First impressions on mp

[Lusted]

First off whilst i may have been playing the series since STw, i have only been playing mp since Rome.

I hated RTW mp due to the uber units, and ultra-fast routing.

Now i just played my first M2TW mp game. 10000 each, me as England, them as France. We both choose balanced armies, mine a mix of billmen, longbowmen and some knights, his a mix of dimsounted knights, noble cavalry, pikemen and cannons. I loose narrowly, i suffer 96% casualties, my opponent 86%, the deciding point of the battle was a long melee in the middle between my infantry and his before his superior cavalry made the difference. Battles last a long time, movement speeds are very good as well.

From my first impression i would say that mp is MUCH better than RTWs.

[Puzz3D]

I loose narrowly, i suffer 96% casualties, my opponent 86%, the deciding point of the battle was a long melee in the middle between my infantry and his before his superior cavalry made the difference.

Such high casualties suggest the gameplay is now a battle of attrition. In the last Samurai Wars 3v3 MP battle for MTW/VI which was very closely fought the total losses for each player were:

Winners: 68%, 67%, 84%
Losers: 86%, 88%, 81%

[Lusted]

They are indeed, his higher quality infantry gave him the edge in the battle, and because our armies were well balanced it was basically just grnd each other down. If my cavalry hadn't been killed by his so early on i could have sued them to flank. Instead thats what he did with his, cavalry may be less powerful than in RTw, but they are still battle deciders.

[|Heerbann|_Di3Hard]

We played too MP. Our clan impressions:

- The battles are much better than in RTW (speed and unit behavior )

- Elefants are too strong. They destroyed 5 or 6 units. Very annoying.

- 3vs3 was impossible. Has had anyone other experience? At least 3vs3 lagfree is mandatory needed.

- We missed the exhaustions bars and the units exhaust too slowly. I had one unit, that marched over the half battlefield, was fighting until only 6men left and they was still fresh o_O

- In my opinion there are too less maps.

Something about the unit selection. If one team has already a faction the other cannot choose it or the game cannot be started. Why they don't remove these faction from the panel?

[LadyAnn]

We played too MP. Our clan impressions:

- The battles are much better than in RTW (speed and unit behavior )

- Elefants are too strong. They destroyed 5 or 6 units. Very annoying.

- 3vs3 was impossible. Has had anyone other experience? At least 3vs3 lagfree is mandatory needed.

- We missed the exhaustions bars and the units exhaust too slowly. I had one unit, that marched over the half battlefield, was fighting until only 6men left and they was still fresh o_O

- In my opinion there are too less maps.

Something about the unit selection. If one team has already a faction the other cannot choose it or the game cannot be started. Why they don't remove these faction from the panel?

It is early too say any unit is too strong. I am sure by the time i could play M2TW, my Elephant Corp will easily be destroyed. :)

Not only 3x3, 4x4 is a must.

Hmmmm deja vu? In RTW, it was the same until a patch, that once a faction is chosen, it cannot be chosen again. This must be fixed.

Anniep

[tibilicus]

The lobby lag can be explained quite simply. Like most games when a lobby goes up there always laggy/annoyng for a few days. No doubt this will chnage soon

Tib

[Puzz3D]

They are indeed, his higher quality infantry gave him the edge in the battle, and because our armies were well balanced it was basically just grnd each other down.

This type of gameplay will not bring back the STW community. Also, it doesn't appear that those factions are balanced if he had the better infantry and the better cavalry. Since factions cannot be chosen by more than one player, it's important to have balanced factions. In STW all factions are the same, and in MTW factions can be chosen more than once.

[Lusted]

He had the better infantry because he chose more high quality infatry than i did. The factionas are all pretty well balanced, i just went more for numbers in my selection instead of quality.

[Espionage]

Just had my first match against somebody who picked the French vs my English. This is my first ever multiplayer game with the total war series, and I'm bloody impressed. Perfect sync, almost thought I was playing off-line.

And a nice victory to boot ; )

[Cheetah]

This type of gameplay will not bring back the STW community. Also, it doesn't appear that those factions are balanced if he had the better infantry and the better cavalry. Since factions cannot be chosen by more than one player, it's important to have balanced factions. In STW all factions are the same, and in MTW factions can be chosen more than once.

We dont know as yet whether MTW2 factions are balenced or not. It seems though that there are similar factions like: Milanese/Venicians, Hungary/Poland, perhaps even more.

Also, there were many battles in MTW which ended in a war of attrition dozens of tired men slugging out in a true last man standing situation. I even remember that once we had to chase out one, yes one man that was still fighting in a 4v4 to get victory!!!
IMO this kind of situation is expectable with infantry heavy armies led by equal generals. The problem starts when mistakes cannot be punished and the player who makes these mistakes cannot be chainrouted. However, we do not this as yet.

[Puzz3D]

Also, there were many battles in MTW which ended in a war of attrition dozens of tired men slugging out in a true last man standing situation. I even remember that once we had to chase out one, yes one man that was still fighting in a 4v4 to get victory!!!

That was caused by battlefield upgrades, and using too many upgrades on high morale swords. We got LongJohn to remove the battlefield upgrades in MTW/VI v2.01, but swords still had too much upgrading and the discount on ranged unit upgrades allowed too much upgrading on those units as well. MTW is not the standard of comparision that I would use. In Samurai Wars for MTW/VI v2.01, we don't have units fighting to the last man except perhaps the hatamoto and ninja which are small high honor units. AMP and Swoosh helped identify a problem with small cav units being too effective at the end of a battle in Samurai Wars, and we corrected that problem.

Battlefield upgrades are back in M2TW. Their effect might not be as strong as in MTW, but if the overall morale level has been raised, then even weaker battlefield upgrades could easily be too much towards the end of the battle. The battle engine only operates well over a relatively small range of morale.