Cavalry comparison

[aluenser]

well, romans being the most advanced faction militarily is historically correct. as to balance between factions: the fun part of the imperial roman campaign is supposed to be the civil war against other romans whom you have nurtured and helped all through the initial/middle stages of the campaign... of course, many rusher-types here prefer to hurt and sabotage their roman brothers from the start... :(

as to other factions: it's always fun to fight strong roman armies :)

Sure, in Imperial Campaign Mode the Roman supremacy is nothing but justified, but thinking of Mulitplayer mode I have my doubts.
Don't you find that... suboptimal?

[Satyr]

If units are priced according to their strengths then in Multi you can afford to add enough valor and armor and weapons upgrades to equal things out when playing some of the weaker factions.

But in the Campaign, I much prefer to have some really strong and easy to play factions (ahhh, the Vikings!!!) for those days when you just want to kill things, and some really weak, hard to play factions for when you are looking for a serious challenge. I think RTW has done that really well.

[Longshanks]

This is historical also, as most Roman heavy cav, especially since the 3rd century AD, came from Germany or Sarmatia. Remember it was the Gothic heavy cav that destroyed the eastern army at Adrianople.

Not exactly historical, that unit is anachronistic. During the game's timeframe the Goths had not yet emerged as one of the more powerful Germanic tribes. They were also far from Rome's borders. The more powerful Germanic tribes during the game's timeframe were the Cimbri, Teutones, Chatti, Marcomanni, Cherusci and Suebi. The Suebi in particular were known for their cavalry. The "elite" German cavalry unit in game should have come from the Suebi, rather than the Goths.

[TheDuck]

If units are priced according to their strengths then in Multi you can afford to add enough valor and armor and weapons upgrades to equal things out when playing some of the weaker factions.

But in the Campaign, I much prefer to have some really strong and easy to play factions (ahhh, the Vikings!!!) for those days when you just want to kill things, and some really weak, hard to play factions for when you are looking for a serious challenge. I think RTW has done that really well.

I completely agree with this statement. Balance is for multi-play.. single play is about what type of game you want. Easy, middling, or tough as nails?