Balance and predictability?

I've played a fair few campaigns now, and something is beginning to bug me: the relative power of the various factions seems a little bit 'off'.

The Egyptians constantly obliterate the Seleucids, becoming a large and rich power (must be those heavily-armoued yet shirtless axemen, the demon chariots, and the super-sized archer units).

I have never seen any power even come close to threatening any of the Romans. The Julii usually get going first (although it takes them a few turns), but they invariably carve a bloody, unstoppable, path through the Gauls. The Bruti are the next to move, taking either the Greek lands or the lands just north of that. The Scipiones are the last to make their mark, taking Sicilia and then moving to north-west Africa.

Scythia, also, never does a damn thing, and the Parthians are remarkably tame.

For me, this always happens, and it's annoying that it's so predictable.

Personally, I'd really like to see the Seleucid\Egyptian war be far less predictable (what would happen if the Seleucids ever won it?), but I'm most stunned that Carthage, the supposedly major power which had Rome worried, is depicted as being very little threat at all. I would love to see Carthage actually threaten Rome (and maybe even destroy it once in a while!). Actually, I'd be nice to see anyone but a player-controlled faction take on Rome (or at least remove one of the families).

I haven't played enough campaigns yet to get a good handle on how the balance of factions plays out, but I think you've definitely got a point.

Egyptian domination seems to be a well-worn theme in these forums (especially those mysteriously armoured axemen), but the predictability of the other factions is interesting. Back in MTW, there seemed to be a lot more balance between the different factions, possibly because a lot of units were broadly similar. Apart from the stay-at-home Danes, I remember campaigns where Sicilians, Turks, Italians and many others cut a huge swathe across the centre of the map.

There was a thread a week or so ago (in the colosseum? can't remember...) where someone had dissected the file controlling faction "personalities", and they had some interesting suggestions as to how to balance things out a bit more. IIRC, they were particularly keen to liven up the Carthaginians and stop them being quite so domesticated.

Yes midnight, I felt the same way after my third short campaign...this is the general consensus around here.

Many of the realism/enhancement mods right now focus on this issue. CA's second patch will hopefully address parts of this aswell.

When i played campaigns in MTW, independent of the dificulty level, the egyptians always can conquer everything!!
In RTW same. The egyptians become the most powerfull faction and is so hard beat them!!!

Hi.I agree with you because the Roman seem to be the winner most of the time.However, I did see an exception:Rome is in danger by the Macedon!In my campaign as the Carthage I saw a full stack armies of Macedon (led by a four-star general) attack Tarentum and take it easily.They burnt down the sourthern Italy, and the Brutii seemed lost in the macedon's own land,too!I was very surprised and sent a spy to discover what was going on.Then I saw about three or four Macedon full stack armies travel around.A miracle,right?
Perhaps I was lucky,or that happened because I weakened the Scipii too much so it damaged all of other Romans.

These are the factions that seem to be huge and out-of-control-strong:

Rome in general
Egypt



Two campaigns - one as Julii - one as Greece. Even when I'm killing Egypt's fleets they stay away from the Aegean now and grow strong outside of my borders.....

I would have to agree with pretty much everybody else in sayinf that in my opinion Egypt is way overpowered. I was playing as Armenia and had a full garrison in my capital led by my five star faction leader as well as a full stack right beside my fully upgraded city and I still lost to a three quaters full Egyptian army.

Seleucids die quickly to the Egyptians because Seleucid starting units are not geared towards fighting Egyptians.

They start with stupid pike units. If these units are to walk at turtle speed, then they better have turtle shells, however, they dont!

Just line up 4 goupr of cool Egyptian archers and protect them with some weak cavs to stop enemy cavs, and this archer army can beat the crap out of any pike units while taking pretty much no casulties.

It is ridiculous how powerful Egypt is in this game, yes. It's like they swapped place with Carthage for this game. Now the Egyptians are well 'ard instead of getting the shit kicked out of them by the Romans.

Germans, and egypt always seem to spread and dominate, early, of course I always win in the end...j/k I havent finished a campain yet, in my Jullii one, the germans have taken most of the russian area, and egypt dominates the south, I own spain and lower europe.

What game am I playing? The brutii ans scipii have stagnated in my game while I have exploded up north, destroying all in my path! I don't know what's going on everywhere else, my diplomats are still bribing enemy armies in the north.

If Carthage and Rome were the hard nuts in teh game that would be interesting to see who are the other strong factions.

It depends on who you are playing as - if you are the brutii then the greeks will be soundly defeated, while it's easy to defeat all of rome as the greeks.

If you were the Seleucids (are they playable?) you could probably stop the egyptian advance.....

As the seleucids you're gonna have to!

Another funny thing I've noticed is regarding Sicily. Historically Rome didn't get Syracuse off greek hands before 231bc (I believe). I've yet to see a game where it's still greek at 270... The one exception was where I played carthage and allied with the greeks to help them out.