MTW2 MP balance issues

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

Strike! Buy M2TW and T1 and I will show you the awesome rush army we have been working on. I have had great success with it thus far in both 1v1 and 3v3 games. 4v4 lags a bit too much though :(

M2TW MP is slightly better than RTW so it is worth playing just to see some old pals such as a few Fearful Ways, Kenchi's, Elites, and others. :) Since there isn't anything out now which matches even an inferior TW MP experience, you will still enjoy playing with your Ugly mates.


Cheetah: I vagely remember playing with the byz, and may have tried what you have mentioned, but my poor Alzheimer-riddled brain can't find a good memory of it ever happening . . . Of course, being as unoriginal as I am I must have copied it from you my friend and was giving you back some of your own medicine perhaps? hehe

Remember all: I will be trying to join the M2TW lobby around 9 pm. Eastern Standard time every night possible to see if any of you are on to play with. My PC is still the same as in the MTW/VI days, so you will probably need to host.

I DO have some nice hints to make MP play go smoother and make it slightly less of a hassle to find and play in a hosted game:

1. Please have everyone in the game (especially the host) put their options on SMALL UNIT SIZE. It doesn't change the battles much from normal, but it really decreases the lag of the game.
2. Also, have everyone in the game (especially the host) put their graphics settings on the lowest setting possible. This also decreases lag, since the game plays at the slowest PC's level and the slowest connection speed.
3. Never join a game which is over a 300 ping. Anything over 300 creates a lot of lag for everyone.
4. When hosting please put your name or your clan's name in the game description.
5. Also, put some of the settings such as Unit Size (small, normal, huge), era (Early, Late All), and any special rules such as (No Arty, only 4 units of cav etc) So your game description in the lobby should read something like this:
"UglyElmo, Small, Late, No Arty"

Small things such as these, speeds the finding/joining of games and also helps reduce lag and disconnects once the game has launched.

Happy MP-ing everyone!

Strike: Give me a call sometime. I will PM you with my new email addy, so check your inbox here. :)

awww Small, SMall isn't Fun.... untill the game lags up snd crashes


I usally Do Normal El, for like 1v1's, since it's ok, and even 2v2's, but sometimes if I need to, I do host Small for 3v3 or 4v4's.

[Puzz3D]

Strike! Buy M2TW and T1 and I will show you the awesome rush army we have been working on. I have had great success with it thus far in both 1v1 and 3v3 games.

Thanks for confirming that M2TW is a rush game.

[ElmarkOFear]

Actually Puzz. I think T1 and I are the only ones who can do a good rush. :)
You have to use a certain faction to have any chance of a successful rush. M2TW actually favors a "defender" more than an "attacker." 10K games also keep players from getting an army of single or like units.

I have found cav aren't as strong as in MTW and/or RTW (from the week I played RTW MP). Arrow units can be devastating against you, if you stand still, since a few units have a much greater range than most others, but if you keep moving you can avoid big losses. However, you won't find the "Missile-then cav-then rush battles like you had in MTW. The camera angles and the slow response times of the units make it difficult to control your units like you could in MTW.

I have found it is still fun to play with my friends have to play a much different way. It isn't MTW, but it is still more fun than other RTS games out there.

I do understand your dissappointment with the state of MP and its lackluster lobby and missing features. I also know you enjoy the numbers game and figuring out all the odds and such to use to your advantage in battle, but M2TW doesn't allow for any deep cerebral study or testing, since there is little to no information on the exact effects unit values have on gameplay. Some units, by looking at the stats, shouldn't stand a chance at beating certain other like units, but they do. There must be some things hardcoded which make the difference like the old bonuses axe/sword units had vs. spear units in STW/MTW. You would probably find the game a bit too random for your tastes. Gonna miss playing with you though.

PS: I think you WOULD like how they have handled upgrading though:
1. An experience (honor) upgrade does upgrade morale (not sure by how much), and attack values by 1 and defense values by 1 as in previous games.
2. Normal Weapon upgrades are fairly expensive and some units cannot upgrade their weapons, while some can only upgrade one level before being restricted from more. This keeps some weak units from being made into uber units through cheap, unlimited upgrading. I think it works nicely to make each unit more unique than in MTW and RTW.
3. The same is said for upgrading armor. You cannot upgrade some units, and you are limited to one upgrade for most others (I haven't run across a unit yet whose armor can be upgraded more than once.
4. After the first experience upgrade, any further upgrades are cheaper, but do not upgrade weapons or armor, the stats don't show what is upgraded, but it probably is an upgrade to morale only or maybe the training level (which determines how responsive a unit is to your commands).

There are a few improvements to the RTW engine, so it is at least taking a step in the right direction, as I stated previously. Hopefully it will continue improving and you will join us in the future.


CROMWELL: I thought Hasty's rush, (uphill, in the rain, while wearing heavy armor) against AMP was a thing of beauty, don't you? Hasty routed like a champ and made me proud to be his teammate! I had quite a time trying to catch his men before they left the battlefield too. Hope I don't lose my lucrative Nike contract for my men. I have them running laps as we speak. :)

WARMAN: Small unit size doesn't effect the outcome of battles much. The game may play a little faster, since there are less men to kill, though I haven't really noticed a noticeable difference. Lag currently is the big fun-killer, so I am encouraging people to turn down all the settings to help out those who may not have the latest PC tech or good connects. You gotta treat those with lesser machines well, since they are the majority of players and will eventually turn into your friends/opponents in the future. I try not to bum any new players out, since we need as many as we can get. Promotion of the game is everything to the success and fun of TW MP. STW wouldn't have been half as much fun if there weren't several players who were willing to help new players and train them. I personally helped 100's learn the game after they expressed frustration with losing most of the time. It was always fun to see them beat me for the first time (normally the second game: hehe) and watch them move on to establish their own successful clans.

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

Yeah El, I usally do Normal Units, gives it more fun with tatics so to speak, but I do small units like I said, for 3v3's or even 2v2's if I know it going to lag, since my com[ isn't the greatest (it's good, but not good enough not to lag)

[Aelwyn]

Hi Mordred
Sadly there is just one way to counter the cav charge: pikes, spears are a joke. This is a really important iussue, and I wonder how CA could make tha cav charge soooo strong. How they tested it?

It's sad to say, but I believe it's only going to get worse. Remember, there is a patch coming out soon, and it is going to 'fix' the issues with the cav charge. Which means the cavs will not stop prematurely like they have been before impact, making the charge more devastating.

At least from the notes from CA on what they are fixing, that's what it sounded like to me. There's a lot that needs to be done to cavs imo to make them closer to balanced.

[Monarch]

Hmm. I was just in a battle where my enemy began to charge 3 Knights Of Santiago on my line of highland pikeman, 5 men deep in propper formation.

I was like meh, take down all his decent cav in the space of 2 secs, then he only had some javelin cav and four chivralic knights left.

But to my shock the cav broke through the spear line, and where then in a ssword vs sword kinda thing with my pikemen. I had some feudals (dismounted) behind to reinforce the line. But the point is he basically took out all my pikemen in a headon cav assault.

Gameplay wise, thats very annoying