Army composition

[Nelle]

One thing that is bothering me in multipay is the ridiculus use of Elite troops. Every army looks the same. 90% of all armies are romans made up of 4-5 Archer auxillia, 4-6 Praetorian cav and the rest is Urban cohorts. I think it´s almost against the spirit of the game. Barbarian faction are almost never played because of this.

I have an idea on the subjekt. Those of you who are familiar with Warhammer 40K the table top will recognise this.

It´s the use of army composition.

In warhammer you are allowed 1-2HQ units, 2-6 Troops, 0-3 Elites, 0-3 fast attack and 0-3 heavy support.

Every unit in the game has one of these classes.

For example Romans, wich is an army based around the use of it´s cohorts.

HQ would be a general.

Troops would be Auxillaries and regular cohorts.

Elite would be Praetorian and Urban cohorts. (Probaly even mercenaries and gladiators)

Fast attack would be mounted troops and dogs.

Heavy support would be warmachines.

(This is just an example based on the romans after Marius. A seperate composition should be used for an army that is pre marius)

Which troops belongs to which class will depend on the faction. For example Scythia and and Parthia would be allowed to use some cavalry as troops. (They are a horsepeople) Perhaps the Carthaginians are allowed to use elephants as Elites as well as heavy support.

Well it´s just a though as now. I will make accurate compostitions for each faction in time. Divide which units are HQ, troop, Elite, Fast attack and heavy support.

Comments please

/Nelle

[Lord Preston]

its been brought up before but is too complicated to use in general play, ladders ect might be more receptive of this.

simplest thing to do is play less money to get rid of elite troops.

also just a max of 3 or 4 of one unit type could give you a difference but done a lot simpler

[King Ragnar]

Ive come to live with the Roman armies you just have to find a way around them, but don't worry when BI come the Romans will be less powerful and all the barbarians will kick ass.

[Puzz3D]

Ive come to live with the Roman armies you just have to find a way around them, but don't worry when BI come the Romans will be less powerful and all the barbarians will kick ass.

Yep, and after a couple of months all you will see are barbarian armies being used.

The most you can successfully do in multiplayer is have simple rules like, no elephants, no Egypt or no artillery. You could try playing with a no Romans rule, but then some other imbalanced faction would dominate. Multiplayer Total War, as implemented by Creative Assembly, requires less than 10% imbalance for it to work well, but they are on record during the MTW days as saying 25% imbalance is good. I don't think RTW even achieves 25%. STW was played without rules and was balanced to about 10% accuracy, but every Total War game since then has been worse and requires tailoring with rules in multiplayer for it to work well.

[Squirrel_of_hatred]

This is true However i consider Roman's for begginers only and as one advances in skill and tactics then you should move to the barbarians in order to get a stiffer challenge this also forces you to be resouceful and cunning. 10k is the default level of money in total war and games should be played at this, however i play barbarians at 12.5k which is plenty. when people ask for more money i reply "dont you want a fair game"? I dont really rate people who claim to be very good at RTW then pick a roman/selucid army with onangers. I think some of the supposed best players wish to keep their status by playing it safe this however in the long run reduces their skill as their knowledge stagnates they may not lose often as they do not take chances but their skill stay's at the status quo and does not advance as much as someone who plays barbs takes the losses on the chin, strokes that chin then begins an analysis of their defeat, also good barbarian players can be less predictable than the fairly samey style of roman players. The imbalance then can be seen as a benifit. You'll realise this when you beat a roman/egypt army with the gaul's or beat the selucids with the german's wishazu/nihil may testify to this, then youll get more satisfaction from the game. I won 10 or so games straight against various Rome/egypt players with the Gaul's 2 days ago and that felt much much better than trudging along with Rome knowing my victory was in part to the game's imbalance's.

Hannibal beat a roman army twice his size.
If he can do it...

[King Ragnar]

Yep, and after a couple of months all you will see are barbarian armies being used.

Well the fact that 2/3rds of the factions will be barbarians of course this will happen, hopefully the barbarians will be equal in terms of army strength and this means battle will be more balenced and enjoyable.

[Orda Khan]

Well the fact that 2/3rds of the factions will be barbarians of course this will happen, hopefully the barbarians will be equal in terms of army strength and this means battle will be more balenced and enjoyable.

Agreed

.....Orda

[Puzz3D]

Well the fact that 2/3rds of the factions will be barbarians of course this will happen, hopefully the barbarians will be equal in terms of army strength and this means battle will be more balenced and enjoyable.

And all armies are going to look the same because of imbalance within the faction's unit types. The reasons many players say Shogun was a better game is because the unit balance was better and the pacing of the battle was better. Faction balance was perfect because they were all the same.

To an extent, imbalance can be overcome by skill, but as opponent become closer in skill the imbalance starts to dictate who wins. The average skill level rises as players gain experience, and the difference in skill between experienced players decreases. An experienced player can use a wide choice of factions and unit types against an inexperienced player, but not against another experienced player. BI may well be better in this regard than RTW, but Creative Assembly is not inclined to balance the game to the extent necessary to maintain diversity in the army selection amoung experienced players. Shogun was the best in that regard with around 10% to 15% unit imbalance and 0% faction imbalance. The pacing of the battles was also better being between MTW and RTW.

[Wishazu]

first off those roman armies are not unbeatable. And most people dont use barbs cos they seem to believe that barbarians suck, even though barbarians have some of the best troops in the game, and the germans have 1 of the best units of cavalry. Barbarians are just harder to use perhaps if everyone played different maps rather than grassy flatlands you would see more factions being used. As to No eles and no Art, i think this is one of the silliest rule sets about, why limit your opponent from taking art? if he has just close with him to make it useless, or use archers to burn them, they are easy to deal with, admittedly they can get lucky and land a fireball into your key units or even your general. As to elephants, fire arrows, or light inf will do the job, and once they are gone or routed/amok thats often a massive part of the enemies total strength gone. Unless someone knows how to use them correctly they are a waste of time, and ele spamming is even easier to deal with, providing you have at least 3 units of archers. Anyways thats my opinion on that, as to army composition i agree with Preston, although i like the idea i would hate having to explain it to everyone before the start of every game, but i would probably join a ladder with that rule set :)

[Orda Khan]

One thing that is bothering me in multipay is the ridiculus use of Elite troops. Every army looks the same. 90% of all armies are romans made up of 4-5 Archer auxillia, 4-6 Praetorian cav and the rest is Urban cohorts. I think it´s almost against the spirit of the game.

This is not an experience in MP that is peculiar only to RTW, MTW was exactly the same. But in MTW there were other game ruining features due to the cost of certain units. Sword units were cheap and therefore cheap to upgrade and so were ranged units. This severely affected the battle and stupid things appeared like arbalesters holding against Heavy cav and swords that could kill anything.

The weapon and armour upgrades introduced in STW/MI adversely affected that game and I would even argue that honour upgrades did the same in STW. I guess it depends on what you are looking for within the game and personally I would prefer to buy units and no upgrades at all. I believe this would provide a game where skill, tactics and manoeuvre were more important. There is no doubt in my mind that balance issues are a direct result of the myriad of things that occur when unit 'pumping' takes place ( eg. Militia Sergeant...unit description is of a lesser unit and the price reflects this. At valour 4 it is still cheap but is now an extremely tough unit. )

Maybe, if there were no upgrades and MP army cost was priced so that 20 elite units were impossible to buy there would be a better trade off.
Do I buy only 8 units but all elite? Do I buy 20 units of lesser experience? Do I buy 15 units and include a few elite? A skillful player may be able to achieve victory with 8 elite, likewise another skillful player may be able to beat a more elite army, with sound battlefield skill, with a lesser army. At the very least, no upgrades would prevent inferior units becoming something they were not intended to be.

Also important is that the MP community accept an army price level that prevents elite armies.

I am sure that very few, if any, would want to return to STW where everyone had the same unit choice, variety on the battlefield is far more interesting. Instead, it is up to the MP community to put their collective heads together to come up with the best solution for MP enjoyment. Whining and having a go at the developers achieves absolutely nothing. The majority of players show no interest in Mods, so a happy medium has to be achieved and this can only be done with a positive approach

.......Orda

[Puzz3D]

RTW actually has the least amount of upgrades in multiplayer of all the Total War games. Experience is limited to 3 levels as is weapon and armor, and the percentage increase in combat ability is about half for each upgrade level of what it was in the previous games. If adjustments are made to some unit's stats, some unit's costs and the game engine mechanics, the balance could be quite good or at least acceptable to more players. The low morale of experience 0 units will probably require that some experience upgrading be done in multiplayer to raise morale if the base morale level is left where it is now.