Rank Bonus

[Wolf_Kyolic]

Do you think the rank of a unit (how many lines of men there are out there in the unit formation) matters in MTW2?

In the original MTW, we got rank bonuses.

When too identical units fought (fma vs fma for example) 4 rank one would beat 3 or 5 rank one because 4 rank was the ideal. No such thing in MTW2 I guess. Or its effect is way too subtle. No?

[Stig]

Well depends on what you want, say every 'x' is a men.

If I line up like this:
xx
xx
xx
xx
xx
xx
xx
xx
A cav charge will be very difficult to break the entire unit, as it has to go a very long way. But then you will have trouble in fighting, as less men are fighting at the same time

If you line up like this
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
A cav charge (or strong unit charge) will easely breakthrough and massacre your units, but you will have more men fighting at the same time, doing more damage at your opponent.

Next to that I always like a thin rank for cav, like this:
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
As only the first line of cav does real damage, so the more men in front the better.


It's what you personally like I guess, tho I prefer something like 6x4, a little bit wider then deeper:
xxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxx

[Wolf_Kyolic]

When I play MTW2 I do not see any difference between

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

and

xxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxx

They both do the same.

[Stig]

Well they do something different. It's hard for units to get through to the front of the battle, so less units of you are attacking, if the opponent has more units attacking he will kill more units for less of his.
The difference however is marginal, maybe 5% of all your kills take advantage of being lined up better then your opponents. So it doesn't really matter, but could be important at some moments.
Next to that, if you line up all your units wide like this:
xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx
And I line up deep like this:
xxx-xxx-xxx-xxx-xxx-xxx
xxx-xxx-xxx-xxx-xxx-xxx
You have a great change of encircling me, and thus slaughtering me

[Lavos]

I for some unknown reason like my peasants like this:

xxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxx

[Dionysus9]

Stig, I know you are trying to be helpful but I think you did not quite answer Kyolics question. Kyolic is talking about a specific type of bonus that made men in the front rank fight better if there were several rows of men (in the same unit) behind them. It was something like "+1 defense per rank, capped at 3" I cant recall exactly.

He's not talking about whether cav penetrates the unit, or how many men are engaged (which also effects fatigue [now minimally]), or the morale effects of being surrounded-- he's talking about whether there is a numerical combat bonus given to each man in a unit based on the number of ranks

I have not conducted any testing looking for a rank bonus. I've played a few games though, and tried some units in different depths. As far as I can tell there is not a rank bonus in m2tw, except for possibly for phalanx units (pikes). Maybe its just my imagination but my pikes seem to defend better in ranks of 3 than ranks of 2. This is an impression formed in the heat of battle so it may not hold up under testing.

It would make sense for pikes to get a rank bonus--especially when in spear wall mode. The whole idea of the spear wall is that it is a multi-rank manuever-- concentrating several ranks of spears in a front-facing wall.

It would not be too difficult to test in MP 1v1s with a friend, one player taking pikes and parking them in a spear wall 4 ranks deep while the other guy charges them with some decent swords 2 ranks deep. Repeat 10 times. Keep track of # kills as well as duration. Then try it with pikes 2 ranks deep. Repeat 10 times. Compare results.

Kind of a boring way to spend a few hours online-- but it would be nice to know whether the rank bonus still exists.

[Stig]

Stig, I know you are trying to be helpful but I think you did not quite answer Kyolics question.

Yes I know, I also know the rank bonus is gone

If I'm correct units in MTW fought as whole units:
The unit would stand infront of the other and do damage
Now in MTW2 every single man is an individual so he does damage.
That means any rank bonus is gone as it's changed into what I explained, because it should do the same (but the effect might be less).

Ofcourse I don't have MTW and what I know of it, I heard of other players, and I believed someone once mentioned that units were threated as units, not as every man individually. Could be mistaking tho

edit: Oh I did make a mistake I meant that now every man is taken individually, and back then every unit was taken as a unit. They wouldn't stand in front of eachother, you would see them fighting individually.

[CBR]

The STW/MTW engine use individual fighting like the RTW/M2TW engine. But weapon length is only an indirect factor in the old engine and that was added by using the rank bonuses.

Since several ranks of pikes can potientially reach an enemy, there is still an advantage in using formations of 3+ ranks in M2TW.


CBR

[ElmarkOFear]

I would say after playing for a bit that the rank bonus isn't as much about morale, than fighting success. Ranks seem to only have an effect on long pike units since, as CBR pointed out, you have more pikes fighting at once.

I do not think there is much of a difference in how many ranks you use, except in M2TW the wider your formation, the more men you will have fighting at once, which DOES help you win. The wider the better when fighting, except for Pikes and I guess for spears as well, but spears are too weak to tell right now. Maybe after the patch.

[Stig]

The wider the better

Not always true as I said.
If you have your men said as wide as possible I can charge my cavalry right through them routing them almost instantly.

[x-dANGEr]

A specific bonus (In numbers); that would only show the game inferior, isn't present.. At least, wasn't in RTW. But a gameplay one sure is. A 2 ranks deep unit will receive and do more damage. While another 8 ranks unit will recieve and do less damage. That simple.

[Callahan9119]

just did a bunch of tests, like elmo first said the wider the line the more dmg is done. they recieve much less dmg if matched with an infantry unit 3 rows deep or more, as it seems some of the second and all of the third line just do that "stalking" animation or just stand there...

stig, tests with sword/shield vs cav charge show that it doesnt matter if your 2 or 5 ranks deep, a slaughter is a slaughter whenever hit by a full unit of heavies in a direct charge, i saw no change

after testing this with pikes against heavy cav charges the thinner line wins out, 2 ranks deep performs the best and takes almost no dmg from a charge, while decimating the cav as it appears the thinner the line, the less likely they switch to swords. this is clumsy to move about in a pinch, trying to reform this thin of a line by dragging the units takes at least 10 seconds and is death if the cav charge again while reforming, so i find just clicking a lil in front of the unit reforms the line alot faster

seems 3/4 ranks deep pikes has best results vs S/S infantry, doesnt seem much of a difference though

so i think i'm gonna go back to aping AMPS old strategy he used with byz inf and feudals in mtw1, but i dont know about pikes, as 2 ranks deep is supreme vs cav, but is unwieldly

i guess if you got the choice, "thin is in"

[Wolf_Kyolic]

So in general, the wider the rank, the better the unit does right?

That is bad. Really bad.

[x-dANGEr]

Kyolic.. If your unit is wider it also gets smashed by charges easier. So I think your statement can only be wrong..

[ElmarkOFear]

Yup. Currently you take a risk by using a wide formation, due to the powerful cav charge, so you have to be selective when using it.

[Callahan9119]

my tests were only unit vs unit, wider formation seemed to work superior in almost every situation present, pikes especially vs cav

BUT this is just unit vs unit, and i have no idea how this effects anything beyond that, or the mayhem of battle

[Stig]

Well see it like this:
your formation
-------------------

My formation
-------
-------


I can push right throught the centre of your army, splitting it up and destroying it

[pike master]

pikes only fight two deep. i do not understand why ca decided to do this when in mtw vi the unit card clearly states that they fought 4 deep read it yourselves and most article i have read on pikemen in block formation agree on this.

it just defies explanation as to why they did this. who was the military consultants they used? they must have been differnet than the ones that helped them before. the hoplite and pike units in rome total war were constructed based on medieval descriptions of what pike blocks looked like.

[Lavos]

They don't get any extra bonus stats for more than two ranks, but they do work better in more ranks. Its pretty logical, if you breach first two ranks there are people behind them to replace them, even works decent against pushup.

[Dionysus9]

I wonder if stacking pike units several deep (say 2 units deep, in ranks of 5) would stop a click behind. Of course that uses up unit slots. If CA doesn't fix the click behind in the patch, then I want 30 unit slots to make up for it

[pike master]

still it is obvious that because spears are no longer allowed to project two spear ranks forward as they did in barbarian invasion and pikes only fighting two ranks deep is most likely contributing to the overpowered cav problem.

i fail to see reducing fighting ranks in spearmen and pikemen is supposed to balance the game. as i said why did ca do this? in barbarian invasion the schiltrom was perfect absolutely perfect and now its fodder. i know they dont want strong pike units in the game but a major problem why the formation is turning to swords is because they dont have additional two ranks to keep infantry from reaching the formation.



@dyonis that may sound like a good idea on theory but who could afford to waste all those slots? perhaps you need a nap

[Dionysus9]

@dyonis that may sound like a good idea on theory but who could afford to waste all those slots? perhaps you need a nap

Sleep is for wussies

[Callahan9119]

cav problem goes beyond pikes, as good s/s infantry will be destroyed to a man from a direct charge in less than 5 seconds...not even elephants did that in rome

[Stig]

I worked out how to prevent people from clicking behind it, however it needs some timing, and it worked twice, however I don't know if my opponent clicked behind my unit or not.
Anyway here it goes:

I always play Low Money when I host myself ... because it's cool imo. So I pick my army, Spain (3 Tercio Pikemen, 3 Swords Militia, 1 Arquibusier, 2 Peasant Crossbowmen, 2 Gendarmes). And I lined them up like this, as I always do:

-----[---------arquibusier--------]-----
[----crossbow-----][-----crossbow----]

[---tercio---][---tercio---][---tercio---]

[---sword---][---sword---][---sword---]

[----gendarme-----][-----gendarme----]

Now when playing low money you have a change that your opponent spams cav, so I say the rules are no unit spamming. But sometimes my opponent does spam cav. And I'm willing to fight him then.
So what I did was this:
I sacreficed the Arquibusiers by taking them of skirmish mod and letting them stand like that. He stormed at me with his 5 cav units (he couldn't afford more, 5k hey). 2 on both flanks, and mostlikely the 3 in the middle aimed for everyone of my Tercio Units. I moved my Gendarmes to my flank and made sure he had to use his flanking cav to attack them. I had retreated my Crossbowmen to the rear so only my Arquibusiers were infront of my pikemen. I moved the Sword Militia forward so that there was no gap between my Pikemen and my Swordsmen. He just keeped going and crashed into my Arquibusiers, who interrupted the charge as his cav went into fighting. So I stormed forward with my pikemen and swordsmen and while he was trying to get his cav to storm forward again I was close enough so that the charge was minimal, when I was about 10 game meters away I put my Pikemen on their special stance and he stormed them, killing about 20 of the 120 in each group in the charge but is stalled and can't get through as I move my Swordsmen in immidiatly and take everything of any special stance.
So I slaughter his cav in the melee battle, he wins at both flanks but is left with about 8 cav in each group so that is killed too.

Was a Clear Victory for me.


BTW this was played on Large Unit size, so it could be up to that that the cav charge was less because I had more units.

Normal unit size:
Cav: 48 men
Inf: 60 men (large groups: 75)
4/5

Large unit size:
Cav: 60 men
Inf: 90 men (large groups: 120)
2/3

[Callahan9119]

i prefer a 5k all era game, to high 10k any day

maybe i have a false romantic notion of old mtw, but this just seems like rome with medival units, and in a way it is

i was never a tourney guy, i just liked fun games like elmo or myself hosted

tourny and 10k high is cool, but low florin is where the fun is..bring me your aztecs, your gun armies, your cav spams and your huddled masses and lets have a crazy game

[pike master]

this is a step backward from the perfection of barbarian invasion.

[Callahan9119]

BI is good compared to rome, if rome was released with the same balance as BI it would have been great, but BI was released after the game was dead, at least to the mp community (but was a big change for the good for SP campaigns, even over RTR), it just never picked up with the same enthusiasm shogun and to a larger extent mtw did

nothing sofar has felt the same as elmo's fantastic 4 vs 4's or games i hosted for fun in old MTW, where if you were good, you could take any semi functional army and make it work and have a blast while your at it

rome and now mtw2 seems a battle of forced unit selection, unless you host good ol novelty game

[Fenix7]

BI is good compared to rome, if rome was released with the same balance as BI it would have been great, but BI was released after the game was dead, at least to the mp community (but was a big change for the good for SP campaigns, even over RTR), it just never picked up with the same enthusiasm shogun and to a larger extent mtw did

I disagree on BI quality. I've played RTW/BI long enough to mention that when people found out all exploits (well most of them) of BI it was more a spam then not. Heavy upgreaded archers, axes, romans, clibinaries, etc. BI was only playable with a lot of rules and many disliked this. BI was far from being balanced.

[pike master]

i know one thing. in bi they had the schiltrom down pat. and the mail covered axemen looked cool. and even though not really historical the lombard berserkers were pretty neat. cataphracts actually used bow and lance ( i think but can remember for sure) like history records which is something i still dont see in mtw games about kataphacts carrying bows.