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Lahll,
I only made this thread because I recall LongJohn asked for opinons, and there aren't going to be many patches. It doesn't matter if unofficial stats are made later because 90% of the players will only play the official stat. So, if any adjustments are going to be made with a chance for the whole community to evaluate them, we want them in the first patch. I expect they will only be two patches, and the last thing you want are unevaluated balance changes being made for the final patch. That's exactly the reason WE/MI v1.02 had the flaws it had.
However, I agree that playing style colors what people ask for. In the battle we had together last weekend I noticed you fielded 3 pumped Alan Merc cav, so you see the advantage yourself. My answer to this is simple. I'm playing at lower florins so the lower morale of the cheaper units cripples them as it's supposed to. You just have to keep your units together more rather letting them range out in individual attacks with exposed flanks.
LongJohn obviously won't change anything without a very good reason to do so, and I'm very pleased with the gameplay in MTW. Your front line will hold long enough for you to actually get in a flank attack if it's there. It's pretty clear only small tweaks will be made, so nothing drastic is going to change. I hope all cav army rushes are not currently viable. I'd be surprised if that's the case. If the proposed tweaks to spears and cav cost are made now, we have a period of evaluation and can have them adjusted back, assuming there is at least one more patch, if they prove to unbalance the game.
I do agree that people have to forget about how they played Shogun and adjust to MTW. I've already slowed down my gameplay style to adjust for the 'larger' battlefield. Personnaly, I don't mind spending 1 or 2 hours fighting a battle while I wait for my men to recover from fatigue. At the same time I've seen a lot of players just quit the battle because they don't want to wait, and I sometimes make my second attack too soon because I can tell the players are impatient to finish it up by what they are typing.
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i make those suggestions to spears not because i like cavs, but because they are realistic and logical, and i believe thats how the game is supposed to be played. pikemen are defensive units, they are set to hold formation by default, they are supposed to stop enemy charge, not to charge at enemy. thats swordsmen's job. and if you let enemy get behind your men, you are supposed to lose, you shouldn't beat a knight charging you from behind.
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oh and i think the 60 men spears are fine, its those 96 or 100 men spears that need more balancing. in this game number is usually more effective than quality.
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longjohn2,
was there a certain florin value for a 16 unit multi game that was used as the more or less default value for balancing and if so, what was it?
K.
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The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.
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My opinion is here: http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/Forum7/HTML/001559.html
IMHO, anyone complaining about 96 or 100men units isn't playing the game right. A 100man unit IS going to be more effective in battle and shouldn't have its effectiveness cut down so that a 40 or 60man unit can be its equal - that would be illogical. As for what I mean by "not playing the game right" - if you're sitting there with two 40man units and the enemy has a 100man unit, send one unit in to lock up that enemy unit, then send the other around its flank and stick them in the back with your swords/spears/pikes/whatever and they will quickly succumb.
I REALLY don't see ANY unit balancing issues needed in this game - I DO however see a few additional options that should be presented to the players such as the ability to set the level of Fatigue for a hosted game (No Fatigue, 25%, 50%, 75%, Full), ability to set Limited Ammo and Restrict Camera instead of having it default to your singleplayer game options setting, and adding another digit to the number of florin available for games. Because more player options means more people have an option that satisfies their preference without hurting others by just a mandatory change or adjustment we all have to suffer with.
And about adding another digit to the florin - this isn't even disputable, it's simply silly to restrict players to 99,999 florin, especially in 8player games. What if we want to have an 8player game with everyone fielding 16units of maxed out Swiss Armoured Pikemen? I'm not saying it would be fun, I'm just saying it should be POSSIBLE. There is no logical reason to restrict the max florin we can have, especially to a 5-digit number.
Sure, most of us will still play games where each player is alotted 5,000 florin, but there are some times when it just feels good to go all out and try something new. We don't even have that OPTION right now. Please at least allow us the possibility. Thanks.
[This message has been edited by JRock (edited 09-12-2002).]
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jrock,
i like a wild florin game at times also, but wouldnt it be easier to simply make the florin alotment ..by person.. rather than ..by team..? that way, the current number would still be 99,999, but each PLAYER would get that amount rather than it representing the entire team. doing it your way each player in a 4v4 could get 250,000 florins... i think it would take longer to pick my army and add all the extras than it would to play the game :)
K.
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The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.
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In STW, a single sword unit could defeat a spear unit. Sword units beat spears, spears beat cav and cav beat sword. It was a nice rock, paper scissors, and there was another one with ranged, spears and cav, and ranged beat sword even more decisively than they beat spears. Also, there was a less pronounced RPS within the cav units themselves between CA, NC and YC.
In MTW, you've got 100 man spears beating everything I guess. It takes two sword units to beat a spear, but I could just as well use two spear units to beat a spear if I'm going to use two units to do it. You've got the cav beating the ranged, but I don't know about the ranged beating the 100 man spear. You can do it with the crossbows given enough time, so there is an RPS there. It's probably accurate the way it is because it's my understanding that those spear and pike units did dominate the medieval battlefield once they were perfected until guns became strong. Some of the ideas expressed here might be an attempt to make the RPS stronger, and some players may be trying to use the units the way they did in STW. If sword units can't beat spears then sword units will dissapear from online play. If ranged units aren't effective enough then those will vanish as well, and then there will be no need for cav except to chase routers. That will leave spear dominated armies which may very well be accurate, but there are a lot less tactics involved in battles with just one unit class.
I think the key here is morale because that has been figured into the unit cost structure. I played some 6K florin games tonight and I had valor 2 spear units routing all over the place even though I kept them together. Low morale or the high cost of the swiss pikemen probably has to be the balancing factor here.
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YEp Puzz you have it there in a nutshell. http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif
No-one's really arguing for the sake of realism here. Ordered pikes or spears were ruthless on the battlefield, however, they had to be ordered and in MTW it just assumes that all spear and pike units are ordered?! The basic primitive spear units were essentially just rabble with spears, only slighly better than militia and peasants. It wasn't until pikes hit the scene did cavalry take a major backseat on the battleground.
So therefore, one idea is that maybe the basic spear and pike units shouldn't be "formed" and only units like ordered foot, pikes and sergeant types should be "well formed" or "disciplined"?
Another possibility is that maybe spear units should only have 1 supporting rank rather than 2, and pikes 2 or 3 rather than the current 4!
Anyway, for the sake of gamplay we need a balance since as it stands everyone will just take plenty of the spear, pike and polearm units as these contain very effective all round troops. If they do, that'll reduce the need for cavalry unless for chasing routing troops and swordsmen because they're numbers are too small and spears still have too great an effect on them.
[This message has been edited by +DOC+ (edited 09-12-2002).]
[This message has been edited by +DOC+ (edited 09-12-2002).]
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for what my Khan have experienced.
the big size spearmen units are very good, and the expensive smaller elite infantry are just to expensive for use in his army. better save the florins for the horses.
horse armies arent very strong or dominant. although he didnt tried it yet it might be so that an army consiting of sole combat units with 12 units and 4 cav (tank-concept) might be very strong over an morebalanced army with shooters.
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Quote Originally posted by Kraellin:
jrock,
i like a wild florin game at times also, but wouldnt it be easier to simply make the florin alotment ..by person.. rather than ..by team..?
[/QUOTE]
From a coding standpoint, no, it's actually easier to leave everything the way it is and just add an extra digit to the custom game and to the multiplayer florin limits. But yeah, I like your idea as well.
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It's true a few units like Order Foot are extremely strong and have a large number of men in each unit. Thing is, they're wonderful for holding a line as defense. They buy time. [PERHAPS what should be done is to reduce their Offensive stats, such as charge to make them more truly defensive units.]
For my infantry, I still take around 2/3rds shock troops (swords) and 1/3rd spears/pikes to hold the line while my shock flank and encircle to rout the enemy units.
I have my general as cav and maybe one other unit of cav, and sometimes if I have an extra 200florin I'll grab a crossbow unit.
I really find that enemies using crossbowmen and arm-molesters, and also longbowmen seem to always be more effective with them than I am with my missile units, so I tend not to take any unless I have a little spare cash and I'll take one to fend off the enemy missile units for a little while.
[This message has been edited by JRock (edited 09-12-2002).]
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GAH!
Vanya has no problems with fatigue as it is now.
In fact, the current system promotes you walking your men to their destination and not ordering them to sprint all over the map. The latter was typical in Olde Shoggy. So, if you have your men sprint, expect to be exhausted. Vanya thinks this is realistic, and that its a great feature.
This penalizes those who just want to win by outclicking the enemy.
GAH!
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I'm interested why you feel that fatigue works differently to Shogun. All the factors and thresholds are the same.
The biggest difference is that exhausted units can only walk. This was kind of in Shogun, but there were lots of exceptions. Now the only exceptions are routers.
I also tweaked the fatigue in rain and snow, but made the factors less to compensate for the greater armour being worn.
On the subject of balancing, please don't anyone worry that there are going to be major changes. There might, or might not be, some minor tweaks that's all.
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Konnichiwa Longjohn sama,
You may have missed this:
And to quickly correct a misunderstanding, anti-cavalry bonus factors do not increase with valour. Not sure where you got that idea.
F1. I purchased V0, V1..V4 Spearman and (CAvatt) and (Cavdef) increased together with Melee and Def for each valour. Is that a 'bug'?
Edit: We haven't performed tests to verify whether the displayed numbers are correct, they are just there.
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Ja mata
Toda MizuTosaInu
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Konnichiwa,
I don't know if fatigue is changed, not tested that (what we did test was the shield protection vs missiles: shields indeed protect the front and not (much less?) the back).
I'm not supposed to feel, but since you ask for it: fatigue does kick in because units rout in all directions. That's good and realistic but it also makes the chasers tire faster.
There may also be the morale effect -in STW H2-H4 units were the 'default', a monk had 12-16 morale. In MTW valour 0-2 are the default, best units have 8-12 morale. Units tend to rout and rally more -> tires.
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Ja mata
Toda MizuTosaInu
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hello again... yes i use more cav now that in stw.. and i like the Alan merc cav (for the speed) but i was saying no to greater improvements to cav... i like the spear units as they are, they are not super units and suffer greater penalities that other foot units when attacked in the flanks, cav get great attack bonuses attacking them from the rear... they dont need to to excell over spears from the front too...Unlike Maggy I also like the small foot units, their size makes them great flankers and mass attack units....
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Concerning fatigue, when you played Shogun it was like playing on a highway. Movement of routers was foward or back in a straight line. A straight line is the shortest distance between two points. So, routers are chased off in the shortest possible time. In addition, the chasing army is still together when they are finished chasing. So, you just regroup right there which is probably a great spot for moving into the flank of any remaining enemy armies. The fatigue in MTW doesn't feel greater to me, but several factors combine which makes fatigue require more management. They are greater path length chasing routers, more dispersion of your army if you do chase, bigger maps, heavier armor on some units, greater chance of rallying a tired unit and possibly more routing as TosaInu indicates. I play mostly in dry weather and I was concerned about the fatigue in stormy conditions being very restrictive to how you move around, but longjohn has reduced fatigue a bit in those conditions which I am glad to hear. Tests I did on heavy cav and naginata in heavy rain in WE/MI showed them going to totally exhausted just standing if you waited long enough. In a situation like that, you couldn't just rest and recover from fatigue. The heavily armored units are probably just bad choices for bad weather conditions.
I had a good 4v4 battle tonight attacking on a hilly map. Everyone on my team took it nice and slow, and it was the best 4v4 I've had since the game was released. One player on my team was a bit impetuous to make the final assault, but the rest of us were just able to hold him back from going in too soon. Uncoordinated attacks on a hill position are usually a complete disaster. Since I've adopted the slower pace, I haven't had any units become exhaused in dry conditions unless I was routed which causes your units to run all over the place and get exhausted.
I agree with Lahll that you want to use the small unit's better maneuverability to weave in and out of the larger units once they are engaged. The big unit front line is static enough while fighting to allow for some nice maneuvering with the small units. Going head to head with a small unit against a 100 man unit is probably a desperate measure.
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Quote Originally posted by TosaInu:
F1. I purchased V0, V1..V4 Spearman and (CAvatt) and (Cavdef) increased together with Melee and Def for each valour. Is that a 'bug'?
[/QUOTE]
Hi Tosa. I'm cant access MTW now, but if I recall correctly the () figure is the net melee/def points vs cav. The bonus is in the difference of x(y), bonus = y - x. Correct me if I'm wrong.
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tootee the goldfish,
headmaster of Shogun-Academy
loyal roach of Clan S.G.
'Pa Si Buay Chao! Si Liao Ka Song!'
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TosaInu,
The number in parentheses for vs cav is the combat stat that unit has when fighting cav. A V0 spearman has a base stat of -1/-1 att/def. With the large shield added that becomes -1/1 which is what the F1 screen shows. If fighting cav the stat in the () is used which is 0/5 since it gets +1/+4 vs cav bonus. I you go to V1, then both att/def get +1. So, both the standard stat and the vs cav stat will increase by 1 giving 0/2 standard and (1/6) vs cav.
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As mentioned in other posts, I too think the pace of battles is too fast even with the speed slider full to the left. In a large game the experience turns into a pause/clickfest/unpause/pause/clickfest/unpause charade.
If a slow motion button can't be added to the next patch, can the slowest setting on the slider at least be made to run the game slower?
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http://us.f1.yahoofs.com/users/b3df3...9Lki9AGMAt4i2d
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Frankly, these looks more like attempts to make the game easier for new players, then addressing any serious balance issues.
Troops do not get tired to quickly. When my troops go through a entire battle and most are only tired, I know it's ok. Battle is exausting, you know, and if this was changed there would be no point to considering the fatigue involved in charging across the entire map.
Cavalry do not need their speed increased. They are plenty fast enough to respond as long as you don't position them poorly.
Moral certainly doesn't need to be changed.
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I agree with Faceless, although I find myself pausing the game once in a while in Custom Battles for one reason that has nothing to do with how long you've been playing the game:
*Basically, allow more movement in the camera - allow us to zoom out farther and rotate the camera down lower to get more of a top-down view on our units so we can click spots next to them more easily instead of accidentally double-clicking on the unit which pulls the camera out of position and FUBARs the commander for a few seconds until he can reorient himself.
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Our clans shaman foresee a boring online future if the unitbalances aint patched.
every noob can field this
DANES
4 vikings
4 men at arms
4 fannatics
4 alanmerc cav
make a nice line, cav on the flanks and rush.
this army will beat many vets with balanced armies. many regular players must have noticed that in games your army is just "walked over" by others.
still we would like to give a demonstration online to longjohn since he is hard to convince and has his own reasons not to change things.
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With situations like this there's really only ONE way to fix things.
CA have to come up with seperate multiplayer Florin costs for units.
Until this is done we will have cheese rushes and uber units ruining the game for those of us who like using balanced armies.
Austaro
