Balancing

[alex man142]

One thing that has me slightly worried about Rome Total War 2 is balancing. In almost every Total War game, there has been factions that are simply over-powered and others that are terribly under-powered.

Rome Total War was guilty of this, and I find Macedon to be the most egregious example. Macedon was pretty much the Selucid Empire, minus elephants and chariots. The Roman factions were insanely over-powered, almost nothing could stop them. Carthage had NO archers, which I find just lazy.

Medieval Total War 2 had Scotland, which is just plain lazy. Scotland is a terrible faction, their pikes, archers, and cavalry just sucked.

In my opinion, every faction should have great strengths and weakness. The Roman faction(s) should have jack-of-all-trades master-of-none situation. The Greeks should have great phalanxes and archers but mediocre cavalry. The Eastern Factions should have great archers and cavalry but mediocre infantry. The Greek-Easterns should be the Greeks, but with worse infantry and better cavalry. Barbarians should have great light infantry and shock troops, but they're all impetuous and undisciplined.
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No faction should be "better" than the other. I'm not saying that we need a Shogun 2 "every faction has the same units deal," but in my opinion, player play-style should determine the best faction, not balancing issues.

[Ichon]

I don't find the rosters made a huge difference but the starting economies of the various factions made by far the largest difference since numbers matter more than anything else in auto calculation results for AI battles. Rome in RTW started with 3 factions with decent economy as well as great stats which helped in auto calc. The red northern faction in RTW spread the fastest because it was fighting the weakest economically factions while the other 2 Roman factions often barely progressed. I wouldn't mind if Rome starts with a strong economy again in RTW2 because they did in history have a strong economy. As for roster stats... the best solution is also economy in my opinion. Rome should have good cavalry but it is very expensive compared to some other more rural factions. Same with Macedon. So as player you can invest in cavalry if you want but it will have a cost. Thus Parthians if they wanted could produce good heavy infantry but it might cost 1/3 more than infantry of factions with heavy infantry tradition so it is unlikely player can field entire armies easily while also Parthians could produce good heavy infantry they might not be able to field elite heavy infantry. Rome might produce elite heavy infantry at a low cost, elite cavalry at a higher cost, and only good archers at a high cost not elite archers and be forced to use mercenaries to gain elite archers. Simply that the reason most nations had a certain fighting tradition was often due to economics. Greeks did not have many horses because to support a single horse was costing relatively more for them than Parthians. Macedon though even at that higher cost was able to make some elite heavy cavalry but only in very small numbers. So if all factions can produce relatively good units in most combat arms but the units that faction did not have a tradition of has a cost disadvantage. Players can ignore that or perhaps overcome it with dedicated research but at least it helps guide players and AI why some nations had armies composed a certain way.

[Ticklestick]

I disagree. Some factions really should have a stronger unit roster. Beating a roman legion with a barbarian army should be brutally hard, but very rewarding. Hell, let barbarians steal plunder off of "civilized" armies when they win. I do think every faction should have some advantages though. So while the gauls are outclassed by legions, they can be extremely cheap (population permitting) and quick to mass into armies, good ambushers, whatever. The seleucids should have access to all of their amazing units, but some at exorbitant costs (armored elephants come to mind). If you had a seleucid empire in ~280 b.c. on par militarily with the gauls or cimbri or whoever, it would be an absolute joke.

[JaM]

btw, archers were not that prominent in ancient era. even Britons who used bows, preferred javelins over arrows - javelin required even more practice than bow, and in the end it was incredibly lethal weapon in the hands of experienced men. from technical perspective, javelin was able to instantly kill, while you needed several arrows to reliably kill somebody. balistically it makes sense - standard javelin weight was 2-4kg, with heavy Pillum up to 5kg.. terminal energy was big enough to penetrate almost any ancient armor,which cannot be told about arrows...

[DeliCiousTZM]

Balance is like historical accuracy, after the first turn you make your own history and your own balance. Power shifts constantly as long as one faction is OP that playthrough and another the next and ROME always!

[The Great Montrose]

One thing that has me slightly worried about Rome Total War 2 is balancing. In almost every Total War game, there has been factions that are simply over-powered and others that are terribly under-powered.

Rome Total War was guilty of this, and I find Macedon to be the most egregious example. Macedon was pretty much the Selucid Empire, minus elephants and chariots. The Roman factions were insanely over-powered, almost nothing could stop them. Carthage had NO archers, which I find just lazy.

Medieval Total War 2 had Scotland, which is just plain lazy. Scotland is a terrible faction, their pikes, archers, and cavalry just sucked.

In my opinion, every faction should have great strengths and weakness. The Roman faction(s) should have jack-of-all-trades master-of-none situation. The Greeks should have great phalanxes and archers but mediocre cavalry. The Eastern Factions should have great archers and cavalry but mediocre infantry. The Greek-Easterns should be the Greeks, but with worse infantry and better cavalry. Barbarians should have great light infantry and shock troops, but they're all impetuous and undisciplined.
'
No faction should be "better" than the other. I'm not saying that we need a Shogun 2 "every faction has the same units deal," but in my opinion, player play-style should determine the best faction, not balancing issues.

I think the Romans should be better than other factions after all look at what they achieved but they shouldnt be too good, plus disagree with you about Scotland

[Ticklestick]

Mmmm the legions themselves weren't that superior to everything. Rome's greatest strength was her population. Hannibal annihilated 3 roman armies and still couldn't make any real progress. I mean hell, any time they actually beat a macedonian type pike-phalanx army in the field it was cavalry that won them the battle. Also keep in mind roughly half of a Roman army was made up of allies and mercenaries at any given time.