Medium Foot Rebalance Discussion

[Schweetness101]

As per a discussion here:

viewtopic.php?f=477&t=98645&start=40

that went off topic from discussing lancers to discussing mediums, I decided to start a medium foot rebalance thread for discussion and testing of a medium foot mod, if anyone has interest.

A brief summary of the situation is that some people feel medium foot armies are OP, especially in competitive multiplayer, against heavy foot armies. Here are the advantages and disadvantages I can remember:

Heavy foot advantages:
+1 to ct for heavy foot in the open
-1 to CT imposed on medium foot vs heavy foot in the open (for a delta of +2 favoring heavies in the open)

Medium foot advantages:
'free' maneuverability
lower cost
less disordered by terrain
often in larger numbers in their respective army lists
move in rough and forests at full speed

potential solutions/modifications (mostly drawn from above thread):

1) make medium foot pay for maneuverability (or increase cost of medium foot by some other justification)
2) on impact in the open between medium foot and non light cavalry: add additional -1 CT to medium foot and/or loss of POA to medium foot, and/or additional POA to non light cavalry (ie let cavalry roll over medium foot in the open, although this might scare them even more into camping the rough terrain)
3) reduce heavy foot disorder in rough from moderate to slight OR increase medium foot disorder in rough terrain from none to slight.
4) decrease medium foot max numbers in medium foot army lists
5) increase base cost of all units
6) something with casualty changes? pushback changes? anything else?

I am more than willing to make a large number of small mods to test out individual changes people are interested in.

[desicat]

You are getting close to asking for two different sets of armies, one for MP and one for those who like to play vs the AI.

There are a lot of different units in the game and I try to create battles that bring some of the less used ones into play. This includes the Medium Foot and low quality Heavy Foot, Levy Troops, and Mobs. MP tourney fights are all about optimizing every point, where Campaigns and Scenarios are about having fun, and enjoying the diverse qualities of the Armies and units.

Taking away the few advantages that Medium Foot has vs Heavy Foot will make the SP experience very drab, as it will just become one Heavy Foot with Cavalry skirmish after another. RBS most recent plan to possibly update Velites and Peltasts is a great idea as it increases the variety of Light units, but from a pure MP points perspective it causes some folks heartburn.

Mods are great and add their own variety, but hopefully folks don't forget that the game also supports single player vs the AI just because they are not as vocal on the message board.

[SimonLancaster]

I am not sure that there is an issue.. I would have to play with some armies and see how they go. Which factions do you think are medium infantry armies? When I look at the Digital League stats going up to Season 7 then factions like Thracia and Spain are just average. Bunny always says that he hates the Scots and they have a lot of medium infantry..

[Schweetness101]

You are getting close to asking for two different sets of armies, one for MP and one for those who like to play vs the AI.

yeah I am focused on competitive multiplayer here for the most part. But I think Mike_C gave a good response to this part of the discussion in the other thread:

It would make sense that the game is balanced for singleplayer, given that the great majority of players are singleplayer players. But, if you were to rebalance them just for multiplayer, would you change them at all?

The problem is that you would not even be balancing them for all of MP, but only for the top echelon of players.

The most skilled players will always do better with "soft" armies (manoeuvrable armies lacking individually high powered units) than less skilled players will, and this probably accounts for a significant proportion of the advantage that the table suggests.

I don't think we should really be balancing the game specifically for the top echelon of MP players.

I would like to point out that there is no such thing as balancing for the top echelon. The game is either balanced within reason, or it is not. The fact that top players gravitate towards, and continue to do well with soft armies is a telling sign that there is an imbalance in the game within the context of where those stats are generated. If lower-skilled players struggle with soft armies so you need to artificially boost them then that just distorts the game. Most of these stats seem to be generated in the FoG2DL. Some of it may be outdated and the issue dealt with(Indians and Jewish Revolt for example).

It must be said though that the Roman British and Soissons lists in Late Antiquity have been known to be a powerhouse for many tournaments now. And most players back up their choices with multiple MF armies like the Bretons. Other time periods like Classical Antiquity see medium foot armies checked in the past and present because Heavy Infantry that was brutally strong like Pikes and Impact Foot exist to police them when Potluck forces terrain that is not suitable for MF to hide. The MF lists in Classical also aren't as good or flexible as the ones in Late Antiquity and vice versa, the Heavy Foot lists in Late Antiquity are garbage compared to the ones in Classical. It is disturbing that we are seeing the Samnites "out Rome-ing" the Romans though.

At the end of the day, a large part of is this is that Heavy Foot are inexplicably crippled by rough terrain to the extent that they are unusable vs MF in the rough. The +1 CT Heavy Foot get is a fair trade-off most of the time over the free "drilled" status MF get. The fact that they are unusable in the rough is not compensated for at all. So a large part of the balance going forward will remain with the terrain rolls and whether or not future DLC armies will continue to grant Heavy Foot units with the superior unit capabilities like in the Classical age, or make the majority of them super cheap like with Defensive Spears so that point for point they are competitive with MF infantry spam. But if future DLC will see Heavy Foot units like Legio Comentetatis with its plethora of bad and expensive unit PoAs, then MF spam armies will rear their ugly heads once again.

[desicat]

Historically Heavy Foot did poorly in rough terrain or wooded areas and smart Generals leading those type armies selected the ground for set piece battles with that in mind. The is a huge difference in historical capabilities and use vs competitive balance in a pot luck random map generation.

Gauls and Germans want to fight the Romans in wooded areas, the Romans wanted Phalanx/Pike armies to struggle on poor ground where the Romans ability to maneuver gave them the advantage. The above poster talk "compensation", meaning for the cost of the unit. This is a MP competitive issue, not one of historic consequence.

That being said the game is about having fun, and a random map plays a large role in who wins when the armies are HF vs MF, or Cav vs Inf. Take a look at the DasTactics game thread, the map there is playing a huge role on how the game plays out.

[Schweetness101]

I am not sure that there is an issue.. I would have to play with some armies and see how they go. Which factions do you think are medium infantry armies? When I look at the Digital League stats going up to Season 7 then factions like Thracia and Spain are just average. Bunny always says that he hates the Scots and they have a lot of medium infantry..

Lebo44's statistics (found here: viewtopic.php?f=501&t=98309) show pretty clearly that historically weak medium infantry armies are very dominant in competitive play:



The top armies tend to be medium foot armies, ranging from having a very large number of medium foot (like Carthaginians or Romano-British), to being outright medium foot spam lists like Bretons, Jewish, Samnite, Spanish, Scots-Irish and Picts. This is especially true after you exclude from consideration the massed archer armies that have already been nerfed. You can see similar patterns on the FOG2DL army statistics page.

More anecdotally, but personally I guess, I won 8 games and tied 1 (out of 9) in the most recent FOG2DL Division B Classical Antiquity league by spamming scutarrii as Carthage 235 + Spanish allies. I pretty much did the same thing every time, except one game where i experimented with maxing light foot and almost lost because of it. A lot of my opponents are as good or better players than me imo, but just couldn't do anything about being heavily outnumbered on one big weighted flank with 8 scutarii.

[rbodleyscott]

I am not sure that there is an issue.. I would have to play with some armies and see how they go. Which factions do you think are medium infantry armies? When I look at the Digital League stats going up to Season 7 then factions like Thracia and Spain are just average. Bunny always says that he hates the Scots and they have a lot of medium infantry..

Lebo44's statistics (found here: viewtopic.php?f=501&t=98309) show pretty clearly that historically weak medium infantry armies are very dominant in competitive play:

Yes, but only some of them, and they aren't especially typical of the general run of MF armies. Toning them down by a general nerf of MF could risk killing off the others completely.

And of course, you would just create a new set of better-than-average lists, because that will always be a thing, and you then get into an endless cycle of nerfing the best ones, while never reaching the tournament nirvana of all armies having a roughly equal chance.

[Schweetness101]

I am not sure that there is an issue.. I would have to play with some armies and see how they go. Which factions do you think are medium infantry armies? When I look at the Digital League stats going up to Season 7 then factions like Thracia and Spain are just average. Bunny always says that he hates the Scots and they have a lot of medium infantry..

Lebo44's statistics (found here: viewtopic.php?f=501&t=98309) show pretty clearly that historically weak medium infantry armies are very dominant in competitive play:

Yes, but only some of them, and they aren't especially typical of the general run of MF armies. Toning them down by a general nerf of MF could risk killing off the others completely.

And of course, you would just create a new set of better-than-average lists, because that will always be a thing, and you then get into an endless cycle of nerfing the best ones, while never reaching the tournament nirvana of all armies having a roughly equal chance.

yes, that is probably correct. Medium foot supplementary troops you find in say hellenistic or roman armies are not really being used in an op way as far as I can tell. That is, the army lists themselves can balance the effect of units that may be unbalanced in isolation, and vice versa. The issue is more with the spam lists/ally combinations. The problem still remains I think though of the heavy foot having a relatively modest advantage over mediums in the open vs the huge advantage of mediums vs heavies in the rough, as described by MikeC. It's just that problem doesn't have the room to manifest with lists that only have a supplementary number of medium foot.

One other way of putting it, is that the net advantages in POA, or ct, or disorder of different unit types generally pales in comparison to the massive net advantage of getting a flank in on an already occupied unit (+200 poa and auto cohesion drop). Cheap infantry spam armies almost by definition get more of those opportunities by default.

For example, 5 heavy foot may beat 5 otherwise somewhat comparable medium foot in the open with a little time. However, if they cost the same as 6 medium foot and are less maneuverable, then before the melee is resolved the 6th medium will probably get a flank, and likely a rout in, on one of the 5 heavies, and then another, and then another...So, there's a kind of higher order issue of balance you get when one kind of army can simply bring many more non light troops than the other that transcends the poa, ct and order balance of 1v1s considered in isolation.

I think what I might like (and perhaps I'll host it myself for fun) is a tournament with a much more restricted list of available armies. I.E. where medium foot spam lists, or any spam lists, and certain ally combinations, simply aren't permitted. It probably wouldn't be that hard to make a list of more balanced armies from a certain era. Maybe not as restricted as an outright themed tournament, but something like, say, classical antiquity major factions where only some roman, carthaginian, hellenistic, etc...lists with no allies are allowed. Could be fun I guess.

[pompeytheflatulent]

I bet if the top 5 army lists in the statistics somehow happened to be: Macedonians of Alexander's time, post-Marius Romans, the Huns under Attila, Byzantines of Justinian's time, and Arab Conquest or something along those lines, there would be a lot less people complaining about balance problems.

[MikeC_81]

I bet if the top 5 army lists in the statistics somehow happened to be: Macedonians of Alexander's time, post-Marius Romans, the Huns under Attila, Byzantines of Justinian's time, and Arab Conquest or something along those lines, there would be a lot less people complaining about balance problems.

Pikes, Arab Conquest are the best choices for their respective periods at the moment. Pikes in particular since the change in the push back mechanic have been 100% dominant. Rome 199BC has never been bad, just RNG reliant at times with terrain and Impact rolls. Discussion on this topic, the intelligent portions at least, are not being coloured by favourtism.

[stockwellpete]

Just to transfer my posts over from the other thread. I started off by saying . . .

"I was looking at the effect of rough terrain on the % odds on my "Training Ground" the other day. I will go back and do it again and post the accurate numbers later today. But what I was thinking was that maybe the rough ground has too much effect on heavy foot compared to having no effect on medium foot. Particularly rough ground would actually disable medium foot as well to a certain extent, leaving skirmishers as the troop type least affected at all. So then I thought that there might be 2 types of rough ground - light and heavy - or maybe that the POA numbers just need to be adjusted a bit for HF so that they can still fight reasonably well in rough terrain (a better plan, I think)."

So I was approaching this question from the terrain end (specifically the "rough ground" category of terrain) rather than suggesting a broader medium foot balance is required (I don't think that it is). I then did 2 exercises looking at the effect of terrain on of Offensive Shieldwall (HF) versus Brythonic foot (MF) and Hoplites (HF) versus Thureophoroi (MF) . . .

1) I set up shieldwall (HF, offensive spears) attacking Brythonic foot (MF, light spear/swords) in the main various terrain types and the % values were as follows (Win-Draw-Lose) . . .

1) Open terrain, tracks and streams (both units are steady)
Impact 15-72-14
Melee 32-64-4

So level on impact, with the expectation that the shield wall will eventually defeat the Brythonic foot, although it could be a protracted struggle.

2) Slope, open terrain, 50 foot contour (both units are steady)
Impact 8-72-21
Melee 24-69-7

Reasonable chance of success for attacker provided unit remains steady at impact. Again a long melee is a distinct possibility.

3) Rough ground and large stream (shield wall moderately disordered, Brythonics steady)
Impact 2-63-36 or worse
Melee 2-63-35 or worse

Absolutely prohibitive. In the small 5 combat sample I used for rough ground there were 2 double-drops for the shieldwall units. No player with any experience would attack here unless there was some other urgent localised tactical reason for doing so.

4) all other terrain types including woods, difficult slope and deep stream (shield wall severely disordered, Brythonics moderately disordered)
Impact 0-31-69 or worse
Melee 0-35-65 or worse

Again, absolutely prohibitive.


One idea I have is that rough ground might be re-designated as "light rough" (or light terrain) and the penalty for heavy foot fighting there be reduced. All the other terrain types would be considered "heavy rough" (or heavy terrain). If you look at the numbers for the 2) slope category then they pose quite a nice dilemma for the player with the HF units. The impact could be damaging, but once in contact they should eventually win, although it may take quite a while. Might that not depict combat in slightly awkward light terrain quite well? And would it alter players' perceptions of which armies they needed to pick to get through a 9 match league season in future? And the balance between HF and MF units in those selections?

Just an aside, regarding large streams, wouldn't the Brythonics also be moderately disordered by it? Maybe the numbers for this type of contact should be closer to the 50 foot contour for slopes?

2) Hoplites versus Thureophoroi . . .

1) Open terrain, tracks and streams (both units are steady)
Impact 14-69-17
Melee 15-73-13

So level on impact and melee. Could go either way with the cohesion test modifier favouring the HF unit.

2) Slope, open terrain, 50 foot contour (both units are steady)
Impact 7-73-20
Melee 10-71-20

Not particularly good odds for the attacker but a long melee is still a distinct possibility and the cohesion test modifier could win the day.

For the other more severe terrain types then the odds are exactly the same . . .

3) Rough ground and large stream (hoplites moderately disordered, thureophoroi steady)
Impact 2-63-36 or worse
Melee 2-63-35 or worse

Absolutely prohibitive. No player with any experience would attack here unless there was some other urgent localised tactical reason for doing so.

4) all other terrain types including woods, difficult slope and deep stream (hoplites severely disordered, thureophoroi moderately disordered)
Impact 0-31-69 or worse
Melee 0-35-65 or worse

Again, absolutely prohibitive.


So the change in the % odds in melee (not impact) goes from (hoplites first) 15-13 in open terrain to 2-36 in rough terrain. At 36-2 down you are almost certain to eventually lose the melee - and then possibly disrupt adjacent troops when you rout. Large patches of rough ground are effectively no-go areas for HF armies at the moment. This can lead to quite turgid battles where HF units stay in open terrain and MF units stay in rough and other terrain. I understand Richard's point about not wanting to blur differences between units, but we are only talking about one particular terrain type being toned down a bit here. I am not sure what the stats from the random map generator (RMG) say about the proportion of "rough ground" squares on the different types of map. That would be interesting to see (if they are available).

Another way to look at this might be to say that any square on the battlefield (apart from those at the edge) has 8 other squares adjacent to it and that any square with rough terrain in it can only have a maximum of 3 or 4 adjacent squares that also have rough terrain in them. This would avoid having great big blocks of rough ground in the middle of a map effectively blocking off some types of armies from each other. This is not that uncommon. What you could have instead are rough ground squares interspersed with open ground squares that would provide challenging areas of terrain for both HF and MF armies to exploit. Could the RMG be adjusted in this way at all? If it could then you would not have to amend the units at all to get a better outcome.

[stockwellpete]

I bet if the top 5 army lists in the statistics somehow happened to be: Macedonians of Alexander's time, post-Marius Romans, the Huns under Attila, Byzantines of Justinian's time, and Arab Conquest or something along those lines, there would be a lot less people complaining about balance problems.

Yes, I do think that the armies that built the great empires of the ancient and medieval world should be among the best armies in the game. To me, for example, there is something not quite right about the stats for the Roman armies in their empire building period. They ought to be a bit better than they are really. I think it may have to do with the relatively limited number of units that they are able to field. And there are also issues like - would a Roman legionary unit disrupt automatically if a second medium foot unit hit them in a flank?

[stockwellpete]

What if medium foot were slightly disordered in rough terrain, is there a way to figure out what the odds would be by crunching some numbers?

Anything that reduces the impact of this particular terrain type a bit would help, I think. I don't know what the mathematics are for these situations - i.e. what numbers are at play currently to give us the outcomes we have at the moment. That would be interesting to know. The random map generator is a bit mysterious to me at the moment.

[pompeytheflatulent]

I bet if the top 5 army lists in the statistics somehow happened to be: Macedonians of Alexander's time, post-Marius Romans, the Huns under Attila, Byzantines of Justinian's time, and Arab Conquest or something along those lines, there would be a lot less people complaining about balance problems.

Pikes, Arab Conquest are the best choices for their respective periods at the moment. Pikes in particular since the change in the push back mechanic have been 100% dominant. Rome 199BC has never been bad, just RNG reliant at times with terrain and Impact rolls. Discussion on this topic, the intelligent portions at least, are not being coloured by favourtism.

You're misunderstanding. I'd be one of those people who would stop complaining if the historically successful armies were more successful in multiplayer. When I play the losing side in a historical match up, I want to play as the underdog, not the other way around. Right now the quantity vs quality equation is tilted so far in favor of quantity that the historical losers do really well while the historical conquerors struggle to break 50% win rate. 5th century Roman lists could throw out more limitanei than the Huns have arrows, Pre-Islamic Arab city able to park a 36 point lancer in front of every single unit of veteran Arab spearmen in the Arab conquest list and still have plenty left to overwhelm their cavalry and turn the flanks, etc.

[Schweetness101]

I bet if the top 5 army lists in the statistics somehow happened to be: Macedonians of Alexander's time, post-Marius Romans, the Huns under Attila, Byzantines of Justinian's time, and Arab Conquest or something along those lines, there would be a lot less people complaining about balance problems.

Pikes, Arab Conquest are the best choices for their respective periods at the moment. Pikes in particular since the change in the push back mechanic have been 100% dominant. Rome 199BC has never been bad, just RNG reliant at times with terrain and Impact rolls. Discussion on this topic, the intelligent portions at least, are not being coloured by favourtism.

You're misunderstanding. I'd be one of those people who would stop complaining if the historically successful armies were more successful in multiplayer. When I play the losing side in a historical match up, I want to play as the underdog, not the other way around. Right now the quantity vs quality equation is tilted so far in favor of quantity that the historical losers do really well while the historical conquerors struggle to break 50% win rate. 5th century Roman lists could throw out more limitanei than the Huns have arrows, Pre-Islamic Arab city able to park a 36 point lancer in front of every single unit of veteran Arab spearmen in the Arab conquest list and still have plenty left to overwhelm their cavalry and turn the flanks, etc.

yes, I agree with pompey here. The historically dominant armies doing well and the historically weak armies doing relatively poorly (but not always losing) would be a good litmus test for game balance and the historical accuracy of the simulation. I may not be sure exactly what the solution is, or even how to articulate the precise problem, but something is wrong if Scots-Irish and Samnites are at the top, and the Romans aren't.

It might not be a medium foot problem exactly, but as pompey said, a quantity over quality problem, and it just so happens that most (but not all) quantity heavy spam lists do it with cheap mediums. IE correlation does not equal causation, the medium foot balance is not entirely responsible for the issue, but instead cheap non light infantry spam in general (although I still think massed mediums are probably better than massed limitanei or abid al shira per cost for reasons already given). This could perhaps be solved by simply lowering the max unit cap on cheap units for some lists, or increasing unit costs by a certain base across the board as has been suggested, for example.

[SnuggleBunnies]

I think Medium Foot armies are slightly too strong, but I think the problem can be overstated. Personally, rather than alter the mechanics of disorder, or map generation, I think a (small) cost change would do the trick. Either experimenting with boosting unit costs across the board, or making Medium Foot pay for maneuverability (possibly at a lower rate than HF? Or not? Should Thureophoroi cost the same 48pts as Mercenary Hoplites?)

Looking at Lebo44's statistics, let's take a look at the top ten, (which I would mostly not call "historically weak":

1) Romano-British. Yes, this is a problem, and Richard has proposed in the Beta forum to change Sub-Roman Foot to large unit size and thus cost 41 points. This would take care of the problem.

2) Indian. These stats are a legacy of the early seasons. This is no longer a problem.

3) Jewish Revolt. Yes, this is a pretty fierce army, but I'm not sure that that's inappropriate. Also, I think many players don't change their army composition in response enough when fighting them. When I played as the Revolt in the league, some of the better players trounced me through careful army selection. Still, a small cost increase would hit this list pretty hard; maybe that would not be a bad thing.

4) Samnite. Is it wrong for them to be good? The Samnites were the early Republic's toughest opponent. Sure, the Romans won - but you could make a strong argument that this was only due to the sheer numbers that a more urbanized society could bring to bear against a numerically smaller, largely pastoral mountain society.

6) Indo-Greek. Nerfed by the change to Massed Archers. Not a problem.

7) Hannibal in Africa. I don't think this is a strong league list because of Medium Foot spam. Instead, it is strong because it is a swiss army knife. It's got MF, HF, skirmishers, cavalry, elephants. You can craft it to whatever terrain. I also don't think it's historically inappropriate for any army that Hannibal lead to be strong.

8 ) Hannibal in Italy. See above, sans Elephants if I recall correctly.

9) Kingdom of Soissons. This list would also get hit hard by Richard's proposed change to Sub-Roman Foot.

10) Arab, City. In fact this is not a MF problem, the lists fields cheap lancers and lots of cheap HF.

As for Medium Foot Sword types, such as Brythonic Foot, I think this is a meta game problem. After all, you don't see Umbrians or Italian Hill tribes dominating in Classical. Instead, such lists perform well in Late Antiquity and to some extent in Biblical, where there are fewer brutally heavy hitting HF types like Pikemen and Impact Foot available. Note that a Ptolemaic list allowed in Late Antiquity was later excluded by the new cutoff date performed very well, as it was the only list in Late Antiquity with access to Pikes.

So, I think perhaps a small cost increase, either across the board or to MF maneuverability, would be appropriate. I think that could make MF performance a little more in line with what people want without any radical hard to test changes.

Finally, I will note that I faced Brythonic Foot type armies twice in the last season of Late Antiquity, and won both times, in an overall season where I placed entirely average in my Divisions. I played Byzantines. In one match I used an almost entirely mounted force, of the 50% Bow/ Lancer types. In another, I used a mixed force of those cavalry combined with infantry, both garbage Limatanei and very very expensive Dismounted Armored Lancers. I think one thing to keep in mind is that certain armies can give people a harder time if they haven't encountered them before, and thus haven't thought of special strategies to fight them; the usual tactics don't work against unusual opponents, and the spammy sorts aren't seen as much in friendly pickup matches as they are in the League.

[stockwellpete]

2) Indian. These stats are a legacy of the early seasons. This is no longer a problem.

6) Indo-Greek. Nerfed by the change to Massed Archers. Not a problem.

Yes, the Indian (500BC-319AD) army was withdrawn from Season 2 of the FOG2DL after registering 71 wins, 1 draw and 22 losses from its 94 matches in Season 1. The army returned in Season 3 and in the 5 seasons up to including Season 7 it has played only a further 58 matches in total, registering 25 wins, 4 draws and 29 defeats.

The Indo-Greek (175BC-10AD) army posted 44 wins and 16 defeats from its 60 matches in Season 1 and since its return in Season 3 has managed a further 37 wins and 35 defeats in its 72 matches.

[MikeC_81]

4) Samnite. Is it wrong for them to be good? The Samnites were the early Republic's toughest opponent. Sure, the Romans won - but you could make a strong argument that this was only due to the sheer numbers that a more urbanized society could bring to bear against a numerically smaller, largely pastoral mountain society.

The Romans and Samnites during the 2 and 3rd Samnite wars essentially fought in identical fashion. There is really no reason why Romans Hastati/Princeps units are designated HF while Samnites are designated MF.

[pompeytheflatulent]

3) Jewish Revolt. Yes, this is a pretty fierce army, but I'm not sure that that's inappropriate. Also, I think many players don't change their army composition in response enough when fighting them. When I played as the Revolt in the league, some of the better players trounced me through careful army selection. Still, a small cost increase would hit this list pretty hard; maybe that would not be a bad thing.

Historically, Jewish Revolt succeeded in ambushing one Roman column, then fought one or two engagements where they figured out that they had no proper response to Roman cavalry, and spend the rest of the war cooped up inside various strongholds. Judging by their record historically, they have less of a right to be anywhere near the top of the list than Spartacus's slave revolt.

[Schweetness101]

I think Medium Foot armies are slightly too strong, but I think the problem can be overstated. Personally, rather than alter the mechanics of disorder, or map generation, I think a (small) cost change would do the trick. Either experimenting with boosting unit costs across the board, or making Medium Foot pay for maneuverability (possibly at a lower rate than HF? Or not? Should Thureophoroi cost the same 48pts as Mercenary Hoplites?)

Looking at Lebo44's statistics...

this is a good post.

Yes, as mentioned the indians have been nerfed for some time.

I am interested in RBS's proposed changes to the sub roman foot armies, that sounds about right.

Carthaginians are indeed good in part because of their versatility. I've used them twice in a row in classical antiquity, although the latter time in division B with spanish allies and I mostly won through spamming scutarii. IE, I'm not sure carthaginian lists do well because they are versatile, or because they are also capable of medium foot spam (scutarii, italian foot, phoenician foot, and veteran italians can make for a huge number of mediums in some carthaginian lists).

I don't think that Samnites should be crushing Hellenistic, Roman and other major faction armies in an open field consistently. I think they were mostly successful historically against earlier Roman armies when fighting in their native hilly terrain in the Apennines.

Jewish revolt can spam superior medium foot, and because the big drawback for medium foot of CT loss in the open vs heavies is largely negated by the superior quality of zealots, they do seem to be a somewhat op list. Or, they require some non traditional tactics against them as you said (like loading up on ranged units because the zealots are poorly armored). If I were running a tournament I might just exclude lists like this, I dunno.

And then there's Arab City and other HF spam armies that also get the quantity advantage. I think those lists and the medium foot lists could be corrected simultaneously by the across the board increase in unit cost. I'm thinking more and more that that would be a solution I'd like to try out.

Your point is taken about not adopting the right tactics against unusual armies, but I don't think that medium foot spam lists can be considered unusual at this point in the league games. They tend to win even when people know exactly how they work and what's going to happen.

But, yes, in conclusion I agree that "a small cost increase, either across the board or to MF maneuverability, would be appropriate"