Exploits and imbalanced game features

[zhuge]

Hi everyone,

I'm having a good time with R:TW, currently playing a pretty smooth game with Julii (played both Shogun and Medieval before). Would like to know of any particular game features which are generally considered cheats/exploits/overpowered by the community here and probably likely to be addressed in a future patch.

-AI
It appears to me that the AI spends tons of cash on ships without ever marshalling them to attack another faction's navy. If naval battles are deemphasized, so too should the AI pay less attention to them. If all that cash was poured into making armies for aggresive conquest, things would be considerably tougher.

-Combat AI in towns
I've found that after you batter down the gates/wall of a particular town, the AI likes to station a unit to guard the gap without making any aggressive move. This tactic makes them unusually susceptible to javelin throwing units like Velites and Hastati as you can park a unit right outside the walls and throw away. To be fair the unit that guards the gap does retreat when taking damage but it also comes back to same position after a while. I can understand that venturing outside the walls to be surrounded by a superior force would not be wise but it would be better to have them retreat and regroup somewhere else where they can charge the enemy en masse when they enter the town while still staying out of range of the javelin troops.

-Retraining
I think being able to retrain multiple units and getting experienced troops back to full strength which are so far away from your heartland in 1 turn is overpowered and not realistic. I do realise that you'll need the proper buildings to do so but the campaign features quite a number of minor cities (ie, in the east regions) so getting the facilities aren't a problem after a major city siege. Would prefer removing it altogether or limiting it to just retraining 1 unit per turn with a proportionately higher cost to retrain higher experienced units (should cost like recruiting mercs). I believe this feature wasn't available in the earlier games and should be reexamined from a game balance viewpoint.

-Bandits
As with previous Total War games, bandits/rebels appear on the map sporadically (IIRC in previous games this was tied to the loyalty of the particular province). However while in previous games, rebel bands seemed too overpowered and aggressive, the bandits in R:TW don't seem to do much harm to a province even when left alone. I haven't seen anything really bad happen (like having the province recaptured by said bandits) and issues like devastation and possibly decreased trade are counterbalanced by the fact that a nearby young general can get quite a few easy victories thereby smoothly increasing his command rating and troop experience.

-Mercenaries
In previous games in the series, mercs were quite a drain on your economy (which was reflected by both their costs and upkeep) and were usually hired only when you were just about to get into a large battle. The hiring cost does seem increased in R:TW but the upkeep appears to be just like other regular units. That coupled with the fact that they seem more plentiful and readily available as compared to previous games.

-Bribery
Haven't used this so far though I've read about it being overpowered on the official boards.

-Particular units
I've read about chariot units being too uber and if they should be toned down. Has there been any official announcement for unit tweaks so far?
Units like Wardogs appear to recover all lost dogs after a fight (so long as their handlers are safe). That makes them a great unit to tie up enemy troops as their casualties won't matter... perhaps too good, IMHO.

[Bob the Insane]

AI - agree

Combat AI in towns - agree

Retraining - Mostly disagree except I think the replacements should be a zero experience (except where building bonuses apply).

Bandits - Seems alright to me, perhaps some bigger and more aggressive outbreaks would be cool too...

Mercenaries - Are different to MTW in that they represent the opportunity to raise unusual troops types for your faction rather than the organised mercenary bands of the Medieval period...

Bribery - agree, it is so easy it almost ruins the game if you don't control yourself... In MTW it would cost like 30,000 + florins to bribe a full army with an average general and that could totally bankrupt you... In RTW to buy a full stack of one of the other Roman factions army with a general, well you should get change out of 10,000d easily... Add that to the massive amount of cash you roll in once your economy kicks off in RTW...

Units - is all really personal opinion (except for $£*%ing desert axemen )... But should be easy to mod... That said every game where I am not playing Briton, German or Gaul the Britons kick the Germans arses, that looks a little unbalanced...

[zhuge]

Retraining - Mostly disagree except I think the replacements should be a zero experience (except where building bonuses apply).

Bandits - Seems alright to me, perhaps some bigger and more aggressive outbreaks would be cool too...

Mercenaries - Are different to MTW in that they represent the opportunity to raise unusual troops types for your faction rather than the organised mercenary bands of the Medieval period...

Bribery - agree, it is so easy it almost ruins the game if you don't control yourself... In MTW it would cost like 30,000 + florins to bribe a full army with an average general and that could totally bankrupt you... In RTW to buy a full stack of one of the other Roman factions army with a general, well you should get change out of 10,000d easily... Add that to the massive amount of cash you roll in once your economy kicks off in RTW...

Units - is all really personal opinion (except for $£*%ing desert axemen )... But should be easy to mod... That said every game where I am not playing Briton, German or Gaul the Britons kick the Germans arses, that looks a little unbalanced...

-Retraining
Replacements having zero experience is fair with total troop experience getting averaged out is fair if that is allowed for a limited number or troops per turn (say 1 or 2). I guess I also wouldn't really mind getting blacksmith and armourer benefits for appropriate costs. It's mass retraining that bothers me which allows you to regain army strength in too short a time without relying on the logistics of transporting new troops. But well we can always agree to disagree.

-Bandits
Not sure if the actual number of bandits is tied to general public order. I've seen bandits popping up when order was 'green' (happy). Perhaps it is tied to unrest? Does anyone know what triggers formation of bandits? Would be nice to see them advance randomly along trade routes once in a while or march against the local town if they were strong enough.

-Mercenaries
Just feel that they are too common and too cheap. Wandering generals usually get a good choice of whatever local mercs can be produced in the area. I guess what I'm trying to say is I don't want early rushes to be too easy because of merc hiring once you've got a stable economy.

-Units
Well the Britons have chariots...

[zhuge]

Just saw this over at the official forums.
http://p223.ezboard.com/fshoguntotal...ID=13698.topic

Quoting Granville69 (CA coder):
"I can assure you that a patch is underway but I cannot give you a time, let's just say it will be the near future.
I can't go into too much detail but I'm happy to say that the AI will be much improved in both the battles and campaign map, as well as many of the issues which have been spoken about on these forums."

Looks like there's hope for the future indeed.

[ericostermann]

AI Cities...I have found the AI in cities to be fine. Yes they hold the gap, but so do I an dwhen I am out of missles so be it. I also noticed last night that if the have missle troops in the town they moved up to pepper me. The AI has done a good job of falling back and reorganizing...hitting me with counter attacks 3 times enroute to the city square and fighting hard enough to have me lose to the clock, which BTW I find not bothersome. In one village assault as I was winning at the town center a warband came charging from no where and assaulted me which was a great surprise.........

One Note: I play all my battles at eye level not arial balloon, but ground level of the units so I am often surprised and have management chaos issues, but adds to the game tremendously as I don't get an arial view of things.

[Slaists]

On Bribing:

Bribing actually appears to have been a frequent feature of the ancient warfare. I remember reading about a Numidian general/prince who while being a Roman ally upset them considerably. Upon Senate's orders he was escorted to Rome to face a Senate trial. Nonetheless, he got away by bribing the SENATE... Even more, once an army was dispatched to take care of him in his home town: he bribed the whole lot at his city gates to leave him alone...

Probably, within the game, the AI should be more prone to use bribing... Of course, only if it's profitable to the respective faction. Imagine how upsetting it would be to lose the nice stack you just built to attack someones empire. So far, i've seen only a few cases when an AI agent attempts to bribe my armies: and, unless it was a family member strolling alone, it never tried to bribe the small captain lead stacks in transition.

Also, in my opinion, the likelihood of a bribe being accepted should be toned down. Other than that: it could stay as it is.

[Slaists]

On Mercenaries:

Armies, in the time period, relied on mercenaries a lot. I do not think, they are too common in the game. I like the feature that they are now region specific. As to them being cheap: well, the cost of 800 or so dinari for a unit of Cretean archers is not too cheap, in my opinion. Add the fact, that you cannot really replenish mercenaries and once you move out of a specific region, mercenary types of that area become unavailable.

[Sin Qua Non]

I especially agree with the bribery issue. I think maybe a sliding scale of cost implemented into bribery would curtail its over use. A simple way would be to make each bribe more expensive per captia than the previous. This would also reflect the fact that if you continuously bribe armies, you are going to get the reputation of being the ATM of the ancient world.

Another, more comprehensive solution would be to take into account the finances of the bribed army: if finances are high, then the economy of the faction is most likely good and the general doesn't feel the need to betray his faction for money alone. If the faction finances are in shambles, then maybe an underfunded general would take a kickback to scuttle off and return the army to the fields. Combine these two solutions, and maybe throw in a few faction leader vices for overbribing, and you have a bribing system that can't be abused without serious cost.

[Warhammer]

Playing on VH/VH I think the AI is MUCH improved over MTW and STW. In MTW the only difficulty I had in battles were of the WTF type when my line would collapse for no reason, which really bugged the daylights out of me.
Here, I know exactly why my forces broke.

However, I like how each faction tends to fight slightly differently. The Gauls tend to make all out charges, the Spanish use hit and run tactics, etc. It gives each faction some flavor. My problem with the AI lies in other places:

1) As others have touched on, the AI tends to "freeze" at times, for example when facing a foe with light infantry (archers, etc.) when it does not have any, it will stay in position under the arrows. It should either charge, or if the charge will be unsuccessful, withdraw.

2) The marching and counter-marching when defending walls. This is a love/hate thing for me. On one hand that is exactly what I would do, plug up the breach in the wall, or be in a place where I could rapidly plug the breach. If I did not feel I could plug the breach, I would withdraw to the streets and fight from there. The counter-marching is counterproductive and does neither, but it seems like the correct instinct is there, it just gets into a loop. "We're underfire, fall back! Ok, we're out of range. We must plug the breach! Fall back! We're underfire!" Lather, rinse, repeat.

3) The biggest problem for me is not fighting under generals. Another feature I like in the game, is that each level of general tends to fight comparable to their rank. Fighting a 4-5 star general on VH can be a nail biting experience, but it does not happen enough since the AI does not develop their generals.

Other than that, I do not have many issues with the game. The only other one I could think of would be the Parthian Army, but it is hard to recreate their supply issues in the game as it is structured. For those who do not know, the Parthians had a very good feudal based army, but it was not a standing army, and could not follow up their successes due to their supply system, and their army structure.

[Bob the Insane]

-Retraining
Replacements having zero experience is fair with total troop experience getting averaged out is fair if that is allowed for a limited number or troops per turn (say 1 or 2). I guess I also wouldn't really mind getting blacksmith and armourer benefits for appropriate costs. It's mass retraining that bothers me which allows you to regain army strength in too short a time without relying on the logistics of transporting new troops. But well we can always agree to disagree.

I would still disagree that there is any problem in retraining so many as long as you have the facilities, population and cash available.. It is open to the AI to do the same thing... The game turn is 6 months and the recuits are gathered locally...

[zhuge]

Did some tests on Bribery with a diplomat with 4 Influence.
Tried on a Brutii stack of 38 and 40 Hastati each and was able to bribe them for 429 denarii.
I was quite shocked as that is less than the price of a single Hastati unit (440 denarii)

Tried again on another Brutii stack with 40 Hastati, 33 Velites and 40 Velites and got them to join the Julii for 466 denarii.

Bribing generals appear more expensive though. With a 3 Influence diplomat, I tried bribing a Scythian general (I was already at war with Scythia at that time) with 7 units (mainly horse archers and 1 archer unit). For 7825 denarii, the general agreed to join and the rest of the army disbanded.

Tried on towns as well. With a 3 Influence diplomat, Athens (a Minor City) joined the Julii for 17062 denarii. The city had a Governor's Palace, Stone Wall, Academy, Land Clearance, Militia Barracks, Shrine to Juno, Stables and Practice Range as well as the 2 Hastati units of 40 men each inside.

I certainly strongly feel bribing captains is extremely cheap. To gain the loyalty of soldiers already serving another faction, it would be logical to have them cost even more than ordinary mercs who already demand about X2 the normal cost.
Add that to the fact that you are depleting the enemy of units while at the same time reinforcing yours and that these troops are right out in the field already, the base cost should be at least triple or quadruple that of the normal unit's cost. So bribing 2 Hastati units should cost at least 3 X 2 X 440 = 2640 denarii which sounds like a more effective deterrent for uncontrolled bribing.

All tests done on VH/VH settings, playing with Julii.


@Bob the Insane:
Regarding retraining, I do agree that you do deplete population and cash (as you should) and that 6 months is enough time to replenish troops. However, the game is an abstraction. In the game you can only hire 1 troop per region per turn which limits rushes. Therefore we should also limit retraining to 1 troop per turn for balance reasons.
Being able to hire multiple troops for any given city for 1 turn would be unbalancing (unless the AI does the same, depletes its treasury and rushes you with hordes of troops) and therefore I maintain that some tweaking needs to be done here.

[Ulstan]

"That coupled with the fact that they seem more plentiful and readily available as compared to previous games"

I'm glad to see this actually. The AI has actually gone in and recruited mercs in aregion before attacking me! The poor AI could always use the boost, and as I don't user mercs myself, doesn't seem to be a problem.

[Slaists]

Actually, I see AI retrain its troops constantly... I believe, it happens automatically, if the AI (also, a human player on automanage) leaves incomplete units in a town. In my opinion, it's just a plus since it allows the AI to be stronger as well.

[zhuge]

Agreed. I did meet a Gaul general who gave me a tougher fight with his 6 units of mercs (mostly Spanish mercs like Scutarii and some Balearic slingers). I am not opposed to the AI hiring mercs. In fact I think they should when their regions have been conquered and they desperately need troops to mount a counter offensive (which describes my situation above).

What I would prefer is that mercs require more upkeep to maintain (which was the case in Medieval) at least for the player on harder difficulties (if not for the AI). After all they are supposed to flock to the highest bidder, have little loyalty and should need more gold to maintain their service.
Currently cost is about twice base price but upkeep remains the same. For example, Warbands cost 420 and require 200 to upkeep whereas Barbarian Mercenaries cost 800 but still require only 200 to upkeep. Having twice the upkeep would be fair and discourage merc rushes or at least a slightly increased upkeep as a compromise.

I don't use mercs either in my games as I think they are tad overpowered if you have enough cash at hand and want a fast boost. Would like to use a few occasionally for large fights in future though if they came with a bigger price tag.

[Bhruic]

@Warhammer - In general, I agree with you, but I think you left 2 things out. The one is the well-known "stand by tower and commit suicide" issue. I'm assuming CA has fixed this by now.

The other one would be the AIs complete lack of response to the player's movements. This can be seen in non-city assaults, when you can ride units around to flank the AI without it moving, but it is better illustrated in cities.

I'll give an example - I sieged a city, brought up 1 tower, and had 2 sap points. The sap points happened to be far away from the gate, so I moved my army to that location. As per default, the AI was guarding the gates, with the majority of troops by the "default" start location gate. So I did the sap points, collapsed 2 walls, and used the tower to storm a third. The AI did nothing. I walked my army right into the city. The AI did nothing. Only when I went to capture the tower did the AI attack, with the units on the wall. The unit on the ground stayed there and didn't move until I killed the wall defenders and took the tower. Then it went into the "march around uselessly" behaviour you mentioned above.

The AI needs to be able to react to what the player does. If it sees the majority of the player's army lined up by 2 sap points, it needs to move its army to the sap point to defend there. Defending the gate is useless if I'm not planning on assaulting it.

Bh

[son of spam]

UNITS

Eggy Chariot Archers are kinda OP in that they get Armor Piercing, so along with their crazy turning thing, they can take out cataphracts and other heavy cav most of the time, which strikes me as somewhat funny. They still can't handle masses of light cav tho :D

[andrewt]

I'm finding chariots to be more effective against cavalry than infantry.

[ranpiz]

i think cavalry needs to be looked at, playing as spain you are better off making round shield cav than making scutarii or bull warriors, even tho the stats are less.

all-cav armies can also march further. want to take a city? np just recruit 1-3 units of mercs to carry the ram, then disband them afterwords.

also the fact that theres less cav per unit, your kill ratio is much better causing more "heroic" victories. seriously cav is too strong in this game, because the ai wont build all spear armies when you field all horse armies.