I find Battanian shield troops to be weak at absorbing shots because of their small ass shields. Not to mention how they hold them.
Eh on jav cav vs archers. They could but you're likelier getting them tied up with enemy cav.
I don't find fians making too much of a difference in enemy armies. AI don't get to spam them like players can, so they simply can't match the raw volume that other factions can.
Noted. But..
As armies fight, they lose troops. So a seemingly distinct party template will get whittled down, and be forced to recruit just to bolster their numbers. The more they do this, the more uniform they will appear, like everyone else. Unless I am wrong, and parties somehow have preferences for troops.
Yes. And I don't see why Battanian common archers can't mix in. I find they join better than some heavy infantry shock trooper that effectively functions just like Aserai Palace Guard, unless you decide to change those guys.
Same, would not mind Battania getting an extra minor faction in their midst. Make them a nod to norse-gael relations. But if so, that means you can't just put more gallowglasses in the Battanian tree, so why not archers instead?
mate, been playing the 1.7.2 for a while now, given it's modded (makes all dmg calc more proximate to Warband), my balance observartions are as following:
- Battania is OP as fk when built in an army (not single parties), most infantry's just cannon fodder for all cultures except for Empire, which RN holds the best infantry units in the game by far.
- Empire's OP as fk too at all times, given they aren't mowed by archers they'll win on face value over any overly specialized culture at any time, except for Aserai
- Aserai's OP as fk when built in an army (not single parties) because they have way too many sources of missiles
- Khuzait's are OP as fk on auto-calc, and exceptionally annoying to battle against because it's basically a patience challenge to manage dealing with horse archer's zerg
- Vlandia's balanced
- Sturgia's crap
When we see any faction that isn't empire dominating that's usually because empire's busy fighting each other like idiots and the AI's too stupid to measure risk calculation, so they'll lose by attrition or by declaring war when 50% of their nobles who can field armies are in prison or "grounded" for just being released.
Battania with a full army, as long as they aren't being beaten to crap, will field a massive amount of fians, and as such, they simply shred any army to pieces before they even reach their infantry line, so complaining about their crap inf units' just wanting them to be OP with no downside.
Empire's just broken bonkers, they not only hold most of the best lands (which longterm makes them the richest and consequently the ones who field the larges t6 armies), their infantry can't be beaten by any other faction except Sturgia if the Empire's army composition is infantry only. (talking about inf vs inf) Even than they'll win most of the time against sturgians because sturgians have a wasted crap t6 on cavalry instead of infantry, and the infantry gear that isn't empire centric's crap. Empire's weapons deal more dmg, their troops are more versatile, and their infantry's geared with 1h and short-polearms (which can be used on face-to-face range successfully by the AI)
Aserai fields the largest array of missile units, and their archers are pretty close in power to Fians, that means you'll be showered by jarrids and arrows like there's no tomorrow whenever you face their armies. Given their cavalry's also pretty resistant, it's a matter of the player giving a helping hand (significant one) so the AI manages to win against them. If you are in-scene battle against them and fail to open up tactical viability, the AI will almost always lose unless the Aserai troops are crap low tier.
Khuzait has been a problem since Warband (i know, they were Khergits there, but regardless it's the same issue as always). Basically this happens because in their infinite wisdom, TW decided to negate the most important function and reason for the creation of ARMOR in HISTORY by making armor uncapable of stopping arrows from piercing people. So there you have it. They've also made one of the most ridiculous systems for battle auto-calc Ive ever seen by basically giving any mounted unit 2 lives, the results of such a brainy implementation are obviously observed at all times in almost all versions and with almost all mods since the game entered EA, Khuzaits will steam-roll other factions if the player isn't involved (meaning pure auto-calc).
Vlandia arguably holds the best cav. in the game, but than again their other units are so crappy that it makes them very balanced. Crossbows although powerful in total dmg deal laughable DPS when compared to any archer (they lose to Aserai, Battania, Empire and Khuzaits in DPS), yet they still overpower Sturgia's meme bowmen quite easy. Their infantry's also pretty decent, they can counter cav aptly, they can hold their own against infantry formations, and they aren't mowed by archers as fast as others. They, do, however, lose attrition battles for not holding decent shield units, which I think is fair. Basically this kills the classic "counter-swadian" tactic of charging cav before their cav charges you, which's nice, forces for a more tactical approach.
Now, Sturgia's just the underdog meme-worthy faction since the beginning, and it saw absolutely no effective fix to make them even half-decent. Their gear's crap (inferior to all other factions) except for their high tier 2h axes, their armor's crap for a faction supposed to be infantry-centric, meaning they get mowed easily by missiles in general. They move slowly. Their territory's "Siberia on Steroids", they simply can't produce anything at any time and their economy's always crap, player-involvement or not. Their territory distribution's also total "RNG". Their main units (infantry) are only slightly more "skilled" than Empire, but with rags and pitchforks. Their weapon range's also crap to deal with face-to-face infantry, so spearmen are just incapable of doing anything useful when there's no cavalry charge, and when there is, they'll miss 99% of their attack's effective range. So basically TW made Sturgia as useless as looters, and their territory as useless as bandit hideouts. What's the solution? Well, make at least their capital more to the south and as rich as Kiev used to be. Varangian's (the original Rus) were also exceptionally proeficient in trading, that's the reason they even appeared IRL, if you wanna base Sturgians on them, than do it properly. It's also know that cold shores of Scandinavia and northern Russia are rich in rare sea resources like Salmon and Wale (wale oil being a massively important resource during history) So Sturgia economy could be salvaged if they added "fancy fish" and "wale resources" to the economy, and basically throw 99% of said resources into Sturgian bound villages. If that's done right (a virtual Kiev + virtual Northern Shores) than Sturgia might even balance itself by being able to field larger and higher quality armies. Another absurdity of Sturgian territory comes with their lack of villages, which also destroy their economy. To fix them, first and foremost, remove Druhziniks as cavalry and make them heavy infantry (even CK does that, for crying out loud). Swap their cultural buffs to something actually helpful like either economy related or warfare related. And finally, fix their territory/economy by giving them more villages and unique resources to their lands. They are, currently, the faction that makes the least sense in the game because they are just a copy&paste of others only worse.
