Cav vs Inf

[|Heerbann|_Di3Hard]

If we summerize issue so far:

- lag
- cavalry charge
- spear issue
- musket effect
- "zoom to general's death"

If only this five things are going to be addressed it would be excellent - for a start. Anything else anyone would like to add - a bug or exploit?

Your points and these problems :

- Better graphic sprites if you zoom out

- more and better maps.

- The fatigue is too low.

- exhaustion bars.

And then the mp mode would be playable. ATM a cwc tournament would be CCC (cav charge competition)

[CeltiberoMordred]

Even cavalry can defeat pikes, you just have to click behind them instead of charging. Cavalry will not suffer casualties at all due to the impact and everybody will switch to swords. Cavalry wins. Sad.

[CeltiberoMordred]

If we summerize issue so far:

- lag
- cavalry charge
- spear issue
- musket effect
- "zoom to general's death"

If only this five things are going to be addressed it would be excellent - for a start. Anything else anyone would like to add - a bug or exploit?

Check this one: https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...9&postcount=31

[NihilisticCow]

"zoom to general's death"

Aonar/Vorcid/Vestorius/Lionnreach (tell me if I missed one ), do you mean that oh so useful cutscene in the middle of a battle that is really welcome at the most crucial moments? If you do, if you change event_cutscenes to 0 in the medieval2.preference.cfg file it seems to go away.

[Fenix7]

if you change event_cutscenes to 0 in the medieval2.preference.cfg file it seems to go away

Thank you for this info.

[Demok]

Cav and pikes are balanced. in a 10k game, 8 chiv knights vs 12 armoured sgts, the armored sgts own all.
Pikes are easy to beat... just dont charge them head on noobs.

[RTKMercurius]

If you do, if you change event_cutscenes to 0 in the medieval2.preference.cfg file it seems to go away.

You could mention the need to open with notepad, instead of letting me ... .

[NihilisticCow]

You could mention the need to open with notepad, instead of letting me ... .

You didn't actually think it might have been a Microsoft Office Outlook Configuration file did you? Poor Mercy.

[ElmarkOFear]

Thanks! I have been wanting to get rid of that annoying break in the action since I have been playing. Didn't know what line to change though! :)

[RTKMercurius]

Anyone know what the "advanced stats" pref is?

[rios]

Fact is that you can win the campaign VH VH just using cav units, and I do not think that it is what the marketing wanted. I just think that they are not able to test a game like this one, or maybe they have not tested at all.

If you have the money to afford only cav then it's in fact a superior army. Mongols conquered half the world with all cav, duhh.

IMO, some light cavs should have more charge value like alans used to be. Light cavs should be taking care of spears which are practically peasants.

[akinkhoo]

well, i think there is nothing wrong with having powerful heavy cavalry... they were the tank of the past, but i think they are far too cheap compare to infantry.

the heavy cavalry are only slightly more expensive than their foot counterpart and that is just illogical because you need to breed, groom, feed and house the warhorses; only the very wealthy could afford keeping 1000 of warhorses. i think if the cost of horses are raise, it will force players to adopt a more balance force.

as for the charge, i think they turn all the heavy cavalry into lancer-like units. they could have made them more specialize; their stat are almost all the same, making it fairly borring.

i don't want them to raise or lower the charge, but rather i hope they make the spearman more powerful instead, and the peasant shouldn't be able to kick they butt either! :P

[|Heerbann|_Di3Hard]

well, i think there is nothing wrong with having powerful heavy cavalry... they were the tank of the past, but i think they are far too cheap compare to infantry.

the heavy cavalry are only slightly more expensive than their foot counterpart and that is just illogical because you need to breed, groom, feed and house the warhorses; only the very wealthy could afford keeping 1000 of warhorses. i think if the cost of horses are raise, it will force players to adopt a more balance force.

as for the charge, i think they turn all the heavy cavalry into lancer-like units. they could have made them more specialize; their stat are almost all the same, making it fairly borring.

i don't want them to raise or lower the charge, but rather i hope they make the spearman more powerful instead, and the peasant shouldn't be able to kick they butt either! :P

No No. It cannot be that after one second a unit is killed. That kills the MP mode. It doesn't matter, how much this cav cost. They must balance the game. Swords and spears must win, if cav attack the front side. It cannot be that they kill 60 swords in 1 second. This is crap. WHere is the tactic?? If I made a mistake, i cannot try to help my unit. It is lost in one second. Very annoying. And spears. pfff. THey must stay to be effective. But which vet attacks spears with cav head on?? I agree with you that the spears have also to win against cav, but Sword must win too. Only back or side flanks by cav should be effective. But please no 20 or 30 kills. Thats too much. CA play MTW Vi. There it is ok.

At the moment it is totally imbalanced. It is an action game. Click fast, dont think, no need to flank. boooooooooooooring.

[RTKMercurius]

The fact that more than a dozen units are bugged to make them unable to attack cav is more a problem than the relative strength of the cav....

[Kronos]

No No. It cannot be that after one second a unit is killed. That kills the MP mode. It doesn't matter, how much this cav cost. They must balance the game. Swords and spears must win, if cav attack the front side. It cannot be that they kill 60 swords in 1 second. This is crap. WHere is the tactic?? If I made a mistake, i cannot try to help my unit. It is lost in one second. Very annoying. And spears. pfff. THey must stay to be effective. But which vet attacks spears with cav head on?? I agree with you that the spears have also to win against cav, but Sword must win too. Only back or side flanks by cav should be effective. But please no 20 or 30 kills. Thats too much. CA play MTW Vi. There it is ok.

At the moment it is totally imbalanced. It is an action game. Click fast, dont think, no need to flank. boooooooooooooring.

Well If it was really like that then cav would become pointless as a big box of inf with archers in the middle would be a good tactic as cav couldn't get in to flank at all, which in turn would make it seriously unbalanced as the factions with the best inf/ arch wouldf be overpowered as the only advantage cav would have would be manouvreability to flank which would be taken away in tha circumstance.

atm if you were to really try your "click fast, don't think, no need to flank" *tactic* you'd get absolutely slaughtered as flanking is still one of the main ways to win. unless ofc your playing someone that doesn't know how to play in which case one could destroy their entire army frontally with 6-8 heavy cav (which btw i've actually done in a 2v2 and destroyed both opponents almost singlehandedly as they were unfamiliar how to counter mass cav) which is easily beatable in a multitude of ways.

[|Heerbann|_Di3Hard]

Well If it was really like that then cav would become pointless as a big box of inf with archers in the middle would be a good tactic as cav couldn't get in to flank at all, which in turn would make it seriously unbalanced as the factions with the best inf/ arch wouldf be overpowered

FALSE. Cav has one BIG advantage. It is fast or faster than sword or spears. Swords should win against every unit in 1vs1. But Cav can move fast around the line and can FLANK the enemy. There are not a strong unit in fighting 1vs1, they are FASTER than the others. They go to the FLANK or BACK and make the enemy FEAR and ROUT the enemy. That are the orders of cav. And NOT to kill 60 MEN in 1 SECOND. AND i BET, that isn't a FEATURE, it is laziness to make it right. Since RTW they are NOT be able to make it RIGHT.

But the "new" CA hasn't ever played MTW Vi or they should know it

If i find the time, I will record a MTW Vi battle to show you and CA/Sega what I mean.

[Puzz3D]

Well If it was really like that then cav would become pointless as a big box of inf with archers in the middle would be a good tactic as cav couldn't get in to flank at all, which in turn would make it seriously unbalanced as the factions with the best inf/ arch wouldf be overpowered as the only advantage cav would have would be manouvreability to flank which would be taken away in tha circumstance.

The box should be defeatable by shooting into it. If a faction has been given spears and shooters that are so good that the box can't be defeated that way, then the faction hasn't been properly balanced. Every tactic should have an effective counter tactic, and every unit an effective counter unit. That's what is meant by balance.

[Orda Khan]

The box should be defeatable by shooting into it.

It is, by simply switching FAW off and targeting the backs of units after you have either killed or decimated the archers.
The cav charge strength seems random to me, whether it is formed or not. It just appears buggy and I don't think the patch has addressed this or many other MP issues

......Orda

[Kronos]

The box should be defeatable by shooting into it. If a faction has been given spears and shooters that are so good that the box can't be defeated that way, then the faction hasn't been properly balanced. Every tactic should have an effective counter tactic, and every unit an effective counter unit. That's what is meant by balance.

Not if the person in the box has 8 arch and 12 inf as they don't have to worry about buying their own cav. So they'll have a severe numerical advantage even with equal inf/arch stats and price wise if cav didn't do anything much then u couldn't beat that against a good player. Also if the faction hasn't been properly balanced for cav being weak then the factions will become even more cloned and similar than they are now.

Thats just one tactic that if your weakened state of cav was implemented, would be able to decimate a *balanced* army.

BTW atm i've found a counter unit/units for every other unit except one, however that one unit can be easily beaten by basic tactics as a whole army.

[Puzz3D]

Not if the person in the box has 8 arch and 12 inf as they don't have to worry about buying their own cav. So they'll have a severe numerical advantage even with equal inf/arch stats and price wise if cav didn't do anything much then u couldn't beat that against a good player.

The attacker shouldn't need cav to beat the box, and it doesn't make much sense that you would use cav to beat an anti-cav formation. The box should fail because the men in the box are packed closer together and will suffer higher casualty rate than the men on the outside who are shooting into the box and who can go into loose formation as well. The men inside can also be subjected to enfilade fire and rear fire. Low trajectory, high penetrating weapons such as xbows and guns should be especially dangerous for the box. In STW, a box is easily defeated since there are a lot of secondary hits (back kills) by guns on deep formations. As the shootout progresses, the box defender will loose melee strength, and eventually he won't be strong enough to win the melee. That kind of game mechanic can also be used effectively against corner campers.

The game designer can adjust the effectiveness of secondary hits, enfilade fire, rear fire and loose formation so that the attacker doesn't have to take as many shooters as the box defender. However, if the shooters are cheap and the cav expensive, it might be more effective to take the same number of shooters. In any case, with this game dynamic the box will disappear from play, and that will open up the game for cavalry. You can have this and still have an infantry unit in the game that's effective in stopping cavalry frontally. I know this because it works very well in Samurai Wars. The spear infantry can kill cav, but they are less mobile and that's an important factor favoring the cav when the gameplay opens up and gets away from static formations.

The problem I see with having cav defeat static formations is that the game will gravitate toward cavalry dominated armies. After all, the cav is going to be even more effective in an open game where mobility is important. We put a tremendous amount of work into balancing Samurai Wars so that cav didn't dominate the gameplay, and yet cav is highly effective. Players who take no cav are at a disadvantage due to lower mobility. Despite the apparent simplicity of only having 14 units in Samurai Wars, the gameplay is complex because there are three RPS systems functioning which have been balanced relative to one another.

These three RPS systems are not black and white like they are in many RTS games, but they are strong enough that spear inf can stop cav. The anti-cav bonus for the spear weapon is actually the only weapon type bonus used in Samurai Wars. We don't use the +1 combat bonus that swords get over spears in MTW/VI. That bonus is unnecessary since our swords beat spears, but they cost more. It's a more intuitive system because you can just look at the cost of the unit to ascertain which unit will win a particular matchup. The wraparound of the cheap spears and expensive cav occurs with the spear anti-cav bonus which is what stops cav from dominating the gameplay. That gives us a nice combined arms gameplay.

Thats just one tactic that if your weakened state of cav was implemented, would be able to decimate a *balanced* army.

I'm not advocating weak cav. I'm advocating an infantry unit that can stop cav and which is cheaper than the cav it stops by at least a factor of 2. The infantry unit has to be cheaper because it has less mobility than cav. You also want to leave some space in the cost system so that you can have some medium cost units that beat the unit that stops cav.

I'm not advocating that a balanced army should beat all other armies. Unbalanced armies can beat balanced armies, but there should exist counter armies to those unbalanced armies. That makes army purchasing interesting because you are trying to anticipate what kind of army your opponent is taking. If your opponent becomes predictable in his unbalanced army type, you can drive him away from choosing that army by taking a counter army. This will tend to drive the armies used back toward more balanced types, but not necessarily fully balanced. We see this in Samurai Wars all the time. Players skew their army to emphasize either swords or spears or shooters or cav depending on their style of play or what they think their opponent will take or the map terrain, but they have learned not to go too far with this because effective counter armies exist. Unfortunately, we have the tax on more than 4 of one type which limits what players can choose. We don't need this restriction in Samurai Wars. That the tax has reappeared in M2TW is a crutch designed to reduce the amount of effort put into play balancing.

BTW atm i've found a counter unit/units for every other unit except one, however that one unit can be easily beaten by basic tactics as a whole army.

That's promising. Unfortunately, the robust statistical battle engine of the earlier games has been gutted. The new 3d engine is not advanced enough to actually simulate combat. The older statistical engine does a better job.

[Cheetah]

But the "new" CA hasn't ever played MTW Vi or they should know it

Palamedes started to play MTW well before VI came out. By that time he was a competent tourney player and during VI he was part of a team that was undefeated in the prime MTW/VI tourney vs the best clans.

If i find the time, I will record a MTW Vi battle to show you and CA/Sega what I mean.

I am sure Palamedes still has his replays but thx the offer. On the other hand I can send you MTW/VI replays with Pala playing, if you are interested.

[|Heerbann|_Di3Hard]

Palamedes started to play MTW well before VI came out. By that time he was a competent tourney player and during VI he was part of a team that was undefeated in the prime MTW/VI tourney vs the best clans.



I am sure Palamedes still has his replays but thx the offer. On the other hand I can send you MTW/VI replays with Pala playing, if you are interested.

I guess, Palamedes is the last one from old times. I have read, that only some graphic artists are left from the old MTW developer team.

I go back to MTW Vi. Yesterday there was some gamers online. 2 Aggony, 1 Hunter, GO Clan, Zaphod, Scurvy and many more. Okay, there will not be great tournaments. But some matches at evening are enough for me.

EDIT: And I am annoyed because of the Developer Blogs. They have written before the game was released, that anything is fine in multiplayer mode. And yes, Palamedes has written it. But he should has known already, that it isn't the case. I feel messed around.

On the other hand I can send you MTW/VI replays with Pala playing, if you are interested.

If you have some, I would be really interested in. I want to see, how they have played some years ago and compare with matches from last times. You can write to heerbann@gmx.de

Thank you in advance.
|Heerbann|_Di3Hard

[Keith_the_Great]

I realize this might not help and doesn't solve the overpowered "bugged" cav problem BUT i think its worth mentioning,

Armoured Sergeants in Guard mode, with Retinue Longbow at (sergeants) rear using their special Ability (sharped stakes),


by the time the cav reach your sergeants the cav unit has 10% loses (from missile fire) on impact, the sergeants take about 40% loses because the left and right flanks of the cav run into the stakes,"which are at the rear of sergs) the cav unit should have about 30% loses,
then attack cav unit with longbow men,
you find that the cav will then withdraw, having suffered 80% loses.

armoured sergeants will still have 90% loses BUT the cav unit has been beaten!!!

ok its still 2 vs 1 and still totally unbalanced

[|Heerbann|_Di3Hard]

I realize this might not help and doesn't solve the overpowered "bugged" cav problem BUT i think its worth mentioning,

Armoured Sergeants in Guard mode, with Retinue Longbow at (sergeants) rear using their special Ability (sharped stakes),


by the time the cav reach your sergeants the cav unit has 10% loses (from missile fire) on impact, the sergeants take about 40% loses because the left and right flanks of the cav run into the stakes,"which are at the rear of sergs) the cav unit should have about 30% loses,
then attack cav unit with longbow men,
you find that the cav will then withdraw, having suffered 80% loses.

armoured sergeants will still have 90% loses BUT the cav unit has been beaten!!!

ok its still 2 vs 1 and still totally unbalanced

The idea sounds good, but if we see, that the enemy has build these stakes, my team move on the flank of the enemy. He has to rotate too and the stakes are useless. These stakes are very useless feature unless the enemy has a position, that I can attack only from one way. But then he has a perfect position anyway.

[Censor]

I know I'm not one to talk, being a neophyte, noob, newb, and whatever other demeaning name you can throw at me.

But...Have you guys played with huge settings? Cav doesn't seem too overpowered with huge units, but there is still a rather powerful charge. The problem with the light cav equalling the heavy in charge capability is inescapable however. Vardariotai charge = poo for spearmen.

[Darsh]

after several games, I think the cavalery isn't overpowered ok the charge is very powerfull but if you can disrupt the cavalery charge with other cavalery and charge with spearmen next you'll will have always the avantage.

all cav army (except perhaps mongols and timurids) are only effective against noobs
all heavy infantery cannot beat a cav army
A balance army can win against everybody.

[CeltiberoMordred]

after several games, I think the cavalery isn't overpowered ok the charge is very powerfull but if you can disrupt the cavalery charge with other cavalery and charge with spearmen next you'll will have always the avantage.

all cav army (except perhaps mongols and timurids) are only effective against noobs
all heavy infantery cannot beat a cav army
A balance army can win against everybody.

If you need 2 units to counter 1 single unit it's a disadvantage. In addition, both must be close to the other.

In an extreme situation, you would need 10 cavalry + 10 spears to counter 10 cavalry units.

Now tell me how you stop the other 10 enemy units.

[Darsh]

If you need 2 units to counter 1 single unit it's a disadvantage. In addition, both must be close to the other.

In an extreme situation, you would need 10 cavalry + 10 spears to counter 10 cavalry units.
.

false only 3/4 cavaleries and 4/5 spearmen are need to counter 10 cavaleries because your cavaleries is just here to disrupt the cavalery charge, block the cavalery in the hand to hand and wait the spearmen.
The spearmen are the real cavalery killer but they are very vulnerable against cavalery charge

"Now tell me how you stop the other 10 enemy units"

I speak only for a 10k game because it's the most balance game:
10 cavalery units=10K
4 cavaleriy and 5 spearmen =6500

[CeltiberoMordred]

false only 3/4 cavaleries and 4/5 spearmen are need to counter 10 cavaleries because your cavaleries is just here to disrupt the cavalery charge, block the cavalery in the hand to hand and wait the spearmen.
The spearmen are the real cavalery killer but they are very vulnerable against cavalery charge

"Now tell me how you stop the other 10 enemy units"

I speak only for a 10k game because it's the most balance game:
10 cavalery units=10K
4 cavaleriy and 5 spearmen =6500

If you think that 3-4 cavalry units are enough to block 10 cav units, then I don't find the reason to continue this discussion. You win.

And for your info, you can purchase 10 cav units for 5200 florins or less with many factions. With English, you can even get those 10 cav units for less than 4000 florins.

Regards.

[Keith_the_Great]

Darsh i understand where your coming from here, and at first glance, it seems like a good idea BUT as i've posted ealier and as CeltiberoMordred has pointed out

If you need 2 units to counter 1 single unit it's a disadvantage. In addition, both must be close to the other.

it is a strategical disadvantage

BUT the real problem with this strategy is unit cost, if there was a balanced uint cost, then you could work the 2:1 ratio to your advantage, (depending on ones ability)
i personnally would enjoy the opportunity to field 2:1 ratio inf vs 10 or so cav opponent, it would be challaging