Quality vs Quantity

**Oman** · August 10, 2007, 03:22 AM

Most people that have played online for a while will know that when you have limited money, fewer good quality troops will almost always beat bigger numbers of average or poor quality troops. For those of you that already play like this, read no further. For those of you that dont, try this out in a custom battle.

Take Rome for you and A1, and use 10k. Upgrade 3 units of pretorians cav to have gold sheild and gold sword (6 upgrades all together). Then choose unupgraded pretorian cav for the enemy (or yourself) and see how many units it takes before the A1 can beat you.

Try the same thing for urban cohorts.

If you can actually be bothered to do this, please let me know how many units you had to give the enemy before they beat your upgraded units. Take particular notice of the money you use and see its comparable on each side.

i know what tests i have done, but im interested to see how anyone does with this and too hopefully conclude 100% that quality is always better than quantity.

**Roman Clone** · August 10, 2007, 07:38 AM

Looks like no 1 is doing this...... Obviously in RTW upgraded units can kill 100 at the most before starting to take casualties.

**LeonidasOfSparta** · August 10, 2007, 07:41 AM

Hey Oman,

I would be happy to try this but I have RTR now so I will reinstall and try..

regards

**guyyug** · August 10, 2007, 08:36 AM

Oman proved this to me himself yesterday when we had a 1v1 at 10k, 5 units of companions were slaughtered by his 3 pret cavalry, my cav was unupgraded whilst his were. Qunatity only works if it's something like 5:1.

**MattErickson** · August 10, 2007, 07:41 AM

I'll give it a try, one second..

I took Sicpii and fought the Brutii for all three battles.
They were fought on the Italian lowlands on large I think.

Alright, so the first battle was 1 unit of Town Milita (80) [upgraded] against 3 units of Town Milita (240) [normal]. They moved in, maneuvered around me for a three sided assault but I counter charged their General unit. Killed off their general and it was a matter of routing/attacking, routing/attacking, attacking/routing, and routing/attacking. I won, needless to say. A Heroic Victory!

Second, same thing with town miltias. I had 1 unit of Town Milita (80) [upgraded] against the Brutii 7 units of Town Militia (560) [normal]. At first I had the quick and obvious advantage. Then it evened out as more and more of the enemy swarmed my lines. Then the scales started to slightly tip in favour of the enemy until it was too late and all was lost. An Average Defeat!

For this last battles I decided it would be between Urban Cohort, the best of the best (or so the game says). I decided to become the attacker with 5 units of Urban Cohort (410) [normal] against the cursed Brutii veterans, 1 unit of Urban Cohort (82) [fully upgraded to the max :o]. Started off by maneuvering myself into a position for a multi flank attack when the started throwing pila. I was forced to make a preemptive charge to counter their javelin chuckin'. After sourounding them completely they stood around a bit taking heavy casualties whilst 'realoading' to fire another volley. After they depleted their stock of pila the fighting commenced and I lost about 20 men per each of theirs unit my men fled like the dogs they are. A Crushing Defeat it twas indeed.

I hope that is what you wanted when you asked about Quality vs. Quantity. I know it's a bit long but it's 9:10 a.m. here and I'm bored and about to go to sleep.

Goodnight. errr... morning..

**_TubbZ_** · August 10, 2007, 08:55 AM

yeah i made this mistake even though i have played it alot in that final vs you a while back, when i started it i thought "why i take them" and once i saw your army i knew i couldn't win it easily....

and lost ofc lol....

anyways if you are testing it don't use XP ups as you don't really use them online as they cost too much. i think the only time numbers is better than ups is missiles really.

**Whiskeyjack** · August 10, 2007, 09:11 AM

Although I was aware upgrades were a problem I must admit i was surprised at just how ridiculous the praetorian cav was upgraded. I stopped testing after i defeated 9 unupgraded cav vs my 3 upgraded.

I am sure i read a topic at the org a while ago that seemd to be suggesting there was a problem with the upgrades in that they gave a bigger bonus than +1 per lvl despite what the stats show, and havin done a couple tests today it seems to me that there may be something in that, +3 armour and attack should not have affected the combat outcomes to the extent that they did.

For example in one test i had 3 upgraded cav vs 7 cav, the upgraded cav won the battle having suffered a total of 13 casualties(thats without me making any effort to flank, just charging head on), that seems a bit ridiculous frankly.

**Cybugger** · August 10, 2007, 09:54 AM

I would choose quantity over quality when defending a settlement, because of the narrow streets, and the fact that the enemy is still going to take a long time to kill everyone.

**Oman** · August 10, 2007, 11:12 AM

Thanks to those of you that tested and commented. I really believe that doing well in this game is just as much about army selection (i mainly mean upgrades and unit choice by that) than actual skill and tactics.

i.e someone with crap tactics and a good army would probably still beat someone who was tactically superior, but chose poorly and did not upgrade (in low money) and vice versa.

Something else that means a lot is faction selection. For example, brits can be extremely powerful against rome, but against eygpt, they almost always lose. I could choose an amazing brits army that would wipe the floor against a very skilled player using rome, yet lose badly against an average player using eygpt.

Stating the obvious, maybe...but im running out of things to talk about

**Whiskeyjack** · August 10, 2007, 11:27 AM

Originally Posted by Oman

Thanks to those of you that tested and commented. I really believe that doing well in this game is just as much about army selection (i mainly mean upgrades and unit choice by that) than actual skill and tactics.

i.e someone with crap tactics and a good army would probably still beat someone who was tactically superior, but chose poorly and did not upgrade (in low money) and vice versa.

Something else that means a lot is faction selection. For example, brits can be extremely powerful against rome, but against eygpt, they almost always lose. I could choose an amazing brits army that would wipe the floor against a very skilled player using rome, yet lose badly against an average player using eygpt.

Stating the obvious, maybe...but im running out of things to talk about

Agree with everything you said here, in fact this is one of the main reason's i stopped playing MP, it's no fun when the battle is more or less decided in the army selection screen. With the MTW2 rebalance coming(assuming it delivers) RTW is going to stand out amongst all the TW games as the tactically shallow one, which is a real shame as its my preferred era.

**Kratos** · August 10, 2007, 01:17 PM

Originally Posted by Whiskeyjack

Agree with everything you said here, in fact this is one of the main reason's i stopped playing MP, it's no fun when the battle is more or less decided in the army selection screen. With the MTW2 rebalance coming(assuming it delivers) RTW is going to stand out amongst all the TW games as the tactically shallow one, which is a real shame as its my preferred era.

Agreed.

**Lucius Vorenus** · August 10, 2007, 03:46 PM

Originally Posted by Cybugger

I would choose quantity over quality when defending a settlement, because of the narrow streets, and the fact that the enemy is still going to take a long time to kill everyone.

I actually one time did a test of 3 units of Urban Cohort against a full stack of peasants in a siege defense. I put the peasants all in the town square, so no routing. The Peasants got owned. I think like 13 Urbans died, and every single peasant.

**Cybugger** · August 12, 2007, 06:30 AM

Originally Posted by Lucius Vorenus

I actually one time did a test of 3 units of Urban Cohort against a full stack of peasants in a siege defense. I put the peasants all in the town square, so no routing. The Peasants got owned. I think like 13 Urbans died, and every single peasant.

Granted, Urban Cohorts vs Peasants... I hope so. When i mean Quantity over Quality, i'm not speaking about the bog standard peasants, and lame ass militias. At least Iberian Infantry level, Hastati. And also, the goal here wouldn't be to defeat the enemy, but outlast him. It takes a certain amount of time to cut through a large city with stone walls, defended by a mass of Levy Pikemen, and if properly positioned (i.e. not just in the plaza), you can run out the clock.

**Prince_of_Macedon** · August 11, 2007, 05:30 AM

Good topic.

I generally agree with Quality over Quantity if we're talking about units of similar type. For example 4 unupgraded Praetorians vs 3 upgraded Praetorians would favor the latter.

But a huge quantity of archers (perhaps 8+) can become a quality on their own if the enemy only has a few (say 3-4).

**Rasui Runihura** · August 11, 2007, 08:30 AM

The real question is - what's more important, weapon and armor bonuses, or experience?

**Whiskeyjack** · August 11, 2007, 09:14 AM

Some info that may be of use, discusses difference between attack, armour and xp upgrades

http://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=63907

**Elrond** · August 11, 2007, 11:12 AM

Quality always beats quantity if you avoid being flanked - you can defend a city with one good stack of troops against 3 or 4 stacks of basic troops if you bottle neck them.