Factions balance

[Lavos]

Playing this game a bit longer, I got to conclusion that factions are in fact very well balanced.

There's not a single faction standing out as too powerfull. Theres no uber, faction specific units, no mtw byz infantry, rome cataphracs, urbans, desert cav... And no BI axmen. Shure, cavalry are too strong, but no faction has advantage here (well there is exception in seriousy too expensive egypt cav). There are some very good unique units for some factions in certain eras, but there is always some deficiency somewhere.

You have French (high) with pikes, good cavalry, but they have weak light cav and too expensive long range and mounted archers. Moors have camels. That could give them an advantage in mounted warfare, jet no horse archers, and their cavalry is overpriced. Great example are also Scots with pikes to give them advantage over cavalry, add decent cavalry and do you have unstopable force? You could have, if they had some xbows, or at least long range archers to make opponent to atack.

I could go on and mention all factions, and each have at least one problem, that can be exploited. There are some that are too weak, already mentioned egypt, late danes & russians and probably some more. But more important is, that I realy don't see any thats too strong.

[Stig]

I got to conclusion that factions are in fact very well balanced.

hush hush, you are absolutely right but in some time some people will read this and they won't agree with you

[Paolai]

Mongols on high.

[ElmarkOFear]

I haven't tried the mongols yet in any of the eras online. I will have to take a look at them. The weakest faction, is probably the Aztecs, since they have no archer units and no cav. They have some fairly good troops though, if you know how to use their special abilities, you can make a pretty good rush army. Only problem is, if you get them bunched up, you will die.

Plus they can't chase routed units, so you find yourself facing wave after wave of cav charges. It seems that M2TW doesn't have as great a morale penalty for units which have previously routed. I have seen cav units charge in 3 and 4 times, rout, recover and then charge again, even if they are down to 1 or 2 horses in the unit. Kind of funny watching 1 horse rout a whole fresh unit of archers. LOL

[pevergreen]

Not as funny as watching nothing rout an entire army

[ElmarkOFear]

I find that happens a lot in my games . . . . it couldn't have been anything I did that made them rout so quickly! hehe

[Kenchi_Shaka]

the cav that is rallying several times isnt so unrealistic, (as long as victory is still possibile).
question is if affects gameplay in a bad way..

but the single horseman that still rout loads of light units is stupid.

[ElmarkOFear]

Yup, I don't mind the rallying as much as the continual awesome killing power and routing power of the cav unit after it has routed so many times. Sort of like a gnat, which keeps biting your ear, and you can't kill it. Very annoying. :)

[Stig]

Well see it as this too
Your cav unit starts with 100 morale
At 10 morale it routs
It comes back at 25 morale, but this will stay so, so the next time it routs it will rout far quicker.

[RTKBarrett]

Mongols on high.

Can be trashed by their cheaper Russian counterparts
Overall i dont think many factions are missing out on much... i see Hungary as a the "weakest" for simple reasons... The only thing that bothers me are the 2 in 1 ranged infantry and some of the unit rosters for non european factions.

[Monarch]

Baz how well do schiltrons hold on this? I've still got memories of those cheap Goth BI armies that held for ages, but I've really not looked into it for m2. If schiltron is still powerful (but since I've not seen many people use it I doubt it lol) then they've got horse archers, chivralic knights and run of the mill xbows (with pavise spears as inf) then they shouldn't be too bad imo.

On Russia, I think when the two handed bug is fixed they could become maybe a little better than the rest.

But ye, I'd agree. CA did well with balancing imo.

[Lavos]

Mongols on high.

Don't see anything wrong there ether, you buy 4 light lancer, 4 heavy, khans guard for general, 4 mongol infantry, unit of ha and naphta, and your out of money. :)

[Callahan9119]

2 handers stink and cav needs toned down a touch but not much

after the initial charge from any 2 hander unit they become worthless, while the sword/shield infantry have a far superior kill rate when engaged, not saying two hander should beat sword and shield every time, but that 17 attack power should be taken into account during melee as the charge bonus is seperate, i have heard its an animation problem, if so CA should patch this yesterday, so it would seem denmark, england, portugal etc have some pretty worthless units

[Stig]

It's about faction balance not unit balance

[Kenchi_Shaka]

as long a unit isnt available for all factions, unit balance concerns factions balance...

[Stig]

as long a unit isnt available for all factions, unit balance concerns factions balance...

Not when all factions are balanced
As they are

[Lavos]

Not exactly. Like I said, there are some very good units, jet on other hand factions with them are missing something, or have some overpriced units. That finely balance whole faction so noone stands out. Even in curent state of the game where cav is overpowered.

[RTKBarrett]

Baz how well do schiltrons hold on this? I've still got memories of those cheap Goth BI armies that held for ages, but I've really not looked into it for m2. If schiltron is still powerful (but since I've not seen many people use it I doubt it lol) then they've got horse archers, chivralic knights and run of the mill xbows (with pavise spears as inf) then they shouldn't be too bad imo.

On Russia, I think when the two handed bug is fixed they could become maybe a little better than the rest.

But ye, I'd agree. CA did well with balancing imo.

Schiltrons are great against cav that are bogged down.. against the charge its not too different from the usual story
Those horse archers u speak of are pretty mediocre, mounted xbows or other versions of ha dominate them really...
The chivalric knights they possess are plastic models, only 16 def instead of the usual 17. The pavise spears arent worth what ure paying for, a bit like the papal guard.

[Stig]

Not exactly. Like I said, there are some very good units, jet on other hand factions with them are missing something, or have some overpriced units. That finely balance whole faction so noone stands out. Even in curent state of the game where cav is overpowered.

Yes, but atm the game is balanced. The only faction I haven't won with is Aztecs as I never played them. Each faction can beat each faction ... different then from RTW.
If units now get balanced some factions will become seriously overbalanced.
Ruskie's for example, as there main Infantry units (that 2 handed axe thing) can't attack cav now.



About Horse Archers:
They aren't that strong, I played a game against someone who used a unit of them 2 days ago. He killed 10 of my units with them ... and I allowed him to fire all his missiles.
And I was playing at low money (5K) so my units weren't well armoured (3 tercio pikemen, 3 sword militia, 1 arquibusiers and 2 peasant crossbowmen .... and I had 2 gendarmes, but he didn't attack those)

[Kenchi_Shaka]

Yes, but atm the game is balanced. The only faction I haven't won with is Aztecs as I never played them. Each faction can beat each faction ... different then from RTW.
If units now get balanced some factions will become seriously overbalanced.
Ruskie's for example, as there main Infantry units (that 2 handed axe thing) can't attack cav now.

rtw isnt a measure for balance anyway.
i agree that the degree of balance is high enough for haveing some fun games.

on a competitive level the factions arent balanced (perfectly), i think.

absolute balance could only be achieved by each faction having the same unit selection.
i like having different factions with different selections, but it makes it difficult to say wether factions are balanced or not. even if they were balanced, having won once with each faction wouldnt be an evidence.

[Callahan9119]

facxtions arent balanced, but they are more balanced compared to rome, muslim factions could use a boost as could byz, if you look at it from the "i only play on high era" point of view, then yes, there is some balance...although i dont see many people arguing over who gets to be egypt

secondly and going along with that previous point, germany doesnt get pikes, they get 2 handers as late era units, england gets billmen, byz gets only van guard, these 2 handed units for whatever reason do not have appropriate kill rates, thus affecting balance

there is a reason those swords are so long, these things called pikes

[Stig]

absolute balance could only be achieved by each faction having the same unit selection.
i like having different factions with different selections, but it makes it difficult to say wether factions are balanced or not. even if they were balanced, having won once with each faction wouldnt be an evidence.

Aye I fully agree with you there. Having clone units for every faction would be ideal for balancing, but it's damned boring

muslim factions could use a boost

Try fighting on a desert map instead of Grassy Flatland (most used map), they get a good boost there, enough to make them more then competetive.

secondly and going along with that previous point, germany doesnt get pikes, they get 2 handers as late era units, england gets billmen, byz gets only van guard, these 2 handed units for whatever reason do not have appropriate kill rates, thus affecting balance

there is a reason those swords are so long, these things called pikes

Don't really follow you there, my bad

[Lavos]

rtw isnt a measure for balance anyway.
i agree that the degree of balance is high enough for haveing some fun games.

on a competitive level the factions arent balanced (perfectly), i think.

absolute balance could only be achieved by each faction having the same unit selection.
i like having different factions with different selections, but it makes it difficult to say wether factions are balanced or not. even if they were balanced, having won once with each faction wouldnt be an evidence.

It's not Shogun, thats true, but I'm not talking about Rome ether, imo it's at least at the stage of mtw1.

[ElmarkOFear]

I think faction balance is impossible. Instead I would like to see things "balanced" to where certain factions, in certain situations, or used in certain ways, can be successful in team games. For instance, a really big problem I see is a lack of maps with large forested areas. All of those maps are mostly open or have very few treed areas, and not placed where you might actually be fighting. Units that get a "bonus for fighting in woods" never really come into their own in M2TW.

Same goes for those units which get a bonus in desert areas. There aren't that many maps which have such, and the effect of increased fatigue for non-desert factions isn't great enough to have much of an effect on the outcome of the game. Plus, camels do not scare horses to the extent they did in MTW1. I miss that effect. Camels were slow, and cav was fast, so you had to really use some good tactics to trap cav so it had to fight your camels. Cav need not fear camels in M2TW because they do not have the punch like in MTW1. This is what makes the muslim armies weaker than the others.

[Monarch]

Schiltrons are great against cav that are bogged down.. against the charge its not too different from the usual story
Those horse archers u speak of are pretty mediocre, mounted xbows or other versions of ha dominate them really...
The chivalric knights they possess are plastic models, only 16 def instead of the usual 17. The pavise spears arent worth what ure paying for, a bit like the papal guard.

Maybe I should make some topics in the learn to play forum

Anyway, I reckon 2 handed bug getting fixed will boost byz quite a bit, and egypt for that matter.

Anywho IMO since infs so pointless muslim faction that can use sarcacen militia are very, very usuable. They hold for quite a while, despite stats are pretty weak, plus they're cheap so you have lots of money for some quality cav spam

[Puzz3D]

Aye I fully agree with you there. Having clone units for every faction would be ideal for balancing, but it's damned boring

It's also boring after players find out the best faction and best unit selection because then that's all you see being used in multiplayer. It's no fun when you go up against a better player and he also has the better army.

[Puzz3D]

Plus, camels do not scare horses to the extent they did in MTW1. I miss that effect. Camels were slow, and cav was fast, so you had to really use some good tactics to trap cav so it had to fight your camels. Cav need not fear camels in M2TW because they do not have the punch like in MTW1.

CA said they toned down several effects for the benefit of the newbies.

[ElmarkOFear]

I didn't know that. Thanks for the info. Puzz. Unfortunately, some of the aspects they turned down were the ones most entertaining for me.

[Stig]

It's also boring after players find out the best faction and best unit selection because then that's all you see being used in multiplayer. It's no fun when you go up against a better player and he also has the better army.

It is? I didn't know that. What a luck you play the game so you can tell me, phew

[Puzz3D]

It is? I didn't know that. What a luck you play the game so you can tell me, phew

I played over 5000 multiplayer battles in MTW. It gets boring to see the same armies used all the time once the best faction and best units are identified especially when the RPS doesn't work. M2TW has unbalanced factions, unbalanced units and the RPS doesn't work. I don't have to spend $50 to know what's going to happen with multiplayer battles.