1. Economy: I think that Kry is being a little harsh when saying Rohan easily has the worst economy, I would say Lothlorien is pretty close. But looking past that, it is hard to make money late game as Rohan. Most likely you have already uncorrupted Theoden at this point, and because of that, you really only have the normal game mechanics to rely on to make money. Your only option is to get Eomer to level, and kill a lot of enemies because people near him get resources everytime they get a kill. The problem is by late game it is hard to kill enemies because this is where people start to get their really strong armies together. Another major factor to this is that Rohan can't reduce the cost of their upgrades, while every other faction can. This means that Rohan is most likely paying the most for their upgrades, besides maybe Lothlorien. And because of the lack of money you are getting, you can't upgrade your troops quickly.
Well first off, I recommend letting Rohan reduce the cost of their upgrades. The best way to do this would be to make is so it is based of the amount of Armouries (-15% for 2 Armouries, -30% for 3 Armouries). And to make is a bit more appealing to get more then 1 Armoury, maybe make it also reduce the cost of siege by the same amount. But our problems don't stop there.
From what I know, Rohan's economy in lore is mainly based off Farming. I think that Rohan should get some boost to how much money farms make. I always found it kind a weird that Gondor get the Grand Harvest, yet Rohan doesn't. Gondor's economy is really based of trading and crafting materials. It never made sense to me why the Gondor Marketplace could effect farming because of this.
So I would recommend giving Rohan the Grand Harvest instead of Gondor. Make it purchasable at the Citadel, but only when Theoden is Free from Corruption. This would make sense because when he is Corrupted, he would be more focused on making money for himself, which Cruel Taxes shows very well. But when free, Theoden think about his people more then himself. Take this line from the movies. "Crops will be re sowed. Homes rebuilt." I really hope people like this idea.
Rohan economy is definitely worse than Lorien. Lorien can get Wine Cellers and their upgrades on outposts, and as well they have many different discounts to take into account, including a good upgrade discount. That said, I definitely agree with giving Rohan an upgrade discount as well as the Grand Harvest, this would significantly help Rohans economy. I also have an idea to add on to this, instead of making Grand Harvest purchasable at the citadel, why not move it to the armory, or even better, give Rohan a new building like a market, and add another economy upgrade as well? My idea would be "Animal Husbandry" to increase the income of stud farms. Additionally, since Rohans farms are flour mills, the Grand Harvest should have a different name, perhaps "Windmill Efficiency"?
Well thats the economy Next.
2. Pikes: oh boy. Argueably the the biggest problem with Rohan's late game is how they handle pikes. I am glad that some changes have been made to make it easier for Rohan, but the problem is still a big one. The problem here is that because Rohan is a cavalry based faction, which have problems with pikes, it makes Rohan very hard to play if your opponent spams pikes. Your only counters to pikes, being peasants and Horse Archers, are too weak late game and can't kill fully upgraded pikes armies respectively.
So what do you do when your opponent starts spamming ugraded elite pikes? Their really isn't much you can do unfortunately. While Royal Guard can kill a lone pikemen group because of their new ability, this does not help them at all against larger groups of pikes because they slow down too fast. They should have lower deceleration then normal riders.
The really only option against Large amounts of pikes is Horse Archers, but they can't take down an entire army of pikes, unfortunately.
So how can this be fixed? Sadly this problem is too big for a "just do this" type of answer. The amount of factors that have an effect on it are huge. Hopefully other benefits to Rohan, such as a better economy and stronger spear throwers, might help ease this problem.
Firstly, pikes ARE the biggest problem late game, not arguably. I do not agree that it isn't simple to fix. The other factions all have something that has no "counter" late game, and making Rohans cavalry stronger would not be unfair, quite the contrary, it would give Rohan something STRONG late game, just like ALL the other factions have.
I kinda think that Royal Bred Horses should be a passive that Rohan gets automatically, and what should replace it would make specifically Rohan's heroes better while mounted. Because I don't agree on making armies stronger with a passive Spellbook power is a good idea.
I don't see how this could work, in fact it really makes no sense at all. Why give entire armies a passive buff when they get to level 3 automatically? If anything the heroes should be passively strengthened right now, and the army upgrade should be a spellbook power. Armies can accomplish much, much more than heroes can.
And the Galadhrim Summon could be stronger too. Make those elves upgraded and it would be much better.
Agree.
The problem with Rohan and pikes is well-known.
If you enable the rohirric cavalry to deal with or even easily defeat pikes, they cannot be countered anymore.
If Rohan cannot counter pikes effectively, their cavalry becomes useless.
So how do we find a good middle ground? Honestly, I do not think there is a perfect solution. If any cavarly unit is made stronger or more effective against pikes, it needs a new counter.
As I said above, disagree. All other factions have something OP or without a clear counter late game, EXCEPT Rohan. It seems to me that everybody thinks that if Rohans cavalry were just a little stronger that they would be unkillable. This is not the case. All it would really do is give Rohan a fighting chance at killing armies of Isengard, Gondor Tower Guards, and Dwarves. Mordor can very quickly and easily replenish any army killed by Rohan, and Lorien Archers can wreck armies of Rohan before they can even get close to them with their archer spam. Finally, if the cavalry were made stronger, it would actually make Glorious Charge the game ending super-ability that it is SUPPOSED to be. It is extremely difficult and dangerous to try and get Theoden to level 10, people instantly target all of their heroes on him the second they see him in combat, and he costs 2800(!!) to revive. Rohan, as stated above, has a weak economy, which makes it real rough if Theoden dies while uncorrupted. Now, I think the price is justified considering what he can do, but considering how freaking long it takes to level Theoden to level 10 Glorious Charge should be better, on par with Army of the Dead in its destructive capabilities.
Concerning Rohan's economy and Hamanathnath's proposal. I wouldn't go for price reduction of upgrades by building armouries. I've always liked BFME1 balance concerning rohans upgrades. In BFME1 Rohan doesn't have price reduction on upgrades like Isen or Gondor. But price of their upgrades were lower by default. I think it's worth implementing something similar.
I suggest making it like this: you build armoury, but at first you can research only banner carrier for 400. After this you are able to research heavy armour and forged blades ( for 600 or 800). Giving these upgrades to your troops would cost you for Heavy armour and Forged blades 210 and Banner for 150. Yeah , these numbers are a matter of balance but still idea is pretty solid, it worked in BFME1.
I just went in game and checked, and the upgrades per unit were still quite expensive for Rohan. Most of the discounts for different factions have been added as new features by the team, and I don't see an issue with giving Rohan an upgrade discount on their armory. I very often end up getting 2 armories to besiege people with rams, so giving the discount with multiple armories would be very useful and fair I think.
I think that in BFME1 the upgrade costs were only lower be default for the peasants, which were not so usefull as in Edain 4.X.
I agree with Rohan getting the Grand Harvest Upgrade for the economy. But though I think that Eomers ability is still usefull in LG.
I don't like the idea of making Rohan stronger in LG "because it just should". A diverse mix of Westfold units peasants and all kinds of Cav + leveled Heros is in my opinion already really strong and hard to beat.
Rohan loses late game. Its that simple. I cannot count how many times I have had the exact unit composition you listed just now, and have gotten crushed utterly by Isengard, Gondor and Dwarves. Haman, Sawman, Draco100000, Woppader, DarkRadek and myself, along with others I play with less often, have all played many hundreds of games together, and every single time Rohan does not defeat their enemy early game, they lose. Late game, any army trumps theirs. The ONLY Factions that Rohan can sometimes keep at bay are Mordor(shitty pikes) Lorien(again, shitty pikes) and Rohan mirrors. Even then, the economy of Mordor and Lorien is always better, so they will win in the long run, especially looking at Mordors Call the Horde! ability, and Loriens extremely strong defense combined with Rohans awful siege.
But I agree that Rohans counter against Pikes should be stronger than "just" an elite unit ability. I really liked the idea how in BFME1 Rohirrim-Archers did a lot of damage against pikes! Thus I believe that the Rohirrim-Archers should be really strong against pikes. Without firearrows strong against pikes without heavy amor. With firearrows really strong against pikes with heavy amor. As thei cost and cp-cost is quite high, i think that they can fit in that role of "pike-counter". Concerning the balance they should be extremely vulnerable against enemy-archers and melee fight.
=> Improving this unit, would give Rohan an alternative counter against Pikes. And the unit would be worth their 120 CP and 700 Res (without reduction?).
You just listed the Rohirrim Archers current strengths. However, as you said they are weak to archers, which makes them useless. All you need are a couple crossbowmen(Isengard), Rangers(Gondor) or any ranged unit(Dwarves) stuck in the middle of your pike army and boom Rohirrim Archers are suddenly useless. No joke, I have seen entire armies, 10 battalions strong, of Rohirrim Archers fall to 2 fully upgraded uruk crossbows with shieldbearers, and the same happen against 3 Gondor Rangers. In addition, the attack animations of the mounted archers are really jumpy, sometimes they don't want to shoot or move properly. I think the team should take a look at this. Finally, I'm not sure if its possible or not, but shouldn't they be able to attack while moving? Because right now they just sit there and shoot, and quickly get massacred by enemy arrows. In any case, Rohirrim Archers are still never going to be able to kill fully upgraded Isengard or Dwarf Pikes, and the Tower Guard formtion makes them pretty much unkillable unless engaged in melee. The melee cavalry of Rohan NEED a buff, either that or a new unit of infantry or heavy cavalry needs to be added.
EDIT
I completely disagree that Horse Archers are useless now. In fact, they are argueably the only reason why Rohan has any sort of chance late game, besides Glorious Charge.
Yes, they are indeed Rohans only chance late game, but its still not enough.
With that said, I do agree they should be the unit that is strong against Pikes. And they are decently strong right now. The problem is that most the factions have something that can Horse Archers aren't effective on, such as Uruk ShieldBearers, Dwarven Veterans, and Tower Guards.
You hit the nail on the head. Even if they are made stronger against pikes its still not going to be enough. Even if it was, do you realize how boring it would be to have to spam a single unit late game? Even Gondor can add in some rangers and heroic units late game. If this were the case, then the ONLY unit you could train to have a chance would be mounted archers. That would just be boring and stupid.
This is where I think Spear Throwers should come in. I talked about this more in depth in the Rohan Balance Discussion thread, so go check that out for more depth. I basically want Spear Throwers to be the unit that is strong against the super Heavily Armored units. I think that, along with my other suggestions for the Spear Throwers, Rohan will have less trouble with the Heavily Armored units, and well as making peasants more useful late game.
OK, lets really think about this for a second. So say Spear Throwers were made less expensive in resources and CP, and in addition could break heavily armored units and receive everything you want them to. What then would be the case? 1 of 2 things would happen.
Either you could supplement your cavalry force with a slow moving infantry force, and have to retreat behind them for every single engagement, therefore completely negating the whole idea that Rohan is a cavalry faction.
Or you would buy an army of peasants to hold the line for you while your spear throwers did the real damage. Again, what's the point of ever making a stables at all if your only chance late game is spear throwers? It simply doesn't work. The issue here is
cavalry.
I think the best solution would be to make both a mounted and dismounted variant of Spear Throwers, to allow people to at least have a choice. At least then, if the melee Rohirrim are not buffed and still suck terribly, you can feel like you are playing Rohan by having mounted spear throwers that can use Glorious Charge. Personally, I would much rather just see spear throwers removed entirely, they are really unnecessary. It would be better to increase the strength of Rohans melee cavalry.
Concerning upgrades, I don't think that Rohan should have lower priced upgrades immediately. I just don't see a reason in that. Adding the price reduction to a Armoury would make more sense, because the more Armouries you have, the more readily available the Upgrades should be.
Agree.
Just had a one hour 3v3 on Nurn. Rohan + Rohan + Dwarves against Mordor + Isengard + Rohan.
Our Dwarves was new- he didn't know how to play and stayed in his base the whole game- but we managed to defeat Isengard pretty quickly. From that point it was 2v2: 2xRohan against Mordor and Rohan. We controlled the whole map minus their camps but we couldn't win. They started to spam pikes and they slowly regained map control. At the end the Mordor even 1v2'd our two armies. I've never felt that powerless.
I feel your pain brother, I've been there many times. In that situation I would generally tend to just try and ignore the enemy armies and go straight for their base with my cavalry and last march of the ents, but that generally turns into a base trade. It sucks