Army composition

[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