Battanian Veteran Falxman is a DOWNGRADE, it is completely outclassed by the normal Falxman

[Rieus The Mower]

EDIT: disabling ranged fire improved their performance a bit but they still get beaten by regular falxmen. I have noticed though that veterans have very strong openers (probably because of their long weapon) as in they will kill 10-30 men upon impact but then their performance drops considerably. In 100 vs 100 fights veterans can defeat other T5 units such as in this video whereas in 500 vs 500 fights they lose.

I ran tests in custom battle mode against every faction (their best units) with their infantry, archers and cavalry (and horse archers if applicable) evenly spread.

Myself I ran Battania with 60% infantry, 30% archers and 10% cavalry. My infantry being 1/3rd Falxman, 1/3rd Veteran Falxman and 1/3rd something else.

The results confirmed a suspicion I had. The Falxman consistently performs better than his direct upgrade (the veteran falxman).

Enemy faction	Unit	Kills	Deaths	K/D
Sturgia	Battanian Falxman	149	26	5.73
Sturgia	Battanian Veteran Falxman	39	37	1.05
Empire	Battanian Falxman	78	70	1.11
Empire	Battanian Veteran Falxman	11	73	0.15
Aserai	Battanian Falxman	87	72	1.21
Aserai	Battanian Veteran Falxman	65	66	0.98
Vlandia	Battanian Falxman	103	86	1.20
Vlandia	Battanian Veteran Falxman	23	90	0.26
Khuzait	Battanian Falxman	87	97	0.90
Khuzait	Battanian Veteran Falxman	67	85	0.79
Battania	Battanian Falxman	376	173	2.17
Battania	Battanian Veteran Falxman	172	375	0.46

Victory screen images

Now the Battanian Falxman is a beast of a unit and when used correctly can get an extremely high amount of kills that far outweighs their own numbers, the Veteran falxmen however ...

The veteran falxmen seem to perform a little better against cavalry (such as against the Aserai and Khuzait) but still slightly subpar to the normal Falxmen. In most case however the veterans seem to completely choke and perform 5 to 7 times worse than the normal falxmen. You can especially see this is in my test of 500 Falxmen against 500 Veteran Falxmen. The normal Falxmen cleaved through them like butter, the normal Falxmen immediately opened with 20-30 kills before the veterans got a SINGLE kill. The upgrade is a trap and I advise everyone to ignore it.

Now as for the reason behind this, I suspect it is because the Rhompala is a slow clumsy polearm whereas the Falx is a short but fast two-handed sword. Or perhaps the Veterans are often caught in the open with their throwing weapons, being to slow to switch to their polearms or something.

My SUGGESTION: replace the Rhompala polearm with the Rhompaia two-handed sword from multiplayer. The rhompaia sword is a bit shorter than the rhompala polearm but it is a lot faster.

From this thread I know the veteran falxman once had a higher two-handed skill than polearm so it seems during development the unit was given a polearm instead of a falx. This seems to have been a mistake.

 

[mujadaddy]

Units don't exist in a vacuum. Polearms have worse performance in close quarters than shorter weapons.

I have a feeling you want a mix of both in units. (Just a feeling though, because non-fian Battanians are trash mobs)

 

[anoddhermit]

It's not just the throwing weapons, you can test with hold fire and they will still lose to regular Falx if you do line charge vs. line charge. But the unit would be better without throwing weapons at all.

If you do loose line charge vs. line charge, the Vet Falx wins(on hold fire).

I haven't tried loose vs loose since you can't control the AI in regular custom battle.

They do poorly in typical cramped infantry situations due to the length of the weapon. So just smashing infantry blobs together they will perform poorly. That's what short fast weapons and heavy armor are for.

Personally I like the unit almost as is, I'd actually use them if it weren't for the throwing axes which are extremely annoying to deal with - you need to put them on hold fire but with the current battle deployment situation you can't specifically hold fire for Falxmen it affects infantry with useful throwing weapons at the same time. I made a post about how throwing axes don't help any unit currently in the troop equipment thread, and the Falxmen are probably the worst affected since often by the time they switch to their melee weapon they're in close range where they don't excel.

The Vet Falx is particularly good for keeping behind your archers. Archers will typically be in loose formation anyway, and need the most protection from cav, plus when infantry reach archers having veteran falxmen assistance can really tip the scales for the archers. Vet Falx is better than spearmen/pikes for countering cav, in my experience. Although I think Menavliatons are best - they can thrust to stop cav and still swing after rather than poking futilely.

 

[SomeWeirdSins]

Veteran falxmen need special handling, so they are unusable with the current battle order system.
They don't have room to swing their rhomphilia in shieldwall or line formation. If you are able to isolate Vet Falxman in loose formation, protect them from arrows, and engage them into an enemy (especially stalled cav) they can be absolutely the most devastating unit in the game.

 

[Rieus The Mower]

Units don't exist in a vacuum. Polearms have worse performance in close quarters than shorter weapons.

I have a feeling you want a mix of both in units. (Just a feeling though, because non-fian Battanians are trash mobs)

I have tested in all sorts of scenarios versus all kinds of factions and they consistently perform worse. Maybe there is some very small niche for them but at the end of the day they are a bad upgrade of the normal Falxmen.

It's not true that non-Fian Battanians are trash. The normal Battanian Falxmen can defeat almost any other T5 unit in straight duels. They are incredibly strong if not shot down by archers.

 

[Rieus The Mower]

Veteran falxmen need special handling, so they are unusable with the current battle order system.
They don't have room to swing their rhomphilia in shieldwall or line formation. If you are able to isolate Vet Falxman in loose formation, protect them from arrows, and engage them into an enemy (especially stalled cav) they can be absolutely the most devastating unit in the game.

It's true they can be devastating but I can guarantee you in 90% of the cases the normal Falxmen will be even more devastating

 

[Rieus The Mower]

It's not just the throwing weapons, you can test with hold fire and they will still lose to regular Falx if you do line charge vs. line charge. But the unit would be better without throwing weapons at all.

If you do loose line charge vs. line charge, the Vet Falx wins(on hold fire).

...

Honestly the best solution would be to give the weapon to a new upgrade because the current Rhompala polearm completely changes the unit and in most case for the worse. Normal Falxmen are incredible units, but veterans are incredibly clumsy.

And I can confirm that disabling throw helps considerably but they still perform worse in most scenarios.

 

[Ask]

That's a pretty strong drop in performance but it's somewhat expected given how strong falx as a weapon is specially when compared to something like one of the longer swinging polearms while going on foot.

While rhomphalias are pretty cool looking yeah I agree, there should be some tweaking over there. You should try posting this analysis on this thread, since they're currently giving a look to troop equipment.

 

[HalfMetalJacket]

It would not hurt if they actually made throwing axes a weapon that 's actually worth being afraid of. Shields just never seem to break in this game, would be nice if axes actually did a damn to them.

 

[SomeWeirdSins]

It's true they can be devastating but I can guarantee you in 90% of the cases the normal Falxmen will be even more devastating

no, if you micro them well vet falxmen are far superior, especially against trapped cav
The issue is that in the current battle order system you can't micro them.

 

[mujadaddy]

The issue is that in the current battle order system you can't micro them.

This is really a huge issue, making for a crappy experience.

@Rieus The Mower
a) Duels, 1v1?
b) vs Horseman, 1v1?

 

[Rieus The Mower]

no, if you micro them well vet falxmen are far superior, especially against trapped cav
The issue is that in the current battle order system you can't micro them.

Honestly even with incredible micro managing they often if not most of the cases perform worse than normal falxmen. All that micromanaging is also going to drain your focus and make you perform worse in managing the rest of your army.

 

[SomeWeirdSins]

Honestly even with incredible micro managing they often if not most of the cases perform worse than normal falxmen. All that micromanaging is also going to drain your focus and make you perform worse in managing the rest of your army.

yes, that's the real argument against them. They are too micro-intensive and if your plan fails they are worse than t4 units.

 

[anoddhermit]

Yeah.. but if we really look at balance in terms of micro-minimizing power we pretty much have these options -

100% Khan's Guard
100% Fian Champion
100% Sharpshooter or Sergeant Crossbowmen

 

[SomeWeirdSins]

Yeah.. but if we really look at balance in terms of micro-minimizing power we pretty much have these options -

100% Khan's Guard
100% Fian Champion
100% Sharpshooter or Sergeant Crossbowmen

I think you still need a mix, and armies will always have whatever your vassals decide to bring.

Mass-ranged armies will always be better at winning campaigns by snowballing off of 60/40 favored fights.

 

[five bucks]

I think you still need a mix, and armies will always have whatever your vassals decide to bring.

Mass-ranged armies will always be better at winning campaigns by snowballing off of 60/40 favored fights.

Yeah, they need to fix armour so that it provides protection worth a damn against ranged attacks.

 

[anoddhermit]

I think you still need a mix, and armies will always have whatever your vassals decide to bring.

Mass-ranged armies will always be better at winning campaigns by snowballing off of 60/40 favored fights.

You don't need a mix, but 20-30% shield infantry in square formation does help and isn't much extra micro.

Thing is, Khan's Guards, Fians, Crossbowmen can all handle some melee anyway.

If you wanted to get absolutely disgustingly overpowered with a bit more micro you could have something like 25% Legionaries, 25% Sergeant Crossbowmen as backup shield infantry, 25% Fians which ~kinda double as shock infantry, 25% Khan's Guards which double as (and are superior to all others at it) melee cav.

Other parties just provide the meat shields for your archers once you have a kingdom, though.

 

[five bucks]

I'd even be happy if Rhomphaia was straight up removed from the troop trees. It isn't a historically accurate weapon anyway, though it bears some similarity to real weapons - the whole concept of a rhomphaia as a polearm is borne of a modern mistranslation of Byzantine texts about the Varangian Guard which were actually referring to axes.

Plus the Veteran Falxman isn't called the Veteran Rhomphaiaman. Just give em a falx!

You don't need a mix, but 20-30% shield infantry in square formation does help and isn't much extra micro.

Thing is, Khan's Guards, Fians, Crossbowmen can all handle some melee anyway.

If you wanted to get absolutely disgustingly overpowered with a bit more micro you could have something like 25% Legionaries, 25% Sergeant Crossbowmen as backup shield infantry, 25% Fians which ~kinda double as shock infantry, 25% Khan's Guards which double as (and are superior to all others at it) melee cav.

Other parties just provide the meat shields for your archers once you have a kingdom, though.

I'm not at the PC to test right now but I feel like you could replace the Sergeant Crossbowmen with more Fian Champs and get a better result.

Of course, being Empire, Sergeant Crossbowmen are easier to replenish recruits than Fian Champs.

 

[Medivhtratos]

Totally agree with the OP headline. But please dont change the Falxmen(the vet. guy needs a change though). I love it to watch him, when he starts harvesting

 

[Rieus The Mower]

I'd even be happy if Rhomphaia was straight up removed from the troop trees. It isn't a historically accurate weapon anyway, though it bears some similarity to real weapons - the whole concept of a rhomphaia as a polearm is borne of a modern mistranslation of Byzantine texts about the Varangian Guard which were actually referring to axes.

Plus the Veteran Falxman isn't called the Veteran Rhomphaiaman. Just give em a falx!

From what I've read the Rhompaia was used by the Thracians and was basically a slightly longer Falx (which was used by the Dacians) on a quite long handle. But the blade was still larger than the handle.

Basically the Rhompaia weapon from multiplayer, but very far from mini-falx on a very long stick that is the RhompaLa from singleplayer (I guess that's why they changed one letter).

In my opinion the polearm also looks quite silly.