Historical basis for STW etc (split from the Shogun II Thread)

[caravel]

There is nothing actually wrong with having clone units as such - that is units like Chivalric Sergeants, Order Foot Soldiers, Italian Infantry etc. This gives "flavour" so long as all units cost the same. It would be pointless to give the Italians both, but again if the support and initial training costs are the same it's not a real issue. The issue is where certain units cost more for no particular reason, without actually having better stats, or where better units are available too early/easily while inferior units are still around, being used by other factions.

A good example of this are the units brought into the main campaign by the Viking Invasion expansion. Most notably, the Viking units - which definitely weren't needed, the eastern javelin units and the Fyrdmen which are a Feudal Sergeants clone. The most notable of course is still peasants and the mass of irritating siege equipment (i.e. ballistas) that the AI builds. The STW/MTW AI trains what you give it and even with improvements to the unit training influences "junk units" still appear in even the best mods.

The only solution IMHO is to give factions a set roster for each of the three eras. Catholic factions should be balanced so that each has a small advantage (i.e. the english have longbows, so should not have Chivalric Knights and up, the French stay as they are minus the pavise arbs/crossbows, the Italians have the pavise crossbows but lack something else etc, etc.). Subtle differences like this would have made for a well balanced and challenging game - as it is MTW is a very unblanced game. This is apparent when you compare the heavy inf./cav rosters vs the light/missile based rosters. When it comes to auto-calced battles (which is what all AI vs AI battles are), missiles are not factored in autocalc so factions like the Turks always come off worse from such encounters.

This is where STW wins hands down. It does have the balanced rosters and none of the above is relevant. Every faction has the same units and thus every battle should be reasonably even. If MTW had the same balance as STW, it would be the best TW game by far.

-Edit:

Congratulations on promotion to member Karl08