing Bannermen by the 19th century were a pale shadow of the hardened men who had conquered China, or won Ghengis Khan's...

19th century China and Central Asia were hardly paragons of military effectiveness though. The French and British cavalry of the Opium Wars probably did not differ too much in equipment from their counterparts of the early 18th century (game wise, I guess they'd be unarmored impact mounted melee pis...

I feel that horse archers are too strong in this game. They can often exchange equal casualties with arquebusiers (due to -100 POA shooting against cavalry, not to mention lack of infantry armor), which granted isn't a good use of points, but a squadron of mounted horse archers being even in firefig...

Only kind of related but I do think this might be some reason to give option for asymmetric victory conditions. Many times in historical battles there were outside pressures that forced one side to act more aggressively than the other (e.g. need to lift a siege, new consul is arriving so you want to...

Very sad news. I've downloaded and enjoyed many of his scenarios for both Pike and Shot and FOG2, they always cheered me up.

It's a general AI problem, so many times you find an unescorted army.

I've started plenty of wars opportunistically when I find my fleet and a giant chunk of their army with top generals, elite troops but no escorts sharing the same sea zone.

Epirus still has the provincial elephant unit, but I'm pretty sure elephants were not anywhere near Greece until Alexander's campaigns brought them back. I'm not sure if the Galatian infantry provincial unit makes sense either, as the Gallic invasion would not bring them to the area for a few centur...

Perhaps he meant to hide them? I remember when I played multiplayer I once put a bunch of heavy infantry in the forest, then could go out and surprise my opponent. It often doesn't help too much (you can count how many points you see after all), but has worked against some people, and I did win one ...

I'm curious how battle defeats, regions taken, units lost etc. factor into the war score. Is there a time decay? Are each of these individual events added up or is there some way it takes into account the whole situation. Many times a nation declares war on me, wins a bunch of victories against my r...

I do think lancers shouldn't be charging and breaking units frontally, but I wonder if there is a good idea that can set them apart from light spear equivalents. They aren't terrible units, but I don't need them to flank the enemy. It doesn't make a difference if you just want 1 cohesion drop. As me...

When playing against the AI on various difficulties, what do you feel is a reasonable garrison for forts of various levels? Something that can at least deter the AI from assaults and hold them up a few turns. Conversely, what is the minimum force you are comfortable with to assault a fort, at variou...

On the main topic of troop positioning I agree that the game makes so many terrible decisions. Just put the guys with the highest combat support in the second line, always! I really think this game needs some sort of system to prevent the excessive spreading of forces. You guys are right that wars t...

MVP7, I would say that the lancers are more likely to get caught when chasing an evading unit, while light spear cavalry are far more flimsy. On a separate note I find it very odd that any cavalry has trouble catching light infantry unless it stands right next to it. Especially against a mass of lig...

Another idea: why not have a bad cohesion test for both "fleeing" unit and "blocking" unit when a unit wants to fall back but is unable to? This might replicate troops trying to flee running into the previous line and throwing it into chaos, which I believe has happened in quite ...

I find lancer cavalry to be not so suited for an offensive role. Unless your opponent has put some raw and/or medium non-spearmen foot in the open, a frontal charge is not a great idea. Meanwhile, for flank charges, as long as you have an enemy unit pinned down one cavalry unit is as good as any oth...

Did try mirrored multiplayer games (Romans vs Macedonians), but unfortunately I don't think I've really proven anything except that I'm not a very good player :lol: Nothing decisive happened melee wise in those games, the winning maneuvers were essentially from flanking by the bigger army. Now it wa...

Just tested out the mod against the AI. Skills of the AI aside, the effect of the changes in a 1v1 phalanx vs impact foot fight seems far tilted in the phalanx's favor. Previously, the Romans had a chance of a big win on impact, while they were equivalent in melee over time, with phalanx combat stre...

Schweetness, I think I accepted one of your challenge games.