Note on whinging

[lars573]

who told you such nonsense??

An Iranian's graduate thesis in history. His was on the Parthians. Don't have a link. But he said that Cataphracts were an evolution of steppe nomad heavy cavalry. That it was a repsonse to Macedonian pike phalanxes. Or rather the Parthians use of only HA/Cata armies was. Can't recall much more than that.

Pardon?!?!.......erm ....no.

Er, um yes.

The Nagashino battle, the one in Akira Kurosawa's movie Kagemusha, was not a 10 minutes bam bam boem. Guns did something there, but there was fierce hand to hand combat that lasted for hours (no, there was no break for tea). It might be true that individual combat between two men is over in a few minutes, but not the clash between two armies on a field (added to that is time for manoeuvring).

Personal combat 2 guys slugging it out, rinse repeat. Didn't last long. There are limits to human endurance, even if you factor in adrenaline. 10 minutes was a low ball. But a melee wouldn't ever last more than an hour. TW condenses and abstracts a lot. Battles length is a one such condensation. Combat has to be shorter than it would have been. I would accept battles that were 15 minutes, with manoeuvring, but never 30. That's way to long.

Also optimal doesn't mean perfect. It means that a general good place has been reached and tweaking should be a priority.

[Myrddraal]

There are limits to human endurance

When two groups of 50 men fight, it doesn't become 50 duels, each over in a couple of minutes. It becomes two lines of men with most of the men behind and not in actual combat. Generally the men fighting are much more keen to stay alive than to kill. Combat did last longer than 15 minutes.

Let me quote Wikipedia on Medieval warfare:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieva...ment_of_forces

The infantry, including missile troops, would typically be employed at the outset of the battle to break open infantry formations while the cavalry attempted to defeat its opposing number. When one side gained superiority in cavalry (or had it at the outset of battle) it could attempt to exploit the loss of cohesion in the opposing infantry lines caused by the infantry conflict to hit the opposing infantry and attempt to rout it. This could often be difficult, and careful timing would be necessary for a direct cavalry assault, as an ordered infantry line would often be able to beat off the cavalry attacks. Pure infantry conflicts would be drawn-out affairs.

Gah! Not the best of quotes either, but I assure you, it's true.

[sunsmountain]

IMO RTW is VERY moddable. Maybe not easy to do so, but you can change almost everything. The only obvious thing you can't mod is AI.

The point is not moddability of game content or game settings, it's moddability of gameplay. By its nature, it is not very moddable. If you change one gameplay parameter (like walking/running speeds) you change all of them.

So either CA have got to
1. Get It Right the first time. Unlikely, since they didn't manage that with RTW, see the whingers.
2. Provide Different Settings for different style players. TosaInu is hinting at these, though it is more likely CA will release different settings in the "normal speed, double speed, triple speed" fashion rather than releasing the numbers to any value. If they do this, only 2 styles come to mind: Fast & arcade (see warcraft), or slow & tactical (see shogun). And perhaps 1 setting somewhere in the middle.
3. Leaving The Situation as is, annoying the whingers even further and doing for forum morale. Which cannot be for sales, no matter what the marketing folks tell you...

[Orda Khan]

When two groups of 50 men fight, it doesn't become 50 duels, each over in a couple of minutes. It becomes two lines of men with most of the men behind and not in actual combat. Generally the men fighting are much more keen to stay alive than to kill. Combat did last longer than 15 minutes.

Exactly. I can honestly say that I have never heard of a battle that was decided after fifteen minutes of fighting.
Battle of Sajo.
Battle comenced before dawn and went on late into the day.
Battle of Chalons.
This battle raged on through the afternoon and into late evening, in fact it became so dark that opposing troops became lost and struggled to find their own lines; Aetius being one of these.
Battle of Stamford Bridge.
Harold's Saxons were held up longer than fifteen minutes (all of which were melee) by one Viking berserker until he was speared from below.
Battle of Hastings.
Hard hand to hand and cavalry charges that lasted most of the day.
Cannae.
All those Romans killed in fifteen minutes?
Adrianople.
All those Romans killed in fifteen minutes?
What on earth is this fifteen minute claim?

......Orda

[R'as al Ghul]

Exactly. I can honestly say that I have never heard of a battle that was decided after fifteen minutes of fighting.

What on earth is this fifteen minute claim?

......Orda

Maybe that's because a skirmish (if we even can call it that) of 15 minutes isn't a battle and not worth reporting to the generations following.
The fifteen minute claim seems to come from a viewing experience of Hollywood films like Braveheart. Anything longer extends the attention span of the viewers too much and they become lost (like in one of those real battles that dragged on for hours).

[lars573]

Exactly. I can honestly say that I have never heard of a battle that was decided after fifteen minutes of fighting.
Battle of Sajo.
Battle comenced before dawn and went on late into the day.
Battle of Chalons.
This battle raged on through the afternoon and into late evening, in fact it became so dark that opposing troops became lost and struggled to find their own lines; Aetius being one of these.
Battle of Stamford Bridge.
Harold's Saxons were held up longer than fifteen minutes (all of which were melee) by one Viking berserker until he was speared from below.
Battle of Hastings.
Hard hand to hand and cavalry charges that lasted most of the day.
Cannae.
All those Romans killed in fifteen minutes?
Adrianople.
All those Romans killed in fifteen minutes?
What on earth is this fifteen minute claim?

......Orda

Way to miss the point. Actual melee didn't last more than an hour at a single stretch, any claims otherwise are romantic fantasy. I'm not claiming that there couldn't and wouldn't be multiple stretches though.

At Hastings the Normans charged the Saxon sheild wall dozens of times. Engaged for 10-15 minutes then withdrew to their own line. This was a deliberate strategy by William. To save the stamina of his own men, tire the Saxons, and hope to entice them to chase after his men. Thus breaking the sheild wall. Which they did. eventaually. Some times at about 5 PM a group of the armoured sword weilding professionals that Harold had placed as the front of the sheild wall from the center left broke the sheild wall and chased some of Williams men-at-arms. This was what William had been waiting for. He sent in his charging milites, which he had been saving for this. Sent them to charge the exposed fyrd. Which he though correctly wouldn't last long under direct attack.

[Fenix7]

..so when will be MTW 2 demo relseased?..

[TB666]

..so when will be MTW 2 demo relseased?..

No one knows.
Probably in October.

[Orda Khan]

Battle actually raged along the shield wall for ages, with fresh troops entering at intervals to relieve those who were exhausted. This was after the shield wall had stood up to archer attack for quite some time.
Towards the end of the day things looked ominous for William but the Saxon right broke discipline to chase the Breton contingent of Williams army who were routed. The Saxons found themselves in marshy ground at the foot of the slope and the Norman cavalry were sent to eliminate them. Nobody knows whether this was planned or just opportunity but at least the shield wall had lost its discipline. The archers were given orders to aim high, allowing the arrows to fall down on the Saxons from above. The Normans took the upper hand as gaps appeared and finally won the battle.
In all but very minor skirmishes, engagement lasted well over fifteen minutes. Not romantic fantasy; historical fact

.....Orda

[Puzz3D]

To be honest Yuuki, in MTW 1.0, spears were too powerfull, to the point that it was sword that were not needed. Too bad the correction went overboard.

Yes that's true, and AMP had already perfected a highly effective spear/sword army tactic within about 2 weeks of the game's release. The problem is that Creative Assembly was only willing to perform one playbalance adjustment to MTW. I don't think you can get the game balanced well enough with just one pass. MTW/VI got a total of three playbalance passes, and it's still not as well balanced as original STW which never had any playbalance adjustments made after it was released unless I'm forgetting something about the v1.12 patch. Bob Smith says CA has set the bar high. Well, it's not as high now as it was back in 2000 with regard to playbalance or battle mechanics.

Tosa is right that LongJohn did ask for playbalance suggestions prior to the release of VI. We asked for pavise xbow and arbs to be moved to the late era. Instead he moved both regular and pav arbs to the late era which left high era with weaker, shorter range xbows, and they had the pavise on top of that! This shows a misunderstanding of what was being asked. It was made very clear back when MTW first came out that ranged weapons were too weak.

[L'Impresario]

Tosa is right that LongJohn did ask for playbalance suggestions prior to the release of VI. We asked for pavise xbow and arbs to be moved to the late era. Instead he moved both regular and pav arbs to the late era which left high era with weaker, shorter range xbows, and they had the pavise on top of that! This shows a misunderstanding of what was being asked. It was made very clear back when MTW first came out that ranged weapons were too weak.

IMO that was a sound decision, making a distinction between crossbows and arbalester based on eras. Arbalesters were very powerful and could break archer/HA based armies much easier than xbows one at a slightly higher cost. At 15k the extra cost was practically nullified.
The cheap upgrades OTOH could turn Xbows into decent line units with the ability to shoot. Still, an LB army could be a better value for money if used correctly. As I 've said before, the problem with missiles is more tied to florin levels and consequently armour than the nature of the units themselves.

[Puzz3D]

I think you got it wrong, Puzz wrote REDUCE the uncertainty. I don't know what Yuuki meant, and he'll correct me if I am wrong, but it's a pointer to what I explained before; uncertain combat, and uncertain combat duration with 1 unit may not matter, but with the butterfly effect, in a 4v4 / 80 units *2 battle, odd results and fast rout is bound to happen...
I sure wish I was more certain the fight would be longer...

In RTW, the statistical uncertainty in the combat result has increased because the unit size was reduced and the combat cycle was lengthened. I haven't measured the length of the combat cycle in RW, but it's clearly much longer than the 1 second cycle of STW/MTW. This means many fewer combat cycles determine the winner which is going to increase the statistical noise. You won't notice it when one unit is much stronger than the other, but it's very apparent when the units are closely matched in strength.

Another thing that might be increasing uncertainty is the way striking at someone's back is being handled. In RTW, only the armor offers defense to the rear. If defensive skill or shield are the major contributors to that unit's overall defensive power, a strike to the back is almost a sure kill. This means that, in a one-on-one fight, once a unit gains a numerical advantage and can doubleteam some of the enemy souldiers it's probably going to win more quickly than it did in STW/MTW where a rear strike was a fixed increase in the chance to kill.

The problem too much uncertainty causes is it inhibits the player from making intelligent tactical decisions because he/she can't make as good an estimate of the probable outcome of those decisions. Some uncertainty is good, but too much can increase luck to the point that it overshadows skill.

[Puzz3D]

IMO that was a sound decision, making a distinction between crossbows and arbalester based on eras. Arbalesters were very powerful and could break archer/HA based armies much easier than xbows one at a slightly higher cost. At 15k the extra cost was practically nullified.

Both xbow and arbs were not in early era, so the archers can have their day there. I don't agree that archers were sufficient in high era because armor was high; late era being a lost cause. The archers in MTW were the same archers used in STW where you could kill more than a whole very valuable low armor unit such as warrior monks which had armor = 1.

I'm not concerned that archers would not be able to stand to arbs in high era. I'm concerned with the fact that ranged weapons were too weak, and that was the idea behind getting rid of the pavise. We had already tried to get archers improved without success because all we got out of that request were the confounded discounts on ranged units which were used by everyone to increase the melee capability of ranged units which is counter to the idea of combined arms gameplay. Once players realized that they could pump ranged units so that cav couldn't defeat them it was very hard to get them to stop using 15k even after the +2 morale that came in with VI.

I never did understand what happened to morale in MTW. We could see the 16 warrior monk exploit in STW that arose due to being able to sell off the honor 2 that units had when purchased. At first, the MTW system of purchacing units at valor=0 and a +4 cap on that looked great. However, it soon became apparent that the +4 morale, which the honor 2 of STW had provided, wasn't included in MTW. This is why people played at 15k, and the game turned into an upgrade fest especially when the ranged unit discounts were introduced in the MTW v1.1 patch. Total Miscommunication is what this game should be called.

[L'Impresario]

Both xbow and arbs were not in early era, so the archers can have their day there. I don't agree that archers were sufficient in high era because armor was high; late era being a lost cause. The archers in MTW were the same archers used in STW where you could kill more than a whole very valuable low armor unit such as warrior monks which had armor = 1.

Archer had their role in the high era as well. When you faced an army with cheap light cav or longbows, the slow firing rate of xbows could be a liability, esp. if there was plenty of room for the cav and maybe HA support. As I 've said plenty of times, the slow pavs that negate archers cause worries of another nature in maps where initial contact isn't "automatic", like in steppes for example.
I don't think that this is an issue where an agreement between players with different styles of playing can be reached easily. Definately there was room for improvement. Prices, SP & overall gamplay considerations, player perceptions, historical or pseudohistorical factors, all things matter. Inside the pav-xbow-archer/ HA scheme a different R/P/S could develop, but its intensity would still constitute a point of discussion. I also don't think that game length (an issue linked with ranged units in MP) is something that can be agreed upon by the developers for each player category.
In STW you had significantly different consideration for that line of questions. There is a historical context and some game-engine changes/updates each time, and comparisons between STW and MTW on such issues can't help in resolving the "missile debacle" (according to some heh) beyond a certain limit.

Now, if one is to mention that rush armies were successful in 10k, then I'd refer to my previous points and answer that this isn't a universal truth for VI as a game and a setting differs from another. I don't remember any CA developper claiming that there is an optimal setting for VI MP, I could be mistaken ofcourse.

[TosaInu]

There was an move arbs to late lobby (shows again that people want different things):

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...3&postcount=13 point 8.

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...5&postcount=15
Moving arbalest to late is a great move.

Then I half changed my mind in https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...8&postcount=18 after reading CBR's argument in #17 where he says:

So if no changes are done #I would suggest putting crossbows in early just to have some missilepower in that era. Pav crossbows in High #perhaps arbalester too and then move pav arb to late.

Morale is indeed, as mentioned again and again but it can't be mentioned enough, a very important issue. STW offered morale off and on: that was a huge gap of some 12 (?) points. Simply playing at higher money levels did unlock large amounts of other trouble, as honour that was purchased, included not only morale but also attack and defense bonuses that swamped TW RPS system. A simple 2 points step morale slider there, would have provided the right game (STW!).

[Puzz3D]

Now, if one is to mention that rush armies were successful in 10k, then I'd refer to my previous points and answer that this isn't a universal truth for VI as a game and a setting differs from another. I don't remember any CA developper claiming that there is an optimal setting for VI MP, I could be mistaken ofcourse.

For MTW v1.1, LongJohn said 12k would be about right for a 1v1. He did agree that this might not be the same for team games. My tests in STW showed a maximum outnumbered penalty of -14 morale, and a rout point of -24 morale. In MTW v1.1, I believe the maximum outnumbered penalty is about the same, but the rout point is -16 morale. A yari samurai in STW had a base morale of 2, but you purchased it at honor 2 which made its morale = 6. In MTW, spears had either morale = 0 or morale = 2, and you purchased them at valor 0. So, there was no increase over the base morale which means an STW yari samurai had a 30 point cushion before it would rout while an MTW spear has either a 16 or 18 point cushion. In VI, this was increased by 2 points, but it's still a lot less than in STW.

In STW, an honor upgrade cost 40% of the unit's current value, and this was the same for a valor upgrade in MTW v1.0 which had the same effect of +1 attack, +1 defense and +2 morale in both games. However in MTW v1.1 and thereafter, the cost of valor upgrades was increased to 70%. So, in addition to the morale of spears being lower in MTW, the cost of raising it is greater. My position is that a unit is useless if it runs away too easily. In MTW v1.0, spears were upgraded more because they cost less and the valor upgrade cost less. In MTW v1.1, the 15% increase in the cost of spears coupled with the 75% increase in the cost of valor made the spears nearly twice as expensive while the cav knights became 25% less expensive and were used with no valor upgrades (since their morale is 8) so were unaffected by the increase in the cost of valor.

In the end, I stopped playing MTW/VI because only two of the four components (spear, sword, ranged, cavalry) were being used, and to counter it you had to use the same army. This is interesting because LongJohn is on record as saying the gameplay objective was that all armies have counterarmies. I think MTW/VI ultimately failed in this regard because the battlefield gameplay wasn't balanced well enough.

[sunsmountain]

So you're saying that you need Rock, Paper, Scissors (RPS) for multiplayer lastability and good AI for single player lastability.

BOTH are lacking in RomeTW. You can mod the game such that RPS works (and then cry hard enough until they patch the game), but you cannot mod the AI enough for it to work. Therefore, it is crucial that CA spend most of their extra time on the AI.

[Furious Mental]

The troops which broke from the English shield wall at Hastings to pursue the Normans when they initially retreated after the first attack, and then later carried out their feigned retreats from noon through the afternoon, were most likely to be fyrdmen, not housecarles. Most historians believe Harold's strategy when battle began was to simply defend the position he had chosen. The housecarles, being a professional corps who tended to be found surrounding the King or earls, were less likely to contravene Harold's orders. Even if they did, they are less likely to have pursued the Normans in a disorderly fashion and therefore get wiped out. In fact some have speculated that the hasty formation of the English army meant the housecarles were concentrated in the center and that this allowed fyrdmen on the flanks to be drawn out of the shield wall, and attribute the Norman victory to this.

As far as stamina goes, to say that "battle raged along the shield wall for the whole day" is an overstatement in so far as it suggests that everyone was going at it for the entire duration of the battle. There were only two times when the whole body of both armies clashed- at the beginning and the very end. What happened in the interval was skirmishing and a couple of instances where the Norman cavalry drew significant portions of the English forces out and then rode them down with relative ease. Probably part of the reason why the English lost in the end is that they had been fighting sporadically for the whole day while the Norman infantry had likely just been standing around doing nothing after their first failed attack in the morning, therefore the former would have been more fatigued. Also the rout of the Bretons happened after the first Norman assault (in fact it caused the assault to collapse), not at the end of the day.

On the subject of the Battle of Hastings, it has a lesson (actually plenty but heres just one) for the programming of the AI in M2TW: if the AI faces a player on a strong position on a hill, it should skirmish with missile troops and cavalry and try to draw the player's forces down from the hill.

[Lord Adherbal]

if the game's MP balance is as bad as it was in RTW then MP is dead for good. Stop suggesting SP is more important then MP just because you don't play it.

[Puzz3D]

You can mod the game such that RPS works (and then cry hard enough until they patch the game), but you cannot mod the AI enough for it to work. Therefore, it is crucial that CA spend most of their extra time on the AI.

You cannot mod the battle mechanics either. Also, if they are going to keep using the rock, paper, scissors battle AI that they are currently using, they should make sure the rock, paper, scissors works.

[Spino]

if the game's MP balance is as bad as it was in RTW then MP is dead for good. Stop suggesting SP is more important then MP just because you don't play it.

In the grand scheme of things SP is more important than MP because the developers have said as much over and over again ad nauseum. The MP feature of the TW games has never been given the attention and resources it requires for maximum stability & balance because the overwhelming majority of TW gamers play in SP mode. If I recall correctly MP was incorporated into the TW series as a bonus feature outside of the original design plan which is why it has been treated like a red headed stepchild by the developers since Shogun was first released. CA gave TW's MP feature just enough love and nourishment to let it function and grow (slowly) with each iteration of the series but not nearly enough to let it realize it's full potential. Given the enormous popularity of MP games these days you have to wonder why CA hasn't made a greater effort to give TW MP a thorough going over. I fail to see how a strong MP component would adversely affect sales.

[sunsmountain]

Given the enormous popularity of MP games these days you have to wonder why CA hasn't made a greater effort to give TW MP a thorough going over. I fail to see how a strong MP component would adversely affect sales.

It's typical that both of RTW's weaknesses fall in the same category. Poor battlemap AI and campaign map AI reduces value/lastability of the game, and poor multiplayer balance does exactly the same.

It's also ironic that the poor AI makes the game easier (winning) which stimulates total war MP while the poor MP balance detracts from it. So in effect, the two are counterproductive, as far as MP is concerned.

Friends i know who picked up and dropped MTW typically never joined MTW in MP. While those who picked up RTW almost always at least tried its MP.

[SpencerH]

Way to miss the point. Actual melee didn't last more than an hour at a single stretch, any claims otherwise are romantic fantasy. I'm not claiming that there couldn't and wouldn't be multiple stretches though.

At Hastings the Normans charged the Saxon sheild wall dozens of times. Engaged for 10-15 minutes then withdrew to their own line. This was a deliberate strategy by William. To save the stamina of his own men, tire the Saxons, and hope to entice them to chase after his men. Thus breaking the sheild wall. Which they did. eventaually. Some times at about 5 PM a group of the armoured sword weilding professionals that Harold had placed as the front of the sheild wall from the center left broke the sheild wall and chased some of Williams men-at-arms. This was what William had been waiting for. He sent in his charging milites, which he had been saving for this. Sent them to charge the exposed fyrd. Which he though correctly wouldn't last long under direct attack.

And wouldnt it be great to play a game where one had to use such tactics instead of RTW's move forward with missle fire, engage with spears, flank with cav and rout. Repeat battle ad naseum.

[CBR]

And wouldnt it be great to play a game where one had to use such tactics instead of RTW's move forward with missle fire, engage with spears, flank with cav and rout. Repeat battle ad naseum.

Sounds awfully complicated...


CBR

[SpencerH]

lol For some I suppose ...

But then there are also those of us who've seen the rules for (and played) SPI's "Wellingtons Victory".

[Orda Khan]

The troops which broke from the English shield wall at Hastings to pursue the Normans when they initially retreated after the first attack, and then later carried out their feigned retreats from noon through the afternoon, were most likely to be fyrdmen, not housecarles.

Quite probably so, I never said otherwise. IIRC the huscarles more or less fought to the end alongside Harold's body.

As far as stamina goes, to say that "battle raged along the shield wall for the whole day" is an overstatement

You misquoted me

Battle actually raged along the shield wall for ages, with fresh troops entering at intervals to relieve those who were exhausted.

My point being that there was no 15 minute melee.

Also the rout of the Bretons happened after the first Norman assault (in fact it caused the assault to collapse), not at the end of the day.

Towards the end of the day is not the end of the day. The Bretons did not rout early in the battle.

The tiredness of Harold's army probably had a lot to do with the fact that they had marched the length of the country, fought a battle, then repeated the feat

.....Orda