MP faction

[allfathersgodi]

I don't see an MP faction as all that challenging, your opponent has the same strengths and weakness as you do, the missile units have the same capability, your cavalry can charge and flank, disengage, re-engage, wheel around just as quickly as his. Your Spearmen have the same reach as his.

Where is the challenge in that? The challenge lies in trying to beat someone who is an awesome commander of the Horde with a faction that is mis-matched (HRE, Byzantines, Italians). Or using cavalry in a place that is ill-suited for cavalry (Scotland is an example)...

The true challenge would, I think, lay in what ever faction you pick versus what your opponents pick. Imagine trying to defeat the Horde with a HRE force of Gothic Sergeants and Knights? Or a Byzantine force of Kataphraktoi?

[Orda Khan]

I don't see an MP faction as all that challenging, your opponent has the same strengths and weakness as you do, the missile units have the same capability, your cavalry can charge and flank, disengage, re-engage, wheel around just as quickly as his. Your Spearmen have the same reach as his.

Where is the challenge in that? The challenge lies in trying to beat someone who is an awesome commander of the Horde with a faction that is mis-matched (HRE, Byzantines, Italians). Or using cavalry in a place that is ill-suited for cavalry (Scotland is an example)...

The true challenge would, I think, lay in what ever faction you pick versus what your opponents pick. Imagine trying to defeat the Horde with a HRE force of Gothic Sergeants and Knights? Or a Byzantine force of Kataphraktoi?

When all is equal it is superior battlefield tactics that win the day, if you cannot see the challenge in that then you never played STW.
I used Mongols almost exclusively in MTW and I routed many european armies. In one 3v3 I routed my Spanish opponent and then finished the other Spanish army and Danish army that had routed my allies. I had 1500+ kills.
However, these european armies should never have lost and I fought one opponent who knew exactly what to do against the Horde.........NOTHING.
With HRE, Italy or whoever, all you needed to do was deploy in close formation with crossbowmen close to the spear line and let the Horde do their damnedest. Arrows killed far less in MTW and any european army could easily sit and soak up every Horde arrow and still have enough men left to win the day.
Sure, if your opponent could be drawn into mistakes you could achieve wonders, if he refused to budge and kept his missile units safe while they covered the HA, the Horde could do very little about it. I faced the Horde with european armies (and I never used anything heavier than Feudal Knight cav) and believe me, it was easy to stop them. I complained about their weakness when MTW was first released and hope that MTW II will address this issue. I will not hold my breath since the Huns were no real threat in BI.

Then you should be glad to hear that Napoleonic: Total War 2 has disabled the upgrading of troops.

Good for you Duke John, you know my thoughts on upgrades in MP....the scourge of the game

........Orda

[allfathersgodi]

Cromwell, chess is to slow and one dimensional. Want a challenge, give your opponent four moves for every three of yours, or give him extra knights or rooks or Bishops in exchange for pawns. Chess is a piss poor metaphor for combat and warfare...

Orda Khan, that is because the AI sucks (and AI will always suck) and never used the Horde's advantages. Plus the Mongolians are very weak in the game.
Use the Mongolians right, you can defeat any army, not matter who is commanding it.

IMHO, keep the valour, troop experience and weap/armor upgrades (add more upgrades as well, such as horses). I like that extra dimension to the game. No way in hell can 10 units of green Hobilars stand up to 10 units of green CKs or Cataphracts in a head-to-head charge...

I still ask, where would the challenge be in meeting an opponent who is fielding an army that is a mirror image of yours?

[drone]

I still ask, where would the challenge be in meeting an opponent who is fielding an army that is a mirror image of yours?

The challenge is in beating that army. If you are better than your opponent, you will win, if you aren't, you will lose. If you don't think this is a challenge, you aren't playing the right opponents.

Selecting an army based on it's cheese does not equal skill. Exploiting a faction's special units by spamming them is not skill. The argument here is for a specialized faction, balanced against itself, with a counter for every unit. With this type of battle, the ability of the general to exploit his enemy's mistakes while covering up his own, determines the outcome. This may not be the most exciting thing in the world, but for those who enjoy the challenge of even odds, it is a great idea.

[FearofNC]

Cromwell, chess is to slow and one dimensional. Want a challenge, give your opponent four moves for every three of yours, or give him extra knights or rooks or Bishops in exchange for pawns. Chess is a piss poor metaphor for combat and warfare...

chess is a good metaphor imho... but if you want another example... take combat sports.. boxing, westling.. or martial arts.. do these athleats find fighting someone in their same weight class boring? challenge is overcoming odds yes... but as a 145lb (mongal metaphor) fighter.. how much fun is fighting a heavy weight???



reguardless... its one thing if this idea afected the regular mp game... it doesnt.. its just an addititon.. so if you dont find it fun.. then you dont have to play it. there are people that will enjoy it.. there are people who will buy the game because of it.

[L'Impresario]

With HRE, Italy or whoever, all you needed to do was deploy in close formation with crossbowmen close to the spear line and let the Horde do their damnedest. Arrows killed far less in MTW and any european army could easily sit and soak up every Horde arrow and still have enough men left to win the day.
Sure, if your opponent could be drawn into mistakes you could achieve wonders, if he refused to budge and kept his missile units safe while they covered the HA, the Horde could do very little about it. I faced the Horde with european armies (and I never used anything heavier than Feudal Knight cav) and believe me, it was easy to stop them. I complained about their weakness when MTW was first released and hope that MTW II will address this issue. I will not hold my breath since the Huns were no real threat in BI.

Well, I think that despite the lack of the -ultimately- overpowering Parthian shot and shot-on-move in earlier TW games, a Cavalry based faction with fast HA and light cav did have many advantages in certain game types.
For example in VI, when playing in a florin level that allows all cav armies that include effective countercharging light cav and a small force of relatively powerful heavy cavalry, and in a large map that doesn't have too many forests or very steep hills, then a GH user could: a) surround his opponent in a 1v1 and make him spread his missile units, thus making him vulnerable to expendable light cav charges, while tiring his mobile forces (in case of overpowering missile adversaries, an all cav rush under circumstances can be a cheap way to win heh); b) in team games, although probably a random team wouldn't perform very well, all cav forces offer a chance to overpower a specific point of the enemy formation due to mobility. Ofcourse this can be regarded as not very honourable play, because most of the time it requires a quick attack, even before missile exchanges are played out.
But money/ morale levels are very critical in all such cases.

In RTW the mobility advantage was further enhanced by other qualities specific to cavalry. A combined arms approach was even less fruitful than 10-15k VI, simply because a detailed interaction between the various army pieces couldn't be put down and rationalized, the battle system being too "instance-intensive", if I may use that weird term heh.
In the end, we must recongise that it is extremely hard for CA to balance the game when they implement so many radical features that are not as "predictable" as in the previous engine.

Orda Khan, that is because the AI sucks (and AI will always suck) and never used the Horde's advantages. Plus the Mongolians are very weak in the game.
Use the Mongolians right, you can defeat any army, not matter who is commanding it.

IMHO, keep the valour, troop experience and weap/armor upgrades (add more upgrades as well, such as horses). I like that extra dimension to the game. No way in hell can 10 units of green Hobilars stand up to 10 units of green CKs or Cataphracts in a head-to-head charge...

He 's referring to MP, but Mongols can be an effective faction, it's just that it relies on breaking some traditional approaches to the game, and extra effort by teams, maybe not worth it though in the end.
BTW v4 Hobilars can win v0 Ck (and more easily Kataphraktoi), and for that matteralmost any other cav can do that with the right upgrades. The charge score advantage the CK have can be negated in various instances.
I really do think that upgrades are allowing for a most counter-intuitive game (the greater the florin amount you use, the more intensive this is).

[econ21]

I will not hold my breath since the Huns were no real threat in BI.

Is this based on MP experience? In SP, I would be very reluctant to face a Hun army in an open field battle (they are little threat over bridges or in sieges). Horse archers seem pretty frustrating (but historically so) in RTW. Foot archers don't have the advantage over them that they had in MTW and the Parthian shot (& their fast speed) makes it hard to run them down.

I'd wager horse archers in RTW/BI are more powerful than in STW or MTW, but that's based solely on SP impressions.

[allfathersgodi]

As a boxer and a full-contact martial artist, I prefer fighting out of my weight class. And believe me for every disadvantage a light-weight has against a super-heavy weight the super heavy weight has just as many disadvantages (which are ripe for the light weight to take advantage of).

How often do you see Super-Heavy Weight bouts go past the 5th round? Often. how many bouts between ultra-lights do you see that go past the 5th round? I haven't seen many.

In fencing, I was at a severe disadvantage fighting my friend Rachel who was 5 foot 2 and a hundred pounds even, bear in mind that I am 6'2" and weigh 180 pounds. In sharp contrast, my other sparring partner Billy is 6'5" and weighs 290, and because of that size he has many disadvantages. Granted these disadvantages can be trained down, but they still exist.

I was 180 pounds and loved fighting Wookies (people bigger then me). I loved fighting southpaws, you rarely see them and are a challenge because of that.
And I absolutely loved to fight martial artists who weren't of my styles (except for TKD fighters, TKD suck and any practicioner should be shot on sight). I got absolutely sick of fighting against my same school...

[buujin]

whats wrong with TKD ? :P

[allfathersgodi]

What is wrong with TKD? Sorry, If I post on the problems with TKD it would cause the server to crash...

For a bit of background, I am ready to test for my first dan in Bujinkan (just got to go to Japan), I studied Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, boxed, fenced and practiced Kenjutsu in college and then went on to study Wing Chun for six months...

I say keep all the upgradeables, let a unit's experience, morale, discipline, bravery, armor, weapons and leadership count in battle. But that is just me...

[buujin]

I study muay thai ;)