View Full Version : lib Comparison of the Civ. MAA and the Feudal MAA
Lets look at the basic stats:
Civalric Men-at-Arms
3/4/3/4/4 (Charge/attack/defence/armour/morale)
Feudal Men-at-Arms
3/3/2/3/2
As it is here, it is fairly ok that the Chivs cost 125 florins more, but I have not yet factored in the shields.
Both have large shields, but unfortunately the Chivs have a 0.5 modifier on their shield.
That means the stats for the units head on is this:
Chivs
3/4/4/5/4
Feudals
3/3/4/5/2
This makes them very similar, and makes the Chivs not worth the 125 extra florins, they only have +1 in attack and +2 to Morale.
I would rather give my feudals another Valour (which in MP would cost 75 florins, isn't it 0.50 of the cost added?), that would make them +1 in defence over the Chivs for a gain of 50 florins.
And lets not forgwet that it is likely that the buildings in SP will once again produce Valours for units. That means that the Feudal MAA will have Valour 1 when the Chivs comes online at Valour 0... That means it will never be costeffective to use them, just use the Feudal MAA.
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BTW, Danish Crusades are true to history.
You may not care about war, but war cares about you!
Neglecting the shield:
charge/att/def/armor/morale
V0 Chivalric MAA.. 3/4/3/4/4 275 florins
V0 Feudal MAA..... 3/3/2/3/2 150 florins
V1 Feudal MAA..... 3/4/3/3/4 225 florins
When you add the shields in:
V0 Chivalric MAA.. 3/4/4/5/4 275 florins
V0 Feudal MAA..... 3/3/4/5/2 150 florins
V1 Feudal MAA..... 3/4/5/5/4 225 florins
It's pretty clear that the Feudal MAA is better, but costs less. So, within that unit type the Feudal Knight is the one you should buy in multiplayer. There is no reason to ever buy a Chivalric MAA, and this unit will disappear from use in multiplayer.
If the shield modifier on the Chiv MAA is put back to 1.0, then you are effectively paying 50 florins more for +1 armor advantage on the Chiv MAA. The Chiv MAA and Feudal MAA would be identical in all other respects. From a multiplayer perspective, I don't think that +1 armor is worth a 22% increase in cost. However, at least the more expensive unit would now be the better unit.
Ahhh... Good someone else has noticed this. http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif
You basically wrote exactly what I did, and I too have found that Foot Knights is the answer to this.
The worst part I have noticed is that when CA releases the patch it is very likely that buildings will now give the proper Valours, meaning when you can train Chiv. MAA you have V1 Feudal MAA and as seen they are better and cheaper.
At the very least give the Chivs their shields, or up their basic stats by a fair deal.
I like the Chivs, but if they are not worth it, even in SP then I feel I have to abandon them.
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BTW, Danish Crusades are true to history.
You may not care about war, but war cares about you!
Kraxis,
Actually I just copied my post of 9/13 from here: http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/Forum7/HTML/001346-2.html
It's good that you started another post because that one is already nosediving on page 4. You can always fix up imbalances like this for yourself in single player, but you're stuck with them in multiplayer. I would like to see multiplayer balanced to an accuracy of 5%, but I don't expect it will be. Certain units will eventually become known as too expensive and those in the know will have a considerable advantage online over new people who don't know what the most cost effective units are.
insolent1
09-16-2002, 23:56
lol personally i think all swordmen in this game suck compared to a 100 spears but I have actually found the chivaliric to be quite good mind you they where valour 6 under my god of a general. I have always seen feudal men at arms get chewed up by spears but the chiv's have beatin spear units with only 22 dead. I think all swordunits need tweaking as they are pretty useless example feudal foot knights = complete pants
Yeah this is well known and it's gotta be a bug, Chiv are supposed to have full sheild I'm sure. 30 second fix for CA. Still good to have a full post on the subject to get CA's attention.
But anyway, there is no danger of chiv men at arms disappearing from the battlefeild, since there is the 4 unit rule, so any men at arms over 4 are going to be chiv instead of feudal, if you are smart.
[This message has been edited by Action (edited 09-16-2002).]
Yes that is true, but expensive.
Those Chivs are not worth it, not even in SP. One cannot say my Chivs kicked Feudal ass, there are simply too many factors in there for it to be a correct estimate.
A Feudal MAA is supposed to be V1 when you can produce Chiv. MAA, I don't know if it is like that now because of th building bug. At least the Feudals are better at V1 and that is what matters, for they are that much cheaper. If the patch fixes the bug it will never be worth it to train any Chiv. MAA. I won't, don't know about others though.
Puzz I know this is easily corerected, but I also want to play online and I find it tedious to swap files all the time. That is why I also want Danish Crusades in the patch. I can correct it myself but it would take even more tedious work every time I wanted to go online.
Hopefully this will be corrected.
I wonder why the heavier Chiv MAA are considered Medium Infantry and teh lighter Feudals are Heavy Infantry.
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BTW, Danish Crusades are true to history.
You may not care about war, but war cares about you!
Arkatreides
09-17-2002, 03:50
While we are at it: The Civalric Sergeants have an attack of -1 while their predecessor, the Feudal Sergeant has an attack of 0 ... hmmm ...
Indeed, but the other stats makes up for that. So they are not unbalanced internally (meaning there is balance between the Sergeants).
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BTW, Danish Crusades are true to history.
You may not care about war, but war cares about you!
Action,
Well, if you want to take 5 MAA, you're still better off with 5 Feudal MAA than 4 Feudal MAA and 1 Chiv MAA. The 5th one will cost you 180 florins and the V1 upgrade is still only 75 florins for a total cost of 255 florins because the upgrade is based on the single unit cost and not the 5th unit inflated cost. Even the 6th V1 Feudal MAA is worthwhile because it will only cost 210 + 75 = 285 florins.
Tactics should decide battles, but many skilled players are going down to defeat right now because they haven't yet figured out what are the most cost efficient units. It's just a matter of time before this happens. I see the option to play any set of units as important because, if one faction does emerge as preferable, at least all players will be able to choose that set of units.
Kraxis,
Just make a batch file to swap the stats. The way it stands now you have to restart the game to use altered stats. I hope Gil Jaysmith will change this so that the stats are picked up when you go into battle. That will allow hot swapping of stats while online. Logging out and restarting just to change stats takes a long time.
DDDDSEKOTD
09-17-2002, 07:52
I am new to the game. Where do all of the stats you all seem to know come from. I Haven't been able to find them anywhere?
So one should use Feudal MAA.
What about Sergeants? Feudal or Chivalric?
I like to bring 4 MAA for shock and 4 Sergeants or Order Foot to hold the line. What are better anti-cavalry and lineholders - Feud Serg, Chiv Serg, or Order Foot?
Order Foot are the best spears, compared to the Feudal Sergeants they are 175 florins more expensive and you get +4 to defence and +2 to Armour.
Chivs are perhaps the best bang for the buck, that is a consideration you have to do yourself.
Order Foot 350 florins
5/0/3/3/2
Chiv Sergeants 250 florins
V0 5/-1/3/3/0
V1 5/0/4/3/2 375 florins
So is that +1 to defence worth 25 florins? Perhaps, perhaps not.
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BTW, Danish Crusades are true to history.
You may not care about war, but war cares about you!
Kraxis,
Is the +1 to defend worth 25 florins? The way I answer that is to compare the change in combat effectiveness to the change in cost on a percentage basis. The V1 Chiv Sergeants are 20% more combat effective, but only cost 7% more than the V0 Order Foot.
Bringing in the Feudal Sergeants you have:
V2 5/2/1/1/6 at 394 florins
This unit can operate more independently than the Order Foot due to the +4 morale, it will fatigue less due to the lower armor and it will kill faster. You can make a good case for taking it over and Order Foot for the extra cost if you are going to use it aggressively. You might even take it over the more powerful Chiv Sergeant for the same reason, but I wouldn't go running it head to head into a Chiv Sergeant.
Exactly, this is what I tried to say, the Sergeants/spears are much better balanced with each other. They can do different things at various levels.
That is certainly not the case with the Men-at-Arms.
I hope so very much that this is corrected with the patch. Especially now that there is certainly not going to be any official Danish Crusades.
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BTW, Danish Crusades are true to history.
You may not care about war, but war cares about you!
What a friendly group here....
DDD, to answer your question:
You can find some of the stats by pressing F1 during a battle. More detailed stats can be found at:
www.totalwarassembly.com (http://www.totalwarassembly.com)
Unfortunately, I don't know how the combat resolution system works.
I'm guessing it's some sort of die roll, with attack bonuses added to the roll and compared to the die roll of the defender plus defense bonuses. Dunno what to do about archers in that case, however, as they seem to have no combat values.
[This message has been edited by Dorkus (edited 10-02-2002).]
Naah Dorkus, they only have bad stats...
BTW the assembly is closed at the moment. We can't compare units anymore http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/frown.gif
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BTW, Danish Crusades are true to history.
You may not care about war, but war cares about you!
candidgamera
10-03-2002, 03:10
One of the merits of the Brady Games guide - has a run down on all this. However, haven't checked to see if it has problems similar to what we had in Shogun unrevised published verses actual.
AgentBif
10-03-2002, 03:32
And while we're pleading for CA to make minor unit fixes:
CA: Please fix Chiv Sergeants to have 4 morale, just like Chiv Knights and Footmen have.
BTW, where do I find the units file so I can fix this for my own SP campaign?
bif
anymapkoku
10-03-2002, 07:59
The Chiv Sergeants are one of the best units in the game, why are you wanting CA to make one of the best units better?
AgentBif
10-03-2002, 13:55
Quote Originally posted by anymapkoku:
The Chiv Sergeants are one of the best units in the game, why are you wanting CA to make one of the best units better?[/QUOTE]
Doh!
Why?! He just gave a thorough explanation of why...
Why are you asking why?
bif
Quote Originally posted by AgentBif:
He just gave a thorough explanation of why...
bif[/QUOTE]
Ehmmm, bif why are you talking in third person?
------------------
BTW, Danish Crusades are true to history.
You may not care about war, but war cares about you!
He's not the only one - it's become an epidemic. Maybe Magraev will be infected too.......
And Magraev agrees - chiv sergeant is good enough as it is and shouldn't be changed (this would make swordsmen even more obsolete).
anymapkoku
10-03-2002, 16:26
I don't know why. Anyone that said otherwise needs to play the game more.
Azmogeddon
10-03-2002, 20:22
BAH! I use Chivalric MAA just because they look cooler. http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif Black steel plate armor or crappy chain vests? No competition, even if Chiv MAA couldn't defeat peasants!
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Azmo
[long-time lurker]
Are the devs even aware of this?
Hopefully the CMAA will be addressed in the upcoming patch as intimated by this line included in the patch list:
Quote 56) Some changes to unit balancing.[/QUOTE]
And why do the Chivs have a 0.5 modifier on their shield in the first place? Did the devs give any justification for this?
AgentBif
10-04-2002, 05:02
Quote Originally posted by anymapkoku:
The Chiv Sergeants are one of the best units in the game, why are you wanting CA to make one of the best units better?[/QUOTE]
The Chivs cost twice as much as the Feudals but their meager stat increases don't justifie that. Furthermore, all Feudals have the same morale. The other two Chivs have 4 morale, logically, the Chiv Sgts should have the same morale as the other Chiv units.
Essentially, the Chivalric grade units should be a step above the Feudals in terms of morale.
I think the 0 morale Chiv Sgts have is a bug in the unit table.
bif
anymapkoku
10-04-2002, 11:05
Feudal sergeants lose vs chiv sergeants even with more money spent on them.
CaPeFeAr
10-04-2002, 13:15
i wont sit here and say that caa is better than maa in online battles, but that doesnt mean they arent balanced. they have other factors besides att/def values. for instance caa are a prefered general where maa are ok. caa has a high loyalty when produced, a major factor in single player, maa is much lower. accuman is another factor.
what ca needs to do is create 2 seperate unit stats and swap them automaticly when you join the multiplayer foyer. this way we can tweek our units in combat without disturbing the single player balance.
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Cape, I don't know this for sure, but I don't think those factors are preset. I have not noticed all that, I think they are random.
But yes, Chivs are preferred as generals, while teh Feudals are just in the middle (I have had at least three Rank 6 Feudals http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif).
Even if all those things were true, I don't think the cost is worth it, it only evens the score between V1 Feudals and V0 Chivs, which shouldn't really be the case.
We got an answer in another thread as to why some units have 0.5 and 0.0 (Hospitaller Foot Knights) modifiers to their shield. It is because the the time was against the shields so the modifier reflects the attitude towards them. Or something along those lines.
------------------
BTW, Danish Crusades are true to history.
You may not care about war, but war cares about you!
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