Spears and cav morale modifier

[Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe]

Quote[/b] ]Losing the fight(depending on how bad): upto –8
Infantry losing the fight to cavalry: upto -14

From the FAQ...

Do you think the infantry losing the fight to cavalry modifier includes spears* losing to cavalry? I guess the answer is yes.

Then;

How helpful would that be not to apply specific cavalry penalty modifier at spears? That would help spears to fight against cavalry, and possibly make them more interesting...
I guess there would be question about this one; Infantry charged, by cavalry, in the flank or when in loose/disordered: -6... Which, in my opinion shall stay as it is for all infantry, spears and non spears.

Your thought?

Louis,

*spears being unit with either spear or pike... not polearm.

[Puzz3D]

I guess there are 5 states: winning easily, winning, evenly matched, loosing and loosing badly. I suppose the biggest penalty is given for "loosing badly". I don't recall seeing spears "loosing badly" to cav from the front, although, I do see cav designated as winning quite often when in fact it was taking so many casualties that it ran out of men and lost. I can't put my finger on just what is generating that winning/loosing message.

I think the readjustment in MTW v1.1 of the spear/cav matchup was prompted largely by a post here at the org in which many SP players argued forcefully, backed by historical examples, that cav knights could penetrate spear formations and disrupt them. That's why the cav was given the chance to pushback the spear which it didn't have in MTW v1.0. It also seems to me that, if a unit is winning, it gets more pushbacks against the enemy. That could be helping cav a lot if it's somehow being designated as winning when it isn't.

[ElmarkOFear]

I wonder if the message is incorrect, or if the cav unit is still getting all the bonuses associated from "winning" for units that are near it? If enemy units are getting the penalty for losing, when the spears/pikes/halberds are actually winning the battle, then that would explain
the routing problem and lack of effectiveness in the cav vs. spear debate.

[Puzz3D]

I looked at v0 chiv knight vs v0 order foot and I do see the cav sometimes "winning easily" and the spear "loosing badly". The state I see most seems to be "winning" for the cav, but it does jump around from state to state as the units fight. The v0 chiv knight is a 5/5 (att/def) and the v0 order foot is a 0/3 + 0/2 (large shield) (att/def 0/5 shifted to -2/7 for hold formation) + 1/3 (anti-cav bonus) + 1/2 (rank bonus). That all adds up to 0/12 for the order foot vs cav frontally. So the matchup favors the order foot by 2 combat points. Some things that could flip this in favor of the cav are pushbacks (+6 att) and flank strikes (+5 att). I don't think other units beside the two actually fighting are involved in the message status because I've seen this "cav winning" message even as they obviously loose in one-on-one tests where nothing else is near them. I've seen the same thing with v0 chiv knight vs v0 chiv foot knight. I think the chiv foot are 2/6 + 3/1 (anti-cav) + 2/0 (armor pierce) = 7/7. Again pushbacks and flank strikes could flip things in favor of the cav at times, but I think you'll see the cav designated as winning most of the time even though it looses. These are obsevations made in online tests.


Note a correction there are 7 states for melee:

1)winning easily
2)winning
3)winning slightly
4)evenly matched
5)loosing slightly
6)loosing
7)loosing badly

[shingenmitch2]

Okee I was doing some thinking... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/dizzy.gif

about the 5k game. It seems to me that at 5k the game would be very good if:

1. morale (and only morale) increased overall moderately (say +4?)

2. The anti-cav bonus of spears boosted slightly.

3. Cavalry somehow boosted slightly versus swords only.

What appears to be working correctly is the swords versus spears. And overall the actual combat (aside from morale breaks) looks to be pretty close to where it needs to be.

With regard to the Sword vs. Spear, swords need to win this match-up with moderate casualties.... but the most imporant thing is that it should be a slow win... and the greater spear numbers seems to do this correctly. (This observation is completely untested, just seems that way to me right now.)

I'm not sure how the Halbs figure into all this tho. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif

My major assumption on this whole thing, is that 5k is now being played because it lets us field 16 unit armies, but allows very little room for doing any upgrades thus preventing uber-units.

[baz]

maybe this shows that CA is not too bad at balancing at a simple stage, it is just the morale that we need to balance .. surely a morale slider would be the perfect option for future TW games but is there any ideas how we can change this now

if only we got the no morale as a +6 increase instead of 12 http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif

[Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe]

I happen to agree with you all http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif

Yep, a moderate increase in morale +2/+4 would really make 5k game enjoyable without changing fighting efficiency and cost structure, as valor increase does toaday. So sure a slider would help

The limit is CMAA winning vs Cav with cav unable to rout them.

A CMAA v3 can engage heavy cav with confidence (as long as it is quite fresh and not reduced to half troop); that is +6 morale but also +3/+3 Att/Def. Maybe +6 morale and v0 would still make them somehow stickier, but still losing due to lower fighting stat? Not sure...

Boosting anti cav bonus of spears might make Halberds irrelevant. Wait; depend what you want to boost... If it si fighting ability, I would say no, if it is hardening Spears against cav specific morale penalty, I would like to see it and test it (actually that's the purpose of this thread).

Cav boosted vs sword only; completly agree at 15k, that would be helpfull if spears become affordable. At 5k, I am not sure cav needs any bonus against sword. Swords seems to be routing nearly just fine

Louis,

[ElmarkOFear]

I believe if CA separates morale as its own upgradable entity, then it would solve some of the spear problems we have now. Eliminate the valour upgrade and replace it with a morale upgrade. The current imbalances in MTW are somewhat created by upgrading valour (with its +1 attack, +1 defense, +2 morale). Getting rid of this combination upgrade would, in my opinion, fix a lot of imbalance and/or give the players a way to fix it themselves.

[Vanya]

GAH

Vanya sez... "upgrading" the morality of a unit only serves to sap unit cohesiveness, as those chosen will class socially with those of little or no morality.

Vanya sez... have picker, will chose.

And the moral of the story is...?

GAH

[Aelwyn]

My only real issue with low florin games comes from my only recent exposure to one. I was in a 7.5k game. I chose a pretty good balanced army, and was pretty upset when my opponent (the person who set up the game, which makes me think it was premeditated) took all v0 Heavy Cavs plus a few missle units. At least I made a game of it, but the cavs were too much for my non-upgraded inf army. I had 4 cavs, but they couldn't stop the 12 or so the other person brought.

Thats really my only issue with low florin games. Otherwise, I wonder, if the morale bonus/penalty that Louis mentioned was eliminated, what effect would it have? I think it would allow the fight bet. units to be completely resolved, without the instant routes that sometimes happens with spears. The only problem is it may take longer for larger units to reach their route point, making larger units more powerful against smaller ones. Not sure though, just my thoughts on the subject.

[CBR]

Aelwyn: 7.5k is also very different compared to the 5k(4k early era) that I keep spamming about http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

The balance seems very delicate really, too much and suddenly heavy cavalry dominates... and will roll over the balanced army.

Removing the special morale modifiers for spears and polearms would be nice I think but I wouldnt say its something that is required to be able to play at low florins...and I doubts its changed in the patch.

CBR