Better campaign balance (teching wise)

[andrewt]

One of my biggest complaints in the TW series so far is how bad the high tech buildings are. The easiest way to win the campaign is to mass low level troops, ignore most building upgrades, and just conquer everything. The biggest reason for this is how easy it is to support large armies with just basic buildings and how cost ineffective upgrades are.

Case in point, the market line of buildings. IIRC, grain exchange gives 10% trade bonus for 800 florins. Then each succeeding upgrade is more and more expensive but only gives 5%. That means the benefit of upgrading past grain exchange is pretty laughable. It's way easier to make money by just conquering another city and building the basic, cost effective, upgrades there. Things such as the merchant guild line of buildings aren't very cost effective either.

I think that in Empires, the later market, etc. buildings should give bonuses that are much higher than what they give in previous games. That and make it harder for factions to support large armies with just basic buildings.

[Gustav II Adolf]

I agree totally with this. It is too easy to use cheap troops. One thing i have been thinking about is order. Larger forces with peasants could be made more difficult to command. Or maybe discipline could have a greater effect.

Even if TW is focusing more on tactical combat and less on strategy i would like to see a little bit more strategic challenges. Concerning upgrades, they could beside giving them greater effect in percentages also make them important for more reasons. I e If better farms exist you get more money, bigger pop and can support more troops both in field and in town. It would also be interesting if they could make some specific upgrades and goods more important, like being required to have iron to be able to make cannons. Maybe we should have more than one resource. I think it could be done with out complicating everything too much.



G

[Abokasee]

Peasants and Militia grade troops should have serious draw back in comparison to Professionals, they should


Struggle to keep in formation
Have a poor aim (Very important in later stages where Rifles provide greater accuracy)
Have very poor Morale
Have Poor fire rate
Lack various formations (They won't be able to go into a box formation, this is how Wellington defeated Neapolians caverly)
Lower the Morale of your own Mid-Core troops (Well Trained troops with little or no battle experience)
not respond to your orders immiedatly all the time (A slight delay before they move forward, or go into a formation)

[ThePianist]

I like the suggestions. And talking about teching, it'd be great if farm upgrades could be built without increasing population growth, so as to have agriculture income in inland cities without ports and with less trade. Either that, or perhaps make an ability to distribute people from the cities to the countryside, so that population growth affect less the happiness level of the city.

[Abokasee]

I like the suggestions. And talking about teching, it'd be great if farm upgrades could be built without increasing population growth, so as to have agriculture income in inland cities without ports and with less trade. Either that, or perhaps make an ability to distribute people from the cities to the countryside, so that population growth affect less the happiness level of the city.

There shouldn't be much need to increase the Farm level of western factions, whilst factions like Russia, its just not worth it.

And about the population distrubition, you could have "mini-settlements" (similar to the permanent castles in MTW2:Brittiania campain) which have some population and be able to receive some upgrades, maybe conscript troops from there, but they could migrate to larger towns, a attacking force needing supplies or a faction fearing a mass rebellion/revolution could be able to massacre small villages

[andrewt]

It's not just troops, but the building themselves. Armor factory costs 15000 florins in MTW2 but most factions don't even have any unit that can use it, save for general's bodyguards. Even the 10000 florin second highest upgrade isn't used much by most factions. Also, the top line buildings are so expensive and some don't even unlock new units, just give one or two units +1 experience. The Alchemy line, IIRC, upgrades only the melee ability of gunpowder units. The top tavern buildings only give 5% additional happiness and the costs ramp up as well. The highest market building is so expensive but gives such a crappy increase in income. I could go on and on, but there's just too many useless buildings, especially at the top of the tech tree.

The same happens with units. I think the Feudal Dismounted Knights cost 570. The Chivalric version is slightly more expensive, gives 1 to attack (or maybe armor?), but requires a higher castle level and additional buildings. What's the point of that unit?

[Ignoramus]

I think you can encourage people to migrate to your colonies by setting higher taxes in your homelands, so hopefully overpopulation shouldn't be too much of a problem. No more exterminating your own settlements.