How to always win a 4v4 using ALL or LATE era.

[ElmarkOFear]

LOL Cheetah. UglyStrike hosted a couple 4v4s and the lag was very manageable.

The situation IS bad, for the reasons I gave previously concerning the cost disadvantage you are under when playing against these 4 factions in a 4v4 late or all era game. If you were to take the France, Russian, Turk etc . . army vs a team consisting of the big 4, you would find yourself on the losing end most often (unless of course, you were playing very new players or myself! hehe)


The biggest problem with muskets vs. Arqu's is the range. The musketeer unit has a longer range than any other missile unit in the game. By the time you get your arque's within range of the muskets, you will have lost a great deal of men and thus start from your first volley with a major deficit. :) Try it in custom battle to find out. The musket range has a factor of 180. The LongBow has a factor of 160. Other units are around 120 or so. Not sure if this is yards, meters, etc . . I know the arque range is lower but not by how much (it is 160 or less).

The second factor which makes muskets overpowered given their cost, is their firing rate which is the same as all the rest of the missile units in the game: 25 in 10ths of a second. I imagine the reloading rate of gunpowder units would be much longer than that of an arrow. You would have to break out the gunpowder, tamp it, load the ball and then aim and fire, whereas with an arrow you just reach back, grab one, notch it, aim and fire. If the musket rate of fire was increased to 50 (in 10ths of a second) this might help balance that unit and could also solve the faction problem.

Hope this clears some things up for the musket unit.

***ELMO SHOOTS SELF IN FOOT***

As for the Sicily and Papal states pike units: They are not very effective vs. cav units unless you have cav yourself and stop them with your own cav and then hit them with the pikes. If you take a pike unit in a 1v1 open-field battle, you will lose your pike unit quickly to almost any unit out there, except possibly an archer unit. PS: France DOES have a very good pike unit vs. cost, but it isn't the best in the game. :)


X-Danger: The other faction musket units are unique units and have greater hand-to-hand attack/defense stats, which is why they are more expensive, but their cost is way too much more, given the fact they would not use their melee ability until late in the game after all the shooting is over. :) If they made them just a little more costly than the Big 4 muskets (between 25 to 75 florins more) it might solve the problem as well.

I have noticed the cost structure of units in this game puts a greater weight on hand-to-hand stats than missile and charge factors. Price increases much more with an increase in attack or defense factors than it does with an equal increase in charge and range/fire-rate/accuracy factors.

Plus, the cost factors for all units were obviously priced to balance the single player campaign and not MP.

BTW: I believe I have found a rush army, which will destroy both musket and cav armies, however it is vulnerable to a few other units. Once I test it in custom some more, I will begin using it online and if I find it to be worthy, I will be more than happy to share it with you all.