Game ruiner

[hung41584]

uhh, i really like rome total war but recently it has become a little bit tiresome. I started a campaign on very hard/ very hard with the gauls and i managed to survive past my first 10 turns. After repeated heroic victories, i realized how bad the game mechanics are with CALVALRY. All i did throughout the campaign was use armies composed almost entirely of normal calvalry or noble calvary. All you have to do is attack one or two enemy units using your whole army. Once that unit begins to route because of your charges, then just click on an adjacent enemy unit. Keep doing that until they all route. It is quite sad to say, but it ALWAYS WORKS. I use large unit sizes and destroy like 2000 enemy units in one battle with an army of 1000 calvalry.

Is this some sort of bug? cause its almost like a cheat. I know for sure battle difficulty was on very hard because i repeatedly restarted my campaign and i always won my battles heroic style. Its just I kept getting flanked by the julii , spaniards, and britons, and germans at the beggining. I fixed that by expanding into spain (using calvalry) and only having wars on one or two fronts.

And to also add, the basic calvalry is better than the noble ones when playing gaul because they charge better even though they cost so much more less than the noble ones. At the end of my game, i had quite a few 3 gold chevron units and a lot of silver ones.

[Uesugi Kenshin]

I don't do this just so I can make the game more realistic and a bit harder, it is up to the individual.....

I don't think it is a bug but one of the main reasons that cav would not have worked like that is you have to feed twice as many mammals, cav are bad in sieges and it usually takes more training to be in the cavalry than infantry.

[screwtype]

Excuse me for being a pedant, but the word is CAVALRY, not "calvalry". No "L" before the "V", okay?

If you have trouble remembering, just recall that the abbreviation for cavalry is CAV.

[Duke John]

To me it sounds like exploiting weaknesses in the game. Most strategic games have them and once you find them it is up to the player to either use them or avoid them.

Using these weaknesses makes the game easier as the AI and you are not fighting on equal terms and if you do that for a long time then it will indeed ruin the game for you. IMO it has little do with CA but with the player itself.

[Senta]

well, i can invite you and your all cavalry army to meet my hoplites any day :)
we would see some routing then, and it wouldn't be greeks that run away i can assure you ;)

[caesar44]

but the first thing that the develops of the game had to do is to prevent a super unit
it is not up to the player to avoid such situations

[The Stranger]

i also modded the game and made most cavalry twice as expensive as infantry.
also the huns were mostly only horse armies, cause in real life in sieges they dismounted. and what somebody said you have to feed twice as much, isn't exactly true. they just grazed along the way and drunk water from rivers.

[Cassius]

That certainly wasn't the case with later armies - one of the biggest problems of an army on the march was providing fodder for its cavalry. I don't see why ancient armies would have been able to get away with it.

[Merlin271]

come play some multiplayer you'll find enough of a challenge there
:charge: :stop: :duel: :hanged:

[hoom]

I'm sure the question of feeding horses is largely dependant on terrain, length of stay in any particular place & how many horsies you have to feed.
Lots of horses in a long drawn out siege in rocky, barren territory = lots of hungry horses.
Relatively few horses just passing through on the steppe are going to have little problem.

Personally I've never been a big fan of cav heavy armies & I rarely have more than 4 cav units.
Much more often only 2.
OK, so the exception is Naginata Cav... mmmm Naginata Cav, though even then I mostly only had 6 units in a frontline army :charge:

[Maelstrom]

... and what somebody said you have to feed twice as much, isn't exactly true. they just grazed along the way and drunk water from rivers.

I am no expert on horses, and I am sure there are plenty of people out there who are (please correct me if this is off target - as if you needed an invitation!), but I understood that natural grazing was pretty low on energy, and if you want a horse to be doing anything other than eating all day you need to give it higher energy density fodder (oats etc)?

[The Stranger]

maybe but someone also said horse armies are bad in siege, wich in real life isn't the case. cause they just simply dismounted. and the huns and mongols conquered big parts of the world and i didn't think they were that rich.

[Old Celt]

The "overpowered cavalry" syndrome is one that has been discussed here in detail before. It boils down to this simple principle: cavalry gets bonuses on hard and very hard settings which may create unbalancing and inappropriate battle results. The game was designed for best balanced play on medium battle difficulty, and those aforementioned bonuses do not apply then. So it isn't a bug, it's a feature, and if you want more balance and realism, then don't create all cav armies to beat up on the AI with.

I once faced 2 full stacks of Macedonians with a Pre Marius Scipii force which had only 2 equites and 1 cavalry aux plus a general for horses. The Macs had 7 light lancers and 3 greek cavalry in just 1 of their stacks. Playing on VH, the light lancers easily charged through and routed my Triarii, from the FRONT, and of course, that would be impossible in real life. I just accepted it as part of the game design, returned with much more cavalry of my own and dealt with it.

[The Stranger]

wich bonusses they get?

[The Stranger]

i just fought a battle on very hard and the macedonian companians couldn't even beat my Legionary cohorts.

[Bob the Insane]

The "overpowered cavalry" syndrome is one that has been discussed here in detail before.

Not meaning to argue or anything but the focus of the issue here was how overpower cav is when the player is in control...

I have to say that this is true as the game is now... My personal opinion is that this is a fallout from how much money is available to the player. The cavalry units are in general superior to infantry units, though there are always exceptions. Cavalry are faster and harder hitting then infantry, so equal or near equal numbers of cavalry to enemy infantry mean that the cavalry should win unless stupidly lead as the cav can either overpower units vunrable to cav attack or out manouver units that can defend themselves from cavalry...

So the fact that a huge cavalry army can be just as easily put together as a huge infantry one, and that the huge cavalry army does not threaten to bankrupt the player is at the heart of the problem for me.

Personally I am considering modding cavalry units to be more expensive both to train and especially in unkeep... I am also considering a general morale increase across the board to keep units in the fight longer which is always bad for cavalry once they get bogged down...

[Red Harvest]

The "overpowered cavalry" syndrome is one that has been discussed here in detail before. It boils down to this simple principle: cavalry gets bonuses on hard and very hard settings which may create unbalancing and inappropriate battle results. The game was designed for best balanced play on medium battle difficulty, and those aforementioned bonuses do not apply then. So it isn't a bug, it's a feature, and if you want more balance and realism, then don't create all cav armies to beat up on the AI with.


I have never heard of this. Do you have a link? As far as I know only the AI gets bonuses on H and VH, not the human. And now with 1.2 it apparently no longer gets the attack bonuses. Instead morale has been adjusted in some fashion.

[Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe]

The "overpowered cavalry" syndrome is one that has been discussed here in detail before. It boils down to this simple principle: cavalry gets bonuses on hard and very hard settings which may create unbalancing and inappropriate battle results. The game was designed for best balanced play on medium battle difficulty, and those aforementioned bonuses do not apply then. So it isn't a bug, it's a feature, and if you want more balance and realism, then don't create all cav armies to beat up on the AI with.



I have never heard of that. Difficulty setting changes AI bonus, but it's very unlikely it changes specifically cavalry.

Any units with a +7 attack can walk throught any other unit. A cavalry charge with such a huge bonus is very dangerous. But, as far as I know, that bonus is for ALL AI troops, and not cavalry specific.

However, I think cavalry is overpowered, even at medium level, and that's mainly a cost/ upkeep problem.
I like the cavalry behaviour, but it's far too easy to have many cavalry for a very low cost.

Louis,

[Quillan]

That certainly wasn't the case with later armies - one of the biggest problems of an army on the march was providing fodder for its cavalry. I don't see why ancient armies would have been able to get away with it.

It primarily has to do with the horses. In the ancient period, horses were much smaller, and generally only fed on grass, so grazing was sufficient food for them. In the later medieval period, most horses were grain fed, and much larger. Grass isn't enough to keep them going, they need grain, and you have to supply that for them.

And as to the horse nomads, mostly they didn't siege in the traditional sense. A cavalry nomad army could just burn everything around the city and ride off, the city will starve. The Mongols learned siege warfare when they invaded China, but they took over chunks of with without that knowledge.

[Old Celt]

Sorry I don't have a link to the discussion. It was a statement from a CA staff member and it was in response I think to a question about why cavalry units could charge phalanx units frontally and crash through even deep ranks of those formations. My understanding was that such bonuses for charge do get applied to both the player and AI cavalry.

[Red Harvest]

Sorry I don't have a link to the discussion. It was a statement from a CA staff member and it was in response I think to a question about why cavalry units could charge phalanx units frontally and crash through even deep ranks of those formations. My understanding was that such bonuses for charge do get applied to both the player and AI cavalry.

If you remember where you saw it, please post it because it could be useful. Prior to 1.2 the AI received a +4 attack on H (all units) and +7 attack on VH (all units). This came from Jerome's response in a Q/A in the modding section here. The AI was also the recipient of some undefined morale bonuses, but no defense adjustments IIRC. After 1.2 the attack bonuses appear to be absent, but the morale bonuses appear to have been amplified or altered in some fashion. This has led to some rather strange effects, such as human triarii beating up AI triarii 1v1 on VH...

[hung41584]

spearmen seem to be good at destroying infantry, but do horribly against missile units. Its like the swords cant seem to go past all those long spears.

Also, In 1.2 I seemed to notice that the human foot soldiers route or lose battles easier even though the odds are even. They seem to require a CAVALRY charge to boost up their fighting spirits. Albeit from a general (which isn't a good idea cause he will die easily) or normal horse units. This led me in the first place to start putting more cavalry in my army until i found out that it would be even better to just use an army full of cavalry.

I think the game developers were trying to make the battles hard by first getting a real fight going and then having the human player try to win the battle by having auxilary units like archers charging in at the last moment to save the battle. Thats probably where the effectiveness of the charging bonus comes into play.

[The Stranger]

come play some multiplayer you'll find enough of a challenge there
:charge: :stop: :duel: :hanged:

well i'll challenge you, and everybody else. go look at Campus_Martius/Challenge thread for the rules and details.

[The Stranger]

Not meaning to argue or anything but the focus of the issue here was how overpower cav is when the player is in control...

I have to say that this is true as the game is now... My personal opinion is that this is a fallout from how much money is available to the player. The cavalry units are in general superior to infantry units, though there are always exceptions. Cavalry are faster and harder hitting then infantry, so equal or near equal numbers of cavalry to enemy infantry mean that the cavalry should win unless stupidly lead as the cav can either overpower units vunrable to cav attack or out manouver units that can defend themselves from cavalry...

So the fact that a huge cavalry army can be just as easily put together as a huge infantry one, and that the huge cavalry army does not threaten to bankrupt the player is at the heart of the problem for me.

Personally I am considering modding cavalry units to be more expensive both to train and especially in unkeep... I am also considering a general morale increase across the board to keep units in the fight longer which is always bad for cavalry once they get bogged down...

allready did it

here's the layout i used.

training cost
+100 for light cav
+150 for medium cavalry
+200 for heavy cavalry

Upkeep
+100 for light armoured cav
+150 for medium armoured cavalry
+200 for heavy armoured cavalry

Training time
all cavalry + 1

[Bob the Insane]

allready did it

here's the layout i used.

training cost
+100 for light cav
+150 for medium cavalry
+200 for heavy cavalry

Upkeep
+100 for light armoured cav
+150 for medium armoured cavalry
+200 for heavy armoured cavalry

Training time
all cavalry + 1

Nice, I will try it and see what effect it has...

Does it have a detrimental effect on the Parthians and other eastern horse cultures?

[The Stranger]

yes it does for the armenians but not that much for Parthia

[Puzz3D]

If you remember where you saw it, please post it because it could be useful. Prior to 1.2 the AI received a +4 attack on H (all units) and +7 attack on VH (all units). This came from Jerome's response in a Q/A in the modding section here. The AI was also the recipient of some undefined morale bonuses, but no defense adjustments IIRC. After 1.2 the attack bonuses appear to be absent, but the morale bonuses appear to have been amplified or altered in some fashion. This has led to some rather strange effects, such as human triarii beating up AI triarii 1v1 on VH...
I've seen test results made by players at .com which shows the combat resolves much faster at VH setting without any advantage to either side. Those results show that not only is the +7 attack bonus still present, but that both the AI and the human player get the bonus. The accelerated casualty rate drives the morale down lower, and units rout faster as a result.

[The Stranger]

men that stinks, so a unit that has a attack of 10 is actually 17. well why did i never noticed it then Pre and Post patch. and this stinks, just cut the money or something like that not increase attack.

[Red Harvest]

I've seen test results made by players at .com which shows the combat resolves much faster at VH setting without any advantage to either side. Those results show that not only is the +7 attack bonus still present, but that both the AI and the human player get the bonus. The accelerated casualty rate drives the morale down lower, and units rout faster as a result.

I've seen the same speed effect with level, but I had not seen anything stated by developers about giving the bonus to both sides. (I had assumed it was all morale related.) Why on earth would they do something so foolish??? ~:eek: Most folks were already complaining about the high kill rate so they made it worse??? :jawdrop: Surely this can't be right.

[Puzz3D]

I've seen the same speed effect with level, but I had not seen anything stated by developers about giving the bonus to both sides. (I had assumed it was all morale related.) Why on earth would they do something so foolish??? ~:eek: Most folks were already complaining about the high kill rate so they made it worse??? :jawdrop: Surely this can't be right.
I think it was accidental. I'd put this in with the Parthian shot problem and the non-scrolling building browser.

Also, I quesion the wisdom of giving the bonus entirely on the attack value. That accelerates the combat resolution more than a bonus that is split between attack and defend values. And, although combat points in RTW give about half the improvement they did in MTW, the increase on VH is much greater than it was in MTW at the hardest setting. In MTW, the hardest setting gave the AI a 30% melee combat advantage. In RTW, the hardest setting is giving the AI about 200% advantage. It just goes to show how much inferior the AI in RTW is compared to MTW.

[The Stranger]

well the patch doesn't seems that perfect now

[Red Harvest]

Also, I quesion the wisdom of giving the bonus entirely on the attack value. That accelerates the combat resolution more than a bonus that is split between attack and defend values.


That has been my position all along as well. Split the bonus between offense and defense. Most of the bonuses in RTW have been "ATTACK!!! ATTACK!!! ATTACK!!!" (to quote my barbarian general's.)

[Khorak]

I wouldn't mind this problem if it wasn't for the fact that after the 1.2 patch.....the computer uses it on ME. I've had the dubious pleasure of watching an army of Equites simply splat a unit of armoured hoplites (from the front no less) and then just pile up the line.

[Oaty]

The problem comes from appealing to the mass crowd. Just think of all the videos where cavalry and elephants are making guys do the superman fly. Also lord of the rings when they did that mass cavalry charge I remember someone saying in a post that's how they thought a cavalry charge should work. Looks great but annoying especially when you can counter it and exploit it at the same time.

Us totalwar fans are the senate and all those newcomers are the mob. Appease the mob...............

I'm all for cavalry populations along with a way to restrict elite troops. 1 reason Gauls are so easy is because it is way too easy to take 19 naked fanatics and a general and march on Rome.

I have no problem with Parthia/Armenia or Scythia being tough in cavalry and with a cavalry population would make most factions fear going east too fast. Also this would make mercanary cavalry much more desirable.

I played as Scythia and had to laugh when the Thracians did me the favour of taking out my biggest problem.... Macedon, then declared war on me. Scythia was way too easy because the A.I. would declare war on me and then come at me with infantry heavy armies. I learned the hard way never march on the Scythians unless you can at least match there cavalry with 1 to odds in cavalry or better.

The best formation I have found against cavalry is a u shape formation and GUARD mode.

Kill rate mod does definatley reeduce effectiveness of cavalry but it somehow made peasants uberstrong if they survive a charge against anything.

[AntiochusIII]

Us totalwar fans are the senate and all those newcomers are the mob. Appease the mob...............

Ha ha! Yes yes! This is it! Very good thinking with that Oaty. I think I'm a junior senator and will never be promoted (Under 18 cannot a member of the org..like me. ~D The old moderaters of the Senate are very meannnn ~D don't take it seriously!) // EDIT \\ Wait! I'm a senator? What the! Thank you to the Consuls! // EDIT \\

And the Lord of the Rings thing, I think that's cool, yeah, but, you see, at Helm's Deep, those guys charge down from a mountaintop (or just from very high) towards a valley upon a group of "Eastern Infantry." Those stupid mob should realize that before appealing to CA that they want that kind of charge... and remember the height bonus of MTW...

And in the front of Minas Tirith, they recieved a massive war chant from Theoden and all the horns, and the Rohan horsemen cheat as well. You see, there is an aid from a Valar from the west by the name of Manwe.... Just kidding!

P.S. It's funny to see how quick rant threads grow when a new junior began to complain. With all the Old Men of the Senate quickly responding agreeably with some new senator's first rants. ~D But hey, don't take it seriously alright! You humorless senators!!

[Jeanne d'arc]

I downloaded a mod wich doubled all the hitpoints of the units, using cavalry becomes less tempting that way.Getting tired of these standard rtw user complaint threads, just download some mods and adjust the game to your needs.

[Quietus]

Well, cavalry in RTW are unbalanced.

- Way overpowered.
- Cheap to train.
- Even more cheaper to maintain. I mean, for Equites (110 denari). That's for 108 riders and 108 horses. While a 160 men Town Watch cost 100 to maintain.

Try playing with a lot more infantry instead. ~:)

[hung41584]

its nice to know there are others who agree that cavalry are too strong. I just thought it was just my imagination or my version of rtw is messed up.

[Red Harvest]

Cav have been weakened somewhat, but they still are too strong, particularly for the low upkeep. You must be careful when adjusting upkeep though, because factions like Parthia and Scythia deserve a bit of a break for maintaining cav.

[screwtype]

Personally I am considering modding cavalry units to be more expensive both to train and especially in unkeep... I am also considering a general morale increase across the board to keep units in the fight longer which is always bad for cavalry once they get bogged down...

And how about making it so they take longer to train? After all you've got to train not only the riders but the horses as well. And I'm not sure how long it would take to get horses to behave on a battlefield but I imagine it wouldn't be all that easy.

[screwtype]

I have never heard of this. Do you have a link? As far as I know only the AI gets bonuses on H and VH, not the human. And now with 1.2 it apparently no longer gets the attack bonuses. Instead morale has been adjusted in some fashion.

You know, I've been thinking in recent days, just why *is* it that these issues are such a mystery? There is so much speculation and testing to try and find out how things work - why doesn't CA just come right out and tell us? Why can't they at least tell us exactly what the advantages and disadvantages of each difficulty level are? It would sure save a lot of energy, speculation and white noise on these forums.

And while I'm on the subject, I'd also like to know why the morale of units is such a mystery too. Why can't we have a factor for morale printed on the unit ID cards just as there is a factor for attack, defence, missile attack and so on? And why is there no summary of a general's overall effect on morale printed at the top of his ID cards, alongside management, influence and command? It's just tedium to go through a general's V&V's to try and figure out his overall effect.

[screwtype]

I've seen test results made by players at .com which shows the combat resolves much faster at VH setting without any advantage to either side. Those results show that not only is the +7 attack bonus still present, but that both the AI and the human player get the bonus. The accelerated casualty rate drives the morale down lower, and units rout faster as a result.

Oh dear, another bug?

[The Stranger]

Well, cavalry in RTW are unbalanced.

- Way overpowered.
- Cheap to train.
- Even more cheaper to maintain. I mean, for Equites (110 denari). That's for 108 riders and 108 horses. While a 160 men Town Watch cost 100 to maintain.

Try playing with a lot more infantry instead. ~:)

i modded the game
and already showed my layout, use it. it really works. it makes cavalry way less likely to maintain for long or in big quantities cause they're now
twice as expensive

a example equites now cost 2 years and 600 denarii to train and 210 denary to maintain.
cataphracts cost 1100 to train and 500 to maintain and also 2 years to train

ps look on page 1 for the layout

[hung41584]

I KNOW THE PROBLEM WITH CAVALRY. Its simple, the game producers didn't know how to prevent the unit charge bonuses from stacking on each other. Its like as if the unit being charged was receiving an attack that was a cumlative of +9 +9 +9 +9, etc. whenever a whole load of units attack at a time. This sort of stacking mechanism seems to decide battles whenever infantry fight like in the example of principes charging in after the hestati begin to tire. Or whenever the fight is uneven like 2on1 or 3on1. There isn't really a good way to tell if different units are attacking each other unless there is a command to attack; otherwise the units just rub each other and only have minimal fighting. So they can't get rid of the cavalry superiority because it would wreck the whole fighting mechanism.

However, I did end up finding a slight solution to the calvalry problem. Just use huge unit sizes so even if there is a charge, it gets balanced out by the fact that there are too many units to charge through so the horses just get stuck in a regular fight against infantry (which they don't do so well). Still, if the charge does succeed, don't think about having to eliminate the little bits of routing units cause they'll all get eaten up.

[Khorak]

However, I did end up finding a slight solution to the calvalry problem. Just use huge unit sizes so even if there is a charge, it gets balanced out by the fact that there are too many units to charge through so the horses just get stuck in a regular fight against infantry (which they don't do so well). Still, if the charge does succeed, don't think about having to eliminate the little bits of routing units cause they'll all get eaten up.

I use huge unit sizes, I consider the problem worse. The infantry size increase doesn't mean much in the face of just how many damn horses there end up being, they'll just jump in all over the unfortunate infantry unit and totally crush it in one sweeping massacre. mainly due to horses being able to simply shove through each other and for some reason still being allowed to make use of their charge once they've barged through, imbuing them with brutal attack and the jumping animation.

[The Stranger]

well don't complain and make the cavalry size 20. or 80 on huge units settings.