Lame cav tactic being employed [Archive]

Wishazu

03-25-2005, 09:20

ive noticed something thats very worrying this last week. More and more players online seem to be employing this lame cav spam rush army. whenever i host a game i allways set the denari limit to 10k per player, so in a 2v2 thats 20k per team. in a few games ive played 1 enemy player has picked an army consisting purely of cav, now this wouldnt really bother me if they were playing as Scythia, parthia or armenia, proper cav civs, but people are doing it with any civ. often they group the whole army into 1 mass wedge by deploying their units on top of each other. they then simply charge. ive seen how this lame tactic can destroy an army, however me and a clanmate spent a few hours online practicing to defeat it and im happy to say weve never been beaten by a player using this tactic. Im just worried that this seems to be the trend at the moment, will rome total war just become mass rushing? has anyone else encountered this?

Swoosh So

03-25-2005, 10:18

Older totalwar games gave unit penalties for being stcked on top of each other rome actually encourages it, its also possible to merge your phalanx into 1 solid wall no gaps whatsoever... btw beware certain clans that say 5max then take the factions where its still possible to get cav spam aries even with 5max lmao, and they say before game 5 max to avoid cav spam ;)

Swoosh So

03-25-2005, 10:21

amp said to me ages ago in sp campaigns he was just cav spamming the ai and winning no problem spam 1 unit spam the next rinse repeat... how sad it is that this was allowed to happen, i think units in previous totalwar games got morale penalties for being all jumbled up or at least combat penalties.

jerby

03-25-2005, 14:01

a morale penalty shoudl be logical for being pushed at each other. like happened at cannae, almost no romans could lift up their sword to strike, people were dying straigth up: there's was no room to fall to the ground!

Beefy

03-25-2005, 15:22

yeh it can be annoying, i gave it a go though and it does work. there needs to be something stopping it especially with cav, infantry isnt such a problem.

You need to tell me that Tactic Wish! put it on the Tn forums, Ta

Dutch_guy

03-25-2005, 16:51

god I hate that tactic, especially if it consist of cataphracts, I really hate that
it's so disapointing when you try to built a BALANCED army, and then get f***** by an all cavalry army...

Orda Khan

03-25-2005, 17:16

You could always just pull the plug on the battle, maybe they will get the message

.....Orda

Lord Preston

03-25-2005, 17:27

yup, i just leave or kick/end the game...

i have a no all cav armies rule in my games

if i wanted to see loads of horses i'd go to a horse race... not a battle field.

Shambles

03-25-2005, 17:50

AquaLurker

03-25-2005, 17:55

Yep that is the trend now, some clan games rules about max five or four actually means max 4 of the units choice (eg. max 4 cataphracts, but still can take another 4 companions or other cav) not type, but there are some clan who are wise enough to state the maximum 'type' of units eg. cav, inf(rarely) or archers that you are allowed to bring into the game. But how should horse archers be catogorised?

Best way to play this game in a way where everyone can enjoy it is by stating the rules clearly and agree upon them first before you start the game.
So far, most of the clans I had played with are very clear on stating their game rules. Bad mannered players and sore losers (especially obnoxious cocky kids) are the ones that we need to worry about lol. ~D

Personnally I like games without onagers because it is unrealistic and the damage effect on field battle is over powered. But that's me. ~:)

1dread1lahll

03-25-2005, 18:05

Lol

Crandaeolon

03-25-2005, 19:49

Yeah, those cav spam blobs are quite common these days. Not very difficult to defeat, even though they're better now than equivalent tactics in MTW, which suffered from the "sandwiched" penalty. Using the blobs takes very little skill for its relative effectiveness, but OTOH the spammer can't get much "better" at the spam tactic either, so the spammer's performance will hit a ceiling sooner rather than later.

And onagers... they're an uncertain gamble at best and an utter waste of denarii at worst if you're playing at sensible denarii levels (around 10k.) ~;p

Rodion Romanovich

03-25-2005, 20:58

Cavalry spam is easily defeated. Just put 3 phalanx unit next to each other and take the charge, or put two phalanx units behind each other. Then try to send in own cav and infs to enemy's flank. Besides, the more densely they pack their cavs, the more of them you get in each onager shot, if you've brought onagers (which I almost always do unless it's a no art server). I used to pack my cavs densely before, but often it's more effective to not do that, as you're more easily surrounded this way.

But I'm also disappointed that there's no penalty for packing units - this way they ALL get the charge bonus, instead of, more realistically, only giving charge bonus to the first unit.

Aelwyn

03-25-2005, 21:09

Now a good palyer would beat them in to the ground give em back there horse shoes and tell em, thats a dumb tactick Go think about Why it sux, and come back when you can command a real army.

But a poor looser who cant play would plug and whine about not being able to defeat a simple army of horses. :charge:

personaly i cant see cavalry running up hill in to a wall of spikes whilst big ass catapults rain rocks down on them and with arrows pinging in to there eye balls.

Put this type of cav spam army in the hands of a good player, and I don't care what army you have, you are at a disadvantage. I have some friends that I'll admit play with armies such as this. They take a max of 5 usually, but end up taking about 15 cavs, all of which are combat-worthy. Then, line them up in about 4 ranks deep, 3 rows all tight together, and just demolish one part of the enemy after another, barely losing any cavs.

The reason this works so well imo is the new dynamic of RTW. If you rush cavs at cavs, and both units survive the initial charge, then they move back and forth against each other, in and out. They don't just stand there and fight like they would in MTW. So, if you mass cavs together, these 'gaps' that units would end up moving through...and thus surviving, are all closed up. So since the charge bonus on many cavs is so high, a solid block of cavs filling with no gaps for units to 'survive' in will completely wipe out units just on the charge. The 3-4 men that survive will run, and the cav block is on to its next target.

I hate that its basically come to that. But honestly I've done some things similar to avoid getting frustrated and quitting. What I'll do is just take maybe 6 heavy cavs, and move them all as one group, not necessarily on top of each other, but in a line. If I am playing at a high enough level, I can block this cav mass long enough with those 6 cavs to flank it and hopefully destroy some units before my 6 cavs rout.

Its pretty sad that it has to work that way though. And, if you don't have good allies, and you get doubled (or in my case a few times tripled) with 2 cav spam armies, you have no chance whatsoever. I pointed this out on the NET, in a thread, but I think it went unnoticed.

Shambles

03-25-2005, 21:22

I really beleve that you can defeat them qute easily with correct usage of your people,
And i understand how it can be frustrating,

But the only way you can get them to stop using this type of attack is to show them that its easily beaten and they shoud try using some skill instead,

I doubt a good player would Be happy to use such under handed tacktics,
but having said that, I doubt that its much difrent to the way the mongolians worked,

Red Harvest

03-25-2005, 23:21

So MP finally discovered the cav snowball rush? :charge: The AI taught it to me... Didn't take me long to figure out how to do the same...and then some. The vanilla game has some major balance problems. Many of the previous subtleties of the TW engines just aren't there.

It is not good if you have to use equally lame infantry tactics to beat the cav spamming. Better to set "house rules" to limit cav.

The problems with the cav charge are becoming more apparent now...the charging unit's defense is as important if not more important than its base attack and charge values. And the key to cav is not 1vs1 matchups, but the 2 vs 1 or 3 vs. 1 that fast cavalry can produce.

Hope CA eventually addresses this.

Puzz3D

03-26-2005, 00:04

Don't bank on it being addressed Red. All of the refinements in the MTW battle engine were made by LongJohn. Have you seen him around in the last nine months? I haven't.

1dread1lahll

03-26-2005, 01:17

The absence of developers that care about the game as a realistic tactical simulation and its end users in multi-player says it all. No attention to playability at all, this is why i've tossed my disk.

Shambles

03-26-2005, 05:54

Shogun Shogun shogun :).

Craterus

03-26-2005, 11:51

Dutch_guy

03-26-2005, 14:27

i'm about to start playing RTW online so thanks for the tip about these cav spammers...

how do i start to play online... i don't know where to find the program
do you have to pay to play online? :help: :help: :help:

you can use gamespy arcade , although you can play perfectley well without that, just enter your cd key and chose a name , and you can start multiplayer
no special programms are required and it's all free, no money involved.

Loinnreach

03-26-2005, 14:46

People, mod RTW vanilla...

Crandaeolon

03-26-2005, 14:46

I've had little problems defeating cav blobs with quite normal tactics... phalanx inf are a decent means to stop the blob, so are chariots if you want a more mobile solution. (Though chariots tend to rout quite fast if they hit the blob head-on...) Once the blob has stopped, hitting it from all sides with cav should make it rout and / or fight to the death (they get the "surrounded" morale penalty), with very few losses to the surrounding force. Timing this is not the easiest thing in the world, but it's doable consistently with a little practice.

Quality of cav is of course important... if there are 10 praetorian cavs in the blob, you'll need something like 2 units of chariots and 5-6 units of good cav to rout them - but it's actually considerably less than you'd need in a "normal" cav battle against a similar force.

The actual problem here is that cavs, in particular the elite ones, are just too good for their price. Elite cav (and inf) units are more cost-effective than lesser units, meaning that you'll get more raw combat points per denarii spent if you invest on elites. That's a SP design decision bleeding over to the MP side - in SP, elite units are "balanced" by the time and cost of climbing the tech tree, and once the player manages to make the necessary investments, he'll get a good bang for the buck out of the elite units. But in MP there are no such things as tech trees or upkeep costs...

Cheetah

03-26-2005, 16:06

One problem of course is the cost, yes, elite cavs are underpriced for MP, especially pretorians.

The other problem, and IMHO the bigger one, is with the game engine: that it allows you to squize your entire army into a room of one unit, and all the units can fight and all the units get the charge/pushing bonus. Thus you can have an "uberunit" with which you can rout any other "ordinary" unit one by one with ease.
Someone already said it in some of the previous posts: in MTW if you bunched up your cavs only the first 3/4 unit fought, the rest was just standing there contributing neither to the pushing nor to the fight. Thus it was possible to stop the rush with 4/5 units and flank with the rest. the bunched up units got morale penalties being flanked, end of story.
Here in RTW all units in the snowball are fighting and what is more important all units are pushing. Thus, this uberunit will knock down any "ordinary" unit with ease and by the time the flanker gets in position his first units already routed, which might start a chainrout on the flanker side, end of story.

Solution? IMHO there is no good solution, the problem is with the game engine: it is not a realistic physical simulation. In real life it is impossible to squize in so many cavs into so little room and that all of them fighting and that all of them pushing ...
That is why I am a bit sceptical about stats tweaking. It might be possible to give very (unrealsitically) high defense values to inf units so that they wont die when knocked over. However, (a) this might spoil the gameplay other ways, (b) this wont solve the problem itself (i.e. unrealistic game engine).

One simple, not perfect but still workable solution would be to play with relatively low denarii (10-12.5) and with a minimum of 8 melee inf rule.

Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe

03-26-2005, 16:16

Low denarii... You mean like 5000 / 8000 per army Cheetah? 10000 / 12500 is the higher end ~D

I have been spammed by equites and greek cavalry in 6000/ army game: it does not work as advertised here ~D

Louis,

Cheetah

03-26-2005, 16:50

I said "relatively low" ~;p

I have to admit I prefer 12.5k. I have no problem with elite cavs as such. The problem is when someone tries to win only by means of cav spamming and as you said it is possible even at "real low" denarii levels.

That is why I think that the simplest solution would be to put a max on cavs, or somewhat equivalently, to put a min on combat inf.

I know, some might argue that that such a rule would hurt some factions bad, like parthia or scythia who has either very weak or practically no combat infantry. Well, as I said there is no perfect solution, but to balance the situation somewhat, these factions have the best cavs.

Agravain of Orkney

03-26-2005, 17:33

Well is this "snowball" tactic limited to just cavs? I don't think so. If you cap number of cavs, what's to stop someone from stacking infantry to create infantry spam? Since numbers of cavs are limited, you could just use your cavs to block their cavs to prevent their cavs from flanking your infantry blob. The answer it seems, is to fix the game engine, and barring that, then in educating the community in tactics needed to counter the spam blob, so that the tactic becomes useless (except against the uninformed). Kind of reminds me of the "cav swipe" in MTW .......

Crandaeolon

03-26-2005, 19:36

Infantry blobs are common too, but they're less effective than cav blobs; they're smaller in size and thus more easily surrounded, they can't avoid phalanx walls by going around them like cav can, and they're much slower than cav blobs. Inf blobs get tired more easily. They're easier targets for missile units than cav blobs.

It's useful to remember the numbers when dealing with blobs. If there are 10 units of Praetorian cav in a blob, that's still 10 units of Praetorian cav, no matter how much space they take. You just can't expect to defeat or even hold 10 of the best cav units in the game with a couple of units of lesser cavalry, just like you wouldn't be able to do in a more open cav battle. A blob is not a single unit, therefore it can't be defeated with a single unit.

Yes, it's unrealistic and annoying that blobs don't get penalties, but they don't get any magical "blobby bonuses" either. The blob is not greater than the sum of its parts, quite the contrary - it's rather easy to surround it and reap the benefits of flanking and surrounding, which is why it can actually be defeated with less effort than a comparable "open" army, given equal generalship skills.

Blobs get used because they're easy to setup and control, and it takes more skill to defeat them than it takes to use them. It's this skill disparity that makes them "unfair", but the whole thing eventually balances out: once one has learnt how to deal with blobs, a blobbyist can't win against that player any more unless he refines his tactics. He might bring an archer blob to cover his inf blob and deploy a cav blob on each wing, and that sounds much more like proper tactics. Eventually, he'll use an army like the rest of us. ~;)

Having said that, it _is_ most disappointing that these kinds of tactics aren't actively discouraged by the engine. That leaves only the option of purging these newbie tendencies with pointed demonstrations about how blobbies suck. ~D

Shambles

03-26-2005, 19:57

it _is_ most disappointing that these kinds of tactics aren't actively discouraged by the engine. That leaves only the option of purging these newbie tendencies with pointed demonstrations about how blobbies suck. ~D

Now your getting it .. thats the spirit

:)

Orda Khan

03-26-2005, 20:38

Regardless of whether it can be defeated and whether or not this is easy, I still say the best thing is to pull the game. At the end of the day why bother? Just say bye bye

........Orda

Shambles

03-26-2005, 20:54

becous it proves to them that YOU cant defeat that stategy and Have no honour and ran away with your tail between your legs,

may not be what happend,
But is what they think

Orda Khan

03-26-2005, 21:22

And I give a sh*t what they think?

.......Orda

pariya

03-27-2005, 07:40

as for cav being packed over top of one another....... thats easy to beat so who cares.... as for spamming one unit... thats easy to beat so who cares....

u NEED 5 max
-without it parthian armies are way overpowered..... especially in 4v4 games were 1 player can get parthia and get like 10 camels cats and archers and then have his allies cover parthia with there inf... then parthia will rape anythign that comes into contact with it..... u NEED 5 max rules

without it
selic is overpowered
armenia is overpowered
parthia is overpowered
greek is overpowered
scythia is overpowered
and a few others

and its not just about cav
5 max prevents sumone from getting greek in a 3v3 or 4v4 game and getting loads of spears and using that for there inf.... then there allies getting loads of cav... ive seen it done before.... and it is cheap

5 max prevents so many things...... true it doesnt stop every cheap noob army out there but it sure does stop alot of them

pariya

03-27-2005, 07:41

orda khan do u play rtw?

i dont even recognize/have seen 3/4 of any of u on rtw

Wishazu

03-27-2005, 14:56

i havnt been defeated by one of these cav spammers yet, ive pretty much sorted a tactic as greece for winning on 10k and i dont need to alter my standard ballanced army. 2 units of spartans(1 is the gen) keep em in standard formation behind the phalanx line, they can then rush to support any weak or faltering spots. 2 units of armoured hoplites, keep em both on one flank to anchor it. 5 units of reg hoplites, these are your main hoplite line, deploy them together with no gaps in between and make em at least 4 ranks deep. 2 onagers on fire at will flame pots behind ur main line. 3 cretans on fire arrows, keep em on the flanks, then pull em in behind your line when the enemy approaches and finally 3 units of greek cav to pursue the enemy cav once its broken, or to flank it once they hit your line, or to draw em off on a wild goose chase whilst your cretans pump volley after volley into em. :)

pariya

03-27-2005, 17:35

Hello pariya...

The Org. tries to discourage members from posting comments that will cause offense to other members.

Oh... your signature exceeds the maximum size also, remove, replace or reduce it to 10 Kb max, thanks.

Rob.

Shambles

03-29-2005, 03:13

And I give a sh*t what they think?

.......Orda

Maby not but never the less it encourages them to beleve that this tacktic can easily make you run away,
Which is basically what you do when you plug.

do you think you should encourage them?

Just beat em a few times.
Show them that a lame tactic like that Cant beat you and they should go comand a real army.

:bow:

ichi

03-29-2005, 05:06

Regardless of whether it can be defeated and whether or not this is easy, I still say the best thing is to pull the game. At the end of the day why bother? Just say bye bye

........Orda

That's what I did. Regardless of what other's have said about quitting or just trying harder or whatever, the prob is the game engine and the solution isn't 5 max.

Or so says I.

ichi :bow:

Ps Hey lahll, good to see you mate

Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe

03-29-2005, 10:09

When everyone is overpowered, the game is balanced ~D

RTW 1.2 is screwed up on so many levels that I don't think any simple rules like 5 max or anything can really make it playable for any kind of tournament.

Rob rightly edited ad hominem attacks and change in tournaments rules... Well *shrug*, if you don't like it, don't play it. It's already so far off, it's not even worth arguing.

I don't think there is anything wrong with buying a cavalry army and a greek spear army. That's part of having a game where factions are not clone of each other, and in my opinion, one of the enjoyable aspect of RTW.

I find low denarii, large size units setting to be enjoyable. Unfortunately not playable in 4v4 (given the large size) and probably not balanced either, but still fun ~:)

I wonder if large size units help against cavalry spamming. It is a little bit tougher to spam a 120 men strong pike units... Maybe that's why I don't mind that too much. I don't like seeing it, just like I did not like seeing swipe... It's just gamey, and player doing that usually forget how to play beside the spam.
Cheetah, yes it's possible to spam, even on low denarii, using cheap cavalry, but with both low denarii and large size, I have not seen that being usefull if at all: the blob got (relative) low defense/ low morale, and is a fast router when flanked, even by a single unit.
Chances are elite heavy cavalry spam is more of an issue that barbarian calvary spam or greek cavalry spam, or equites cavalry spam...

Louis,

sheelba

03-29-2005, 13:13

hi to all.

Can anyone suggest a method for beating an army of 10 desert cavalry and 10 h chariots with a mainly inf Roman army. With 6 triarii, 6 urbans and 3 1st leg, supported by 2 archers, 2 pr cav and a general I would have thought the battle would have lasted longer than the enemy charges plus 8 seconds.

Tips anyone? I don't want to end up running about with 15 hc myself. Or be forced to play powers with phalanx troops as the alternative. (I do like playing with phalanx troops, but do I have too?)

Crandaeolon

03-29-2005, 13:58

That's a rather cheesy Egyptian army. :tongue: Sometimes you must fight cheese with cheese... that army is exactly 12k, so I'm assuming that's your chosen denarii level. I'm also assuming that you're playing on a flat grass map.

A Roman army of 12 urbans and 8 archers should be an ok defensive counter. Set Urbies in deep blocks with Fire at Will on, and archers to the front of the line (or box) of Urbies. Wait for the enemy to charge and hope for the best. ~D Let the archers skirmish away or get killed, don't bother with them too much.

The best offensive counter-army against 10 desert cav and 10 egyptian chariots would probably be a British all-chariot army (a mix of lights and heavies.) Yes, it's very sad and cheesy. Maybe some rules would make it more interesting? ~;)

Cheetah

03-29-2005, 16:53

Louis, it true at low denarii cavs have lower morale but infs have lower morale too. Which one is better: to fight low morale cavs with low morale infs or to fight high morale cavs with high morale inf? Also a few elite cavs might change the situation drastically. (I have to admit I have not played too much low denarii game, but what I saw was not very convincing.)

Ichi,

the prob is the game engine and the solution isn't 5 max.

I can only agree with that but still, imho 5max/6max is still more enjoyable than no max. For example 5max rules out the above mentioned desert cav/chariot rush or the briton all chariot rush.

Anyway, it all comes down with whom you play. Against good opponents ready to play a tactical battle one can have a good game regardless of denarii levels and max rules. That is why imho the biggest problem is that the vets, who know the value of a balanced army, are leaving the game. This leaves the young kids alone, and since the game engine encourages cav spamming and rushing more than anything else, they will only learn cav spamming and chariot rushing from each other.
So, I agree with Shambles, I think that the vets have the responsibilty to stay and to show that this game can be played differently.

Just one more thing, the 5/6max may not be the perfect solution but at least it is a clear signal that you wont play those cheese cav/chariot rush armies.

PS. you would be surprised how many people are willing to play voluntarily with max rules even if we only say that RTK will use it, but we dont ask them to do so.

sheelba

03-29-2005, 20:04

Thanks Crandaeolon. I had all my units in deep blocks. As I feared, the best advice seems to be fight battles I don't enjoy and have a good chance of winning, or play the unit mix I like and possibly end up getting mashed in seconds - which isn't much fun.

Nor do I want to tell people that they can't have parthian armies relying on cavalry.

I usually play on 15k grassland, but thats partly because I never host. I prefer some terrian features. 10k would be better.

AquaLurker

03-30-2005, 04:01

I would like to know whether you guys think that a scythian/armienian/parthia army with the following confige noobish spamish or plan evil in a 12.5k games.

Scythian:

1 General body guard (slamatian)*spelling*

5 slamatian cav*spelling*

6 head hunters maiden

8 noble horse archers/horse archers/noble women(mix)

Parthia:(rarely play pathia so correct this list if I am wrong)

1 eastern general body guard

6 cataphracts horse/camels(mix)

4 Ha

4 persian Ha

5 arabian horses/camels (not sure)

Armenians:

1 eastern bodyguard

6 cataphracts

4 cataphracts archers

6 armenien pikes

3 horse archers

And here are my personnal opinnions:

I feel that Scythian being a nomadic horse riding people should be played accordingly and the cavalry are no really overpowered if you compared them with the other armies. They can ill afford to fight a protracted cav bash.

Pathia my be a little over powered in the cav area since they a using cataphracts anyway so I would say they may be considered a little powerful but not over the top.

Armenia on the the hand is way over the top if you use all cav with them because they have cataphracts horse archers but I still feel that they can be even more powerful in a relatively balance confige with a mixture of pike, horse archers and cataphracts.

Please I would like to hear you views about these list, what do you think about them at 12.5k games. :bow:

ElmarkOFear

03-30-2005, 04:51

The one thing I have noticed from STW to RTW strategy discussions is the change of focus.

STW: Focus was on position, angles of attack, specific map strategies for MP games, and specific unit strengths/weaknesses and how to overcome single-unit majority rush tactics.

MTW: Focus became more army selection oriented, game mechanics (tricks), and more general in nature (no specific map strategies), plus more general discussion on unit strengths/weaknesses and what army to choose to overcome single-unit majority rush tactics.

RTW: Focus is mostly on army selection, and game mechanics (tricks) and no discussion on how to overcome single-unit majority rush tactics.

Does anybody notice, how the increase in the number of units available has been inversely proportional to the amount of strategy possible? Every game in the TW series has meant less variables to consider when fighting battles. More emphasis on choosing the overpowered units, and using what I think are cheesy game mechanic bugs (Such as the "Fire At Will" trick to force your pavs to shoot faster than the enemy's pavs.) You never hear RTW discussions on angles of attack, breaking a defensive line by opening a hole in the enemies' defenses by attacking a weakened unit, etc . . . Why? Because the whole game has been simplified, with a focus on the 3-D engine instead of the more complicated and time-consuming process of unit balancing, battle computation complexity, and terrain usage.

I stated the very first week RTW was released that I felt the graphics/gameplay equation was a zero sum game, where advances to one area, ultimately were compensated by decreases in the other. An increase in RTW graphic resolution/3-D had led to a decrease in the complexity of the battle computations so that games would be playable online. It has been denied by almost everyone, and most vocally, but I am afraid this discussion is proof that my feelings were correct.

I still believe the reason we have never heard ANYTHING on how the battles are computed (which was discussed in detail, and given much press, for STW/MTW) is because the wonderful graphics engine was offset by an extreme simplification of the battle computations. If you ask for this information, they ignore it like an ugly stepchild.

The game, for me, was DOA (Dead On Arrival). Too many changes, for change's sake, and too little thought given to the MP lobby and gameplay. I am hopeful the SEGA/CA deal will focus on what made the original games great and not go in for glitz over gameplay.

AquaLurker

03-30-2005, 06:02

Aelwyn

03-30-2005, 07:28

Does anybody notice, how the increase in the number of units available has been inversely proportional to the amount of strategy possible? Every game in the TW series has meant less variables to consider when fighting battles. More emphasis on choosing the overpowered units, and using what I think are cheesy game mechanic bugs (Such as the "Fire At Will" trick to force your pavs to shoot faster than the enemy's pavs.) You never hear RTW discussions on angles of attack, breaking a defensive line by opening a hole in the enemies' defenses by attacking a weakened unit, etc . . . Why? Because the whole game has been simplified, with a focus on the 3-D engine instead of the more complicated and time-consuming process of unit balancing, battle computation complexity, and terrain usage.

I dunno about others, but RTKs still play this way. We like to emphasize different play styles, and use different tactics when playing in various battles. Not to toot our own horn of course. ~;) But I do agree with you. And the problem is quite simply, unrealistic game mechanics. I can see how some might disagree. If you packed together many Cataphracts so they weren't all on top of each other, but closely packed, and hit a unit of men with a huge mass of these cavs, I can see how it would be hard for that unit to maintain cohesion, and not be overrun...even if hit from the front.

But it doesn't make good gameplay. And, it doesn't make sense that units could fight and concentrate while on top of, and basically inside of each other. Its not the same simple equation as YS beat cavs, because they are an anti-cav unit. Things started entering into the equation that weren't there before, for instance varying degrees of cavs, different amounts of armour, etc. Sure those things were there in STW, but they weren't so pronounced, and they didn't supercede other more important factors that affected gameplay, like YS were anti-cavs, and thus beat cav units that were 3 times their price. So its not that the equation got simplified, imo it got more complex. But some things in the equation that made it work so well have been crippled and modified in a way that makes it seem incorrect.

This is my opinion anyways.

Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe

03-30-2005, 08:55

It is a little unfair Elmo... I'd say there is hardly any discussion about MP at all!

On the other hand, I also got the feeling that within clans there are a lot of talks. Alewyn mention there are a lot of talks within RTK... I also think that there are a few days where I would get more post on MP tactics and games within FF forums than within .org, .com and .net combined!

There are a lot of players online... It's just than noone is really gathering anywhere.

But I'd agree that players wondering about specific armies shall start their own topic ~D

This topic is about cav spamming, leave it so ~:)

Now back on topic... and my ongoing discussion with Cheetah.

My own settings got two specifics:

- large unit size

- low denarii

Mass matters: large unit size helps infantry tremendously to handle cavalry in general, and spamming in particular. If anything, at least play large unit size, and that might help to deal with spamming.

Low denarii: well you got to try for yourself.
To be honest, when my opponent got a small elite army of cavalry, like 6 cataphracts, I got that "the game is over" feeling: as soon as they are bogged down they are dead.
I find morale 4 units with pike/ spears to be surprisingly resiliant: units like long pike phalanx, german spearband, armenian heavy spear... In the 400/500 range, you can get some very decent infantry unit: the one mentioned above, but also poeni infantry, hoplites, lybien spearmen, principes, triarii, falxmen, axemen (chosen or not), night raiders.
The light to medium cavalry unit will have some trouble dealing with those (ok, the low defense infantry mentionned above might get in trouble... and take lot of losses). The very heavy cavalry starts around 800 (if you put aside a couple of awful cavalry units that are way overpowered for their cost and are a problem in ANY setting). You won't have much of those with 6000/ army.
6 cataphracts? or 10 phalanx pikemen? On large size, where do you put your bet?

Louis,

sheelba

03-30-2005, 11:53

Aqualurker, there is nothing better than a long complex battle with much use made of terrain, feints, ambushes and movement. (For me at least). If someone chooses a good unit mix and whips me into the ground, you can bet I'll be re-watching that battle with a pen and paper. There isn't an army which should always win. I need to vary my playing style according to my power and units. I am happy to play against the Parthains, or Scythinans, or any power mainly dependant on cavalry.

But I've played games were I might have been playing snap. With people in the forum I was using, on the official ladder. 20 cavalry units deployed so they have a front of 4 men and are 17 men deep, all rushing onto one flank seems to just sweep away any units. In my above post my opponent will not have had to do any more than hit ctrl + A and one, maybe two movement orders. I really did last eight seconds after he hit me.

I don't for a second believe that their is anything to stop such tactics, unless I am willing to stoop to that level. I had hoped that the answer would be, "you've just fallen in with spammers, keep at it, there are lots of people who want to play with sophistication and you better be pretty good to challenge us."

Unfortunately, it seems that as more and more players hit on these techniques, they will start to dominate online play. That seems to be the impression the longer standing players are giving. Well, the campaign battles aren't that boring (stands looking at his feet).

Cheetah

03-30-2005, 14:52

Mass matters: large unit size helps infantry tremendously to handle cavalry in general, and spamming in particular. If anything, at least play large unit size, and that might help to deal with spamming.

Could be the case. Have you tried 10/12.5 with large unit size? I promise that if Ael's comp can handle it we will try large unit size. ~D

6 cataphracts? or 10 phalanx pikemen? On large size, where do you put your bet?

Well, if it is a head-on charge then I would put my money on the pikemen. Obviously MP is not just a head-on charge, it depends on many other factors. I have to admit it is not easy to spam 10 pikes with only 6 catas ~;p I think you have to have a certain mass to have a successful spam; I really dont want to give ideas to spammers (not that they need it ...). So yes, it might work. We shall try that.

Cheetah

03-30-2005, 14:57

Unfortunately, it seems that as more and more players hit on these techniques, they will start to dominate online play. That seems to be the impression the longer standing players are giving. Well, the campaign battles aren't that boring (stands looking at his feet).

Sheelba, this is exactly why I (and my clan) think that vets have a responsibility to show that this game can be played differently!

And Elmo, you know where to find us, please join our games!!! We need some morale boosting easy victories ~;p .... and fun !!!!!! ~D

Crandaeolon

03-30-2005, 17:17

Elmo,

There's little indication that the battle resolution calculations would be less "complex" than before. If anything, they're more complex now, with directional defense, mass influence on pushback, pseudo-physics modeling etc etc.

A big difference is that there are no 1-second "combat cycles" any more. Instead, soldiers attack individually based on their attack speed. This should lead to inherently more complex calculations than the simple kill formula in STW and MTW.

Most of the old combat/morale bonuses/penalties are still there, with a few new ones. There are area attacks (elephants, flaming onager ammo) and chariot special attacks that rely on the pseudo-physics engine. Overall, it appears that a lot of things are tied to the physics engine. Which, again, makes things more complex.

You may be barking at the wrong tree here. Maybe it would be better to complain about the implementation; while there are a lot of complex calculations, some of them interconnect in strange ways (charge bonus / armour, anyone? ~;)) or function in a bizarre way. _That_ is probably the real reason why they're not revealed; the devs can't adequately explain how the new mechanics work. It's possible that no single dev knows everything about the combat engine.

Uh, sorry about that. Back to cav spam... ~D

Puzz3D

03-30-2005, 20:39

6 cataphracts? or 10 phalanx pikemen? On large size, where do you put your bet?
I have the online test that proves four cataphracts (53 men each) beat four silver shield pikemen (121 men each) head on with large unit size. At 6000 denari you will have 6 cataphracts and 8 silver shield pikemen. Maybe the 8 pikemen can win, but it's going to be close, and that's only if the cataphracts obligingly charge head on into the pikes. It shouldn't take phalanx of equal cost to defeat cav because then the cav is getting its higher mobility for no extra cost. RTW has the weakest rock, paper, scissors of the entire Total War series which is why all cav is so strong.

Crandaeolon

03-30-2005, 21:00

Curious. I have a LAN test where 10 pike phalanxes (arranged 6 ranks deep, 120 men per unit) + 1 Royal Pikeman general (who didn't participate in battle) got a heroic victory from 10 cataphracts. It's possible that my opponent didn't use the armour-piercing secondary attack of the catas, let me check that... Edit: Yep, they kept using their lances in melee. Bugger. Should have reminded him... :tongue:

How exactly did you set up those Silver Shields (ranks, spacing etc.), and how did the catas charge them? Or better yet, post the replay if you have it?

The number of phalanx units is important. I'd say 6-8 is the minimum amount of phalanxes to even consider taking into a battle. Yes, individually they do lose to the best of the elite cav, but a wall is more effective than the sum of its parts.

AP is IMO undervalued in the game. Cataphracts should cost around 1150 denarii or so to be balanced. Have you tried elite non-ap cav, such as Praetorians, versus the Silver Shields?

Puzz3D

03-31-2005, 00:40

Here is the online replay cata_pike_2.zip (http://www.mizus.com/hosted/Yuuki/cata_pike_2.zip) of four cataphracts charging four silver shield pikemen. The pikemen (730 denari) are 8 deep, side by side in phalanx formation and in guard mode. The cataphracts (940 denari) are 5 deep, and they use their secondary weapon. Don't be concerned that the replay says it's from a previous version of RTW. It doesn't matter because replays use your current units stats.

I controlled the silver shield pikemen and initially set them apart for individual testing, but we decided to bring them together for a battleline test. There is no attempt made to flank the phalanx or use a wide line of cav which would overlap the sides of the phalanx. The generals stay out of the action. One cataphract does rout with heavy losses, but returns with a second charge later in the action. You should get these results: Cataphracts kill 413 and loose 97. The cataphracts are able to kill the silver shield pikemen at a rate of 4 to 1. The results for the four individual pikemen should be:

118 losses and 20 kills
83 losses and 19 kills
121 losses and 37 kills
91 losses and 21 kills

AquaLurker

03-31-2005, 02:48

But I've played games were I might have been playing snap. With people in the forum I was using, on the official ladder. 20 cavalry units deployed so they have a front of 4 men and are 17 men deep, all rushing onto one flank seems to just sweep away any units. In my above post my opponent will not have had to do any more than hit ctrl + A and one, maybe two movement orders. I really did last eight seconds after he hit me.

I don't for a second believe that their is anything to stop such tactics, unless I am willing to stoop to that level. I had hoped that the answer would be, "you've just fallen in with spammers, keep at it, there are lots of people who want to play with sophistication and you better be pretty good to challenge us."

Unfortunately, it seems that as more and more players hit on these techniques, they will start to dominate online play. That seems to be the impression the longer standing players are giving. Well, the campaign battles aren't that boring (stands looking at his feet).

lol I know what you mean, I used to play online with random players and many of them just use spam cav tactics(all preatorians/desert horsemen) in order to win the games. I lost some and win some but even then it not fun playing those matches. That's why I play clan games lately.

After playing against online players, I fall asleep in campaign battles ~D (I actually did)

ElmarkOFear

03-31-2005, 07:13

What was done in the past was someone would practice against the AI who was given one of these overpowered armies or against friends who would play with one of these overpowered armies. Once a way was found to beat these armies, it would be posted on the forums and thus would end the use of such tactics. I have not seen such posts in the forums though, which means either everyone is keeping it to themselves, or there isn't a way to overcome the problem in MP.

Crand: I bark up EVERY tree until I find the right one! ~:cheers: hehe There has to be SOMEONE at CA who was responsible for the programming of the new battle computation portion of the game and who could shed some light on the different things which now effect morale, battle effectiveness, bonuses, etc . . but nothing has been mentioned. Extremely odd and I did not find the game to be very complex in the real time battles. I found it to be extremely simplified and with little rhyme or reason. Bonuses seemed ineffective (Except for cav charge bonuses), formations seemed to have little effect, terrain even less effect, flanking didn't give a major hit to morale any more (with many units being able to fight on after being hit in the rear flank with a strong foot unit). Also, the most annoying thing for me, was the fact the game would get to a point where fatigue would slow things down so much you spent 3 minutes winning the initial battle and 15 minutes chasing down the rest of the enemy units, to try and kill them off (no auto rout button). To me the 3 minutes did not come close to offsetting the 15 minutes of clean up.

Cheetah: I would play you a few games, but I sold mine after playing it for a week. The MP lobby was and still is so horrible, the only way I would ever play again would be if I used Roger Wilco or Teamspeak and only with players who had the same and whom I knew. I miss my days as the good "bad" example of how to play TW. I believe I have lost my status as "Professional Victim" now. hehe

RTW touted itself as mod-friendly, yet never released any editing tools or even a good explanation of how the stats effected various aspects of gameplay. The MP game even went so far as to limit you to only a few monetary levels. This does not appear to be a very flexible, easy to mod, game, which most believed it would be and whom were not told otherwise before purchasing.

I will be the first to admit though: I did not give the game much of a chance. I was not interested in the single player game, I am not excited by the Rome era, I wasn't looking for something completely different (concerning the feel of the realtime battles), and I certainly wasn't ready to put up with a crappy lobby after being spoiled by MTW's. To me the MP game is impersonal, does not promote the close-knit community of the previous two game's lobbies, and does not offer much variety in gameplay. Even though the game has 100s of units, there is actually less variety than we had with Shogun. You may have had only a few different units, but Shogun had 9 levels of honor, 3 weapon upgrades, and 3 armor upgrades: The possibilities were endless and every army had a chance of winning. With the Shogun game, I could recreate any of the MTW units, and if anybody knew exactly how to correlate the RTW stats to the STW/MTW stats, you could also create any of the 100s of units RTW offers. To me there is LESS choice now in RTW, with its massive number of different units, than there was with the few unique units STW had.

Sorry bout the ranting. :) Couldn't help myself. To get back to what the original post was wanting to know:

WHAT ARE WAYS TO STOP THIS LAME CAV TACTIC?

Does anyone know? If so, it would be better for all to not "save it for the clan" since it will be the cause of more people dropping out of TW and will not reduce the number of people who use the tactic. It would also be good to provide a nice replay of a successful defense against it. This way, new players and other who use such tactics will have to find another way to win. Good luck, and maybe the next TW game will see me back online playing with you guys. I really do miss the comaraderie and fun, but I do NOT miss the aggravation of what is RTW MP much more so. :)

Aelwyn

04-01-2005, 00:13

Could be the case. Have you tried 10/12.5 with large unit size? I promise that if Ael's comp can handle it we will try large unit size. ~D

Hey! :embarassed: ~;) I built this comp for RTW, and cause I wanted to. And it doesn't even handle it that well past 7000 men. Oh well. More to come, food now.

Crandaeolon

04-01-2005, 00:37

WHAT ARE WAYS TO STOP THIS LAME CAV TACTIC?

Hm, I gave some suggestions on the first page of this thread, but let's recap.

First of all, since you can see the factions before the game starts, you have some advance warning. The # of soldiers and denarii spent -counts can also provide useful info. And, it's in general useful to either have a good amount of cav (6 or so) or some other ways to deal with cav (chariots, phalanxes.) I'm assuming here that you use a somewhat balanced army, not a full-inf setup. (And obviously, an all-cav army can deal with spam blobs easily...)

When dealing with cav spam, the main principle is to surround, stop & smash it.

It's advisable to begin the surrounding part while the blob is still on the way to your main forces; move some cav units (4 or more, quality doesn't matter too much) to the sides and back of the blob, keeping a safe distance. If the blob turns to chase one of these units, just evade the blob and let 'em chase the cav unit; a tired blob is easier to defeat, and tiring one of your units is a small price for tiring the 9-10 cavs in the blob.

Stopping can be done with deep inf blocks, sufficiently deep phalanxes (6 ranks or more), chariots, or a few sturdy cav units. Deep phalanxes are best for this, but chariots are ok too - and they're more mobile. The window of opportunity for smashing the blob is smaller when using chariots, though.

The smashing part is quite simple, just select the surrounding cav units and double-click in the center of the blob. If it's a large blob, you can fine-tune the charge after the initial doubleclick by individually selecting the charging cavs and make them attack a unit closest to them at the edge of the blob. Try to surround the blob as tightly as possible. Then hope for the best. ~D

It does take some work, but when you have the hang of it, cav spam is actually easier to defeat than the same amount of cav in a more traditional battle. I'll try to post some nice replays shortly.

ElmarkOFear

04-01-2005, 02:05

That was very nice Crandelon. ~:) I am wondering though, if the player was decent enough, couldn't he just take his blob and move to your main forces flanks, then turn quickly, and attack them before they could line back up after turning? The sound of this kind of reminds me of the ole MTW cav-swipe thing. Sure there were ways to beat it, if the person didn't know how to use it very well, but against AMP you would almost always lose. :) Good luck in solving this problem of the cav "blob". hehe I like the sound of that: The Cav Blob strategy.

Cheetah

04-01-2005, 02:20

ElmoooOOOOOooooOOOOOOOO!!!! Come back!!!

Well, part of the problem is that there are factions with which you can take very different spam armies. Prime examples are the egyptians and the romans.

Egyptians can have:
10 desert cavs/ 10 chariot
10 desert cavs/ 10 pharaos bowmen
10 pharaos guards/ 10 pharaos bowmen

spam armies just to name the most popular ones. Obviously you need different anit-spam armies agaisnt each of these spams. You might try to bring a kind of "well-balanced-army" (the old dream of TW vets ~D) but I have the feeling that it will work against only one or two of these spam armies (or none). So, practically it means that the battle is over after the army choice phase, you either have the "right" army or not.

Against the Romans you are facing the same difficult situation, the roman general can have:
20 pretorian cavs wedge
10 pret cavs/ 10 aux archer
20 urban cohort

spam armies. A classic "well-balanced" army might or might not work against some of these spams, and if you want to bring a special anti-spam army you are entering a guessing game. Again, either you guessed it correctly or not, in both case the battle is decided during the army choice phase.

Of course, there are factions against which you have an easier situation: facing parthia or scythia almost definitely means a cav/cav archer heavy army, or facing the greeks means a hoplite/archer heavy army.

However, in any case bringing a "well-balanced-army" implies a trust towards your opponent, you are practically assuming that he wont bring the worst spam army. If you dont have trust and you play to win, your best bet is to bring a spam army for yourself, of course trying to outwit your opponent so that you have the anti-spam spam army against his spam army :dizzy2:

Needles to say, trust is not easy to build up especially against random opponents, on the top of it most of the kids play to win, so not surprisingly spamming is quite common.

However, if you can play between friends or clan mates then the situation can be completely different, since then you have the trust to bring well-balanced armies. These games can be fun, but you need friends for that. That is why the leaving of vets makes the situation even worst (though I can understand them leaving).

Anyway, imho the best anti-spam tactics is to play sufficiently low denarii, with max rules, with friends ~D

So, Elmo you see, you have to come back!!! ~;)

Tomisama

04-01-2005, 02:36

It has been years now since the Total War multiplayer community had an Honor Society, maybe it’s time again?

Establishing a simple code of ethics for the community, could help to some degree to make folks aware that there are some of us who expect more from the people we play with than a “spam dunk”!

In the past, the Honor Society was an exclusive club, where you had to be nominated and voted in (I never was). That is “not” what I am talking about. My vision is a very simple Code of Honor that can be signed by those who would uphold it.

It could even be taken a step further, if those electing to accept "The Code" as there own, could also signify that fact by adding a special character or letter to the end of their player name. That way Code advocates could more easily find each other online to have the quality of games that they are looking for.

The identifying “mark” (whatever it would be), would also identify those who either were not aware that there was a Code so that they could be told about it, and those who refused to adopt it.

I am thinking that it would be better to exclude the later from your games, than to have to pull the game, and waste any of the precious time it would take to do so.

Thoughts ~:handball:

Edit: Made this it's own thread called Code of Honor :bow:

AquaLurker

04-01-2005, 03:13

This is how I actually deal with spam arimes;

If I am playing rome, I will make sure that my inf are close together in tight formation while my cav is always near it, most of the time the spamer will find his cav blog stuck after routing 0-1 unit of inf, thats where my cav goes in for the finishing. I don't have to worry about the speed or inf turning because they are romans and no cav can change direction fast enough against roman inf.

If I am playing greek, the answer is simple from a deep cirle of pike and be alert and paitence. Once the cav spammer decides to attack a point turn your pikes to that direction, if he decides to with draw, good form the circle again. Every time he charge and withdraw he loss more men than I do and you can simply do the math who is taking more losses.
I usually use 2 militia cav while playing greeks so if the guy decides to chase my cav, good that will tire him out. Is a matter of paitence and keeping cool.

Same goes for mace only this time you combine greek tactics with roman, form a pike circle and run your cav around or through it to avoid the spammer.
But never charge throught your own pike cause they will kill your own cav as well. Just turn them around for to the rear or flanks of the cav blog and charge it when it go stuck in the pike circle.

If you are playing barbs...well good luck, cos barbs are the worst inf to take on cav blogs anyway.

Archers in the above mention tactics will have to constantly move about and take pot shots at the cav to lure it to charge your inf formation. Keep close to the inf and never stray too far from it.

This is how I use my balance armies against cav spammers, the chance of victory is above average. In the end, it is a matter of patience and keeping cool. Do not let those spammers taunt you. And remember it is just a game.

I have spammers quiting the game after a series of failed charges, sustaining heavy causlties, sometimes the rude ones even call me a cheat lol and abuse me verbally, I merely laugh at them. ~D

Crandaeolon

04-01-2005, 12:32

if the player was decent enough, couldn't he just take his blob and move to your main forces flanks, then turn quickly, and attack them before they could line back up after turning?

In this case, the relatively fast running speed of infantry is a strength; it's not that difficult to keep facing the cav blob with a shortish line (or double line) of deep inf blocks. Phalanxes will maneuver out of phalanx formation of course, only lowering their spears when the charge is apparent. You can even charge the cav blob head-on with phalanx secondary attack and switch to phalanx once they're already in melee.

As long as you have a solid mass of infantry stopping the blob, the finesse bits don't matter that much. Most phalanxes are dependable infantry even with their secondary attacks, and like AquaLurker said, Romans and other sword inf are more than fast enough to keep pace.

Puzz3D

04-01-2005, 18:01

If I am playing greek, the answer is simple from a deep cirle of pike and be alert and paitence. Once the cav spammer decides to attack a point turn your pikes to that direction.
That's fine if you want to adopt a 100% defensive posture. You might as well corner camp.

I see several problems with RTW v1.2 concerning cav vs phalanx:

First. Cav can beat phalanx head on. I posted a replay which shows this.

Second. The cav moves so fast and the combat resolution is so fast that the delay in response to unit orders makes it practically impossible to respond to the threats. The fact that you have to keep your inf units so close together and use phalanx units like sword units indicates there is a problem.

Third. Cav can circle around to the back of a phalanx and attack it before the phalanx can turn to face the cav. So there is no need for cav to charge head on if a phalanx unit is isolated.

Fourth. Two cav can present threats from two different directions and both threats cannot be met. It doesn't matter that you have two phalanx units because the cav player has the initiative and can attack whichever phalanx unit isn't facing his cav. Then the second cav can flank the supporting phalanx unit when it moves to assist the first phalanx unit.

Fifth. Only the first 3 ranks of a phalanx fight with the pikes, and there is a gap between each set of 3 pikes that enemy cav or inf easily penetrate when you use teh click behind trick. The deeper ranks have their pikes pointing up and only fight as swordsmen. If you remove the secondary sword weapon, the phalanx does much better vs cav, but the pikes always face the direction that the unit is facing no matter which way the individual men in the unit face which is really bizarre.

These are issues with the gameplay when you are trying to play realistically. The fact that you can defy physics and stack units on top of each other is an order of magnitude beyond anything I would waste my time trying to "master" a counter strategy against. I'll try some of the mods which attempt to improve the gameplay, and hopefully that will solve the overpowered unit spamming, and also get away from the stack masters.

One other thing to keep in mind is that CA never embraced the idea that a balanced army could beat unbalanced armies. They have always said you have to use unbalanced armies to counter unbalanced armies. That is a design decision with a profound effect on the resulting gameplay. In Samurai Wars for MTW/VI, it doesn't take an all spear army to beat an all cav army because the RPS is strong enough that one spear unit can beat several cav units, and they do it for less than half the cost. We arrived at that type of gameplay in Samurai Wars because it was a design objective.

Crandaeolon

04-02-2005, 00:38

Puzz3D

04-02-2005, 13:39

Yuuki, lab tests don't always reveal everything. I've used phalanxes successfully in dozens of games, both offensively and defensively, against inf spam, cav spam, blobs and balanced armies. In 10k (or below), large unit size games they are definitely dependable if you use them correctly. Nowadays I even prefer them over sword infantry, and that's quite a turnabout - when I started to play RTW, I considered phalanxes nearly worthless (too slow, not good enough vs cav, too unwieldy and hard to use.) No more. :tongue2:

A deep analysis of a unit's abilities is always a good thing, but sometimes the theory just doesn't match practical reality. I did similar head-on custom battle tests and LAN tests, and based on those results I didn't initially use phalanxes. But my clanmates did, and their knowledge made me give the pointy sticks a second chance. Phalanxes are very good units once you get to know them.

The "sandwiched" combat penalty was probably removed because of the new physics engine and the way "pushing" is handled. It sucks, of course, but maybe the devs didn't have a choice.
I doesn't just suck. There is something wrong with the way phalanx works in RTW, and the test shows it. A player using phalanx in battles and beating inferior players doesn't mean there isn't a problem.

I didn't do any tests in RTW before playing it. I just played the game, and this was before players were using the the stacking exploit. I used phalanx a lot in those battles, and that's what lead me and another player, who has since uninstalled the game, to eventually test because we wanted to find out what was wrong with them. The tests showed what's wrong with them. It was the battles that lead to the tests not the other way around.

The term "physics engine" is ironic, because things happen in the game which defy physics.

Crandaeolon

04-02-2005, 17:05

The term "physics engine" is ironic, because things happen in the game which defy physics.

Still not very concerned about the stacking exploit, sorry. It's not as bad as the swipe bug in my book - stacking doesn't give any "real" advantages, it just makes controlling easier. It's a newbie fad that will go out of fashion as player skills improve. And I agree with Cheetah here: vets can, and should, help improve the skills of the community by setting examples.

A player using phalanx in battles and beating inferior players doesn't mean there isn't a problem.

You're giving me too much credit here. ~D

Of course there are a lot of crappy players in the foyers, but I've met some well-known, skilled ones too. And my clanmates are certainly not "inferior players". I've lost to phalanx-based armies with balanced Romans, so that would make me an "inferior player" in those situations, right? Can one be sometimes inferior, sometimes not?

Hmm, maybe I haven't met good enough players to use their armies correctly. If anyone here wants to school me in proper generalship skills, I'd be happy to play a few friendly bouts! ~;)

Crandaeolon

04-04-2005, 23:49

Cav can beat phalanx head on.

I'll try to shed a bit more light on this.

Here's a replay where 10 cataphracts charge head-on into 10 silver shields. They switch to their dreadful armour-piercing maces immediately after the initial charge.

Catatest.rpy (http://personal.inet.fi/private/jonsu/Catatest.rpy)

It's what typically happens with a phalanx wall: the center is strong, while the outermost units suffer from overlap. Phalanxes aren't that good individually or even in small groups; they need to be used as a weapons system of several units. In this test we had an equal number of catas and pikes, but naturally 10 pikes are cheaper than 10 catas, and 13 pikes vs 10 catas would have favored the pikes too much.

The phalanx line wasn't entirely static when the cataphracts charged - a more solid, unmoving line would have fared better.

Keep in mind that these are cataphracts - best cavalry in the game, and seriously overpowered units. Lesser cavalry would have fared worse.

Puzz3D

04-05-2005, 17:38

The phalanx line wasn't entirely static when the cataphracts charged - a more solid, unmoving line would have fared better.
My 4 on 4 test had Silver Shields in a static unmoving line 8 deep, and the cataphracts didn't overlap the ends of the phalanx. The cataphracts still won 3 of the 4 matchups.

Keep in mind that these are cataphracts - best cavalry in the game, and seriously overpowered units. Lesser cavalry would have fared worse.
Anti-cav infantry shouldn't cost more than 1/2 of the cav that they beat if you want a strong rock, paper, scissors gameplay. We just went through all of this with 3 months of testing making Samurai Wars for MTW/VI. The yari samurai infantry costs 400, and frontally it beats the heavy cav which costs 1200. The cav is more expensive because of its higher mobility and its ability to defeat non-spear units. Of course, the anti-cav performance of infantry in RTW is much weaker, and I think the root of the problem.

Crandaeolon

04-05-2005, 18:30

Well, in the above test the catas didn't really "overlap" the phalanxes either - it wasn't a well-chosen word to describe what happened. It's more about mass and the presence of other phalanxes.

In an effort to make phalanxes a bit better against cav, I tried increasing their mass by 0.9-1.1 units - and for some reason it works. Silver Shields with a mass of 2.1 can beat cataphracts head-on in a 1vs1 test, and the fight looks more like it should; the phalanx doesn't get "squished" into a thin line as pronouncedly as before, but retain their formation better. Edit: oops, forgot to mention that all melee units got a +1 to armour and +1 to defense as well. +1.0 to mass alone is not sufficient.

Maybe there _is_ a "sandwiched" -combat penalty after all, just much less effective than in MTW. Or it has something to do with pushbacks, i don't know.

Anti-cav infantry shouldn't cost more the 1/2 of the cav that they beat if you want a strong rock, paper, scissors gameplay. The yari samurai infantry costs 400, and frontally it beats the heavy cav which costs 1200.

I have a bit different approach - so far I've put more weight on the end results... after all, the victorious units can be used elsewhere as well. Using your numbers as an example, in a test of 10 yari samurai vs 10 heavy cav, let's assume that the spears lose a half of their number (which is probably more than they would lose in SamWars), but the cavs are totally destroyed or routed off the battlefield. The cav player has lost 10*1200 = 12,000 koku, and the yari player 10*400*0.5 = 2,000 koku.

Sounds like the RPS is a bit too strong for my taste. I do agree that the RPS in Rome is too weak, but it's fixable with some minor modding - the sledgehammer approaches that some mods have used are not needed.

Puzz3D

04-06-2005, 00:56

Sounds like the RPS is a bit too strong for my taste. I do agree that the RPS in Rome is too weak, but it's fixable with some minor modding - the sledgehammer approaches that some mods have used are not needed.
We didn't use a sledgehammer approach in Samurai Wars. The anti-cav bonus was 8 points, and it was clearly demonstrated by some good cav players that it wasn't strong enough in big battles, so we increased it to 10 points. The RPS is only as strong as it has to be for balanced gameplay.

Crandaeolon

04-06-2005, 01:41

I haven't played SamWars, so can't comment on its gameplay. The sledgehammer jab was mostly directed at SPQR, which admittedly tried to change the core gameplay, not just fix the balance. But still, the hammer's marks are quite evident. ~;)

The question "how strong should RPS be?" doesn't really have a "right" answer; it's mostly up to personal preference. For example, spear (or halberdier) units that can survive when sandwiched between two units of cav is going too far IMO; it puts too much emphasis on unit matchups at the expense of tactical maneuvering. Others might disagree, of course.

Puzz3D

04-06-2005, 17:03

Well Samurai Wars isn't like that. The YS won't survive a cav sandwich. It won't even survive a cav hit from the rear. The YS has att/def of 0/2 (5/7 vs cav), and the HC is a 3/5. So frontally, the YS has a 4 point advantage, but from the rear the HC gets it's 5 point charge bonus + 7 additional points for charging into the rear which is more than enough to rout the YS on contact since the morale of the YS was only raised enough for it to withstand frontal fighting in the chaos of a big battle.

Since each melee point in Sam Wars gives a 20% combat advantage, there is plenty of room between the 2 combat points of YS and the 8 combat points of HC to position 3 sword type units of varing strengths. There are multiple RPS systems at work in Sam Wars despite there being only 14 unit types. The gameplay is very rich tactically. The cost structure is such that you play without upgrades and there are no battlefield upgrades, so the unit relationships are maintained and the player only has to consider fatigue, casualties, terrain and position to determine how the unit will perform in a given situation. In RTW, you can strengthen the anti-cav bonus of spears, but it's difficult to do so with phalanx because they switch to the secondary sword weapon and loose the anti-cav bonus.

Another major difference between Sam Wars and RTW is that you can actually turn a YS in time to face a cav if you see it coming. You see your opponent's "move", and you have time to make the appropriate "countermove". I don't find that to be the case in RTW when you couple the high running speed with the 2 second delay between the time you give an order and when the unit starts to move. In RTW, you have to make some assumptions about where the cav is going to strike and get the infantry faced in that direction ahead of time. Of course, the intitiative is with the cav because of it's higher mobility, so it doesn't have to strike from the direction you anticipated.

Crandaeolon

04-06-2005, 18:13

I'll take your word for SamWars balance, I know that the Mizus have a slew of great stat people and fine players. Maybe I'll join you in the MTW lobby someday, if efforts to balance RTW prove to be futile. ~:)

In RTW, you can strengthen the anti-cav bonus of spears, but it's difficult to do so with phalanx because they switch to the secondary sword weapon and loose the anti-cav bonus.

Actually, the mount_effect bonus / penalty is in effect for all melee attacks AFAIK. Phalanxes do retain the bonus even with their secondary weapons - it's only the "intrinsic" anti-cav bonus provided by the "pike" weapon type that is lost.

There's of course the side effect of making phalanxes perform better vs cav even when they're not in phalanx formation or when charged in the rear. For units like Sacred Band infantry (cost 710) this is a bit too much - they can already defeat Legionary Cohorts (cost 740) with their secondary attack only. Adding a mount_effect bonus vs. cav would make them seriously overpowered.

The mass approach seems to be the best at the moment, and it looks more natural as an added bonus.

In RTW, you have to make some assumptions about where the cav is going to strike and get the infantry faced in that direction ahead of time.

This is a good thing, isn't it? Anticipating the opponent's moves is a part of being a successful general, right?

Of course, the intitiative is with the cav because of it's higher mobility, so it doesn't have to strike from the direction you anticipated.

This has the potential to turn the aforementioned good thing into a bad thing, but so far I haven't found it too difficult to maneuver phalanxes to face threats. I usually keep phalanxes in standard formation and switch to phalanx only moments before impact. Often, opponents see their cavs closing in on my phalanxes that are still in standard formation and decide to "go ahead" with the charge, hoping to catch me with pikes up. And, the command delay works to my benefit here - the cavs won't have time to stop in time once they see the pikes descending.

Puzz3D

04-06-2005, 20:32

This is a good thing, isn't it? Anticipating the opponent's moves is a part of being a successful general, right?
Yes if the opponent is stupid enough to go ahead an attack when he sees that you correctly anticipated his move. What's to stop the player with higher mobility from generating new threats until you guess wrong? Apparently, you're depending on a trick to get your opponents to charge. I played many RTW 1v1's against an opponent approximately equal in skill to me where he took the cav based army and I took the phalanx based army, and he never charged my phalanx frontally with cav. Everytime I correctly anticipated his plan, he just made a new plan until I guessed wrong at some point.

Swoosh So

04-06-2005, 20:53

Grr we couldent agree on the colour oof shite! lol! ok heres the plain facts as i see it, people like to post oh i can beat this tactic or that tactic who did u play some obscure noob? jonh05? cav is a problem if u guys cant see that then i say ur blind, cav spams a problem, and max 5 isent the answer so please stop preaching it pariya cause u host 5 max games then take 10 heavy cavs 5 of each hmm hmm? lol what does that do to stop cav spam? all that does is weaken some factions.the only way ur gonna stop cav spam with a phalanx is in abox or if your oppoenent doesent manuever their cav. Its a problem in the game and untill ca does somehting about it rome is F*&**ed, ill still play and cav spam away with the rest of them tho at least for the moment.

Swoosh So

04-06-2005, 20:56

Also these low florin games arent the answer to the problem, fair enough promote low fflorin game sif u like them but dont go saying they fix problems that they dont, its an engine problem and is apparent at any florin level. all that does is send a big message to ca saying nothing is wrong here move along.

Crandaeolon

04-06-2005, 21:33

Grr we couldent agree on the colour oof shite!

But there are so many different shades... ~;)

cav is a problem if u guys cant see that then i say ur blind

Of course it's a problem. It's overpowered. I don't recall many saying that it isn't?

,cav spams a problem,

Cav spam is a problem because cavalry are overpowered. They're not separate problems. :tongue:

max 5 isent the answer

Yep. Max 5 is a poor rule by itself. Agreed 100%.

the only way ur gonna stop cav spam with a phalanx is in abox or if your oppoenent doesent manuever their cav.

True. Cav can outmaneuver phalanxes. Who'd have guessed? ~:eek: But in the same vein, cav can outmaneuver all inf units. Thus, we get this: "The only way you're gonna stop cav spam with infantry is if your opponent doesn't maneuver their cav."

But chariots, they're great anti-cav units. And they're almost as fast as cav too! ~D

I think some of the terms are getting mixed up here... this thread is about cavalry stacked atop each other into a single wedge. That is easy to counter, because all of the opponent's units are in the same place. Yes, only noobs do that, cause vets can do better. (Vets can control several cav at the same time. What incredible skill! ~;))

And that leads us back to cav being overpowered. Which has been said before. Right?

Also these low florin games arent the answer to the problem

Agreed. Low florin games just cause the players to use more kinds of units than the standard few elite units that get used in 10k+ games.

Try large units, that's almost a solution. They make cav a bit weaker, relatively speaking. Not weaker enough to be balanced, but it's better than with normal units.

Apparently, you're depending on a trick to get your opponents to charge.

Oh, I'm depending on far more than just one trick... that one is only for emergencies ~D

There are a plenty of other units on the battlefield than just the cavalry and the phalanx. Who knows, there may even be teammates (heaven forbid! ~D) to create all kinds of interesting situations. And no one is infallible in their maneuvering. If they were, there would be no point in having spear units in SamWars, because everyone could just avoid them by maneuvering their cav, right?

Swoosh So

04-06-2005, 23:43

yes cav outmanuever all foot but at least some foot types can face them before the whole unit is obliterated, i dont see any evidence that large games help to eliminate spam and ive played alot of large games. it may take a few seconds longer for the spam to rout a unit but thats nowhere near a fix, i know im ranting but the game has so much potential runied by a few silly things that i would imagine are easy to fix, if they get it wrong in expansion its all over :\

Crandaeolon

04-07-2005, 01:15

Ranting's a good way to let off some steam, but it won't help with the problems. Large units make it a bit more tolerable, but not much - cav are certainly overpowered even at large size. Good players can exploit that imbalance and win against most other players that don't use swarm tactics and don't know all the units / counterunits.

The solutions are difficult to implement, but I haven't lost faith _quite_ yet. It's not far away, though - in the modding efforts, all kinds of illogical and just plain stupid crud has been uncovered in the mechanics and stats. One more unexplainable stat behavior and I'm calling it quits. :tongue:

I haven't given CA any money for Rome (I've loaned the game from a friend who doesn't play online), and never will if they won't support it properly, as seems to be the case right now. I certainly won't buy the expansion - forking out money for bugfixes isn't a very promising trend that I'd like to support.

Now, back to the issue. Cav is overpowered. What should be done? Should anything be done? There's an ongoing modding effort to fix RTW balance (BTW Yuuki & Swoosh, you should be aware of it) and everyone's invited to participate, if only to indicate support for it. If no one's even remotely interested, the effort will certainly die.

Puzz3D

04-07-2005, 17:34

I think the MP mod could be more important than ever now that CA will not be addressing the loadgame issue in SP campaign since they don't consider it to be a problem. If they won't address that issue, then I don't see any hope that they'll do anything about MP balance issues nothwithstanding BOFH's attempt to set up a channel for multiplayers to give feedback to CA about it. An MP mod is the last hope for me to get anything out of this game since I won't play RTW v1.2 MP the way it is. I have been working with Mordred to investigate the performance of the phalanx for this balance mod. That's why I'm concerned when I see statements which suggest that phalanx works good enough in RTW v1.2 because, if that's the attitude, then why would I work on a mod that I won't play? I also want to see good balance between offensive and defensive actions in addition to good unit balance.

An important feature of the balance mod is that it will use moddir, so that RTW v1.2 isn't overwritten and will still work which helps a great deal in getting players to use a mod. Ease of installation is also very important. However, most players won't use mods so you have to keep that in mind.

For the purpose of discussion image all players divided into three groups: good, average and weak. My view is that the effectiveness of cav spam should be reduced to the point where a mid-range good player isn't likely to beat a mid-range average player with it. That forces the good players to come up with something more creative than identifying the best cav units and taking a lot of them. Since you can stack units in RTW, it has to handle that as well. Even in the better balanced, MTW/VI v2.01, high era, 10k, flat map, CWC Grand Final my clan played the eventual winning clan and their tactics had little to do with using balanced armies. Individual testing in MTW/VI shows that sword/cav is best, and that's what the winning team used in the CWC 4v4 battles to win.

Due to peculiarities in RTW's 3D battle engine, I don't know if anti-cav performance can be increased very much. If RPS remains weak, then unit balancing has to be done to an even higher degree to get away from a spamming type of gameplay. Simply reducing the effectiveness of cav could lead to other problems such as sword spam or ineffectiveness of flanking. Even so, you might be able to make something that works noticably better than RTW v1.2 without a great deal of work.

Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe

04-12-2005, 10:21

I still have a hard time understanding why we end up with so many different results and feedback on cavalry versus whatever else you throw at it. If anything MTW gave a much more consistent feeling on how the game plays; people may or may not like it, but it was somehow more consistent. Now... With RTW, I don't know if we really all play the same game.

I still have the feeling that settings matter a lot; games are vastly different depending on which unit size you play...

For modding that means either trying to balance for all size, in all conditions, knowing that those conditions got a huge impact, and that the "feeling" spread is very large.
To be honest, I don't think it's possible; there would be a need for stat at huge unit size, and another one at small/normal unit size...

Yuuki, given the large gap in people's experience about this game, I got a hard time thinking a mod could do it all for everyone. Even for players who think that the mechanics of 1.2 are ok, and whose experience with phalanx is that they do beat cavalry, there are still some very bothersome problems and modding would help a lot solving them.

I'd suggest moving along with two mods

One for those happy with RTW 1.2 and moving along the lines of;
- readjusting unit cost to rebalance units/ faction
- solve a few bugs (horse archer not shooting, discripancy in units stats)
That would not really change the way RTW 1.2 plays. A 1200 denarii cataphract is still a cataphract and would behave just like a vanilla 1.2 cataphract. A ruban cohort would be more expensive, but still a urban cohort.

And one for those who wants to change the gameplay;
- slowing down kill speed
- slowing down movement speed
- readjusting cost/ combat stat to rebalance units/ faction
- solve the bugs

I know for sure that I am interested in the 1st mod, and I posted a long time ago to get there.

I also got some interest in the second mod, and that is why I worked along mainly with Crandaeolon and CeltiberoMordred (and other fellow players).
The main reason for looking at a "deeper" mod is mainly related to what was mentionned at start: many different results, and many different feedback. Combat results look very inconsistent, random and chaotic. I am not interested by reducing the speed in and for itself, but I think it's a good way to get more consistent combat results. And that would be a good thing.

A "1.2 friendly" mod can probably be done quickly, and fix a few things that 1.2 lovers are bothered with, but not essentially changing the gameplay.
The other mod, of which Mordred mod is a first step will probably take a much longer time and need lot of brainstorming, testing and feedback.

The main issue, as usual, is how many people would play one mod? What about two?

Louis,

Mordred

04-12-2005, 12:25

I think the whole discussion about how to counter lame cav tactics is rather pointless. Before I start a game and pick my army I do not know whether I will be faced with an all cav army. The only indication I have is the numbers of soldiers being picked. Which meant in my case more than half the games I played, untill I gave up on mp, were lost before I even started. An utter waste of time. The main reason I gave up was, in fact, the massive waste of time.

Apart from that: a good players who uses the cav spam will always win. It is a far more serious bug than the swipe in MTW.

A mod is not a viable answer: Most modders do not agree with each other, as most players, and therefore there is not going to be one mod accepted by all.

And Louis: I think you are wrong about the killing speed and running speed. Try and keep in mind how fast you get used to something when it comes down to games. When I play MTW now it feels horribly slow.

I think killing/game speed is closely related to the cav spam bug, apart from some others problems. Lower killing speed means a unit holds out longer which gives you time to react, slower running walking/speed gives you more time to react in the first place. An thus cav spam will be less effective or even useless.

To which extend both speeds should decreased is open for discussion, but I seriously doubt whether you can stop spamming by just making some units more expensive.

The game was designed to be played on huge settings. I think it was Fishpants who said that defending the game/killing speed here at .org. And he is right, on huge the problem is less. Unfortunalty the game cannot be played by the vast majority on huge due to a variety of problems. I think the game in principal is ahead of it's time, next generation cpu's will be able to handle it well.

Most play on large settings so lowering both speeds is the most sensible answer, apart from re balancing. Most important is the killing speed.

There are quite a few mods around and with some adjustment they could be a very good alternative. Yet another mod is doomed. And it should be one of the most popular mods if it stands a chance of being accepted by a significant amount of players to be able to survive in mp. So far none have.

A very interesting mod I played a few games with is the Darth Vader Mod. Havent tested it much but it felt extremely good. He did some things no else has tried, the game now feels more natural. Even AI battles have become more enjoyable.

Link: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=24673

I think this mod is a step in the right direction.

Lord Adherbal

04-12-2005, 21:01

3 impact factors that make a cav spam so effective and can be modified:
-cavalry mass: lower mass means cavalry doesnt push trough infantry so easily
-jump animation: removing this will stop horses jumping over other horses, thereby only letting the frontline get their charge bonus. Also further deduces the "push through" effect.
-horse "radius": I slightly increased the "free space" around each individual horse in Chivalry TW, so you can't "compress" tons of horses on a rediculously small space. That means there are more foot soldiers fighting every horseman.

Horses shouldn't be able to beat medium to heavy infantry units head on. Even tho the best cavalry may be more effecient individual fighters, they should be so small in numbers that they cannot beat good infantry head on.

Drake22

05-01-2005, 08:25

i saw someone who did that as julii against me in a 4v4, needless to say i show'd him the meaning of "pike-fodder". i only lost about 20 guys :charge:

Puzz3D

05-02-2005, 16:42

i saw someone who did that as julii against me in a 4v4, needless to say i show'd him the meaning of "pike-fodder". i only lost about 20 guys :charge:
This post is an example of what Swoosh is talking about. It makes it sound like there is no problem. Right now CA's position is that cav is not overpowered, and that unit stacking is not a problem. The weak RPS is going to stay as it is, as are the movement and fighing speeds.

In STWmod for MTW/VI, a yari spear unit costs 400 and frontally beats the best heavy cavalry unit which costs 1200. The cav is 2x faster than the spear, and the spear is 2x stronger than the cav. Stacking units results in a combat penalty. The relationship of these units is quite close to what LongJohn made them in original STW. The cavalry is still extremely dangerous in this mod.

Mongoose

05-11-2005, 04:11

"The one thing I have noticed from STW to RTW strategy discussions is the change of focus.

STW: Focus was on position, angles of attack, specific map strategies for MP games, and specific unit strengths/weaknesses and how to overcome single-unit majority rush tactics.

MTW: Focus became more army selection oriented, game mechanics (tricks), and more general in nature (no specific map strategies), plus more general discussion on unit strengths/weaknesses and what army to choose to overcome single-unit majority rush tactics.

RTW: Focus is mostly on army selection, and game mechanics (tricks) and no discussion on how to overcome single-unit majority rush tactics.

Does anybody notice, how the increase in the number of units available has been inversely proportional to the amount of strategy possible? Every game in the TW series has meant less variables to consider when fighting battles. More emphasis on choosing the overpowered units, and using what I think are cheesy game mechanic bugs (Such as the "Fire At Will" trick to force your pavs to shoot faster than the enemy's pavs.) You never hear RTW discussions on angles of attack, breaking a defensive line by opening a hole in the enemies' defenses by attacking a weakened unit, etc . . . Why? Because the whole game has been simplified, with a focus on the 3-D engine instead of the more complicated and time-consuming process of unit balancing, battle computation complexity, and terrain usage.

I stated the very first week RTW was released that I felt the graphics/gameplay equation was a zero sum game, where advances to one area, ultimately were compensated by decreases in the other. An increase in RTW graphic resolution/3-D had led to a decrease in the complexity of the battle computations so that games would be playable online. It has been denied by almost everyone, and most vocally, but I am afraid this discussion is proof that my feelings were correct.

I still believe the reason we have never heard ANYTHING on how the battles are computed (which was discussed in detail, and given much press, for STW/MTW) is because the wonderful graphics engine was offset by an extreme simplification of the battle computations. If you ask for this information, they ignore it like an ugly stepchild.

The game, for me, was DOA (Dead On Arrival). Too many changes, for change's sake, and too little thought given to the MP lobby and gameplay. I am hopeful the SEGA/CA deal will focus on what made the original games great and not go in for glitz over gameplay."

I don't know about MTW/STW but i agree with you on RTW. it's more about which troops you have then how you use them. I think this illsurtates the problem quite well*

"...........First it requires you to purchase (based on a 25K denarii budget) 9 units of Cataphracts, 3 units of Silver Shield Pikemen, 3 units of Silver Shield Legionaries, and 5 units of Onagers. For upgrades, your first priority is the Cataphracts. Upgrade their attack and defense first. And remember that often times, giving a unit two bars of valor is cheaper and more effective than giving them +2 Defense and +2 Attack. I upgrade them so that 6 units of Catas get +2 attack and the other 3 get +3. I'll often boost their defense to either gold or silver for all of them. The general shouldn't be the strongest unit, three units other than him should have the +3 attack improvement. Next improve your Legions' attacks, and finally your Pikemens' defenses..........."

*Infact, IMHO, it illustrates the problem as well as a worker at the panama canal walking around with a wheel barrow on his head illustrated the problem there.

Orda Khan

05-11-2005, 21:41

"The one thing I have noticed from STW to RTW strategy discussions is the change of focus.

STW: Focus was on position, angles of attack, specific map strategies for MP games, and specific unit strengths/weaknesses and how to overcome single-unit majority rush tactics.

MTW: Focus became more army selection oriented, game mechanics (tricks), and more general in nature (no specific map strategies), plus more general discussion on unit strengths/weaknesses and what army to choose to overcome single-unit majority rush tactics.

RTW: Focus is mostly on army selection, and game mechanics (tricks) and no discussion on how to overcome single-unit majority rush tactics.

Does anybody notice, how the increase in the number of units available has been inversely proportional to the amount of strategy possible? Every game in the TW series has meant less variables to consider when fighting battles. More emphasis on choosing the overpowered units, and using what I think are cheesy game mechanic bugs (Such as the "Fire At Will" trick to force your pavs to shoot faster than the enemy's pavs.) You never hear RTW discussions on angles of attack, breaking a defensive line by opening a hole in the enemies' defenses by attacking a weakened unit, etc . . . Why? Because the whole game has been simplified, with a focus on the 3-D engine instead of the more complicated and time-consuming process of unit balancing, battle computation complexity, and terrain usage.

I stated the very first week RTW was released that I felt the graphics/gameplay equation was a zero sum game, where advances to one area, ultimately were compensated by decreases in the other. An increase in RTW graphic resolution/3-D had led to a decrease in the complexity of the battle computations so that games would be playable online. It has been denied by almost everyone, and most vocally, but I am afraid this discussion is proof that my feelings were correct.

I still believe the reason we have never heard ANYTHING on how the battles are computed (which was discussed in detail, and given much press, for STW/MTW) is because the wonderful graphics engine was offset by an extreme simplification of the battle computations. If you ask for this information, they ignore it like an ugly stepchild.

The game, for me, was DOA (Dead On Arrival). Too many changes, for change's sake, and too little thought given to the MP lobby and gameplay. I am hopeful the SEGA/CA deal will focus on what made the original games great and not go in for glitz over gameplay."

I don't know about MTW/STW but i agree with you on RTW. it's more about which troops you have then how you use them. I think this illsurtates the problem quite well*

"...........First it requires you to purchase (based on a 25K denarii budget) 9 units of Cataphracts, 3 units of Silver Shield Pikemen, 3 units of Silver Shield Legionaries, and 5 units of Onagers. For upgrades, your first priority is the Cataphracts. Upgrade their attack and defense first. And remember that often times, giving a unit two bars of valor is cheaper and more effective than giving them +2 Defense and +2 Attack. I upgrade them so that 6 units of Catas get +2 attack and the other 3 get +3. I'll often boost their defense to either gold or silver for all of them. The general shouldn't be the strongest unit, three units other than him should have the +3 attack improvement. Next improve your Legions' attacks, and finally your Pikemens' defenses..........."
.

Hmmmm, I've heard this before. Or is it 'Deja Vu'?

........Orda

Puzz3D

05-13-2005, 18:21

Does anybody notice, how the increase in the number of units available has been inversely proportional to the amount of strategy possible? Every game in the TW series has meant less variables to consider when fighting battles. More emphasis on choosing the overpowered units, and using what I think are cheesy game mechanic bugs (Such as the "Fire At Will" trick to force your pavs to shoot faster than the enemy's pavs.)
Actually, the game engine has become more complex with each installment. However, that works against a player understanding why things happen in the battle. You can't make intelligent command decisions when you don't know the rules that govern unit behavior. It's so complex now that you cannot figure out how the game works even by doing controlled tests. Also, parameters in the game engine have been altered by people at CA who don't understand the full consequences of those changes on the gameplay. I suspect that key programmers have left CA quite a while ago. This would also explain why we haven't gotten the kind details about the game engine that we've gotten in the past games.

More unit types is touted as an enhancement, but that will not improve the gameplay unless they are balanced. Everytime they add more units, the gameplay deteriorates because the units aren't balanced well enough. We got good balance in Samurai Wars for MTW/VI by going to 14 unit types, giving them the stats they had in original STW and then spending 3 months fine tuning those stats for the MTW/VI engine. That's 4 players who each had 4 years of experience playing Total War working for 3 months with the assistance of feedback from dozens of players, many of them long time verterans, on MP battles to get the 14 units balanced to the point where players can't exploit unit imbalance. Now we have excellent team battles, angles of attack, RPS style matchups with 3 simultaneously functioning RPS systems, opening holes in battlelines, intelligent targetting with ranged units, ranged effectiveness that makes corner camping a bad tactic, the need to protect ranged units from cavalry, effective flanking, fatigue working better because the pace of the battles is back to 15 to 20 minutes on average, fighting times and movement speeds that allow sufficient time to coordinate all 16 units and no need for rules which limit the purchase of certain unit types.

Rowan11088

05-23-2005, 00:19

I'm setting up to play MP for the first time soon, and kinda looking forward to figuring out a way to beat up a cav blob :) I would say, from my admittedly less experienced viewpoint, that the key is having a few very strong defensive units to take the charge, and as long as you can hold the cav blob for a little while, flanking will destroy them (since more massed cav means more kills per second for flankers, and no worries about defending against additional units). Maybe an infantry blob is the answer in defense? Maybe not quite in the same unit space, but partially overlapping, so the front is wide enough to avoid flanking? Then flank with a phalanx, if you have enough time, cav if you don't, and watch 'em squirm :) In my experience with cav, they really lose their manueverability advantage once the first charge hits home, especially if there are tons of them all together getting in the way of each other, so I would expect even if your front breaks they won't be able to turn around/escape through the hole.

Imorthorn

06-10-2005, 09:40

to prevent cav spamming in most of our games our clan restrict cav to a max of 10 units, even if they are a cav based civ (you really dont need anymore if you know what you are doing) people moan of coarse this is why i then pick a cav based civ and only use 10 units of cav mixed with a few archers and throw away inf, and give them a sound whooping

(i dont want to offend anyone but i beleave anyone who needs to use 20 units of cav to win a battle, dont deserve to play the game)

Puzz3D

06-10-2005, 13:22

i then pick a cav based civ and only use 10 units of cav mixed with a few archers and throw away inf, and give them a sound whooping
You shouldn't be able to win that way. It demonstrates how unbalanced the game is. No infantry, and you are going around whooping people.

Loinnreach

06-10-2005, 14:25

This is one of few ways to win overpowered cavalry spam army Yuki.

For example MTW had different problems, which people like to exploit right? It is always something.

I hope that this BI expansion pack will be good. If not, this will be the last product I will bought from CA and I'm not the only one who will react like this.

There is many companies, issuing patches almost every day to improve game problems their customers have.

I simply can't understand why someone has policy for one patch only, etc.

I don't won't to criticize, but this is the normal sense of marketing. If you won't to be good you need to do almost everything for the customer.

I apologyze for going off topic, but this I had to mention.

VorCid

Puzz3D

06-10-2005, 15:09

For example MTW had different problems, which people like to exploit right? It is always something.
True, but there are qualitative differences in how good or bad something is. You can show by objective measurment that the RTW gameplay is less balanced than MTW. Without upgrading units you can demonstrate that cav beats phalanx frontally. That didn't happen in MTW. What happened to the rock, paper, scissors in RTW?

Also, you have 25% more units to control and they move 50% faster in RTW. That doesn't improve the gameplay if tactical maneuver of all the units in the army in a coordinated manner according to a strategic plan is supposed to be the method of achieving victory.

R'as al Ghul

06-10-2005, 15:09

I think it's interesting to note that there're obviously two kinds of players.

The first kind is happy to play a game just because it's new and shiny.
The don't want a "realistic" representation of ancient battles, they want quick fun.
Having to learn a game, let alone tactics is asking too much of these with too short attention spans.
But, they apparently rule the fields of MP with ridiculous "blobs" or "swarms".

The second type bought this game because he enjoyed the other Total War games
and is expecting similar gameplay, including a representation of ancient warfare.
These players expect minor bugs and glitches, yes, but certainly are not prepared to
face "blob"-armies.

For these two type of players it's absolutely pointless and time-wasting to even
consider to play against each other.
Therefore, I say that a mod doesn't need to be for all players.
If you could make a mod known to a small community that plays regularly
it would be good start. Other players would then recognize that there are
games played they can't join and would download a mod if they are intersted
to join those games.
Those that aren't interested can play vanilla,
while those that want a different gameplay play the mod.
The community will be splitted but that seems the case already?

I'm just offering my opinion here. Keep in mind that I haven't played a single game
of R:TW Multiplayer.

:bow:

Puzz3D

06-10-2005, 15:18

If you could make a mod known to a small community that plays regularly
it would be good start.
There are easily exploitable characteristics in the RTW battle engine that cannot be corrected with a mod. Since CA is stonewalling on these gameplay issues, I see no reason for optimism concerning improved gameplay in the add-on.

Imorthorn

06-10-2005, 15:46

You shouldn't be able to win that way. It demonstrates how unbalanced the game is. No infantry, and you are going around whooping people.

what I ment by "throw away" was i would use hillmen or some other cheap form of infrantry

sorry for any confussion

Orda Khan

06-10-2005, 17:48

People are trying to make out that MTW was a wonderful MP experience. This was not so, there were bugs in MTW too.

....and lest we forget....Spear units were pathetic

......Orda

Orda Khan

06-10-2005, 17:54

Imorthorn, the tactic you describe is a Cav Spam army and you have CoH in your signature??

.....Orda

Mongoose

06-10-2005, 18:37

OMGZ1!!!!1!! I OWND U WIT TEH CAV ARMIEEE11!!!11!!!!!111! I HVE TRAINER!!111!1 YOu SuXORRRzzzZ!!111!!!!!!!!!!!111!!

What's the point, if you want to win 100% of your battles why not play against the AI? ~;)

NihilisticCow

06-10-2005, 18:53

How else exactly can people play as Parthia for example, without taking a force consisting of considerable cavalry numbers? The infantry that you take is not expected to kill that many, but to just bog down your enemy. So they will be just "throw away" units. A cavalry spam army is more an army consisting primarily of melee cavalry units, not just cavalry in general for cavalry factions. This does depend on how the missile cavalry is used though.

I regard these kind of mixed melee and missile cavalry armies with a concrete infantry component as perfectly within the CoH as they are playing an army that would correspond with a faction's expected army. It would be unfair to state that people cannot use horse archers because they are cavalry so would make the player a cavalry spammer.

The rules I like to play are a limit of 5 maximum melee cavalry and 5 max missile cavalry, which I think allows for this opportunity while limiting spamming as much as possible (though it can be abused).

Loinnreach

06-10-2005, 19:17

There are easily exploitable characteristics in the RTW battle engine that cannot be corrected with a mod.

I can't agree becaus Adherbal is doing a great job with Chivalry TW mod for RTW. This mod will be enjoyable to play and I do belive that MTW/VI and even STW players will be statisfied with it, when they will try it.

Imagine. All those 550 signatures raised for the petition. If all those people would simply install this mod, we have community as many would like to see.
This will never happen thought.

I would be glad if at least majority who don't play RTW, would try Chivalry TW mod on it. You will not be dissapointed.

There is also one more mod with shogun theme in development. There is quit few possibilities, but people are tired of TW. Some are too lazy and even if one their reaction might change something, this is simply too much for them.

I'm looking foward for Chivalry TW mod second era.

Mongoose

06-11-2005, 16:09

Me too. Look's good so far ~:thumb:

NihilisticCow

06-11-2005, 16:42

Are there actually many people now playing the Chivalry mod online? I installed it a while a go, but never actually found anyone to play it against, so eventually uninstalled it again....

Lord Adherbal

06-11-2005, 22:32

no, we currently organise games through the forum or MSN. There was quite some activity the first 3-4 days after the release of last beta, but it didn't sustain. There are currently about 8 people playing the mod frequently, which definitly helps improving the balance though.

I hope that with the next beta - which will be huge and finally include a working SP campaign - it'll attract enough people to get games going for atleast a week or two. All we need is a couple of people playing so that when new players look for a game online then can find one easily. If they don't then they will probably not try again, which will mean the community will diminish again.

If only there was a way to convince everyone who was slightly/very disappointed in RTW to give this mod a try for atleast a couple of days after next beta release...
We'd have a MP TW game that is controlled by the MP community itself for the first time (next to the Samurai Mod, but I fear the time of the MTW engine is over for a lot of us)

PS: If anyone wants a game of ChivTW add adherbal_barca@hotmail.com to you MSN contacts and just ask.

PPS: latest screenshots (http://www.stratcommandcenter.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=2352&view=findpost&p=80381)

Imorthorn

06-12-2005, 10:02

Imorthorn, the tactic you describe is a Cav Spam army and you have CoH in your signature??

.....Orda

That is a bit unfair for you to to claim that, maybe i didnt explain it clearly enough, just read what NiNilist says he explains it better then i could

How else exactly can people play as Parthia for example, without taking a force consisting of considerable cavalry numbers? The infantry that you take is not expected to kill that many, but to just bog down your enemy. So they will be just "throw away" units. A cavalry spam army is more an army consisting primarily of melee cavalry units, not just cavalry in general for cavalry factions. This does depend on how the missile cavalry is used though.

I regard these kind of mixed melee and missile cavalry armies with a concrete infantry component as perfectly within the CoH as they are playing an army that would correspond with a faction's expected army. It would be unfair to state that people cannot use horse archers because they are cavalry so would make the player a cavalry spammer.