I don't think the unit types in Pharaoh (or Troy, for that matter) were designed as 'counters' to other units. Possibly with the exception of Spears > Chariots. I think it more appropriate to think of them as designed for a specific role on the battlefield, but not as a counter to something. E.g. all 2H units are Hammers, but they don't counter anything in particular, while all shielded melee units are Anvils. Similarly, all Slings carry huge stocks of ammo, but they need a lot of time to expend all that ammo => so they are slower to deal damage than archers, but they can deal more damage in total, if you have the time. So deciding which units to use in an army is for me more about what role I want them to fulfill, and then picking the units based on that while basically not worrying too much about what kind of weapon they wield. That means also looking at their Speed stat, the armour and shield stats, stances and special abilities, etc. when deciding which units to recruit. E.g. I like to have at least a couple of 1H melee frontline units with one of the better Advance stances. They will then be able to push through defended bottlenecks in Settlement and Siege battles, so other units can start flanking the defenders or rushing a capture point. But if they aren't good damage dealers, then I might choose to support them with other frontline units with higher damage potential, e.g. Axes. That being said, I haven't had time to play in 1.1.0 yet, so I'm not sure of the impact of the rather big changes they made to the weapons in this patch. So all of my comments are based on 1.0.1.
yeah, thank you for bringing this up. I will want to also talk about "roles" that units have on battlefield, something like I did in Troy ( ua-cam.com/video/MMNbt_coKVY/v-deo.html ) but this time better. (And the impact of 1.1.0 is that Swords are better at grinding while 2-handed are worse at grinding, thus more balanced battles)
Personally I would counter ranged with fast units rather than shieled. Ideally chariots. Shielded spears are good basic defence against inf, shielded axe good aganst enemy inf. Two handed best chargers, but they die real fast.
Chariots, clubmen and two-handed spears to counter chariots. Swords multirole, decent at most roles, but not ecperts at any. Shielded Clubmen feed, delay.
Hey! Like your vids can you do a video on when doing a battle of cannae tactics with the new falling back and taking land formations would be really cool 😊
That is a good idea, now you motivated me to play Bay more often, which indeed have good formations and tactics at their disposal. Will make a battle video when I will have a good replay, or even you can upload your replays to Pharaoh fan discord, I can feature them too.
Swordsmen maybe were designed to deal well with unarmored units. This is somehow visible in Duel simulator results. I was comparing Sabu Nagib Warriors and Swordsmen because they are on the same tier and quite similar in statistics. It's visible that against units like Kaskian Tribesman or Egyptian Peasants they perform better, but slightly. And it's not consistent with all of the units. So yeah, this units are not counter for any other.
Ahh and for missiles aren't archers just countering 2-handed axes ? 2-handed axes are really strong units in a game but their weakness is (usually) in lack of armour. So they can be weakened from distance. AI really often targets unarmoured units and especially axes. I would say that archers might be also a good counter for javelins, which are usually light, not armoured units. Having again distance advantage they might be good to weaken to ease chariots charges. Although it's not obvious and not perfect definition of countering (it does not have such big impact)
I don't think the unit types in Pharaoh (or Troy, for that matter) were designed as 'counters' to other units. Possibly with the exception of Spears > Chariots. I think it more appropriate to think of them as designed for a specific role on the battlefield, but not as a counter to something. E.g. all 2H units are Hammers, but they don't counter anything in particular, while all shielded melee units are Anvils. Similarly, all Slings carry huge stocks of ammo, but they need a lot of time to expend all that ammo => so they are slower to deal damage than archers, but they can deal more damage in total, if you have the time.
So deciding which units to use in an army is for me more about what role I want them to fulfill, and then picking the units based on that while basically not worrying too much about what kind of weapon they wield. That means also looking at their Speed stat, the armour and shield stats, stances and special abilities, etc. when deciding which units to recruit. E.g. I like to have at least a couple of 1H melee frontline units with one of the better Advance stances. They will then be able to push through defended bottlenecks in Settlement and Siege battles, so other units can start flanking the defenders or rushing a capture point. But if they aren't good damage dealers, then I might choose to support them with other frontline units with higher damage potential, e.g. Axes.
That being said, I haven't had time to play in 1.1.0 yet, so I'm not sure of the impact of the rather big changes they made to the weapons in this patch. So all of my comments are based on 1.0.1.
yeah, thank you for bringing this up. I will want to also talk about "roles" that units have on battlefield, something like I did in Troy ( ua-cam.com/video/MMNbt_coKVY/v-deo.html ) but this time better.
(And the impact of 1.1.0 is that Swords are better at grinding while 2-handed are worse at grinding, thus more balanced battles)
POV pharaoh/troy player discoveres rock paper sizor balancing.
Personally I would counter ranged with fast units rather than shieled. Ideally chariots. Shielded spears are good basic defence against inf, shielded axe good aganst enemy inf. Two handed best chargers, but they die real fast.
Chariots, clubmen and two-handed spears to counter chariots. Swords multirole, decent at most roles, but not ecperts at any. Shielded Clubmen feed, delay.
Hey! Like your vids can you do a video on when doing a battle of cannae tactics with the new falling back and taking land formations would be really cool 😊
That is a good idea, now you motivated me to play Bay more often, which indeed have good formations and tactics at their disposal. Will make a battle video when I will have a good replay, or even you can upload your replays to Pharaoh fan discord, I can feature them too.
Swordsmen maybe were designed to deal well with unarmored units. This is somehow visible in Duel simulator results. I was comparing Sabu Nagib Warriors and Swordsmen because they are on the same tier and quite similar in statistics. It's visible that against units like Kaskian Tribesman or Egyptian Peasants they perform better, but slightly. And it's not consistent with all of the units. So yeah, this units are not counter for any other.
Ahh and for missiles aren't archers just countering 2-handed axes ? 2-handed axes are really strong units in a game but their weakness is (usually) in lack of armour. So they can be weakened from distance. AI really often targets unarmoured units and especially axes. I would say that archers might be also a good counter for javelins, which are usually light, not armoured units. Having again distance advantage they might be good to weaken to ease chariots charges. Although it's not obvious and not perfect definition of countering (it does not have such big impact)
I don't know either about Koepesh units. They have fancier look than Axe + Shield units :D
Yeah, I do agree that Swordsmen should be designed to deal well with unarmored units.
Shields in bronze