Printable View
Uh no.Quote:
Originally Posted by Caledonian Rhyfelwyr
AI/players gets no bonuses at all.
Increasing difficulty simply increases the morale/fatigue effects on the battlefield and makes the AI act faster.
I've yet to see the AI or the player get any bonuses.
I will say that cavalry is a bit underpowered in the frontal charge now. Charging into pikemen should be suicidal... charging down the throat of town militia should be an easy win.
Right now, even mediocre spearmen take ridiculously low casualties from a charge if even a few degrees of your attack vector fall into the frontal arc.
I don't need this to historically accurate to the point of having the dons at Oxford satisfied, but this IS Medieval: Total War and the mounted knight should be extremely strong.
I think you just crossed over into the troll/personal attack niche. Now mention Hitler and we're good to go.Quote:
Originally Posted by zaher
I reckon Kingdoms is a brilliant expansion, with few flaws. I've almost finished playing the American campaign as the Apachean on VH/VH - not sure how anyone could have finished all four campaigns unless they don't have anything else better to do!
As far as balance is concerned - Von Clausewitz said that you need a 3 to 1 advantage in a siege situation to ensure victory - yet in siege scenarios in 1.3 MTW2 you would regularly get equal or smaller armies winning against well defended castles. Storming a castle was not the norm - it was too heavy on casualties winding up with a 'phyrric victory'. Starving them out was more normal. The rebalancing (and I have yet to really explore it fully) is not before time. If in someway it counters the fact the fact that units move a lot faster than in real life, thereby allowing archers to be charged too soon - all the better.
As the Apacheans, we are missile unit heavy. Particularly in the early period, we lack any melee units with punch. Now, an eagle or jaguar warrior unit only makes it through with about half its numbers intact - it still does a lot of damage when it charges, but this is mitigated by the fact that only half the unit is left, and its morale is suitably damaged as well.
An aside - many armies were made up of illtrained militia and peasants. The fact that in Medieval you spam knightly units in the latter half of the game is a big issue for the balance of armies. If increased efficacy of missile units makes it harder on elites - then perhaps it may force more generals to use a wider variety of troops - even utilising peasants and militia units as missile screens rather than the elites we tend to use in end-stage games.
Each to their own - though I reckon CA are brilliant. The only reason I upgrade my computer! My feeling is you don't beat the goose that lays the golden eggs - and there are few other games with the replay value that the Total War series has. If you don't like it - don't play it!
Actually it's better this way.Quote:
Originally Posted by IvarrWolfsong
Now people can't simply just "charge" cavalry full frontal and instant win. They have to focus on flanking and hitting the rear.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cadwallon
Well, now i understand why all seems good for you. Because you play missile faction and dont have horses.
I remember discussions about RTW, where was pointed that missiles are strong because units almost have no armor. But since then units got armor and bows havent improwed until crossbows or gunpowder. I am not talking about Livonian auxillaries or other missile units with AP, which was developed specially to penetrate heavy armor, which knights usually used in MTW2. But , for now, peasant archers with their +5/+7 attack bows will totally dominate battlefield, because of their unconfirmed ability to penetrate armor and shields. And knights? What are they useful for? They will wait for peasant archers to do their job, and then, will kill remains and routing units. They will not lead attack and rally troops? No, thanks.
Again, this is only game, and the game cannot be 100% historical accurate. But Kingdoms, beeng expansion for MTW2, dont keep standarts MTW2 brougth. Leave behind all discussions about historical accuracy. I liked a game with rules like: " knights are powerful, peasant archers are weak, elite archers are strong, spears effective vs cavalry and particulary vs infantry, crossbows and gunpowder is effective vs armor, pikes are good only vs cavalry, missile cavalry are scirmishers", and so on, beeng close to "historically accurate". Now, i get expansion to this game, and what i see here? " Knights are weak, peasant archers are strong, elite archers are Gods of War, Knights are useful for frigthening enemy ( if you lucky enought to get those ones ) and killing routers, light cavalry useful for filling ranks, infantry is useless because will be shoted by archers too ( due to weak AI )". Imagine, you get expansion for Doom3 and recently discovering that your Lazer Gun shoting with dead chickens ammo, but you can throw your knife with nuclear explosion effect.
I agree that M2TW's steamroller knights have become somewhat weaker in the Kingdoms expansion - but is that really a legitimate ground to hate the whole expansion? I made the mistake of building a cavalry army as Ireland in the Britannia campaign and, obviously, got whacked by Scotland's pikemen. I adjusted and build a more ground-based army (Muire really DO rock..) - et voila, the cavalry in my army became utterly effective for flanking the enemy, which is the original purpose of cavalry.
As far as I know, a frontal charge of cavalry became useless with the development of shield rows backed by longspears. But if LARP taught me one thing, it's that shield rows are defenseless when broken or attacked from behind. That is true for M2TW as well.
Charging uphill against archers is just the same thing. Even if you are clad in heavy plate and about 50% of all arrows bounce off your armor, it just needs one hit to bring your horse down on you. However, I never found cavalry to be too slow, just somewhat stupid. The AI pauses before charging, which appears a bit... pointless. Also, light cavalry is much more effective in taking out archers than heavy cavalry, mostly because of their speed.
All in all, I noticed that M2TW:K requires more of a balanced army than a stack of knights to overrun the enemy.
This thread will be locked if the posts do not remain civil.
The longbow was not the preferred weapons vs armoured knights, most missle units in the medival period used the crossbow for the purpose.
http://www.thebeckoning.com/medieval...oss_l_v_c.html
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ulstan
Exactly. If you play on low difficulty settings, AI units will both tire and rout faster than your units. The only setting on which the player gets no bonus is VH.Quote:
Originally Posted by nameless
Quote:
Originally Posted by monsterfurby
Heh, i never played role of rusher, never get more than 5-6 cav both in SP and MP in MTW2, and never blitzing too. I read descriptions for every unit and beleve to them, they remained the same in Kingdoms, but they are lying now.
Some guy posted topic about difference between description stats, picture in description, and real unit model. 90% of replyers blamed him with word "whiner", despite he was actually absolutely right. You wanted units balance? Describe me then why Norse axemen cost 700 flo, Varangian guard -520 flo and Berdishe axemen - 380 flo ? Because Norse axemen wear Plazma shields on their back? Because Varangian guards was ascended by Ctulhu and was given axes combined with shields ? Or because Berdishe axemen dont have viable shield at all ? But they both have no shields at all, as stated in description. Varangian guard have better stats than Norse axemen, why they are much cheaper then? Do Norse axemen twice as strong as Berdishe axemen? BTW, from history known, that Varang guards was assembled from axemen which was sent by Danes and Russia to emperor of Byzantya, and i dont think kings of Danes or Russia sent their b e s t guards. Here is all historical accuracy atm, and its not better than "Rise of Nations" historical accuracy. With Kingdoms it even worsened.
And last question: why we need heavy armoured knights animations, stats and picture? To have them do the job of light cavalry - flanking? You think its accurate for heavy armoured ( 30-50kg )knights with heavy lances ( 10-15kg )in their hands? I doubt it.
You need heavy knights because no unit can match their charge. Light cavalry even flanking aren't going to do much, whereas heavy knights can deliver a heavy punch that can devestate units.Quote:
And last question: why we need heavy armoured knights animations, stats and picture? To have them do the job of light cavalry - flanking? You think its accurate for heavy armoured ( 30-50kg )knights with heavy lances ( 10-15kg )in their hands? I doubt it.
And that is of course ignoring the fact that against non-spear or pike infantry heavy cavalry still cause lots of damage in a frontal charge, especially against non-shielded opponents.
Light cavalry are best against missile troops because of their speed.
Its amazing that people are so attached to heavy cavalry taking on anything head-on that they actually now campaign for the feature to be brought back.
Heh - can't say that its surprising after RTW, BI and M2TW. The policy of introducing the "Forth Eorlingers" charge in TW paid off, i guess.
Archers are for all intents and purposes almost useless in M2 and giving them a bit of potential has nothing to do with the English way of fighting and other such claims as far as i am concerned.
Heavy cavalry was never supposed to take on any opponent head on historically and from a gameplay perspective. Light cavalry is meant to flank as a last resort; their main purpose is scouting, protection/harrassment of battleline flanks and encirclement of joined lines to reduce morale; encircled patches of units get substantial penalties in TW - but i guess who cares to play like this anymore when you can devastate the enemy with straight on charge-withdraw-repeat.
Obviously chasing of routers is also the domain of light cavalry as the heavier units are better used breaking pockets of enemy resistance while the lighter/faster ones ensure that the enemy is taken out of the map.
These are the roles each cavalry category was traditionally and historically filling, and it has been like this in TW as well before RTW, that introduced cavalry which was mowing down infantry essentially. Kingdoms is probably the first time eversince CA has gone 3D that cavalry is taking up a role as a tactical component instead of the main tactical component. I did twice so before, but however i repeat so here: well done to the proponents of the re-balancing (Palamedes, Lusted and Clan Celtiberos). This is in the right direction and i hope that balancing takes a more prominent role in the vanilla releases as well in the future. This thread may give the wrong impression about reactions to the effort, perhaps increasing the chances of future such efforts to be reduced to a halt. Its the wrong thing to happen from my perspective.
Noir
People always like to underestimate the power of archers. I was not going to buy Kingdoms because of SecuRom, but changed my mind when I found that archers were more powerful (I know, I'm weak :P).
A few years back I did my own test. I have a friend who makes longbows similar to the ones that the English used at Agincourt. They are quite expensive, and I could not afford one, so I asked him to do an experiment for me. He set up a scare-crow made up padded canvas, covered it is a suit of padded clothe, and 8 layers of sheet-metal. He then shot forty replica arrows into it. 3/4 of the arrows penetrated deep enough to kill someone. I was arguing with him that the archers in AOE were to strong, so that is how we settled it. This was long before I ever played a TW game, but it is no less true. Archers did a lot more damage than people think. In M2TW, I would have 5 units of archers firing into a group of spear militia, and the spear militia would lose 5 men! Once I had a unit of peasant archers shoot into peasants, and they killed 2 peasants!! That is obsured and Kingdoms is a huge improvement.
Vuk
This is not historically accurate at all.Quote:
But since then units got armor and bows havent improwed until crossbows or gunpowder.
Someone in this thread has already illustrated that it's possible for one unit of knights to annhilate two units of the archers you complain so bitterly about. What exactly are you upset about here?Quote:
But , for now, peasant archers with their +5/+7 attack bows will totally dominate battlefield
Of course it does. You're complaining over the fact that something was changed at all. Do you still have MTW2 1.0? Or have you patched it? Bear in mind the patches introduced balance changes too. The expansion introducing balance changes is par for the course. Indeed, I don't think I've ever seen an expansion that didn't change the balance.Quote:
But Kingdoms, beeng expansion for MTW2, dont keep standarts MTW2 brougth.
The kingdoms balance is far closer to historically accurate than before. Each successive patch to MTW has made it more historically accurate.Quote:
and so on, beeng close to "historically accurate
Granted, it's got a ways to go, but it's improved. At least we no longer have the 'charge mindlessly into everything' ahistorically powerful cavalry nor the 'my entire quiver of arrows cannot kill one soldier' ahistorically useless archers.
You'll need to build a more balanced army now, instead of just spamming cavalry armies, but I view that as a good thing, rather than a bad thing.
Agreed and even more so, the gameplay is more rich as armies start to have a counter army; the gameplay can be more stable and the AI may also benefit as it is tuned to doing good match ups and the occasional flanking. CA has too long over-emphasized the cavalry charge with domino men and jumps; but it has to be reckognised finally that the "fun" from the jumps lasted three minutes and the gameplay fun lost due to the dominance of cavalry three years.Quote:
Originally posted by Ulstan
You'll need to build a more balanced army now, instead of just spamming cavalry armies, but I view that as a good thing, rather than a bad thing.
The balancing in Kingdoms is most welcome IMO, and i'd be very happy if the developers consider it for vanilla releases too; its impossible to really well balance gameplay if factors decided in the initial development of the game (such as the animations) do not allow for the flexibility to do so. This is probably one of the reasons why unit card descriptions differ from unit performance in Kingdoms. People forget that the stats don't say the whole story anymore - something that was repeatedly proven.
Noir
Quote:
Originally Posted by Noir
I agree with you , Noir. I know, that all those ppl doing their best. I am sorry i touched Lusted personally, but i had no intention to make his role in community or CA smaller. If CA was giving this job to them before the original MTW2 was developed and then produced with their help MTW2 and MTW2:Kingdoms, i am sure i'd be much happyer from the day i got MTW2 and not only after sekond patch. But the changes are too radical for me after playing MTW2 almost year.
Ridiculous, in serious battles i never did frontal cav charges, only vs peasant /militias which i considered fair. I think any normal player will decide not to do frontal charge vs raised pikes. So, there IS a point in difference of styles of battles. Why we need pikes then, if cavalry got slaugtered before they reached them?
You say archers was weak? For who? For AI? Because England AI never trained their national special units? For me they was strong enought, i mean archers like Muslim, Trebizond, Byz Guard archers, Scot Guards, dismounted Dvor, Venetian archers, Mongol archers, Turkish archers, they all have good missile damage potential and can kill a lot too. Now guess what did enemy AI when i brougth 2 units of Livonian auxillaries into battle? They rushed with all their cav to kill them ,despite they had 3-4 units of baltic archers with long range bows and lots of missile cav. I know, if i take 2 Scott Guard units into MP battle, my opponent will fear them. Because it is dangerous unit. Same with other elite archers. I consider missile cavalry with attack 8+ in MTW2
is good too. Well, at least i was thinking so during 1 year. Now, i even duno what to think.
Thanks for that Ulstan. I tried to make these points earlier in the thread. I applaud M2TW/Kingdoms for becoming more and more accurate and the battles becoming more interesting because the old "Tally Ho" charge will not work any more!!
I remember being so sad in RTW when I discovered that Rome's vaunted heavy infantry was pointless: I could sweep all before me with repeated Equites charges.
It's taken a while, but we're finally heading back into the realm of all unit types being both capable and vulnerable.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ulstan
Dozens of grey " balanced" units with same abilities? Drunken slaves riding horses? Heading back to what? To AoE1? No, thanks:laugh4: Civ4 is more about warfare now.
However, did you see that program on Tv with that weapons expert historian guy (I forget his name). His tests with the longbow found precisely the opposite- that the penetrating power of the bow was much less than was originally assumed- and if his results were anything to go by, the casualties at Agincourt for example would have been very difficult to achive by longbow alone.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vuk
Actually Zaher, the Apacheans do get cavalry units, after they fight and win against European armies with horses. When you also get muskets, your mounted apachean thunder braves OWN the primitive mesoamericans to the south....
Which makes me wonder how much you really have played Kingdoms! Which faction did you play? The mounted curaissers and conquistadores, if used correctly, make an absolute mess of my elite archers.
Anyway, like it, hate it, play it, don't. Think its broken? Makes not a whit of difference. Still the best military simulation out there - whatever you think of some of the balancing.
Frankly, I would be fine with Medieval's battle system with Medieval 2's strategic map. But I like the rebalancing of Kingdoms, in general. I didn't play much Medieval 2. I got bored with it. But Kingdoms is much more fun, IMO. I do wish my knights, encased in the best armor of their dead, didn't die so damn much but, well, there are always tradeoffs. Archers are more annoying but I can generally handle them with ease. I do actually include archers in my armies now. That's the only serious issue I had with Medieval and Medieval 2. I would pick swordsmen, cavalry, or spearmen over archers most any day.
There are two problems with this test. First, it disagrees with the historical evidence. Agincourt has been disputed by modern historians. Accounts of Crecy generally supports the idea of powerful arrows but Geoffrey Le Baker, an English monk, wrote that the arrows of the English simply bounced off the plate harnesses of the French at the Battle of Poitiers. The English dispute this but if the archers were doing so well, why did they choose to move to the flanks of the cavalry and shoot their horses?Quote:
Originally Posted by Vuk
Second, sheet metal is not armor, it is sheet metal. It is flat and usually unhardened. Plate armor is curved, 1.5 to 3mms deep, and made of hardened steel. What kind of arrowheads was he using? None of the bodkins so far recovered have been hardened, making them generally inferior to any modern arrowhead. How close was your friend? A straight on shot at 20 yards would not have been the typical shooting condition.
This test shows that, even in a test skewed against the armor, the thickest section of plate armor would have beaten arrowheads some 3 times harder than historical examples.
Notice that all the anecdotes about powerful archers come from English battles, ones they won. No other West European power placed as much emphasis on the bow. It would not be fair to base all of medieval history on England. Consider:Quote:
Archers did a lot more damage than people think.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Baha ’al-Din, Saladin's biographer
And this was nothing more than mail and linen coats.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jean de Joinville
So you're saying that the English victories at Crecy and Agincourt were won due to what? Better swear words?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cadwallon
In large part, poor generalship on the part of the French.
At Crecy, the English had the high ground. No French reconnouter(sp) of the battlefield prior to caused their line to lose cohesion going across the battlefield. The French had to advance across a plowed field . In the middle ages, field furrows were generally 3 feet deep (Crops were planted on the top and in the rows) They also slew their own mercenary crossbowmen who were withdrawing under withering English fire. (The French thought they were fleeing, while all they were doing was repositioning themselves).
There was a History channel special on Crecy which was very interesting. I think it was called Battlefields , though I am not sure of it. The high ground the English was on did not look at imposing as it sloped gently into the field below.
At Agincourt, the knights and royalty were so eager to make up for Crecy, and for the transgressions of the English, that they rode thru and or over their own infantry trying to kill the English.
They had a battle plan and threw it out the window.
Both were tactically stupid.
However, the Longbow did play a significant part in both battles.
One other fact I thought was interesting about Agincourt was it was the first documented death by a firearm in Europe. Just another interesting useless fact....:2thumbsup:
Particularly at Agincourt modern reassesments suggest that terrain was a huge factor- the French were funnelled into a very small area making arrowfire generally more deadly on a per shot basis. Also it had apparently been raining very heavily IIRC, French Knights were getting stuck and falling off their horses, the weight of their armour making it difficult for them to get back to their feet (along with the aforementioned funnelling).Quote:
Originally Posted by Cadwallon
Apparently, the longbowmen would rush forward and kill the knights with knives while they were stuck. Their were reports of the terrain being so water logged that some Frenchmen actually drowned.
Agincourt was a fatal evidence of french stupidity because how can a chaser in his homeland allow enemy to put a bottleneck againts him. And when it comes to super abilities of longbowmens do you talk about this slaughter of crossbowman when french forgot to give them pavises at crecy or the fact that longbowman shoot in horse when it comes to cavalry? If both then i dont see how this has something to do with killing every heavy armored footmen with shields when shooting head-on.
umm i dont have kingdoms but i've bene playing LTC for a while and i cant understand what Zaher is comlaining about. if LTC doesn anything it makes battles last longer so that actual decisions have to be made to win a battle. to me that is moving away from RTS type battle where u just broup and click. so why all the fuss?? cavalry seem to do fine in LTC i assue they would in kingdoms as well
On the battle of Crecy:
The history channel story said that the where Milanese Pavise crossbowmen. The original position they were in was apparently not a good one. While they were not dying in droves, they understood that they needed to reposition and were withdrawing under fire. When the French nobility saw this, it caused them to fly into a rage, and they killed them.
Also there was/is a stream at the bottom of the hill, more of a runoff type stream, that could have played a factor in the French advance. There is now a 8 foot trench or gully there. The host of the show surmised that it may have been there at that time. This would have caused the French knights to stop and look for a way down and then back up the other side.
Again as you stated, they were funnelled into an effective kill zone. The first dozen or so guys who die cause the ground to get wet and slippery with their blood and everyone has trouble getting their footing.
The part about the tilled field came from a book I read about Medieval village life. Apparently, they followed the same furrow year after year, which causes the furrows to get deeper. As soon as the host said the field had been recently plowed, I knew what happened.
It is impossible to keep an orderly battleline marching across something like that ,much less a charge.
My Agincourt source came from a history report I was "forced" to do in high school. I had forgotten about the field being soaked but you are right. King Harry was dismayed that his men ran out to kill the French knights, not because he was concerned for his fellow man ,but because you can't ransom a dead nobleman.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lancelot
Real plate armour is different from sheet metal of course.:P
The point is that it could penetrate. If the archers could shoot the horses out from under the men, there was a good chance that they would die. There are a lot of weak spots between armour (and places where armour didn't cover) that the arrows could hit. I think what won Angincourt is the archers taking carefull aim, while the stakes and infantrymen held the horses off. While the archers couldn't defeat the French by themselves of course, they, nevertheless, no doubt inflicted most of the casualties. If archers could own by themselves with no one to hold the enemy back, there would have only been archers.
My point was that archers inflicted a LOT more casualties than is generally believed, and (if used correctly) could turn the course of a battle.
Vuk