Can you explain...Cavalry Vs Spearmen

[Puzz3D]

As I have already posted, you can create a 19 cav army at 10K that will crush any "balanced" 10K army.

That in itself is ok. The so called "balanced" army which incorporates more or less equally all of the unit categories (swords, spears, ranged and cav) isn't supposed to beat all other army configurations. However, there is supposed to exist a counterarmy to every army type. If someone takes all cav, there should be an army other than the exact same army that beats it. If there isn't, the gameplay will eventually degenerate into everyone using the most effective army. In MTW/VI, were saw that happen with cav/sword armies dominating. If you included spears in your army, you took the field at a disadvantage. Skill comes into play, so you really need players who are similar in skill to see if these counterarmies do exist.

The TW system has alway exhibited the most balanced gameplay at a particular money level. CA doesn't restrict the money eventhough they supposedly design the game for a particular money level. In the older STW and MTW games, money had a dramatic effect on the unit balance. In M2TW, upgrades apparently don't do much to affect the combat results so the playbalance may be more tolerant of money level.

[Mordred]

Despite all the arguments, last night I had 11 mailed knights up against a few hundred crossbows and dismounted knights.
My knights killed 144 crossbows just by charging, withdrawing and charging again. Last charge was performed by one knight, still men were thrown into the air of a unit of at least 40. That is a bit over doing it, aint it?
Cav as it is now will be THE exploit sooner than later, another is the push through/click behind.

[Kronos]

Yeah and I bet the person you were fighting wasn't too good at the game, i've only ever faced 1 cav army and had no problems with it in m2tw and even did some pretty noobish htings because i could like chase them around with inf etc lol Still had over half my army left and that was against the Mongols at 12.5k with 8 cav 4 or 5 good ha and 4 spearmen. Whereas I had what you would call a balanced army.

As for counterarmies I haven't seen a single army in m2tw that doesn't have an effective counter just like in rtw where a few of the best armies/most exploitative armies with the exception of horse archer spam which is fairly hard to counter can be beat quite easily with a slightly unbalanced army.

An example of this is Egypt with a balanced army can be very powerful however i've never lost to egypt while going macedon or greece and the same armies can be used to beat most popular armies from almost all factions with the exception of a few like rome and carthage which require different stratergies to beat.

[tootee]

Let me get this straight, the game only needs to be balanced at 10000k florins? At all other florin levels, imbalances are irrelevant?????

What an utterly ludicrous thing to say.

You like 10000k battles? Fine enjoy them. I prefer larger florin amounts. I should be penalised for that with massive imbalances should I?

Seriously, that is a really indefensible point of view IMO.

CA has been (seemingly) trying to have a balanced stat since STW. They cannot do it even for the default level of florins.

If the game is finally perfectly balanced at a florin level, it is an life-time achievement.

And when the game is finally perfectly balanced at a florin level, the concept of playing a balanced game at other florin levels become irrelevant.. because you won't need to play at other florin level, as everyone will be enjoying playing at the perfectly balanced level.




But a perfectly balanced game for all itself is a contradict.

[CBR]

In M2TW, upgrades apparently don't do much to affect the combat results so the playbalance may be more tolerant of money level.

Well I would say its the opposite. If it has been balanced for a certain florin level, and upgrades dont do much, we are looking at something similar to MTW mods like my own community mod, Dux or Samurai Wars.

In MTW/VI 15K was really just 10K but with higher morale as most melee units had an extra valor. The units basically had the same relative combat power, and although the extra 2 morale certainly changed the way the game felt and what one could do with outnumbered units, it did not change the basic army choices much.

If you cant boost units much with upgrades, you are very much dependent on what elite units you can buy. Some factions would be out of luck with the max 4 penalty as they might not have many elite units.

And if heavy cavalry is one of the best units then more florins means cavalry will be used even more. It would be impossible to counter all that cavalry as there simply isnt any infantry to counter it and no upgrades to boost the infantry.

SoxSexSax asked:

Let me get this straight, the game only needs to be balanced at 10000k florins? At all other florin levels, imbalances are irrelevant?????

The short answer is yes. It is very difficult if not impossible to balance the game for 10K and 16K+. If one wants balance then one has to focus on a specific money level.

But the way spears work now it appears they are very limited in their use if not completely useless. Just buy more cavalry and perhaps some peasants as they seem to kill lower quality spears fine


CBR

[resonantblue]

Ok so don't make the anti-cav infantry unit a spear. Use some other unit. If you don't want any anti-cav infantry unit in the game, then you got what you wanted in M2TW. I don't want to play that game.

I'm not interested in playing a cav dominated game.

Then why the hell are you playing a game based on the Medieval Era? Don't you know what the era is most known for?

MTW multiplayer is not very different from MTW 2 multiplayer. If you played MTW multiplayer, then you would know that no decent player using a Christian faction took spears so I don't see why you're all up in arms over their lack of effectiveness in MTW 2. In every Total War game I have played (and I have played them all), flanking is the key to success in multiplayer - as it was in real life. The vast majority of crushing victories in history (with respect to pre-gunpowder eras) were the result of flanking manouvers. Cavalry are the best unit for flanking thanks to their mobility.

[CBR]

MTW multiplayer is not very different from MTW 2 multiplayer. If you played MTW multiplayer, then you would know that no decent player using a Christian faction took spears so I don't see why you're all up in arms over their lack of effectiveness in MTW 2.

And MTW gameplay was limited because spears were weak and now it seems spears are even weaker in M2TW. Can you blame people for wanting an improved gameplay?


CBR

[Puzz3D]

Then why the hell are you playing a game based on the Medieval Era?

I played MTW because Creative Assembly claimed the gameplay was RPS. Why the hell can't Creative Assembly get the game to play as they claim it plays?

[RTKBarrett]

Quit whining, they are obviously trying to help solve the issues otherwise pala wouldnt be interested in what we have to say...

[resonantblue]

And MTW gameplay was limited because spears were weak and now it seems spears are even weaker in M2TW. Can you blame people for wanting an improved gameplay?


CBR

Excuse me, but if you want a strict paper rock scissors game without variant, there are plenty of other ones games you can go play.

And can I blame people for wanting changes? No. Can I blame Puzz3D for having a completely childish and incredibly transparent axe to grind? Yes. He needs to piss off and find a new game if he hates CA and this one so much.

[Rhyfelwyr]

Though cavalry are very overpowered in RTW games, a charge would still do significant damage against standard spearmen (not of course phalanx/pikemen). In the Medieval era, the cavalry charge would often be the deciding factor in a battle. And OK, the horses would not be stupid enough to charge into a wall of spears, but would the infantry be stupid enough to actually turn and rout and take the charge in the back?

I love TW games, thats why I'm here, I just think they are a little cavalry orientated. Nothing a little basic modding can't solve though...

[kvbrock82]

if you start a custom battle with 1 hvy cavalry vs 2 levy spears with the advisor activated, he will tell you that if you stand your ground you will slaughter the cavalry as long as you take the impact head on.

this is not at all the case and results in your spearmen being routed on the first charge even if they are in a 10 rank formation.

this is obviously a mistake on CAs part as they wouldnt program the advisor to get you to lose if you follow his advise.

[Orda Khan]

If you played MTW multiplayer, then you would know that no decent player using a Christian faction took spears so I don't see why you're all up in arms over their lack of effectiveness in MTW 2.

Maybe you should cast your memory back to MTW v1.0 (since you claim you played them all) I seem to remember it was thanks to claims that they were too strong that spears became a non entity. The patches that followed screwed the game and the resultant cav/sword armies you talk about is what transpired and wasn't that fun.

He needs to piss off and find a new game if he hates CA and this one so much.

And maybe you should go and calm down, or at least re-read your post before you hit enter

.......Orda

[JeffBag]

Maybe you should cast your memory back to MTW v1.0 (since you claim you played them all) I seem to remember it was thanks to claims that they were too strong that spears became a non entity. The patches that followed screwed the game and the resultant cav/sword armies you talk about is what transpired and wasn't that fun.

Yeah, MTW v1.0 gameplay was really great. Now, there is absolutely no reason to pick higher quality spears since almost all spear units get +8 bonus, and spears get obliterated when taking a frontal charge. The only use of spears now is to support your cavalry, running in from behind after your own cavalry units have engaged theirs. Spearmen are doubly penalised since they have an attack disadvantage against other infantry as well. I don't think its wrong to be requesting for an entire unit type to have some use other than being eye candy.

To Caledonian Rhyfelwyr, imagine if you were a poor farmer with almost nothing to eat, malnourished and hungry, and you just got forced levied into fighting, given just a cheap shield, and a cheaper spear that is almost breaking, surrounded by men in a similarly poor state like yourself. Now, you glance across the fields, and you see a solid line of horses, with their barding, and atop them are men who seem to have no faces, covered in metal, and with their lances lowered, galloping towards you. I ask you now; would you not have ran? Even if you didn't, there would be plenty others more who would have ran anyway, which would have severely weakened the line. Granted that trained, hardened, and properly equipped infantry with good morale are capable of holding the line, these were rather hard to come by in the real medieval era. However, in the game, you can build plenty of sergeant spearmen and armoured sergeants, who should be expected to hold the line, with heavy casualties obviously, but not getting steamrolled in a single charge like it is in the game now.

[Tuidjy]

I know that many historians claim that a horse will not charge a wall of
spears. Now, I don't know that much about history, but I know a bit about
horses. I am a quarter Tartar, my father was born in a village that rebelled
against the communists when they tried to kill off horses, and got to keep
them, my grandfather did not let me sleep in his house until I stayed on a
horse (I first visited when I was four) Back in the army, my unit was used
as extras in a historical movie (Flight of the Javelin), and because I knew
about horses, I got to work with the stuntmen... many of which were my
inferiors as riders.

A good horse will do anything you train it to. No, you cannot take a horse
that has never charged a wall, and expect him not to shy off it. You
sure as hell can train a horse to run next to a target that you knock down,
then train him to run at multiple targets (we used military cardboard targets)
then train him to run into a row of targets that he knows will fall. It took us
less than two weeks to make the horses expect that a human wall will break
up to let us through. Not warhorses, mind you. Stunt horses of venerable
age and Bulgarian breeding stock to make up the numbers. Of the four
horses I was in charge of, two ended up happily charging even with
other riders, one needed me to ride her, and one would shy off. I am sure
that given more time, I'd have managed to get her to do what I wanted.
It is true that the soldiers were making gaps for the horses, and fell as we
pretended to cut them down (we had swords, even the commies did not want
to risk spears in the mass shots) but when you train the horses, you can
make the 'stooges' do whatever you want the horses to learn to expect.

When anyone tells me that medieval knights, who had no other duty but
prepare for war, and were, as a class, formed for the purpose to show up
in armour on a horse, and who had plentiful, free 'extras' could not train their
horses to do anything they wanted, I call bullshit. Once the horse learns that
the human wall will break, he will happily charge it. And break it will, whether
it is trainers who are ordered to break, whether it is peasants who are scared
out of their minds, or whether it is soldiers who know that their puny two
meter spear will not help against a three meter lance.

Yes, I am speculating. I have never charged a line of spearmen. But I know
that any horse of mine will charge and knock down a man if I steer it into
him. When you have a front of twenty heavy horses charging into a front
of twenty spearmen, it makes it easier for the horses, not harder. Turning
in a mass of horses is extremely hard. People who complain it is too hard
in Medieval II do not know what they are talking about. I applaud CA for
making it so hard to pull of a charge on the fly. But with proper preparation,
the charge should be devastating.

Now, pikes are a different matter. I bet that you could still make the horses
charge into them... once. When the pikeman believes that he will survive,
when the pike is properly set to recieve a charge, the formation will not break,
and you will get horse kebab. But spearmen as the ones pictured on the unit
description screen will not withstand the charge. Hell, if anything, I think
that 20% casualties from the charge is too low. I cannot possibly understand
how the anyone from the front rank can survive, and how anyone with half
a brain would not run unless he knew that his side will be around after the
battle to hang him on the nearest tree. And even then...

Historically, the counter to heavy horse was... heavy horse. Numbers,
tactics, and proper use of the supporting infantry may have been what
won the victory, but without knights, stopping knights would have required
a lot of luck. And yeah, I heard about the times when mud, spikes, and yew
have come together to utterly trounce the flower of knighthood. But we
remember these battles because they were out of the ordinary... after all,
hundreds of years later, knights still charged, and with some success. It
took gunpowder and pikes to remove them from the battlefield. If spearmen
could have done it, they would have.

I can't believe I wrote so much crap on a quick post. Sorry for the spelling,
English not native language, me not speek so good, yada, yada.

[Cheetah]

Historically, the counter to heavy horse was... heavy horse. Numbers,
tactics, and proper use of the supporting infantry may have been what
won the victory, but without knights, stopping knights would have required
a lot of luck. And yeah, I heard about the times when mud, spikes, and yew
have come together to utterly trounce the flower of knighthood. But we
remember these battles because they were out of the ordinary... after all,
hundreds of years later, knights still charged, and with some success. It
took gunpowder and pikes to remove them from the battlefield. If spearmen
could have done it, they would have.

I can't believe I wrote so much crap on a quick post. Sorry for the spelling,
English not native language, me not speek so good, yada, yada.

Your English is excellent Tuidjy.

Also I compeltely agree with your points. There was a reason why empires in contact with horse people adopted cavalry heavy armies (like estern rome), why the pike formation was reinvented, and why heavy cavalry started to disappear only with the advance of gunpowder units.

I think that early, high, late eras are fairly realistic in this respect.

The problem is that it is a game and some think that the only way to balance it (whatever it means) is to force a strick shooters<cav<spear<sword<shooters RPS (rock-paper-scissor) system on it.

Most of the disagreement on this forum comes from the fact that some people are not happy with anything else as opposed to those who are willing to learn and to adopt to new systems.

For the first type of people weak spears mean that the game is "not balanaced", the "ideal RPS" system is broken so that is why they keep complaining, i.e. it has little to do with historical accuracy (of course historical examples are happily used if it fits their argument, but this holds for anyone I guess).

The point is that it is a matter of principle. Some people want a perfect "linear" RPS, some people do not.

CA decided to make a game that departs from the "ideal" RPS system and I guess we have to live with it. In fact I am happy to live with it as long as the game is enjoyable.

[JeffBag]

I don't mind spears being weak, especially in High era, but when armoured sergeants get utterly trounced by mailed knights, something looks very wrong. Yes, I can imagine the fear caused by seeing a line of heavy cavalry charging towards you, as I stated in my post above, but armoured sergeants losing so utterly badly against cavalry? What then, is the point of having armoured sergeants at all? 1 on 1, mailed knights should win of course, but the fact is, the armoured sergeants aren't killing enough to justify their cost. Even on huge unit size, 3 units of armoured sergeants set 6 rows deep suffer tremendous casualties from a single unit of mailed knights set 2 rows deep. Casualties that makes spears far from cost-effective.

Even worse, spears are penalised against other infantry too, so much so that a unit of peasant, which does not get the spear attribute, can beat sergeant spearmen, barely lose against armoured sergeants, and totally thrash town militia and spear militia. Spears now seem to be even worse than in the cavalry/sword spam era of MTW. If non-spear infantry do so tremendously well against spears, why don't spears do tremendously well against cavalry as well? If there isn't RPS balance in this game, why on earth do spears get so utterly penalised against other infantry? Its like spears<swords<cavalry<general's bodyguard in the game now. I agree that the game need not use a RPS system, but it cannot have a RPS system for infantry and a 'logic' system for cavalry.

[Tuidjy]

Even worse, spears are penalised against other infantry too, so much so that a unit of peasant, which does not get the spear attribute, can beat sergeant spearmen, barely lose against armoured sergeants, and totally thrash town militia and spear militia. Spears now seem to be even worse than in the cavalry/sword spam era of MTW.

Now, this situation is plain wrong. A spear is not such a bad weapon, especially
not when it is sticking between two shields. I agree that it makes no sense for
peasants to be as effective as they are now. And you are probably right that
the way spears are modeled needs to be looked into. Once that is done, then
maybe it will be worth having the discussion about charges again. But as far
as I am concerned, probably not.

Personally, I would like the game to be as close to a simulation as possible.
I cringed at the headchucklers and flaming pigs, I dislike the Robin Hood
clone armies, and I hate the supersized elephants even when they do not have
cannon on their backs. I'd blame the "Lord of the Rings" movie for that one,
but I am afraid CA may have done it anyway. Some people are so cool that
even an African elephant cannot impress them unless it it is made the size
of a whale.

[SoxSexSax]

FOLLOW ON SINCE PATCH:

After some testing with my step brother, it would appear this issue has largely been resolved in the 1.1 patch. The main issue was how easily cavalry could pull out after charging. Now, pulling cavalry out who are involved in melee A) results in higher casualties for the cav and B) frequently (and I mean frequently) causes them to rout.

Nice one CA. It felt a vast improvement when I played yesterday. Vast. I'm so glad it wasn't right before, now it feels so much more believable.

Great job once more!

[Kronos]

FOLLOW ON SINCE PATCH:

After some testing with my step brother, it would appear this issue has largely been resolved in the 1.1 patch. The main issue was how easily cavalry could pull out after charging. Now, pulling cavalry out who are involved in melee A) results in higher casualties for the cav and B) frequently (and I mean frequently) causes them to rout.

Nice one CA. It felt a vast improvement when I played yesterday. Vast. I'm so glad it wasn't right before, now it feels so much more believable.

Great job once more!

They're still planning to tweak cav even furhter in 1.2 so lets hope they don't bugger it up again

[-Silent-Someguy]

Look at the loading screen with the crusader cav charging the muslim spearmen... and you can tell right there that the cav would mow them down. Regular spears just arent long enough. Spearmen are good for killing cavalry... as long as they are not charged head on by them. If you send spearmen into cav that are already engaged they will slaughter the cav. Otherwise, the only spear units other than pikes that can survive a charge head on by Chiv or Noble Knights are Papal Guard that I have seen. It says some spear units have a "bonus fighting cavalry" not extra defence against the.

[Puzz3D]

What about the fact that spear infantry is more tightly packed than cavalry? The cavalryman might have the longer spear, but there is more than one infantry spear countering him. The spearmen should take losses stopping a frontal charge, but so should the cavalry. The cavalry should probably loose almost their whole front row on contact.

[Patriarch of Constantinople]

Massi, IT IS A GAME! Don't make a big scene over it. If horses were never willing to run into an army, then what about the huge list of battles that HAD CAVALRY RUNNING INTO ARMIES. Oh those must be lies.

Books are fun

[Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe]

Is anyone thinking about gameplay? Anyone?

When the game will have converged to nearly all cavalry, that balance will be utterly screwed up, wil we be happy campers? Will the game be enjoyable?

Louis,

[Keith_the_Great]

after reading this post, i tried testing heavy bill militia (upgraded) vs cav, the AI cav just charge right into the front of the billmen, billmen had near 50% loses on being impacted by AI cav, the unit was wiped out with-in 10 secs

i remember with the first MTW game, billmen and upgraded milita sergeant were excellent anti cav units.

[FearSimbol]

OK so i will to know, what is the best anti cav unit in MTW2 right now?

Perhaps this games is FearAmp Dream! lol he love to play 16 cavs Units

Anyway, have some one try Cavs Vs Cavs?

Keith_the_Great did you put your billmens on HOLD position? that helped a lot on MTW I, must be some unit to kill cavs.. What about Archers? i used to kill cavs fast shoting at cavs..

[Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe]

Billmen are bugged, so it does not make for a valid test, pick a pike or armoured seargent unit...

Louis,

[Keith_the_Great]

cheers FearSimbol, i always put billmen and upgraded milita sergeant on "hold" in Mtw\VI "as that work an treat "

thxs for info Louis, i didn't know the heavy bill militia unit was bugged "before or after patch" but my test did remind me of the Mtw 1.1 single line of cav bug.

if what i've been reading here is true about cav vs spear, and CA aren't likely to change this with any future patch, i can only think of two possible ways forward (thats if you agree there is a problem)

(1) max cav rule

(2) less florins

I do remember playing some 5k games in the first Mtw have to admit they were fun, as you had no idea "wot" sort of units you would be facing.

[Cheetah]

Is anyone thinking about gameplay?

Yes.

Anyone?

Yes, including CA guys and Palamedes.

When the game will have converged to nearly all cavalry, that balance will be utterly screwed up, wil we be happy campers? Will the game be enjoyable?

Louis,

The game is enjoyable as it is. Have you tried it Louis? Ask Elmo or Hasty if you dont believe me. Admittedly it has bugs and balance issues but still enjoyable, and I hope that most of these issues will be solved with the 2nd patch.

ps. ask Elmo which one is his favourite faction and how much cav he has in his favourite army ...

[Cheetah]

OK so i will to know, what is the best anti cav unit in MTW2 right now?

If you mean infantry that can withstand a charge and kill cavs then late era pikemen.

ps. hello Simbol! Nice to see you back.