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

[Lavos]

Eh, community isn't much better than it was when I started, even then when you joined a decent 4v4 you had all clan members (not from same clan) gathered in one team with newbies being left for themself. And most was bitching if they were left with at least one new player. Of course there were some good players willing to help newcomers but there were rare, it was better than now, but not much.

[Monarch]

one as moors with their Über-peasant crossbowmen and camel gunners (huge range) as well as fast javelin cav (really devastating if used correctly), scots (for great pikes which can hold their ground in melee too), and poland (some of the best knights and decent horse archers)[/QUOTE]

While I haven't played multi, from singleplayer, bows/xbows are better than muskets when pitted against each other

Nope they're not. Guess again

You can also go heavy on horse archers which are mobile and with cantabrian circle will not fear muskets much.

HAs in canta do extremely little damage. Its not quite normal for people to not even use it.

Another thing with muskets is that they need to reform majorly to always be perpendicular to their target. Have a mobile target run around and take them out while they keep reforming ;)

Erm ye...well you do realise we're not talknig about all musket armies lol. A half decent player will protect his muskets with some cavalry. So the muskets can concentrate on firing dead ahead.

I'd suggest one teammate being England with trebuchets (very long range and good accuracy + devastating agaisnt troops)

Another interesting feature of trebuchets is they're banned in almost every battle I don't want to go into it because it'll just open up a art debate topic. But they're banned for a reason.

one as moors with their Über-peasant crossbowmen

Do this in high era by all means. But the peasants wouldnt get 5 volleys off in a shoot out vs muskets before being dead.

Sorry for maybe coming off a little too harsh there. But I think this just highlights how different mp and sp are. I would encourage you to get into multiplayer, its great fun.

[Zeph]

All and late era aren't played for a reason. Just use high and you have no worrys.

[ElmarkOFear]

You can always just play in high era, but that limits the amount of units you can play with, by 1/3. :) I like the spear/pike units of the late era, since they can actually stand up to cav, unlike most units in the early and high eras.

Lavos: MTW became unfriendly to new players later on in its life-cycle. At the beginning there were many clans and many ronin players who would take the time to train new players who were interested in getting better. It is a shame you missed those people and clans who used to take the time to help out.

[Fenix7]

I like the spear/pike units of the late era, since they can actually stand up to cav, unlike most units in the early and high eras.

I agree with Elmo here. I remember Paolai mentioned this in one topic as well. I see many pepople playing high era where cavalry is dominating. Give a try to late era with no muskeets no art and no ele rule. Now someone will claim that in late era you have less factions to chose. If high era offers more faction you can pick to offer comeptitive resistance to your opponent then I don't know why in high era matches people are constantly chosing between 6 or 7 factions which are repeating themselves from match to match.

[RTKMercurius]

People always say High is the most balanced era, and if you ask them why, they always cite the musketeers as the problem...

I have yet to hear anyone say that Late or All with a 'No Muskets' rule is a problem... maybe it has imbalances, but at least there are more interesting units and more variety....

[Aelwyn]

One thing I have noticed since the old STW/MTW days is a lot of MP players appear to think it is "ok" to use any advantage the game gives you. They will take those advantages each game unless they are specifically asked not to. I guess their reasoning is, if they don't take these advantages their opponents will. Though by worrying about winning in the present, they are actually contributing to the reduction of the fun and variety of play in the future.

This made me think of something that I used to try with Marco. Well many people have, but anyways...we could combine armies to rather good effect, allowing one of us to take the Mongols (as an example) in MTW, and not be worried about facing pavs, as the other teammate had enough for the two. Granted I know its a hard thing to coordinate in a 4v4 pickup game, but you could at least incorporate the same type of tactic if you got someone on your side willing to take a few extra missle units. See if you could gang up on someone, and in that way the imbalance could possibly be worked out. True its not a straightforward balancing of the stats, but could be a workaround.

GL with your anti army Elmo. Might I suggest the old Longbow-bait tactic? Wouldn't work to the same effect in this incantation of Medieval...but could be fun.

I'd join you, but I don't own the game.

[IrishArmenian]

What about Cossack Musketeers? Russia gets great Late and All rosters.

[Aelwyn]

btw if i remember correctly, the colours thing couldn't be done because of the unit animations or something to that effect, so people on opposite sides couldn't choose the same faction.

At least that's what I thought. So the Papacy couldn't wear the Purple of the Byzantines. Or Gawain couldn't refuse to play until he got the French blue, etc.

[ElmarkOFear]

Yes it has to do with the animations Ael. They should find a better way to differentiate these units instead of how it is currently done.

You need to get M2TW Ael. You are missing out on some fun. Different, but still fun. :)

We tried in the past (MTW) as playing to where each player picked 4 units and you combined them into one game of 16 units. One would get cav, one would get muskets/archers, one swords and one spears. Or mix them up and coordinate that way. It was very challenging to coordinate your attacks hehe :)

[shogun888]

Ael

[Fenix7]

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=75632

No pikeman is to carry anything even remotely resembling a sword, upon pain of prolonged and agonizing death. Despite much wailing and gnashing of teeth, the results are incontestable. Chained to their pikes, my men have no choice but to vent their frustration and shame by poking at the enemy, killing anything that approaches them from the front. Kept at bay by the constantly-stabbing pikes, the enemy has no choice but to try and outflank, as swordsmen working their way past the first few rows of pikes will only claim a few victims before being impaled by those deeper within the formation. Even outflanking is ineffective unless the pikemen are already engaged to the front as the entire formation just turns on the spot to poke in the appropriate direction.

This tweak just replaced the pikemen's secondary weapon entry in the export_descr_unit file with the line from other units that don't have secondary weapons (ironically, I copied and pasted it from the Swordsmen Militia entry). This tricks the pikemen into not using their swords, even though they have the mesh and animations for it.

I am fully convinced that taking this firm and uncompromising stand is the right course of action and encourage all commanders to at least consider doing the same. In conclusion, "No swords for you wannabes! Get back to poking!"

Disclaimer: I am not bashing CA. M2TW is a great game. This quickfix is for those few hardy "ahistorical" souls who feel that M2TW pikemen need some tweaking so they can enjoy using them ingame. I think there are a few such people out there (waves), if I'm wrong then sorry for wasting everyone's time.

Further Disclaimer: If you have mastered the art of pikemen deployment already and think that I just need to learn2playnoob, then good for you. If you have always hated pikemen and want them all dead, then ignore this fix as you would ignore them ingame. If you feel that pikemen are balanced or "historical" already then you can skip this fix too. Please do not assail me with your SCA pike experiences, I just wanted to see my pikemen actually poke something, someplace, sometime.

Could this effect MP games too? and won't be there any desync problems becaus of this?

[CBR]

Could this effect MP games too? and won't be there any desync problems becaus of this?

What would cause desyncs? The fix to the unit file? that would make the game uncompatible for player who dont have same file, so no.


CBR

[Fenix7]

What would cause desyncs?

Ineed I had word ''uncompatible'' on my mind.

that would make the game uncompatible for player who dont have same file

[ArmaEtLorica_Mongoclint]

I understand what Elmo is talking about, muskets are great and Elmo is simply suggesting a change to people's behavior, which I think is reasonable.

However, some are suggesting changes to the game from CA (believe me I have plenty of change suggestions too) when we are not even playing the game as intended. We play with our standard "rules" which rule out art and eles etc, when, as someone suggested earlier, arty might be an appropriate counter balance to muskets. (I have to admit I'm prejudiced against eles myself.)

When my clannie HotTubRepairman hosts games (I can't), he generally makes it "no rules" which often puts off other clan and experienced players. But the games are usually pretty balanced and incredibly heavy arty armies do not seem to have the same "make the whole enemy rout" effect that it had in MTW. (Don't know what it was like in Rome as I gave up on that one.) So I think CA would be on good footing to tell us, "We did not balance the game to suit your rules, we balanced it to what we made available to you."

Maybe the game does not balance out with arty included, I don't know as so few skilled players allow it. I suggest to all though, to give it a try for awhile. How about "no rules except no eles" games? or just "No eles" games? (I told you I don't like eles, but I sure do love camels.) Just a thought.

Mongo

[Denali]

Elephants are absolutely beatable.. Jiinetes and other skimishers will kill them with 2, 3 volleys, ballista units with one shot, i dont see a reason to bann elephants, not at all.

But you want to allow art instead? Taking, lets say, a trebuchet or bombard unit would destroy the competitive game. You can shoot 5 times without hitting your target while your opponent hits you 4 times. It depends on "luck" and thats not what Total War games are about....

About the community not beeing the same anymore... well i wasn't there when stw and even mtw/vi came out, im kinda a so called "newcomer" from rome. I played mtw and vi, but not online at least not when the majority played it. But from what ive seen and heard the "friendly ambience" and the "socializing" among each other is still existing, maybe not as obvious as it once was but still...
I know there are lots of imature kids and spammers playing m2 but don't tell me each and everyone in stw and mtw was best behaved.

Playing m2tw online is a great pleasure if you have your clanmates and other people to play with and i can only recommend to play online again. After all its the community who helps a game to stay alive and its also the community that forges its own destiny...

[RTKBarrett]

I would have given up with this game a long time ago if it werent for the peeps i started to get to know from it... simple really. :P

[ArmaEtLorica_Mongoclint]

I agree with you about eles. As I mentioned we prefer to play "no rules." I merely jest about eles and many are familiar with my love of camels from MTW/VI.

When I play "no rules" games I rarely take any arty. That at least reduces the luck factor from my side. If my enemy chooses lots of arty well, he may get lucky and he may not. However, in warfare, as in football and any other type of competition, luck plays a part. I don't mind giving newer players a chance at a couple of lucky shots.

Mongo

[Yun Dog]

*puts on long white beard*

back in the old days.... you could look at the season and the map and calculate your chances of getting rain, if you knew your opponent was in love with gun powder.... *looks daydreamily* the day of the battle and its pouring with rain, you opponent has like 4 units nullified, you could almost smell the rain on the wet grass... smells like.... victory

As Puzz said, as soon as you changed from having identical units (STW), then fair gameplay was going to almost impossible, and people were going to start exploiting like mad .. hello MTW and the purple dinosaur. Someone came on the forum and was telling me I was talking BS if I thought a battle between two identical armies was more tactical....

seriously I wouldnt have a clue or care which nations field the best bang for the buck these days, I mean you could say the same thing about the Danes and Scotts in early.

even in the days of stw dudes were exploiting the monk rush... but the sweetness when you handed them their amature tactics back with their gens head

as far as 4v4 Im still having trouble getting a 1v1 that doesnt become like flicking the corners of a book to make the stick man move

edit: my exploit is to bring such horrible lag to a game, my oppositions gameplay becomes impossible, but being the LAG king I know exactly when to tell my units to engage, and 3 hours later.... victory or theirve quit in disgust

[ElmarkOFear]

LOL Yunus.

What people do not realize is that with the STW honor upgrade system, you could actually create MORE variation within your army using those few units than with the 100's of units from MTW/RTW/M2TW. It is hard to get others to believe this to be the case.

You had 9 honor upgrades possible for each unit (11 if you counted the ability to remove the default 2 honor to 0). And then later on you had added to that the Arm and Wep upgrades (3 levels each). You could create ANY unit available today without all the extra baggage accompanying it like lag, having to balance 100s of separate units, and exploits with the upgrade system.

Plus, the game eventually was so well-balanced there was an army to counteract any other army out there. It became a game of skill, tactics and knowing your enemy rather than just choosing the most powerful units and using exploits. The monk rush army, was easily beaten. The musket armies were also easily beaten. The No-Dachi rush army was easily beaten. I cannot think of one extreme army which could not be beaten in STW. You just had to know how to use the units you purchased to their fullest abilities. It was difficult to learn and this is why I think we will never see such an MP experience again.