Imperia Online International

is there any use of having heavy spearmen against light units?
i know it's better than light spearmen, but i'm asking
are they useful in fighting against light archers, swords ?

which means heavy spearmen is useless against light units...  i got the point. heavy cavalry seems to be very effective against light units then.. lol

Actually no, light cavalry is more effective against light units than heavy cavalry  :D

And heavy spearmen are easier to kill than light spearmen.  Don't listen to the mods, they just want to delude you  *xxx*

But they are still the most effective anti-cavalry units you'll have at this stage of your military development (while waiting for phalanxes :))

Well actually no again - it seems that the penalty Spearmen are supposed to have against Heavy and Elite Cavalry is not working.  So again, light Spearmen are more effective against H. Cavalry than H. Spearmen. :D

shhhh...don't tell anyone

Well you don't have to believe me, but I hope you believe the battle calculator.

Please indulge me and do a simulation of equal value (and net worth) of light spears/heavy spears against heavy cavalry in any numbers.  Use 60 heavy spears for every 100 light (that's the correct cost/networth).  Please tell me a combination in which light spears are not better than heavy spears against heavy cavalry.

Admittedly, there are some borderline battles with morale involved were light units are worse than heavy, but I would dare say in the majority of real game situations light units trump heavy!

Heavy units are better
1) in certain situations where morale is involved
2) in situations where number of soldiers is what counts and not army cost/networth.  So swords against castles and garrisons.
3) catapults are much better than rams (but only because they get to fight 2 rounds earlier).

Everything else...light wins!

Compensated by the much smaller loses long term by using those same light units...

Or by the less resources you need to invest to get the same quality army...

Or by the much higher carry capacity which may bring you more income which may bring you higher levels of medicine/centralization/granaries/farms...

Do you want me to talk the other benefits of the light units - like the much better improvement they receive from upgrades?  Or the permanent point reduction you get when losing them?

Cmmon...Do I look stupid? :(

Can we please stick to discussing the quality of those units in battles?

you are talking about v4a Realms, right ?
coz that kind of strategy in Classic Realms won't get you very far  ....

like Makatas said, the major drawback of light units is the drain on the population.
to compensate, you need to have lots of pop, which requires heavy investment in farms, thus increase your points and put you into range of  players with uch smaller populations but with elites (or heavy units).
And no matter what you say, your army of light units won't stand a chance agaisnt them ..... after all you aren't playing an AI with fixed parameters but reckless human players who will pick on each and everyone of your tactical weaknesses.
.... plus try to siege boxed forts with an army of light units against defenders with heavy or elites ... good luck  *hahaha*

I'm not saying that there isn't any use for light units, but that they are serious drawbacks too, that one should consider long and hard before prefering them to more advanced units :)

have fun,

i dont get some things..
it's written that light spear will not be as effective against higher class cavalry.
but someone mentioned:
"it seems that the penalty Spearmen are supposed to have against Heavy and Elite Cavalry is not working.  So again, light Spearmen are more effective against H. Cavalry than H. Spearmen"

???????????????? is that true???

what i initially thought was heavy cavalry will not have any disadvantage in dealing with light units.
if the light spear is not effective against higher class cavalry, then heavy cavalry will be good because:

1. heavy cavalry do not have disadvantage over light spears because there's difference in class
2. light cavalry already have advantage in fighting against archers (x4) swords (x2), so heavy cavalry will give more advantage
3. heavy cavalry have more hp + damage against light cavalry, so it will be stronger than light cavalry

btw i'm playing in realm 63.
tell me if i'm wrong.

jams was messing with you ...
all spears have a 4x bonus against cavalry, but because heavier .cavalry have more resistance and attacking power, they will naturally resist more efficiently to lighter spears ... but that doesn't mean they are immune to it, quite the contrary at high attack and armor tech values :)

heavy cavalry is stronger than light cavalry - fact
heavy cavalry cost more than light cavalry - fact
on a attacking power/ressource cost ratio, heavy cavalry seems less interesting than light cavalry - fact
on a practical basis, which troop is more likely to win a battle : heavy cavalry - fact

most IO battles are not meant to be on equal footing.
the only thing for sure, is that one wins, one loses .... which ones do you want to be ?


have fun,

Yeah, sorry if I sounded harsh - simulating battles (and doing battles) is exactly what I'm asking for.  And I would really appreciate a comment on how exactly the heavy units are better if we ignore all other factors and just look at cost/net worth. - because I admit, all humor aside - I am a noob and a bit confused by this. So sims away (remember that points in battle reports/calculator are inflated by 10% for light units, so we will take this into account):




This is all at 7/7/7/8 research which is the minimum research for Heavy units.
Case 1) Lights do 20% better
Case 2) Lights do 8% better
Case 3) Lights do 8% better

Real Battles I've had, substituting for heavy gives me bigger difference than 8%.

Sure, I'm at his point.
I did few big match with huge military points than 1000 match with 2 military point. Light Cavalry is the only one I use to bring gold home.



Well, that also true, wow. Anyone can explain?

P/S: Starbuck I've send you a PM.

I somehow missed these posts light night...shouldn't post when feeling sick :(


I agree that much changes as game progresses, lots of other factors will come into play.  But for R63 which is fresh into the heavy phase for most players, these are moot points.  The current field here is 5-15k points, 20k +/- units total, so the original question and my comments pertain a clear state of few thousand of light vs heavy soldiers.  And yes, we're talking v4a - don't know how this translates to the other versions, but something is screwed up with lights here.


Unless I'm terribly mistaken (or there is some hidden armor value for heavy cavalry), it's the light units that gain most from the attack and armor upgrades.  Lets compare 100 Spearmen vs 60 Heavy Spearmen (same cost/networth when built).

at 7 melee
100 spearmen damage = 100 x 17 = 1.700
60 H.spearmen damage = 100 x 22 = 1.320
28,8% more for light

at 12 melee, just before Elites
100 spearmen damage = 100 x 22 = 2.200
60 H.spearmen damage = 60 x 27 = 1.620
35,8% more for light

The theory, calculator (I've already given examples for h.cav) and practice are much against the facts you state (at 7/8 upgrades):
100 Light Cavalry = 4.700 damage, 40.700 hp
60 H. Cavalry = 4.020 damage, 36.420 hp

The higher individual HP helps heavier units survive better in some situations, but as soon as armies grow above 1000 soldiers of the type, it becomes pretty much irrelevant.  I have a fairly large army and kill record and I've tried substituting heavy units for the lights in many of the battles I've done (in the calculator) and pretty much every time lights have come out better.  Especially as you say, in the most common case of one sided battles IO is designed around.  I still fail to see how exactly heavy are better? (and tbh it pisses me cause I was looking forward to them)

If you want to make a simulation which prove which unit is better. Dont put there all units... make battle like this:

10k l. horses vs. 4k l. spears
10k l. horse  vs. 2k h. spears

repeat this battle 10 times, sum results then divide it by 10. Then you have good result.


Your battles xan't prove anything, whinch unit is better because you don't know who is fighting with spears.

---

Why do i think that h. units are better than light? Because they have more HP. 200HP is better than 2x100 because it's easier to kill 100hp unit than 200hp unit. DO battles in the way i write above.

2K heavy spears don't compare to 4K light spear in any way.  The correct correlation would be 2.400 H. Spear to 4.000 Light spear (as already explained).  But be my guest - do the example you suggested and tell me the results.

Besides I already made the pure comparison of light an heavy spearmen versus cavalry in Case 1.  And I already wrote that I did the results as average of 20 (not 10) runs - average meaning I summed them up and divided them by the number of runs (not that it matters when you compare 1v1 unit type).  And I did the additional comparison with added troops only because makatas requested it in the previous post.  And if you manage to even remotely understand the simulations done in Cases 2 and 3 you will see IT'S IRRELEVANT who fights who.

FFS, does anyone read more than the first two words of the posts??? :(

Indulge me, do the comparison you suggest and report the results, it will not take you more than 5 minutes. Maybe then we can have an educated discussion.

1) Spearmen has 100HP; Heavy Spearmen has 150 (THERE IS NO 100 VS 200 COMPARISON)
2) For the cost of getting 100HP in light spearmen you can only get 90HP in Heavy Spearmen.
3) 2 x 100 being easier to kill than 1 x 200 hp would hold true if units were fighting 1v1.  But as soon as you have more than 1.000 units they fight in groups of more than 100 and deliver all their damage in VERY FEW DISCREET ROUNDS.  So TBH, more individual HP actually means shit in MOST cases.
4) The real comparison would be 1.000 x 100 HP (=100.000 HP) IS MUCH HARDER to kill than 600 x 150 HP (=90.000 HP).  This is because all the damage would be delivered in a maximum of 10-15 rounds (usually much less) SO THE CHANCE OF A UNIT SURVIVING DUE TO MORE INDIVIDUAL HP WILL BE BY FAR OVERSHADOWED BY THE 10.000 MORE HP THE LIGHT UNITS HAVE.

I already did the battles... How about you try it and report back.

Here you are very wrong *pardon*

I might be and I'm willing to learn, so care to explain how?

Oh and btw I mean discrete...bah

read this: http://www4.imperiaonline.org/forums/int/index.php?topic=13622.0

Yeah I noticed the mistake (and have already seen that post)...it's groups of 10 and not 100 - shouldn't post at 2am :(.  Sorry, I stand corrected.

But it doesn't change the fact that as number of units grow, the number of soldiers in a group grow too as you will never have more than 100 (and some) groups.  And as the number of soldiers grows, the individual hp becomes less and less pertinent (it becomes too small compared to the damage done per round and the total number of hp in the group).  Regardless of the mistake, the point still stands!

This has been an interesting read and was exactly the kind of discussion I was searching for. It's a pity the original posters have probably moved on.

It seems to me that on simple inspection, the different levels of units are pretty much the same regarding the cost vs. strength, so that purchasing 600 heavy spears is pretty much the same as having 1000 light spears. The main advantage, as has already been stated earlier in this thread, is that heavies use up less population. However, for people with high pop. growth this may not be a big issue.

The calculations made by jams are very informative, and show that in most cases light units may indeed be better compared with their cost. Once armour and melee attack bonuses are factored in, they would seem to favour light units even further. The most significant situation where higher level units are better is in the fort garrison, where space is limited. Here having elite archers is undeniably superior. And the swordsmen attacking the fort example that was given earlier is also worth noting. In other situations, are heavy spears really better than light? They should be, but it seems they aren't.

I wonder if it might be possible to make a rule change, if the previous info is true, to give heavy units an extra bonus over light units. Surely people should be motivated to put every effort into upgrading their units so as to improve their army. Perhaps making them just 10% more cost effective than light units would be enough. And making sure that armour/melee bonuses are adjusted according to their level.

No.  Moral is much more serious than population loss.

There are several reasons for light troops.  One is that light troops carry more resources.  Several posts already mentioned that. Faster movement can also be useful for taking resources, especially from gold mines.

More relevant is the cost of research.  Setting up a battle between 1200 heavy cavalry and 2000 light cavalry does not reflect the cost of research.  I have not calculated how many light cavalry you can deploy for the same networth as heavy cavalry.  For paladins it is about 20,000 paladins.  What I mean is that a player can have 40,000 heavy cavalry with mellee 7, armor 8 and have equal networth with a player that has mellee 14 and armor 14. (version 4a).  So the battle comparison is 80,000 heavy cavalry against 20,000 paladins. 

A third factor is flank cavalry.  Compare in the plains with melee 14 armor 15:
10,000 paladins with 40,000 lite spears vs 12,500 paladins.
loses 1450 vs 9350 moral 68
10,000 paladins with 12,500 phalanx vs 12,500 paladins.
loses 1650 vs 9350 moral 84

I have also noticed that lite spears tend to inspire people to pull elite archers out of the fort and send them along with attacks.  In combat rounds 5,6 and sometimes 7 the attacker still has guardians and a few elite archers.  Many of the light spears disappear in rounds 1 and 2.  In round 5 the attacker loses moral because (s)he is fighting pure flank cavalry.  This most effective in the forested mountains with high fortification research. 

20,000 paladins, 30,000 guardians, 10,000 elite archers vs 10,000 paladins, 40,000 lite spears in forested mountains.

Calc says a moral loss of 36 before the fortress battle begins.  Against a boxed fortress with archers in the fort the attack is likely to fail.  Of course you still lose your army but I think it is great fun anyway.   *freak*

Honor is a fourth reason I feed light troops into an elite army.  If you are send 20,000 paladins with 400 catapults and lose 800 paladins you get 0 points of honor.  Add 1000 light spears your losses increase to 1200 or 1300 troops.  That brings you 3 points of honor.  A lot of players do not care about honor.  The moral bonuses are nice and there is a honor chart.  You should try to be on at least one of the charts.  :hooray:

I'd forgotten about morale which is of course an issue, but even with morale it's not absolutely clear. I tried a number of scenarios in the battle calculator such as the following:

2000 light spears versus 300 light archers: spears win with 73 morale
1200 heavy spears versus 300 light archers: spears win with 69 morale
2000 light spears versus 1500 light cav: spears win in round 9 with 79 morale, 808 spears remain in round 10 (40% of original)
1200 heavy spears versus 1500 light cav: spears win in round 11 with 78 morale, 280 spears remain in round 12 (23.3% of original)

I'll have to run a lot more scenarios in the calculator to see, but my personal view is that the advantages of upgrading troops should be very clear. One way to do this would be to reduce the upkeep costs of higher level troops. Perhaps if lights, heavies and elites all had the same upkeep it would persuade people to put every effort into upgrading as soon as they can.

I ran many test on light and heavy units and i concluded that:
1. With advancing attack and defense heavy units become better.(Try 300K light spearmen against 20 000 heavy cavalry at 5attack/defense amd 900K versus 20K at 17)
2. For the same cost they are not as effective as heavy and elites.(i took two equal armies and substitutes some of the elites by light soldiers of equal cost and lost repeatedly)

The reasons in favor of light units seem to be:
1. If you do win you get a lot of honor.
2. They have more carry capacity.

Otherwise in standard battles i see no reason why lights are more effective.

P.S: i am a total newbie this is my first era so please help me in this matter.

I ran some more tests and realise that If the army size is great especially cavalry then light l.spearmen are good
Sorry I didnt read all the post before replying now its all very clear to me. Thanks!!

Well, even if heavy spears are better than light, the fact that there isn't a clear advantage is a problem. We shouldn't even be having this kind of discussion because heavy units should be significantly better than light units, and elites should be better than heavies. Higher level archers are definitely worth having, catapults have a slight advantage over rams because they fire earlier, heavy swords get a slight advantage because of the limited number that can attack the walls at the same time and heavy/elite cav get a slight attack bonus in the first round. Even these advantages are not as good as they should be, but spears seem to be the worst in terms of gains from levelling up.

What about having a change of system? In most strategy games, the cost of units remains the same after they level up, but all units, including those already produced, get a bonus. For example, you could have L1 spearmen with attack 10 & hitpoints 100, L2 spears with attack 12 & hp 120, L3 with 15 & 150, and you could even add L4 & L5, which would give people more research to do at later stages of the game. It would also simplify things - you wouldn't need to have lights, heavies & elites all in the same army and you wouldn't need separate tabs for lights, heavies and elites in the recruit soldiers page - there'd only be one type of spearmen, one type of archer etc. that could be produced and that unit would automatically be produced at your current research level.

Just a thought. Might make the strategy more interesting. I'm not trying to be overly critical. I do enjoy playing this game, but every game needs to be improved on constantly. What will Imperia Online be like 10 years from now? It could have a completely different look and feel, yet keep the same basic gameplay and philosophy.

I think having light, heavy and elite units gives more scope for strategy. elites will be favored by warriors and lights by pillagers so different style players can accomofate better.
There is no place for heavy units they appear for a small transitional period and then dissappear forever  *freak*

No it is not a problem. 

Real world history suggests that light troops should be useful.  Most armies in the middle ages and ancient world had some light troops.

A competitive war game is better if there is something to think about and some sort of balance.  It is nice to have several army set ups to choose from.  Vanc suggests modifying the game so that we have exactly one choice and that one choice is obvious to anyone playing the game.  I think that would ruin the game.

light spears produce the cheapest honour in the game.

canceling +3 honor per day would help balance greatly imo.that way u cant just farm and then use spearman in big battles coz of moral drop problem

Well, that's a fair enough point and in fact real-life armies were considerably more complicated than they are in most computer games. But computer games are simplified versions of real life, and I'm simply concerned with quality of gameplay. In this game, as in most others, there isn't actually that much detailed tactical planning involved. You don't sit around thinking "how many light troops will I send with this attack, and how many heavies/elites should I send so that I get the best outcome?" If it's a big battle you simply send everything you have (within reason, I mean normally you'd keep most of your archers at home and there are occasions when you'd, say, only use spears and cavalry in a field battle if you see the enemy is attacking you with swords and cav, but generally it's a case that you throw just about everything you have into a battle, or run away if you think you'll lose. There's not really that much need to consider light/heavy/elite ratios.)

I just think that having the standard levelling up system whereby all soldiers of that type get a slight bonus after you've done the right research makes for a more effective strategy. This way everyone has a motivation to push as hard as they can to get the research done because they know they'll get an advantage, rather than doing the research without really knowing if it's going to help you that much.

Well i dont know about the others but in small battles i do plan my army and for large attacks i send do not send everything I see his army first and then remove from from my army what i think will not be useful. For eg. if the enemy is having comparatively larger no. of paladins then why would i send archers?? Also I create my army bearing a certain ratio sometimes when you have prolonged conflict with a particular enemy you may create an army to counter his so there is still planning involved. *gamer*

researches are considerably improving units .u get +1 on armor,or +1 on attack.u can say that 1 level isnt much,but other researches are weak too when consider 1 level.armor is not detectable =high potential. that eco research strength comes from 1.5y ago when v4a was invented ,and 6h was terminated.now farming is exploitable and system leaks .i hope v5 will fix it

cool  *freak*

cant say  *freak*

Actually I do that.  *freak*
Especially because I have to send out a bunch of gold mine attacks in case the army comes back with 0 gold. 


I thought about it and Imperiaonline is set up with a clear best unit.  Paladins are much better than any other unit in the field except flank paladins.  That gives you the one unit that smacks everything else off the field.  Treebuckets are the best fortress smashers.  Elite archers do much more damage in garrisons because of the early attack.  And since the garrison space is limited the elite archers are often more than 2X effective. 

The inversion only occurs with spears and less often swords.  The fact is that all spears are crap troops whether lite, heavy, or elite.  If you do not like the idea that lite spears might be useful then think of it as buying flank paladins.  You can also think of both lite swords and lite spears as treebucket crews.  A flank paladin in version 4a costs 160 iron, has 1600 hit points, and requires 5 villagers.  Damaged flank paladins can be "healed" in 6 hours and do not need to be home to start healing.  :)

GREAT !!! GREATEST SYNTHESIS !!! ... by the way i applied this to classic realm 1, and the result (playing really quietly) was: TOP 3 IN HONOUR RANKING 3 ERAS IN AN ROW, TOP 10 IN MILITARY RANKING 3 ERAS IN A ROW ...

 *hahaha*  *hahaha*  *hahaha* .Lol they are not apple juice to be poured in same glass .Anyway summing their hitpoints may leads other forum users to wrong conclusion .Psycho, dont teach others wrong .I mean ,even if u managed to copycat what others do and observed good results dont try reverse engineering like that...u cant sum hit points with different resistances ,its like wrong adding fractions with different denominators...

I agree with this, but this is a matter of unit type rather than unit level. Attackers generally favour swords+cav, which can be countered by cav+spears. But there's no tactical advantage to thinking about whether you'll only include your paladins, or whether to include any light or heavy cav you might still have. If you need cavalry you'll send all the cavalry you have. If you need spears, you'll send all the ones you have. It just seems a bit time consuming if you still have to hire a mix of lights, heavies and elites during the later stages of the game. Last time I played the game I hired elites only. This just made things simpler. But the question still remains whether heavies really are more cost effective than lights. Sometimes yes, and garrisoned archers are the best example of a clear bonus. But what about that other point that was made earlier: if you have, say, melee attack +14, is that bonus the same for light spears, heavies and phalanxes? If so, percentage-wise, the lights are getting a much better bonus.

vanc ,ur wrong .if u have 16k light spears,4k light cavalry 4k paladins,u would use all?run some tests ...and that sw+cav combo can be seen in low point mud ,which are mostly players with no exp ,and some on purpose low pointers.anyway players sw+cav are not worth attacking,its like beating blind guy in wheelchair..

I'm not sure exactly what situation you're talking about, but let's say someone attacks me with 5,000 heavy swords + 5,000 HC. As I stated, spears + cav would be the best combination here. Whatever numbers I had, unless I chose to run I would add all of those spears + cav to the battle. Let's say I have 2,000 each of light, heavy and elite. Would I be saying "In this battle I should only use heavies+elites and leave the lights out?" No. I'd leave any archers out, and perhaps swords, but I can't see any advantage of leaving any spears or cav out. So I'd have 2,000 LS, 2,000 HS, 2,000 Ph, 2,000 LC, 2,000 HC and 2,000 Pa. Are you saying that some of these should not participate in the battle for some reason?

Of course this situation is just hypothetical - I wouldn't really have those numbers of those troops. I'm just saying that, although you may choose not to include a particular troop type, in most situations you'd use all the troops of a particular type no matter their level (light/heavy/elite), assuming that it's a large battle and not just some goldmine or something.

i talk about flank .First light cav goes to flank ,which means paladins cant if u fill it with l cav,and 50% dmg bonus difference of paladin (=60 dmg) is greater than whole flank l cav . Other than that having only paladins in flank can have moral disadvantage for enemy after round 5+

OK, thanks, I didn't know that. So is this a rule that's only for cavalry? If I have a huge mix of all my troops, I could send in lights, heavies and elites of any other troop type, but I should only send in paladins and not heavy or light cav? (Unless I don't have enough paladins, I suppose.)

I feel that I'll gradually lose the lighter units anyway, but back to the specific topic of spearmen, is there really a cost advantage in upgrading to heavies and then elites? All the other troop types get some kind of advantage, but light spearmen seem better in a number of ways, including, as somebody said earlier, boosting your numbers so you can have a greater number of cavalry on the flanks.

yep just for cavalry ,other than that using all in most cases helps ,unless enemy have exotic combination ,or u can use rest of troops in other way.For example ,having 6400 spearman for several attacks on goldmines ,perventing goldmining stops coz of player attacking.

I think all this talk about improvements benefiting lights more is wrong. In fact in think it is just the opposite.
Run a simple test 5000 heavy cav versus 100K at 0 attack armor and the 5000 heavy cav versus 1 million at say 18 attack and armor you'll know the difference.
In fact after a certain level of attack you wont be able to kill these 5000 heavy cavs no matter how many light spears you use. Evem with 10 million you'll lose.
The results will be more drastic if you use paladins.

Light units are crap and dont stand a chance against elites or heavy. Only light spears are awesome units because they are incredibly cheap they will swell your infantry flank your cavalry and give extra honor. And they can carry more load. Thats all!

What do you mean 10 million light spears can't beat 5,000 heavy cav??? Just 10,000 light spears are enough to thrash 5,000 heavy cav. And that's on the plains where cav get an advantage. Try it out in mountains and you'll find that with 10,000 light spears against 5,000 HC you'll win with almost 8,000 spears remaining. The question posed earlier in this thread is whether 6,000 heavy spears would be better than 10,000 light spears in the same scenario. I just tried them out against the same number of cav in the calculator and they were roughly the same, but the lights fared slightly better with zero bonuses. Adding +15 melee attack and armour to both sides, the lights still came out better, though not by a bigger margin. Interestingly the number of HC remaining was the same in all four scenarios. I'm not going to run hundreds of tests in the calculator to work out the exact difference, and obviously there are lots of different battle situations, but in this simple spears vs. cav example, light spears worked out slightly stronger than heavy spears compared with their cost to build.

Ahh you're right I must be making some mistakes :zzz: I can see it now. So upgrades are actually benefiting lights more.

Perhaps. It certainly seems that way although perhaps the bonuses are adjusted for heavy and elite units. They certainly should be.

something new...paladins cost 5 villagers *sos* *sos* u really serious  *black_eye*

Thats a lie :evil3: