 Tuesday Aug 07, 2007
Kingdoms Battle Map BalanceAs outlined in the recent blog by Jason, there has been some significant re-balancing of unit stats for Kingdoms, the expansion pack for Medieval II. I am Jack Lusted, now a Games Tester at The Creative Assembly UK, but when I helped Jason by contributing to the balancing of Kingdoms I was a modder from the Total War Community. Although the last blog described the process involved in balancing Kingdoms, it did not say what has changed. In this blog I will aim to explain how the balance has altered from Medieval II, give examples of how specific units have changed, what most unit types should be used for, and how the balance varies between the four Kingdoms campaigns. The re-balance is not a small one, there have been some big changes. Almost all, if not all of the units have had changes to their stats. Some minor, some major. This is to reflect the fact that the whole balance of the game has been re-examined. The really big change is to cavalry. Cavalry unit sizes are now smaller, and their stats have been dropped. They are now 30 soldiers on normal unit sizes, which means on huge they are 60. But before you all cry ‘nerf!’, let me explain what this means in-game. The smaller unit sizes makes cavalry more maneuverable as the size of cavalry units in update 1.2 proved to be a little unwieldy at times. Now you can use them more fluidly. And despite having their stats dropped, an increase to the mass of the mounts they ride means that heavy cavalry still pack a devastating punch from the rear or flank. This means that heavy cavalry have moved away from frontal charging wrecking balls, towards how they were used in the original Medieval: Total War - fast moving flanking units who pack a devastating punch. Even with a frontal charge, they can still wreak major damage upon non-spear, pike, or halberd troops. There have been several global stat changes. All armour values have been reduced by 2, and all shield values have been raised by 2. These changes are designed to increase the importance of shields in combat when charged, but make units more vulnerable from the rear. Most units without shields have also received a boost to their defense skill so they have not been weakened in melee. The exception being missile units but they now have greater accuracy and therefore more deadly projectiles, so it balances out. An example of one of the units that has had major changes to its stats are the Zweihanders. In update 1.2 this unit had the following stats: Attack: 14 In Kingdoms their stats have been changed to: Attack: 15 Charge bonus: 9 Quite a big change as you can see. Now they are true shock troops who have a very powerful charge. With the changes in unit stats, there has been a redefining of how some unit types are used. I’m going to go through and try and cover every unit type and how they should be used in Kingdoms. Heavy cavalry - no longer sweep all before them in frontal charges. Spearmen, pikes and halberds can all stop frontal charges from them, and heavy infantry are better at resisting them. However heavy cavalry still deliver a punch that can’t be beat to the rear and flanks of other units, which combined with the fact they’re cavalry, means they can get into positions which allow them to deal the hammer blow. Rear and flanking charges also come with morale penalties to the enemy so they’re great at routing parts of the enemy line. This has proved to be a more fun balance, and one that offers better for gameplay. Do not think that heavy cavalry are now underpowered, they are not. For instance in the Crusades campaign, knights are crucial to t he Kingdom of Jerusalem. No other unit can match the maneuverability, impact of charge or morale effect from a charge that heavy cavalry has. They’re not nerfed, they just have a different use now. Light cavalry - fast and maneuverable - they should be used for dealing with skirmishers, routers, horse archers and possibly rear charges into infantry if the infantry is engaged. Horse archers - with the improved missile accuracy and smaller more manageable cavalry unit sizes, these guys are as deadly as they should be. Vulnerable to archers and faster light cavalry. Elephants - no major changes here, still the wonderfully fun point and click weapons of destruction they’ve always been. Just like before flaming arrows, artillery, javelins etc. are the counters to them. 2 handed swordsmen - all 2 handed sword units have gained the armour piercing ability and similar changes to the Zweihanders. They are now perhaps the best shock infantry in the game, but are vulnerable to missles and cavalry, and will suffer heavy casualties in prolonged melee. If used in conjuction with sword and shield infantry to exploit the damage done by the 2 handers charge, they should be able to breach most battle lines. 2 handed axe / polearm units - these guys have been made tougher in melee, and have had slight tweaks to their attack stats. They can now survive better in melee and deal out lots of damage on the charge. Think of them as infantry versions of heavy cavalry. Vulnerable to missiles and cavalry charges. Spearmen - their main use in Kingdoms should be as the most common anti-cavalry unit type, but with the boost to their attack, they can also take on other infantry a bit better. But as always suffer from the penalties they get from having the spear trait so will be outclassed by other infantry. Pikemen - the specialist anti-cavalry unit. With much higher mass in Kingdoms no cavalry charge can beat them frontally, and they can also deal with infantry slightly better too. Very weak when flanked and not as good as spears against other types of infantry. Halberds - they have received boost to their attack values and to mass, so they are better against both cavalry and infantry. Good assault troops, but slow moving and vulnerable to missiles. Halberds without spearwall - from instance Janissary Heavy Infantry. Have had boost to their attack and defense stats and reductions to cost. Great shock troops but can also do better now in prolonged melee. Sword and shield infantry - no big changes here, these are still the best prolonged melee infantry unit, and probably the best all round unit type. There is now more variation between units like dismounted Feudal Knights and Dismounted Chivalric Knights. Missile infantry - have been weakened in terms of their melee abilities slightly, but this is compensated by their increased missile accuracy will become more important due to the higher number of casualties they can inflict with their missiles. Whilst the overall balance for each of the Kingdoms campaigns is the same, there are differences between each campaign for game-play reasons. In the Teutonic campaign, all cavalry units are stronger with higher secondary attacks. The Teutonic Order units are also stronger than equivalent unit of other nations, but this is balanced out by the fact that the elite units need to have a cetain percentage of catholicism in a region before they can be recruited. The Order is reliant on those troops to expand and further it’s goals so this balances things and prevents the Order from becoming too powerful, too quickly. The Orders units also cost more because of their higher stats so things are also balanced out this way. For the Crusades, like the Teutonic campaign all cavalry are stronger with higher secondary attacks. But unlike the Teutonic campaign, the Crusader factions do not have superior troops compared to their Muslim enemies. Even so the Crusader nations will be fairly reliant on their strong cavalry to win the campaign. With Britannia it is spears that are the unit type that receive a boost. This results in a proliferation of good anti-cavalry units, so infantry will dominate the Britannia campaign. But cavalry are not completely negated, they will still be usable units, just not as powerful as in the Crusades or Teutonic campaigns. And finally in the Americas campaign, New Spain gets smaller units, but sword armed infantry and cavalry with 2 hit points, and a new generals unit with 3. This is to reflect the small numbers of Spanish troops used in the New World, and the extra hit points prevent the smaller units from being overwhelmed. Unit costs are also adjusted to reflect these changes, so overall most units are cheaper but Spanish units are about the same as in M2TW. The Native units will not be pushovers either, and will put up a strong fight. That just about wraps up my overview of the balance changes made through the unit stats and hopefulle, gives you an idea as to how you’ll be adapting your tactics to use these changes in each of the four campaigns in Kingdoms. Regards, Jack Lusted
Posted by Mark in Guides on 5:26:30PM Aug 07, 2007
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Comment # 1
As you can figure my comment regards cavalry. I think it is a mistake to change cavalry as drastic as has been done. Cavalry has always been best as a rear and flank attack in any Total War game. But cavalry should not be small groups of scouts. That is what light cavalry is for.
I found cavalry rather lacking when attacking “real” spearmen from the front in MIITW. I mean, they should be able to run down militia spearmen. The only units which should be able to stand up to heavy cavalry are pikemen and that sort. There is absolutely no reason to make the game less realistic. Instead make heavy cavalry as expensive as they were historically.
There is a reason why heavy cavalry was nearly invincible historically if they weren’t caught in mud or against pikemen. Charlemagne is a good example. Heavy cavalry should not equal scouts and flanking forces. Heavy cavalry in the middle ages was a battering ram.
Posted by Master of War on August 7th, 2007 at 9:31 pm
Comment # 2
Looks like some balancing changes, especially the heavy calvary. Keep up the good work guys!
Posted by Christopher on August 7th, 2007 at 10:26 pm
Comment # 3
I’m wondering how the cavalry changed will effect very cavalry heavy factions, factions who rely near completely on them, like Poland, Hungary, Russia, Egypt, and Turks from the Grand Campaign.
40 soldier units were already small, and any loss of men in a mainly cavalry army is much more felt than an infantry heavy one - 30 units is pushing it. Add into the fact that some of these factions cannot field very good line infantry(for example, the Turk’s best option for frontline Sword/Shield is the hybrid Ottoman Infantry with dismounted Sipahis for anti-cav support) means that these factions are much, much harder hit than Western European factions whose mainstay is the sword/shield heavy infantry, supported by flanking knights (or spears/crossbows in the case of the italian states)
The main strategy of a Horse-Heavy Army is divide-and-conquer. Perfected by the Mongols, Horse Archers force the enemy into disarray and break up their formations to make them vulnerable to being charged by themselves(if reasonable) or heavier cavalry.
Both the changes to cavalry weaken this strategy, maybe to the point that it becomes ineffective - completely unhistorical, as the Mongols proved how devestatingly effective it was.
Onto the subject of maneuver - of course, maneuvering cavalry can be difficult at times, but that is a disadvantage of cavalry in general - you need space for them to be effective. The only reason a larger unit would be disadvantageous is if you were trying to go very tightly around an enemy line and the ends of the formation get caught in the fight - well thats stupid anyways, you could have made the unit into a tighter formation, and if you’re that close to the line you’re just asking for a flank-protecting unit to quickly and safely intercept you that way.
Maybe a smaller reduction is in order: 30 is the size of a faction leader’s bodyguard, and admitingly it seems easier to get him around, but I think 35 is a happier medium between unit strength and better movement.
Posted by Jeff on August 7th, 2007 at 10:51 pm
Comment # 4
I like the idea of rebalancing the game, especially in the matter of missile units, but some things here bother me. The first is removing the viability of the frontal charge for cavalry. Maybe some other people had different experiences, but heavy knights may well have been quite powerful in a frontal charge, but to maneuver them into position required exposing them to withering missile fire. What’s more, even in one of the unit info cards it says that the frontal charge is the knight’s favored tactic. Is it really so reasonable to make Total War more game and less history? I also doubt the wisdom of improving the viability of spears against cavalry. Though it wouldn’t be without casualties, I found that spearmen could almsot always withstand a cavalry charge, and if they managed to lock into melee, the cavalry would be doomed. The triumph of a much cheaper weapon over a very expensive one. Spears were very common amongst medieval infantry, and yet, cavalry still decided battles until the advent of pikes. Once again, I feel history is being sacrificed for poor cause, but in this case, I dont’ even believe the cause exists. I agree about maneuverability and like the smaller unit sizes, but once that is taken care of the only thing I feel needs adjustment is the combat in melee between two units of cavalry, which should not be standing around waiting for the first unit to figure out how to path into a position where he can swing his sword.
The other thing I am VERY skeptical of is your decision to raise units attack power, particularly their charge values. What this seems to result in is fights that won’t last past the initial blows. Morale will sink drastically as these strong units collide and slaughter each other, and it won’t take more than thirty seconds for one to lose enough more to break. It is my experience that modders have generally sought to *prolong* Total War battles, rather than expedite them.
Posted by Vic on August 8th, 2007 at 2:52 am
Comment # 5
Do you guys have any (rough) idea as to what kind of disk space footprint the Kingdoms expansion is going to have? MTW2 is already at 7.5GB, are we likely to be going past the 10GB barrier?
Posted by Dave Green on August 8th, 2007 at 11:59 am
Comment # 6
Spread sheet, spread sheet and yet more spread sheet…
As long as units are not created via a spread sheet which contains all variables, which have an impact on their performance on the battlefield and connects these variables with a set cost, then players will continue to experience inconsistant behaviour when using some units in battle. In addition to that, then it will be more difficult to create new units.
Granting the two handed sword units the AP-trait is okay, although keeping them as anti-pike units would be better.
Pikes weaker than spear units against infantry? Please - They should dominate infantry as well as cavalry, as long as facing these opponents head one. Their vulnerability should be missiles and flanks.
Adjusting individual units’ stats is not ‘balancing’ it’s patching, which of course is a very good temporary solution.
Balancing is to adjust the relation between a certain variable and it’s cost in a consistent spread sheet.
Heads up for the good work Lusted, but if you really want to see the TW-series shine in the future, then make the DEV team complete the spread sheet to include all variables and connect each one of these to a certain cost.
Posted by Vulfgar The Viking on August 8th, 2007 at 12:32 pm
Comment # 7
This will affect also the grand campain right? I know you said there was difference in americas campain where they were lower cost.. different to the grand campain I assumed?
Posted by Fred on August 8th, 2007 at 3:15 pm
Comment # 8
I have always been a huge fan of the game, but like everyone else seems to be, I am worried to say the lest. In the rome tw calvary units were grouped normally in to groups of 54. With calvary going down to 30 in m2tw, that is almost cutting the calvary in half and throughing one half away.
I know personally that I want bigger battles with more units and longer battles and multiple armies (3 or more) in the grand campaign. From the sounds of it, the game keeps getting smaller.
Altogether I will admit that my life would not be the same with out the total war series. Keep up the great work!
Posted by blah on August 9th, 2007 at 2:28 pm
Comment # 9
@Vulfar, the unit stats are generated via spreadsheet, they always have done. They are not adjusted individually, but with changes applying to all units of that type. I’m not sure where you got the impression that unit stats weren’t done via spreadsheet.
As for pikes, with this balance they are the supreme anti-cav unit, but are not as good against infantry. This balances them out for their cost.
And given the low number of pike units ingame having 2 handed swords as just specialist anti-pike units would limit their use a lot, having them as general shock troops means they will and can be used a lot more.
@People asking about why cav won’t be steamrollers anymore. We felt this was not good for gameplay, as all you needed to do to win was have an all cav army and charge. With the changes to cavalry and spears you cannot do this anymore. You need to think more tactically and use them more carefully. We went for gameplay over realism for this balance, and went for a balance closer to that in the original Medieval Total War.
Cav are by no means useless, far from it their manouverability and powerful flanking and rear charges makes them great ssets on the battlefield. Even pikes can be beaten by heavy cavalry if charged from the rear.
@Jeff, valid concerns, but horse heavy nations are not underpowered now. The main problem with the old cavalry sizes was that the odd straggler from the unit would get caught up and so the unit would not respond properly. The smaller cav units sizes aviod this problem more often, and also are more manouverable which infact makes horse archers better. Combine that with the increase to missile accuracy and horse archers are still deadly.
@Vic, not all units get increased attack. Shock units like 2 handed swords and 2 handed axes have got increased attack, but they have low defense so will lose against sword and shield infantry in prolonged melee. And melee does last beyond the initial charge. The other changes to attack were necessary with the fixing of the shield bug which was causing imbalances.
I hope this has answered some of your questions.
Posted by Jack Lusted on August 9th, 2007 at 2:35 pm
Comment # 10
“We are aware there are technical issues with MP that need addressing and although I can’t answer for CA-OZ (I’m sure the OZ guys are doing work for Kingdoms), we here at CA-UK are most definitely looking at trying to resolve as many issues as we can, as a matter of course, for the next big TW title. We are actually at this time working on the next (full) TW title and we’re rebuilding the MP section from the foundations up. There were a number of unfortunate limitations that the Rome and Med2 engines placed on us that should, fingers crossed, be less of an issue this time around. How well much we manage to fit in is still subject to the slings and arrows of outrageous games development, but we really are going for it. image ” - Cn Iulius Flamininus (CA Staff) posted 05/30/07
Well, ur intentions are good. Same like pala, but in the end u dont change the real problem. Its all nice what u wrote, i even applause u for this. Let me see this goin life and u may have my respect.
But for the sake of the REAL balance and the real skill (which was dumped down to the hell) work on ROME II and get some proper engine out… sort the tons of problems, starting with 2 different stats for SP and MP!
Koc
Posted by Kocmoc on August 9th, 2007 at 2:39 pm
Comment # 11
cavalry can be stopped by any unit if they make a strong shield wall as this wall can stop hoorses and then kill them by spears or pikes or can use long pikes as eoropeans did but shield wall is better as it might work with other infantry ithink
Posted by ahmad on August 9th, 2007 at 3:10 pm
Comment # 12
heavy cavalry should be able to destroy any unit in an frontal attck if they are not making a wall of spears pikes or shields but if they then they could stop a cavalry charge even if it is heavy as heavy cavalry are slow so they rely on metal crashing in to human bodies and light armor so strong shield walls could stop them as in haisting battle until the british broke their shield wall formations
Posted by ahmad on August 9th, 2007 at 3:14 pm
Comment # 13
middle eastern units are mad to be weaker just because they have weaker armor but that is stupid as they can duel in a bettr way and swing their weapons faster which could be deadly against european units and they can stop their charges by shield formations but the two handed swordsmen charge and their axe likes charges are really without a solution except if you have spears or pikes to hit them before they reach the ranks
Posted by ahmad on August 9th, 2007 at 3:19 pm
Comment # 14
This balancing strategy looks very similar to the “Lands to conquer” mod, so some of my comments are based on my experience with that mod. Appologies if it does not hold true for the patch. For the most part I agree with the changes except for the following issues:
1. Heavy cavalry without shields like lancers, gothic knights, and famiglia ducale should get a defence/attack upgrade. Right now they are being owned by “lesser” heavey cavalry. The description for lancers read “best cavalry in the west”, which is simply not true right now.
2. Horse archers should have more ammunition. Even with improved accuracy (which I like), the smaller unit sizes makes them much weaker.
3. The defensive upgrade to low level spearman makes them almost immune to low level archers. It doesn’t matter if the accuracy is improved if the projectiles can never get through the defence. It makes it almost pointless to build low level archers
Posted by will on August 9th, 2007 at 4:50 pm
Comment # 15
I don’t get it why you made heavy cavalry weaker. I mean take Qapukulu, Lancers, Khan Guard, these very heavy cavalry should be able to run down whole infantry units a because of their mass, their speed and their long lances. I don’t know for what I should use Cavalry now tbh, common, don’t do that to cavalry.
I don’t know how to handle, we’ll see when the expansion is available, I hope it won0t dissapoint.
Posted by AskeriTurk on August 9th, 2007 at 8:41 pm
Comment # 16
Im in the line of those who say the changes to the cav are bad ones.
Cavalry already drop like flies in MTW2 when exposed in melee. Now making them even weaker?
I for one like the heavy cav as very expansive, maybe overpriced, but also very strong units, capable of chrages AND melee.
If you read about historic battles you wont see lines like “and the heavy cav seaked upon behind the enemy lines, charged in their rear, retreat, and charged again” but more like “and the heavy cav lead the charge head on, and they beat the enemy”
Most of the infantrie in those times were spearmen, so saying heavy cav is in trouble against evrything with a spear doesent seem right.
An exampel for how to make in right is Chivalry Total War, ihmo.
In this mod heavy cav is VERY expansive (1200 for feudal knights, you can get a unit of archers for less the 300), but they are quite strong.
Now heavy spearmen, like FeudalMenatArms can beat heavy cav in melee, but might get routed in the charge if their morale is low. This is how it should be.
Another point that buged me is the lower armor. In my view the armor values in vanilla are already to low, espacialy for platemail types.
Now you gonne give Twohanders an armorvalue of 5. Man, those guys wear a fricking plate mail! That should count way more than 5.
A side effekt of lowerd armor values is that AP make less of a diference - which is a bad thing in my view.
Nevertheless to say something positive, Im looking foreward to see what youve done with pikes. Until now I havent seen as system that give pikes a use on the battlefield (as in actually use theire pikes) but not overpowering them (which is the case if you just remove their secondary weapons)
Posted by Zombimode on August 10th, 2007 at 8:18 am
Comment # 17
By reading some of these comments, i started to understand the problem.
Almost all have actual no real idea how mecanics work, else u would see some of this amazing comments. Nothing bad with it and surely nothing wrong.
But lack of knowledge doesnt help here!
Just a small hint, a major exploit or call it “bug” is, to click behind a unit and let ur cav move there. They stuck into the infantry and than u click on the unit and let it fight. This works vs ANY spear unit.
If u do this, u beat any spear.
The real question is, for whom u create the game. There are a lot of posts and statement of CA, clearly announcing that they dont create a game or work for the “hardcore” player.
This is a very important point. I personal dont mind to get a none-hardcore-player game, but i mind if the engine is bugged and u are lost with lag.
To this topic! Basics are good, the idea is good and imo it will imrpove gameplay.
I would be interested into some small tests.
How long the unit hold while fighting 2 units.
- front-rear
- front- flank
Just to get a felling for the timing.
Koc
Posted by Kocmoc on August 10th, 2007 at 10:02 am
Comment # 18
@To everyone asking why heavy cav is not going to be all powerful on the chaArge, we went for gameplay over realism.
We felt that beign able to destroy any army with just heavy cav was not good for gameplay. Heavy cav will still be powerful, but you will need to use them to flank to allow them to deliver that killer blow.
@Will, indeed the balance in Lands to Conquer is a version of the Kingdoms balance, i am the maker of LTC and now a CA employee. Me and Jason decided to include the balance unofficially in the mod to get more feedback on it. he balance in Lands to Conquer is not exactly the same as the Kingdoms balance though.
In regards to heavy cavalry without shields, yes they will lose in melee combat to similar cav with shields. And yes the unit descriptions for some units are a bit off now, but Lancers and other cav with no shields but the heaviest mounts will do more damage than say Chivalric Knights on the charge, they are the best cavalry for charging.
@Nelle, having 2 handed swords as specialist anti-pike units would limit their use a lot, so we went for giving them ap and making them shock troops. 2 handed axes do have ap.
And with pikemen as i’ve said before, they are not realistic, but in the game they are the best anti-cav unit but not very good at infantry, and so are balanced for their cost.
As you’ve probably guessed by my comments we have gone for gameplay voer realism, hence why you will not see units with huge armour stats who are almost invulnerable to lower tier units as that would not be good for gameplay.
Posted by Jack Lusted on August 10th, 2007 at 10:35 am
Comment # 19
I concur with Zombimode. Untit cost and maintenance of heavy cavalry should be increased to more accuretly depict the economic strain that this unit type imposed. The same holds true for artillery. Firing a cannon shot was comparable with firing a cruise missile today. Nothing of that sort in MTW II. Here you can vaporize cities such as Constantinople in no time. I don´t see how a dismounted knight could stop a few hundred kilos of mass focused on the tip of a lance. If your army just consists of heavy inf it´s your fault not physics. I would rather see professional heavy spearman being more potent against cav. I don´t see how heavy cav can take heavy losses such as in 1.2 against unarmored low morale militias with a spear. Also, as is now, heavy armor is not overpowered but underpowered. Reducing efficacy even further might make for arcade gameplay but not be worthwile in a rather accurate simulation lots of people look for im MTW II. Here, I would also suggest inreasing the economic strain of such units or make smiths far more expensive.
Posted by ceres on August 10th, 2007 at 1:40 pm
Comment # 20
I like a lot of the changes, but I do have a few qualms;
Heavy Cavalry - Good to see the old hammer/anvil model at work, as an intelligent commander should see that this is the optimal way to use heavy cav in open terrain. However, I believe heavy cav should be able to dominate many infantry units with a frontal attack in open terrain, and given the introduction of stirrups and improved armor for knights, I believe that even with gameplay balancing in mind this should be reflected in-game. Militias especially should disintegrate when charged by knights, and by the mid game I would like to see all but the strongest militias phased out of use because of this. They lack the esprit de corps, discipline, and equipment necessary to stand up to a charge by heavy cav. IMO, the only units capable of standing up to charges in open terrain should be pikemen (who should downright beat cav charges), dismounted knights (who should be able to withstand a few charges in open terrain), and a few other heavy/elite infantry units who would have enough discipline and armament to maintain the line. If you are getting dominated by heavy cavalry, IMO it is your fault for letting your infantry army get forced into battle in cavalry-friendly terrain, but cavalry should not be weaker because of it. This would encourage the use of spies and place more importance on the strategic level of maneuver. I am fine with the smaller units sizes to add to balance.
2 handed swordsmen - Would be nice if they were anti-pike as well, but I have no idea how that would be implemented. IMO these guys should probably have somewhat better survivability than the 2-handed axemen in prolonged melee due to the increased flexibility of the sword over the axe, and I would switch their roles.
2 handed axe / polearm units - I’d like to see these guys get armor piercing and make them the ultimate infantry vs infantry shock troops, but have a lower defense rating
Spearmen - Contrary to conventional wisdom, I disagree about the role of spearmen being anti-cav in this age; because the majority of spearmen in the game (and historically) were drawn from the poor classes, given a minimal amount of training and as such had little to no unit solidarity (solidarity and drill being half of the strength any infantry unit), I think the role of spearmen in medieval times was somewhat closer to cannon fodder than to anti-cav. Spearmen should have a little utility against other infantry units, but most should be beaten by elite units easily and should fare much worse against heavy cav than elite infantry. They should be there to tire the enemy, but not to defeat it, and only the very beat spear units in the game should be competitive at all in the late game. Of course, I see how the dev team probably wouldn’t want all those spear units being useless end-game, but seeing how feudal knights become obsolete at some point, I personally have no problems with it.
Halberds - Disagree here about their speed (out of spearwall), at least for the more lightly-armored halberdiers. The Swiss used halberdiers to follow up their pike attacks, and were fast enough to engage heavy cavalry before they could escape melee on open fields. I think these should have large anti-cav bonuses; these guys along with pikes replaced spearmen from ancient times (Roman spearmen were part of the standing army and had about 1000 times more training than the medieval spearman, whereas the Swiss units’ articulation was also excellent due to compulsory training and military service).
As a side note, one thing I think would add immensely to the gameplay balance regarding heavy cav would be better implementation of penalties in mountains and forests. I would find beating cavalry the way they should be beaten
much more satisfying than to rely on artificial balancing.
Finally, I can’t thank you enough for the info, Lusted. Good to see some real progress being made towards improving the game.
Posted by spikyblackhair on August 10th, 2007 at 8:55 pm
Comment # 21
Hi, first time writing here. What has bothered me the most is next to worthless pikemen charge. IRL the pike has always bin best as an offensive weapon. Made for charge and like a plow. Not standing and “holding” a piece of ground. The swiss were so awesome because the took the initiative and pressed home with both halbards and pike, and they were nearly always better disciplined than their scottish and flemmish counterparts (thou perhaps not the landsknecht) and could manoveur and fight just like the macedonians under Philip and Alexander.
BTW why do the scots have kilts in the game?
Posted by John on August 11th, 2007 at 3:55 pm
Comment # 22
@Lusted
Thank you for your answer
It’s good to know that adjustments are made via the spread sheet.
My point is that, correct me if I am wrong, the spread sheet does not include all variables such as attack speed due to combat animations.
Pikes were a major part of the ‘new way of warfare’ - much more than simply anti-cav units.
There were anti-cav and anti-inf pikes
Keeping pikemen as anti-cav prevents the game from developeing.
Players are kept in the ‘era of full plate and packing steel’
- because pikes are too weak to serve as your main infantry unit.
The ‘pike and gun’ - era is never going to happen - as long as pikes remain anti-cav.
If pikes were anti-cav and good infantry (as long as not flanked) - then two handed sword units would also become a lot more important as anti-pike units.
Although few in numbers pikes are at the heart of western european units in the late era.
However, as long as they cannot fight infantry, western europe will be forced to stay in the high era - when talking infantry.
Posted by Vulfgar The Viking on August 12th, 2007 at 1:27 pm
Comment # 23
I dont think the smaller cavalry unit size would be a problem.
1 - they now charge into lesser armour
2 - they should be easier to move around the flanks
but if they stay in melee, yes they will feel the spears thrusting into horse and rider. this could be handled with a cleaner withdraw from melee, i am not sure if a this is a good idea, but its a possibility. (better hit and run ability)
otherwise the re-balancing looks good, better archery against non-shield units seem like a good idea.
Would it be possible to add info about 2nd weapon(and AP ability) on the units info panel, i miss that in units like Imperial Knights.
Posted by Gambrinus on August 12th, 2007 at 7:18 pm
Comment # 24
I have to say I’m not really on board with these changes. And I vehemently disagree with the changes to heavy cavalry. Now they’re like tiny commando units used to sneak up the enemy’s ass. I don’t think that’s totally historical. Knights were the main fighting force in some medieval armies and the only troops you could count on. Now the combination of more deadly archers, tiny unit size, and only effective from rear and flank makes knights useless. Now we’ll see crappy levy spearmen fending off a full on charge from knights!! Come on! The massed full frontal charge was the knights’ bread-and-butter tactic. They should have a devestating charge from every direction, but get slaughtered in prolonged melee.
Please quit trying to get your lands to conquer mod incorporated into the vanilla game. I play your mod for the campaigns but I modded the cav unit sizes back to normal.
Posted by Flomax on August 12th, 2007 at 11:09 pm
Comment # 25
I think you should make the Spanish units mutch, mutch stronger then the Indians, so a small Spanish elite forse (like 200 men) can beat a huge native army (like 1000 men) but onely if the natives attack hed on. And the Indians should have cheaper and bigger units so they can (if used rigt) overwhelm tthe stronger but smaller Spanish armis.
I agree that knigts should be stronger and more expansive but otherwise evreything look great!
Posted by jojjo on August 13th, 2007 at 12:45 pm
Comment # 26
I think it would be a big mistake not to let people play as the factions that doesn’t contain in any campaign. Otherwise you guys are doing a great job.
Posted by habbi on August 13th, 2007 at 1:55 pm
Comment # 27
In my opinion armour stats should go way up. Double or even tripple. I remember in Rome : total war Urban Cohort had an arour stat something like 11 or above. This means that they really “would” be able to sloughter a dimounted knight in full plate or even advanced plate armour. This is very irrealistic as in medieval times knights were jus so well armoured that they actually could hardly move. Though they still were very effective in hand to hand combat on foot.
And another thing. Did you guys make the shield stats for units much more sensible? For example in the original M2TW Hashishim had an armour stat of 6 with such a small shield in the game and Battlefield Assassins had only 3 although their shield was twice as big.
Though great work, keep this up.
Posted by Benirons on August 13th, 2007 at 2:00 pm
Comment # 28
Lower armor? What?
I absolutely agree with Zombimode and others. Knights should be as tanks on the battlefields.
What about countries who had full horse armies like Mongols, Timurids, Hungarians, and maybe the Turks?
Posted by Csatadi on August 14th, 2007 at 1:24 pm
Comment # 29
With all this talk about armor values, one thing that I noticed in the original Medieval II was the effects of upgrading armor via smithies. Boosting armor values only increases the armor values in increments of 1 for each level of smithy that you have, even though the armor produced is much better than the previous type. It seems a little lopsided. Prime example: Armored Sergeants vs. Sergeant Spearmen. Sergeant Spearmen start off unarmored (armor value 0), but can be equipped w/ light mail from a level 2 smithy (armor value 2). Now, Armored Sergeants start off w/ light mail, and get ARMOR VALUE 5! A unit of Sergeant Spearmen w/ an armor value of 2 looks completely the same as a unit of Armored Sergeants w/ armor value of 5. It makes no sense really. In my opinion, make smithies more expensive, but make their armor benefits more realistic. (after all, Sergeant Spearmen wearing heavy mail from a smithy still get cut down almost as fast as if they were unarmored.)
Posted by Jim on August 14th, 2007 at 2:26 pm
Comment # 30
Um, I for one think all the changes sound good. The 30 man cav units really don’t make that much difference from my experience with mods that use this size.
I could go on but the bottom line is it all sounds good to me and I wanted to chime in against what I feel is the vocal minority. It seems that CA is listening a lot more to the modding community and IMO that is a great thing and will produce a much better product even if you don’t please everyone all of the time.
SF
Posted by superfletch on August 14th, 2007 at 7:04 pm
Comment # 31
Guys, guys. It is never good enough for you people, isn’t it? First all the complaints about cavalry being too strong and killing everything in the charge, now this. Before you make complaints like that, research some information about battle styles. It’s not even that hard to imagine. A horse is a big thing, whitch means that it can get hit on many several places. This means that the rider can get hit in the back easily too. Cavalry is NO melee unit, it never has been. They were supposed to ride the enemy over, not have a chat with them. I know it was fun to play all cavalry, but it wasn’t real nor a challenge. I just think you people are afraid that the game is going to get too difficult. You have too look further than that.
Posted by Grandmaster on August 15th, 2007 at 2:55 pm
Comment # 32
“@People asking about why cav won’t be steamrollers anymore. We felt this was not good for gameplay, as all you needed to do to win was have an all cav army and charge. With the changes to cavalry and spears you cannot do this anymore. You need to think more tactically and use them more carefully. We went for gameplay over realism for this balance, and went for a balance closer to that in the original Medieval Total War.”
I guess I fall into the “people” category
Do this right - don’t take the quick and easy way on Kingdoms. We all have high hopes for Kingdoms. Please don’t let us down. After all what is a game of total war in the middle ages without heavy cavalry…
Just wanted to support some of those who have stated that heavy cavalry should be a battering ram. I for one am not saying that they should be steamrollers against all units. Far from it. But heavy cavalry is heavy cavalry. And heavy cavalry is ridiculously expensive - not only to train and equip - but also to maintain. To make it extremely expensive to maintain heavy cavalry would solve the problem of having all cavalry armies as you say. It simply would not be possible except in the most extreme of circumstances. To do this right - which is not prefering gameplay over realism - make them expensive as hell and slow too. Do as in Rome - have three different types of cavalry - light, regular/heavy and very heavy. Then you will make everyone happy. You will maintain realism and your are not sacrificing gameplay. This is how it should be done - and you know it
Posted by Master of War on August 16th, 2007 at 4:22 pm
Comment # 33
So now Horse numbers are reduced, does this mean that there will be less bugs when chasing routing troops?
Cause it’s annoying when soldiers climbing ladders lose heart and run and they escape in a long line rather than together and the Cavalry gets confused trying to pursue them.
Most the time the Cavalry just follows them rather than engaging them.
I do hope this new change sorts that problem out, if so, genius!
Posted by Ronski on August 17th, 2007 at 5:11 pm
Comment # 34
Expansion looks great on the whole, but I have to admit I’m pretty worried about these changes to cavalry.
It strikes me as odd that there are significant differences between the mounted and dismounted versions of units, aside from speed. They’re wearing the same armor, trained the same way, and it stands to reason that Feudal Knights and Dismounted Feudal Knights should be similar in nature, but used differently because of their different speeds.
Posted by Mummolus on August 18th, 2007 at 7:39 am
Comment # 35
One big thing i care about when i play medieval 2 is the size of the army and i think a lot of people does. I have always liked cavalry and it would be such a huge mistake to decrease their amount. Instead you could just decrease their attack and defences. Dont disapoint me and many others PLEASE. Anyway keep up the good work.
Posted by habbi on August 18th, 2007 at 6:33 pm
Comment # 36
THE WORST nerf in this change is on the missile cavalry. With 1/4 of them gone, their fire power will also be reduced by the same amount. Now the missile cavalry has a hard time killing armored foes but soon they will be even useless. How in the world then one can play as the Mongols or the Byzantines in multiplayer? As someone who love cavalry these changes totally blows IMO.
The cure? Keep missile cavalry numbers the same(they were much easier to field in numbers than heavy cavalry in historically) or give their missile attacks armor piercing atttribute(which is also historical, especially in terms of Mongols).
Posted by EL_Bandito on August 22nd, 2007 at 4:35 am
Comment # 37
@Jack/Lusted
These are generally good balancing options. I can think of one very minor tweak that would do wonders to improve the spearman/cavalry balance, however:
Restrict spear and pike bonuses against cavalry when the “guard” setting is not active with these troops.
This would systematize the well-known problem in the medieval and renaissance world that most infantry could not hold ground if they were in motion, and were thus generally forced onto the tactical defensive if they were to be effective. This is an iron-clad rule of medieval military historiography, one not even challenged during recent international debates on the role and effectiveness of infantry vs. cavalry (see Journal of Medieval Military History, vols III and IV, but particularly IV, p. 137, for the “pro-infantry” assessment. Note that Bachrach’s assessment of Lechfeld and Riade are at least 30 years out of date). The only general exception to the rule being dismounted men-at-arms, or units with overwhelming numbers on a slow advance.
Spearmen and pikemen in particular should not be able to resist cavalry unless they are held together in very tight order. An absolutely sterling example of this comes from the battle of Orewin Bridge in 1282.
—-
The welsh spearmen decisively held off the English knights (to the point that they were not even placed into action except for one movement to rescue men at arms who were being mauled downhill at the bridge), UNTIL they were no longer able to tolerate the constant galling/damage inflicted by the English archers, and put themselves in motion. As soon as this occurred
At that point, a very small contingent of heavy cavalry, in line with your unit balancing, literally slaughtered hundreds of spearmen, who could not come back to order while being charged, and were forced to flee the field.
Posted by Russ Mitchell on August 23rd, 2007 at 8:17 pm
Comment # 38
This situation is quite frustrating. It seems so simple to make everyone happy, so why not do it? Let me tell you how. Again.
1. Upgrade pikes so they can fight as infantry and make them very strong against cavalry
2. Have heavy cavalry be almost similar to elephants - slow, ridiculously expensive and destructive against a one-line of non-pike infantry. Against a horde of infantry or pikes they will only kill-off the very front, as the heavy horse strike home. Then they will be in trouble.
3. Have the light cavalry be great with flanking moves.
And with the cost - to equip and maintain - the heavy cavalry you solve all problems. There will be very few heavy cavalry units, which will remove the all-cavalry armies and diminsh the effect they have on the battlefield, as there aren’t as many.
This will allow you to keep the realism and the historical accuracy and the variation in battle styles (keep in mind I want the heavy cavalry to be on the enemy side to have some opposition) and most important of all you will keep EVERYONE happy. It is so simple. And don’t use the gameplay over realism comment please - it has no merit. You CAN have both.
And in fear of sounding like one of the 13-year old kids - who are complaining like their lives depended on it no matter what changes are made - I will just say that I have enjoyed all total war games. In fact I don’t play other games anymore. So great work! But MIITW has been a disappointment, as in my eyes it is partially unplayable due to the autocalc feature and the campaign AI, which lets you conquer everyone without breaking a sweat. I hope Kingdoms gameplay will be as awesome as the graphics of MIITW and with historical accuracy. No heavy cavalry in the middle ages is like the middle ages without the crusades or Rome without the Legions…
Posted by Master of War on August 23rd, 2007 at 9:29 pm
Comment # 39
I am looking forward to playing the game and seeing for myself how the balancing changes affect gameplay.
CA is to be commended for the way they conduct discussions about their games with the fan-community. Great going.
Posted by Louie on August 24th, 2007 at 7:00 pm
Comment # 40
Great Work lusted i agree on much of what you are saying and it is hard to please everyone. I love history and read a lot of it but gameplay is the most important. To me the best way to maintain historical accuracy if you wanted it is to leave heavy cavalry super powerful but lengthen their regeneration time at castles and make them take 2 turns to get recruited. This could reflect their elite, expensive, and lengthy training. However it couldn’t be the same recruit pools for everyone since Egyptian armies for instance had huge contingents of cavalry by percentage, but say a Milanese army would not. Just some thoughts.
Posted by burger40 on August 27th, 2007 at 1:41 am
Comment # 41
A lot of the balance changes I like, especially the armour and shield stuff, etc. I also liked the mass increase to horses.
I personally had no trouble wielding large cavalry formations, sure they may be a little unwieldy at times, but patience and foresight easily solved that. Reducing the size seemed mighty unrealistic to me. I liked looking at cavalry that appeared nearly as large as reality. Oh well, the loud minority once again causes things that are not broke to be `fixed`.
Posted by PeacemakerEAF92 on August 28th, 2007 at 4:51 pm
Comment # 42
The answer to balancing is not to mix with unit stats. You can have realistic units and still have a balanced game. The answer is in the cost of the unit. 1 Gothic knight in full armour and on an armoured horse was worth (Equipment only) as much as 100 spearmen with spears and shield, perhaps even more. If you take this in count you see that you can have a realistic and balanced game. The knight still rock if used right. Like charge a wavering enemy or holding a breach. But on ope ground he is outnumbered and would be slaughtered. By using realistic stats and realistic cost, you will get a realistic and galanced game.
Posted by Nelle on August 30th, 2007 at 2:29 pm
Comment # 43
I think calvary could have the same size as even an infantry unit provided you follow this cost analogy:
1 Heavy calvary= 1 artillery= 3 light calvary or missile calvary= 6 heavy infantry=
12 light infantry
When it comes to militia level units if they have any specific bonus against a unit type they should have it half to reflect both lack of training and equipment.
Posted by alquaddin on September 1st, 2007 at 7:15 am
Comment # 44
Nerf the speed of all units, there movement speed is not realistic
Posted by Henrik on September 2nd, 2007 at 2:53 am
Comment # 45
Having played the brit campaign a while (Eire uber alles!) I noticed the change to the fight dynamics right away and I like it a lot. On very hard I still rarely lose a fight but I do lose more units even when I overwhelm which is both realistic and improves play by reducing the amount of possible steamrolling. I find cav are still very important to include.
The main problem at this point is the smaller maps make it easier to get a real edge on the other players once you have a few more provinces. In all total war games I give up once the ai can no longer put up much of a fight. On the positive side the smaller scope makes for less booring upkeep for 500 units all over europe.
And my one biggest beef is graphical, with two monitors hooked up I can’t get anything to display on the second, I don’t even need the game over there just to be able to look at a website or watch a vid like I do with every other game but mideval crashes if I have anything running over there. Also with a high end card and a lot of pixels the game still looks blurry and old. I suppose it is the same engien ar TW Rome so hopefully there will be an orehaul before teh next game.
Keep up the good work!
Posted by drjones on September 5th, 2007 at 5:08 pm
Comment # 46
Hey, I’m just wondering if someone could help me out a bit with a problem I’ve been having while downloading the kingdoms expansion. I keep recieving a message stating ” This 1.03.000 update cannot be applied to the 1.00.000 version of the game.” If anyone could walk me through the steps in correcting this as soon as possible, I would be very grateful.
Brandon
Posted by Brandon on September 18th, 2007 at 1:03 am
Comment # 47
Josh Hartnett…
I Googled for something completely different, but found your page…and have to say thanks. nice read….
Posted by Josh Hartnett on March 14th, 2008 at 11:14 pm