Factions balance

Playing this game a bit longer, I got to conclusion that factions are in fact very well balanced.

There's not a single faction standing out as too powerfull. Theres no uber, faction specific units, no mtw byz infantry, rome cataphracs, urbans, desert cav... And no BI axmen. Shure, cavalry are too strong, but no faction has advantage here (well there is exception in seriousy too expensive egypt cav). There are some very good unique units for some factions in certain eras, but there is always some deficiency somewhere.

You have French (high) with pikes, good cavalry, but they have weak light cav and too expensive long range and mounted archers. Moors have camels. That could give them an advantage in mounted warfare, jet no horse archers, and their cavalry is overpriced. Great example are also Scots with pikes to give them advantage over cavalry, add decent cavalry and do you have unstopable force? You could have, if they had some xbows, or at least long range archers to make opponent to atack.

I could go on and mention all factions, and each have at least one problem, that can be exploited. There are some that are too weak, already mentioned egypt, late danes & russians and probably some more. But more important is, that I realy don't see any thats too strong.

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I got to conclusion that factions are in fact very well balanced.

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hush hush, you are absolutely right but in some time some people will read this and they won't agree with you ~D

Mongols on high.

I haven't tried the mongols yet in any of the eras online. I will have to take a look at them. The weakest faction, is probably the Aztecs, since they have no archer units and no cav. They have some fairly good troops though, if you know how to use their special abilities, you can make a pretty good rush army. Only problem is, if you get them bunched up, you will die.

Plus they can't chase routed units, so you find yourself facing wave after wave of cav charges. It seems that M2TW doesn't have as great a morale penalty for units which have previously routed. I have seen cav units charge in 3 and 4 times, rout, recover and then charge again, even if they are down to 1 or 2 horses in the unit. Kind of funny watching 1 horse rout a whole fresh unit of archers. LOL

Not as funny as watching nothing rout an entire army :laugh2:

I find that happens a lot in my games . . . . it couldn't have been anything I did that made them rout so quickly! hehe

the cav that is rallying several times isnt so unrealistic, (as long as victory is still possibile).
question is if affects gameplay in a bad way..

but the single horseman that still rout loads of light units is stupid.

Yup, I don't mind the rallying as much as the continual awesome killing power and routing power of the cav unit after it has routed so many times. Sort of like a gnat, which keeps biting your ear, and you can't kill it. Very annoying. :)

Well see it as this too
Your cav unit starts with 100 morale
At 10 morale it routs
It comes back at 25 morale, but this will stay so, so the next time it routs it will rout far quicker.

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Originally Posted by Paolai

Mongols on high.

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Can be trashed by their cheaper Russian counterparts :egypt:
Overall i dont think many factions are missing out on much... i see Hungary as a the "weakest" for simple reasons... The only thing that bothers me are the 2 in 1 ranged infantry and some of the unit rosters for non european factions.

Baz how well do schiltrons hold on this? I've still got memories of those cheap Goth BI armies that held for ages, but I've really not looked into it for m2. If schiltron is still powerful (but since I've not seen many people use it I doubt it lol) then they've got horse archers, chivralic knights and run of the mill xbows (with pavise spears as inf) then they shouldn't be too bad imo.

On Russia, I think when the two handed bug is fixed they could become maybe a little better than the rest.

But ye, I'd agree. CA did well with balancing imo.

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Originally Posted by Paolai

Mongols on high.

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Don't see anything wrong there ether, you buy 4 light lancer, 4 heavy, khans guard for general, 4 mongol infantry, unit of ha and naphta, and your out of money. :)

2 handers stink and cav needs toned down a touch but not much

after the initial charge from any 2 hander unit they become worthless, while the sword/shield infantry have a far superior kill rate when engaged, not saying two hander should beat sword and shield every time, but that 17 attack power should be taken into account during melee as the charge bonus is seperate, i have heard its an animation problem, if so CA should patch this yesterday, so it would seem denmark, england, portugal etc have some pretty worthless units

It's about faction balance not unit balance

as long a unit isnt available for all factions, unit balance concerns factions balance...

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Originally Posted by Kenchi_Shaka

as long a unit isnt available for all factions, unit balance concerns factions balance...

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Not when all factions are balanced ~D
As they are

Not exactly. Like I said, there are some very good units, jet on other hand factions with them are missing something, or have some overpriced units. That finely balance whole faction so noone stands out. Even in curent state of the game where cav is overpowered.

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Originally Posted by Monarch

Baz how well do schiltrons hold on this? I've still got memories of those cheap Goth BI armies that held for ages, but I've really not looked into it for m2. If schiltron is still powerful (but since I've not seen many people use it I doubt it lol) then they've got horse archers, chivralic knights and run of the mill xbows (with pavise spears as inf) then they shouldn't be too bad imo.

On Russia, I think when the two handed bug is fixed they could become maybe a little better than the rest.

But ye, I'd agree. CA did well with balancing imo.

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Schiltrons are great against cav that are bogged down.. against the charge its not too different from the usual story :whip:
Those horse archers u speak of are pretty mediocre, mounted xbows or other versions of ha dominate them really...
The chivalric knights they possess are plastic models, only 16 def instead of the usual 17. The pavise spears arent worth what ure paying for, a bit like the papal guard.

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Originally Posted by Lavos

Not exactly. Like I said, there are some very good units, jet on other hand factions with them are missing something, or have some overpriced units. That finely balance whole faction so noone stands out. Even in curent state of the game where cav is overpowered.

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Yes, but atm the game is balanced. The only faction I haven't won with is Aztecs as I never played them. Each faction can beat each faction ... different then from RTW.
If units now get balanced some factions will become seriously overbalanced.
Ruskie's for example, as there main Infantry units (that 2 handed axe thing) can't attack cav now.



About Horse Archers:
They aren't that strong, I played a game against someone who used a unit of them 2 days ago. He killed 10 of my units with them ... and I allowed him to fire all his missiles.
And I was playing at low money (5K) so my units weren't well armoured (3 tercio pikemen, 3 sword militia, 1 arquibusiers and 2 peasant crossbowmen .... and I had 2 gendarmes, but he didn't attack those)

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Yes, but atm the game is balanced. The only faction I haven't won with is Aztecs as I never played them. Each faction can beat each faction ... different then from RTW.
If units now get balanced some factions will become seriously overbalanced.
Ruskie's for example, as there main Infantry units (that 2 handed axe thing) can't attack cav now.

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rtw isnt a measure for balance anyway.
i agree that the degree of balance is high enough for haveing some fun games.

on a competitive level the factions arent balanced (perfectly), i think.

absolute balance could only be achieved by each faction having the same unit selection.
i like having different factions with different selections, but it makes it difficult to say wether factions are balanced or not. even if they were balanced, having won once with each faction wouldnt be an evidence.

facxtions arent balanced, but they are more balanced compared to rome, muslim factions could use a boost as could byz, if you look at it from the "i only play on high era" point of view, then yes, there is some balance...although i dont see many people arguing over who gets to be egypt

secondly and going along with that previous point, germany doesnt get pikes, they get 2 handers as late era units, england gets billmen, byz gets only van guard, these 2 handed units for whatever reason do not have appropriate kill rates, thus affecting balance

there is a reason those swords are so long, these things called pikes

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absolute balance could only be achieved by each faction having the same unit selection.
i like having different factions with different selections, but it makes it difficult to say wether factions are balanced or not. even if they were balanced, having won once with each faction wouldnt be an evidence.

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Aye I fully agree with you there. Having clone units for every faction would be ideal for balancing, but it's damned boring

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muslim factions could use a boost

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Try fighting on a desert map instead of Grassy Flatland (most used map), they get a good boost there, enough to make them more then competetive.

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secondly and going along with that previous point, germany doesnt get pikes, they get 2 handers as late era units, england gets billmen, byz gets only van guard, these 2 handed units for whatever reason do not have appropriate kill rates, thus affecting balance

there is a reason those swords are so long, these things called pikes

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Don't really follow you there, my bad

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Originally Posted by Kenchi_Shaka

rtw isnt a measure for balance anyway.
i agree that the degree of balance is high enough for haveing some fun games.

on a competitive level the factions arent balanced (perfectly), i think.

absolute balance could only be achieved by each faction having the same unit selection.
i like having different factions with different selections, but it makes it difficult to say wether factions are balanced or not. even if they were balanced, having won once with each faction wouldnt be an evidence.

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It's not Shogun, thats true, but I'm not talking about Rome ether, imo it's at least at the stage of mtw1.

I think faction balance is impossible. Instead I would like to see things "balanced" to where certain factions, in certain situations, or used in certain ways, can be successful in team games. For instance, a really big problem I see is a lack of maps with large forested areas. All of those maps are mostly open or have very few treed areas, and not placed where you might actually be fighting. Units that get a "bonus for fighting in woods" never really come into their own in M2TW.

Same goes for those units which get a bonus in desert areas. There aren't that many maps which have such, and the effect of increased fatigue for non-desert factions isn't great enough to have much of an effect on the outcome of the game. Plus, camels do not scare horses to the extent they did in MTW1. I miss that effect. Camels were slow, and cav was fast, so you had to really use some good tactics to trap cav so it had to fight your camels. Cav need not fear camels in M2TW because they do not have the punch like in MTW1. This is what makes the muslim armies weaker than the others.

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Originally Posted by }{Huscarls}{Barrett|L|

Schiltrons are great against cav that are bogged down.. against the charge its not too different from the usual story :whip:
Those horse archers u speak of are pretty mediocre, mounted xbows or other versions of ha dominate them really...
The chivalric knights they possess are plastic models, only 16 def instead of the usual 17. The pavise spears arent worth what ure paying for, a bit like the papal guard.

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Maybe I should make some topics in the learn to play forum :beam:

Anyway, I reckon 2 handed bug getting fixed will boost byz quite a bit, and egypt for that matter.

Anywho IMO since infs so pointless muslim faction that can use sarcacen militia are very, very usuable. They hold for quite a while, despite stats are pretty weak, plus they're cheap so you have lots of money for some quality cav spam :smash:

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Originally Posted by Stig

Aye I fully agree with you there. Having clone units for every faction would be ideal for balancing, but it's damned boring

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It's also boring after players find out the best faction and best unit selection because then that's all you see being used in multiplayer. It's no fun when you go up against a better player and he also has the better army.

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Originally Posted by ElmarkOFear

Plus, camels do not scare horses to the extent they did in MTW1. I miss that effect. Camels were slow, and cav was fast, so you had to really use some good tactics to trap cav so it had to fight your camels. Cav need not fear camels in M2TW because they do not have the punch like in MTW1.

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CA said they toned down several effects for the benefit of the newbies.

I didn't know that. Thanks for the info. Puzz. Unfortunately, some of the aspects they turned down were the ones most entertaining for me.

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It's also boring after players find out the best faction and best unit selection because then that's all you see being used in multiplayer. It's no fun when you go up against a better player and he also has the better army.

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It is? I didn't know that. What a luck you play the game so you can tell me, phew

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Originally Posted by Stig

It is? I didn't know that. What a luck you play the game so you can tell me, phew

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I played over 5000 multiplayer battles in MTW. It gets boring to see the same armies used all the time once the best faction and best units are identified especially when the RPS doesn't work. M2TW has unbalanced factions, unbalanced units and the RPS doesn't work. I don't have to spend $50 to know what's going to happen with multiplayer battles.

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Originally Posted by Puzz3D

CA said they toned down several effects for the benefit of the newbies.

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Which effects?

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M2TW has unbalanced factions, unbalanced units and the RPS doesn't work.

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yeah, luckely you can tell us, since we never played the game and you did, phew

I can vouch for some of them, since I am familiar with the old game and have played the current one for a short amount of time:

Terrain effects have been lessened from STW/MTW. The bonuses/penalties for certain units don't effect their fighting ability as much.

Fatigue: Units do not fatigue as quickly as in STW, but I DO like the fact that they can recover unlike from the STW days. Now THAT was a good idea. Micromanaging your fatigue was vital in STW, not so much in M2TW because units do not tire as quickly, and they can now recover.

Weather: Muskets can now shoot in rain, whereas in STW/MTW they could not.

Temperature: I haven't seen as great of an effect for heat on desert maps for armored units. Before, if you took an armored army to a desert battle your units would fatigue fairly quickly when compared to the unarmored muslim factions. This actually evened up the score between the two sides. Desert maps were fun to play and made the muslim factions viable. M2TW does not.

Height: Though this is bugged currently with the advantage being to the unit fighting uphill instead of downhill, so it is hard to tell if it is a reduced effect or just a product of the bug. In STW/MTW1 you arrow units were much more effective at killing when up high, and they are not in M2TW, but then again, archer units as a whole are not as good as in STW/MTW1 so it is hard to tell if it is a product of lessened height effects or the weakened archers.

Morale: In STW/MTW1 you saw many more chain routs than you see today, because the effects of flanking, shooting, losing, crowding, being outnumbered all had a known and specific effect on a unit or army. M2TW doesn't have it to the amount of STW/MTW1, which can be seen by the reduced number of massive chain routs you see during battle. Though many like this reduced chain rout effect.

Rout Recovery: Units recover much more easily in M2TW.

These may not be all, but they are probably a good portion of the reduced effects. Not that in some cases it is a bad thing, but it has been reduced.

Hope this helps a bit.

Ah your talking about mtw to rome engine, thought this is about rome to mtw2.

Btw, europeans were superb in desert you just needed to have mounted and militia seargents. ;)

Oh Sorry Lavos, you may be right. DOH! I keep forgetting there was an RTW. hehe I will let Puzz answer the questions then.

Elmark i disagree about chain routs, i've seen plenty in mtw2 and they are just as easy to create as in mtw1. Though i would say that units not engaged in combat and have units rout through/past them don't/not as easily as in mtw2. Otherwise spot on from what i've seen.

Problem with routs is that all units stop routing even without general using his horn.

ps. and no need mentioning that R word anymore...

Yup Zeph. You may be right. I have only played a few games online due to work so it may be just odds that I haven't seen a massive chain rout like in MTW.

I HAVE noticed that routed units appear to recover more quickly than in MTW1. That's not necessarily a bad thing though, since I always hated the fact that a unit of 5 archers could chase 100 of your routing sword/spear units off the map in MTW1. hehe

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Originally Posted by Puzz3D

I played over 5000 multiplayer battles in MTW. .

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And how many multiplayer battles have you played on M2TW, since I dunno but I have this crazy idea that if maybe a comment such as "the mp games unbalanced" would be more credible if it came from an actual player of the game :idea2:

Edit: @ Elmo mate, if you want armies more prone to routing up the "difficulty level". Higher the difficulty the more likely armies route.

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Originally Posted by Monarch

And how many multiplayer battles have you played on M2TW, since I dunno but I have this crazy idea that if maybe a comment such as "the mp games unbalanced" would be more credible if it came from an actual player of the game

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The point I was making is that I know how unbalance affects multiplayer battles based on my experience playing MTW. That M2TW is unbalanced is no secret. The players will figure out which are the best factions and best units, and once that happens that's what they'll use.

I have had it on the hardest setting since I installed the game Monarch. :) But like I said, I haven't really played that many games, considering how long I have it installed.

Its almost impossible for one person to say based on their experiences that the game is balanced, you could be playing noobs with a crappy faction and then thing "omg this faction owns" when if fact the guy u beat just sucked, and you could lose to someone alot better than you when ur using a good faction and think that ur faction sux. Some factions sucking is obvious, and I know that if I was playing myself as one of these factions against a good faction id lose every time.

Some people wont be happy until its like STW where every faction has the exact same units, yer it would be balanced but it would be terribly boring. Its always fun to play the "weaker" factions and try and make them better.

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Originally Posted by -Silent-Someguy

Its almost impossible for one person to say based on their experiences that the game is balanced, you could be playing noobs with a crappy faction and then thing "omg this faction owns" when if fact the guy u beat just sucked, and you could lose to someone alot better than you when ur using a good faction and think that ur faction sux.

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Imbalance means you could play better than someone and loose. That's why the factions should be balanced. The full depth of the tactical play comes out when the units are balanced. In general, imbalance is detrimental to gameplay.

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Originally Posted by -Silent-Someguy

Some people wont be happy until its like STW where every faction has the exact same units, yer it would be balanced but it would be terribly boring. Its always fun to play the "weaker" factions and try and make them better.

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Balanced sides isn't boring. Where is this idea coming from? Balanced sides is fair because it means you have to play better to win. If I play better than my opponent, I should win not loose because my faction is weaker. It's no fun to go up against better players when they take the better factions (I saw that done a lot in MTW), and it's not fair to take the better faction and beat up on weaker players either (I saw a lot of that in MTW as well). It's also not possible to set up a fair tournament unless the sides are balanced.

The factions aren't ballanced, but neither should be as they all bring something different to the table. In team games when certain factions are combined they can bringing out very good results, but in 1v1 they are pretty much useless. The only way to make the game exactly balanced is to have all the same units and that's just boring.

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Originally Posted by Zeph

The only way to make the game exactly balanced is to have all the same units and that's just boring.

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Both sides with the same units is not boring.

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Originally Posted by Puzz3D

Both sides with the same units is not boring.

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Shall we poll it?

imo it's boring ... hence why I never bothered with BI
according to some others it isn't boring ... hence why they're playing BI

Puzz3d doesn't even own the game so his opinions on balance arent relevant at all. He makes lots of claims about what "CA said" but there is never any links to these comments.

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Originally Posted by LuNaR

Puzz3d doesn't even own the game so his opinions on balance arent relevant at all. He makes lots of claims about what "CA said" but there is never any links to these comments.

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Puzz knows loads about STW, MTW and even quite a bit about RTW, he just never played MTW2.

And most of these claims by him are right, as CA said loads of things, just as for BI ... but this time they made quite a good game

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Originally Posted by Zeph

The only way to make the game exactly balanced is to have all the same units and that's just boring.

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Why should it be boring? You are assuming that just because players can buy same units then all armies will be the same.

The less balanced the units and factions are, the more you will see faction/unit selection centered on few factions and units. Now that will be boring and that is certainly what we have seen with earlier TW games. Mods like Community mod, Dux mod and Samurai Wars achieves a lot more varied gameplay for the MTW/VI engine than the vanilla game ever did.

And although Stig is gonna hate me for mentioning Samurai Wars the fact is that armies are more varied while still balanced using just 14 units than MTW using 100+ units.

But having different factions and more units can certainly be made balanced too as both the Community mod and Dux mod is proof of. It just takes a lot of work to get the balance right. But having big numbers of different units and factions just isnt enough. After a while most people have found the best stuff to select and the rest just becomes meaningless filler.

Sure its "fun" to try and win with the weaker factions but weak factions wont be seen in competitive games nor used much by players who also likes to have a chance of winning in ordinary games.


CBR

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Sure its "fun" to try and win with the weaker factions but weak factions wont be seen in competitive games nor used much by players who also likes to have a chance of winning in ordinary games.

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That depends on it

In most tourneys and clan games people choose 10k and High Era, which means certain factions are good and certain aren't.

When I host I set it too All Era and 5k, this means that you can bring an all cav army, but that means you can only bring 6 units. I've done tests and just the number of 20 units of low quality units (peasants, archers and pikemen) can beat that with ease. So with 5k you need to bring a proper army. And you can bring everything. Due to the fact you only have 5k the Russian Woodsmen suddenly become interesting. While otherwise you wouldn't bring them. All overpowered units (Musketeers for example) are now too expensive as it means you can only bring about 8 units (which is about 8x80=640 men), if I choose to make a big army I can bring about 15 units (which is 15x80=1200 men). That is about double yours, and that means all those uber units are taken away, since they are heavely outnumbered.

If you have the game try it once, pretty interesting

And that is the best way to ensure that factions which doesnt have the uber cavalry or infantry are still balanced.

Its the same considerations done for the MTW/VI mods i mentioned above, along with proper costs for each unit to make them worth their money.

I really cannot speak for M2TW as I have little interest in it(as to why would be off topic). But M2TW certainly is on the right track with the way they have approached the balance by focusing on a certain money level and more or less removing the upgrades.

But 10K might still be too much for all factions to be competitive. And we are still waiting for a patch to fix some unit types of course.

What factions do you consider to be weaker at 10k?


CBR

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What factions do you consider to be weaker at 10k?

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Depends on what you're good at.

I suck with cav, which means I'm nothing with factions like Russia, Poland and all Mongol like factions. I like keeping a strong line of infantry so I prefer factions that have good infantry. Others however are strong with cav so they consider Russia stronger.
But of all factions I would say that Spain, Milan and Venice are strong due to the fact they have good cav, good inf and and above all musketeers. And I would say that weaker factions are all horse heavy factions.

I think what raises the picture "boring" in clone factions, is the fact that then, if any of the units is imbalanced, the game will turn into a.. mirror battle. In other words, it will mean that there will be a dominant army, that's played exactly the same by everyone.. So it will be another RTS with a rush tactic started, developed and executed the same way from the 2 players, and it will only come down to luck to decide who wins.

Think RTW.. At some period, we had all Rome vs Rome 1 on 1's with an army basically consisting of 9 cavalry..

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Think RTW.. At some period, we had all Rome vs Rome 1 on 1's with an army basically consisting of 9 cavalry..

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Easily beaten by Seleucids. You just need 5 catas (with upgreads), 2 chariots 3 phalanx units (those for 730 ) 2 or 3 legion units and 2 or 3 archer units. Of course this is a rush army but if you know how to use it you were able to beat any player out there who was playing Romans with the army setup you have in mind.

Not to mention that Britons were able to destroy romans in few seconds. Head hurlers rememebr?

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I think what raises the picture "boring" in clone factions, is the fact that then, if any of the units is imbalanced, the game will turn into a.. mirror battle. In other words, it will mean that there will be a dominant army, that's played exactly the same by everyone.. So it will be another RTS with a rush tactic started, developed and executed the same way from the 2 players, and it will only come down to luck to decide who wins.

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Think of a perfect TW serie. I don't mind if they have same units or not but both factions have a unit to counter opponent one. Not just picking best possible army setup like 80% or 90% of your army consisted out of a cavalry.

Secondly rush army must not be able to win the match! I know many dislike this statement but personaly I don't find rush as an example of great skills. For rush you need to know game mechanics, good army setup based on your mechanical knowledge, fast clicking and good coordination like in first person shooters. From my point of view strategy and tactic play very small role here.

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Originally Posted by x-dANGEr

I think what raises the picture "boring" in clone factions, is the fact that then, if any of the units is imbalanced, the game will turn into a.. mirror battle..

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Yes if things arent balanced, the whole game becomes centered not only on one or a few factions but also just on a few units. It is utterly boring and a total waste of all the factions and units in the game. And if a player in a big game cant even pick one of the good factions he is basically screwed.

I can understand why some would then conclude that identical factions would make for a boring game. But they are basing that from the experience of playing unbalanced TW games.

I basically had one standard army in MTW/VI. Anything else were weaker setups for when I was bored. And then I can compare with the variety when playing mods (and that goes for both diverse faction mods to an identical faction mod like Samwars) It was incredible to see how little actually had to be changed to get such a big difference in gameplay and balance. But nevermind that.


CBR

Im with CBR on this one.

I think a variety of different factions is great but even when all of them have the same units that doesnt mean mirror armies. If theres good balance then almost any different combination of troop types can win the right situation.

M2TW does have potential. The reduction of upgrades one can afford at 10k means the game is much easier to balance in the long run and once the tweaks and glitches have been taken care of it could be very good indeed.

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Originally Posted by ElmarkOFear

I find that happens a lot in my games . . . . it couldn't have been anything I did that made them rout so quickly! hehe

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Originally Posted by Patrick

Maybe it's because you're ugly

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lol

by the way, Muslim factions are way too weak... No pikemen, no swordsmen, useless cavalry, weak armour etc.

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Easily beaten by Seleucids. You just need 5 catas (with upgreads), 2 chariots 3 phalanx units (those for 730 ) 2 or 3 legion units and 2 or 3 archer units. Of course this is a rush army but if you know how to use it you were able to beat any player out there who was playing Romans with the army setup you have in mind.

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Exactly why I said in "some" period. ~;)

Puzz3d if u are going to make claims about what "ca said" put a link to said claim, or otherwise it just looks like you making it up to give your own opinions more cred.

Realturka, 3 out of 5 muslim factions (including mong/tim) have swordsmen.

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Originally Posted by -Silent-Someotherguy

Puzz3d if u are going to make claims about what "ca said" put a link to said claim, or otherwise it just looks like you making it up to give your own opinions more cred.

Realturka, 3 out of 5 muslim factions (including mong/tim) have swordsmen.

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And then you've got Egypt who have axemen which after the patch will become very useful. But it doesnt really matter, Saracen Militia hold nicely.

for some odd reason the saracen spearmen can do better against cav than the papal guard but im not sure why.

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who have axemen which after the patch will become very useful

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To be honest those axmen units in MTW 2 have high stats and AP bonus. I hope that after the patch this units won't become as effective as axmen units in BI, otherwise we will have to face another spam.

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Originally Posted by mad cat mech

for some odd reason the saracen spearmen can do better against cav than the papal guard but im not sure why.

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Statwise the Papal Guard looks superior, so it has to be the animations. I'd guess, since Militia can be considered lighter troops that they can attack faster.

That is the main difference between the new engine from the old. The move to 3-D animations and trying to make the stats jibe with the individual units has created a major problem, not only in finding (which the MP community does very well), but also in the time it takes to make any corrections to help the problem.

Since CA has shown in the past a major unwillingness to spend much time making corrections, which benefit the MP community more than the SP campaign, do not expect to see these animation problems fixed. They might tweak the stats, but the underlying problem with the animation will remain.

As for things missing from the old in the new: Having played more online and having tried all the factions, I have come to believe that the things taht appear missing from the original engine, are actually still there, but their effects have been reduced.

Fatigue is still there, but it has changed from what it was previously. Fatigue only begins once a unit runs, walks uphill, or fights. Regular walking movement on flat terrain does not add any fatigue to units. Also, units can recover fully if rested. There is a different type of fatigue mgmt. necessary from STW. The one thing about fatigue that needs a slight change is cavalry fatigues too slowly, especially when the unit is running. I can see the light cav having this, but the heavily armored cav units need to have a differing rate of fatigue. This would help discourage the use of mostly cav knight armies and would slightly reduce the overall effectiveness of cav.

Morale is still there, but I believe it is set a bit too high, since most non-peasant units fight almost to the death. It appears the morale penalty from unit loss is the culprit. You see an awful lot of 2 thru 10 man/cav units running around at the end of a battle, which you rarely see in MTW/VI. Part of this is due to the in-battle experience upgrades, which have always been a problem for MP.

The in-battle upgrade system needs to be eliminated once again to help offset this morale problem and small units winning against a more numerical unit.

Terrain effects have been reduced slightly from the original game, with lesser bonuses/penalties for using units in the wrong type of terrain. Plus, most maps still do not have much forested areas, and the effects of sand/heat seem to have been reduced quite a bit as well for heavily armored units. Terrain factors should be increased slightly and more maps need be made containing larger areas of these different types of terrain. Height doesn't seem to make much difference in a unit's fighting ability, but this may be due to the bug where some units do better fighting uphill rather than downhill. The only noticeable effect from height I have seen is the ability of missile units to shoot further.

Well, I have to go now, but will continue this discussion later on.

Factions may be "balanced", but only because every faction has basically the same unit selection.

The french have longbows. Are you taking the piss CA?

The english have 2 units of spearmen with IDENTICAL stats, negating the 4 unit max rule entirely.

Not to mention 3 different types of footknight, with just 1 stat point between them.

Not to mention 4 different types of cavalry with just 1 stat point between them.

So balanced it may be. Interesting? Not really.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SoxSexSax

Factions may be "balanced", but only because every faction has basically the same unit selection.

The french have longbows. Are you taking the piss CA?

The english have 2 units of spearmen with IDENTICAL stats, negating the 4 unit max rule entirely.

Not to mention 3 different types of footknight, with just 1 stat point between them.

Not to mention 4 different types of cavalry with just 1 stat point between them.

So balanced it may be. Interesting? Not really.

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That's a good observation. The battle system is limited in the number of units it can differentiate in terms of combat capability. In the old engine, the dynamic range of the melee combat points is -20 to +20, but the usable range is more like -2 to +8 and you need a difference of at least 2 points to differentiate one unit from another in melee combat. That gives you 6 places on the scale to place melee units. The new engine increased the dynamic range to -64 to + 64 but reduced the size of the steps on the scale to half which helps when balancing the units, but only slightly increased the number of places on the scale for melee units. There is a new parameter in the new engine called lethality which could provide an additional way to differentiate melee units as long as it doesn't simply muddle the difference between the units. You have to have clearly differentiated units each serving a unique purpose for rich tactical gameplay to exist. If instead you put in lots of units with minimal differentiation between them, the differences are swamped out by the uncertainty of the combat calculation, and no one can make intelligent tactical decisions when the result is highly random. Numerous decisions were made by Creative Assembly in the design of the new battle engine which increased the randomness of the combat results, and this has detracted from the tactical gameplay.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SoxSexSax

So balanced it may be. Interesting? Not really.

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Erm, it was worse in Shogun :book:

@ france having longbows, lol if you use them instead of normal xbows then...well, your not the best army maker in the world. Way too expensive.

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Originally Posted by Monarch

Erm, it was worse in Shogun :book:

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Only in STW/MI v1.12 not so in STW v1.02, although monks were slightly underpriced and guns a bit weak.

aside from the horrible suspicion that someone sabatoged the game with super peasants and cav with tank treads i would say the best balance could come by unit pricing.

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Originally Posted by mad cat mech

aside from the horrible suspicion that someone sabatoged the game with super peasants and cav with tank treads i would say the best balance could come by unit pricing.

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Once the battle mechanics problems are fixed and the units adjusted so that they can actually perfom the task assigned to them, you would adjust the unit costs. This means assigning a basic cost to a unit based on its melee power, and then adding in the value assigned to things like anti-cav bonus, ranged effectiveness, mobility and morale etc. These added costs should accurately reflect the true value on the battlefield of the capability being added to the unit. One of the issues in MTW was that the anti-cav bonus and ranged units were overvalued while mobility was undervalued. Even in STW ranged units were overvalued, but the players were able to lower the cost of the ranged units by selling off their honor.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Monarch

Erm, it was worse in Shogun :book:

@ france having longbows, lol if you use them instead of normal xbows then...well, your not the best army maker in the world. Way too expensive.

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I think that's besides the point really. The fact that I CAN select longbows as the french demonstrates how similar the factions are. The best possible army available at any florin level for France is practically identical to the best possible army at any florin level for England, or Austria, or Venice...etc.

Basically, balanced through total lack of variety.

P.S. Comparing Shogun to MTW2 in terms of diversity is silly. Japan is ONE country. M2TW takes place over dozens of countries, spanning about a quarter of the globe. There is no comparison to draw.

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Originally Posted by SoxSexSax

I think that's besides the point really. The fact that I CAN select longbows as the french

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and there goes roughly 1/3 of your budget ... (at 10k) as 4 dismounted french archer costs more than 2800 florins.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SoxSexSax

demonstrates how similar the factions are.

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Does the fact that you can pick peasant archers with almost all western faction makes them all similar? I dont think so.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SoxSexSax

The best possible army available at any florin level for France is practically identical to the best possible army at any florin level for England, or Austria, or Venice...etc.

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With due respect to your oppinion but I have a very different experience. No way that you can play the same army lets say with Russia, Hungary, or Byzantines that you can play with France, or with France that you can play with Milan or Venice, etc. If there is a difference compared to MTW it is the fact that factions have a lot more varied unit rosters and lot more flexibility.