Lame cav tactic being employed

ElmoooOOOOOooooOOOOOOOO!!!! Come back!!!


Well, part of the problem is that there are factions with which you can take very different spam armies. Prime examples are the egyptians and the romans.

Egyptians can have:
10 desert cavs/ 10 chariot
10 desert cavs/ 10 pharaos bowmen
10 pharaos guards/ 10 pharaos bowmen

spam armies just to name the most popular ones. Obviously you need different anit-spam armies agaisnt each of these spams. You might try to bring a kind of "well-balanced-army" (the old dream of TW vets ~D) but I have the feeling that it will work against only one or two of these spam armies (or none). So, practically it means that the battle is over after the army choice phase, you either have the "right" army or not.

Against the Romans you are facing the same difficult situation, the roman general can have:
20 pretorian cavs wedge
10 pret cavs/ 10 aux archer
20 urban cohort

spam armies. A classic "well-balanced" army might or might not work against some of these spams, and if you want to bring a special anti-spam army you are entering a guessing game. Again, either you guessed it correctly or not, in both case the battle is decided during the army choice phase.

Of course, there are factions against which you have an easier situation: facing parthia or scythia almost definitely means a cav/cav archer heavy army, or facing the greeks means a hoplite/archer heavy army.

However, in any case bringing a "well-balanced-army" implies a trust towards your opponent, you are practically assuming that he wont bring the worst spam army. If you dont have trust and you play to win, your best bet is to bring a spam army for yourself, of course trying to outwit your opponent so that you have the anti-spam spam army against his spam army :dizzy2:

Needles to say, trust is not easy to build up especially against random opponents, on the top of it most of the kids play to win, so not surprisingly spamming is quite common.

However, if you can play between friends or clan mates then the situation can be completely different, since then you have the trust to bring well-balanced armies. These games can be fun, but you need friends for that. That is why the leaving of vets makes the situation even worst (though I can understand them leaving).

Anyway, imho the best anti-spam tactics is to play sufficiently low denarii, with max rules, with friends ~D

So, Elmo you see, you have to come back!!! ~;)

It has been years now since the Total War multiplayer community had an Honor Society, maybe it’s time again?

Establishing a simple code of ethics for the community, could help to some degree to make folks aware that there are some of us who expect more from the people we play with than a “spam dunk”!

In the past, the Honor Society was an exclusive club, where you had to be nominated and voted in (I never was). That is “not” what I am talking about. My vision is a very simple Code of Honor that can be signed by those who would uphold it.

It could even be taken a step further, if those electing to accept "The Code" as there own, could also signify that fact by adding a special character or letter to the end of their player name. That way Code advocates could more easily find each other online to have the quality of games that they are looking for.

The identifying “mark” (whatever it would be), would also identify those who either were not aware that there was a Code so that they could be told about it, and those who refused to adopt it.

I am thinking that it would be better to exclude the later from your games, than to have to pull the game, and waste any of the precious time it would take to do so.

Thoughts ~:handball:

Edit: Made this it's own thread called Code of Honor :bow:

This is how I actually deal with spam arimes;

If I am playing rome, I will make sure that my inf are close together in tight formation while my cav is always near it, most of the time the spamer will find his cav blog stuck after routing 0-1 unit of inf, thats where my cav goes in for the finishing. I don't have to worry about the speed or inf turning because they are romans and no cav can change direction fast enough against roman inf.

If I am playing greek, the answer is simple from a deep cirle of pike and be alert and paitence. Once the cav spammer decides to attack a point turn your pikes to that direction, if he decides to with draw, good form the circle again. Every time he charge and withdraw he loss more men than I do and you can simply do the math who is taking more losses.
I usually use 2 militia cav while playing greeks so if the guy decides to chase my cav, good that will tire him out. Is a matter of paitence and keeping cool.

Same goes for mace only this time you combine greek tactics with roman, form a pike circle and run your cav around or through it to avoid the spammer.
But never charge throught your own pike cause they will kill your own cav as well. Just turn them around for to the rear or flanks of the cav blog and charge it when it go stuck in the pike circle.

If you are playing barbs...well good luck, cos barbs are the worst inf to take on cav blogs anyway.

Archers in the above mention tactics will have to constantly move about and take pot shots at the cav to lure it to charge your inf formation. Keep close to the inf and never stray too far from it.

This is how I use my balance armies against cav spammers, the chance of victory is above average. In the end, it is a matter of patience and keeping cool. Do not let those spammers taunt you. And remember it is just a game.

I have spammers quiting the game after a series of failed charges, sustaining heavy causlties, sometimes the rude ones even call me a cheat lol and abuse me verbally, I merely laugh at them. ~D

Quote:

---

if the player was decent enough, couldn't he just take his blob and move to your main forces flanks, then turn quickly, and attack them before they could line back up after turning?

---

In this case, the relatively fast running speed of infantry is a strength; it's not that difficult to keep facing the cav blob with a shortish line (or double line) of deep inf blocks. Phalanxes will maneuver out of phalanx formation of course, only lowering their spears when the charge is apparent. You can even charge the cav blob head-on with phalanx secondary attack and switch to phalanx once they're already in melee.

As long as you have a solid mass of infantry stopping the blob, the finesse bits don't matter that much. Most phalanxes are dependable infantry even with their secondary attacks, and like AquaLurker said, Romans and other sword inf are more than fast enough to keep pace.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by AquaLurker

If I am playing greek, the answer is simple from a deep cirle of pike and be alert and paitence. Once the cav spammer decides to attack a point turn your pikes to that direction.

---

That's fine if you want to adopt a 100% defensive posture. You might as well corner camp.

I see several problems with RTW v1.2 concerning cav vs phalanx:

First. Cav can beat phalanx head on. I posted a replay which shows this.

Second. The cav moves so fast and the combat resolution is so fast that the delay in response to unit orders makes it practically impossible to respond to the threats. The fact that you have to keep your inf units so close together and use phalanx units like sword units indicates there is a problem.

Third. Cav can circle around to the back of a phalanx and attack it before the phalanx can turn to face the cav. So there is no need for cav to charge head on if a phalanx unit is isolated.

Fourth. Two cav can present threats from two different directions and both threats cannot be met. It doesn't matter that you have two phalanx units because the cav player has the initiative and can attack whichever phalanx unit isn't facing his cav. Then the second cav can flank the supporting phalanx unit when it moves to assist the first phalanx unit.

Fifth. Only the first 3 ranks of a phalanx fight with the pikes, and there is a gap between each set of 3 pikes that enemy cav or inf easily penetrate when you use teh click behind trick. The deeper ranks have their pikes pointing up and only fight as swordsmen. If you remove the secondary sword weapon, the phalanx does much better vs cav, but the pikes always face the direction that the unit is facing no matter which way the individual men in the unit face which is really bizarre.

These are issues with the gameplay when you are trying to play realistically. The fact that you can defy physics and stack units on top of each other is an order of magnitude beyond anything I would waste my time trying to "master" a counter strategy against. I'll try some of the mods which attempt to improve the gameplay, and hopefully that will solve the overpowered unit spamming, and also get away from the stack masters.

One other thing to keep in mind is that CA never embraced the idea that a balanced army could beat unbalanced armies. They have always said you have to use unbalanced armies to counter unbalanced armies. That is a design decision with a profound effect on the resulting gameplay. In Samurai Wars for MTW/VI, it doesn't take an all spear army to beat an all cav army because the RPS is strong enough that one spear unit can beat several cav units, and they do it for less than half the cost. We arrived at that type of gameplay in Samurai Wars because it was a design objective.

Yuuki, lab tests don't always reveal everything. I've used phalanxes successfully in dozens of games, both offensively and defensively, against inf spam, cav spam, blobs and balanced armies. In 10k (or below), large unit size games they are definitely dependable if you use them correctly. Nowadays I even prefer them over sword infantry, and that's quite a turnabout - when I started to play RTW, I considered phalanxes nearly worthless (too slow, not good enough vs cav, too unwieldy and hard to use.) No more. :tongue2:

A deep analysis of a unit's abilities is always a good thing, but sometimes the theory just doesn't match practical reality. I did similar head-on custom battle tests and LAN tests, and based on those results I didn't initially use phalanxes. But my clanmates did, and their knowledge made me give the pointy sticks a second chance. Phalanxes are very good units once you get to know them.

The "sandwiched" combat penalty was probably removed because of the new physics engine and the way "pushing" is handled. It sucks, of course, but maybe the devs didn't have a choice.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Crandaeolon

Yuuki, lab tests don't always reveal everything. I've used phalanxes successfully in dozens of games, both offensively and defensively, against inf spam, cav spam, blobs and balanced armies. In 10k (or below), large unit size games they are definitely dependable if you use them correctly. Nowadays I even prefer them over sword infantry, and that's quite a turnabout - when I started to play RTW, I considered phalanxes nearly worthless (too slow, not good enough vs cav, too unwieldy and hard to use.) No more. :tongue2:

A deep analysis of a unit's abilities is always a good thing, but sometimes the theory just doesn't match practical reality. I did similar head-on custom battle tests and LAN tests, and based on those results I didn't initially use phalanxes. But my clanmates did, and their knowledge made me give the pointy sticks a second chance. Phalanxes are very good units once you get to know them.

The "sandwiched" combat penalty was probably removed because of the new physics engine and the way "pushing" is handled. It sucks, of course, but maybe the devs didn't have a choice.

---

I doesn't just suck. There is something wrong with the way phalanx works in RTW, and the test shows it. A player using phalanx in battles and beating inferior players doesn't mean there isn't a problem.

I didn't do any tests in RTW before playing it. I just played the game, and this was before players were using the the stacking exploit. I used phalanx a lot in those battles, and that's what lead me and another player, who has since uninstalled the game, to eventually test because we wanted to find out what was wrong with them. The tests showed what's wrong with them. It was the battles that lead to the tests not the other way around.

The term "physics engine" is ironic, because things happen in the game which defy physics.

Quote:

---

The term "physics engine" is ironic, because things happen in the game which defy physics.

---

Still not very concerned about the stacking exploit, sorry. It's not as bad as the swipe bug in my book - stacking doesn't give any "real" advantages, it just makes controlling easier. It's a newbie fad that will go out of fashion as player skills improve. And I agree with Cheetah here: vets can, and should, help improve the skills of the community by setting examples.

Quote:

---

A player using phalanx in battles and beating inferior players doesn't mean there isn't a problem.

---

You're giving me too much credit here. ~D

Of course there are a lot of crappy players in the foyers, but I've met some well-known, skilled ones too. And my clanmates are certainly not "inferior players". I've lost to phalanx-based armies with balanced Romans, so that would make me an "inferior player" in those situations, right? Can one be sometimes inferior, sometimes not?

Hmm, maybe I haven't met good enough players to use their armies correctly. If anyone here wants to school me in proper generalship skills, I'd be happy to play a few friendly bouts! ~;)

Quote:

---

Cav can beat phalanx head on.

---

I'll try to shed a bit more light on this.

Here's a replay where 10 cataphracts charge head-on into 10 silver shields. They switch to their dreadful armour-piercing maces immediately after the initial charge.

Catatest.rpy

It's what typically happens with a phalanx wall: the center is strong, while the outermost units suffer from overlap. Phalanxes aren't that good individually or even in small groups; they need to be used as a weapons system of several units. In this test we had an equal number of catas and pikes, but naturally 10 pikes are cheaper than 10 catas, and 13 pikes vs 10 catas would have favored the pikes too much.

The phalanx line wasn't entirely static when the cataphracts charged - a more solid, unmoving line would have fared better.

Keep in mind that these are cataphracts - best cavalry in the game, and seriously overpowered units. Lesser cavalry would have fared worse.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Crandaeolon

The phalanx line wasn't entirely static when the cataphracts charged - a more solid, unmoving line would have fared better.

---

My 4 on 4 test had Silver Shields in a static unmoving line 8 deep, and the cataphracts didn't overlap the ends of the phalanx. The cataphracts still won 3 of the 4 matchups.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Crandaeolon

Keep in mind that these are cataphracts - best cavalry in the game, and seriously overpowered units. Lesser cavalry would have fared worse.

---

Anti-cav infantry shouldn't cost more than 1/2 of the cav that they beat if you want a strong rock, paper, scissors gameplay. We just went through all of this with 3 months of testing making Samurai Wars for MTW/VI. The yari samurai infantry costs 400, and frontally it beats the heavy cav which costs 1200. The cav is more expensive because of its higher mobility and its ability to defeat non-spear units. Of course, the anti-cav performance of infantry in RTW is much weaker, and I think the root of the problem.

Well, in the above test the catas didn't really "overlap" the phalanxes either - it wasn't a well-chosen word to describe what happened. It's more about mass and the presence of other phalanxes.

In an effort to make phalanxes a bit better against cav, I tried increasing their mass by 0.9-1.1 units - and for some reason it works. Silver Shields with a mass of 2.1 can beat cataphracts head-on in a 1vs1 test, and the fight looks more like it should; the phalanx doesn't get "squished" into a thin line as pronouncedly as before, but retain their formation better. Edit: oops, forgot to mention that all melee units got a +1 to armour and +1 to defense as well. +1.0 to mass alone is not sufficient.

Maybe there _is_ a "sandwiched" -combat penalty after all, just much less effective than in MTW. Or it has something to do with pushbacks, i don't know.

Quote:

---

Anti-cav infantry shouldn't cost more the 1/2 of the cav that they beat if you want a strong rock, paper, scissors gameplay. The yari samurai infantry costs 400, and frontally it beats the heavy cav which costs 1200.

---

I have a bit different approach - so far I've put more weight on the end results... after all, the victorious units can be used elsewhere as well. Using your numbers as an example, in a test of 10 yari samurai vs 10 heavy cav, let's assume that the spears lose a half of their number (which is probably more than they would lose in SamWars), but the cavs are totally destroyed or routed off the battlefield. The cav player has lost 10*1200 = 12,000 koku, and the yari player 10*400*0.5 = 2,000 koku.

Sounds like the RPS is a bit too strong for my taste. I do agree that the RPS in Rome is too weak, but it's fixable with some minor modding - the sledgehammer approaches that some mods have used are not needed.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Crandaeolon

Sounds like the RPS is a bit too strong for my taste. I do agree that the RPS in Rome is too weak, but it's fixable with some minor modding - the sledgehammer approaches that some mods have used are not needed.

---

We didn't use a sledgehammer approach in Samurai Wars. The anti-cav bonus was 8 points, and it was clearly demonstrated by some good cav players that it wasn't strong enough in big battles, so we increased it to 10 points. The RPS is only as strong as it has to be for balanced gameplay.

I haven't played SamWars, so can't comment on its gameplay. The sledgehammer jab was mostly directed at SPQR, which admittedly tried to change the core gameplay, not just fix the balance. But still, the hammer's marks are quite evident. ~;)

The question "how strong should RPS be?" doesn't really have a "right" answer; it's mostly up to personal preference. For example, spear (or halberdier) units that can survive when sandwiched between two units of cav is going too far IMO; it puts too much emphasis on unit matchups at the expense of tactical maneuvering. Others might disagree, of course.

Well Samurai Wars isn't like that. The YS won't survive a cav sandwich. It won't even survive a cav hit from the rear. The YS has att/def of 0/2 (5/7 vs cav), and the HC is a 3/5. So frontally, the YS has a 4 point advantage, but from the rear the HC gets it's 5 point charge bonus + 7 additional points for charging into the rear which is more than enough to rout the YS on contact since the morale of the YS was only raised enough for it to withstand frontal fighting in the chaos of a big battle.

Since each melee point in Sam Wars gives a 20% combat advantage, there is plenty of room between the 2 combat points of YS and the 8 combat points of HC to position 3 sword type units of varing strengths. There are multiple RPS systems at work in Sam Wars despite there being only 14 unit types. The gameplay is very rich tactically. The cost structure is such that you play without upgrades and there are no battlefield upgrades, so the unit relationships are maintained and the player only has to consider fatigue, casualties, terrain and position to determine how the unit will perform in a given situation. In RTW, you can strengthen the anti-cav bonus of spears, but it's difficult to do so with phalanx because they switch to the secondary sword weapon and loose the anti-cav bonus.

Another major difference between Sam Wars and RTW is that you can actually turn a YS in time to face a cav if you see it coming. You see your opponent's "move", and you have time to make the appropriate "countermove". I don't find that to be the case in RTW when you couple the high running speed with the 2 second delay between the time you give an order and when the unit starts to move. In RTW, you have to make some assumptions about where the cav is going to strike and get the infantry faced in that direction ahead of time. Of course, the intitiative is with the cav because of it's higher mobility, so it doesn't have to strike from the direction you anticipated.

I'll take your word for SamWars balance, I know that the Mizus have a slew of great stat people and fine players. Maybe I'll join you in the MTW lobby someday, if efforts to balance RTW prove to be futile. ~:)

Quote:

---

In RTW, you can strengthen the anti-cav bonus of spears, but it's difficult to do so with phalanx because they switch to the secondary sword weapon and loose the anti-cav bonus.

---

Actually, the mount_effect bonus / penalty is in effect for all melee attacks AFAIK. Phalanxes do retain the bonus even with their secondary weapons - it's only the "intrinsic" anti-cav bonus provided by the "pike" weapon type that is lost.

There's of course the side effect of making phalanxes perform better vs cav even when they're not in phalanx formation or when charged in the rear. For units like Sacred Band infantry (cost 710) this is a bit too much - they can already defeat Legionary Cohorts (cost 740) with their secondary attack only. Adding a mount_effect bonus vs. cav would make them seriously overpowered.

The mass approach seems to be the best at the moment, and it looks more natural as an added bonus.

Quote:

---

In RTW, you have to make some assumptions about where the cav is going to strike and get the infantry faced in that direction ahead of time.

---

This is a good thing, isn't it? Anticipating the opponent's moves is a part of being a successful general, right?

Quote:

---

Of course, the intitiative is with the cav because of it's higher mobility, so it doesn't have to strike from the direction you anticipated.

---

This has the potential to turn the aforementioned good thing into a bad thing, but so far I haven't found it too difficult to maneuver phalanxes to face threats. I usually keep phalanxes in standard formation and switch to phalanx only moments before impact. Often, opponents see their cavs closing in on my phalanxes that are still in standard formation and decide to "go ahead" with the charge, hoping to catch me with pikes up. And, the command delay works to my benefit here - the cavs won't have time to stop in time once they see the pikes descending.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Crandaeolon

This is a good thing, isn't it? Anticipating the opponent's moves is a part of being a successful general, right?

---

Yes if the opponent is stupid enough to go ahead an attack when he sees that you correctly anticipated his move. What's to stop the player with higher mobility from generating new threats until you guess wrong? Apparently, you're depending on a trick to get your opponents to charge. I played many RTW 1v1's against an opponent approximately equal in skill to me where he took the cav based army and I took the phalanx based army, and he never charged my phalanx frontally with cav. Everytime I correctly anticipated his plan, he just made a new plan until I guessed wrong at some point.

Grr we couldent agree on the colour oof shite! lol! ok heres the plain facts as i see it, people like to post oh i can beat this tactic or that tactic who did u play some obscure noob? jonh05? cav is a problem if u guys cant see that then i say ur blind, cav spams a problem, and max 5 isent the answer so please stop preaching it pariya cause u host 5 max games then take 10 heavy cavs 5 of each hmm hmm? lol what does that do to stop cav spam? all that does is weaken some factions.the only way ur gonna stop cav spam with a phalanx is in abox or if your oppoenent doesent manuever their cav. Its a problem in the game and untill ca does somehting about it rome is F*&**ed, ill still play and cav spam away with the rest of them tho at least for the moment.

Also these low florin games arent the answer to the problem, fair enough promote low fflorin game sif u like them but dont go saying they fix problems that they dont, its an engine problem and is apparent at any florin level. all that does is send a big message to ca saying nothing is wrong here move along.

Quote:

---

Grr we couldent agree on the colour oof shite!

---

But there are so many different shades... ~;)

Quote:

---

cav is a problem if u guys cant see that then i say ur blind

---

Of course it's a problem. It's overpowered. I don't recall many saying that it isn't?

Quote:

---

,cav spams a problem,

---

Cav spam is a problem because cavalry are overpowered. They're not separate problems. :tongue:

Quote:

---

max 5 isent the answer

---

Yep. Max 5 is a poor rule by itself. Agreed 100%.

Quote:

---

the only way ur gonna stop cav spam with a phalanx is in abox or if your oppoenent doesent manuever their cav.

---

True. Cav can outmaneuver phalanxes. Who'd have guessed? ~:eek: But in the same vein, cav can outmaneuver all inf units. Thus, we get this: "The only way you're gonna stop cav spam with infantry is if your opponent doesn't maneuver their cav."

But chariots, they're great anti-cav units. And they're almost as fast as cav too! ~D

I think some of the terms are getting mixed up here... this thread is about cavalry stacked atop each other into a single wedge. That is easy to counter, because all of the opponent's units are in the same place. Yes, only noobs do that, cause vets can do better. (Vets can control several cav at the same time. What incredible skill! ~;))

And that leads us back to cav being overpowered. Which has been said before. Right?

Quote:

---

Also these low florin games arent the answer to the problem

---

Agreed. Low florin games just cause the players to use more kinds of units than the standard few elite units that get used in 10k+ games.

Try large units, that's almost a solution. They make cav a bit weaker, relatively speaking. Not weaker enough to be balanced, but it's better than with normal units.

Quote:

---

Apparently, you're depending on a trick to get your opponents to charge.

---

Oh, I'm depending on far more than just one trick... that one is only for emergencies ~D

There are a plenty of other units on the battlefield than just the cavalry and the phalanx. Who knows, there may even be teammates (heaven forbid! ~D) to create all kinds of interesting situations. And no one is infallible in their maneuvering. If they were, there would be no point in having spear units in SamWars, because everyone could just avoid them by maneuvering their cav, right?

yes cav outmanuever all foot but at least some foot types can face them before the whole unit is obliterated, i dont see any evidence that large games help to eliminate spam and ive played alot of large games. it may take a few seconds longer for the spam to rout a unit but thats nowhere near a fix, i know im ranting but the game has so much potential runied by a few silly things that i would imagine are easy to fix, if they get it wrong in expansion its all over :\

Ranting's a good way to let off some steam, but it won't help with the problems. Large units make it a bit more tolerable, but not much - cav are certainly overpowered even at large size. Good players can exploit that imbalance and win against most other players that don't use swarm tactics and don't know all the units / counterunits.

The solutions are difficult to implement, but I haven't lost faith _quite_ yet. It's not far away, though - in the modding efforts, all kinds of illogical and just plain stupid crud has been uncovered in the mechanics and stats. One more unexplainable stat behavior and I'm calling it quits. :tongue:

I haven't given CA any money for Rome (I've loaned the game from a friend who doesn't play online), and never will if they won't support it properly, as seems to be the case right now. I certainly won't buy the expansion - forking out money for bugfixes isn't a very promising trend that I'd like to support.

Now, back to the issue. Cav is overpowered. What should be done? Should anything be done? There's an ongoing modding effort to fix RTW balance (BTW Yuuki & Swoosh, you should be aware of it) and everyone's invited to participate, if only to indicate support for it. If no one's even remotely interested, the effort will certainly die.

I think the MP mod could be more important than ever now that CA will not be addressing the loadgame issue in SP campaign since they don't consider it to be a problem. If they won't address that issue, then I don't see any hope that they'll do anything about MP balance issues nothwithstanding BOFH's attempt to set up a channel for multiplayers to give feedback to CA about it. An MP mod is the last hope for me to get anything out of this game since I won't play RTW v1.2 MP the way it is. I have been working with Mordred to investigate the performance of the phalanx for this balance mod. That's why I'm concerned when I see statements which suggest that phalanx works good enough in RTW v1.2 because, if that's the attitude, then why would I work on a mod that I won't play? I also want to see good balance between offensive and defensive actions in addition to good unit balance.

An important feature of the balance mod is that it will use moddir, so that RTW v1.2 isn't overwritten and will still work which helps a great deal in getting players to use a mod. Ease of installation is also very important. However, most players won't use mods so you have to keep that in mind.

For the purpose of discussion image all players divided into three groups: good, average and weak. My view is that the effectiveness of cav spam should be reduced to the point where a mid-range good player isn't likely to beat a mid-range average player with it. That forces the good players to come up with something more creative than identifying the best cav units and taking a lot of them. Since you can stack units in RTW, it has to handle that as well. Even in the better balanced, MTW/VI v2.01, high era, 10k, flat map, CWC Grand Final my clan played the eventual winning clan and their tactics had little to do with using balanced armies. Individual testing in MTW/VI shows that sword/cav is best, and that's what the winning team used in the CWC 4v4 battles to win.

Due to peculiarities in RTW's 3D battle engine, I don't know if anti-cav performance can be increased very much. If RPS remains weak, then unit balancing has to be done to an even higher degree to get away from a spamming type of gameplay. Simply reducing the effectiveness of cav could lead to other problems such as sword spam or ineffectiveness of flanking. Even so, you might be able to make something that works noticably better than RTW v1.2 without a great deal of work.

I still have a hard time understanding why we end up with so many different results and feedback on cavalry versus whatever else you throw at it. If anything MTW gave a much more consistent feeling on how the game plays; people may or may not like it, but it was somehow more consistent. Now... With RTW, I don't know if we really all play the same game.

I still have the feeling that settings matter a lot; games are vastly different depending on which unit size you play...

For modding that means either trying to balance for all size, in all conditions, knowing that those conditions got a huge impact, and that the "feeling" spread is very large.
To be honest, I don't think it's possible; there would be a need for stat at huge unit size, and another one at small/normal unit size...

Yuuki, given the large gap in people's experience about this game, I got a hard time thinking a mod could do it all for everyone. Even for players who think that the mechanics of 1.2 are ok, and whose experience with phalanx is that they do beat cavalry, there are still some very bothersome problems and modding would help a lot solving them.

I'd suggest moving along with two mods

One for those happy with RTW 1.2 and moving along the lines of;
- readjusting unit cost to rebalance units/ faction
- solve a few bugs (horse archer not shooting, discripancy in units stats)
That would not really change the way RTW 1.2 plays. A 1200 denarii cataphract is still a cataphract and would behave just like a vanilla 1.2 cataphract. A ruban cohort would be more expensive, but still a urban cohort.

And one for those who wants to change the gameplay;
- slowing down kill speed
- slowing down movement speed
- readjusting cost/ combat stat to rebalance units/ faction
- solve the bugs

I know for sure that I am interested in the 1st mod, and I posted a long time ago to get there.

I also got some interest in the second mod, and that is why I worked along mainly with Crandaeolon and CeltiberoMordred (and other fellow players).
The main reason for looking at a "deeper" mod is mainly related to what was mentionned at start: many different results, and many different feedback. Combat results look very inconsistent, random and chaotic. I am not interested by reducing the speed in and for itself, but I think it's a good way to get more consistent combat results. And that would be a good thing.

A "1.2 friendly" mod can probably be done quickly, and fix a few things that 1.2 lovers are bothered with, but not essentially changing the gameplay.
The other mod, of which Mordred mod is a first step will probably take a much longer time and need lot of brainstorming, testing and feedback.

The main issue, as usual, is how many people would play one mod? What about two?

Louis,

I think the whole discussion about how to counter lame cav tactics is rather pointless. Before I start a game and pick my army I do not know whether I will be faced with an all cav army. The only indication I have is the numbers of soldiers being picked. Which meant in my case more than half the games I played, untill I gave up on mp, were lost before I even started. An utter waste of time. The main reason I gave up was, in fact, the massive waste of time.

Apart from that: a good players who uses the cav spam will always win. It is a far more serious bug than the swipe in MTW.

A mod is not a viable answer: Most modders do not agree with each other, as most players, and therefore there is not going to be one mod accepted by all.

And Louis: I think you are wrong about the killing speed and running speed. Try and keep in mind how fast you get used to something when it comes down to games. When I play MTW now it feels horribly slow.

I think killing/game speed is closely related to the cav spam bug, apart from some others problems. Lower killing speed means a unit holds out longer which gives you time to react, slower running walking/speed gives you more time to react in the first place. An thus cav spam will be less effective or even useless.

To which extend both speeds should decreased is open for discussion, but I seriously doubt whether you can stop spamming by just making some units more expensive.

The game was designed to be played on huge settings. I think it was Fishpants who said that defending the game/killing speed here at .org. And he is right, on huge the problem is less. Unfortunalty the game cannot be played by the vast majority on huge due to a variety of problems. I think the game in principal is ahead of it's time, next generation cpu's will be able to handle it well.

Most play on large settings so lowering both speeds is the most sensible answer, apart from re balancing. Most important is the killing speed.

There are quite a few mods around and with some adjustment they could be a very good alternative. Yet another mod is doomed. And it should be one of the most popular mods if it stands a chance of being accepted by a significant amount of players to be able to survive in mp. So far none have.

A very interesting mod I played a few games with is the Darth Vader Mod. Havent tested it much but it felt extremely good. He did some things no else has tried, the game now feels more natural. Even AI battles have become more enjoyable.

Link: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/index...howtopic=24673

I think this mod is a step in the right direction.

3 impact factors that make a cav spam so effective and can be modified:
-cavalry mass: lower mass means cavalry doesnt push trough infantry so easily
-jump animation: removing this will stop horses jumping over other horses, thereby only letting the frontline get their charge bonus. Also further deduces the "push through" effect.
-horse "radius": I slightly increased the "free space" around each individual horse in Chivalry TW, so you can't "compress" tons of horses on a rediculously small space. That means there are more foot soldiers fighting every horseman.

Horses shouldn't be able to beat medium to heavy infantry units head on. Even tho the best cavalry may be more effecient individual fighters, they should be so small in numbers that they cannot beat good infantry head on.

i saw someone who did that as julii against me in a 4v4, needless to say i show'd him the meaning of "pike-fodder". i only lost about 20 guys :charge:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Drake22

i saw someone who did that as julii against me in a 4v4, needless to say i show'd him the meaning of "pike-fodder". i only lost about 20 guys :charge:

---

This post is an example of what Swoosh is talking about. It makes it sound like there is no problem. Right now CA's position is that cav is not overpowered, and that unit stacking is not a problem. The weak RPS is going to stay as it is, as are the movement and fighing speeds.

In STWmod for MTW/VI, a yari spear unit costs 400 and frontally beats the best heavy cavalry unit which costs 1200. The cav is 2x faster than the spear, and the spear is 2x stronger than the cav. Stacking units results in a combat penalty. The relationship of these units is quite close to what LongJohn made them in original STW. The cavalry is still extremely dangerous in this mod.

"The one thing I have noticed from STW to RTW strategy discussions is the change of focus.

STW: Focus was on position, angles of attack, specific map strategies for MP games, and specific unit strengths/weaknesses and how to overcome single-unit majority rush tactics.

MTW: Focus became more army selection oriented, game mechanics (tricks), and more general in nature (no specific map strategies), plus more general discussion on unit strengths/weaknesses and what army to choose to overcome single-unit majority rush tactics.

RTW: Focus is mostly on army selection, and game mechanics (tricks) and no discussion on how to overcome single-unit majority rush tactics.

Does anybody notice, how the increase in the number of units available has been inversely proportional to the amount of strategy possible? Every game in the TW series has meant less variables to consider when fighting battles. More emphasis on choosing the overpowered units, and using what I think are cheesy game mechanic bugs (Such as the "Fire At Will" trick to force your pavs to shoot faster than the enemy's pavs.) You never hear RTW discussions on angles of attack, breaking a defensive line by opening a hole in the enemies' defenses by attacking a weakened unit, etc . . . Why? Because the whole game has been simplified, with a focus on the 3-D engine instead of the more complicated and time-consuming process of unit balancing, battle computation complexity, and terrain usage.

I stated the very first week RTW was released that I felt the graphics/gameplay equation was a zero sum game, where advances to one area, ultimately were compensated by decreases in the other. An increase in RTW graphic resolution/3-D had led to a decrease in the complexity of the battle computations so that games would be playable online. It has been denied by almost everyone, and most vocally, but I am afraid this discussion is proof that my feelings were correct.

I still believe the reason we have never heard ANYTHING on how the battles are computed (which was discussed in detail, and given much press, for STW/MTW) is because the wonderful graphics engine was offset by an extreme simplification of the battle computations. If you ask for this information, they ignore it like an ugly stepchild.

The game, for me, was DOA (Dead On Arrival). Too many changes, for change's sake, and too little thought given to the MP lobby and gameplay. I am hopeful the SEGA/CA deal will focus on what made the original games great and not go in for glitz over gameplay."


I don't know about MTW/STW but i agree with you on RTW. it's more about which troops you have then how you use them. I think this illsurtates the problem quite well*

"...........First it requires you to purchase (based on a 25K denarii budget) 9 units of Cataphracts, 3 units of Silver Shield Pikemen, 3 units of Silver Shield Legionaries, and 5 units of Onagers. For upgrades, your first priority is the Cataphracts. Upgrade their attack and defense first. And remember that often times, giving a unit two bars of valor is cheaper and more effective than giving them +2 Defense and +2 Attack. I upgrade them so that 6 units of Catas get +2 attack and the other 3 get +3. I'll often boost their defense to either gold or silver for all of them. The general shouldn't be the strongest unit, three units other than him should have the +3 attack improvement. Next improve your Legions' attacks, and finally your Pikemens' defenses..........."





*Infact, IMHO, it illustrates the problem as well as a worker at the panama canal walking around with a wheel barrow on his head illustrated the problem there.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by mongoose

"The one thing I have noticed from STW to RTW strategy discussions is the change of focus.

STW: Focus was on position, angles of attack, specific map strategies for MP games, and specific unit strengths/weaknesses and how to overcome single-unit majority rush tactics.

MTW: Focus became more army selection oriented, game mechanics (tricks), and more general in nature (no specific map strategies), plus more general discussion on unit strengths/weaknesses and what army to choose to overcome single-unit majority rush tactics.

RTW: Focus is mostly on army selection, and game mechanics (tricks) and no discussion on how to overcome single-unit majority rush tactics.

Does anybody notice, how the increase in the number of units available has been inversely proportional to the amount of strategy possible? Every game in the TW series has meant less variables to consider when fighting battles. More emphasis on choosing the overpowered units, and using what I think are cheesy game mechanic bugs (Such as the "Fire At Will" trick to force your pavs to shoot faster than the enemy's pavs.) You never hear RTW discussions on angles of attack, breaking a defensive line by opening a hole in the enemies' defenses by attacking a weakened unit, etc . . . Why? Because the whole game has been simplified, with a focus on the 3-D engine instead of the more complicated and time-consuming process of unit balancing, battle computation complexity, and terrain usage.

I stated the very first week RTW was released that I felt the graphics/gameplay equation was a zero sum game, where advances to one area, ultimately were compensated by decreases in the other. An increase in RTW graphic resolution/3-D had led to a decrease in the complexity of the battle computations so that games would be playable online. It has been denied by almost everyone, and most vocally, but I am afraid this discussion is proof that my feelings were correct.

I still believe the reason we have never heard ANYTHING on how the battles are computed (which was discussed in detail, and given much press, for STW/MTW) is because the wonderful graphics engine was offset by an extreme simplification of the battle computations. If you ask for this information, they ignore it like an ugly stepchild.

The game, for me, was DOA (Dead On Arrival). Too many changes, for change's sake, and too little thought given to the MP lobby and gameplay. I am hopeful the SEGA/CA deal will focus on what made the original games great and not go in for glitz over gameplay."


I don't know about MTW/STW but i agree with you on RTW. it's more about which troops you have then how you use them. I think this illsurtates the problem quite well*

"...........First it requires you to purchase (based on a 25K denarii budget) 9 units of Cataphracts, 3 units of Silver Shield Pikemen, 3 units of Silver Shield Legionaries, and 5 units of Onagers. For upgrades, your first priority is the Cataphracts. Upgrade their attack and defense first. And remember that often times, giving a unit two bars of valor is cheaper and more effective than giving them +2 Defense and +2 Attack. I upgrade them so that 6 units of Catas get +2 attack and the other 3 get +3. I'll often boost their defense to either gold or silver for all of them. The general shouldn't be the strongest unit, three units other than him should have the +3 attack improvement. Next improve your Legions' attacks, and finally your Pikemens' defenses..........."
.

---

Hmmmm, I've heard this before. Or is it 'Deja Vu'?

........Orda

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by mongoose

Does anybody notice, how the increase in the number of units available has been inversely proportional to the amount of strategy possible? Every game in the TW series has meant less variables to consider when fighting battles. More emphasis on choosing the overpowered units, and using what I think are cheesy game mechanic bugs (Such as the "Fire At Will" trick to force your pavs to shoot faster than the enemy's pavs.)

---

Actually, the game engine has become more complex with each installment. However, that works against a player understanding why things happen in the battle. You can't make intelligent command decisions when you don't know the rules that govern unit behavior. It's so complex now that you cannot figure out how the game works even by doing controlled tests. Also, parameters in the game engine have been altered by people at CA who don't understand the full consequences of those changes on the gameplay. I suspect that key programmers have left CA quite a while ago. This would also explain why we haven't gotten the kind details about the game engine that we've gotten in the past games.

More unit types is touted as an enhancement, but that will not improve the gameplay unless they are balanced. Everytime they add more units, the gameplay deteriorates because the units aren't balanced well enough. We got good balance in Samurai Wars for MTW/VI by going to 14 unit types, giving them the stats they had in original STW and then spending 3 months fine tuning those stats for the MTW/VI engine. That's 4 players who each had 4 years of experience playing Total War working for 3 months with the assistance of feedback from dozens of players, many of them long time verterans, on MP battles to get the 14 units balanced to the point where players can't exploit unit imbalance. Now we have excellent team battles, angles of attack, RPS style matchups with 3 simultaneously functioning RPS systems, opening holes in battlelines, intelligent targetting with ranged units, ranged effectiveness that makes corner camping a bad tactic, the need to protect ranged units from cavalry, effective flanking, fatigue working better because the pace of the battles is back to 15 to 20 minutes on average, fighting times and movement speeds that allow sufficient time to coordinate all 16 units and no need for rules which limit the purchase of certain unit types.