Loose vs Close; Which to Use When

**Shahed** · 12-24-2006, 02:36

Hey thanks for mentioning that in another thread katank. Forgot to thank you there. I tried it as well and it works. The more you can move, the more you can be disorderly but yet ordered seems to be best. I beat French Lancers using 2 spear militia. The system is messed. They've tried to make many differentiations in classes and status of units but what's happened is quite er... wierd.

**katank** · 12-24-2006, 02:49

No problem. Yeah, things are a bit weird right now. Spears get pwned by everything (militia spears die to archer militia!). Loose pwns tight etc.

How'd you win against lancers with 2 spear miltia? Snared them with loose formation in a forest or something? Either way, I'm impressed. Heavy cav often punches clean through lines.

**Shahed** · 12-24-2006, 02:56

There was a height advantage, though almost negligible. Map was Saharan Sands or what's it called ?

I just walked down the hill to meet the Lancers at the bottom. First charge routed the 2 deep loose formation SM in front.
Charged my General SM in 4 deep loose formation and rallied the other unit. The Lancers started to withdraw, charged both SM into them, they routed. It was mostly the same result, 4-5 times or as many times as it took for me to get through my 2 BigMacs.

See in this case you should really have to use dedicated halberds, gunpowder, or strong spears i.e DSLs, Armored Sargents etc. But as it is now SM can do the trick if used "improperly". Giving sub classes to units can be interesting, but then you have to go all the way.

**dopp** · 12-24-2006, 03:42

Originally Posted by Sinan

There was a height advantage, though almost negligible. Map was Saharan Sands or what's it called ?

I just walked down the hill to meet the Lancers at the bottom. First charge routed the 2 deep loose formation SM in front.
Charged my General SM in 4 deep loose formation and rallied the other unit. The Lancers started to withdraw, charged both SM into them, they routed. It was mostly the same result, 4-5 times or as many times as it took for me to get through my 2 BigMacs.

See in this case you should really have to use dedicated halberds, gunpowder, or strong spears i.e DSLs, Armored Sargents etc. But as it is now SM can do the trick if used "improperly". Giving sub classes to units can be interesting, but then you have to go all the way.

The morale penalty for loose formation should be set much higher, enough to send the whole unit packing when anything formed up even approaches. That will solve the cavalry charge problem somewhat, because the archers/skirmishers will rout almost immediately and the charge will turn into a chase.

**Shahed** · 12-24-2006, 03:50

That's a good idea. It would have to be accompanied by a spear fix of course to compensate that you'd now lose your only spear defence against charge i.e loose formation.

They usually do rout instantly most of the times I've seen. I always use 2 or 3 cavalry vs one archer unit -> bagging -> insta rout.

**antisocialmunky** · 12-24-2006, 05:21

Originally Posted by dopp

The morale penalty for loose formation should be set much higher, enough to send the whole unit packing when anything formed up even approaches. That will solve the cavalry charge problem somewhat, because the archers/skirmishers will rout almost immediately and the charge will turn into a chase.

It would make sense if the uber-morale penalty should apply only to formation units like pikes/spears and the not-so-uber morale penalty for swords, horsies, elephants, and halberds... etc. Imagine elephants in loose going amok when something formed up approaches.

**Shahed** · 12-24-2006, 05:36

Sorry to go so Off Topic.....

Actually now that I think about it, I'm surprised I did'nt repeat myself earlier.

The main push should be to fix the units that are not working as they "should":

-Pikes
-Spears
-2Hs

Having community patches is fantastic but finally, and ultimately the basic fixes should come from the developers. If for no other reason than for the sake of corporate responsibility.

Salute !

**OMGLAZERS** · 12-24-2006, 07:30

Originally Posted by Sinan

Having community patches is fantastic but finally, and ultimately the basic fixes should come from the developers. If for no other reason than for the sake of corporate responsibility.

As if.

**dopp** · 12-24-2006, 14:37

Originally Posted by antisocialmunky

It would make sense if the uber-morale penalty should apply only to formation units like pikes/spears and the not-so-uber morale penalty for swords, horsies, elephants, and halberds... etc. Imagine elephants in loose going amok when something formed up approaches.

Eh, I think it should apply quite evenly across all unit types, lest we are treated to the spectacle of skirmishers making heavy infantry irrelevant. Open formation is to avoid missile fire, tight is to absorb charges and to fight melee.

Loose formation being better at absorbing charges is not only counter-intuitive, it's incredibly stupid. Total War doesn't have to be the most historical wargame of all time, but it really does need to make sense on occasion.

I suspect a lot of all this stuff being out of whack is because they tried to balance things differently, given player feedback from RTW. Phalanxes too strong, horsemen too strong, horsemen too tough, plus they have to add new unit types like halberds (somewhere between pikes and swords), muskets and crossbows. And then of course they wanted to introduce more fluid fight sequences (which I actually like). So we end up with 'buggy' horsemen, weak pikemen and worthless halberds, causing us to scream for a return to comforting RTW standards.

**econ21** · 12-24-2006, 18:12

Cavalry can have a big problem with loose formations even in RTW - you can see it in realism mods like RTR and EB, when heavy cavalry charge skirmishers in loose order. They often suffer awfully.

Apparently it's worse in M2TW. In RTW, the problem seemed to be specific to skirmishers - skirmishers trying to avoid cavalry by their skirmish ability switched the cavalry from charging to purusing and cost them their charge bonus. I never heard anyone recommend meeting a RTW cavalry charge in loose formation.

For M2TW, I agree it needs to be fixed (as do spears, IMO). But CA bashing won't make that any more likely (in fact, I suspect it will make it less likely, as CA staff will just switch off from a thread with abusive posts), so people should take care to discuss this maturely and not with insulting language.

At the moment, I will just try to ignore this bug. I could not bear to use a two row deep loose formation of spearmen to fight AI knights. Thankfully the AI plays in an equally naive manner.