Artificial stupidity

[Arker]

Cainehill said:
But : Vans and centaurs (all kinds) actually both have big advantages over other cavalry, even without an effective bless (though I can't think of a reason to skip the bless with them). Vans have mirror image, _and_ glamour : very stealthy, and completely avoiding some early damage. Then all the centaurs : decent HPs, and recuperating : they recover from wounds if they survive the battle.

Even if non-sacred, both would still be viable units, unlike a lot of the other cavalry/chariot units.

I guess anything could be called viable if you want to play it badly enough, but one thing is for sure - you can't get them to use basic light cavalry tactics on the battlefield, it just won't happen.

According to the figures from Sunrays, you can recruit fifty longbowmen, sixty crossbowmen or woodsmen, or seventy four archers or tribal archers for the price of twenty centaur. They're good archers, but they aren't worth the money just for that. (Nor would it make any sense if they were, really. Light cavalry should be a good deal more expensive than foot archers.)

But the only other way the AI knows to play them is as heavy cavalry. As heavy cavalry, they're cheap, but woefully underpowered - they just aren't (and shouldn't be) capable of pulling that role off. The centaur cataphracts, on the other hand, fill that role quite well. Spend the same gold on a mix of centaur cataphracts and independent archers as you would on centaurs and you'll be a lot better off. Sure, the archers won't have recuperation, but they're cheap enough to replace, and most battle wounds don't really reduce their effectiveness anyway.

The Centaur warriors are even worse in this respect. You can get 80 independent light infantry for the same price as 20 centaur warriors, and it's a much better deal, as long as they don't know how to use their movement points.

Vanir have some great advantages, sure, like the centaur warriors their stats would be wonderful if the AI could just pull of basic light cavalry tactics with them. But since it doesn't they wind up being played as heavy cavalry, and they just don't have the punch to pull that role off against a serious opponent. Sure, they can chase down routers, but any unit can do that.

For the price of sixty Vanir, you can recruit seventy independent knights. The Van has thirteen hp, compared to twelve, but thirteen protection, compared to TWENTY. The knights have higher morale, more str and MUCH heavier weapons. Try it and see, the Van get chewed every time. Glamour is nice, but it gets knocked off real quickly when they engage in melee with heavy infantry, let alone knights.

Which is exactly as it should be, to that point. They're light cavalry, after all. Ultra-elite light cavalry, but light cavalry nonetheless. Light cav isn't meant for melee, and it isn't meant for shock charges. It's meant to wheel and dance just outside the enemies reach, while calling them rude names and showering them with volley after volley of projectiles. It's meant to screen the main army, obstructing the enemy but never engaging, keeping them off balance, harrassing them like a swarm of hornets, and in the end, running them down after they break formation and start to flee.

And the Vanir have the stats to do that job wonderfully. If only the AI was programmed to do it.

[KissBlade]

Eh ... to say nothing about how 6 dual blessed centaurs will trounce 80 light infantry easily ...

The cost of Van to Knights are simply incorrect. Knights cost SIGNIFICANT resources and often that will stunt you way further than gold. Furthermore Vanir are sacred and really sacred units are meant to be blessed in some shape and form. Make no mistake, knights are probably the strongest recruitable basic troops but once their lances are exhausted, they're really not /that/ great. Meanwhile Vans can give SC's a run for their money easily and then say nothing of the extra magic res which is very very important. I really think you're not taking full advantage of either units here, and mind you they really don't need to be dual blessed. F9 is one of the cheapest blesses and considering that both units are stealthy, they are among the elites of raiding (Which dominates a major portion of most wars between dom II players). Someday you'll need to get on and duel one of us to really see this in application and you'll agree that Van and White Centaurs are just incredible units compared to indies. =)

[Graeme Dice]

Arker said:
The Centaur warriors are even worse in this respect. You can get 80 independent light infantry for the same price as 20 centaur warriors, and it's a much better deal, as long as they don't know how to use their movement points.

No, it's not a better deal. 20 centaur warriors will trash 80 light infantry with perhaps a half dozen losses. 20 centaur warriors will also trash 40-60 hoplites without severe losses

[Wick]

In the combat simulator using 195 units in equalizer mode and with 200 Heavy Infantry (ind, 20 res) as the baseline 77 centaur warriors, 141 Hoplites, and 286 Carduces are equal utility.

The combat simulator assumes size = 0 and has a number of other quirks, nor is my sample random, so add salt to taste.

[Gandalf Parker]

You know, using map commands you can add armies to yourself. You can make armies of your choice then play them with scripting and everything. Even do it over and over.

[Wick]

I've done that too, but when trying to find the equal value levels for a lot of units it's just way too much work. At least, unless there's a way to run the game and get the battle results by script...

[Gandalf Parker]

Hmmmmm actually might. Im not sure what info gets put into the log by the debug command. So we have start-game, and end-numbers (maybe). But the combat would require keypresses. Maybe with a macro...

[Gandalf Parker]

You could also increase your statistics by creating many neighboring provinces and setting it up to have the same combat in all of them.