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Swoosh So
12-19-2002, 11:11
I played some custom games last night as the spanish me with 12500 koku the comp defending hillyinland maps with 25000 between 2 ai defenders, my army was always the same 3 or 4 arbs h0, 4 chiv seargents h2, 4 lancers h0 and 4 knights of santiago h0 and i kicked serious butt everytime those lancers and heavy knights are very heavy duty units h2 almost all of them by end of battles Give one of them an weapon upgrade and its like a juggernaught http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif


Are most battles online cav based? i cant see any use for maa at all.


SwoOooOoooOOooooOsh

youssof_Toda
12-19-2002, 11:56
Spanish cav is way overpowered jst like the byz inf. Try to beat european factions with muslim factions, esp with elmhoheads its hard to counter the spanish heavy cav but it's more of a challenge. Maa are usefull for attacking spears in the back if you power them up enough they can break em relatively easy.

TosaInu
12-19-2002, 12:00
Battlefield awards are still active in MTW. It caused 'problems' in STW with some units (H0 Kensai, ninjas, mongol cav, to some extent even with no-dachis). It does create even worse problems in MTW. Let's hope that it's removed (useroption) in the x-pack.

Buy a v0 lancer and end with v3.
I can't believe a unit gains 6 combatpoints within 10 minutes (that's some 40% gain in case of the lancer). A moraleboost because you do so well, ok, but it takes much more than 1 battle to improve your skills like that.

Best (ihmo) would be a separation of morale, weapon and armor upgrades. A morale 14 lancer already performs better on the field than a 8 morale. No use to increase the combat too, not like that anyway.

It wouldn't matter (much) for the SP campaign if battle awards were provided after the battle instead of during but it would make the multi and custom games a lot better.

andy119
12-19-2002, 12:45
lancers are way overpowered. I beat a guys inf and then came his lancers and he routed my beat up turks:(. Amp knows all about lancers damn him lol http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/dizzy.gif Only thing that can beat them really are good weapon pikeman and swiss halberdiers and other lancers http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

Swoosh So
12-19-2002, 13:25
Pikemen? how can they beat lancers? they are slow and crappy http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif maybe in a 1v1 but if u take pike men to counter lancers in a 3v3 your allies will get stomped big time http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif
So count pikemen out unless u static defending http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif Anyways how much is an h2 pikeman unit? prolly far to much to justify taking them as a counter http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif And anything less than h2 for a pike man unit and you got severe morale problems in your force http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

Just read my post and it may look abit arrogant it wasent supposed to look that way http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif So hope noone takes it that way http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif





SwooooOOooooOOOooooooOOoshOOoOoooOowl

Fear the wolves

CBR
12-19-2002, 14:12
Well there are several problems.

We play with so much money that a Lancer's 800 florins is not a problem compared to the chiv knights 650 florins.

Its really a late era unit.

After the patch we only have the basic pike unit which is crap.

No difference in speed. Gothic knights are very slow but Lancers have the same speed as the rest of the heavy/medium cavalry in MTW.

Halbardiers are supposed to be good anti cavalry troops but have crap morale (ofc you can buy chiv foot knights but spend 100 florins more and they come with a horse..)



But maa have lots of uses. Cav heavy armies can have problems in a 3v3 or 4v4. Last night Yuuki and I felt so confident that we charged 12 knights as what looked like a nice gap between 2 armies in a 4v4...it didnt go as we had planned heh. Its a lot about timing.

Yes AMP is good with his all cav army but he doesnt win every time http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif


CBR

Swoosh So
12-19-2002, 14:23
Me fucy and cape used to take 1 full cav army in 3v3s and 2 normal armies and we never lost a game this way, Mind u dont think there was too much compitition in the 3v3s http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

Knight_Yellow
12-19-2002, 14:27
Lancers used to my favourite unit but eventualy i got bored with them so i continued to play the spanish and replaced my lancers with militia seargents who at val 4 are only 1300 florins and in my experience r vry good at almost everything, i ususaly charge lancers with fued foot knights then flank with militia and it works so well that ive never lost due to a lancer charge. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

Swoosh So
12-19-2002, 14:28
I havent seen amp in action in mtw yet but ill be getting the replays soon http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif I Think an h0 lancer unit is the best value for money unit in the game http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

Kraxis
12-19-2002, 15:21
I too feel that Lancers in the hand of a good player are quite overpowered.

I have played with the Turks as of late, and I have defeated the dreaded Lancers easily with my JHI, but I think that is more because of the enemy not knowing not to engage them, or else they could just have moved them away.

I have found that only a few units can really lay a smackdown on the Lancers, Swiss Halbardiers, Chiv Foot Knights and JHI with the latter as the best by far.

The rest is more a matter of time before routing.

Puzz3D
12-19-2002, 16:43
The Lancer is not really overpowered, but it is part of an already powerful Christian faction. In a game where the "special" faction units are generally anemic, here is one that is actually good. However, a 680 florin v1 Order Foot easily beats it, so it's not a case of it being an unstoppable unit. Just last night I was in a battle where Byz and French armies defeated two Spanish armies that had 8 lancers between them, and the Spanish were commanded by very good players. It is the best cav unit in lush and temperate, but it's also the most expensive. The Gothic Knight may better it head to head, but it's slower. The Lancer is going to get those battlefield upgrades if it gets loose amoung enemy units where it can pick and choose the best targets. It will just gobble up scattered units, and become invincible in the process. You cannot easily overcome the lancer's power with upgrades on other cav types because the upgrades cost 70%. Upgrades are a case of diminishing returns because you are only getting a 44% increase in combat power for that 70% cost. Of course, you get +2 morale as well, but it doesn't matter because morale = 8 is already high enough.

The battlefield upgrades damage the game balance by allowing powerful units to increase their power making them way too powerful compared to their original cost.

Kraxis
12-19-2002, 16:53
Oh, forgot that I have in my mod made Lancers run at 16 and charge at 20, and that seems to have made them much less scary, have also lowered their cost by 50.

Swoosh So
12-19-2002, 16:57
Stat for stat and ability its the best unit on the market. V1 order foot cant be compared as they are foot troops and only an idiot would charge a spear unit with cav. Anyways the lancer can break off combat easily unless hemmed in.

Swoooooooooooooooooosh

Unmovable with my opinion on this http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

Kocmoc
12-19-2002, 17:53
i dont fear the lancer
it isnt so overpowered, the big problem and 1 of the great advance is the fatique.

puzz is right here any spear eat teh lancer adn there are some armour piercing units wich "love" the lancers as well, so u can counter this unit. but lancers give just too much supportbonuss.

if u are the defencer and keep ur lances resh u cant realy lose....if u hide in the corner and fight a frontal attack, u never can lose.

this game just hasnt any tactical points, its reduced to a bonuss and fastclick combat game, where u dont need to play so well. if the unitcombination and bonusscombination decide about the outcome .....

i remember some treads, months ago where we spoke already about the "strong" cavs, many said ....hey its pretty good... im surprised.... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif some changed theyr opinion...... pffff

the mainproblem are the chargebonusses with a charge of 21 or 26 they make every tired unit routing (except the spears...) u can easy rout a 46 men MAA unit...if u use,
no defensiv positions in this game....

yes, u can defend with spears vs the cav, but u cant defend it everywhere....and btw....... the spears kill cav just too slow the spears win, but in a very long time.

i played a lot games online and if i go and watch replays and analyze the most games, i jsut notice that 95% of all the games are not interesting/challanging, and there are so many nice units wich are absolut useless, that the current "tactic" isnt avalaible for me..... there is no tactic, thatswhy i say its just a 2D game.


koc

Puzz3D
12-19-2002, 17:58
Swoosh,

The spears are the rock, and the lancers are the scissor. The lancers didn't charge into the spears. The spears charged into the lancers. All I know is that 8 lancers went down to defeat in the battle, and I didn't see a single one charge into a spear.


Kocmoc,

More players are starting to figure out the best units, and, as a result, the battles are becoming more tactical and more interesting. I am seeing fewer losses due to inferior units being rushed off the map these days. All these 100 units has made for a very confusing time online. Some players look at it as a challenge to find the best units, but some find it to be too much work. Ultimately, one faction will probably emerge for lush/temperate and one for rocky/desert as the best, and just as you have to take the best units to be competitive now, you'll have to take the best faction to be competitive later.

Orda Khan
12-19-2002, 18:26
I agree with you Swoosh, Lancers must be the most powerful unit because you don't seem to get a game where there aren't any, if you know what I mean. I also agree with CBR, they are a Late period unit and personally I would banish them from High, I am fed up with seeing them.
Valour bonuses during battle was always, in my opinion, nonsense. I don't care how many a certain unit kills, in doing so they in turn lose men and energy and are therefore weaker than when they began. Give this to Lancers and they become a real game spoiler.

I've had it pointed out to me many times that this is not reinactment, in my mind it is.

Just a question..... Why is the Lancer so good at melee?
Their main weapon is now rendered useless and they are reduced to a mace or similar weapon while they are very restricted by their armour.

......Orda http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wacko.gif

Dionysus9
12-19-2002, 18:27
Swoosh,

The lancer cant break off combat if they are first engaged with Alan Cav and then spears march over in wedge/engage. The alans will keep them pinned in place. Now, of course, this takes 2 units to ensure you kill the lancers, but they get polished off fairly quickly with a wedgie of spears.

ElmarkOFear
12-19-2002, 18:39
Try playing the almohad faction and see if you like their spears. They are weak and rout before the lancers even get near them. Even when upgraded. Also, last night I had a byz infantry army val 3 arm 1, with spears val 4, on the wings get run over by AMPs all cav lancer army. He came at me straight on my byz/spears were on hold and side by side. When he got near my front line, his lancers in loose formation and single row across, swept across the face of my army. my army was on hold and had the morale bonus for flanks being covered, and they still routed within the first 10 seconds of the fight. This proves that byz might be overpowered, but all cav armies if used in this manner are much worse and will normally win unless the cav player makes a mistake. It is almost impossible to beat unless you do like some do and hide every game on the side of the map and buy the same army over and over again. The game was much better pre patch concerning cav.
I agree with Tosa that the valour gain during battle needs to be turned off or made an option. Also, spears should be put back to where they were pre-patch or cav knight units made more expensive. Until this happens, no matter what certain people keep saying, an all cav army in the good players hands will win almost every time.
Also, Kocmoc is correct in most of his criticisms. He sometimes has a hard time explaining them, due to his unfamiliarity with the English language, but they are valid. There are many ways to solve some of these items, make byz inf more expensive, make arbs more expensive, make cav knight units more expensive, change the zone of influence (this is the size of the area a unit has when influencing the morale of the enemy units) and as a bow to the playability of missile units, make handgunners more expensive and increase the kill ratio of arrow units.

Crandaeolon
12-19-2002, 19:15
A quick question regarding combat values: I think something was capped at 20, what was it? Can anyone confirm?

IIRC, neither attack or defense value may be over 20 in any situation, so even if V4 W3 Lancers in Wedge would charge into the rear of a unit, the actual attack value stays at 20 maximum. (the theoretical maximum attack in that case would be [base 5 + charge 8 + valour 4 + weapon 3 + wedge 3 + rear attack 7 + charge into rear 2 + pushback 6]=38. Whoa.)

Personally, I'd like to see the Lancers get a reduction in speed, perhaps a small drop in combat ability as well. 1 combatpoint or thereabouts. Also, it would be nice to be able to either turn the combat rewards system off or see that the rewards are based on the _actual_ value of the units, not just valour level. In the current system (I believe) a v4 peasant is considered to be as "valuable" as a v4 CMAA. Not good.

Edit: IMHO the balanced army is still the best choice online. I don't see all-cav or cav-majority armies as a problem, AMP is the only player I know who has consistent success with them.

Sword units definitely have their uses, post-patch they can tear up spear formations. They CAN also hold their own against cav, IF they can take the initial charge.

Dionysus9
12-19-2002, 19:49
Well I've beat Amps lancer lines with a balanced byz army. It wasn't easy and it was really close, but it can be done.

4 v4 spears are a must, but Byz Inf can stand up to lancers.

Puzz3D
12-19-2002, 21:13
Elm,

You can beat that all lancer army if you take the right counter army. However, since the lancers are faster than infantry, you have to adopt a defensive posture. This means, if the all cav army doesn't attack, the battle is probably a stalemate. I don't think taking all of any one unit is in the spirit of the game especially when it's a known powerful unit. It seems to be more of an exploit in the same way that taking all monks was in STW, although the florin tax is going to be pretty high for 16 lancers. And, is charging forward in wide lines some kind of fun tactic? To me the game seems intended that you maneuver individual units as modules for best matchups via rock, paper, scissors and for flanking. The wide lines take that away as a game element. If it seems like an exploit of a game flaw and is unfun, then how about not playing that way?

Another problem in your game is the choice of Byz vs Spanish. The factions are not "balanced" against one another. To my knowledge, Creative Assembly has never claimed that the MP game was balanced. Now if the players refrain from taking extreme armies and play with the implied 4 max that the +4 tax suggests, the faction imblances are not amplified as much and the battles are more interesting. It's up to the players to find the balance and to make the game a good experience for themselves. I wouldn't discount desert maps as a way of getting away from the heavily armored units. You don't like lancers? Then use a rule to limit them when you host. I see you playing late and saying "no siege", but taking handgunners which are one of the most unbalanced units in the game. I know you don't take too many of them. I use the French in my lush/temperate battles. Their special unit is the inferior Templar Knight. I'm starting to see players relinquish Byz or Spanish and trying other factions because I'm not ramming the superior factions down their throat. To me the game is a construction set, and if you want to use it to play seriously competitive games, you would have to designate the exact same armies for each contestant so that the players start the battle as equals. Even fun games would benefit from designated units because you could incorporate all the units into play. As it stands now, you can't use the obviously inferior units unless you want to use them as a handicap.

The only alternative I see is for the players to balance all the units and all the factions. Now who would use such an unofficial stat? I would hazard a guess that less than 20% of the online players would be interested, and I think that's being optimistic. Creative Assembly doesn't use a method that will ever achieve the degree of balance that people here want in the MP game. The expansion is just going to be more of the same of what we have right now. It'll have a different balance I'm sure, but it won't be balanced.

TosaInu
12-19-2002, 21:21
You're right CBR. But we play at extremely high florins (15k is high ihmo) because morale is so poor.
At 8k you can spend avr. 500 florins per unit.
At 15k you can spend avr. 937 florins per unit. V0 lancers (800 florins) become a very fancy choice then. Playing with upgraded units give problems with other units as well. We need a morale slider. As well as fatigue- gamespeed- and maybe ammo sliders.

ShadeCrandaeolon, that's about right. But it's the difference between units A attack and units B defense that's capped at 20. So a very high attack helps to override a high defense. Using your figure of 38 for the lancer, consider a unit that has 30 defense. Then the lancer only 'does' 8 (not completely sure for a backstab).

Elmark. Considering the lancer. I guess it's indeed a late unit. That can be changed in the stat. Al that's needed from there on, is play at lower florins ^. Adding about 4 morale to all units will in effect allow to play 8k games as if they are 15k. Probably even better since you aren't swamping static bonusses. Changing the morale for all units is childsplay when you use CA's 1.1 excel files.

I agree about the spearcosts. 1.0 spears were quite strong, knights became cheaper (some a lot), non spear infantry received extra combat and spears were made more expensive in 1.1. A tweak too much.

CBR
12-19-2002, 22:28
Quote[/b] (TosaInu @ Dec. 19 2002,20:21)]You're right CBR. But we play at extremely high florins (15k is high ihmo) because morale is so poor.
At 8k you can spend avr. 500 florins per unit....
Yes that why Im working on "the perfect" stats. We need to reduce the florin level and still be able to have battles without massive routs. Most likely, as Yuuki says, not many will use the modified stats but we can only try and do our best and see what it brings.

CBR

AMPage
12-20-2002, 01:29
So what's next? After talking about artillery, byz inf and lancers being over powered, what's the next unit in line? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif

Lancers do have a lot of counters, so they are stoppable if you know what your doing...

I wish every faction had atleast 1 over powered unit to balance things out. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

If you take out the lancers and make them in late era only, then the next cavalry unit in line will replace the lancer, may not be as effective, but still deadly. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif

Cheetah
12-20-2002, 02:08
Quote[/b] (AMPage @ Dec. 19 2002,18:29)]So what's next? After talking about artillery, byz inf and lancers being over powered, what's the next unit in line? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif
dont forget the handgunners http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif


Quote[/b] ]
Lancers do have a lot of counters, so they are stoppable if you know what your doing...
http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/idea.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

Magyar Khan
12-20-2002, 02:09
HORSEARCHERS and ARCHERY in general amp.... they are too weak.

bosdur
12-20-2002, 03:01
Quote[/b] (Cheetah @ Dec. 19 2002,14:08)]
Quote[/b] (AMPage @ Dec. 19 2002,18:29)]So what's next? After talking about artillery, byz inf and lancers being over powered, what's the next unit in line? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif
dont forget the handgunners http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif


Quote[/b] ]
Lancers do have a lot of counters, so they are stoppable if you know what your doing...
http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/idea.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif
And Naphta throwers after that http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cool.gif

AMPage
12-20-2002, 03:46
Handgunners? Bah They are just fine, it's just people expect them to be weak melee troops, being as it is they have a gun (which is almost worthless). http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif

Yup, horse archers and archers are to weak, but i think longbowmen aren't to bad. Maybe all bow units should be that powerful. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

Naphta throwers? To weak right? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif

bosdur
12-20-2002, 05:41
Probabaly yes against your all cav army amp, but a massed naptha throwers can be as devastating as artillery. I once played a game with elmo(2-4 naptha throwers) and glassheart(8 naphta throwers) and one other guy. Another of my ally was gone, and I only had my general left. The enemy I think still have 80% of their forces. When they're about to finish elmo and glass, they couldnt even maintain a melee, always routed because of the bombs. We ended up winning the battle. As you said ppl always whine, when the byz infantry and lancers are balanced, I figure the gunpowder unit is next, including naphta throwers http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif.

Kocmoc
12-20-2002, 07:29
some things


CA said long time ago....... "the game is balanced, if u play at valour 0" (they mentioned the multiplay)
so plz dont tell me they never tryed to balance the MP, they changed the spears and cavs to balance it, but sadly they dont understand the MP.

not the lancers nether the byz or other units are the "overpowered-monsta-units", u can beat the lancer and u can beat an all cav army.

ofcourse u cant beat this with byz, as byz havnt any spears, they always get hit by the cav´s

all this speaking about some units are stronger and some not makes me tired, coz this isnt our real problem. we have to look at this great major problems first, not at this small problems, wich are realy easy to change u can set the rulesz in the game and easy say....hey we wont se more than 2 lancers...or what ever.
the major probs u cant change in the game, so better we focus at this points.

fatique need to change
missles need more power
stronger spears
a bit weaker cav
hillbonusses
reducing of some supportbonusses
maybe change of speed of diff units

just a few points.

AMPage
12-20-2002, 08:13
Of course naptha throwers are a devastating unit, but only when used right. Remmeber that they do hit your own troops too and they are only 12man unit size, so your setting yourself at a disadvantage there. Rain also makes them not usable. So, really i don't see how you could make them any weaker. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

I don't think byzanite are weak against cavalry. The byzantine infantry eat away cavalry if you can keep there moral up. I use the spearmen as blockers from the cavalry charges then send in the byz inf to eat them up little by little. I had someone play me a few 1v1 games where he used all cav and i used byz, i lost the 1st match, but i changed my tatics 2nd match and won. It's not that hard you just gotta know how to ajust to what's coming at you. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

I would like to see spears stronger vs cavalry only, cause i don't wanna see them beating any h2h units that are suppose to take them out. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif

ElmarkOFear
12-20-2002, 09:42
Kocmoc, you misunderstand . . . we are focusing on the small problems because we have come to the conclusion that CA will NOT make any more changes to the big problems. The small problems can be taken care of by US without worrying about CA. Therefor it is useless to discuss such things. I agree with your points about the problems, but those will not be changed. The reasons for my conclusion about the overpowering all cav army is that if you select a few factions, Almohads, Byzantine then you will most likely lose against the all cav army.

Yuuki: AMP does not buy all lancers, but has a few of the other units there as well, I have never really looked in the logfiles to see how many of each he chooses. But what the game comes down to now, is if you do not choose amongst the few factions that have supposed counters to cav then you will lose, unless you get very very lucky. It is not the skill level of your opponent that decides, it is the choice of faction and since the host has to pick his army and is stuck with it when he hits ready, the non-hosts can pick the counter army to his faction. So, if I pick Almos, then the enemy can wait til i hit ready and then choose the all cav army and know that he will win.
And the difference of the handgunner units compared to the power of the Lancers is a much different matter. Handgunners are weak against cav, they also cannot shoot very far, they are not as fast, and there is not a substitute for them to build an all gunner army that would be near as effective as the all cav army, and also they do not get the in-battle increases in valour that the cav knight units do . . . . this makes them less of an overpowering unit, also now that most people are aware of them they can counter them very easy, with many units, spear, non-spear, cav. Plus, with them you can't just charge into an army and expect to rout them, you actually have to plan your line of attack and maneuver them into good positions. Sure they are overpowered for the cost, but they also are harder to manage them effectively. Personally, I don't use them much any more because I am bored with them. I am experimenting with the less used units now, and lose quite often with them. But it is more fun for me to do that, than pick an army I know is overpowering. I like the surprise counter attack, and not mowing other players down in a big rush.

ElmarkOFear
12-20-2002, 09:50
One thing that would be nice as well, which I have not seen discussed or mentioned, is a units effect on the morale of an enemy unit should be diminished as the unit loses men/horses. So a lancer unit that started out at val 0, went to val 2, but lost 1/2 of its men should have its charge value reduced by 1/2. This would end the problem of a unit of 5 lancers chasing away 3 almost full units of byz infantry. When the byz infantry would have the lancers outnumbered and would stand their ground and fight until flanked or hit by more enemy units. I am off to bed. Continue in the morning http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

shingenmitch2
12-20-2002, 17:13
Elm
the Charge reduction doesn't take into account the problem with proximity morale hit which doesn't slide either. The 3 Lancers "seem as scary" as a full 20 to other units.---- This is one bitch I've always had and was one of the major problems with Kensai.

Naptha -- they are really very slow to fire, need dry weather, kill own troops and have only 12 guys so I think they are only slightly imballanced ---- the problem that occurs with them is like that for most specialty units, if you can use them "en masse" they start to create game imballances not intended by the designers -- see Kensai and Ninja.

Handgunners are stupid as they are - no way should they be more effective a unit than an Arque. or a knight equiv in h2h

Desert solves the lancer problem, but could they use a tone down? perhaps. Biggest problem are the factions that have 2 kinds of lancers--- buy 4 of each and you have half a lancer army without Florin penalty.

Personally I think a custom limit on each type of unit would be better -- if we could set it so that only 2 lancers could be bought or 2 naptha etc. Would force more diversity in units and not have to rely on people "agreeing"

Crandaeolon
12-20-2002, 17:51
I agree with Koc, Lancers or Byz inf are not too overpowered to be a true problem. People pick them because they have heard they are good and because others pick them. This in turn leads to more people picking the Spanish and the Byz. It's a circle.

IMHO the all-cav army doesn't even need a "specific" counter-army, a normal balanced setup or even a 5 cav, 4 arb, 5 sword, 2 spear -setup will do just fine. The battle line _must_ be solid (that is, without gaps that the thin lines of cav could "lap" into) and the swords need to be in a deep enough formation to withstand the cav charge, thin lines of MAA are a disaster against cav. I also usually boost the valour of my Arbs if I suspect the opponent may have all-cav. (I'm speaking about duels here. Team games are a different beast; all-cav is so good in team games just because the army is so mobile.)

Of course truly skilled players probably will avoid a frontal charge even against a mostly-sword army, but most all-cav players usually just charge recklessly when they see they're against a spear-light army. Of course that's just in my experience, I haven't battled against an all-cav army led by a truly skilled general yet. Anyone willing to give me a lesson? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif And, someone said it's a matter of army selection more than skill. I disagree somewhat; IMO even the all-cav player needs skill to succeed.
EDIT: Boss, this was not intended as a barb in yer direction Sorry about the poor choice of words... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif It's just that the muslim cav is weaker than, say, the Spanish and therefore easier to prevail against. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

Kocmoc has, once again, summed up well the points about the game that most need changing. As I said in an earlier post, I've adjusted to the gamemechanics and can't offer useful opinions on how to change them, but I can comment about the unit balance.

AMP said he'd like to see spears to be stronger against cav only, and I agree. How about increasing the bonuses against cav? +1 attack and +1 defense? This would also make cav "weaker", but perhaps some little fine-tuning (speed?) would be useful for cav as well.

Missile units. I think we'd want a situation where, in near-optimal conditions (like defending on Crecy) an all-missile army (and no, I'm not meaning an Elmo Special Setup ™ here... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif) would be consistently able to rout a balanced army, but the balanced army would usually win in other situations. It might come as a surprise to some, but the 1.1 balance is pretty close to this. There are a lot of mods that have made missile units more powerful, but all of them have made missiles _too_ powerful. Kocmoc's stats are the best so far, but even they give bows too much power.

Wow. Long post. I hope this was at least a bit useful. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

baz
12-20-2002, 18:24
koc,
Can you be more specific here?

fatique need to change

no more needs to said, i think what we all want is that marching across a map doesn't effect your mens fatique so much...and also should we really have to sit there and wait for our men to recover while out ally gets beat?

missles need more power

this is no great secret missiles are terrible, in previous tw editions it was possible to have some nice missile fights, we saw enough in MI, but now it seems a missile fight isn't worth the effort, for one you dont get much advantage for winning and 2 they take tooo long....

stronger spears
a bit weaker cav

can you clarify that you mean spears to be better against cav? we dont want super spears again...do we?

hillbonusses

personally i dont think this is a massive issue as we as a community seem to play on flatish maps anyway totomi to flatter....how you see this helping?

reducing of some supportbonusses

i dont think this has been talked about in great depth, if it has i missed it, you talking about one unit beong able to give support bonuss to many other units?

maybe change of speed of diff units

you think the cavs need changing around a little? or you mean any other units?

anyway just so i can get a better picture - barry

ElmarkOFear
12-20-2002, 18:30
Crandon: You have not seen AMP do a frontal charge against a full line of Byzantine infantry and spears (side-by-side, deep formation) and rout them in less then 10 seconds. I wish I had the replay of that one to show. You all really do not understand that in most player's hands an all cav army is useless, but in some it is almost impossible to beat,because they exploit the morale hit to the enemy units, by spreading them out single line and in loose formation. I remember in STW if you used loose formation and attacked hand 2 hand you died quickly, wonder why this is not so in MTW?
If you listen to Kocmoc, he stated a cav army will beat the byz army because their lack of good spear units. If that is truly the case, you have just elminated half of the factions from ever being selected. And people don't see this as a problem? hmmmm
Sure all cav can be beat with a very few specific armies and not a balanced army. If get anything but spears and cav yourself, you will lose. Seems we may have more units to choose from, but in reality we actually have less units to play with then STW, because of these armies.
As for Byz armies, they too can be beaten, but once again you have to have specific armies to do this, and if 4 players get byz armies, you can believe that they will win 7 out of 10 times. Byz don't bother me as much as the all cav army, because the byz armies cant run over your army in 10 seconds like the all cav army can. Also the byz army has many counter units that can rout them because the byz infantry's morale is not very high. Naptha, guns, murabitin, arrows, all of these work, but against the all cav army, your missile units are worthless, and it has nothing to do with the speed of cav. It has to do with your army not being able to hold them long enough (due to the big hit on morale cav give). To get more than maybe one shot off if you are lucky.

Kocmoc
12-20-2002, 18:36
sure i can,


spears stronger vs cav, its easy to make spears stronger just vs cav, imo they do fine now vs other h2h units...i wouldnt change it.

hillbonusses, yes ofcourse most maps are flat.
but if u want to have some other maps with some small hills, this is useless as this hills are near useless and not many nice small-hill-maps are avalaible.
but if u want to implent more tactical points and strategic moves u need points/hills in the game wich have some important defensiv positions. now its useless....i think in the future if we want to have some challanges and we are tired of this flat maps and maybe we want some ownmade campains where we realy need some good-bighill-maps...

supportbonusses
easy i made some replays where u can easy see what some supportbonusses can do. like this....
ur unit fight vs my unit, normaly u would fight some more mins and maybe u would win....i bring my cav and go behind my fighting unit in and before i even get close.... wooops ur unit is routing. sometimes i saw units routing where noone was close just the moraccircles did this effect.
if u move massiv units in 1 fighting point u create easy massrouts.... sometimes or mostly its real stupid...

koc

baz
12-20-2002, 19:27
you feel the support bonus would be fixed with the +2 increase in morale?
point taken with the maps, i believe your khan has found a couple of nicer maps that are available....

Cheetah
12-20-2002, 20:22
I have made a quick survey of my last 10 MP battles (all of them 3v3 or 4v4). Out of 74 armies there were only 12 Spanish, and the Spanish players picked 40 lancers altogether That is, out of the 1184 units which were selected in these games only 40 were lancer, less than 4% of the units. Even if you count only the spanish armies which had 296 units it is less than 15%. Moreover no one picked an all-cav army, and only one player picked 8 lancers http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif I dare not tell his name http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif
So what is up with the lancer? Am I playing with the wrong guys, or the lancers are not so overpowered??? Or perhaps you need skills to win with an all-cav army, and it is not just a head-on rush??? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif

Crandaeolon
12-20-2002, 20:56
Quote[/b] ]they exploit the morale hit to the enemy units, by spreading them out single line and in loose formation
Elmo, how does this exploit the morale system? I vaguely recall a discussion about this some time ago, and IIRC the "morale circles" are centered on the command flag of the unit and don't depend on formation (though I'm not entirely sure about this). Again, one more point I'd like to clarify... anyone?

I've repelled several loose-single-line cavalry armies (usually Spanish) in duels with my usual setup of 5 cav, 4 arb, 5 swords and 2 spears. Actually, I've _never_ lost a duel to an all-cav army. (In the name of honesty I must say that I've played only about 10 such duels, and never against the "top" players.)

Team games are different, of course, I've witnessed AMP in action plenty of times, steamrolling 2 or even 3 armies in a row... but, I haven't seen anyone consistently (or even succesfully) duplicate it. As Cheetah noted, are we playing with the wrong guys or what gives?

Magyar Khan
12-21-2002, 02:04
Cran archery missiles need an upgrade. most agmes i lose is when i try to make balanced armies without teh excessive use of teh best unit available and archers.

Power rush armies, in the hands of teh skilled are imo still the strongest armies. we had them in old shog but u had a change, now trhsi chance is reduced to close to 0-5%.

well enuf words wasted, remember only whining brings a better version of teh game.

Magyar Khan
12-21-2002, 02:07
well cheetah there are also a group that dont play the spanish cuz they dont see the fun in uberunits, and some will save teh spanish when they join certain players they have hard time to beat with equal armies.

mayeb do a check of teh 1 vs 1 games u played where your enemy had muslims or not.

AMPage
12-21-2002, 04:14
I think every faction should have atleast 1 uberunit, but only be allowed to have maybe 2 max of that unit.

Cavalry aren't over powered, they are only 40 unit size. If you play at higher florins above 15k, then mass routs are much harder to create with them. You can upgrade spears more, which cavalry becomes more expensive to upgrade. Units will fight longer, so those other smaller anit-cav units won't rout as easy and stand up to there charges better.

If you don't like mass routs just play at higher florins, that will fix it. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

ElmarkOFear
12-21-2002, 06:35
AMP: Elmo adjusts his florins to 20k . . . http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

Crandon & Cheetah: Yes you are playing the wrong people. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif
As for the ZONE OF INFLUENCE for morale. I believe it has changed for MTW and does not play out like STW or MI.

Kocmoc: I said that yes a few factions have spear units that can beat an all cav army. But now you are limited to a few factions. Play the Almohad faction and see if you can still beat this type of all cav army. I am like you guys, in that I like to play underpowered armies and try to win as the underdog. Also, Kocmoc, your "support bonus" problem is what I have been referring to as my "Zone of Influence" problem. We both agree on that point. I never noticed it pre-patch, but I am sure it was there, as you say. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

AMP: Bad horsies Bad http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif And yes they are overpowered :P If the zone of influence is made smaller this might take care of that problem. Unfortunately, that is for the developers to make and not us. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif

Magyar Khan
12-21-2002, 12:39
a slider for the range perhaps?

lol the devs have selective ears as ever. what we want guys we wont get http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif

Cheetah
12-21-2002, 13:23
Quote[/b] (ElmarkOFear @ Dec. 20 2002,23:35)]AMP: Elmo adjusts his florins to 20k . . . http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif


too bad, Elmo too bad. IMHO 12000 florin is fine ...


Quote[/b] ]Crandon & Cheetah: Yes you are playing the wrong people. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

ah, I should have guessed it http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif not a single lancer-heavy-all-cav-rush-army http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif


Quote[/b] ]I said that yes a few factions have spear units that can beat an all cav army. But now you are limited to a few factions. Play the Almohad faction and see if you can still beat this type of all cav army.

IMHO there are only two factions lacking the proper anti-cav units: the russians and the almohads. All the other factions have decent units with which one can beat an all-cav rush army. Of course, some of them better equiped than the other, mostly the crusader factions and especially the English. But, IMHO even the Polish or the Egyptians have the necessary anti-cav units. That is, you are not limited to a few factions http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif And if you dont like cav-rush armies then join my games http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif it seems that the cav rush folks avoid my games http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif

ElmarkOFear
12-21-2002, 16:42
Maybe you missed my post earlier, played as the byzantines, spears and byz inf. (Most powerful army some say). They got run over in about 10 seconds. Thus, even with those other factions who might be able to stop them, German, Italian, Spanish, Saracen inf. is not good against the cav army so that gets rid of a few more factions. You could always play as the italians, camp on the side of map and hope for the best . . woohoooo what fun http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif
You really need to see someone who knows how to exploit the cav army such as GlassHeart aka UglyPolar, and AMP. Everyone says they can stop it, but any game I have been in that I have seen it used by these 2 players, it always comes out on top. That is unless those 2 screw up and dont use the loose formation single line exploit.

Magyar Khan
12-21-2002, 17:58
and so end another fine game, thorn between noobs knowing no shite and vets exploiting every corner. for most things si a solution but we are consumers and not teh producers of teh game. we can always show good manners and not exploit everything, but exploiting is part of the nature of man.

well its time to start whining again... who knows what it might bring, my smessenger is dead already http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif and wolves start leaving the game.

give us several sliders
give us better archery
give us a improved morale balance
perhaps limited unitwidth if things cant solve properly

or face a new whining campaign and even obstruct teh new game release a bit more than we planned to do.

fair isnt it?

ps i played 2 MI games to check soem differnces, at least teh graphicxs and speed is better now, 2 steps forward one step back.

Kocmoc
12-21-2002, 20:27
i just ask me, where is the fun in playing this way or even play this guys?

if i face 16 cav, there is just no fun
With this strong cav and no balance in the setup its clear what will happen, the all cav guy has to rush u.
there is no tactic nether any great skill to control this units

i always use a balanced setup to train and its more challanging if u have to think about, where to move wich unit, so i play with 6 or 8 different kind of units.

the unbalance comes if u see guys wich use just 2 kinds of units as they have no great choice for tactical moves.
and yes ,there was always players who did this and want easy victs, to make people speak about them. I think some egopushing is nice ..... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/dizzy.gif

this game got boring for me, as i see this wonderful game got reduced to the bonusses and some strong units. i miss some great moves or playing for traps.... all this is gone.

im not sure if whining helps here....but i see it already, how the games goes and how it changed, i respekt the most players, but players who play so often unbalanced games dont improve the gameplay they jsut show the noobs what to take to win easyer.

whatever, we all agree this game lost....and everytime i go online and play some games, i leave and say to me...it lose more everytime i go online.

koc

Nobunaga0611
12-21-2002, 23:47
I don't think Lancers are an unstoppable unit in say a 1v1 battle, or even a 2v2. When you start getting into larger battles, and bigger maps, they do start to take over though. I've been in games against 4 good players w/all cav armies http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif . That's fine, not a problem, if they want to do that, then I've got 11 anti-cav units for them the next game. But the problem comes when you're in a 4v4....the person on your side will simply go to the other side, and someone over there will get double or triple teamed. Then what, you chase 4 all cav armies with nothing but defensive units? Nah, you all need to be on the same page for that to work, just like the other side is. So is there a solution? You can't really expect someone thats relatively new to, on a regular basis, beat someone who's played for years. They're at the disadvantage, and thats kind of how its going to stay. People who've played long enough can overcome the unfairness at least a good portion of the time. There's always going to be a level of 'cheap' play in any game though.

Crandaeolon
12-21-2002, 23:55
Dear comrade Elmark, just how widespread is this "unstoppable lancer-heavy all-cav army"? As in, how many players ya have seen use it with consistent success?

(Edited away the rest of the post as it was just some long-winded yapping about things.)

ElmarkOFear
12-22-2002, 00:35
Unfortunately Cran it seems that I must have all of the best all cav army players in my time frame. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif The only ones that can exploit the cav units on a regular basis are AMP and GlassHeart (aka UglyPolar). Polar stopped playing them because they were not fun. He likes to play the less used units now to have a challenge. Other than those 2, I can handle most of the all cav armies, but as time goes on everyone will be able to use this army to great effect. I don't mind getting double/triple teamed by cav (thats part of the game and means they were using good teamwork), but when 1 player can literally run over your army with all cav by himself, then it becomes a problem.

Crandaeolon
12-22-2002, 02:07
Quote[/b] ]Unfortunately Cran it seems that I must have all of the best all cav army players in my time frame. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif
The grand total of two so far, thank goodness... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

I've never seen this Polar gentleman in action, but Amp plays in my time frame too... hmm does the fellow ever sleep? Anyways, I have a couple of (greatly treasured) replays where Amp's all-cav is beaten by near-4x4 forces. Those give me hope. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

I truly don't think we should get all jazzed because of a couple of players who have "perfected" the exploitation of cavalry. Of course if they can do it, others may be able to as well... but only time will tell if it will become a problem. And, if it does, there are simple fixes for that like politely asking people not to bring all-cav. Might just work. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

It might help the Battle for Balance™ if there were a sort of consensus on what the balance should be. I don't mean the actual stats here, just an agreement on what the different types of units should be able to do. Different players have different 'feels', so if someone says "archers should be boosted" he/she might mean anything between a slight nudge upwards to a radical redefining of the unit's role. It could be more useful to explain exactly what the archer (or any other unit, for that matter) should be able to do, in plain language not stats-speak, and work from that basis. Of course this kind of method alone won't bring balance, but it might be a useful "opposite" approach from stats-wrangling.

2 more florins into the cup... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

Cheetah
12-22-2002, 09:04
I have seen Polar and he is very good. But that is exactly that weakens Elmo's position. I mean both AMP and Polar can beat the average guy with any army. With your reasoning Elmo you could ban any army that was used by AMP or Polar. Of course, they can beat the average guy with a cav rush as well. So what? Does it mean that the cav rush army is unbalanced? No. They are just skillful players who can use this special army to a great effect. But you need skill to succeed otherwise everyone would pick cav rush armies and this is clearly not the case.
BTW, if anyone thinks that you dont need skills for a cav rush, then please do a head-on charge vs a good player with a decent army.

ElmarkOFear
12-22-2002, 18:22
I think that is a great idea Cheetah Ban AMP and POLAR from getting any units. PS. I beat them all the time, that is not the problem. The problem is, it takes less skill to use the all cav army, if you use it the way they do. You still think it can be stopped. You are wrong. AMP screws up and loses with it every now and then, but not often. Until you all stop bragging about how YOU can stop the cav rush, the game will continue to have problems. I can stop it to every now and then, but that does NOT mean it isn't an overpowered army. Oh well, you will find out soon enough once everyone learns how to exploit it.

Major Robert Dump
12-22-2002, 23:30
I know how to do it and I've never even used it http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

Once you get beaten by a PARTICULAR all-cav strategy enough times you realize why it is too powerful, especially when you compare it to the all-cav strategies that you have beat.

It's not just units, gents. It's formations and placement on the map. The ones who figured this out earlier are just smarter than the rest of us http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/pat.gif

Swoosh So
12-23-2002, 11:11
My origonal post wasent about an all cav army although i can see the point peeps are making, All i was saying is that the lancer is the best florin-stat unit in the game, In my opinion they should be slower http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif I only play custom battles but when i can beat 3 ai armies with 3 rushes in the 1 battle all of them with 12500 florins as well and still have enough units to hold a christmas dance afterwords then i think there may be problems here http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif



SwoooooOOoooOoOooosh

Custom battle army:

4 chiv seargents
4 arbalisters
4 lancers h0
4 knights santiago h0

The arbs and spears are just there for show i hardly use them http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/flirt.gif

CaPeFeAr
12-24-2002, 13:05
i like the idea of opening up all units to all factions....yes the cav and spears need a small tweek...but it would be nice if i could choose any 16 units i wanted instead of being limited to those available to each faction... lancers for everyone~ possibly an option to choose all units on or off... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

b4 lancers were the problem it was the alan cav.... after lancers are fixed like amp said their will be another top cav unit... the problem isnt so much in the cav as the spears.... increases the bonus vs cav for spear units.... i think its correct for a heavy cav to mow over a fudal maa... but not a pike unit or spearmen... a spearmen should beat up and rout a cav just as quick as a cav can rout a fmma...

AMPage
12-24-2002, 14:04
NC, that's a good idea, but not likely to happen of course. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif

Swoosh, i think lancers and byzantine infantry are about tied in best florin-stat, maybe the byz inf are a bit better. The only thing that really hurts byz inf is that they tire fast when fighting/marching fast and low moral. Byz inf have 100 unit size, are a pain to fight head on, can fight in trees and have pretty good attack/defense. The lancers are 40 unit size, some units have bounses vs cav, they don't fight well in trees. So, i would like to see lancers stay just the way they are, cause it's nice to have factions having atleast 1 powerful unit. I think it would be a bit silly to lower the speed of them, since there main purpose is for charging and getting around flanks fast. It would be best to have units with cav bounes to be increased a good amount.

I don't see what the big deal is about lancers, if you don't like them routing units so easly play at higher florins, it's that simple.

Some people call me names and such online for using all cavalry armies, saying it's cheap and really over powered, yet i offer to prove them wrong in some 1v1 matches and they decline. I'm not saying it's easy for me to beat an all cavalry army, just that it can be done, as some say to me it's impossible. People say it can only be done if you're expecting it, that's not true also, i've stopped cavalry armies when i wasn't expecting it and people have stopped my all cavalry army when they weren't expecting it.

I don't see much fun in playing with balanced armies all the time, i like surprises. Some people say to me it requires no skill to play with unbalanced armies, yet if you're expecting it and still lose what dose that say about your skill? Unbalanced armies are beatable just as easly as a balanced army, you just gotta know what you're doing, it's that simple.

BTW, someone said to me it's impossible to use all cavalry in early era playing as germans. He say it's only possible to use spanish for cavalry armies. He did not even know that spanish don't have lancers in early era. At the end of that game i got 1750kills. Since the word of lancers is being spread so much, you have people saying things of which they haven't the slighest clue about.

I would like to see units which have a bouns vs cavalry to be increased, mostly spears. That would call for more manovering tatics, which the cavalry must aviod getting eatin up by spears head on.

ElmarkOFear
12-24-2002, 23:04
1750 kills? Wow cav really IS overpowered :P LOL Lancers need to be tweaked, because the main problem is their ability to continue fighting after the initial strike and continue on forever that way until they get down to just a very few. If they charge against spears they should die or rout after being stopped. They currently do not. Also, the knight units do not fatigue as fast when fighting or running as the other units do. Maybe the thing to adjust would be the fatigue speed of each unit. Make that a purchase-able item. This might solve the problem. And once again AMP, a cav army in your hands is much different than a cav army in someone elses. Your 1v1 challenge would only be valid if you played against yourself, but then again if the cav army still won, you wouldn't admit it LOL http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif Anyways, I never had a problem with the alan cav in the prepatch. Nor the Men At Arms. The lancer led all cav army is a different matter, due to the speed of the unit and being overpowering and to the fact that spears have little effect on them. And as for the 'sweep' which you said occured when you frontal charged my Byz army . . . It was not a sweep, my units were still side by side moving forward. Your cav units hit them at an angle, but my flanks were all covered and the byz inf & spears were val 3 arm 1 and val 4 respectively. That is a problem, which needs to be addressed as well as the morale penalty your single-line loose formation gives to enemy units. You can stack more units close behind each other and wide across, I believe this has the effect of causing an increase in the number of morale checks to the enemy unit. Eventually, the enemy unit will fail one of its checks and rout. The single line wide loose formation, I believe, spreads these 'checks' over a greater number of enemy units and once one fails, the rest snowball due to the morale penalty when nearby friendly units are routing. I am not sure of the mechanics of it, but I have repeatedly seen its effect. The losses I have seen you have with an all cav army are more due to your formnation being wrong, or you not using the factions with the lancer units. If the ability of all cav to rout Fresh spear units/high val sword units would be reduced, this would go a long way in improving the game.

Cheetah
12-25-2002, 00:26
Quote[/b] (ElmarkOFear @ Dec. 24 2002,16:04)]1750 kills? Wow cav really IS overpowered :P

Kill count does not reflect the true strength of the army. With a cav army you can beef up your kill count by chasing down routed units. This can be revarding especially in 4v4 games. I have seen both AMP and Polar to end up with 1500+ kills. An infantry heavy army might rout the enemy with smaller cost but it cannot chase routed units, thus it will end up with a much lower kill count. However, it does not mean that an infantry heavy army is less efficient.


Quote[/b] (ElmarkOFear @ Dec. 24 2002,16:04)]And once again AMP, a cav army in your hands is much different than a cav army in someone elses

That is what I was trying to say. Just becasue AMP can defeat almost anyone with his cav army this does not imply that the cav army is overpowered.


Quote[/b] (ElmarkOFear @ Dec. 24 2002,16:04)]And as for the 'sweep' which you said occured when you frontal charged my Byz army . . . It was not a sweep, my units were still side by side moving forward.

That is it Elmo, you were moving, whereas you should have been standing on hold/hold http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif


Quote[/b] (ElmarkOFear @ Dec. 24 2002,16:04)] If the ability of all cav to rout Fresh spear units/high val sword units would be reduced, this would go a long way in improving the game.

Believe me Elmo, cavs cannot rout fresh spearmen with a head-on charge (IMHO not even AMP's loose charge), provided that the spearmen are standing on hold/hold.

Swoosh no one denies that the Lancers are the best by for your florins. The debate is raging about the issue whether this results in overpowered cav armies or not. Apperently Elmo thinks that it does, and me thinks that it does not http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif The reason why it does not IMHO is that a cav army has a counter army. There are many good anti-cav units that can stop a charge and others that can kill cav real fast. Obviously, with a so called well-balanced-army you have less chance vs a cav army than with a anti-cav heavy army. However, I do not think that this is a problem. This means that there is rock-paper-scissor system on the level of army types and not just on the level of unit types. A cav army can beat a well-balanced army, anti-cav army can beat a cav army, and finally, a well-balanced army can beat an anit-cav army. Is it that bad? I do not think so. This just adds more depth to the game. This just means that you cannot pick the same "well-balanced-army" over and over again; instead you have to think beforehead, and have to try to outwit your opponents at the army selection stage. If your MAA heavy army was mowed down by a cav army this is not a "game balance issue" or a bug but a result of a poor army choice. Of course, there is certain amount of luck or rather risk in it, but hey, what would be a war game without risk? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

The take home message IMHO is that cav armies are not overpowered because they have counters. Not surprising that lately the English became one of the most favourite factions http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

ElmarkOFear
12-25-2002, 02:58
English? Wow you ARE playing with the wrong crowd :P hehe Whether moving or standing your units still stay in hold hold. And oh what fun it is to just stand around not being able to move, what strategy, what planning. Amazing how you have never realized that in most of your games, the Lancer unit is the only cav units you see at the end of game. Also amazing is how fast they pick up valour when battling compared to any other unit. You haven't noticed how a val 0 lancer picks up valour as it is fighting and losing and all of a sudden it is winning? Have you noticed how far a lancer can run and then fight and rout and chase an entire army off the map and only be "tired?" Try playing the almohads, or one of the other factions that do not have very strong spear units, but DO have very strong sword units, however these units are only 60 instead of 100. Odds are you will lose to an all cav army from any faction in 12k each and under games. I have recently been playing with 20k for each player and this seems to eliminate some of the problems associated with lancers and all cav armies, but that is almost at the max allowable by the game engine. Shame it has to be that way.

Cheetah
12-25-2002, 17:14
Quote[/b] (ElmarkOFear @ Dec. 24 2002,19:58)]And oh what fun it is to just stand around not being able to move, what strategy, what planning.

This does not mean that you cannot move at all, just you have to cover your moves approprietly.


Quote[/b] (ElmarkOFear @ Dec. 24 2002,19:58)] Amazing how you have never realized that in most of your games, the Lancer unit is the only cav units you see at the end of game.

I have played a few games vs spanish armies that had lancers and the only cav units I saw at the end of these games were my own chivalric knights http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif Now, this is bragging http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif


Quote[/b] (ElmarkOFear @ Dec. 24 2002,19:58)] Also amazing is how fast they pick up valour when battling compared to any other unit. You haven't noticed how a val 0 lancer picks up valour as it is fighting and losing and all of a sudden it is winning?

This is a problem with any 40 strong unit. If your proposal is to disable valour upgrade during battles then I completly agree with you.


Quote[/b] (ElmarkOFear @ Dec. 24 2002,19:58)] Have you noticed how far a lancer can run and then fight and rout and chase an entire army off the map and only be "tired?"

Nope, because I always play against them and never with them http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif


Quote[/b] (ElmarkOFear @ Dec. 24 2002,19:58)] Try playing the almohads, or one of the other factions that do not have very strong spear units, but DO have very strong sword units, however these units are only 60 instead of 100. Odds are you will lose to an all cav army from any faction in 12k each and under games.

IMHO no one denies that the Almohads are weak vs cav armies. Strange that you dislike the English because they have one of the best anti-cav units (billmen). Perhaps you should try them. The point is that there are several factions (all the christian faction, egyptians, turks) with which one can build a strong anit-cav army. Sadly, and undeniably the Elmo-heads are not among these factions.

bosdur
12-25-2002, 17:15
Guru Elmarko has spoken, the debate ends, cav army are indeed overpowered http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smokin.gif .

Btw, Cheetah yes the only good result I've had when fighting an all cav army is by putting a hold/hold defensive posture, basically make your units happy about their flanks. movement has to be limited and carefully planned, give flank and you ended. A very tedious process indeed. I wonder if theres a better solution for this, as I'm not very good at tackling an all cav army myself and many ppl seem confident that all cav army is beatable (the notion I got being easily beatable). I would like to challenge those who believe so to provide with a detail manouver to tackle an all cav army with a standard balanced army non-camping position, flat ground. Or easy way, provide a replay where a skilled all cav player's onlsaught was deadly stopped (replay where he routed after getting tired after routing 1-2 armies doesnt count), preferred replay will be when he got beaten by an army he first attacked.

Anyways Guru Elmarko *I hope you dont mind my new salutation, as I've been thinking of the uglies as a religion now http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif*, as much as cav army being overpowered, the way its simulated in the game is not really unrealistic. For a unit whether it be swords or spearmen it takes a lot of guts to hold your spears while facing a group of horses in front ready to trample at you, needless to say when you see the cav has reached your flank, a unit with low discipline/morale would surely become uneasy about this and tend to waver more. To overcome with these unit needs good valour (although I think morale is the only crucial issue here) , in gam term simulated with high florins, and to be able to hold formation and keep flanks happy, as depicted by cheetah. If raising an order of knight is an easy task, I wouldnt be surprised if in medieval era we see cavalry used as amp use it in the game. To make cavalry weaker seems to make the game less realistic and dynamic, imo.

Crandaeolon
12-25-2002, 17:56
The Dark Hordes of Equine Doom are here http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif Repent and flee http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

Well put, Boss.

I have a couple of replays where Amp's all-cav is beaten, but of course that doesn't prove anything one way or the other. The most interesting of those games is one on steppesinland03 where Amp's Spanish all-cav accompanied by Ham's Spanish mostly-cav and Lover98's (IIRC?) balanced army were beaten by CBR, Weilian and me. CBR had mostly swords and NO spears in that battle, although I (Germans) had 4 Orders and 2 Chiv Foot knights. Weilian's was a balanced Turkish, IIRC. The battle was chaotic but not overly difficult for us, and Amp did not make any horribly obvious screwups in that match. I wouldn't like to make it public though as I played like sh*t in that game... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/shock.gif

CBR, if ya are reading this, I'll mail the replay to you as promised once I get home around 28th or so.

I will ask Amp to honor the lowly me by playing a couple of duels with his all-cav vs my 4x4. I'll post the results and replays if the games offer useful data. I have no delusions about being Amp's equal in skill, so no one should hold their breaths. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

As a final point, I think the all-cav should indeed be at their best on a flat map, as flat terrain is the best imaginable terrain for cav forces The all-cav should not be easy to defeat on such terrain.

Puzz3D
12-25-2002, 21:06
A V3 Spearman (737 florins) easily beats a V0 Lancer (800 florins).
Spearmen losses = 25. Lancer losses = 38.

Paolai
12-25-2002, 21:18
in a frontal impact i think, isnt it?

CBR
12-25-2002, 23:18
Yep I'm here Cran :-)

That battle was chaotic..about 15 minutes of insanity but a perfect example of how teamwork defeats a cav rush...at least I needed that team work as I didnt bring any spears heh.

I just come from 3v3 where my Almohad all foot army was cav rushed...but only 12k, no terrain and no help from center ally who had deployed way forward and decided to quit while he still had units standing ...I still managed to get 271 kills with 103 coming from my 4 muwahid spears.

Instead of talking why dont we try and play some 3v3 or 4v4 with no newbies and see how powerful the cav rush really is http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif


Im not sure what the effect is of spears moving when attacked by cav...but it could easily give you problems if a unit is changing facing.

And yes all that valour gain is a problem as its nearly always the cav that gets up to 3 in valour. I think we can change it in the unit file but havent tested the effect yet.

CBR

Crandaeolon
12-26-2002, 00:19
** DISCLAIMER: Do not take the following post too seriously or too literally ** http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

---


Quote[/b] ]Instead of talking why dont we try and play some 3v3 or 4v4 with no newbies and see how powerful the cav rush really is

I shall immediately second the eminent CBR's wise proposal

BLOOD is what we now need; blood, flowing free from the slashed jugulars of both man and beast Let the Horse-Doom sayers cower in the midst of their useless book-piles and whine like their lapdogs and curs; for flea-ridden mongrels be the only fit company for those gluttonous, bloated wretches who DARE call themselves men

To arms, my brothers TO WAR Be it the mightiest knights riding the finest steeds this side of the Holy Land, we shall stand proud with our spears, pikes, blades and axes and we shall LAUGH at the oncoming face of steel-clad, thundering annihilation Man may fall but glory will stay
---

I just finished reading Ivanhoe. Must have something to do with it. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

Cheetah
12-26-2002, 00:43
lol, Crand a truely epic battlecry http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

BTW, you can count on me, perhaps we should arrange the time of the battle.

oh, yes and please upload that battle, please ... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

Puzz3D
12-26-2002, 05:11
Paolai.

Yes, that was with the lancers attacking frontally in 20 x 2 close formation and the Spearmen in 20 x 5. The spearmen will loose if they don't keep the lancers in front of them. For instance, lancers will win a frontal assailt on the 20 x 5 close form spearmen if they attack in loose and then switch to close so that the spearmen are attacked on both sides. However, the spearmen can always match the width of the lancer.

Swoosh So
12-26-2002, 10:55
Puzz Puzz Puzz did you have the lancers 4 deep? sigh* What abaout open formation in a single line where the flank bonus rules the day?

My custom battle tests show byz inf getting whipped by most units so i never take those tests for granted.


SwoooooooooOOoooOOooOOOOsh

Paolai
12-26-2002, 11:57
Puzz,
the point is that it is difficult that a player attacks frontally 100 spearmen. Its easy for an unit cav to take the flank...really hard instead for a spearmen to do the same.

800 florins for a Lancers unit are really better than 737 florins for a spearmen unit.

Puzz3D
12-26-2002, 17:03
Paolai,

I'm not so sure about what you say. If you had a lancer and I had a spearmen, how are you going to take me in the flank? Your cav is faster, but my spearmen only have to rotate in place to keep facing the cav. It's the cav that need to flank to win. The spear can win frontally. Actually, I don't use v3 spearmen because they are too weak relative to other infantry for me. I use the much stronger v2 Order Foot. I was just pointing out that the spearmen, who are the weakest of the spear units, can stand up to lancers.

Is the problem really loose formation or valor gain on the battlefield? If so, it's those things that need fixing and not the lancer itself. In my test against the spearmen, the lancer unit which lost gained 1 valor point just by killing 25 spearmen. Without that valor gain, the lancer would have lost faster and by a greater margin.

In this game, units that get flanked are supposed to loose and they do. Of course, the initiative is always with the faster unit and it's ability to move to a flank quickly, but it will get tired if the slower unit keeps countering the flank move. I see a lot of players using spears improperly, and then claiming that cav is too powerful.

The 800 florin lancer is 44% stronger than the 650 florin chiv knight but it's only 23% more expensive. Relative to the chiv knight, you can argue that the lancer is about 20% too strong for it's cost You've got the same type of thing in reverse with the Templar knight. It's down 4 charge points relative to a chiv knight which roughly equates to 1 melee point (20%), but it's only 8% cheaper. These types of imbalances abound throught the unit selections, but at least in general spears beat cav, cav beat swords and sword beat spears. The arbalester provides an effective ranged aspect to the game, so you have 4 basic unit types to work with tactically.

Puzz3D
12-26-2002, 18:23
Swoosh,

The lancer was 20 wide by 2 deep when it lost. I did say that lancer in loose did beat the 20x5 spearmen if the lancer closed down on the spearmen's flanks once engaged. However, the spearmen don't have to stay in a close, deep formation. They can match whatever width the cav presents and thus deny their flank to the cav. Can the cav outmaneuver the spear for a successful flank attack? Possibly, if the spear is forced into a very wide formation.

Units that get flanked are supposed to loose, and they do loose. The initiative is with the cav. The infantry has to make counter moves. I see players trying to chase a cav unit with an inf unit, and that's a sure way to loose the inf unit.

There were a lot of complaints pre-patch about spears being too strong. I saw MP players winning with all spear armies: no ranged, no cav and no swords; just take spears and walk forward. I did it myself. CA changed spears in the patch. They get pushed back by cav now, they turn slower, they are more expensive, cav is less expensive and swords get a combat bonus vs spears. At least the rock, paper, scissors works now where it didn't before the patch.

I don't expect units to be balanced better than 20% after I saw a post by LongJohn in which he said 15% imbalance was quite good in his opinion. The unit imbalances that people are complaining about are on the order of 20% or less. In STW, yari samurai got an 8 point combat bonus vs cav; split 4/4 (att/def). In MTW, spears get a 5 point bonus vs cav; split 1/4. The rock. paper, scissors is not as strong, and it's mostly defensive so spears are for the most part blockers. Given that cav can disengage from slower units in MTW, the cav can attack and withdraw repeatedly looking for an opening to punch through or flank to attack, and there is no question that the lancer is the most dangerous cav unit out there.

Paolai
12-26-2002, 19:16
Puzz, the point is:
"In this game, units that get flanked are supposed to loose and they do"

The test that many do (1 unit vs 1 unit) are not the right test to do. In an army of 16 units, if i choose Spanih, I choose about 4/5 lancers, and at max 3 spears cause I think that it is really better to spend 800 florins for a lancer instead to spend 737 for a spearmen that only in a frontal attack can win against a lancer. Some kind of cavs I think is overpowered and Lancers is one of them, and now, if my enemy choose Spanish I have to choose Spanish too....the only unit that can beat a Lancer is another Lancer

Magyar Khan
12-26-2002, 19:21
the increase of valour during the game is too important.

higher florins will NOT stop this ofcourse, soon 99999 as max may show not enuf to host nice games when everyone finds and use every exploit. there are so many guys not reading this posts, its easy to learn them the "new" stuff and gain a gurru status by them http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

bosdur
12-26-2002, 19:29
Quote[/b] (Magyar Khan @ Dec. 26 2002,07:21)]the increase of valour during the game is too important.

higher florins will NOT stop this ofcourse, soon 99999 as max may show not enuf to host nice games when everyone finds and use every exploit. there are so many guys not reading this posts, its easy to learn them the "new" stuff and gain a gurru status by them http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif
I didnt give guru status due to mtw skills, its more about what i think about the individual in ugly realm http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif. And I'm not the only gramatically challenged person in this world, as there's one within your order also http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif.

Cheetah
12-26-2002, 19:32
Quote[/b] (Puzz3D @ Dec. 26 2002,10:03)]Paolai,
Is the problem really loose formation or valor gain on the battlefield? If so, it's those things that need fixing and not the lancer itself.

Well said Yuuki. All these little tricks (valour increase during battle, loose/close switch) that make the lancers a kind of "uberunit" work with other 40 men strong units as well. So, instead of banning the lancers these things should have been fixed first.


Quote[/b] (Puzz3D @ Dec. 26 2002,10:03)]but at least in general spears beat cav, cav beat swords and sword beat spears. The arbalester provides an effective ranged aspect to the game, so you have 4 basic unit types to work with tactically.

Well said again. The point is that there a rock-scissor-paper system both on the level of units and on the level of army types, and that the all cav army can be defeated in spite of the above mentioned little tricks.

PS. no one denies that the lancer is the most powerful cav unit http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

Magyar Khan
12-26-2002, 20:49
and how does archery fit into the rocks scissors papers?

Crandaeolon
12-26-2002, 22:02
Quote[/b] ]and how does archery fit into the rocks scissors papers?

I bet most of us agree that archers are too weak, particularly horse archers. Archery needs a boost. But, only a small boost so the game doesn't become a missile war. Arbas could be toned down a bit, perhaps their accuracy should be reduced. IMO a crossbow is not a more accurate weapon than a bow.

Hmm this thread was not about missile units... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

Paolai
12-27-2002, 00:13
well Cheetah, you called Lancers the most powerful cav unit, instead I call Lacers an overpowered unit

ElmarkOFear
12-27-2002, 08:27
I agree with you totally Paolai

****ELMO SLIDES PAOLI THE $50 U.S. HE PROMISED HIM FOR SAYING THAT****

I guess that makes it "Payola for Paolai" HEHE

youssof_Toda
12-27-2002, 12:58
Agreed, they have rediculous armour and def.

LordTed
12-27-2002, 13:03
Yep to much power for the price, it makes people who are ok into masters.

FasT
12-27-2002, 13:23
A pitty FasT cant use them with his Almohads armies http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif

But the loose/close formation in battle trick can be used with nearly all,the units too wrap around a enemy unit,and get all the flanks..

Remember in MI u could place a YS in hold/hold 2 deep trap a cav unit..Then when u timed it correctly click off hold/hold and ur YS would wrap around the cav and rout it http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif
Wish i had a full box of tricks though http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif

bosdur
12-27-2002, 13:36
I've noticed that armour piercing units fought well against lancers, today i use chivalric foot knight to fight a lancer, the lancer lost big time, its armour value of 9 backfires since it gives an extra kill chance of +3 to the foot knights. I know gothic knights kill lancers easily, but its slow speed is just not practical. Probabaly a mamluk cavalry or ghulam cavalry at valor 2 is a good counter unit against the lancer, but I've yet to test it. If this works well, then I propose to just add an equivalent armour piercing cavalry for catholic factions to balance it out.

baz
12-27-2002, 14:26
if you dont like cav play in the desert.... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/idea.gif they tire sooo quick http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

Paolai
12-27-2002, 15:52
have i said that i dont like cavs? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif

bosdur
12-27-2002, 16:25
Quote[/b] (baz @ Dec. 27 2002,02:26)]if you dont like cav play in the desert.... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/idea.gif they tire sooo quick http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif
Not the ones that have no armour Baz, alan merc tires reasonably as long as you dont run him often.

Puzz3D
12-27-2002, 17:52
Paolai,

I went online with a friend. He took a v0 lancer and I took a v3 spearman. He couldn't beat me using either the loose/close trick or by trying to maneuver to my flank. My style of play utilizing spears means that I'm not compelled to take Spanish when my opponent is Spanish even though the lancer is undervalued.

Given that the units have imbalances and always will, players who want a game where only skill in moving the pieces decides the outcome should field exactly the same units. You could get all the units, even archers, back into the game by doing that. The army selection part of this game is a construction set for the players to explore different kinds of armies. It's not a carefully worked out set of stats which provides a balanced game no matter what units you buy.

Knight_Yellow
12-27-2002, 18:15
ive said it many times

MILITIA SEARGENTS VAL 4 sum armour and maybe a weapon upgrade is only 1600 for an elite unit witch in my own games kills every single unit ive ever sent them against.

they kill armour vry fast and if u can rout a lancer goth or knight anything with these the rest of their army notices it and massed routs.

send fued foot knights into charge the lancer/enemy unit then run ur militia who r vry fast round the side and flank.
voila 1 enemy elite unit wiped out in 5 seconds with only 10-15 casualties.

ive only ever lost when out numbered 3 to 1 when i use my inf army.

Magyar Khan
12-27-2002, 18:16
try to take 4 lancers vs 4 spears and master the hold hold formation change face and engage at will button combos, teh outcome will be different i think...

Paolai
12-27-2002, 18:21
Well Puzz,
Its difficult to test a unit in a 1unit vs 1unit. My opinion is that lancers give you for a "low" cost too much def stats, too much attack stats too much armor. You have also to consider that it is quite easy, during a game for a lancers valor 0 like Magy said, to gain 1 valor, impossible for a spears valor 3 to become valor 4.

A good test could be 4 lancers and 3 spears Vs 7 spears.
We can test it together if you want Puzz

Swoosh So
12-27-2002, 18:49
Quote[/b] (Knight_Yellow @ Dec. 27 2002,16:15)]ive said it many times

MILITIA SEARGENTS VAL 4 sum armour and maybe a weapon upgrade is only 1600 for an elite unit witch in my own games kills every single unit ive ever sent them against.

they kill armour vry fast and if u can rout a lancer goth or knight anything with these the rest of their army notices it and massed routs.

send fued foot knights into charge the lancer/enemy unit then run ur militia who r vry fast round the side and flank.
voila 1 enemy elite unit wiped out in 5 seconds with only 10-15 casualties.

ive only ever lost when out numbered 3 to 1 when i use my inf army.
Oh come on hehehe Miltitia seargent upgraded 1600 florins, lancer 800 florins , you cant compare those 2, and how do you flank a lancer? youve already spent 1600 florins on the unit to kill it and thats just 1 unit what about the foot knights, Im sorry but theres no substance in that method http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif

Crandaeolon
12-27-2002, 19:25
I bet Yellow is playing with pretty high florins, at least 20k, perhaps 25k or even more. It's a different ball game up there.

In 10-15k games it wouldn't be a very good strategy to spend about half of yer money on 4 units...

Magyar Khan
12-27-2002, 19:53
well 20k will become the new standard, sint it?

Cheetah
12-27-2002, 20:22
Quote[/b] (Paolai @ Dec. 27 2002,11:21)]Well Puzz,
Its difficult to test a unit in a 1unit vs 1unit.
A good test could be 4 lancers and 3 spears Vs 7 spears.

Here I agree with Paolai http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif a 1v1 situation is different from a 16v16 or even from a 7v7 situation. In the case of 1v1 your attention is focused on your single unit, whereas in a 16v16 situation a good attecker can create enough confusion to spilt your attention.


Quote[/b] (Paolai @ Dec. 27 2002,11:21)] impossible for a spears valor 3 to become valor 4.

I have seen orderfoot gaining valour during battle http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif tough it was only from v2 to v3 http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

As far as cavs go mameluks are good vs lancers (because of armour piercing bonus) and the egyptians have an other unit which can eat lancers for breakfast http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif When it comes to infantry chiv.foot knights and janissary heavy infantry are both excellent lancer killers. Militia sergeants are good meele unit but they cannot block a lancer charge IMHO.

CaPeFeAr
12-27-2002, 21:33
just thought id say....that a v0 lancer isnt that srtong...yes its overpowered...but it is still possible to beat with v3 spears and good play.... but what about upgraded lancers.... its possible to upgrade the lancers to a point where not a single spear unit can beat them.... then we get to the rout factor.... i cant tell u how many times ive beat down a lancer unit to less than 5 men...only to watch them fight on for a very very long time...like an ai general....

ive been thinking.... we are missing an important unit in this game.... a cav unit to fight other cav... the yari cav used to fill this role..... currently.... there isnt a single cav with a cav att/def bonus... we need a cav that sucks really bad vs ground troops...but will eat lancers for breakfast.... i think this would bring balance back into mtw and would fix the cav problem once and for all.

Puzz3D
12-27-2002, 22:55
Paolai and Cheetah,

All you're saying is that better unit management wins which is what's supposed to happen. I've see many Spanish armies with lancers go down to defeat. Different players have different abilities to control multiple units, but I would say that the cav has the initiative. You can't exactly go chasing cav with infantry, and the faster cav can disengage and chase down any inf that routs. If you don't like the lancer, then you will have to ban it from your games, ban the Spanish faction or play early era with it's ineffective ranged units because CA is not going to change the game at this point, and with the add-on you'll have even more unbalanced units to complain about.


CapeFear,

The issue of an anti-cav cavalry unit was already raised here on the forum with CA, and they said no to it.

Cheetah
12-27-2002, 23:17
Yuuki, all I wanted to point out is that a 1v1 test may not be appropriate http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif as you said the initiative is with the cav player.

BTW, there is a four-legged unit that can eat lancers for breakfast http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

Paolai
12-28-2002, 01:24
Yes Puzz,
I know that CA will not change game stats, and personaly I dont like to ban some factions from my games. As I said you, if my opponent choose Spanish, I choose Spanish (lancers vs lancers)...if Byz, I choose Byz (Byz inf vs Byz inf)

Magyar Khan
12-28-2002, 01:30
well we perhaps better agree that we will never agree on what to chance, and hence what the heck, teh devs wont chance it either.

lets conclude

archery sucks
some combat units are overpowered
some combatbonusses are weird and may dominate games like the routbug did.

new software, 2 steps forward one step back.

what we learned as well is that 100+ units dont add depth, just confusion and keeps us busy for a while.

i hope CA will in next version add more depth to the tactical battles, more units, ambushes, fire&smoke, mounting dismounting, supplywagons, barricades and onlien campaignig

Puzz3D
12-28-2002, 07:26
Paolai,

I haven't had to take that step myself of choosing Spanish vs Spanish or Byz vs Byz, but those two factions are very hard to beat. Since I host a lot, I have to choose first, and the joiners can change faction after I hit accept. So, if I can't compete against the Spanish or Byz, I'll have to use them all the time or make a rule against them. I already don't play late to avoid the handgunner which to me is far worse than the lancer, and I don't usually play early because the ranged units are so weak that it's basically an infantry rush game. So far, I haven't had to make any rules to govern the game, but I point out that you can get a better balanced game by making rules or simply agreeing to use the same factions.


Cheetah,

I think the test is valid. The lancer can be defeated by less costly spears if the spears are handled correctly. By this, I mean if the lancer presses the attack. That's all I'm trying to say. You can't stop the lancer from disengaging from a single spear unit.

If a player can't handle spears properly or doesn't have enough anti-cav units, then lancers will run roughshod over him. Can you go charging around the battlefield with spears attacking a lancer army which is playing cat and mouse with you? Of course not. As far as I'm concerned, anyone who takes a cav heavy army should assume the offensive. If someone takes a cav heavy army and camps, then I'll withdraw and we can agree to stay out of each others games.


Magyar,

I hope CA changes the method they use to balance the game to something that works closer to 5% error, and that includes ranged units. Balancing units and factions to 20% error isn't really good enough to get away from the "army selection game" or the "faction selection game". The only reason we see the variety of units in use we currently do is that many players don't know what to pick. Once you know the units, most of them are not useful.

Postino
12-28-2002, 10:00
oh christ, 5 pages of whine whine, moan moan. granted there valid points on both sides, but if the spainyards didnt have lancers then everybody would be harping on the goths of italy and germany in late.

i tried my charge army with both spain and germany, and it didnt work as well with byz(heh, nothing works as well as byz.). in fact, it got routed with spain(but they came back thanks to the diligent and wonderful Bear_Kuma).

they ARE a pain in the buentuaux to kill/rout, but deal with it. thats what this game is all about, dealing with it. no plan works past the first order to engage and no thing is failsafe.

say we fix the lancers and byz inf. then it will be janissary heavies and goths. then boyars and billmen. then.....

STOP IT http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/angry.gif

FasT
12-28-2002, 10:04
Quote[/b] (Puzz3D @ Dec. 28 2002,00:26)] The only reason we see the variety of units in use we currently do is that many players don't know what to pick. Once you know the units, most of them are not useful.
PuZZ.......i already know which most of the strongest units r and so do many other plyers.
Yet im usin the weak factions first,why use the strong factions???
My Khan has pointed out many a time to increase skill make it harder on urself.Yes against the top plyers it will be very hard to beat them,but it can be done in the right hands..I take this game as a challenge..fun...friends...clan games..
What we dont want to see if all lancers etc and same faction http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif I can honestly say i never have used a lancer yet http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mecry.gif Not got onto the factions that use them yet.
What must be done is we adapt and find more ways of beatin them..Thats the challenge
Most ppl dont like to lose so newbies etc read these threads,and say hey ill use lancers they too strong.I will win more games..Same goes for the Byzantine Infantry.So they take them.
Thats life http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/pat.gif

AMPage
12-28-2002, 12:04
What do some of these people mean when they say all lancers? Do they mean the spanish cav unit named lancers or any cav unit with a lance? Hmmm weird...

I never knew you had to take spanish to beat spanish and byz to beat byz. Atleast i never had to? It's only hard for a few certain factions to stop an all cav army, since they don't have a fast cav killer unit. And the byz inf aren't that hard to beat cause of there low moral. So, it would be nice for every faction to have an uberunit and a balance of counter units for all, but that's not gonna happen so we gotta live with it.

It also depends what amount of florins you use. Higher the florins the harder it is for all cav armies to win and byz inf are harder to rout when upgraded to v4, making there 100 unit size even more deadly. Some people like 99999, 20k, 15k, 12k, 8k, 5k...etc which units become more effective or less, as the florins decrease/increase. It would be nice i think to have a balance of florins something like 10k and have different moral systems like i posted before and magy put it into better detail.

I agree with yuuki that if someone has an all cav army they should be on the offesive more, so there isn't to much cat and mouse going on. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

I agree that archers aren't worth taking since they don't kill enough, not even in eraly era are the worth it. I would like to see archers/cav archers kill more in there shots thought, not have more ammo.

And of course we have all these unbalances cause all they did was take the sp units and dump them into mp without any changes in units. The same they did with stw and mi/we, that's why we are always here disscusin this and that about unit balances. Like anything real big is gonna change... we can only dream. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif

BomilkarDate
12-28-2002, 12:11
I agree with Fast on his point about adaption. Barneys were a big problem for me, I lost many games to them, but now I eat Barneys for breakfast (unless they are lead by a skilled player). They byz inf is very strong, but after some games lost to them we found there weaknesses and after a lot of games, we found counters. The same applies to heavy cav. Some guys think the whole cav is overpowered, others think only heavy cav and some believe only lancers are. I never had real trouble with lancers so far. But if I should get, I ll adapt and change the situation to my favour. As it happened against Barney.

In my eyes this is the strong point of 100 units. A game with 100 units is sure to be inbalanced. But if you have one uberunit, you have 99 possible counters. 60 are crap. 30 still lose. 6 give a good fight or can hold the enemy and 2-3 prove to be uberuniteaters.

Enough words lost for now

ELITEofBomilkar

Paolai
12-28-2002, 12:58
AMP,
for Lancers I mean the Spanish unit cav called "Lancers", instead for spearmen, I mean all the units with spear (order seargent spearmen and so on)....the amount of florins I am talking about is 10.000/15.000, no more not less, High Era. I know that you dont need a Lancer unit to beat a Lancer unit same for Byz inf, thats why you are stronger than me.
I am agree with you when you say that every factions need an uberunit, but I think (personal opinion) that there are only 2 factions with "super unit": Spanish and Byz.

I like this game...its clear, I am playing this game, if I dislike it I could play with another game, I only think that this game could be really better if....

FasT
12-28-2002, 13:08
Life is such that ppl will always find weakness in systems/programs...
AMP i have great respect for u as u do much online and here @ the ORG..But ur r one of few who knows the game inside out and can xploit MTW to it full.U know what ur doin ,when ur doin it.And why u pick those units..heheh most of the time i guess http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif

What we need to happen is have counter threads...this would be much more useful and make the game more enjoyable.
PPL like AMP/Kocmoc and many other ppl who know and feel the game....How to counter these???Hard i know but can be done

We know CA isnt goin to change them so lets counter them...
So AMP and others why dont share ur idea's @ countering them???
This thread could go on for years and we still have the same lancer unit/spanish http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/argue.gif

AMPage
12-28-2002, 13:47
Well some people would say all lancers and really mean the 16 units named lancers from the spanish. I couldn't figure out why they would say that when you lose florins buying more then 4 of the same unit. I had someone before say to me in a game "why do you have 16 lancers, that's not very cost effiecient" and all i had was 16 cav units, but 4 different types. Strange people i must say...

That's one problem with most complaining, is they don't even know what's going on in the game. Just to many clueless players saying things which they haven't any clue.

It wouldn't be hard or take that long to balance 100 units, if you have some fast system for balancing units, like i've posted in a different topic. A quick example: it displays 8 mini screens or more and has units in each matched up vs one another. You can changed the stats without have to reset or restart it, you can simply add units or take away as you please. When you're testing a unit/combination of units in the screens, you can set formations/hill adv and fast forward for the result. With this you could balance units really fast.

Fast, it's not that hard to come up with counters at all. I'm not very smart and find it pretty easy coming up with counters..well not always easy. It just takes common sense. A quick and common sense easy way to counter a all cav army would be using spears to block and havin a fast cav killer unit to send in. You can drag your spears in a thin line if you need to, to stop the cav charge. The only problem is that some factions don't have units which knock out cav fast.

FasT
12-28-2002, 14:32
But now we can argue that spears still arent effective enuf against cav http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif These unit hold well,but dont kill cav fast enuf..
Ok i use my brains then use spears or Armour piercing units to kill them..OR hold with spears and flank with another cav or another unit.

But what about when they spread on loose formation in a couple of lines deep? Now this im not sure about yet??? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif

Puzz3D
12-28-2002, 16:25
Fast,

What you say about not using Spanish or Byz is why I don't use them. I don't want to contribute to the trend of using those two factions exclusively. I do ok with my French against both of them, but I've developed a more defensive style of play to make it work. It took a long time and many games to find something that worked, but you have to play enough to know what your opponent is likely to take because there is no single army that can defeat all others. It may be possible to find a more offensive counter army against Spanish and Byz, but I think that would be harder because you have to somehow shield the weakness of having less cost effective offensive units.

I tried Russians, but I can't make them work for me against any of the Christian factions. To get away from the heavy factions, I sometimes play desert battles, but many players mistakenly bring heavily armored units to the desert even when I warn them before faction selection.

What I was looking for in the game was an interplay between ranged, swords, spears and cav with enough time to make flanking maneuvers and without easy routing (admittedly, archers don't play a role since they are too weak). If you want to use artillery, then the catapult is avaliable and is cost effective. I think you can get that interplay at 15K in high era, but it is too bad that the game isn't balanced over a wider choice of options and that there are not more options available. I mean if the company isn't going to balance the game, then at least put in enough options for the host to modify ammo, fatigue and morale. Custom stats are possible which is great, but getting players to use a custom stat is very difficult.

I don't care for the capability to put units in extremely wide formations because it tends to reduce the maneuvering to the flank aspect of the game, and it effectively makes the battlefield smaller. There's no question that the game could have been better with more playtesting by CA.

Paolai
12-28-2002, 17:58
no no....I was not talking about 16 Lancers or 16 Byz infatries, I was talking about an army "based" on Lancers or Byz infatries, that it is hard to beat (my opinion): 4 lancers 2 Santiago 3 spears and some other knights is an army really hard to beat (for my skill).

baz
12-28-2002, 18:34
hopefully the devs are reading these points for the add-on...we can wish...

knight yellow no offence but am i right in saying that you play withe spqr guys? 999999999999 battles?

lancers are too good i think we all agree, but did anyone fight a lancer in the desert with a camel?

mtw has thrown in a whole load of new variables, i think there will be many more loopholes to come on our travels, all i can suggest is that CA give some of us access to the add-on a little early so we can test it and put our input forward to be considered...not likely unfortunately

an alternative is one Magy has suggested, Sliders, maybe they could be effective for certain variables, like the one we currently have for unit size...there could be many catergories that could help calibrate a whole range of parameters:

fatique?
spears bonus vs cav?
morale?
archer stats?
arlelaster stats?

all the things we talked about and im sure many more that will arise could be solved by this.

you think it could work? we would need to outline variables that would most effect general gameplay, that is behond my knowledge but im sure some of you could have a good idea? if we dont ask we wont get??

barry

AMPage
12-28-2002, 20:02
Fast, it dosn't matter how long the lines are with the cav, cause spears stop the cav charge bouns. In fact it is easier to stop cav in long thin lines loose or not.

Paolai, who likes easy fights anyway? hehe

Oh well, we'll just have to wait for the next total war to have a better balance and multiplayer, which i think Roman:TW will have just that. If they are making one. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

FasT
12-28-2002, 20:24
k thnxs..isnt it vikings next?

Crandaeolon
12-28-2002, 22:14
Quote[/b] ]Oh well, we'll just have to wait for the next total war to have a better balance and multiplayer

Why next Total War? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif There are many promising games in the works, too many to list here. (And I don't want to sound like an advertisement anyway. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif)

I'm sticking with Medieval only for as long as it remains the best large-scale real-time battle game. If some game other than a Total War steals the crown, I'll happily turn coat. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

CBR
12-28-2002, 22:25
And where is that replay Cran?? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wacko.gif

CBR

Crandaeolon
12-28-2002, 22:42
Patience

Endure, and in enduring, grow strong

I'm not home yet... and tomorrow I shall travel hundreds of kilometers in a freezing blizzard, fight angry truckers, mutant squirrels and polar bears with a kitchen knife, suffer hunger, thirst and crushing fatigue... just to mail you that replay http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mad.gif

Ahem... back to the topic for a bit. I asked some time ago in this some thread how the "morale circles" work, but didn't get an answer other than "differently than in Shogun."

So, is the size and/or shape of the circle dependant on formation? I know it's centered on the unit's command flag, but what else?

Puzz3D
12-29-2002, 00:45
Cran,

The morale circles are the same as STW. They are about 75 meters (i. e. 1.8 tiles = 3600 range) in radius from the center of the unit.

Crandaeolon
12-29-2002, 01:13
And they do not change shape with the formation? They're always exact circles and their size doesn't vary?

And what's the basis for so many people believing that the morale influence zones work differently from Shogun?

"Quest-shuns Quest-shuns Do not shun the questions"

(Quick trivia: which computer game have I been hinting at in this and the previous post? Other than MTW or Shog, of course http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif)