Quote Originally Posted by Brave Brave Sir Robin View Post
That being said, Roman infantry is still too cheap. This was a consideration by the EB team to represent readily available manpower, not combat effectiveness as MP should be based.
I was conferring on precisely this issue yesterday with my colleagues. They agreed with me and you Brave Sir that although the Single Player values may--nay, they indeed do--represent corresponding real-life phenomena such as Rome's manpower reserves, the Multiplayer scene is a completely different ballgame. For firmer competition, one would ideally have similar price ranges for similarly functioning units (i.e., the various classes and sub-classes of infantry and cavalry). In fact, we were considering the mid 1st-century BCE, during which time Rome and Armenia were the strongest empires on EB's map. I don't know how many men Rome ruled over, but Armenia ruled over a population of over 20 million people. That considered, it didn't make sense to us why in online play, costs should remain the same as in SP, such that an Armenian company of swordsmen, armoured, should cost some couple hundred mnai more than the corresponding Post-Marian cohort of Roman infantry (and considering that the Roman cohort has 25% more men than the Armenian company!)

The primary issue in this case has always been the question of the re-adjustment of costs of all the hundreds of units in order to adapt them to MP scene. Who will do this? How will it be conducted? How long will it take to sufficiently test it long-term? Is it worth it?

And probably even more important in order to prevent a similar problem in EBII, will the EB development team consider this when making the sequel? Ideally, they would consider the MP EDU and give it the proper attention it deserves, setting aside a different adaptation of cost values for the MP scene, keeping in mind that MP is played for competitive enjoyment, not for the representation of some factions manpower reserves. Because, after all, each MP battle is a one-time, exclusive event. We look at them individually, not in light of centuries of kingdom or empire-running (hence the need for cost adaptation tailored to competition and balance, not historical trends).

P.S. Ludens could you pass this on to the development team?