PDA

View Full Version : Creative Assembly Well-balanced-army = Invincible army ???



Cheetah
12-24-2002, 19:56
Here we go ...

Well, first about the WBA. It is an army that consists of all the basic unit types, that is: spear, sword, ranged and cavalry. The classic WBA is 4 spears, 4 swords, 4 ranged and 4 cavs. Of course, there can be countless variations, the important thing is that all the basic unit types should be represented.

So, what do you expect from a WBA? (given equal skills) Do you expect to win against other possible army types (rush armies, spear amries, ranged armies, etc) on most occasion, or do you think that there can be army types that can defeat the WBA in a consistent manner? If, so what do you think: is this a bug or a feature? Should we (someone http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif) patch the issue, ban the "uberunits", etc.; or should we accept that the WBA is not an "invincible army", and that the fact that the WBA has one or more counter armies is not a "game balance issue" that should be corrected.

AMPage
12-24-2002, 21:31
A WBA should and i think dose have a 50/50 chance of beating an unbalanced army. There is no invincible army that beats all, which WBA should not be able to do and i don't think we should ban unberunits. Since we have factions in mtw each faction should have atleast 1 uberunit to make that faction worth picking.

Crandaeolon
12-24-2002, 21:57
For me, the balanced army is clearly the best choice. I vary the setup often but usually take all troop types. Even half-cav or half-missile work well, but I wouldn't take any "all-something" into a serious contest. Not yet, at least. I need to play a few games with Amp or Polar... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

IMHO the balanced army should, in theory, be superior on a "normal" arid or green map that has gently rolling terrain and little patches of forest. Specialist armies should be able to best the balanced army in special conditions; like cavalry on steppes or missile troops on steep hills. (Cavalry vs 4x4 on steppes... check, missile vs 4x4 on hills... can almost never win.)

LordTed
12-25-2002, 01:22
I thought i had a balanced army then i met 600 biz inf then my centre fell like a stack of shits.

Krasturak
12-25-2002, 07:58
Gah

If the army is 'well-balanced', doesn't that mean by definition that it is the most effective?

What exactly is meant by 'well-balanced' then?

If you mean an equal measure of each troop type, do you mean by number of units or by number of men?

In any case, Krast votes 'Gah' since the idea of forming just one army type strikes Krast as a boring plan.

Krast suggests: choose army to fit with allies and with plan and with terrain and with enemy. Then well-balanced wagons will be needed to haul away the booty, forget army.

Gah

Cheetah
12-26-2002, 19:44
Quote[/b] (Krasturak @ Dec. 25 2002,00:58)]Gah

If the army is 'well-balanced', doesn't that mean by definition that it is the most effective?

Gah

this is the question http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif Well, sure back in STW/MI the WBA was the most effective army, under almost all conditions. So, it was possible to pick the same army again and again without considering the possible army of your opponent. Here in MTW, imho, there are at least two armies that can beat a WBA consistently, so now you have to think ahead and try to outwit your opponent at the army selection stage and not just on the battlefield. Still, the WBA is the best choice on average, but it is not unbeatable.

Magyar Khan
12-27-2002, 18:18
if well balenced means 5 combat cav 8 combat inf and 3 arbalesters than maybe yes.

if well balanced means a mix like in the old shog days with around 7 shooters than no

Krasturak
12-28-2002, 02:58
Good point, Magy.

If only they had made the guns stronger ...

Puzz3D
12-28-2002, 17:22
To me balanced army means it contains more than just token (meaning 1) elements of ranged, swords, spears/polearms and cav. The 8 gun/8 monk armies of STW were not balanced by my definition. It was widely used and viable because monks beat swords, spears and cav. From there CA went to WE/MI where guns were 5x stronger than in STW. Even after the v102 patch, a gun master like Krast could field very effective 10 gun armies. I find MTW better than the other two games because an army with 4 cav, 4 arbs, 4 spears and 4 swords is effective, and you can vary that quite a bit and remain effective.

Sjakihata
12-28-2002, 18:26
A well balanced army, must be an army capable of defeating the enemy. Hence, yes it will always win, otherwise it should not be well and balanced.

But I do not think such a thing (WBA) exists. It depends on the enemy, the terrain, and yourself. The army is merely an instrument used to out maneouver the enemy.

I have beaten an all cav army, I have beaten people with me commanding such an army. The point is that every army are unique, even tho u select the same. The terrain, your opponent are always slightly different. More correct would be then, to say that you cannot predict the outcome precicely, even many are are trying to do it.

So, my answer was no such thing as WBA. Tho I understand what you mean by it, that it having equal (or almost) amounts of different units. But then again, where is the artellery, it shoul be in a balanced MTW army as well.

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

Dionysus9
12-30-2002, 23:08
Ok, I am the lone voter for "well balanced always wins."

I am making some assumptions here. They are: Both players are exactly equal in skill level and all other game elements are equal (florins, terrain, weather, etc). The only difference between these two players is that one has a WBA and the other has a lopsided army--i.e. it is heavier on one type of unit than a WBA. (i.e. 6 spears instead of 4, 6 swords instead of 4, etc.)

So basically, in a matchup where everything is equal except
one player has taken a lopsided army, I think-- IDEALLY SPEAKING-- the WBA should win. Why? Well, think of it this way-- in a rock/scissors/paper system, taking all paper is a weakness. Sure it will devour the enemy's rocks, but the enemy didnt take many rocks because he took a WBA.

Lets say a WBA is 2 rocks, 2 scissors, and 2 paper.
I take a WBA, you take a lopsided army--lets say 4 paper 1 rock and 1 scissor.

First thing I need to do is protect my rocks. So I put them behind my paper and scissors. Even if you push your 4 paper at me, I can respond with 2 scissors and 2 papers--for a win. If you send your rock and scissors at me, I respond with 2 rocks--for a win.

Since we are equally skilled a rush shouldnt phase me. I should be able to tie up your 4 papers with 2 scissors and 2 papers. I should be able to tie up your one rock with one of my rocks, and also the same with our scissors. That leaves me with 1 rock and 1 scissor against your 2 remaining papers....

Your paper will beat my rock, but my scissor will beat your paper. All other units fight to the death, I assume (2 paper vs. 2 paper, etc.). In the end, there will be my one remaining scissor vs. your one remaining paper. Therefore, I should win.

I hope you can see the Ideal I am striving for here. Taking an imbalanced army SHOULD be a weakness if the game is balanced properly. If the game is not balanced properly then there will be advantages to taking all cav for example.

Currently, a balanced army works most of the time...it should work all of the time imho.

longjohn2
01-01-2003, 01:04
To me the fascination of ancient and medieval warfare has always been the wide variety of armies that it is possible to use, and the different tactics that you have to adopt with, and against each type. With a balanced army, you can have a fair chance against any army, and there is no combination that is your particular nemesis. However, if a balanced army were always better than an unbalanced one, then much of the variety of the game would be lost.

Magyar Khan
01-01-2003, 12:38
try 2 arba 8 combat inf and 6 combat cav

i dont consider this to be well balanced

shooters are reduced to one type arba, so in general twm provides less than mi did.

think of the kensai what u want but the guys who played in teh online campaign know what tactical stuff they added.

and ofcourse dont forget the usefull horsearcher in mi which added the spice to most battles.

realisim may be fun, until it disturbs gameplay than it should be subjective to it.

Kas
01-01-2003, 14:53
I like an all purpose army, it's a WBA (I think)

My "standard" byzantine army (high, 15k)looks like this:

1 Byz inf V4(general)
4 Arbs V1 A1(or 3 Arbs + 1 Catapult V0)
3 Byz inf V3
3 Spears V3
2 Varangs V2
3 Pronoiai V2(or 2 + 1 Kataphraktoi)

On specific maps, or against specific players I use other combinations.

I mostly play as attacker and I prefer 3v3 games, just because I love teamplay.

I win some...I lose some http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif

Kas http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

Magyar Khan
01-02-2003, 03:34
APA is all purpose army, its the first thing young wolves get to do... find your all purpose army. but with these factions and misbalances its hard to find one in mtw.

Kocmoc
01-02-2003, 12:51
i red all ur posts, and if we start to speak about balanced armys, well.....i always did love balanced armys. But how u can speak about BA if the whole game isnt balanced?

mag hit the nail on the head, there is just 1 realy good shooter but in this game we have much more. so some guys use cavarcher or cavcross or longbows, but they know that this isnt the strong shooter.
lets face it, we have about 100 units but u can easy reduce it to 10 till 16 mainunits wich are used (i count chiv knight and teutonic knight as 1 knight, just example)

i use an army with 7 different units and 2 different shooters, imo this is "balanced" (in this unbalanced game).
and i win more than 95% of my games. in 1v1 this army is still unbeaten.

we never will see a 100% balance in this game, but what we see now hurts my heart, as i know what this game could be.
there are so many nice units wich are useless, as they are to weak or too expensiv. this whole game is very bad "balanced", there are units wich have same stats, but u have them both why not make this units different? like 1 faster other slower with more armour.....something like this.

where are the archers?

i did longtime test with different units and counted the kills and so on, its not possible to make units like cavarcher worth the money, just if u play games with more than 25k each player, than u can reach it.

again at this point, where are the hills? hillbonuss istn present

but back to the topic http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

imo a balanced army can be succesfull, it depends on the player, i think its more fun to controll many different units, as u need to move them cafull to counter the enemy units. Its a art to have the correct unit on the correct place at the correct time to counter the enemy unit.


koc

Nobunaga0611
01-06-2003, 08:46
I think the player who executes the best should have the greatest chance of winning, no matter what army is picked (unless they pick peasants, thats just not gonna work http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif ). Its too bad that if you pick 4 cav, 4 missles, 4 spears, and 4 swords, you're most likely not going to win against an all cav army, but I guess it makes sense. True, its not impossible, but everyone pretty much knows the arguments I could make either way. That's usually why I pick a semi-balanced army, or maybe one thats not balanced at all, depending on which factions my opponents choose.

DthB4Dishonor
01-07-2003, 02:43
Salute Everyone,

Well IMHO, WBA can win 50% of the time also. Many armies are semi balanced in that you wish to draw the enemy into a certain kind of battle.

For instance if I have 4pav arbs, 2arbs, 4orderfoot, 2chiv sergeants, 1 alan, 3chiv knights (including general). If I was going against a balanced army I would try to avoid engaging and keep it range battle and inflict damage on enemy inf and most expensive units. I wouldnt really want to engage till my range units only have about 1/3 their ammo left.

Also if I had 8 heavy cav and rest were mix of spear and shock units I would attempt to engage in h2h as quickly as possible and minimize damage that could be done to me by enemy range units.
So it depends on who can impose there style on the other. Its similar to a boxing question. What wins the power punching slugger or the quick boxer counter puncher. It depends on who can impose there style on the other. If the puncher can close the gap and make it a brawl then most likely he'll win. If the faster boxer/counter puncher makes it a boxing match and keeps it in center of the ring and then he will likely pick the brawler apart slowly. Just look at Tyson vs Lenox Lewis.

The very good and great players tend to always impose there will and style on others. Well this is just MHO.

RTKPaul

Dionysus9
01-11-2003, 00:43
Well, regardless of whether a WBA should always win, or not, I prefer to use a balanced army because it keeps my options open.

If you have no cav and no ranged units your options are severely restricted. I like to have plenty of cav, plenty of arbs, and plenty of infantry so I can respond to threats and opportunities as they arise.

Something else-- in a 4v4, WBA's are more important because there are more threats and more opportunities. There are more enemy units, and more types of enemy units....you need to be flexible in a 4v4--IMHO.

Imhotep.....IMHOTEP...

Gah, sorry.

Puzz3D
01-12-2003, 18:12
Well one game balance issue that should be corrected is the weak archers. In early era you don't need archers, and IMO it's better not to take any ranged in early era. Mostly I think this is an issue of lack of ammo.

Nobody tries harder than I do to use spears in this game. Spears and pikes are primarily defensive units, and defensive units must stand and fight for a fairly long time to be useful. Spears don't stand long enough and I think this is a morale issue since the combat stats look ok. Right now you have to outfit your army with high morale units and that impacts how balanced you can make it.

Both of these things undermine the effectiveness of the WBA.

Magyar Khan
01-12-2003, 18:39
increased reload time and ammo for archery dont bring us teh long sSTMO shootouts and makes it plausible archery appear on teh board...

Acronym
01-17-2003, 23:56
It's funny when I play against someone with all spears or all cavs. I wonder if they think they have a chance or just messin around.

One thing that works is having about 6-7 pavis arb's, 3-4 cavs, the rest infantry. If you can hold your line without getting flanked the enemy will get showered in missles.

Knight_Yellow
01-18-2003, 00:02
well i play a vry unbalanced army all the time although it vary's greatly and i dont meean to brag but when i get going i rack up a 1000 kills usualy.

PS. my army is all inf except for maybe a few light cav.

Skomatth
01-18-2003, 20:26
Wouldn't it be interesting to reduce the game to just several types of units? (Even though it already is to a point).

For example:
Heavy cav- chivalric knights
Light cav- alan mercenary
Defensive spears- order foot
Offensive spears- billmem
swords(both offensive and defensive by nature)- cmaa
archers-long bows
horse archers

This way knowledge of specific units abilities could be used more easily because it limits the number of possible match-ups. I never played shogun online but from what I've heard, using this set up would give mtw "deeper tactics" that shogun suposedly has. There would be a lot of different combos of unit selection and formation with just these units, but then again it would reduce some variety.

Acronym
01-18-2003, 23:04
Wouldn't it be interesting to reduce the game to just several types of units? (Even though it already is to a point).

Dissagree. Even if it did add some tactical depth, it would probably reduce the replayability. I like at least having 20 or so different units to choose from, incase I want to adjust my strategy at all.

Actually I think more units adds more tactics and depth to gameplay. If someone has a turk army in the desert I gotta go against, then I'm gonna need some light armor, and heavy.

And think about just cav alone. If somone has a lot of heavy cav, and a little light, and I got lots of light and little heavy, then I'm gonna have to manuever much more than he does, while he can pretty much get away with head of cav charges to other cav. I think a diversified force gives more options for different situations. Instead of just offensive and defensive swords, we need all the in-between units with certain amounts of armor and valor just to adjust for different tactics.

LittleGrizzly
01-20-2003, 15:45
i think there should be a stantard 8 inf 8 cav and 4 shooters (high period) and then u just add each factions special unit around that unit to give each faction roughly 25 units (obviously depends on faction)