Can you explain...Cavalry Vs Spearmen

[TosaInu]

It's just that those spears look more like a little branch I broke from a tree yesterday then something that would be possible to stop a big 2 meter high horse.

Spears are not 1m tall, horses are more than a head floating 2m above the ground. Spears are over 2m long wielded by a man of ~1.50 m and thus provide more than enough range to hit the rider, the horses head and the chest (the chest and flanks are a more likely targets, the legs for glaive like weapons).

I'ld argue that a spear of around 1 meter is already enough to kill off the horse (hit the chest). I recall images of Flemmish goedendags planted into the ground to fight horses. A completely different weapon, but acted like very short spears that way).

The rider would be knocked off then and at least have his coordination damaged for a while. Other spearmen in the unit will kill him while he's counting stars (spearunits have more men than knightunits). Of course the damage to such spearunits would be large: a killed horse would crush the impaler and the knights lance would probably outreach.

[Lusted]

But why it wasn't the balance right in the initial release and why CA has mentioned, that the strong cav charge is for the new player. They want to have flying men on the field.

2 words: shield bug. Completely messes up spear v cav balance, and the balance of all units with shields.

I think Lusted would know the answer, but I think CA thought they found the absolute balance ... and Lusted proved them wrong

Nope they did not like the balance, hence why Pala is chatting to me about balancing stuff i'd done for my mod.

[Puzz3D]

2 words: shield bug. Completely messes up spear v cav balance, and the balance of all units with shields.

Do you think that's the only game mechanic bug? I think there could be more. A programmer has to go through the entire battle engine code and make sure all the calculations are being done correctly. That isn't something that Palamedes can do, and I doubt CA would even let him do it if he could.

Nope they did not like the balance, hence why Pala is chatting to me about balancing stuff i'd done for my mod.

You balanced your mod with the shield bug present. Of what value is that?

Why must a Spearmen unit be 1/3 the price of the cavalry unit it beats.. Is the faster movement for cavalry really worth all that price?

I said 1/3 to cover the most extreme case involving the best cav unit and a spear unit that isn't particularly effective against other infantry, but 1/2 cost could probably be made to work ok. It does depend on how big the anti-cav effect is. The bigger the anti-cav effect the lower you can make the cost of the spear unit because it can be made weaker against other infantry. The idea is to leave room on the cost scale to insert units that beat spears but loose to cav.

With a large anti-cav effect we've found spears at 400, swords at 500, 800 and 1000, and cav at 900, 1000 and 1200 works well. That spear is capable of defeating the strongest cav, but it's also easy to mess up and loose to that cav. The money allocated to each player provides an average of 562 to spend per unit. The ranged units are priced at 200, 300, 400 and 600, and there is a weak but fast spear priced at 200. These cost relationships, the unit stats and the gameplay were worked out by Creative Assembly seven years ago. We made some small adjustments based on feedback from multiplayer games played by top players to improve the gameplay, but that's it.

Now for a gameplay with stronger spears the price goes up, and for weaker swords, for example, the price goes down. If you had a spear or pike unit that was so strong that it beat every other infantry type and all the cav, it would probably end up nearly as expensive as the best cav unit. I suppose the gameplay could be set up with a relatively weak anti-cav effect such that the best spear is required to beat the best cav, but then you wouldn't want the best cav to be available when the best spear was not available. From a multiplayer point of view, you don't need many similar units of gradually increasing capability. All you need is one set of units that works well.

Even knowing that in M2: TW, basically with fast moving you will lose the effective charge that usually makes a cavalry unit so devastating.

Yes that's true and you wouldn't want to do that, but mobility is still valuable because it allows a unit to get into position faster. This reminds me of another issue with the cav charging mechanic in M2TW. Palamedes said there is a formed charge which is strong and an unformed charge which is weak. From what I've seen reported by players, the contrast between these two charge effects is too great. It's appears it's almost black and white. I think it's better to stay away from extremes like that in the gameplay just as it is regarding the RPS.

[Stig]

You balanced your mod with the shield bug present. Of what value is that?

Shield bug:
if the shield should add 3 to the armour it in real takes 3 of.
Well just change that value into -3 and try again

[Paolai]

also cavs have a shield, isnt it?

[Stig]

also cavs have a shield, isnt it?

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=76702

help yourself, open those HTML-comments and you'll see the different armour values in the second red column

[Paolai]

mmmhh...I miss your point. I just would like to know if also cavs have the shiled bug or not. Have they?

[Puzz3D]

Shield bug:
if the shield should add 3 to the armour it in real takes 3 of.
Well just change that value into -3 and try again

That doesn't work. The game doesn't accept a negative number in that parameter.

[Stig]

That doesn't work. The game doesn't accept a negative number in that parameter.

damned, would be an easy one

[Lusted]

It would be. The workaround is adding half the shield value rounded up to armor, half shield vaule rounded down to defense skill. You then zero the shield value.

Works quite well apart from weakening missile units slightly. Makes spear units actually useful against cav.