Gameplay Balance

[||Lz3||]

*cough* looks like someone just came from RTW... oh and "competitive" gamer (I wonder what am I then)


RTW is so full of lies compared against reality (*cough**cough* urban/praetorian cohorts army ) ,DONT trust what RTW or Hollywood says...

I also think that cavalry is horrible when talking about effectiveness/ cost but you can't win any battle without cav... and prices are also realistic , not made for balanced gameplay , as you might be able to see by now , the majority EB players prefer historical accuracy and NOT balanced gameplay... horses were expensive to maintain , thereafter its in-game high cost

I dare you to play a MP match... but you have to use ONLY infantry with no archers or skirmishers since they are useless...


well I guess you can change the cav stat if you wish (:¬|) , and add lorica segmentata (cause its cooler) in the process...

EB is not exactly game balanced , but rather historically acurate , and ALL of us are more than pleased whit it


an off topic question do you like halo?

[russia almighty]

Got to love power gamers sometimes.



"OI EVERYTHING HAS TO BE TEH BALANCED"

Sorry dummy, warfare and army compositions in history isn't balanced. Even at Carrhae, the kataphraktoi backed the fuck off from head on cavalry charges the first time around; they'd only charge when the legions were trying to make a run for it, and even then, the charge wasn't that great. It was the HA's that won the day.

So read a history book, cause frankly you are pissing off the rest of us.

[Captain Trek]

Bear in mind, in real non-hollywood history, casualties in the actually battle itself are very low (no more than 3-5% of the combatants involved).

I think that would be because (you might not believe this, but it's true) in reality, it would only be about 2% of the men invovled doing all the killing... Look up the documentray "the Truth About Killing" and see what I mean... In the Age of Imperialism and even as late as WWII, only 2% of the men involved were doing the killing, 25% were firing but were firing over the heads of the enemy, the prmitive parts of their mind telling them to try and scare the enemy away (this was a typicall Gaulish tactic as well, but it didn't generally work on the Romans because they were all doped up on lead from their drinking water pipes), and the remaning three quaters weren't even firing at all...

How could this apply to a melee senario, though? I reckon what most of the men would have done would be to simply do what they do in drill when they train with each other, and would wind up striking each-other's shields and whatnot, but would deliberately (subconciously at least) avoid taking advantage of openings through which they could score a kill...

Once the enemy was routed, it would become easy for the 2%ers in the cavalry to cut their way through a ton of enemies...

Do you think that's in the ballpark?

[Cartaphilus]

In the ancient war most of the casualties happened when the battle had finished and the enemies were fleeing.

[Africanvs]

I see what you're saying, but you're confused about the way a cavalry charge happened in this time period. People weren't ridden down so much as they were outflanked and outmaneuvered. Simply being enveloped and realizing you were surrounded, and the effect that had on ones moral was the key. A xyston through the back didn't hurt either but cavalry weren't barreling through lines of infantry. There is a unit that behaves in the way you're talking using shear mass as it's weapon: it's called an elephant, and if you want to run over dudes and launch them into the air, go for AS or another elephant faction. If you learn to use your cavalry correctly, you'll see that they can be very effective, but they'll never be the queen on the chess board. Typically, my cavalry oppose the enemy cavalry, as was the case in history most times. Only after winning the cavalry engagement, do they turn on the enemy missile troops, and then after routing those, strike at the weak points in the enemy line from the rear (not to kill a lot of men, but to rout them so my infantry can hack them to bits). Cavalry simply aren't the destructive force you want them to be. Raising their mass will make it so when you land a charge you'll send guys flying everywhere and it will be very devastating and ahistorical. The thing is, if thats what you want, why are you playing this mod? A shit load of work has gone into creating a historical situation where things are as realistic as possible. I think you saying that it isn't vannilla enough is a huge compliment but why you would want to go back to that is beyond me. Anyway if you want uber cavalry good luck with your modding of descr_mount but if you mess up the file, fear the LorDBulA if you need help. ^^

[Arkanin]

I see that the average level of maturity here is not terribly high. To those of you who at least formulate your comments without complete direspect (Africanvs et al.), thank you. Historical accuracy aside, I still think it's unexciting and imbalanced, so let's let my opinion be mine and yours yours.

To the person that said I should edit descr_mount, thank you. Can give me more information about what I need to change? I'd like to figure this out before the thread gets closed.

[||Lz3||]

well...cav wasn't really useful on those eras... I guess that's why romans never actually worried on having a good cavalry... so perhaps the stats mean that you cant use cavalry against every type of unit and pretty much win every time as you can in MTW2... why? well because in history they weren't able to do that...


this is a history based mod... perhaps if you try RTR ... I've heard it has more "action" , and about the exciting thing...well I wouldn't say I'm excited when I play the game but...rather fascinated unless I'm playing MP (My offer to have a MP match is still alive... )

[satalexton]

indeed RTR has a pretty good focus on gameplay, quite well balanced too....of course at the expense of certain historical details. But u'll still get your cavalry slaughtered if you charge head on into prepared light infantry.

EB is not the average game you buy in the streets, EB's focus is NOT on entertainment, but rather EDUCATION. thats where the term EDUTAINMENT comes in.

In fact, arguably, I could even consider EB as a historical simulator of sorts... go see the AARs, you can even say many of them are actually "what-ifs" of history.

if you want a balanced game set in the classical period, i recommend you [Age of Empires: Rise of Rome]. I quite liked that game back then.

[||Lz3||]

I've learned more ancient history in 3 weeks of EB that in all my life!!

geez I didnt even knew there was something called baktria for example


Now I almost consider myself as an amateur expert

[craziii]

I see that the average level of maturity here is not terribly high. To those of you who at least formulate your comments without complete direspect (Africanvs et al.), thank you. Historical accuracy aside, I still think it's unexciting and imbalanced, so let's let my opinion be mine and yours yours.

To the person that said I should edit descr_mount, thank you. Can give me more information about what I need to change? I'd like to figure this out before the thread gets closed.

find the mass line, then change the number to whatever you like. keep in mind the armored cataphract mass value though, as it should alwas be the heaviest horse mount. elephants should be change to 3 times that.

[Mediolanicus]

I agree that maybe you should go for RTR then.

RTR is a very, very good improvement of RTW, with lots of action and well balanced, decent gameplay.

EB is a very, very good game, using the RTW engine.

They are therefore uncomparable.

(wow, just wait until Hax sees this page)

As for your horses. I can kill either unit, as long as I don't charge head-on - but then again what commander would do that? - with every cavalry unit in the game that has a lance as first or secondary weapon.
The only problem I encounter is something hard coded, namely that you can't charge running skirmishers.

[beatoangelico]

I see that the average level of maturity here is not terribly high. To those of you who at least formulate your comments without complete direspect (Africanvs et al.), thank you. Historical accuracy aside, I still think it's unexciting and imbalanced, so let's let my opinion be mine and yours yours.

To the person that said I should edit descr_mount, thank you. Can give me more information about what I need to change? I'd like to figure this out before the thread gets closed.

if you'd simply asked "I'm still dissatisfied, how can I change it?" insted of teaching us how real cavalry charges work and that the mass value is the holy grail, maybe the answers would have been different

[Arkanin]

Regardless, I DO NOT want to debate this with you. I would much rather someone tell me where I can change cavalry so that they penetrate ranks as intended like in old RTW... which was unfair when they cost the same as infantry, but is quite fine when they have triple the upkeep.

TY for the replies that were constructive. Those of you who can't muster the maturity to be... I'm just not going to reply.

RTR is a very, very good improvement of RTW, with lots of action and well balanced, decent gameplay.

EB is a very, very good game, using the RTW engine.

They are therefore uncomparable.

By definition, EB's an RTW mod. In about 3 hours, I could produce an export_descr_unit.txt file that causes EB battles to play like RTW battles. Anyway, that's not what I'm going to do, but I *am* going to make one that causes EB to play like a combination of EB and RTW.

I'm going to make a mod that focuses solely on balanced gameplay that is only somewhat slower than original RTW, with physics a little more like RTW. The goal is for it to play a bit like darthmod. If you don't like it, don't play it. I'll post it up in a while, then start a campaign and begin a continuous tweaking process.

[mlp071]

I am not sure that you are taking into account additional factors such as:

a) units experience (did they had chevrons and if so which ones?) and if there was AI FM around and some others.

b) EB AI generals are packed with stars and all different goodies in order to prolong fight, since AI is not capable itself to do that.

c) Was your cavalry also tired or not ? I mean, no ones runs same if they are tired, and horses are not exception to that.

All that also affects units moral and liability to break.

Even so, no unit will break from one cavalry charge while they are still not tired, unless you charge them with cavalry with very high charge value.

Personally, I tried several M2TW mods and didn't like it ,because suggestions that you are making made my game unsatisfactory for me.Example 2-3 units of my Armored Sargents( T1 or T2 cavalry with almost no charge value) would rout pretty much any army, including elite one off the field.And as human i know how to take advantage of that(high unit mass) , but AI is completely incapable to do it.

Result of all that for me was very short battles and i would win without even trying to use any tactical knowledge.I found that gamebreaking for me and unrealistic.

For me it comes down to this:

1) Cavalry (with some exceptions like Cata's) of classical period was not all powerful to win battle by single charge, if it was Romans would be first to use and abuse that considering their history of using others knowledge in their favor.

2) Only coming Dark Ages Cavalry got more power and even then it could not resolve battle alone, you still need infantry and other support units to do that.
You can see Battle of Adrianople(Goths) in 378 for that, as that was historically(i believe wrongly) marked as start of cavalry domination in battle . Or you can see Battle of Mohi and Batlle of Legnica in 1241(if anyone had best cavalry it was Mongols).

In all those cases cavalry charges in the back were used to win battle after infantry, archers and HA's tired, demoralized and somewhat depleted enemy.

3) Having cavalry with mass like in RTW vanilla or in Darth mod in M2TW( if you check my posts in the past i am huge fan of Darth's but nevertheless) is just way to much, it takes away tactical point of battles.All you need is to lineup infantry to hold other side and then charge once. Game over without any sweat.

Same applies for lowering down defensive values of infantry.

4) Price of cavalry(and prices in general) in EB is pretty much on the mark. You pay less then for infantry if you recruit unarmored , crappy nomad HA's (very useful ones though), but you will pay bunch if you want Ornamented, heavy armored cavalry that has a punch.

You can ask Antiochus III the Great how much it cost him to recruit his army at Magnesia(he had 12000 cavalry).And he still lost to Romans without almost no cavalry(5000 cavalry).

I am not sure, but it looks to me that you are looking for quicker battles where you can decide battle in first couple of minutes with 1-2 cavalry charge.Or i am wrong in that ?

Sorry for lengthy post.

[Captain Trek]

RTR is a very, very good improvement of RTW, with lots of action and well balanced, decent gameplay.

EB is a very, very good game, using the RTW engine

I see the issue of RTR vs EB thusly...

What RTR tries to do is it attempts to make RTW as historically accurate as possible, but with a focus on keeping the gameplay as balanced as possible and retaining the 'spirit' of what Creative Assembly were originally attempting to accomplish when they made the game...

EB, on the other hand, says 'screw it' and rebuilds the game almost entirely from the ground up and puts historical accuracy first, balanced gameplay second...

That's the thing really, as you said, EB and RTR attempt to accompish different things... That's the long and short of it... And indeed, if this guy is so obsessed with having more powerful cavalry charges and RTR apparantly has that, he should probably play RTR instead...

EB is not the average game you buy in the streets, EB's focus is NOT on entertainment, but rather EDUCATION. thats where the term EDUTAINMENT comes in.

The way I see it, if I were to picture EB as a meal, I would see the primary entertainment value of the mod as being the meat and potatoes, with any other vegitables on the plate representing how the drive for historical accuracy crosses over into the gameplay and actually serves to make the gameplay better... This comes in several forms including how units behave and look on the battlefield, unit availability and cost on the campaign map, the campaign map itself and, of course, the new mechanics behind generals and the traits and ancillaries they acquire...

The, what I would call 'extraneous' historical infomation (like the historical context you get when you right click on a unit or building for more infomation) that does not directly affect the gameplay is (I think) appropriately represented by a drink of some sort (wine possibly) to go along with the meal... You could eat the meal without the drink (I.E. You could play the game without reading any of the histroy), but taking the drink as well helps round out the meal and almost certainly serves to make it a more pleasureable experience... You don't want to drink the wine at the expense of the meal though, or else the meal will languish and get cold while you chug down the wine and become drunk... What that means is that you don't want to find yourself having done nothing for an hour or hours because you were reading through pages and pages worth of historical infomation... This is, after all, a game, not a textbook...

In the context of the meal, you're far better off taking an occasional sip from the wine glass as you eat... That is, for example, only reading up on the histories of particular units and buildings as you become curious about them (such as when I first encountered a unit of Elite African Pikemen when I attacked Carthage)... This is what I do anyway (your method may be different though, but it's fine as long as you don't suspend actually playing the game just for the sake of reading the history)... I also don't make it my buisness to read through every 'the year in history' 'cover to cover' as it were (rather I just skim through them and get the main points)...

That's just how I view it anyway...

Anyway, I'd just like to see if we can adress something else Arkanin said but no one has responded to... that being his view that Rorarii are unbalanced... What do you think about this? I've personally found them to be a fantastic and highly versatile light unit, just the thing for bogging down enemy cavalry and/or out flanking the enemy... I've also found they make a fantastic garrison unit, being fairly cheap, having large numbers and being strong enough to deal with brigands and the occasional small enemy force that slips by my main legions... I'm personally not sure if being versatile necessarily makes them unbalanced, but what do you think? Does Arkanin's statement regarding Rorarii have merit?

[Cartaphilus]

I hate this f***ing CTD after winning a battle!!!



Death wishes increasing!!!

[Mediolanicus]

Wait half a minute at the victory screen before continuing.
That way your PC can "catch his breath".

take a look at this : https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=104003
and that : https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=103681

[Grim Fiddler]

I just read through this entire thread today. It was very interesting and informative. Only towards the end did it get testy, when some people started to defend EB against Arkanin too harshly.

I kept finding out things I didn’t know or had forgotten, like the single right-click, then alt-right click.

[Sdragon]

I always hear people complain about skirmishers beating heavy cavalry, but I've yet to have this happen. My medium cavalry even do fine against them. It's just a matter of waiting for contact (When your cavalry starts to act stupid), hit the stop button and order the attack again. Only my lightest of cavalry avoid such a fight.

[||Lz3||]

actually I had lost many heavy cavs by those pesky skirmishers... but oh well... they have spears...


although is a little annoying to get your 5200 mnai unit killed by a 245 one ...


either way I do bealive that I certainly DONT need anything from the original RTW...there's nothing I would like to recover from there

[satalexton]

quite normal if you think about it in real life.

everybody has a spear, some have longer, more expensive ones. Other have a shorter crappier one. But in the end, all it takes to kill a cavalrymen are a bunch of steadfast men sticking their spear the right direction. It makes little difference be it a skirmisher or a hoplite. the difference is how disciplined and train you are to stand fast long enough to deal with multiple charges.

I always have at least 2 units of heavy calvary with me, and they typically last me at least a dozen battles before needing retraining. Why? Cuz i keep pulling them out the moment the charge is spent, wheel to their back again/find a new target, charge again. If done right, cavalry in EB is deadly.

Even the Eqvites can be deadly, they're just not worth the price for medium melee cavalry thats all.

[Africanvs]

The cost of a unit doesn't always mean a lot. Cavalry are expensive because typically you're talking about supplying a soldier with finer armor and weapons, one maybe two horses each, tack for the horse, sometimes barding, etc. Although they might still be vanquished by a cheap ass gallic farmer with a stick. Just like sports, the key to winning battles is all about match-ups. You have to know thy enemy. There is nothing more brutal than missile troops with spears for a cavalryman. Indeed the spear is the bane of cavalry. I am wary to charge spear units even from behind with cavalry because the spear units turn around eventually. It happened a lot in history that cavalry would dismount during a fight and make an infantry battle of it, but the engine doesn't allow this. M2TW just drove me crazy when their cavalry would charge frontally right through my pikes.....unggghhh. Cavalry is perfect for me in EB but if it isn't for you I understand why you want to change it. It's your free time, and it is a game so it should be fun for you. That being said...

Arkanin, it's all about how you want your game to play. You have to excuse the many diehard fans of EB. Some people don't like when people walk in and start saying how the mod is flawed in certain areas. This mod has a long history and many hours of work have been done. Nothing in EB has been done without a lot of discussion and research. There always seems to be someone who thinks the mod should change to fit them. A better place for this would probably have been the unofficial modding thread where people are more receptive to these kinds of changes and would be happy to help you implement them. At any rate calling people immature and the like is not going to solve anything. It will probably just turn into a flamefest and will inevitably be locked. I'm not naming any names but if the shoe fits wear it. Never get into an argument with an idiot, they'll drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.

[Cartaphilus]

Wait half a minute at the victory screen before continuing.
That way your PC can "catch his breath".

take a look at this : https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=104003
and that : https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=103681

Thanks a lot.
I'll try it next time.