My opinion on the state of MP

[ElmarkOFear]

I have been playing a few games this week and I now believe I can form an opinion on MP:

It appears many are taking 8 to 12 cav armies consisting of a General Bodyguard, 4 to 6 missile cav, and 3 or 4 light cav, a couple heavy cav and the rest archers and dismounted knight units. This may, at first, seem like a mixed and balanced army, but it is a little deceptive.

The majority of games, I played in, centered around cav battles and charges into foot units. Missile units and foot units entered very seldom into the outcome of a battle. Personally, I have never liked mostly cav battles much and it is one reason I stopped playing MTW for awhile. M2TW is similar to MTW in that respect. To help alleviate battles from playing the same, I believe a few tweaks should be done.

1. Spear units should be able to kill several cav units quickly, after the cav's initial charge is finished and before the cav can withdraw. However, I think the sword vs. spear bonus is what may have broken this rock/paper/scizzors effect. Once the cav finishes its charge, it breaks out the sword to fight with. I believe the sword vs. spear bonus kicks in then and keeps the spear units from killing many of the cav before they can disengage. I am not sure how to best make the change to spear units to acheive this though. You could change the "vs. cav" bonus, the defensive values, or the attack values of spear units, but which would work best or what combination?

2. I believe the cav charge is fine the way it is. If it is changed to make it easier and more automatic to use, then it will tip the balance too much in the cav's favor and MP may become extremely predictable, with even less units being used than in STW days. With STW, you may have had only 9 different units (or so), but you could upgrade them in so many ways, you actually had more unique unit strengths available to you than the current TW games.

3. Missile units are varied and seem about right in their killing ability, however, they are extremely expensive, which would be fine in the case of those special archer units which have good attack/defensive values, but not for those archer units which are weak in hand-to-hand.

4. Upgrades are also very expensive for the extra power you might be getting. I haven't noticed too much of a difference in success between an upgraded unit and its non-upgraded version. The +1 to attack and defense isn't enough considering the attack/defense numbers are now in the 10 to 20 range for a lot of units. Maybe change the cost, or change the additional power to +2 for each upgrade level. This would add some variance and make upgrades worth the expense. It may also take care of the slight cav imbalance, allowing you to upgrade your spear units to be able to effectively fight cav.

That is all I have for now. I will add/change my opinions as I play more and become familiar with the ins and outs of the new battle engine.

[t1master]

i thought they were tossing unit upgrades out the window for this version. at ten k, with most factions, you can just barley pick 20 units, with little left over to pump. some factions you can't even field 20 units with ten k. i sorta like that and am not in favor of upgrading any units.

interesting point about the cav switching to swords/secondary weapons after the charge. can ca comment on that?

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

very Intersting El. I seen many armies use 6-10 cav, and dismounted knights, OR,
they use Dismounted Knights, Some Fedual Cavarly with some Light Cav, ethier Missle or Light Melee, Like Alans, and about at least 4-8 Muskeeters (4-6 is standed, but I seen 8-10 :() and those Musketeers I tend to be a alirgnt missle unit, but they kill my HA in CC so fast, it's not funny.

[Fenix7]

and am not in favor of upgrading any units.

I support you here. I dislike upgreads as well.

[Orda Khan]

Interesting points about cav, Elmo.
On the whole, I see a lot of what I disliked about MTW. There are some additions, certain things have changed slightly but still it comes back to faction imbalance. I still don't know whether I want to buy this game

.........Orda

[Lusted]

I'd wait for patches if you are only interested in mp Orda. Im trying to get CA to listen to my ideas for balancing units(increased cost of cavalry, spearmen strnger against cav), i've even sent them a modified edu to see ifthey will test it and see.

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

I doubt CA will test it (if they can't make MTW2 like STW or Orginial MTW MP,that it's no use). But worth a shot anyhow..

[ElmarkOFear]

I like the way upgrades are handled as well. I only mentioned allowing the upgrade of spears to one or two extra levels to help offset the cav problem. I DO congratulate CA on coming up with a neat way to handle upgrades and keeping them from unbalancing MP. They just need to balance MP altogether now . . LOL :) Though it isn't quite as bad as that may sound. hehe

The big problem is the costs are all taken from the SP game. I have always pushed CA to separate the stats into SP and MP, so a change to one will not adversely affect the other. Not sure why they won't do that. They could then balance just the SP campaign (since that is their focus anyways) and leave the MP balancing to the community and release it as a separate "unofficial" community MP patch. They wouldn't even have to beta test it. Just offer it along with the SP patch. A simple solution that would just require a change to one line of code in the executable for the game and a duplicate stat file. It would go a long way in helping those who want to mod the MP side of the game and not the SP.

Plus, as we all know, it is extremely hard to get a majority of players to download a "mod", but call it a "patch" instead and have it next to the official SP "patch" and everyone will download it and play it online.

I have been looking into the cav thing and the problem isn't as much the cav killing so many on contact (some will argue that that is the way it should be for cav), but it is the cost for these units are too little (especially for the light cav units such as merchant militia cav, militia cav etc . .) Their charge value is much less (2) than the heavy knight units (8) yet they kill just as easily in a charge. I don't think that any unarmored cav unit, should be able to be used as a steamroller like the heavy knight units. It is obvious a change in the charge value doesn't much effect a cav unit's ability to kill foot units on contact, so I am not sure how this charge value is used in the battle calculations. There must be something else which determines such. I wonder if you can change a cav unit's charge value to a negative? If you could, then you could keep changing it into the negative until you see a change in killing rate. Then you could do this for all non-armored cav. I do not think non-armored cav were used to charge foot units (especially spear units). I believe they were used to cut down routing men, or to flank enemy units already engaged and cut them down (not run them down).

So here is what I would propose to do, but not sure how it is to be done:

1. Make armored cav more expensive (the more armor the more expensive).
2. Change the value which determines the killing rate of cav charges for unarmored cav units until it reduces the "initial contact" killing rate and makes it unwise to use those units on foot units. Most of the killing from unarmored cav should be from spears and swords not the charge.
3. Give every faction at least one heavy cav unit and a spear unit which has the ability to defend against a heavy cav rush.

I think this would create a much better MP experience and get rid of a big imbalance in the MP game.

I haven't had the time to look into handgunners? Or is it Musketeers? Arquebusiers? Or all gunpowder foot units? Let me know and I will do some tests.

Well I am off to bed. Been a long day. The wife went through 5 hours of dentistry (under sedation) and I was there the whole day and have been taking care of her at home. Though I must admit, my kids have been well-behaved today and a joy to be around. :)

If I can't sleep, I will be online in the MP lobby playing a few games, trying out gunpowder units to see what the problem is. If anyone can explain it to me I will test it a bit online and through custom battles to see if I might be able to figure it out.

Somebody have a contact for Palamedes? I believe he said to email him with such things. We may want to give him the above perception of the problem so CA doesn't decide to "fix" the cav charge problem and make them even MORE imbalanced.

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

Hey,

Handgunners are kinda overpowerd IMO, Musketeers are Majorly, and Arquebusiers. I can do some test games with you El if needed..

[ElmarkOFear]

Sounds good Warman! If you see me online give me a shout and we can run some tests on those muskets/arques. :)

[Palamedes]

Gents,

I think Palamedes email and msn is:

jturnbull@creative-assembly.com.au

Elmark if you could send me you and your buds priorities for balance fixes that would be great. A stickied thread with the list being constantly updated would be even better.

Anyway get in touch mate I don't get the time to visit the forums as often as I would like and I would hate to not get the balance spot on.

Regards

Jason

[Monarch]

Handgunners arn't overpowered, muskets are though.

[ElmarkOFear]

I will see if Tosa will make a sticky for this section of the forum (If one isn't there already) and will try to help get a list of wishes and posibble fixes to what we see as problems with MP.

PS: I don't know about the link Palamedes. You appear to be quite the shady character to me! hehe After all those times you and your RTK buddies chased me off the map!

I will send you a test email to see if it works. For some reason when I pull up my email program it works fine, but if I click on links it doesn't Darn PCs!

If anyone sees me online, and would like to help test a few things with a live person, please chat with me and we can play a few games. I'm always open to playing new people, no matter what their skill level is. After all I'm not considered a professional noob for nothing. :)

[Lusted]

Elmark if you could send me you and your buds priorities for balance fixes that would be great. A stickied thread with the list being constantly updated would be even better.

pala, i've been working on a more balanced export_descr_unit.txt file, could i send it to you for you to have a look at?

[Monarch]

Out of general interest, Lusted, care to list what alterions there are?

[Lusted]

Here is the file:

http://www.bigupload.com/d=B7DB8EB6

and here are the changes(based on my own experiences, and some of the things i've read about in the mp forum here):

-cavalry charges fixed by increasing the charge distance
-increased cost of musketeers
-spearmen now more effective against cavalry, but still weak against sword armed infantry
-cavarly no longer wipe out spearmen in a single charge, spearmen can now hold heavy cavalry units, but cavalry is still very strong against sword infantry
-increased cost of horse archers by 250 and reduced thier melee attack
-increased cost of all cavalry units by 200 florins to balance things out, and increased upkeep for elite cavalry units.
-increased cost of artillery in campaign a lot to stop ai from building lots of it
-fix for units with 2 handed bug, they now fight in melee and against cavalry
-rebalancing of stats in line with this
-Byzantine Infantry, Varangian Guard and Kataphraktoi made more powerful to make the Byzantines better
-Crusader units available in custom battle for catholic factions
-billmen made more powerful
-artillery have longer range
-units armed with longbow have longer range and slightly increased damage
-Venetian Archer And Venetian Heavy Infantry armour upgrade fix(in vanilla M2Tw the armour upgrades are the wrong way round, i've fixed it)

[Lusted]

Here is the file:

http://www.bigupload.com/d=B7DB8EB6

and here are the changes(based on my own experiences, and some of the things i've read about in the mp forum here):

-cavalry charges fixed by increasing the charge distance
-increased cost of musketeers
-spearmen now more effective against cavalry, but still weak against sword armed infantry
-cavarly no longer wipe out spearmen in a single charge, spearmen can now hold heavy cavalry units, but cavalry is still very strong against sword infantry
-increased cost of horse archers by 250 and reduced thier melee attack
-increased cost of all cavalry units by 200 florins to balance things out, and increased upkeep for elite cavalry units.
-increased cost of artillery in campaign a lot to stop ai from building lots of it
-fix for units with 2 handed bug, they now fight in melee and against cavalry
-rebalancing of stats in line with this
-Byzantine Infantry, Varangian Guard and Kataphraktoi made more powerful to make the Byzantines better
-Crusader units available in custom battle for catholic factions
-billmen made more powerful
-artillery have longer range
-units armed with longbow have longer range and slightly increased damage
-Venetian Archer And Venetian Heavy Infantry armour upgrade fix(in vanilla M2Tw the armour upgrades are the wrong way round, i've fixed it)

[Lusted]

Here is the file:

http://www.bigupload.com/d=B7DB8EB6

and here are the changes(based on my own experiences, and some of the things i've read about in the mp forum here):

-cavalry charges fixed by increasing the charge distance
-increased cost of musketeers
-spearmen now more effective against cavalry, but still weak against sword armed infantry
-cavarly no longer wipe out spearmen in a single charge, spearmen can now hold cavalry units, but cavalry is still very strong against sword infantry
-increased cost of horse archers by 250 and reduced thier melee attack
-increased cost of all cavalry units by 200 florins to balance things out, and increased upkeep for elite cavalry units.
-increased cost of artillery in campaign a lot to stop ai from building lots of it
-fix for units with 2 handed bug, they now fight in melee and against cavalry
-rebalancing of stats in line with this
-Byzantine Infantry, Varangian Guard and Kataphraktoi made more powerful to make the Byzantines better
-Crusader units available in custom battle for catholic factions
-billmen made more powerful
-artillery have longer range
-units armed with longbow have longer range and slightly increased damage
-Venetian Archer And Venetian Heavy Infantry armour upgrade fix(in vanilla M2Tw the armour upgrades are the wrong way round, i've fixed it)

[Orda Khan]

yes the ORG is slow

[ElmarkOFear]

LOL Lusted. 3 of the same post! At the Duck Pond this would be where everyone would jump in, point at me and yell: "NOOB!" and make me speak pirate-speak for 24 hours. hehe

Changes made to that file can be directly copied into the M2TW folder to work can they not? I can rename the original file, then copy that one into the folder and it will take affect right?

If so, we can experiment with changes one at a time to see how they affect things in MP. Though it will still be difficult to make changes to MP units without overtly affecting SP.

[Lusted]

Sorry about that the .org completely slowed down for me.

No you need to use it with the my mod feature, but you could install my lands to conquer mod(link in sig), drop the file linked above into the landstoconquer\data folder and then try it out in mp.

Bear in mind the file above is still a work in process, i haven't looked at the balanced of pike units yet, or halberds. and the changes tot he cost of Musketeers is the only balancing thing i've done with them.

But overall i think i've done a good job, especially in regards to cav and spearmen. Spearen can now hold cavalry. For instance now Armoured Sergeants will beat Mailed Knights, and put up a good fight against Gendarmes. But they will be quite easily beaten by sword/axe/polearm infantry. And cav can still easily devestate sword and axe infantry with a charge.

Plus i've also kept in mind unit costs when balancing things as well, so that things are not just balanced in my file for sp, but for mp as well. There are likely to be some imbalances, i may even have added in some more, but i think i've done well.

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

Sounds good Warman! If you see me online give me a shout and we can run some tests on those muskets/arques. :)

Hey Elmo,

just time me what day/days you wanna meet and what time and we can meet up (we can talk though PM if you like )

[Cheetah]

The majority of games, I played in, centered around cav battles and charges into foot units. Missile units and foot units entered very seldom into the outcome of a battle. Personally, I have never liked mostly cav battles much and it is one reason I stopped playing MTW for awhile. M2TW is similar to MTW in that respect.

I think this is expected on flat grassy maps. However, if one picks a map with terrain/forrest on it then the situation will change IMO. I know that some people are horrified by the idea of fighting on a hilly/forrested map; or in and around a village, but I think it is a bad habit picked up during rtw (due to cav spamming and terrible maps). I think if someone picks a terrain that favours infantry, then surprise of surprises, you will see more infantry.

ps. it is true that there are too few good maps

[Cheetah]

1. Make armored cav more expensive (the more armor the more expensive).

I think heavy cav prices are fine. Some light cavs are too cheap and perhaps some medium cavs, but knights are costly enough.

2. Change the value which determines the killing rate of cav charges for unarmored cav units until it reduces the "initial contact" killing rate and makes it unwise to use those units on foot units. Most of the killing from unarmored cav should be from spears and swords not the charge.

I agree, light/medium cav charge should be considerable weakened, though you want those light cavs uselful vs archers.

3. Give every faction at least one heavy cav unit and a spear unit which has the ability to defend against a heavy cav rush.[/B]

Oh no! Elmorush supported by heavy cavs *Cheetah runs away*

[ElmarkOFear]

Bwahahahaha! You are on to my nefarious schemes Cheetah! :)

I think knight units should be in the 800 to 1000 range. Medium cav (armored) in the 700 to 800. Medium cav unarmored (600 to 700). Light cav 600 to 700. Plus, slight changes to the charge killing rate of light/medium (unarmored) cav or at least a big morale penalty when using such units verse spears. I see players using crossbow cav as if they were heavy armored cav quite a bit. Crossbow cav should only be effective for chasing down routing men, hitting a flank (but not doing much damage from a charge, more of a morale-hit only effect), and used as blockers in desparate situations when needed to hold an enemy unit from flanking. Otherwise they should just run around and shoot little virtual arrows in the enemy's buttocks. :)

I haven't played many maps since people seem fond of hosting Grassy Plains. As you know, my original clan (Fearful Ways) was one of the first clans to play all those difficult terrain maps as attackers in STW and continued the tradition into MTW. I love variety, but even those M2TW maps favor cav quite a bit, since there doesnt appear to be much forested areas on most of the maps.

The one Cheetah and his teammates played tonight against Fucy, myself, and Anders was probably the only real forested map I have run across in my short time online. Was an interesting battle, which I think would offer up some good battles in an experienced team vs. experienced team game. I can see some strategic unit selection being done and good use of terrain, once teams become familiar with those maps. I haven't done much cav battles vs. foot units in forest to see if there is a reduction in effectiveness for cav in woods. Would be interesting to find out.

Hey Cheetah: Do you remember what forested map that was we played tonight in our last battle? I would like to do some tests on that one.

Warman: I am on at different times of day and night given my odd night-shift hours. I can be on anytime around 9 am to noon Eastern Standard, 4 to 6 pm Eastern Standard, and 9 to 11 Eastern Standard. hehe It all depends on when I get sleep. Sometimes I have to change around and sleep before work instead of after. I spend half my life wondering what day it is and even what month it might be! :) I hate it when life interferes with my gaming! hehe

[Stig]

LOL Lusted. 3 of the same post! At the Duck Pond this would be where everyone would jump in, point at me and yell: "NOOB!" and make me speak pirate-speak for 24 hours. hehe

Hey I was slow and didn't read this thread yet. Anyway it's German speak nowadays, ja ja.

I think there's one problem:
we can only have 4 units of a kind, but I can choose 3x4 units of crusader cav with identical stats, why have the spam filter then?

[ElmarkOFear]

A valid point and I believe it may have to do with the SP campaign not being adjusted when it transferred to MP. I noticed there were some factions that had a lot of differently-named cav with the exact same stats. It DOES get around the 4 unit limit. Good catch. :)

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

Bwahahahaha!

Warman: I am on at different times of day and night given my odd night-shift hours. I can be on anytime around 9 am to noon Eastern Standard, 4 to 6 pm Eastern Standard, and 9 to 11 Eastern Standard. hehe It all depends on when I get sleep. Sometimes I have to change around and sleep before work instead of after. I spend half my life wondering what day it is and even what month it might be! :) I hate it when life interferes with my gaming! hehe

I be around 5-5:30 PM Mondays Thur Thursdays on MTW2 El, depending on what I'm doing

[Orda Khan]

A valid point and I believe it may have to do with the SP campaign not being adjusted when it transferred to MP. I noticed there were some factions that had a lot of differently-named cav with the exact same stats. It DOES get around the 4 unit limit. Good catch. :)

AnnieP pointed that out weeks ago. Some factions simply have too many cav choices and it makes a nonsense of the 4 unit limit

......Orda

[ElmarkOFear]

Good Ole Annie! I actually saw her in the M2TW lobby the other night. :)