CIV Total War

[Great Est.]

I was just wondering if anybody else out there also plays CIV. Can you imagine a game with the empire/city management and the battles of MTW?
It would take forever to play just a turn, sure, but talk about a deep, immersive game!
You would send your stack of 2 archers and 1 spear against an enemy city with two spears, for example, and it would trigger a TW battle between said units. That would be awesome.

[Cowhead418]

I was playing Civ the other day and I was surprised at how much I like the Diplomacy. I was at war with the Romans when they approached me for a ceasefire after I had conquered several of their cities. Going into it I had no intention of ending the war but they offered me such a sweet deal that I had to take it. At least in Civ, your rivals can actually be reasonable in your dealings, and trading is very fun. The only way for TW Diplomacy to get up to a decent level would be lots of expansion to what could be offered. Hey, and just maybe that nation you just spent a decade destroying might actually accept a ceasefire and want to live!

[Great Est.]

Yes, I hate how the AI refuses to accept a ceasefire when you clearly have the upper hand. As the Hungarians, I took Constantinople and Nicea from the Byz the other day and left them with their islands and Trebizond. Did they accept a ceasfire? Nope. All I wanted was to keep Constantinople, but they forced me to destroy them. It's nearly impossible in MTW to wage wars with limited goals, as it is in CIV. There should be a way to negotiate peace in MTW. That would make the game much more interesting.

[The Unknown Guy]

Isn't Rome: TW pretty much like that?

Master of Magic too, for that matter, but the combat was turn based.

edit: and it already takes forever to play just a turn. Three pitched battles can eat a whole hour.

[Martok]

Isn't Rome: TW pretty much like that?
Heh. You took the words right out of my mouth. ~D

Of course, there's at least one major difference between Rome and Civ on the empire/campaign side of the game (besides the battles), which is diplomacy. By most accounts (even not counting Cowhead418's personal experience), diplomacy in the Civ games is generally more rational than we can hope for in any of the existing Total War titles. Aside from the empire-management AI, I feel diplomacy is still the most broken/underdeveloped aspect of the TW series.

[Maloncanth]

edit: and it already takes forever to play just a turn. Three pitched battles can eat a whole hour.

An hour? Hah!

Let's just say that unlike the sun outside my window, the sun in an MTW tactical does not set.

[Great Est.]

Isn't Rome: TW pretty much like that?

Master of Magic too, for that matter, but the combat was turn based.

edit: and it already takes forever to play just a turn. Three pitched battles can eat a whole hour.

I've had RTW for months now and have yet to even install it because I'm still not "bored" or "through" with MTW. This is one of the "drawbacks" of MTW being so engrosing, I guess.
Maybe when I get back into the inevitable heavy CIV phase and come back to TW, I'll enter Rome.

[seireikhaan]

I really like both games. In fact, right now they're probably my two favorite games. However, I don't think that Total War games will ever get too in depth with diplomacy. Keep in mind, we are talking about games titled "total war".

Civilization is another favorite of mine, but for different reasons. Certainly it's got much better diplomacy. Sometimes it still makes some mind boggling decisions, though. An example was when I played the "Earth 18 civs" scenario as Japan. I put a city in southern china and defended it with a couple of archers. The Mongols actually went THROUGH Chinese territory in order to take my city. That just seems absurd to me that anyone would do that.

[The Unknown Guy]

I really like both games. In fact, right now they're probably my two favorite games. However, I don't think that Total War games will ever get too in depth with diplomacy. Keep in mind, we are talking about games titled "total war".

Yet they should. Otherwise alliances are little more than "encouragement to attack someone else", and ceasefires are a "please stop beating me" plead :(

On Rome: I don't own the game. When I bought Medieval:VI I was going to buy Rome instead, but it didn't run on my computer, and I found an awesome bargain for M:VI gold on E-bay. Thus, I am here, and not on the Rome forums. Still, I have read çuite a bit about Rome. I don't really know, of course, but many posters here have been very critical with the AI, with the tactical one, but particularily with the Campaign AI. This would make sense, as it's description fits something much more complex than the MTW:VI AI choices (I don't know how much, however, as I don't know the details (Does the exact point where opposing armies meet in a province determine the battlefield? Does the AI perform this correctly?). I´ve also heard a good deal of criticism concerning diplomacy. This could be applied to the whole saga, I guess, it's just that it becomes more evident when it is given more complexity.

My personal impression, at a glance, is that it makes the game over-complicated. As I mentioned, a MTW:VI turn can take hours to complete, depending on the number of battles you wage yourself (and remember that one battle or two can already last by themselves one hour, or hour and a half). Add to it the aditional problem of Civ-games micromanagement, and it simply becomes unfeasibly long. In fact, whereas Civ III had a mostly decent AI and gameplay, I often ended up as fed up by the middle-high terms of the game.
I had a simmilar experience with Diablo and Diablo II. Where Diablo I followed in a mostly faithful manner the essence of Roguelike games (althrough far less dynamic than games such as Slash'Em and ADOM-both freeware, and both recommended by my part), Diablo II was just a slightly more complex version of Space Invaders, with better graphics.

So, if you excuse me, for now I´ll stick to my old MTW:VI, even if the graphics aren't so good, and my old Slash'Em, even if the graphics are sprites and not hifty CGI images. More eyecandy doesn't mean "better" by default. And certain ways of making seçuels are a "gaming revisionism" of sorts, and the result doesn't really çualify as a seçuel, but as something of an entirely different genre (not necessarily bad, but certainly not following the definition of the predecessor). And whereas I like improvements (by all means. I am subscribing to Cambryses's mod, for instance), I don't like to be handled "new lamps for old"

[caravel]

I now dislike Civilisation style settlement based micromanagement games, and would vehemently oppose TW games becoming similar to that series. Unfortunately with RTW we have already seen a step in that direction.

:2cents:

[Maloncanth]

I will say this: the TW strategic AI could take lessons from the Civ 3 one. The basic problem is that at current levels of computation and even programming budget, it is almost impossible to make an AI capable of competing with a competent player, although there have been some very keen efforts (neither Civ 3 or TW are among them). It is much easier to have a challenging game if the AI is allowed to cheat like mad. Civ 3 is a grand strategy game so the AI has the same units as you but it gets to build them faster and cheaper and everything for them costs less. MTW is a tactical game, so they'd be best off if they had one decent strategic AI, then changed the autoresolve and combat stats and maybe gave the AI the intense patience to simply grind the player down economically so as to force the player to attack.

I don't know what MT2W is like but I do think the comp could use a little more than +4 morale. It really needs to get to the point where the player actually has to consider leaving something in reserve to rally reinforcements around rather than sitting on a hill with the opening 16 until the enemy goes away.

[General Dazza]

Until I started playing MTW, Civ III was the strategy game I'd been playing.

I find MTW a far superior game for many reasons, but relevant ones here are:
1. A CIV III campaign is challenging for a while, but once you get more territory than others it's just a matter of time, whereas MTW has many in-built factors which make it challenging (and more fun) for longer
2. Micromanagement of CIVIII wears you down
3. The combo of strategy and tactical battlemap blows CIV III away

The diplomacy of CIV III does have some good points, but I always found that onece you start to get on top of the campaign in CIV III you had bugger all chance of allying or trading with other key nations. Only the weak would do what you wanted.

Also, I found that the tech tree on CIV III was more important than it should have been. It's still important in MTW, but not the all-dominating force it is in CIVIII.

[Maloncanth]

Until I started playing MTW, Civ III was the strategy game I'd been playing.

I find MTW a far superior game for many reasons, but relevant ones here are:
1. A CIV III campaign is challenging for a while, but once you get more territory than others it's just a matter of time, whereas MTW has many in-built factors which make it challenging (and more fun) for longer
2. Micromanagement of CIVIII wears you down
3. The combo of strategy and tactical battlemap blows CIV III away

The diplomacy of CIV III does have some good points, but I always found that onece you start to get on top of the campaign in CIV III you had bugger all chance of allying or trading with other key nations. Only the weak would do what you wanted.

Also, I found that the tech tree on CIV III was more important than it should have been. It's still important in MTW, but not the all-dominating force it is in CIVIII.

I dunno about #1. I've never had a problem winning the game once I've gotten the advantage in MTW for strategic reasons. I've gotten redfields once or twice sure, but that's a matter of silly errors that can be corrected with disciplined attention to detail. Rebellions, mass wars, civil wars, all those can be prevented or defeated with ease. It's not so much a challenge as a drag and being really really careful whereas getting that advantage in Civ 3 is much harder in the first place.

Having played both, I'd have to say Civ 3 is by far the harder game. Back when I played it, I couldn't generally beat the game on Deity. Compared to high level Civ 3, MTW VI or XL on Expert with virtually any faction is a cakewalk.

As for #3, tactically speaking, obviously MTW is a much prettier game as there's no real tactics in Civ3 beyond operations in specific sections of the map I suppose. Strategically though, it's much deeper. It has meaningful diplomacy for one thing and the potential for early decisions to have an impact at a much later date. MTW doesn't work that way. Territories are much more fluid and a lot of the game mechanics are completely beyond your control. It's much more reactive; unlike Civ 3 where you have to think about which way to move, all you really need in MTW is to know how to handle and prevent crises.

[General Dazza]

Having played both, I'd have to say Civ 3 is by far the harder game. Back when I played it, I couldn't generally beat the game on Deity. Compared to high level Civ 3, MTW VI or XL on Expert with virtually any faction is a cakewalk.

Gee I dunno Maloncanth :inquisitive: . I agree with what you're saying re the difficulty of CIV III on deity, but that I believe has much to do with the absolute importance of the tech tree in Civ III. If you don't keep up with the tech advances you have no hope, as your riflemen get steamrolled by modern warfare tank units.

On deity the AI nations get such huge advantages in teching and building that you've got very little hope of catching up. So the only way to keep up at all is to play defensively and hope to trade your way to tech equality. But this just makes the game frustrating. Because as soon as you try to get militarily aggressive you get shunned.

I never bothered much with deity as it became a tech/trade game.

On other levels, I found a system that won every game:
1 You build your first 6-7 towns in peace while the other nations build 10-11
2. Attack your nearest neighbour and take their 6-7 cities to get about 20 and be on a par with others
3. Take on one enemy at a time.
Voila.

Don't get me wrong - I thoroughly enjoyed it. But once MTW came along it paled away.

Also, I find that the CIV III nations do seem very similar after a while, while MTW does offer quite different gaming experiences from one faction to another.

May I suggest that they are both comparitively excellent strategy games, both with something to offer and both with some flaws ~:)

[Caerfanan]

I now dislike Civilisation style settlement based micromanagement games, and would vehemently oppose TW games becoming similar to that series. Unfortunately with RTW we have already seen a step in that direction.

:2cents:
Hence what I think would be great: being capable of setting the micromanagement level. So that battle-oriented players don't get bored by micromanagement while micromanager outwit the AI with economics and strategic moves and autocalcs the battles!

[Caerfanan]

I've played Civ III (conquest extension) for hundreds of hours, and will again soon, probably. Neverending game, as MTW.... On funny thing I did was sending a save at 4000BC to two of my friends, before any moves, and everyone was playing the same game then: we could share comments, maps. Everyone had his style. Very fun.

I'll say that I like both for different reasons. Any game joinig the two interesting aspects would be huge, but probably overwhelming most of the time. Such game would thus need activate/deactivate options...

[caravel]

Hence what I think would be great: being capable of setting the micromanagement level. So that battle-oriented players don't get bored by micromanagement while micromanager outwit the AI with economics and strategic moves and autocalcs the battles!
Personally I do like managing certain aspects but not messing around with population growth, civil unrest, squalor, food production, corruption etc. This is what I hated about RTW, having to constantly worry about the population of a settlement and having to train a constant stream of peasants, move them out of the city and send them to another city, etc etc.

I don't want auto management to take care of these factors for me, I prefer for them not to be included in the first place. STW and MTW1 had a system where the population were just a loyalty figure in the province. This is the best approach. CA would have done better concentrating their efforts on fixing diplomacy and providing more realistic alliances and interactions with other factions, as well as improved campaign and battle AI instead of adding these Civilisation style toys to RTW and future games. +:2cents:

:bow:

[Caerfanan]

Personally I do like managing certain aspects but not messing around with population growth, civil unrest, squalor, food production, corruption etc. This is what I hated about RTW, having to constantly worry about the population of a settlement and having to train a constant stream of peasants, move them out of the city and send them to another city, etc etc.

I don't want auto management to take care of these factors for me, I prefer for them not to be included in the first place. STW and MTW1 had a system where the population were just a loyalty figure in the province. This is the best approach. CA would have done better concentrating their efforts on fixing diplomacy and providing more realistic alliances and interactions with other factions, as well as improved campaign and battle AI instead of adding these Civilisation style toys to RTW and future games. +:2cents:

:bow:
Yup, and that's why the player should choose what he wants to manage or not. Then I agree with you, if they had to spend some time developping the game, it should've been a good extenson of diplomacy... without having to make sure every turn that you've not forgotten again a diplomat in the middle of North Africa....

[caravel]

without having to make sure every turn that you've not forgotten again a diplomat in the middle of North Africa....
Well they could have fixed that by improving the campaign map AI and having diplomats that actually use a bit of common sense. A diplomat that has been inactive for a set period of time without a mission should simply warn you that he's on his way home again as he's no business waiting about in the middle of nowhere. If you wanted him to stay put for whatever reason you could merely set him to "hold his position". That way you wouldn't have to worry about losing/forgetting about him as he'd come home eventually anyway. It's these sort of oversights that equal masses of irritating micromanagement.

Also the trade fleets that buzz around everywhere on the RTW map would definitely count as a transportation network for emissaries and other agents, thus they should be able to simply hop from one port to the next and not need to be brought to their destination in one of your own naval vessels. It's hardly fitting for an assassin or spy to be dropped off by one of your own faction's ships, when they can utilise the trading network of merchant fleets to get where they're going much faster and much more stealthily. They would either buy or work their passage and enter enemy lands much more stealthily than being dropped off by a naval warship on a dedicated mission bearing your faction's colours, which is nothing short of ridiculous. Agents should be able to travel much further than armies on land also, as an army would move a lot more slowly take a lot of preparation, equipping, organising and would be restricted by it's slowest foot units. A lone agent could take shortcuts through the hills, or through other impassable terrain that a large army would not venture through. The agent may board a ship near the coast for part of the journey, may be on horseback or in a carriage for another part and may utilise other waterways.

In short an agent would travel much faster than an army, would not need military transportation, relying instead on merchant shipping, and would be able to return home or ask for orders if he has been forgotten or mislaid.

[Caerfanan]

Yes, indeed, having a diplomat advancing at the speed of an army in full battle order, building fortified camps every night and so on is weird...

That was one of the good things that happened with Civ III: you create an embassy, and then you settle diplomatic relations...

[Noir]

The old engine system worked reasonably well in feudal Japan - however it needed three extra things IMO to work well in representing Medieval Europe.

These are:

a) Homelands

that would represent a faction's recruiting geographical pool in relation to history and in relation to the influence that these would have in the game (a faction of 20 homelands has a huge advantage vs a faction with 2 - also 20 homelands mean in all probability that this faction is behaving for most of the game just if it was able to recruit from anywhere - there are limits that are determined from the overall number of factions/provinces in the game and how these connect (geograhy)). Introducing homelands is currently possible - although CA never gave it a second look and is a "mod feature" only

b) Supply Lines

This could have been very easily introduced as follows:
.All fleets/stacks that are within a homeland province/homeland port sea region loose 0% troops per year
.All fleets/stacks that border or connect with a/via a port with a homeland provinces loose x% troops per year - crusade style
.All fleets/stacks that do not border or connect with a/via a port with a homeland provinces loose 2 times x% troops per year - crusade style

This would make the game work great. As it stands with the introduction of strict realistic homelands, factions that are not in a connection with theirs are bound to lose in attrition wars with others that are. If these features were introduced then factions would win faster from their homelands and lose faster from outside - so the game would play much better overall in time, as an Italian empire in Germany would have to re-supply its occupying troops making the whole venture expensive instead of a piece of cake as it stands. Conversely the HRE would have to pay a similarly high but less than the Italians price to occupy the Italian city states. Unsupported expansion would be severly punished - and national geography and logistical strength expressed.

I forgot to mention that these two would help enormously factions to get rid of remnants of old expansion that now are useless economic dead weigth that hinders their further expansion as the game currently stands. The AI can get rid of unwanted stacks fleets in far off seas provinces only throug war attrition - that ironically he doesn't do most of the time because it seems he is (wisely) concerned of the diplomatic consequences (if i attack the Byzantine superempire that i border just to get rid of my fleets that i can't use enymore since i have no ports i risk of a war that will threaten survival - he seems to be thinking many times).

c) Ethnicity indexes

These would be similarly a single figure like loayalty,religion of population or zeal. They would indicate the % of a certain ethnicity within a province and change very very slowly (many years) with the introduction of expensive "colonisation" buildings if another faction wishes to convert it to its own ethnicity. Above 80% of your own ethnicity say the province would be now considered homeland - and the engine would allow you to recruit a preset assortement of units. This would really account for "making history" as for example the expansion of the Iberian kingdoms or of the Turks would be much better and logically accounted for in game.

These could co-interact with the religion zeal indexes ie a "French" ethncicity would give a higher faith propagation to catholic conquerors, say, while a Muslim one wouldn't.

Re-appearances would be possible in provinces without leadership and of the ethnicity of the faction that re-appears. As it currently stands its ridiculus having the Egyptians re-appear in Constantinople that they held only one turn - simply because there is no other province for them to re-appear. This would further help the application and better working of homelands to reflect logistical strengths of factions.

I never understood why the MTW diplomacy was scrutinised (it didn't happen in this thread - i mean in general). For me is all i ever wanted for a strategic game, and BTW the RTW/M2 diplomacy with all the extra features, mods and tweakings etc etc works still far worse than that of MTW as far as i am concerned. Factions in MTW are concerned of their survival and act diplomatically accordingly and for whoever can see the whole map their decisions make nothing less than sense, most of the time.

The first of these is already in the game while the second technically is also in. The third one i'm sure would be easy enough to add as it would follow the rules of religion/loyalty %ges.

Many Thanks

Noir

[caravel]

Some good ideas, especially the implementation of the supply lines and the natural "wastage" of unneeded troops. Ships could have been dealt with similarly in that an isolated fleet far from your lands with none of your other fleets in neighbouring seas would deteriorate over time, through lack of supplies, turning to piracy, loss to piracy, mutinies etc.

The homelands are indeed already there. In fact when we see Highland Clansmen only recruitable in Scotland or Bedouin Camels in the desert provinces, we're seeing homelands, but as you have stated CA seemed to show little interest in enforcing real ethnic/cultural homelands for all units.

Ethnic population percentage would also have been a superb factor - much better than "squalor" or food production. And reaching a percentage and having that region become a homeland would add a whole new dimension. This would work well with faction reappearances, guaranteeing that factions don't reappear in ridiculously outlandish provinces. Also in this way you would not be able to simply convert a province to another religion in a matter of years, instead you would have to woo those subjects in other ways and think about conversion later.

All of these are typically "Total War", whereas the newer stuff added at RTW and later was typically not. Instead of expanding on what was already there, they simply scrapped it and went for a Civ style engine.

[Roark]

RE: Civ Total War...

It would indeed be hilarious seeing incidents such as your battleship being routed from the field by a chariot unit (which has happened to me more than once).

I guess it would have to be a coastal battle, but I'm still wondering how the game would be capable of depicting such a scenario.

:laugh4:

[seireikhaan]

RE: Civ Total War...

It would indeed be hilarious seeing incidents such as your battleship being routed from the field by a chariot unit (which has happened to me more than once).

I guess it would have to be a coastal battle, but I'm still wondering how the game would be capable of depicting such a scenario.

:laugh4:
Yeah, actually, that's impossible in the most recent civ games. In civ3 and 4, naval units cannot fight directly with land units. Although they can bombard from a distance to weaken cities or units. There still are some absurd happenings every now and then, though.

[Noir]

Originally posted by Cambyses II
All of these are typically "Total War", whereas the newer stuff added at RTW and later was typically not. Instead of expanding on what was already there, they simply scrapped it and went for a Civ style engine.

No matter how much i find the "new" map system and the Civ micromanagement nightmare that goes with it out of my taste, i must admit that certain mods used it to its maximum and actually turned it into a decent campaign game. EB is one of them.

What nobody managed to fix though and never will IMO, is the battles. The battle engine was degraded, many features were taken out and the controls were simplified (not giving better gameplay necessarily but better accessibility to the game).

Aside the absence of balancing betewen units, types of units, factions and the degradation of key ingredients such as fatigue and morale in their roles and the taking out of tactical options (hold position/hold formation in the new engine are condensed!), the tip of the iceberg was the removing of the squeeze penalty - essentially what gives to tactical deployment and maneuvering a raison d'etre.

In RTW it was completely taken out turning most battles into a bum rush in a massive blob within seconds from skirmishing and i mean in all versions including BI and mods. In M2 there has been a half hearted try to account for it (with secondary means apparently) but i heard that it was nerfed again since it proved... "unpopular" with the RTW fans (now most of the fan base).

The STW/MTW engine remains (and as it looks like will do so for many years to come), the best for allowing tactical battles with "1000's of men" on the field IMO.

I can clearly picture myself playing STW/MTW in emulators from now, like i do with old Nintendo games sometimes - let's just hope Cambyses II that mods will be also playable there - otherwise "woe onto thee"

Many Thanks

Noir

[caravel]

What nobody managed to fix though and never will IMO, is the battles. The battle engine was degraded, many features were taken out and the controls were simplified (not giving better gameplay necessarily but better accessibility to the game).

Aside the absence of balancing betewen units, types of units, factions and the degradation of key ingredients such as fatigue and morale in their roles and the taking out of tactical options (hold position/hold formation in the new engine are condensed!), the tip of the iceberg was the removing of the squeeze penalty - essentially what gives to tactical deployment and maneuvering a raison d'etre.

In RTW it was completely taken out turning most battles into a bum rush in a massive blob within seconds from skirmishing and i mean in all versions including BI and mods. In M2 there has been a half hearted try to account for it (with secondary means apparently) but i heard that it was nerfed again since it proved... "unpopular" with the RTW fans (now most of the fan base).
All too true, I hardly mention this any more as it's been gone over many times ad nauseum. This is not likely to change. As you say the current RTW fan base will dictate the games' development and evolution from now onwards, so if they want fast arcade style battles with easy controls and plenty of toys such as warcries and druid chants, then they'll probably get them.

Concerning the controls, they weren't too much of a problem as they could be changed to the old STW/MTW kind. The exception is the annoying left click/right click controls and position/hold formation button, which may have been merged because they wanted an extra function for the phalanx ability and other abilities and possibly didn't want to confuse the player with too many buttons. There are many occasions where you'd want both turned on, but certainly not always. In MTW defensive battles I will turn on hold position for all units to cause them to return to base and not chase enemies too far, but I will only place spear units pinning or absorbing a cavalry charge on hold formation. With RTW you don't have this option it's either both or none.

I can clearly picture myself playing STW/MTW in emulators from now, like i do with old Nintendo games sometimes - let's just hope Cambyses II that mods will be also playable there - otherwise "woe onto thee"

Many Thanks

Noir
I don't see there being a need for emulators for old PC games, as for the most part they can still run on newer windows OS's and if not it's usually down to the hardware. STW/MTW running under Linux would be nice, but CA aren't interested in this.

[ULC]

I think that all of this could be implemented iff CA released the hard coded information. Although I see nothing wrong with doing this with a six year old game, CA could see it otherwise. For instance, let us say they do so, you implement your homelands (very good idea by the way). Some one else implements an even better diplomacy system. Someone else improves the AI. Another person somehow manages to improve graphics (don't see how this is feasible, but maybe?). We now have arrived at a superior game to either RTW or MTW2. This could potentially kill those games sales. Of course I may be wrong, and half if not all of it is opinion.

[Noir]

Originally posted By Cambyses II
Concerning the controls, they weren't too much of a problem as they could be changed to the old STW/MTW kind. The exception is the annoying left click/right click controls and position/hold formation button, which may have been merged because they wanted an extra function for the phalanx ability and other abilities and possibly didn't want to confuse the player with too many buttons. There are many occasions where you'd want both turned on, but certainly not always. In MTW defensive battles I will turn on hold position for all units to cause them to return to base and not chase enemies too far, but I will only place spear units pinning or absorbing a cavalry charge on hold formation. With RTW you don't have this option it's either both or none.

Just a comment on this, as i took it OT - apologies for that:

If you walk your army from one point to the other in RTW by dragging a preset formation in a new place, the army will not march keeping the formation. This is disastrous, as this is used many times to appraoch and attack - but units in a messy state doing this is asking for trouble.

The hold position takes some attack power and turns it to defence. It is extremely useful thus for absorbing charges for example or for pinning an enemy for longer till help comes.

The hold formation will make only the front row fight (and if spearmen give the rank bonuses), making the formation harder to penetrate but more robust and awkward in deploying its fighting potential.

An example is for instance absorbing a cavalry charge with a sword unit - then potentially best is: 1.hold formation&hold position at first seconds of impact to cancel the pushover, minimise losses and prevent the unit from routing and after that 2.switch to engage at will with hold position for the swords to last longer until anti cavalry help arrives. If the cavalry is weak (or weakened due to battle losses) and the sword is strong then engage at will simply will do, by taking out the hold position (3.) - they will eventually beat them.

These all matter a lot and do make a difference particularly at the closing stages of a battle that units are battered, with small numbers and very tired -exhausted ie very susceptible to morale penalties.

In a similar occasion in RTW, the combined hold formation/hold position is actually against you. The sword unit cannot go back to fighting full capacity (engage at will) without losing the hold position defence bonus, and it will die if it stays in hold as it is keeping the formation and inflicts casualties much much slower.

So if you keep it to hold, they'll lose and if you put it to engage at will they'll also lose (i mean they will lose quickly assuming they are fighting a strong cavalry). The deployment of their power is less gradual and therefore less flexible (tacticaly).

I knew very little about all this till i actually got interested in multiplayer - there you can see fully that the new engine just won't do.

Many Thanks

Noir

[caravel]

I use many of those tactics (combinations of hold position / formation) myself. They become almost automatic after a few years of playing this game, and seeing their absence, and irrelevance, in RTW was one of my main reasons for putting it on the shelf and going back to MTW.

[The Unknown Guy]

Swordmen are çuite good as an all-around troop by themselves. Sure, sergeants perform better against cavalry, but you can beat off light cav. charges anyway, and surround&pummel heavier chav.

[Noir]

Yes, agreed. The comments are more general - for example by "swords" i refer to the generic melee infantry unit that in MTW/VI are swordsmen/axemen mainly (polearms to a lesser extent due to low morale and anti-cavalry bonuses).

In STW these are: Warrior Monks, Naginata and NoDachi.

In MTW the swords are overpowered for their price (in MP) and the spears underpowered for their price that in fact gave two only viable competitive armies in MP to my understanding: the all cavalry and the sword/cavalry army.

In the original STW the spears had good enough morale and could stand better in a melee with sword infantry so they did more part in MP gameplay as a clear component since swords generally fared badly against cavalry.

That approach was defining a more clear RPS (Rock - Paper - Scissors) gameplay that in MTW was lost, since as you say swords can withstand charges and subsequently beat cavalry in most cases, so they are way more effective and all purpose than the low morale spears since they have higher attack stats generally. Spears will pin for longer but also kill much slower.
In the campaign these relationships are further distorted by upgrdades: armour/ attack/ morale/ valour and the general's stars.

I've also read that in MTWv1.0, spears (100 man units) would beat swords (60man units) face to face and that this was changed in the first patch because people complained about it. Swords would still win by flanking though.

Swords withstanding charges and beating cavalry can change though if they have suffered heavy losses/got tired/got encircled or all three -charges can rout them then and this is very important in the "finishing" stages in an MP (and in SP but there you can have uber units by the upgrades) game that morale due to fatigue reigns supreme and units are scattered and undermaned throughout the map.

Many Thanks

Noir