How Effective Do You Think Militia Spearmen, and Spearmen In General Should Be?

I'm starting this thread as another thread that is a bug fixing thread has degenerated into a: "Cav should dominate the early game at the exclusion of all melee infantry" thread.

Since the thread is about finding and fixing bugs and creating a balanced game as a result, such unbalancing suggestions contribute nothing to the real purpose of the thread. So this once I figured I'd start them a thread on the matter to argue it out in and hopefully leave the bug fixing threads to bug fixing:clown:.

So How do You think Spears should do vs. cav?

My basic line is that whatever era it becomes available in it should beat the cav of that era, and be able to inflict heavy losses on the next era up's cav before being destroyed, (that’s way it doesn’t become instantly outdated).

This seems balanced in m mind and is similar to what the Shield Fix produces.


Now Post your own opinions and why~:).

Militia spear should be pretty weak. Town militia should fall to basically anything, and proper militia spearmen should be able to hold Feudal Knights at best imho. Professional spearmen are another story, they should be able to do ok against Chivalrics perhaps... but they should all fail against heavy infantry of approximately equal "tier". I like the rock/paper/scissors system.

Way I see it is very simple. It's pretty much kinda what you said already. Anyway, I want spearmen to hack cavalry to pieces, but I want no overkill --> example: if they're very well-armoured horsemen and horses, surely spearmen must have some trouble with 'em.

@Musashi: I’m largely fine with that, you have to remember that whilst fixed Papal Guard can beat Chivalric Knights head on, they do suffer a lot of losses, (about 50%), and most of these are from the effects of the initial Formed Charge. It just happens to kill half the knights and the other half die fast on he charge too. I doubt Papal Guard cold even take on any non-spear infantry above Peasants.

Town Militia actually have Light-Spears (short spears basically), and thus have no penalty vs. infantry. With their better stats and slight anti-cav bonuses they do fine. hey get beat by most cav charges with few losses inflicted. But in close quarters they make good backup and are great at holding walls I imagine.

My main Bone of contention with having weak Spear Militia is that they are the only SP anti-cav unit many western European factions get prior to Pike units. So without them being able to give cav serious issues, it breaks play balance badly. Whish is more important than historical accuracy to me.

Some factions are meant to be weak in infantry though. A lot of factions with great cavalry are deliberately neutered in terms of their line troops, in order to force them to field more cavalry.

Well of course. But some arn't.

The problem is if Italian spear militia and armoured sarges are the only good non-pike cav counters most armies have no cav counters in the early stages (beyond their own cav), and some still don't have enough into the late game.

Pike foot armies for example rely on them to protect their flanks from cav as pikes turn too slow. Spanish defintly rely on them for anti-cav infantry, and they have an otherwise decent unit lineup.

Again, not every faction is meant to be able to field a foot army and win.

More to the point, many many factions have weak spears but strong shock infantry. Their spears are meant to receive charges and simply die slowly enough that the shock infantry can work over the enemy engaging the spears.

Very few factions are meant to have a cavalry counter that can simply grind the cav up on their own.

I consider militia spearmen to be little better than peasants. In fact, they are peasants except for one point of attack, a nice shield, and an unspecified "bonus vs. cavalry". What exactly is that bonus? +3 attack? Doubled attack? It matters.

Also, spear militia cost about 1/3 of your average mounted knight. Their hand spears shouldn't do anything special vs. a heavy charge, but with the bonus in mind, they should be able to inflict minimal to moderate casualties in the general melee. That is opposed to town militia, which do and probably should inflict minimal to no casualties. Professional spearmen should do serious damage to cav in a general melee, to the point of forcing late era knights to withdraw. Spearmen should not be able to resist any kind of heavy infantry, but even the cheap cheap pike milita unit can cause 30% casualties to dismounted knights using swordplay. That is quite effective from a logistical point of view.

Nothing from any era should stand against a frontal charge by knights except a braced pike formation. IMO knights, and cavalry in general, do and should dominate this game all the way up to pikes. And even then, there are ways for the canny cavalry commander to break up and defeat pike-based armies.

@Zhurkov: Your one of the history trumps balance guys I take it. All I’ll say is that for me I’m more interested in balance and thus I don't CARE what would have happened historically.

As an aside, the knights I'd expect them to beat are actually only a half again as expensive as them and considering they are anti-cav I’d expect them to beat these knight with heavy losses, (with silver armour they do this great for me with my shield fix).

The bonuses are as follows: 8 attack extra against cav, reflect charge abilities, (I presume this means that they get the attack bonus of the enemies Charge value as well), and an as yet undisclosed extra.

Ignoring the unknown extra, Militia Spearmen get 5+8+6 against charging mailed/fuedal knights for attack. Or 19 attack. The Knights get 16 attack.

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Very few factions are meant to have a cavalry counter that can simply grind the cav up on their own.

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The problem is this is exactly what ALL spear units are actually supposed to do.

I also did a quick check of unit lists. England, Scotland, Portugual, Hungary, Poland, and Spain all lack decent Spears. The 4 Italians get their spear militia and France and HRE get armoured spears. Denmark seemed weak here too.

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Again, not every faction is meant to be able to field a foot army and win.

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Of course not. but without good spears, enemy cav render any foot forces totally pointless unless they are Dismounted Saxon Knights or better, (13/20 is about the minimum, give or take a bit).

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Their spears are meant to receive charges and simply die slowly enough that the shock infantry can work over the enemy engaging the spears.

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The problem is, that isn't what happens with spear vs. cav or anything vs. 2-hander fights though.

Their are 2 possibilities, (spears 3 ranks deep):

1. The cav charges in and badly damages out the front rank of spearmen but they also suffer heavy damage to their own front rank. The second rank of knights then hits and wipes out the remnants of the front rank and badly damages the second rank whilst suffers moderate damage, (charge effects have dropped off by this point so the reflect charge seems less deadly). After this about half the knights and half the spearmen are dead. The spearmen then massacre the remaining knights.

2. The Knights charge into and annihilate the first 2 ranks for the loss of their own front rank and lightly/moderately damage the 3rd rank. about 6 or 7 seconds later the spearmen rout with about half the enemy knights dead. Occasionally a really powerful cav unit will have more than half left.

Their isn't any situation in which spears pin" cav that I’ve been able to produce, they either take the charge with heavy losses on both sides and win by themselves. Or take it with decimation on their side and light to moderate losses to the cav. Theirs never any spearmen grinding up cav moments because spearmen that aren’t annihilated by the charge wipe out the knights normally.

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Originally Posted by Carl

@Zhurkov: Your one of the history trumps balance guys I take it.

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That's a fair statement. I would like the units to perform roughly as their historical counterparts did.

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Originally Posted by Carl

The bonuses are as follows: 8 attack extra against cav, reflect charge abilities, (I presume this means that they get the attack bonus of the enemies Charge value as well), and an as yet undisclosed extra.

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Wow, I didn't know the spearmen bonuses vs. cav were that extensive. That's militia spearmen too? Those really do seem to justify cav losing a decent amount on the charge. And with 13 unupgraded attack in the general melee, they should give any knights a stiff fight. But I wonder if there are other factors in play that skew the results of cavalry versus infantry?

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Originally Posted by Carl

Of course not. but without good spears, enemy cav render any foot forces totally pointless unless they are Dismounted Saxon Knights or better, (13/20 is about the minimum, give or take a bit).

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As I understand it, mounted knights really did dominate the field in western Europe during most of this period. In the vanilla version of the game that is modeled pretty well.

I've already stated my opinion on spears plenty. I believe spear milita should be weak and Professional spearmen like Armoured Sarges should be more effective.

Doesn't this forum have a Poll function? Thats what this post needs, a poll.

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That's a fair statement. I would like the units to perform roughly as their historical counterparts did.

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AND

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As I understand it, mounted knights really did dominate the field in western Europe during most of this period. In the vanilla version of the game that is modeled pretty well.

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As I say, I prefer balance to trump history where necessary. However, I respect your opinions nonetheless. to each their own, (and just a few years ago I’d have had your view on the matter too).

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Wow, I didn't know the spearmen bonuses vs. cav were that extensive. That's militia spearmen too? Those really do seem to justify cav losing a decent amount on the charge. And with 13 unupgraded attack in the general melee, they should give any knights a stiff fight. But I wonder if there are other factors in play that skew the results of cavalry versus infantry?

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Yeah, it's surprisingly extensive. Papal Guard for example have 22 attack in general melee, and 28 vs. charging Feudal. 30 vs. charging Chivalric's. They can actually beat said Chivalric with some guys left even if the Chivalric charge. 3 gold Chevrons and weapons upgrade adds 4 to those values so it's now 26, 32, and 36 respectively.

For what it's worth, Militia Spearmen can beat Chivalric’s in general melee, if the Chivalric’s don't get to charge them.

You're having different results than I am Carl... I can field a bunch of Spear Militia, and while they'll take heavy losses on a charge vs say, Feudal Knights, the kill rate then drops quite low... The Feudal Knights will win in the end, but it's a MUCH slower process than if they had charged say, my dismounted knights, or axemen, or something along those lines. Once they're held up like that, my dismounted knights, or axemen can annihilate them by sweeping in from the flanks.

Or I can bring in cavalry to countercharge.

It does work for me.

@Musahsi: How do you fix your sheilds? last time i heard you where using double the sheild skill added to the defence skill wern't you? or have you switched?

If you don't zero the sheild value I find they don't brace properly and the reflect charge effects don't go off fully as a result, (this is what kills the Knights on contact with the spearmen). It also slows down the kill rate in general melee considrebly.

I actually haven't applied a fix. I don't like the side effects of the fixes, and I like the game well enough in it's current form that I'm not going to make such a drastic change. I'll simply wait for the patch.

But even in the vanilla game I find that spearmen, even when they will ultimately lose to a cavalry squad, will hold them longer than a unit of shock infantry would have. Most shock infantry go down like flies vs. cavalry, which is how the RPS balance was meant to work.

That explains it. I use the sheild Fix, (I thought i'd stated that). When this happens:

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1. The cav charges in and badly damages out the front rank of spearmen but they also suffer heavy damage to their own front rank. The second rank of knights then hits and wipes out the remnants of the front rank and badly damages the second rank whilst suffers moderate damage, (charge effects have dropped off by this point so the reflect charge seems less deadly). After this about half the knights and half the spearmen are dead. The spearmen then massacre the remaining knights.

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The effect of the cav contacting the spearmen looks very similar to that of cav contacting braced Pikes with the exception that the cav take most of the front row of Spearmen with them. Spea vs. cav fights are over VERY quickly if you apply it.

To be honest, I rather have a more historic feeling campaign and a balanced MP with price tweaks. Seriously, balance is only requisite on MP.

Not for me it isn't. Besides, no price tweaks (beyond making all cav cost 3 times as muc in MP), would fix the issue.

Carl: My point is that the cavalry, even when they took significant losses in the charge, will generally win in the melee that follows. Spearmen suck in protracted melee. But they live long enough to allow me to flank.

I'm not really sure what I think the overall fights should look like between spear units and cavalry, but on one point I'm very certain:

I feel that a spear unit able to brace for the incoming cavalry should cause MAD during the initial charge.

I feel this way because cavalry cannot simply trample over guys with spears without largely getting the horses impaled on the veritable wall of spears at the same time. The end result of this ought to be that many horses die, ejecting their riders long distances, those wounded/dead horses rolling through the enemy ranks as high speed projectiles steamrolling the enemy men as well as the ejected riders of its own unit (and their own riders if they weren't thrown from the saddle). I don't really mind that the game doesn't show the spearmen bracing the spears to receive the charge... the point is that they do brace, and the reality of why it was done IS to set the spear, thus hopefully killing the incoming horse... so that kind of action and intent should be reflected in in-game results IMO. Some other factors should perhaps be considered in determining how successful the spearmen are in making that initial stand:

- Mental factors. Training and state of mind are important here, as troops in this situation would be prone to trying to run away in fear, or possibly just freezing up as the mass of cavalry descended on them at high speed. Spear militia would not be less effective because of their equipment or even their training so much as because of their lack of being hardened military men capable of standing tall in such a frightening situation.

- Spearman defense stats. I think this follows logically since units with higher armor/skill/shield values should be able to absorb/avoid/deflect otherwise deadly blows a bit better, even during a charge. I say avoid for skill as I commonly conceptualize it as not only ability to parry, but also ability to actively avoid blows in melee combat. One doesn't have to actually touch an opponent's weapon in order to avoid it, and sometimes simply dodging a blow is far easier and more practical.

- Cavalry defense stats. Again it seems only logical to suggest that a more well-defended knight and horse should in fact survive better.

Offensive stats are of secondary importance here IMO, as I can't imagine what you would do to a long spear or lance's construction to make it any more effective in this situation. The sheer speed and force behind the weapons in this situation pretty much means any grade weapon provided it is constructed correctly will get the job done. IMO this is exactly the reason for the "reflect charge" ability the spears have: that it applies the power of the knight's charge to the attack power of the spear too, which should be the case as the force of the horse hitting the spear would equal that behind the lance during the charge.

Perhaps the offensive stats are different more than anything to indicate the skill level of the given unit using the weapon... which I would freely admit should have some effect: a more capable spearman or knight can in fact do more even in this situation to ensure his blow strikes true than a less capable one can.

To be honest, MAD on impact is my only real concern here, and I'll be largely happy as long as it happens, as it ought to be an unavoidable consequence of cavalry charging into spears. Cavalry charging into a spear formation is really scary stuff from a physics perspective... (and I can only imagine IRL as well for those unlucky enough to have faced it)

I never could get cav to suffer significant losses when charging spearmen in vanillia myself. Although i did allways use uard Mode back then.

With the sheild fix the Spears will even win in protracted melee. Hell the adviser even says it's a bad idea to frontal charge spearmen and that attacking engaged cav with spearmen is a good idea. If the spearmen arn't likliy to beat the cav, why say that. Thats a good indicator of where CA wanted them to be IMO. Namely that the adviser really dosen't think you should get cav in any kind of fight with spears.

That's gonna be a fairly hefty neutering for cavalry, if even weak spears become death for them. It's a bit too much, IMHO.

I really don't think spears should be good for killing much of anything. They should be a defensive line troop.

They arn't death to everything with the fix. But Militia Spearmen can beat Maileds with heavy losses, and fuedals the same with silver armour. So high end cav can beat weak spears. But spears of a given era will typicly beat cav of the same era. Or cav an era upwards if they have enough upgrades.


Of course, I had 8 gold armour Spera Militia units and 4 1 Bronze Chevron, 1 weapon and bronze armour Armoured Sarghes take on and defeat a 20 stack army of french cav (8 knightly Orders, 8 Chivalric/noble knights and some lancers). However it needed close grouping of units in Schiltrom formation to pull it off. A single missile unit would have had a feild day.

My point is that I just don't like the idea of spearmen having a good kill rate. I don't think they should be good on the offense.

i think they should be made as cheap as pike units since they arnt much better than peasants. i have no problem with a company of knights (40) rolling over (75) men but at least if they are cheaper you can link and block them together or you can form super schiltroms of superimposed spearmen units that would make 150 vs 40 horse which is more believable of what would be needed to stop heavy cavalry.

I think spears should be balanced according to their historical effectiveness. The problem is, no one knows for sure how effective they were in history. :shrug:

I'm not really interested in discussions about "balance" that pay no regard to history or plausiblity. Why play Medieval Total War at all, if you don't care for the realism - just find some arbitrary rock-paper-scissors game and have fun tweaking it to be perfectly mathematically "balanced". (I understand balance is important in MP, but there's another forum for that particular discussion.)

Personally, I think it is fine that a well armoured knight who has trained for combat all his life and has a big strong horse should be able to beat up vanilla militia spearmen. I've read an account of a handful (I think it was seven or so?) feudal knights defeating about 100 Welsh spearmen. And knights do seem to have been the dominant arm in most medieval battles. The basic militia spearmen should be just filler units - they perform that role fairly well (ie are pretty bad) already in M2TW.

BUT, if you get a well armoured knight who has trained for combat all his life and stick him on the ground with a bunch of fellow stout hearted men, the story changes. My money then would be on such foot to be able to beat off their mounted counterparts. That's why the French knights started fighting dismounted in the Hundred Years Wars - they could not run down the English dismounted knights and, no, it was not the longbowmen that stopped them doing so.

Unfortunately, a lot of this is messed up in the Total War system thanks to the arbitrary and ahistorical sword vs spear unit distinction. Dismounted English and French men-at-arms often used lances (cut down or not) - ie spears - but we don't really have such top of the range spear-armed units in the game. And, of course, they would probably have mini-arsenals of poleaxes, swords, maces, daggers etc for when the fighting got up close and personal. I guess we have the DEK and the billmen as compensation, but currently, they are useless against cav.

Total war does have some intermediate spear units - the Italian militias, armoured sergeants etc. I see them stopping mounted knights due to decent morale and numbers. It would probably degenerate into a bit of a shoving match, as at Courtrai, but in the end my money would be on the foot if they were attacked frontally. M2TW has the balance here wrong, IMO. Mercenary spearmen and the like die too much to cavalry charges thanks to the shield bug or whatever. MTW/VI ended up with the balance between spears and knights about right, IMO: negate the cavalry charge, then allow slow, mutually assured destruction. The spears were a bit too strong against heavy cav in STW and MTW 1.0, IMO, although I gather the MP folk liked them that way for "balance".

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Originally Posted by econ21

I'm not really interested in discussions about "balance" that pay no regard to history or plausibility. Why play Medieval Total War at all, if you don't care for the realism - just find some arbitrary rock-paper-scissors game and have fun tweaking it to be perfectly mathematically "balanced". (I understand balance is important in MP, but there's another forum for that particular discussion.)

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Likewise, no one should be interested in discussions of history or plausibility that pay no regard to balance. I'm not saying don't talk about history... just don't project history directly onto the game without regard to how it affects the game play (and resulting fun of the game). An important fact of the game is that it has multiple units. You can't just make knights into a medieval wrecking ball no matter what they were really like in history, or suddenly no other unit has purpose. Each one must be useful for something, otherwise why is it in the game at all? I do not demand some sort of perfect mathematical balance be applied to the game, but it is a cornerstone of good game design for each unit to be good for something on the battlefield, and encourages better tactics as well (by providing actual viable options for players to explore instead of the linearity of "this is the only way that works" which focusing everything on historical accuracy can sometimes cause). I don't want to have a unit at my disposal that I can't look at and say "I should recruit that unit because it fills role 'x' in my army..." even if that roll is as narrow as "I hold against cavalry, and roll over to everything else." Currently spear units suck so badly that they in fact have no use, which should never happen to a unit.

The other important point I wish to make is that none of us is here strictly because we like history. If that were the case, we'd be out doing re-enactments, watching the history channel, and doing various other activities that don't involve gaming. The fact that we are also gamers indicates the nature of the genre: historical gaming. If either one is allowed to dominate the other, the genre ceases to exist, falling instead into historical simulation or ahistorical turn-based strategy. It is only by allowing each to influence the other, to counterbalance and temper the other's ideas, that we can even hope to maintain such a delicate balance, and thus be true to the spirit of the genre. So while it is possible to discuss history without gaming implications, and the game without historical accuracy, we will need to discuss them both at the same time in order to arrive at anything remotely reasonable to apply to the game.

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Originally Posted by the_foz_4

Likewise, no one should be interested in discussions of history or plausibility that pay no regard to balance. I'm not saying don't talk about history... just don't project history directly onto the game without regard to how it affects the game play (and resulting fun of the game). An important fact of the game is that it has multiple units. You can't just make knights into a medieval wrecking ball no matter what they were really like in history, or suddenly no other unit has purpose. Each one must be useful for something, otherwise why is it in the game at all? I do not demand some sort of perfect mathematical balance be applied to the game, but it is a cornerstone of good game design for each unit to be good for something on the battlefield, and encourages better tactics as well (by providing actual viable options for players to explore instead of the linearity of "this is the only way that works" which focusing everything on historical accuracy can sometimes cause).

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IMO, people arguing for "unit balance" under all conditions are ignoring what historical accuracy brings to the game, in terms of replayability. I enjoyed playing the Turks after my first big campaign as a European faction, precisely because that faction forced me (through lack of decent infantry in the early game) to learn how to use HA's better.

Do we really want all factions to have the same basic "flavor" and combat tactics, with just different unit appearance?

imo:

If cavalry frontal charge a spear unit, BOTH first ranks should be decimated or rather totally destroyed. Horse impaling themselves onto a spear WILL die. The mass + speed of horse and man charging onto a human (spear unit) WILL crush him.

The second rank's performance will be determined by other factors. Spear units professionalism for example. A professional unit will form up quickly into another spear wall, cavalry continue to impale themselves. With momentum large dissipated, spear units then take some damage but not much. The professional spear unit should win ANY cavalry from the front.

Then morale comes into play. Morale determines whether the formation will be disintegrated after the charge and if the cavalry will rout. Highly trained cavalry will not rout, but they will not be able to kill a lot, if any more spear units as they cannot breach the well formed spear wall. It descends into a stalemate to be broken by flanking units.

If spear units cannot maintain their formation (failed the morale roll), melee rules will apply. Spear unit's professionalism will also extend to their fighting technique (bonus versus cavalry) which will counter by cavalry's armor and professionalism.

If a spear unit is lousy, they shouldn't be able to do much beyond bracing for first charge. They receive no bonus versu cavalry as they never really trained to do so. Most cavalry (after first rank is gone) should have the advantage, fighting from a higher position on their horse. The more heavily armored and skilled the cavalry, the less loss they will take in the ensuing melee.

History part: I agree with econ21 on this. The spearmen issue is tricky because the whole concept of disciplined spear infantry, or any infantry for that matter, in the Middle Ages is doubtful at best. Could spear infantry hold off cavalry? Yes, most definitely. Were there large numbers of disciplined infantry in the Middle Ages? History suggests not. The only serious fighting men were the knights and their retainers (and the various mercs) and they mostly preferred to fight on horseback. Thus horsemen ruled the battlefield, while infantry was often relegated to moral support and baggage train duty (just like my Gendarmes).

The distinction between swords and spears (and pikes) in Total War is artificially imposed for variety's sake. Dismounted knights used their lances as pikes against each other at Agincourt, the English falling back a spear's length before the French onslaught. Swords would of course have been preferred for single combat, but spears and polearms seem to have been the staple infantry weapon throughout history for massed combat.

Of course, spearmen are in the game, they behave like professional, disciplined infantry, they are supposed to be good against cavalry but not so good against swordsmen. It works, no reason to change the basic setup just to satisfy doubtful historical evidence.

Game part: Discounting the dismounted knights, spears seem to be the basic infantry for most factions. You get sergeant spearmen for the Catholics and elite spear militia for the Muslims. You don't get any cheap swords for many factions. So, if the basic spearmen are hedgehogs of death for cavalry, then the only use for the knights is running down archers until, ironically, more 'advanced' infantry units show up that were stupid enough to leave their spears at home. That doesn't strike me as fun. A moderate buffing of spearmen charge resistance to the front against cavalry charges is what I would like to see, plus fixing whatever shield bug is holding the spearmen back in melee. If fixing the shields also improves their charge resistance, then maybe that is all that is needed. The spearmen should be able to hold against a cavalry charge from the front against same-era knights, so that the cavalry player needs to actively outflank instead of brainlessly charging directly at the enemy line. 'Hold' does not mean 'suffer no casualties while killing the entire front rank of horsemen', but instead means that the spearmen should not get pulverized like they do now and should suffer maybe 10-20% losses from the initial charge instead of 80-90% like they do now.

I would suggest that spearmen also be made slightly better against swordsmen and the like, making them more 'defensive' combat troops rather than dedicated anti-cavalry troops that get beaten up by anything that goes on two legs, even by peasants. Swordsmen would be used to spearhead attacks and outflank, while spearmen hold the line. This was the balance of MTW and I thought it worked quite well. Of course, the swordsmen will often beat the spearmen because they are higher quality troops in general, but this should not happen 'just because swords pwn spears', but because elite troops beat merely average ones. Right now spearmen have very low attack values that make them easy prey for swordsmen. Buff them up a bit so they can compete, even if they lose eventually.

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Originally Posted by Zenicetus

IMO, people arguing for "unit balance" under all conditions are ignoring what historical accuracy brings to the game, in terms of replayability. I enjoyed playing the Turks after my first big campaign as a European faction, precisely because that faction forced me (through lack of decent infantry in the early game) to learn how to use HA's better.

Do we really want all factions to have the same basic "flavor" and combat tactics, with just different unit appearance?

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I completely agree, and would add that people arguing for "historical accuracy" under all conditions are ignoring what unit balance brings to the game, in terms of a full, rich, and varied gaming experience. No one would want to play a game where your every move was dictated by history, and if you didn't mass produce armies with compositions shown historically to work the best, you would be beaten easily by your foes who did so. Just as we both enjoy having varied units at our disposal when playing different factions, so do I enjoy the ability to build differently composed yet still viable armies within the same faction. This was of course the heart of my previous post: that one pillar without the other destroys the game.

As for the rest of your post, of course we do not want every faction to have the same flavor and tactics, with only a different look. The situation of the Turks lacking good infantry, however, is not analogous to that of the numerous factions that have useless spear units. The former I have no problem with, as it does not neuter the tactical options at your disposal: infantry exist primarily to battle other infantry, which the turks are more than capable of doing very effectively with HAs and early mounted melee units instead... units that in fact probably give you more tactical flexibility and options than infantry would. You won't be using infantry, so the flavor, unit, and tactics will all be different, but you will still accomplish a similar end. European armies lacking any decent anti-cavalry options until reaching pikes, on the other hand, are left with no viable tactic against cavalry. One could try to accomplish this with archers, but they will not be able to kill multiple units of knights before they can shred the entire battlefield.

Each faction needs some reasonable thing to do about cavalry, infantry, and archers, so that some strategy is possible for the player to win with. If this is taken away, it actually becomes possible that the computer can paint the player into so much of a corner that it is inescapable no matter how well the player plays or what units he tries to employ. I believe that some Catholic factions are made so weak by having horrible spear units that a cavalry-heavy attack on them might literally be impossible to beat... and everyone knows that the first rule of a game is that it must always be winnable. I don't mind if I'm beaten by AI that outplays me, but the potential to lose because there is no option that can make me able to win is absolutely unacceptable.

edit: Quoted the post I was referring to, as other posts happened while I was thinking and typing.

I would say it kinda depends on what kind of cavalry were talking about, normally knights using lances would be able to outreach the normal spear and then they would prob crush their way through the first lines of men.
But spearmen in this game should as a rule always be a match for cavalry of the same era or atleast be able to hold their own against them.

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Originally Posted by Carl

So How do You think Spears should do vs. cav?

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I think spear is the easiest weapon to use and it is good to mantain the distance from the enemy and hit him, expecially light armoured cav.

I think that shield+spears have to absorb FRONTAL heavy cav charge (cav charge bonus has to have a MALUS against spear+shield units) and hold the ground, it doesn't matter their kill ratio (but they can have some kind of little bonus in melee).

The difference among cheap and expensive spears is above all the morale, then the defensive equipmend. But I think the bonus has to be first of all against cav charge.

I am wondering (rather pathetically as I don't have the full game) if it wouldn't work better to try to negate the charge bonus against spears. You wonder how many horses would charge if the spearmen were in formation and brave enough to stay that way.

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Originally Posted by econ21

I'm not really interested in discussions about "balance" that pay no regard to history or plausiblity. Why play Medieval Total War at all, if you don't care for the realism - just find some arbitrary rock-paper-scissors game and have fun tweaking it to be perfectly mathematically "balanced". (I understand balance is important in MP, but there's another forum for that particular discussion.)

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I completely disagree. Actually the game is soo umbalanced 'cause of this "historical" heavy cav charge power (is it really HISTORICAL??? Or maybe is it only a French ballads influence? Where is history?) that you can win the whole campaing playing with an "all heavy cav army", charging and recharging on units all the time and killing 30/50 men at any impact, without loosing men.

Try it to believe. Is it historical? I don't think so. Is it balanced, of corse not. Is it FUNNY? Completely not for me.
Heavy cav is so overpowered that the other hundred of units are useless in the game.

Any unit must have a counterpart, to be usefull in any way. And IMO light/heavy spears have to counter light/heavy cavs

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Originally Posted by cegman

I am wondering (rather pathetically as I don't have the full game) if it wouldn't work better to try to negate the charge bonus against spears. You wonder how many horses would charge if the spearmen were in formation and brave enough to stay that way.

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That's the heart of the issue. I suspect CA intended that spears do negate the charge bonus (frontally). I believe that's been true in all TW games to date - certainly it is in STW and MTW. But for some reason it does not seem to work as intended in M2TW. I personally hope and expect spears will get a boost with the next patch, for both gameplay and historical reasons.

Some folk disagree with CAs intention for historical reasons and think that knights should be able to smash up spears, which is what actually happens in the game at the moment. I am not really one of those folk, although from past debates at the Org (dig up the epic "myth of the cavalry charge" thread from MTW), I concede there is evidence for and against.

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Originally Posted by Vinsitor

I completely disagree. Actually the game is soo umbalanced 'cause of this "historical" heavy cav charge power ...

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If you read my first post in this thread carefully, you may find we agree more than we disagree.

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Originally Posted by cegman

I am wondering (rather pathetically as I don't have the full game) if it wouldn't work better to try to negate the charge bonus against spears. You wonder how many horses would charge if the spearmen were in formation and brave enough to stay that way.

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Yes I agree. :yes: Charge is a way to break unit's formation and to fear fighting men, not to kill them.
Once a unit have lost its formation and cohesion (expecially spears), charge has to be effective against it.

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Originally Posted by Musashi

My point is that I just don't like the idea of spearmen having a good kill rate. I don't think they should be good on the offense.

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I completely agree.

I have been reading up on some battle-accounts from the spanish Reconquista, and there's a lot of cav vs. spear going on there, with the quality of the cav ranging from the lightest jinetes and arab auxiliaries to the heavier late-era spanish knights and their granadine counterparts, and the quality of the spears ranging from unwilling and hastily levied peasants to the superb Lamtuna berbers and sergeants of the Order of Santiago.

One pattern that I often see is the repeated, and sometimes futile, attempts of heavy cavalry to break spearwalls, having little effect on either side. Spearmen of sufficient morale and discipline could certainly resist cavalry attacks, almost regardless of the skill of the cavalry, but they were also unable to damage the cavalry enough to render squadrons combat-ineffective, allowing them to keep retreating, regrouping and charging back in. This could keep on for hours at times.

Thus, the desired results, would be for a cavalry charge to either succeed (against poor spears) with the spears being routed on contact, or fail (against good spears, like dismounted MAA) with the cavalry having the option of fighting it out or retreating, but suffering little-to-no damage on the initial charge. If the cavalry chose to retreat, they should need a period of regrouping and rest during which they are vulnerable to counter-attack by enemy cavalry. This would, IMO, mirror the historical interactions between these unit-types.

"But if spears can't kill cavalry, what are they good for? What's the counter for cavalry, then?!?"
Medieval tactics didn't follow simple RPS mechanics; the counter for cavalry, at least in the early period, was your own cavalry. The function of infantry was not to be anti-anything, but to aid in sieges and fighting in bad terrain. The Moors, who actually had decent spearmen in the early period, used their spearmen as a moving fortress on the battlefield, creating an area where their own cavalry could rest and regroup between offensive action. Their spearmen were valuable to their tactics, even if they didn't kill anything on their own. Similarly, crusaders in the levant used their sergeants to protect their cavalry from missiles until they were ready to charge. I doubt the spearwall at Dorylaeum killed very many turkish horsearchers, but they were still instrumental in the defeat of the turkish army. Without them, the first crusade would have ended right there. And so on. The role of the medieval infantryman was not glorious, but they weren't useless either, as evidenced by their usage.

As for balancing: Insisting on unit-to-unit balance seems rather myopic to me. Playing as the Turks, I don't care that I don't have effective spears, because their historical tactics of wearing down the opposing heavy cavalry with cheap HAs before meeting them with their own heavies, actually work. Playing as the Danes, I don't care that I don't have good spears, as this is made up for by my much better melee infantry, and using archers and terrain I can still achieve victory against cavalry-heavy foes.
Balance is, IMO, achieved when no single faction has a massive blind-side that can be exploited for easy victory, and sufficient options to deal with or work around all situations they might encounter.
There's more to tactics than simply meeting scissors with rocks.

People asking for the rock, paper, scissor balance are not asking for strict adherence to it There will be exceptions, and there are other unit types etc. But atm in game spearmen ARE useless. They have always been used in the TW games to counter cav, but in M2TW they are uesless at it. But light spears should still be mauled by heavy cav, and heavy spears should still suffer large casualties in the charge.

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Originally Posted by Lusted

But atm in game spearmen ARE useless. They have always been used in the TW games to counter cav, but in M2TW they are uesless at it.

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I do not contend this point, they very well may be. My post concerns how I believe it should be, as per the OP, not how I perceive it to be in the present version.

Refer to original MTW, where the spearmen got a bonus to DEFENSE rather than attack vs cavalry. This made them good at holding the line defensively until something else intervened (missiles, swords or their own cavalry) but they were not exceptionally good at killing anything themselves.

I agree that massed charge should overcome spears. You should lose a few knights, but that's it. Spears are incredibly common, and making them able to stand up to a charge means you might as well remove cavalry from the game entirely. A guy with a long-reach weapon, large shield, and armor is a defensive soldier. I agree with the above point about them getting a defense bonus, rather than an offensive one.

Also, I think history is more important than balance. There's no point having a game called Medieval: Total War that bares no resemblance whatsoever to medieval warfare. If I just wanted raw stats, I'd play with a graphing calculator.

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Also, I think history is more important than balance. There's no point having a game called Medieval: Total War that bares no resemblance whatsoever to medieval warfare. If I just wanted raw stats, I'd play with a graphing calculator.

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Yet the kind of balance you are against is what made the original Medieval Total War such a good game in terms of battles as things were nicely balanced.

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I agree that massed charge should overcome spears. You should lose a few knights, but that's it. Spears are incredibly common, and making them able to stand up to a charge means you might as well remove cavalry from the game entirely. A guy with a long-reach weapon, large shield, and armor is a defensive soldier. I agree with the above point about them getting a defense bonus, rather than an offensive one.

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And spearmen on the move should be decimated by cav. Searmen holding ground should be able to resist cav charges whilst losng lots of troops, unless they've low level spearmen against high level cav in which case they should be killed.

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Originally Posted by Malkut

Spears are incredibly common, and making them able to stand up to a charge means you might as well remove cavalry from the game entirely.

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I can see your point, as I found knights rather optional in MTW, where they lacked the kick they have in M2TW.

But whether you are right depends on some other factors. For example, I am used to cavalry in Rome Total Realism Platinum Edition, where they devastating on the charge but fragile (not unlike M2TW). They are also very expensive. You would never dream of charging heavy infantry frontally. But nonetheless, they are still the decisive arm because of flank and rear charges. In TW, causing lots of casualties quickly can rout even high morale troops (RTR has sky high morale). Cavalry charging the flank of engaged spears could still cause such casualties, even if they were buffed to be resistant to frontal charges. This means a handful of cavalry can still have a disproportionate effect on a battle, setting off chain routs.

And I have not even mentioned the crucial role of cavalry in hunting down routers. This has been crucial from STW onwards, reflecting Napoleon's dictum that no victory is decisive without cavalry.

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Originally Posted by Malkut

Spears are incredibly common, and making them able to stand up to a charge means you might as well remove cavalry from the game entirely. .

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Cavalry is god for it's mobility on the battlefield. If you know Total War games you would know that cavalry is usefull even if spears or any unit can stand up to a cav's frontal charge, because of flanking.

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Also, I think history is more important than balance. There's no point having a game called Medieval: Total War that bares no resemblance whatsoever to medieval warfare. If I just wanted raw stats, I'd play with a graphing calculator.

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You think that this game is historical accurate then...

I'm not "against" balance. There’s no unbridgeable dichotomy between game balance and history. I want both.

What I am against is making the entire game to boil down to a game of rock/paper/spearmen that could be mastered in a weekend by a blind monkey because all possible tactics are laid out on the character detail screen.

I've NEVER had a problem dealing with charges. Massed charges already have limits. They’re dictated by terrain, unit cohesion, and luck, a fact everyone complains about but nobody seems to be taking into account. Position yourself well, and you’ll never see one. On the rare occasions in which I am hit by one, I have no problem killing most of the knights that don’t fall with the initial charge with nearby units and the scattered survivors, all before they can withdraw, in the rare cases when they aren't bogged down in an unwinnable melee with the rest of my forces.

Pikemen and high level spearmen should be death for horses, true, but the idea that your average Joe off the filthy medieval streets could stand up to thousands of pounds of steel and stallion charging him down just because he has a pointy rock tied to a stick is silly. If that were anything even approaching reality, we'd all thrill to the legendary exploits of King Arthur and his Spear Infantry of the Round Table.

The real problem with spearmen is not that they’re ineffective against cavalry, it’s that they’re ineffective against everything else in the entire game, and are all you have in the early game, making it kind of a dull slog until you get swordsmen.

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Originally Posted by the_foz_4

European armies lacking any decent anti-cavalry options until reaching pikes, on the other hand, are left with no viable tactic against cavalry.

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It's important to dispel the idea that Catholic factions are helpless against knights. Temujin said it best:

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Originally Posted by Temujin

Medieval tactics didn't follow simple RPS mechanics; the counter for cavalry, at least in the early period, was your own cavalry.

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Right. The surefire counter is not a 300 florin, free upkeep unit that can be recruited from any city with a second tier barracks, it's other knights! It's historically accurate, and it's gameplay balanced. OTOH, muslims use mobility tactics to defeat knights, and those tactics are very effective.

Now i like the balance that the shield fix brings, in combination with some changes i've made(increased mass of horses but reduced charge bonus). Mailed Knights will beat Town Militia, Spear Militia, Sergeant Spearmen etc., but will struggle against Armoured Sergeants their dismounted equivalent. They will also wipe out any unit without a shield easily, and will do pretty well against Dismounted Feudal Knights. Armoured Sergeants will be beaten by the better later heavy cav, which will also beat units like Dismounted Chivalric Knights, but they themselves will be beaten by Pikemen. I think its a nice balance, makes for good gameplay and is fairly historical.

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Originally Posted by Lusted

Now i like the balance that the shield fix brings, in combination with some changes i've made(increased mass of horses but reduced charge bonus). Mailed Knights will beat Town Militia, Spear Militia, Sergeant Spearmen etc., but will struggle against Armoured Sergeants their dismounted equivalent. They will also wipe out any unit without a shield easily, and will do pretty well against Dismounted Feudal Knights. Armoured Sergeants will be beaten by the better later heavy cav, which will also beat units like Dismounted Chivalric Knights, but they themselves will be beaten by Pikemen. I think its a nice balance, makes for good gameplay and is fairly historical.

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Seconded. If it really works this way, I'm all for it. :yes:

I'd still like polearm troops to get a bonus vs non-charging cavalry, though... (I know, quite off-topic, but still... :sweatdrop: )

about mtw 1 making it hard for knights to take on spearmen.

in the original release of mtw1 before the patches knights would demolish spearmen and fuedal seargeants but they tuned it down in the later patches. but even then basic spearmen never did very well against knight units but the fuedal did a lot better. and of course armored spearmen, chivilaric*, and order foot soldiers did a very good job of stopping them.

if i remember knights were pretty tough in the original release thats why some people kept playing it even after vi came out because they didnt like the tuned down cavalry.

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Originally Posted by Lusted

Now i like the balance that the shield fix brings, in combination with some changes i've made(increased mass of horses but reduced charge bonus). Mailed Knights will beat Town Militia, Spear Militia, Sergeant Spearmen etc., but will struggle against Armoured Sergeants their dismounted equivalent. They will also wipe out any unit without a shield easily, and will do pretty well against Dismounted Feudal Knights. Armoured Sergeants will be beaten by the better later heavy cav, which will also beat units like Dismounted Chivalric Knights, but they themselves will be beaten by Pikemen. I think its a nice balance, makes for good gameplay and is fairly historical.

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Lusted,

Presumably you've now incorporated the shield to armour fix?

How did you rebalance afterwards, particularly with reference to the 2-handed axe and sword units?

Edit: And missile units for that matter!

Many points raised that I want to reply to. First however I’d like to link to another of Foz's posts elsewhere that details the exact effects of applying the shield fix.

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...&postcount=285

Foz does raise a good point about the way the shield fix throws a few units out, and thus asks what CA really intended, however I tend to go with the "spears of a given era should beat cav of the same era" argument purely because that’s what all the in game help text implies should happen.

With that point aside you should now get an idea of how unit balance has been flipped about for me, and it's worth remembering that when I talk of preferring the balance with the shield fix in place.


Now onto other points:

First I’d like to raise the point that Foz, Econ21, and Dopp have raised. Namely that of professional vs. non-professional spearmen and their resistance to cav charges. I agree 100% that non-professional troops should get swept aside by cav charges and even that professional troops where rare back then in reality.

The problem is, this isn't true in game as such. Most units in game are professional soldiers, or part-time soldiers with sufficient training to be weak professional soldiers.

The only units that are peasants with weapons and minimal training are the peasant units and Town Militia. The rest of the units, (including Spear Militia), represent someone who is much better equipped and trained than that. In reality CA have badly misused the militia term IMO. The combination of unit descriptions, their level of discipline and training, (as listed in the stats file, namely the same as most dismounted knights), and their close similarity, (even identical in some cases), to levy spearmen and a number of eastern tribal spearmen, and the fact that Town Militia already fulfil the peasants with proper weapons role, has always led me to believe that Militia Spearmen, (as represented in game), where more than simple presents with weapons and minimal training. In reality I view them as part time professional solders, (a bit of an oxymoron I know). Individuals who have been given decent equipment and training semi-regularly in how to use it. They WILL have been taught how to brace properly and the basics of how to use their weapons in general melee. As a result, whilst a professional soldier will beat them, (because they have been trained in the more advanced general melee techniques, have some actual battlefield experience, and have slightly better equipment), they aren’t actually unprofessional soldiers that would fall apart when charged by cav.

They are in effect portrayed as semi decent fighters with ok equipment and training who will be called upon to supplement the main standing army on campaign. as apposed to being simple local defence militia with littlie training and substandard equipment.

DISCLAMER: Before someone mentions it, I’m sure that in reality Militia of the type represented by Militia Spearmen as I’ve just described them where pretty rare. I'm mealy pointing out that they don't, (in game), really fall into the type of unit that Dopp or Econ21 or myself would expect cav to ride over with few losses. CA have however seemingly chosen a unit that, historically speaking, would be expected to be able to beat cav as they have sufficient training and equipment for the job. The un-historical part being merely the numbers you can field.


Second, some people, (Dopp did it best), have expressed worries about early era fights degenerating into spear vs. spear with cav running down the missile units. I shouldn't worry about that, their are 3 things to remember.

1: Spears hate flank and rear charges. You can wipe out 90% of a unit, (as you do in vanilla with frontal charges), if you do that.

2: Cav above a certain power will simply sweep through a unit of spears causing 90% losses to said spears with less than 10% losses to themselves. Thus, in general the cav reliant factions aren’t as badly hit as you might think as their unique, high power knights usually can get away with frontal charges. Only really Papal Guard, (and maybe one or two equivalent eastern spear units), can take frontal charges in normal formation from units like Chivalric/Noble Knights.

3: Whilst point 2 CAN be overcome by using multiple Schiltrom formations together, (butting the edges up against each other with a bit of inter-mingling), said formations are not fast moving and the sheer number of men packed together so tightly means even peasant archers could get better than 100 kills against them with short range volleys of fire arrows. To say nothing of what proper archers could do...

An example of the Schiltrom formations I’m talking of below:

https://img105.imageshack.us/img105/...tromcq0.th.jpg


Third, Some people have asked what’s the point of cav if spears beat them, why include cav. Well first, early spears should never beat late cav except in the case of factions that are supposed to have really powerful early spears.

Fourth, some people are worried this will produce factions that are all alike. I shouldn’t worry about this if I where you. The Turks, (as an example), would STILL have their focus on cav and HA, but they'd need to use at least some infantry in their armies now. The HA would still be numerous and would still kill large numbers of enemy, the main difference is that instead of just charging the remnants down with your heavies, you now have to bring up your own infantry (even cheap peasants will do), and let them pin the enemy while your run your cav round the rear and actually wipe the enemy out. Your cav and HA are still your primary troops and do the real killing. But the rest of your roster is no longer pointless.

@ This Post:

Whilst I don't doubt you are reporting what you’ve read correctly and that it's a genuine historical source. I don't remotely believe it. If you've ever watched Horse racing you'll be familiar with what happens when a horse runs into a hedge or a fallen rider. The Horse and Rider go flying all over the place 9 times out of 10. If those cav where charging at full speed into those shield walls I can guarantee the effects of striking the formation would result in a lot of tripped horses and thrown riders, to mention nothing of the way the spearmen would get knocked down too and probably hit by both horses rolling around and flying riders.

Of course if the cav trotted up to the spearmen and started hacking then yes you'd get the effect described, (few losses on either side), but once those horses actually start getting surrounded by the spears in a general melee your going to get a lot of dead horses, purely because spears are basically very well designed for getting deep enough into a horse to cause damage, they just have to get through the horses armour, (if any). If however the spears and Cav keep perfect formation, then it's going to be impossible for the spears to do a lot of damage as they don't have the reach when attacking horses from the front, and the riders can't really get blows past an effective shield-wall.

As I say, I don't disbelieve you, but I think it's more a case of good evidence that they didn't do full gallop high speed charges into formed up men as the number of horses and men alike that should have gone flying all over the place at this point would have been notable and devastating.

Another point to remember is that even with the shield fix, unless the spears are stationery, in good formation, properly facing their opponents, and braced they will get swept aside committer how good they are. It takes a lot of planning and preparation to get the spears in the right place in time.

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but the idea that your average Joe off the filthy medieval streets could stand up to thousands of pounds of steel and stallion charging him down just because he has a pointy rock tied to a stick is silly. If that were anything even approaching reality, we'd all thrill to the legendary exploits of King Arthur and his Spear Infantry of the Round Table.

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As I noted a littlie further up this post, the only units that fit your description in this game are Town Militia. Everything else is represented as being professional/semi-professional.

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Right. The surefire counter is not a 300 florin, free upkeep unit that can be recruited from any city with a second tier barracks, it's other knights!

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So tell me, what is the purpose of that 300 florin free upkeep unit then? Why is it in the game and why does it cost so much if a 300 florin unit of light cav can walk all over it. Indeed why are any spearmen in the game at all if the game should be a case of cav beats everything. Indeed what’s the point of any infantry that aren’t archers than? Why don't we make them all special units built on the sieges screen? Since it’s the only time they’d be remotely useful, and if you could Dismount Knights, not even then

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It's important to dispel the idea that Catholic factions are helpless against knights. Temujin said it best:


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Originally Posted by Temujin
Medieval tactics didn't follow simple RPS mechanics; the counter for cavalry, at least in the early period, was your own cavalry.

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AND

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It's historically accurate, and it's gameplay balanced.

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1: It's not even remotely balanced as those factions with the best knights prior to anyone getting pikes will be the factions that beat anyone else until pikes show up. And even the manoeuvrability of pikes, (or rather lack of), will ensure those with the best Knights still win. Muskets being the only possible equaliser.

2: I think those of you who prefer Historical accuracy need to calm down. No matter how often you state your case, CA isn't going to listen to you IMHO, they have always marketed the TW series as RTS's set in interesting time periods, they have never marketed, and I believe never intended to imply that they are accurate historical simulators. They are aimed at the RTS gaming market in general, not those of who want an historical simulators. So as much as you'd like cav to dominate everything bar pikes and muskets. I doubt it's actually going to happen. Getting wound up is only going to get those of us arguing for balance wound up and I don't want a slagging match.

3: In relation to point 2, DoW:WA had a similar balance to the Cav owns all in that it's late era units beat everything else of all unit classes. The majority of gamers got very bored with that play style very quickly, it's my own experience of this game that made me decide balance has to trump history for me. the formulae of choose best unit and build as many as possible was just too boring for me and I wouldn't want to play M2TW if the game was Like that. That’s why I got RTW, because it seemed in the demo to be a lot more balanced, I assumed M2TW would be the same.

4: As I noted further up, modern Horse Racing shows quite clearly what happens when a galloping Horse hits something solid, so I honestly think that a lot of the Historical Accounts of cav sweeping aside trained troops with few losses are widely exaggerated IMHO. Take a look at accounts of Longbows, (DON’T you DARE comment Lord_Crapalot, I’ve run out of patience with you), from both the enemy and English sides. The English accounts are always far better sounding and make it sound better than a modern rifle. The enemy accounts are probably a bit under the actual performance too, so the reality will be somewhere in the middle.

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Refer to original MTW, where the spearmen got a bonus to DEFENSE rather than attack vs cavalry. This made them good at holding the line defensively until something else intervened (missiles, swords or their own cavalry) but they were not exceptionally good at killing anything themselves.

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That’s an interesting piece of info Dopp, I suspect CA changed it because of how Formed charges currently work. They've upped cav power and mobility now according to most people, (I’ve never played MTW), so they probably decided to do the same for spears.

Would that be better though? Based on How Sword and shield units with really high defence perform vs. cav ATM, I’d say no. At least without same serious reduction in cav charging power as if the knight doesn't die on impact with someone he will usually just keep going and kill more swordsmen, unless said swordsmen has a really high defence score, (I’m talking mailed knights against defence 24 units here). The kind of bonuses high level spearmen would need under these circumstances is scary, something like +20 defence vs. mounted. That’s probably why they got the reflect charge and attack bonuses. It gives them the chance to kill charging enemy knights on contact, which seems to be the only way to hold a knight charge without really high defence values.

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Now i like the balance that the shield fix brings, in combination with some changes i've made(increased mass of horses but reduced charge bonus). Mailed Knights will beat Town Militia, Spear Militia, Sergeant Spearmen etc., but will struggle against Armoured Sergeants their dismounted equivalent. They will also wipe out any unit without a shield easily, and will do pretty well against Dismounted Feudal Knights. Armoured Sergeants will be beaten by the better later heavy cav, which will also beat units like Dismounted Chivalric Knights, but they themselves will be beaten by Pikemen. I think its a nice balance, makes for good gameplay and is fairly historical.

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I'm not sure I like that from a balance point of view. Only a handful of factions get Armoured Sergeants. Most have to rely on spear Militia and/or Armoured spearmen to take on cav prior to Pikes. And nearly everyone gets Mailed/Feudal Knights before they get Armoured Sear gents. That’s a total show stopper Lusted, as it effectively means armies without good cav early on are much weaker than the rest. It also messes up MP balance in early era something horrible.

About MP balance: Whilst this ISN'T the MP forum, it's important to realise that those that play MP will be effected by any changes we push CA into making. Price can partly offset things, but theirs a limit to how far that goes. If Mailed knights start having to cost 1000-1500florins in MP because theirs nothing of the same era that’s not cav that can beat them, you can bet that the MP community will have our heads and really make their displeasure vocal.

At that I’ll call it a day for now.

I don't get the idea that Cav should be countered by Cav.
I'm concentrating on the units at hand, included in the game. The idea of a Total War game, for me, is to have a number of units at my disposal that each have their counter units in the enemy army.
To play good is to make successful unit matchups that cummulate into victory. This also includes that if Cav can't beat Spears frontally, you have to use the higher mobility of the Cav to charge them in the flank or rear or search for a better matchup.
If one unit does not have a counter unit, making it an über-unit because no unit can stand against them, why take any other unit? If Cav can only be beaten by Cav then why buy infantry or Archers?
Let's say Archers were the über-unit and not Cav, would you all be satisfied with the fact that only Archers can beat Archers? I think not. But since we're talking knights, the heroes of our childhoods, that's perfectly okay?

For a game like this, we need a counter unit for cav.
I would expect from the spear units to be good defense units against cav:

• if the Spears could resist a charge by knights and hold them long enough for a second unit to flank the CAV without killing many of the Knights themselves, that would be a start. I think Shiltrom or Shield_wall can be used for this if the shield bug is fixed.
• If the spears are caught on the march, they should not have this defensive bonus but be destroyed quickly. Same as with late pikes, have them in Phalanx and they can deal with the charge, have them marching and they die.

I'm playing with my own shield fix, where I've just zeroed the shield value without changing the other values. With this fix applied, Shiltrom is an effective anti-cav formation that is costly and unwise to charge into with knights, just as the advisor tells us. The fix is not perfect but maybe shows what was intended.
The power of the charge may not be too strong, perhaps even the change in the charge of 1.1 patch wasn't nessecary if they had fixed the shield bug before.
I believe that the knight units should be able to exploit opportunities and mistakes of your enemy. If he marches his spears and doesn't pay attention to your Cav you can destroy them, but if the spears brace you'll hardly kill many of them but instead risk your worthy unit of Cav.
The applied anti_cav bonus ranges between 2 and 12 points.
Atm, only a 4 and 8 points bonus is applied. There's much room to spread out the spear units between these values. Town Militia could have 2 or 0 and Swiss Pike or Papal Guard could have the max 12.
I would appreciate it most if CA could just fix the game in the way they intended. I've the feeling that they've had some good intentions that have gone wrong. The in-game battle field advisor's speeches are pretty much what I'd expect from the units, only that the game diverges from it.

The difficult thing about the historical context (and I'm the type that would put history above balance, at least for SP) is that SP and MP are such different games.

Historically, a frontal charge from heavy knights would run right over, as Zhukov said, anything other than braced pikes. A spear wall (not pikes) would get mowed down, though they'd cause a lot of casualties. A good general would never have his knights charge a spear wall, because even if he could take them down, you'd be an idiot to throw away your finest knights like that. A hundred knights were worth more than a thousand peasants in *most* medieval armies (making the obvious exception for English ones, though I'd hardly call yeomen peasants).

In SP, knights being so expensive, you are going to use them 'properly' -- i.e. not charging anything that's going to Hurt A Lot unless you absolutely have to, because you have more battles after the one you're in now to fight.

In MP, your entire existence depends on one battle, so you're going to do what it takes to win. The question then becomes: How much do you re-jigger the knights/spearman balance to be fair in MP?

I usually play MP with the same guy (who got his masters in history and is a big crusades nerd) and he likes throwing lots of cavalry at me as either the French or the Mongols - always has. I knew this, so the first battle we fought in M2TW was Mongols (him) v. English (me) on an open field. I set up a bazillion stakes with a lot of armored sergeants as support and massacred him, though even so, his heavy cavalry charges that went around my stakes still did a number on my spearman, as I think they should have.

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Originally Posted by Carl

Many points raised that I want to reply to.

<SNIPPED lots of good stuff>

2: I think those of you who prefer Historical accuracy need to calm down. No matter how often you state your case, CA isn't going to listen to you IMHO, they have always marketed the TW series as RTS's set in interesting time periods, they have never marketed, and I believe never intended to imply that they are accurate historical simulators.

<SNIP more good stuff>

At that I’ll call it a day for now.

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Amen.

QFT, ++, etc.

A very loudmouthed minority has always tried to make TW games go for more "history" (as in "units behaving like _I_ want them too, or believe they did") and less actual game balance (that makes the game playable). CA has never listened, never will, and M2TW is just more proof of that.

Thankfully Carl (and many others!) take the time to stand on the battlements, voicing the opinion of many who do not, in any way, want an unbalanced game because someone who watchs the history channel demands that this and that unit should dominate, "because it did so in reality".

The way I see, it's balance and fun first, historical accuracy second. However, usually historical accuracy isn't that far off equalling balance and fun anyway.

My gut instinct on this effectiveness of spearmen debate is not one of spears beating cav or vice versa, but rather that a player charging a cav unit into spears should be prepared to lose a good proportion of the cav unit at the same time as causing big casualties to the spears. It should be an expensive decision to charge spears with cav. Cav charging swordsmen is completely different. There's a massive difference charging a solider with a comparatively short weapon than charging a braced spear. However, like I said, a fully armed and heavily armoured knight charging anything is going to cause damage to the front row whether the knight lives or not...

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but rather that a player charging a cav unit into spears should be prepared to lose a good proportion of the cav unit at the same time as causing big casualties to the spears.

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Which is largely what happens if the spears are of the same era as the Knights doing the charging. Once you Fix the Sheild Bug that is BTW.) The problem I have is with people who belive Kinghts of the same era as spearmen should just be able to roll right over the spearmen with only small losses.

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The way I see, it's balance and fun first, historical accuracy second. However, usually historical accuracy isn't that far off equalling balance and fun anyway.

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I agree 100% here too. I love my History, but not at the expense of balance. genrally the Historical stuff is well balanced. Cav are the real exception and I think that comes more from distorted accounts of Cav charges. In this situation i'm willing to accept that History has to take the backseat though and that cav should be beatable by somthing thats avalibile as early as the cav, and it should be somthing thats eithier avalibile to all factions. Or it should be somthing diffrent for diffrent factions. Or a mix of the two, but n matter what all factions should have a counter to anything any other faction might throw at them at any point in the tech tree. This counter should also occupy the same point in the tech tree as what it's countering.

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I'm not sure I like that from a balance point of view. Only a handful of factions get Armoured Sergeants. Most have to rely on spear Militia and/or Armoured spearmen to take on cav prior to Pikes. And nearly everyone gets Mailed/Feudal Knights before they get Armoured Sear gents. That’s a total show stopper Lusted, as it effectively means armies without good cav early on are much weaker than the rest. It also messes up MP balance in early era something horrible.

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But the lower level spear units can still hold cav even if they lose 1 v 1, so another unit can come in and take out the cav whilst its engaged. and Armoured Sergeants can hold all cav units long enough(barely though with the highest level cav) for a second unit to engage the cav. when i first tested it i hadn't removed the +2 to mass i have in LTC, and that made spearmen too powerful against cav i felt. So Mailed Knights might beat Spear Militia or Sergeant Spearmen in a 1v1, but the spears can hold them long enough for another unit to enage them. So i think its nicely balanced.

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Lusted,

Presumably you've now incorporated the shield to armour fix?

How did you rebalance afterwards, particularly with reference to the 2-handed axe and sword units?

Edit: And missile units for that matter!

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Well im using a 2 handed bug workaround in LTc so i just upped the attack of those units slightly. 2 handed sword units i gave the ap ability and +2 attack. I have not looked at missile units yet. Sword units are pretty well balanced anyway with the fix.

@Lusted: Fair enough. I tend to find that No spear unit thats holds actually losses to cav so you where worrying me.

I would add i'm still slightly concerned as whilst having to use supporting units might be okay in the campaign (larger armies, stupid Ai and multipiule Stacks on 1 enemy stack), it worries me from an MP perspective as with a decent Human Opponnent, and equal sized armies the guy with spears shouldn't have a supporting unit to throw in becuase the rest are occuppied by the rest of the enemy army.

Genrally if a game is balanced in MP it needs only minor tweaks to be balanced in SP. On the other hand a game balanced in SP first and foremost isn't allways balanced in MP. Thus I tend to worry a lot asbout MP balance, even though i never play MP in games.

i'll wait and see how things go before making final judgments though.

MP balance isn't really a worry for mods Carl, nobody really uses mods in MP

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Originally Posted by Carl

1: Spears hate flank and rear charges. You can wipe out 90% of a unit, (as you do in vanilla with frontal charges), if you do that.

2: Cav above a certain power will simply sweep through a unit of spears causing 90% losses to said spears with less than 10% losses to themselves. Thus, in general the cav reliant factions aren’t as badly hit as you might think as their unique, high power knights usually can get away with frontal charges. Only really Papal Guard, (and maybe one or two equivalent eastern spear units), can take frontal charges in normal formation from units like Chivalric/Noble Knights.

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1: I think 32 knights can't wipe out 68 men (the double!) with a charge. How they could do it, to kill instantly an AVERAGE of 2 men per knight?
They have to lower the morale and cause the unit to root, why do you want it to disappear with a charge? I don't understand.

2: I personally don't agree, as I have explained in other posts on this topic.

It seems that you are describing the vanilla game, no need to balance it then.

For MP the most important element is cost. Any unit not worth the money you pay for it will not be used. One could easily have a game were cavalry is very strong v spears but it will fall apart if spears cost too much and players have too much money so they can get too many high quality cav units.


CBR

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MP balance isn't really a worry for mods Carl, nobody really uses mods in MP

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But where not talking about mods Musashi. Where talking about the main vanillia game and how we, the posters in this thread, feel cav should perform vs. spears.

@Vistor: The bit you quoted was a description of what happens when you apply the sheild fix. NOT vanillia. In Vanillia even mailed knights WILl sweep through spears causing 90% kills for no more losses to themselves than if they where charging 2-Handers and did the same. When I said a unit of spears, i meant a much weaker unit of spears. Spear Militia will get swept away by Chivalric Knights. But Papal uard will win with about 30% of their men remaning. The better the spear, the better the Cav unit has to be before it can sweep them aside with no real losses). Also, if even militia spears killed a lot of Chivalric Knights if charged by them they would be unblanced as the Spears can reform pretty quick and are just too cheap compared to the knights. Militia can beat Mailed Knights with the fix without any upgrades. the Spears cost 80% the price of the knights though so it's balanced.

@CBR: What you say is mostly true. But if the Historians have their way, Chivalric Knights would have to be in the 3000+Florins price range to be balanced vs infantry in MP. Can you see most MP players putting up with that? I doubt they will myself.

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Originally Posted by Carl

It's not even remotely balanced as those factions with the best knights prior to anyone getting pikes will be the factions that beat anyone else until pikes show up. And even the manoeuvrability of pikes, (or rather lack of), will ensure those with the best Knights still win.

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Most Catholic factions have knights that are roughly equal in power, and that are available at about the same time. In the early game, most of these factions can field Mailed Knights, or Norman Knights, or Feudal Knights, all of which are roughly equal (give or take a few points of armor). These troops will attrite each other on the battlefield, i.e. cancel each other out. There is no faction to my knowledge that opens the early period with a knight that can run roughshod over all the other knights of Europe. Therefore, if you can keep roughly an equal amount of heavy horse in the field as your opponent, you have your cavalry counter. Historically, knights sought out knights on the field, and samurai sought out samurai. They knew they were the creme de la creme on the medieval battlefield, and that is was they who would decide most battles. Of course, a clever commander will back up his knights with good spearmen or swordsman, so that any melees that erupt can be tipped in favor of his own knights.

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Originally Posted by Carl

I think those of you who prefer Historical accuracy need to calm down. No matter how often you state your case, CA isn't going to listen to you IMHO... So as much as you'd like cav to dominate everything bar pikes and muskets. I doubt it's actually going to happen.

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You're right, I don't need to keep stating my case. Because CA has already taken my position. M2TW presents knights as almost unstoppable freight trains when charging all foot troops except pikes. So unless one mods it to be different, the game is taking the historical position on this issue.

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You're right, I don't need to keep stating my case. Because CA has already taken my position. M2TW presents knights as almost unstoppable freight trains when charging all foot troops except pikes. So unless one mods it to be different, the game is taking the historical position on this issue.

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YOUR WRONG.

Deal with the sheild bug and they do NOT do thast, CA have taken the exact opposite postion. The advisor text only proves that still furthar.

Let me also add that lusted has revealed that CA where planning on downpowering cav and are going to try some of his anti-cav measures on top. I think thats points to CA beliving cav are too good ATM.

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Most Catholic factions have knights that are roughly equal in power, and that are available at about the same time. In the early game, most of these factions can field Mailed Knights, or Norman Knights, or Feudal Knights, all of which are roughly equal (give or take a few points of armor).

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Give or take 3 points of attacka and a few points of armour. actually, and units with better attack/defence trump those with worse attack defence, so those without fuedal Knights or with Knights better than Fuedals will bat the others.

Well arent spears pretty bugged against cav right now? Maybe a 3K florin price is acceptable to make up for the bugs :clown:

If spears were like MTW I would say the current prices are fine...


CBR

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Well arent spears pretty bugged against cav right now? Maybe a 3K florin price is acceptable to make up for the bugs

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Yeah, the sheild bug kills em badly. And LOL@ the price point. Your right in that it would probably be balanced, but it wouldn't really be fair if the high end knights where tottally unusable in most games. And since some game limits can prevent the use of low end knights iot effectivly removes knights from MP.

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If spears were like MTW I would say the current prices are fine...

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I agree and furthar points to Knights being more powerful than was intended. A unit hose sole purpose is to tackle cav (which is what spears are), should easilly be able to beat m,ounted units of a similar price and beatm, (with difficulty), moderatly more expensive ones. Right now even cav the same price go through them like a hot knife through butter.

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Originally Posted by Carl

Fourth, some people are worried this will produce factions that are all alike. I shouldn’t worry about this if I where you. The Turks, (as an example), would STILL have their focus on cav and HA, but they'd need to use at least some infantry in their armies now.

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The Turks already have to use some infantry for sieges

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The HA would still be numerous and would still kill large numbers of enemy, the main difference is that instead of just charging the remnants down with your heavies, you now have to bring up your own infantry (even cheap peasants will do), and let them pin the enemy while your run your cav round the rear and actually wipe the enemy out. Your cav and HA are still your primary troops and do the real killing. But the rest of your roster is no longer pointless.

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In other words, the Turks would then fight more like the other factions? That doesn't sound like much fun to me.

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2: I think those of you who prefer Historical accuracy need to calm down. No matter how often you state your case, CA isn't going to listen to you IMHO, they have always marketed the TW series as RTS's set in interesting time periods, they have never marketed, and I believe never intended to imply that they are accurate historical simulators. They are aimed at the RTS gaming market in general, not those of who want an historical simulators. So as much as you'd like cav to dominate everything bar pikes and muskets. I doubt it's actually going to happen. Getting wound up is only going to get those of us arguing for balance wound up and I don't want a slagging match.

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Nobody is getting wound up. The discussion so far has been polite, as far as I can tell. Some of us disagree with your take on the game, and prefer a different type of game, which is a different thing than getting "wound up." It's okay for us to have different opinions on these things, and I've found the discussion interesting, so far.

As for CA's intentions... yes, they're a RTS company, but Warcraft (and a few others) showed that this type of game can go beyond simple rock/paper/scissors balance with all units alike, only dressed up with different skins. And that's the model CA has used; with units that don't necessarily always balance 1 v. 1 against a corresponding unit. It keeps the game interesting, and it allows at least a degree of respect for historical accuracy. I imagine CA will probably keep it that way with the upcoming patch, including not forcing Turks (for example) into an a-historical reliance on infantry.

For those who don't like it, there will be mods. And of course that goes both ways. Some of us may need to look at modding the game if CA goes too far in leveling out the different units for 1 v. 1 "balance" without taking into account mixed units in an army, or historical accuracy.

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Nobody is getting wound up.

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It seemed to me that some of you, (not all of you), where expecting that if you went on enough that that’s what would happen. Nothing about the balancing in RTW or what the Adviser/in-game hints tells you should happen leads me to believe that CA intended anything other than the RPS balance. The effects of modding out the various bugs only seems to reinforce this.

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In other words, the Turks would then fight more like the other factions? That doesn't sound like much fun to me.

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You have to understand that the Turks aren’t intended to fight as an ALL HA/Cav army. Just as the English aren’t intended to fight as an all Foot Archer/2-Hander Force Or the French an all Melee Cav Force, or the Scots and all Pike force.

Everyone was expected to use a mix of foot archers, melee cav, melee foot and possible HA's. The differences where always in my mind intended to be the type of melee cav/melee foot/foot archers/HA used, and the quantity in which they where used. Turks and Byzantine both strike me as unit rosters that where meant to use large amounts of HA/Melee cav in combination with small numbers of melee foot, and foot archer forces. With Byzantine having a slightly greater focus on infantry, particularly in the late game.

The Scots where always intended to use large numbers of heavily armoured Pikemen, backed up by good Sword and Shield units and Composite infantry. With Minor cav and missile forces alongside.

NO army IMHO was intended to get by without at least SOME foot melee, foot missile, and mounted melee units. The defining points where meant to be the types and quantities in which they where used.

Generally if a unit is in a game and it's not being used their are 2 reasons for it:

1. The army in question was never intended to need such a units, and thus it's inclusion was an error of judgment.

2. They where meant to HAVE to use it to at least some degree, but the game's balance is out and thus the player is not being made to use it as he should be.

As Turks with the fixes, 75% of your forces will still be cav/cav archers, and 90% of the kills will belong to them. However, you will no longer be able to field armies composed 100% of cav/HA.

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Originally Posted by Carl

As Turks with the fixes, 75% of your forces will still be cav/cav archers, and 90% of the kills will belong to them. However, you will no longer be able to field armies composed 100% of cav/HA.

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If someone wants to mod the game that way, more power to 'em. But I'd be very surprised if CA moves in that direction for the upcoming vanilla patch. I guess we'll find out in a month or two.

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As for CA's intentions... yes, they're a RTS company, but Warcraft (and a few others) showed that this type of game can go beyond simple rock/paper/scissors balance with all units alike, only dressed up with different skins. And that's the model CA has used; with units that don't necessarily always balance 1 v. 1 against a corresponding unit. It keeps the game interesting, and it allows at least a degree of respect for historical accuracy. I imagine CA will probably keep it that way with the upcoming patch, including not forcing Turks (for example) into an a-historical reliance on infantry.

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Actually after talking to Pala i dont think CA intended for spears to be so weak against cav, or for ca to be all powerful. They do want more of a rock, paper scissor balance like that me and Carl have been talking about.

Thanks Lusted for tha titbit.

@Zenicitus: Well what DO you want then? Clearly with an RPS balance you can't have a faction that rellies tottaly on mounted units so what do you actually want? Besides, you don't think you where given the best muskets and 2nd best 2-handers in the game (Jassinary Musketeers and JHI), for no good reasoj do you. And yes I know they are late units, i'm just pointing out that you have been given some really good infantry, so I can't see any reason why you arn't meant to use it.

Besides, i'm not modding the game that way. That IS how the game REALLY plays out after bug fixes. Admitedly the sheild fix nuters HA even more than it really should, (sheilds don't work right against missiles eithier BTW), so they will be a bit more powerful again once sheilds are really working. However, neithier they nor Cav where ever intended to be viabile without infanry support based on the effects of bug fixing IMHO.

p.s. Turks arn't going to rely on infantry, they just ARE going to have to use it. relying on it means having to use it to do all their fighting. which they won't it will be the cav doing all the killing. Not your infantry. you just need the infantry for the cav to be ABLE to do the killing.

Lusted just bassiclly confirmed it IMO.

I haven't seen any evidence that shields aren't working properly against missiles, only your insistence that AP missiles shouldn't work against shields, which I still believe is silly, since shields are armor.

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Originally Posted by Lusted

Actually after talking to Pala i dont think CA intended for spears to be so weak against cav, or for ca to be all powerful. They do want more of a rock, paper scissor balance like that me and Carl have been talking about.

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So, what did he say that led you to draw those conclusions?

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So, what did he say that led you to draw those conclusions?

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He was talking about ways he was trying to reduce cav power, and asked me how i had made spearmen better against cav in my LTC mod.

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I haven't seen any evidence that shields aren't working properly against missiles, only your insistence that AP missiles shouldn't work against shields, which I still believe is silly, since shields are armor.

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I won't go throught the AP argument again. but here are some tests that show archers are doing more damage aainst sheild units than against units with the sheild in armopur. in the one of mine I'm linking to they where defintly shooting head on at the enemy, so the sheild should have been in effect.

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...&postcount=115

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...&postcount=118

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Originally Posted by Lusted

He was talking about ways he was trying to reduce cav power, and asked me how i had made spearmen better against cav in my LTC mod.

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Cool, thanks. Plans may indeed be in motion to pare back heavy cavalry.

While I was mulling these issues, another thought occured: if spearmen are strengthened to the point that they can repel charges and defeat knights without support, why even bother building pikes? Why have pikes in the game at all?

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While I was mulling these issues, another thought occured: if spearmen are strengthened to the point that they can repel charges and defeat knights without support, why even bother building pikes? Why have pikes in the game at all?

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Ah they wont be that strong, no spear unit would be able to stand up to the later heavy cavalry like gendarmes, lancers, or even chivalric knights. So you would need pikes against them.

I'm not going to go real indepth here. I want to point out another aspect of the "spearman". The spear is one of the most ancient weapon's used in medieval warfare.They were common long before such things as mounted cavalry were invented. You keep referring to spearman as "A unit solely intended to counter Cavalry" but thats not true. Spearman are "A unit that is cheap to equip because spears are easy to make, easy to use and provide some minor protection from horses."

If spearman were so potent at stopping cavalry, why are they mostly ignored in historical references to medieval battles? Because they were considered to be little more then fodder. If you weren't wielding either a halberd or billhook, you were considered cheap and inneffective. Most games, and almost all historical references, make spearman out to be what they are...a outdated unit that poor nations trained so they had some warm bodys in the way of the enemy.

I personally feel that Spearman are fine the way they are now, but they need to cost about half as much. The same goes for every other spear wielding unit. The whole idea of spear units are that they cost less to equip and are easy to train = Cheap. Right now, a Spearman costs 2/3rd that of DFK's. Thats nuts, it should be less then half. Either that, or all the high-end units should have their price increased significantly.

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While I was mulling these issues, another thought occured: if spearmen are strengthened to the point that they can repel charges and defeat knights without support, why even bother building pikes? Why have pikes in the game at all?

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What lusted said, allthough I would point out that with the sheild fix and nothing else, Papal Guard can beat the best Knights avalibile. but they ARE the best s[pearmen around and no one else with acess to pikes gets spearmen that good.

Also it's best to remeber that working Pikes tend to destroy anything you put in front of them. i've had 40-1 kill rates from them in bridge battles before, (1000 dead enemy for 25 dead pikes). They are however, VERY vulnrable to a flank or rear attack from even very basic infantry.

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spearman were so potent at stopping cavalry, why are they mostly ignored in historical references to medieval battles?

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probably because their wern't many pro spear troops around back then. The harsh fact is that they probably wouldn't stand their ground when the cav came running towards them. pro troops would. And as I pointed out with examples from modern Horse Racing. If a galloping horse hits anything solid it's likliy to go flying along with the rider. Frankly I can't see how any galloping charge could have sucseeded against discaplined infantry who held formation.

The problem with your idea of cheap trash, (which is what they where in most cases), is two fold. 1. theirs no point including it in the game as it serves no purpose. 2. that isn't what most spear units in the game represenmt anyway. they represent the ones who would hold their ground in fromation and thus decimate knights in reality.

I will however admit that (as with the knights themselves), these units are a lot more common in game than they where historiclly.