VI Balancing

[Magyar Khan]

u dont know how to beat arbs with archers?

[baz]

TW games being based on different periods during mankinds history is an advantage because it is topic that will obviously generate interest in many of us (hence the popularity of TW), but it unfortunately has draw backs because history cannot be changed (debateable ) and therefore this fact brings us restrictions onto the gameplay of the title .. not until TW make a game that is not based on a historical event will they make a game that really concentrates on gameplay imo as the growth of internet gaming continues maybe we can dream of a day when Developers start bringing out games (or game x-pacs) that are specifically for MP just a quick thought

[Alastair II]

No, Maggy, I don't know how to beat arbs w/ archers. Will you teach me? And are u talking about pav arbs or just plain arbs?

[Fairlight]

Quote[/b] (Kongamato @ Feb. 01 2003,22:58)]Given any thought to adding more morale changers, like Encouraged by the General or Dismayed by Destruction of Army?

"Disheartened by tasteless fat-free cafe mochas after lunch"

"Encouraged by sight of pretty trees that mysteriously turn as you go around them so that you always see the same side."

"UNCERTAIN: Horses not given sugarcube treats this morning."

"WAVERING: Unit leader broke a nail; standard bearer thinks he looks fat in new tunic."

[Magyar Khan]

Alastair i was just cynical. its hard to find any concensus about anything in this community so after aperiod of trying to explain whats wrong with the game i gave up doing this and just go with the flow until others see the light as well.

[theKyl]

I never played Shogun but from what I heard it was almost perfectly balanced. In MTW you need first need a good setup to win. The tactics are only secondary. But for tactical battles the CWB was created and because of the many similarities between the armies the players use it focuses more on tactics.

I still don't get the ideas of the CA.

Well, they want to make a game that is supposed to be played mostly by SP's. But I really don't get how fine graphics (Rome), historical battles or situations could interfere with a balanced gameplay. At least it's not much more work for them, they have to create some sort of unitstats anyway.

Can someone please enlighten me about the ideas of the CA guys???

[Magyar Khan]

the ideas of the low node developer to satisfy his boss and put his creativity into his work. these developers have no access to this forum during worktime

the boss must make money and listen to the producers

the producers wants to make big money and do what they learned at school about marketing

and so on.... and mp is 5% of their interests

[CeltiberoSkullXIII]

I agree with magy, though, i m a lot of tiem out of the ORG, magy is one of the players who "gave" his daily life, or better sayed, sacrificed it, for this game.

He made a lot for this community too, he was many times misunderstood and not heared. And he was often right with what he means.

Out about being a great player is a nice "excentric" person, , and u all dont have to forget we are at last the customers and like customers we r KINGS. SO if this game get's better its not because are moaning for it or paying to develpers to do it, its because WE EARN IT.

be happy

AND GOD BLESS THE INNOCENT PEOPLE IN IRAK

[CeltiberoSkullXIII]

About the origin of the post:

* What about the RELOG problem, reloging after each battle is boring, sometimes getting log on error

* Scroll Bar bug , will be repaired?

* UP SCROLL / DOWN SCROLL icons in unit selection window, maybe not showed when not a lot of units there, but they still work invisible. Funny eh?

* What about server speed and performance?

About Units:

* I hope u think aobut RUSSIANS, since i love this faction, and they dont have good units out of a weak cav and cool boyars. but the infatery sux.

About the other units, im not an expert so i let the thema to my friends here.

cya all


CeltiberoSkullXIII

[Vinsitor]

I'd like to see ranged units made by 80 men instead of 60 (x-bows, arbs, arcs, arqs, l-bows, ecc).

[Vinsitor]

Another suggestion could be to make some difference between Order Foot Soldiers and Italian Infantry to make Ita Inf more useful (morale, melee, I don't know).

I agree about early x-bows, late pav-arbs, longer rate l-bows, cheaper spears, more effective halbardies, billmen and pikemen against cav, ecc.

[Kocmoc]

imo there should be units wich can hold 3 or 4 or maybe more units in a frontal fight, they dont kill many of the enemy, but they can hold.....for a time...


i just let all info, jsut this where puzzt did replay is still there....


no ideas from me again


koc

[Tempiic]

Could someone explain to me this seemingly paradox...

Vets do not like playing higher florin games since that lessens morale too much, yet they do complain about, well lots of things, but it seems it can be brought back to a too big influence morale has...

[Puzz3D]

Tempiic,

I think the paradox results because some people have a preconceived idea about how the battles should work. To me MTW is harder than STW, flanking is important, unit matchups are important, fatigue is important, unit facing is important and morale support is important. Why on earth should 3 or 4 units be able to hold off 12 units? Rushes can be stopped cold in this game, but you can't ignore concentration of force by your opponent. You have to respond to concentration of force, and it is possible to do it and still leave 1 or 2 units free to flank in 15K battles with more than enough time to carry out the flanking maneuver. As you go above 15k florins you get more time to carry out the flanking, but unit matchups gradually become more important as the game shifts from one of maneuver to one of fighting. At 25k, units can operate more independently and you can spread your formation out more than you can at 15k which requires a lot of army cohesion. At 10K or lower, big MTW games can be won with nothing more than quick double teaming just like in 5K STW battles, although, you have to be a little more careful due to the higher fatigue in MTW.

Spear units took a big hit in MTW v1.1, and they are now very difficult to use in 15k games since you can't afford to give them the kind of upgrades they really need. Archers are somewhat weak with their ranged weapon, and you have to use the upgrade discounts to get more out of them in the hand-to-hand fighting.

[Tempiic]

Mmmm hmmm i am slowly developing that view too roughly.... only that flanking and thus manouvring remains vital in 20K-25K too...

just that kocmoc's hmmm complaints kinda dunno... made me wonder for a bit...

Thanks yuukster

[Puzz3D]

Tempiic,

Yes that's true that flanking is still important at 25k. The difference between 15K and 25K is only +2 morale on average. So, the shift from a positional game to more of a fighting game is not black and white, but it is noticable. I would say that 15k games are mostly positional, but, even so, I know I do better in them if I pay attention to making good unit matchups. The only time I feel confident about disregarding unit matchups at 15k is when I am attacking into the flank of an enemy army. Also, cav is somewhat less effective in 25k games, so players who feel that cav is overpowered might find 25k more to their liking. Holding some units in reserve is also more effective tactic at 25k, since your front line units can hang on longer.

However, I think the popularity of 15k with most vets is due to the difficulty of mastering the morale factors. Morale makes the game more challenging as long as it's not taken so far that the battles are always won simply by fast mouse clicking without any concern for unit matchups. If I had my preference, I'd play at 25K, but most of the players I know like 15k. As long as you incorporate both flanking and matchups in your playing style, I think you can do well over the entire 15k - 25k range.

[Tempiic]

Mmmm hmmm im aiming to play in that florin range

[MK_HenryV]

Just a couple of points:

Although I agree with Magyar about the importance of CavalryArchers, this is of very little assistance if, like me, you play with the English. As a personal favour, hehe, I would really appreciate it if, when you improve the archers, you could make the longbowmen EVEN BETTER, they are currently a bit weak.

Otherwise, major problems I can see:

* The fact that you can accidentally deploy when you are meaning to chat - (I know thats not unit selection, but its damn annoying)

* The fact that when players quit who haven't routed you have to spend 30mins finding their damn troops.

* Otherwise, agree with the Byz Inf and Lancers comments and generally those made about cav v spear. Spear need to be better v cavalry, but I wouldn't change cav, just make the spear better - esp Billmen (lol)

[RTKLamorak]

As was said some time ago the window of opportunity to suggest changes has probably past but i just wanted to resond to TheKyl's remark about MI. Although unofficial mod 1.03 brought some real balance to the game, the last official patch 1.02 was anything but balanced.
in MTW games,except for no arty i dont really every see any rules in mtw games. Although uber units like lancer/byz inf are irritating they can be overcome without to much difficulty.
Pretty much every game i ever played in MI there were rules, due to some (imo) very unbalanced units. the legendary peasant warriors in MI were almost laughable. i remember a competitive game where i faced 16 pumped up ashigaru. if you are expecting this (player whose done it before), or after several times it happening u figure ways to try to beat this but for many times they just walked right thru my balanced army. Peasants could beat ANY unit in the game hand to hand for the same koku level. Muskets were also to strong, and, as yukki said in another thread in MI a battle could be won purely using range units, which is not the case in mtw.
The increased unit cost after using more than 4 of one unit has help ofset quite the same tactics as the "ashi rush", but mtw still (obviously) remains in need of balancing. I havent really entered the balancing debate but just wanted to say to TheKyl that MI was far from balanced, there were probably more ways to win "unfairly" in MI than mtw imo. i havent included issues like "moral circles" in this discussion, which many honourable vets have talked againest in mtw because i am merely focusing on the unit selection side of both games. its not like CA had it right in MI then messed up in this game neither are/were properly balanced. Of course when 1.03 came out this changed considerably, with MI almost perfectly balanced however, as with all unofficial mods/patches not enough people took to the new stats. Although almost all the major flaws were fixed it seems most people liked these imbalnces as they exploited them themselves and did not, and still dont have v 1.03 as standard. i went into MI foyer the other day and noone at all uses the stats . During my whole TW career i must have played mabye 3-5 v 1.03 games because so few people are willing to change their style of play. i enjoy 1.02 of course (as all do) but it suprises me that so few have taken the opportunity to almost perfectly balance the game. so.... if, whether CA or the community brought out near-perfect stats for mtw (not a patch because, as was said in thread cant change to much in mp coz of sp imbalances then) would people actually play them?? Now people are accustomed to the style of mtw play, and all the unit exploitations i dont think people would accept them.
an example of this is someone (wont name him) that is so used to being high calibre at MI that he says openly that he wont play mtw (owns the game) because he loses (not quite those words but no doubt about y)), and refuses to put in effort to learn new style of play. hed rather hide behind his musks and ashi whooping noobs that come into lobby in MI. one of the few times i saw him in mtw i hosted 1v1 called "1v1" and he joined, saw me and left saying he didnt want to lose lol. I have learned most of my knowledge/skills losing to good people (whether MI or mtw) , and am very happy to do it but some.....mabye even a lot of people would just rather play a noob and win. Sorry im diverting a bit off the point now but there are soo many people out there in mtw foyer (like MI) that like that they know the fact that lancers beat all other cav, and that byz inf are strongest inf unit againest infantry. they enjoy knowing trashing noobs with these uber units and gain much satisfaction from it. I know there are many many players like me out there who play for the knowledge/fun you get out a game rather than the win, but my thoughts are that unless a perfectly balanced official patch (which wont coz it would effect sp to much ) comes out the majority of mtw players simply will not want to use a mod that strips them of all the little "cheap" tactics/units they have discovered. Ive gone on for long enough now .. you probably stopped reading long ago hehe but ive said some of the things i had on my mind. Im afraid that even if a perfectly balacned (is it possible?) mod came out as with MTW people just wont take to it, the majority (sadly) of online players play to win, and win only. this is evident from the fact so many players quit the game the second there front line breaks, or after they themselves were out. I remeber in MI staying in 4v4's for mabye half an hour after being doubled or something and going out and remember coming out of each game learning something from what i had just watched.

im all for any balancing issues that will come with VI but just hope they can implement all ( ormost) what is needed "officially", as a 1.03 style mod for medieval sadly just wont take off . All i can do is hope CA pull it off

[Puzz3D]

Quote[/b] (Kocmoc @ April 10 2003,13:36)]imo there should be units wich can hold 3 or 4 or maybe more units in a frontal fight, they dont kill many of the enemy, but they can hold.....for a time...

4 x 3 = 12

[shingenmitch2]

Okee... I stayed outta this one cause it was so damn long, but here I go...

Koc, no backward movement or trapping in 15K? I do it all the time. Yuuk pulls all sorts of retrograde movements to give me his guy's flank... which I crash into with joy.

And yes, the game is about getting a good flank or in behind units... always has been. That is maneuver warfare and you wolves as champions of the Mongol horseman know that best.

Mass makes a difference but it isn't all rush. Typically we stone the rush and penetrate gaps or flanks.

Cav too strong? There are many counters to concentrated cav., but I do all kinds of maneuvers with them besides point-click rush... There are successful foot-oriented Factions -- talk to the guys who play Turks or Byzant.

Lancers? Okay maybe they are cheap for what they give... but they are not monks (monks could only be countered by other monks) Lancers can be stopped by : Ordered Inf, CFK, Concentrated Pavise+Longbows, Billmen... other upgraded Cav... just to name a few.

Byz inf... well if i get behind them... or mix my CMAA properly...

Some Factions have Naptha... great morale breakers... but no Europe has them...

Camels in the desert kill...

Point is... this game is pretty damn well balanced for 15k-25k in High. Depending on Climate you have even more options. Are there specialty units, you bet.

But not everyone plays Spanish and that is not just out of some sense of honor... it is because they want Longbows or Billmen or Byz Inf or JHI or Varangian Guards or Swiss Halbeards or Suped up Nubian spearmen... and they are SUCCESSFUL with those factions.

So I'd be very reluctant to make more than very small and targeted changes to the unit balance.

[Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe]

Mitch, Yuuki, Kocmoc,



I am pretty new to the game and don't have your experience, insight and knowledge of TW.

Still, here comes 2 cents, and my opinion on the topic;

I don't think cav is too strong, but I do think that among the different counter cav (spears , polearms, other cav) spears are somehow too weak with a combination of low attack and low morale. At least I would upgrade their morale.
Cav is not too strong because other counter (polearm; halb, Sw halb, JHI, FK, billmen...) are really good at killing cav.

Overall tactic; well you know better than I. For the mass vs manoeuver question, I can sort of understand both point of view. Good tactics, flanking, etc has a place and are very efficient as far as routing ennemy, and I think this is good.
However, and I would like Kocmoc to tell me if I am right, there is one morale modifier I resent; being outnumbered; example; your valliant 1*CMAA is fighting some coward 4*pav arb, your CMAA may rout just because the other 4 guys are 4, even if they don't stand a chance.
Worse, it is my undertanding that the number of units is what matter not the actual size of the unit. A full size CMAA can be routed by 60 pav arb in 4 different units, just feeling outnumbered. A lots of units wo flanking in full front assault may prevail against the same 'front size' just with outnumbering modifier.
IMO, I would suggest two modifications;
1/ relative size of units matter when considering being outnumbered.
2/ class is supposed to matter for outnumber morale modifier... Well I would like the modifier to be more helpfull for outnumbered elite unit vs non elite.

Mitch, are you playing Spanish to prove dishonorable? Or just to feed my JHI?

Louis,

[shingenmitch2]

Hehe ---

The Goose-meister strikes

Yep, Louis u are correct about the being "outnumbered" by UNITs. There is a morale hit (that does reach a top-max) that occurs when an enemy in next to your unit. There is a maximum morale hit for units ( like the morale hit for 8 can't get more than what u get for having 4 units near you). It is usually not enough to rout you by itself -- unless ur unit is reall piss morale. But when it combines with losses taken/ casualties inflicted at one time/ and flanking, it becomes a powerful thing. It is a good effect, and makes mass important which is true in real life.

BUT you also caught the big mistake with it -- the effect doesn't scale down as a unit loses troops. A unit with 50% of its troops still gives its full morale hit not 50% hit, which would be much better.

------------------------
Yep I use Lancers to watch whiney little biatches cry...


Actually I like the Spanish cause they suit my style as center-player

---------------
Koc,
What are your thoughts on games with rules?
We've played some with mod rules and they have been lots of fun --- and can be used to tone down cav. (the 3 of any 1-type max and 5 combat cav. max comes to mind)

[Skomatth]

Read the review of VI in the main hall. It's too late now anyway. However the new antipersonell organ gun has me in fear of a new cheap unit that disrupts honourable play and non-rush tactics.

[Cheetah]

Quote[/b] (Kocmoc @ April 10 2003,13:36)]imo there should be units wich can hold 3 or 4 or maybe more units in a frontal fight, they dont kill many of the enemy, but they can hold.....for a time...

koc

I agree with Koc on this point. It would be nice to have such a unit. And not because of rushers, after all as Yuuki said you can stop rushers even with the current unit selection, but in order to give a greater tactical repertoire. Do you remember the good ol nagi from MI? Very few people used them, but if you used them correctly they did wonders. I miss very much a unit like this.

[Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe]

Quote[/b] (shingenmitch2 @ April 16 2003,13:33)]Yep, Louis u are correct about the being "outnumbered" by UNITs. There is a morale hit (that does reach a top-max) that occurs when an enemy in next to your unit. There is a maximum morale hit for units ( like the morale hit for 8 can't get more than what u get for having 4 units near you). It is usually not enough to rout you by itself -- unless ur unit is reall piss morale. But when it combines with losses taken/ casualties inflicted at one time/ and flanking, it becomes a powerful thing. It is a good effect, and makes mass important which is true in real life.

BUT you also caught the big mistake with it -- the effect doesn't scale down as a unit loses troops. A unit with 50% of its troops still gives its full morale hit not 50% hit, which would be much better.

The outnumber effect gets really big in the end of the battle.

I remember a (tired half size...) JHI getting scared at 4 pav arb in an end game. JHI are Elite. Pav Arb are not. The 4 pav arb could have been 10 guys in total it would not have mattered.

There is one big mistake with the impact not scaling down with unit size.

But I also think that elite units shall have a much reduced modifier vs non elite. Same for disciplined.

The mass question is arguable. Number of soldiers in one unit effectively fighting one unit does not matter. The unit just being there does.

I wonder how important it is for the following example;

1 Order inf front 25 * 4 rows being charged frontally by 3 CMAA on 7*8
The 3 CMAA units are not even going on the flank of the Order Inf. Just plain frontal.
I can expect the CMAA to win / win easy. But I wonder by how much this 'fake ountnumbering' will reduce the order inf morale and get it to rout if compared to a regular single 20*3 CMAA formation. 3 7*8 CMAA covers the same front as 1 20*3 but has a more important morale impact, and I am not sure I really like it / if it not too big.

If anybody has looked at that, let me know.

Louis,

PS; I also wonder if that does not hinder too much any unit ability to hold a large position as a delaying force (shall be a spear purpose thing?)

[shingenmitch2]

As far as I know, the morale hit delivered by the unit is the same no matter what type of unit it is. Elites give same hit as crap troop.

Late in the game the effect is multiplied because the units all have penalties affecting their morale (fatigue, troops losses) to their morale already and the "unit" hit could be the final tipper into Rout. (AMP used to be able to take advantage of this in MI by having his army sit still while everyone else fought -- and then come slamming full mass at tired Armies, overload a unit's morale and create quick routs)

-------
Your frontage concern doesn't bother me as much as the the % of total soldiers. -- Total frontage covered should not make a difference (and it doesn't) So in that sense the morale works good. It is unit dependant and not frontage.

however -- 2 units at 50% should equal the hit of 1 unit at 100% and they don't. They still equal 2 units at 100%. This problem, like we stated, gets more pronounced at the end of a game.

AND - it would have to be a % based effect and not done by actual numbers of soldiers --- because a 60 Cav (full strength) needs to give the same hit as 100 OFS (full strength). The Cav is at full, the hit it delivers should be a full hit -- and not 60% of the full OFS unit hit.

[Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe]

Quote[/b] (shingenmitch2 @ April 17 2003,13:23)]As far as I know, the morale hit delivered by the unit is the same no matter what type of unit it is. Elites give same hit as crap troop.

Hum...

Here is what is written in the Entrance hall 'read me first' topic (my personnal reference when seeking the truth whatever the topic is).

Outnumbered/Outclassed 2 to 1: -4
Outnumbered/Outclassed more than 3 to 1: upto –12 depending on enemy numbers and enemy units class (Elite etc.)

My understanding is that Elite would frighten more non Elite than the opposite.

I don't know the modifier for one Elite surrounded by 3 non elite, but IMO it is too high... Particularly frustrating when those 3 units are crappy missile pav arb, bulgarian brigand and the like... I would not complain that much with 3 militian sergeant or 3 Hallebard.

Maybe I want to see another class; elite, non elite, crappy.

That would be fun to read on unit description

Louis,

[Puzz3D]

Morale is a complicated aspect of the game since so many factors interact to determine a unit's morale. I did make some measurements in WE/MI which showed a morale penalty of -8 from being in proximity (1.8 tiles = 3600 range = about 72 meters) to an enemy unit and it was not affected by the number of men in the unit. I've only made one distance test on this in MTW which indicated that the proximity distance is still the same.

If you look in the Strategy Guide, it's clear that with regard to the proximity morale penalty MTW works differently than WE/MI. In MTW, both quality and speed of the enemy unit are factors in determining the size of the morale penalty. According to the Strategy Guide, the basic penalty for being outnumbered 2 to 1 is -4, but it can go up to -12 when outnumbered 10 to 1. A statement in the MTW guide that a unit which is not in proximity to any enemy units gets +4 morale suggests that the penalty for being in proximity to a single enemy unit is -4 points. In WE/MI, the maximum morale penalty occured when facing 3 enemy units. I think it was -14 points when facing 3, -12 points when facing 2 and -8 points when facing 1. Of course, the rout point was lower in WE/MI than it is in MTW, so the effect seems bigger in MTW. Also, the 2 to 1 effect was 1/2 of the single unit effect in WE/MI, but the 2 to 1 effect appears to be equal to the single unit effect in MTW which is another thing that would make the morale penalty feel larger in MTW. The addition of +2 morale to all units in Vikings is going to make this effect seem smaller.

The use of the term "outnumbered", the fact that quality and speed of the enemy are taken into account and the variable unit sizes suggest that the number of men in a unit might be a factor in determining the size of the morale penalty. This would be an extremely tedious thing to determine by running tests, and I don't think I'm going to spend the time doing it. In practice, you are in trouble when outnumberd by 2 to 1 simply because with -4 morale penalty your units are going to tend to rout before the enemy does. In the example given where 3 CMAA, which have already seen action, attack an apparently fresh Order Foot, it's possible that those CMAA have higher morale than what they started with since they beat whatever they were fighting before, and the Order Foot is not a high morale unit to begin with. In anycase, when one of my units beats another unit it usually jumps up to "steady" morale. Cavalry will often go up to "impetuous" which is quite high on the morale scale. The CMAA will gain more morale when they start winning against the Order Foot, and the Order Foot will loose morale when they start loosing. The CMAA would have to be reduced to very few men or attacked from behind before they will rout.

Elite units attacking multiple ranged units like arbs have to contend with morale penalties from being outnumbered, flanked, shot and suffering casualties from the ranged fire. In addition, the arbs will get a +4 morale boost if they outnumber the elite unit by 3 to 1. If the elite unit manages to close for hth fighting they may suffer casualties from that as well if the ranged unit has gotten a few upgrades, although, they can also get a morale boost at that point if they are "winning".

[shingenmitch2]

Thanks Yuuk,

I was going by what I knew of the morale from MI / STW. Didn't realize that the effect had been modified for MTW.

Seems like a mess to try to figure out what that is doing to the cavalry charge en-masse, especially late in the games. But its effect may be fairly profound.