Factions balance

**Lavos** · 01-27-2007, 06:26

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** · 01-27-2007, 07:40

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** · 01-27-2007, 09:31

Mongols on high.

**ElmarkOFear** · 01-27-2007, 10:01

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** · 01-27-2007, 10:03

Not as funny as watching nothing rout an entire army

**ElmarkOFear** · 01-27-2007, 11:04

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

**RTKBarrett** · 01-27-2007, 15:01

Originally Posted by Paolai

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** · 01-27-2007, 15:43

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.

**Callahan9119** · 01-27-2007, 17:34

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

**RTKBarrett** · 01-27-2007, 19:09

Originally Posted by 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.

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.

**Lavos** · 01-27-2007, 17:24

Originally Posted by Paolai

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. :)