KaM Remake gameplay balance

[Bo_]

No you can have 2 stables, but still, more stables means less pigfarms.
With 2 stables I had around 20 horses at the end of pt, so 20 knights. 20 knights is nice, but I could also have focused on pikemen instead, and then I would have had 40 pikemen.

[Bo_]

No stop talking about something where you know nothing about..

Don't make a personal war out of this, please! Thank you.

I wonder what you would answer Bence791, who also came to a different conclusion than you?

It's not personal, I mean I don't know you, we never played together. I'm just saying that your conclusions aren't right.
To Bence I say, I've tested multiplied times, and yes maybe you can have a result where knights would slay pikemen, but normaly they don't.
Also, like I said before. A player who only focuses on knights will have way less soldiers than a player who focuses only on pikemen.
So when those 2 players would face at the end of pt, like 30 knights vs 60 pikemen, you will see that the pikemen will win without many looses.
I couldn't say how many exactly but certainly not 30.

[Bence791]

I don't have the same conclusion as Bo, he says it is good as it is, I say it's very unbalanced now..

And now think about something different of multiplayer...
Singleplayer.

The enemy often has lots of axe/swordsmen and even scouts/knights. Don't you think it would totally ruin the gameplay? AI almost always has 9k-65k smelted iron and coal to make weapons, and 9k-65k corn for breeding horses. What could stop him? Pikes? Lances? Only in large numbers. No more "lance defending against iron". A swordsman can have 2 lancers for breakfast as well. Or am I wrong? I know that Remake isn't for playing campaigns. But there are single missions which are suitable for Remake (doesn't have mercenary-equipping needed, or siege weapons), this would surely make them so much harder. I hope you won't implement it as a new feature, only an option to play. This is my opinion.


Yes, you are surely right with when pt ends, there won't be equal number of knights and pikes, if only focused on them. But I say that it's "irrealistic" that a knight can kill a guy with the most fearful anti-horse weapon. Knights are the ruler of the map, but they need someone to die. This might sound really ridiculous, but am I wrong? They can avoid stones, arrows, and even can manoeuver on the battlefield so much easier, than infantry. These make knights worth training. But everything should has a "weak point". For the knights, pikemen are this weak point. And if you give them the ability to kill any troops, why would anyone make anything else than knights and xbows (I mean iron now)?

[The Dark Lord]

Okay, on top of my previous suggestion... We could also just make lance carriers and pikemen even stronger versus cavalry. This way, units with shields will still be stronger versus arrows but cavalry will die just as easily as before (which I think is fair, I agree with Siegfried about the rock-paper-scissors principle).

[Bo_]

Bence, first of all, here it's about multiplayer,
if you want to play the campagne you better play TPR with the 1.60 patch.

I've tested again, and you're right, in 1 vs 1 the knight wins 3/4 times.
I don't say you''re a noob, you have much potential but you said it yourself, you need to have more experience, especialy to understand this.
I'm not saying I know everything either, and I don't say this is perfect, but it's better than before.
Do your tests again, and make it more realistic:
Place 10 knights vs 20 lances, you'll see that your knights will be slaughtered.
Then place 10 knights vs 15 pikemen. (Same amount of iron required)
You'll see, knights will be slaughtered again..
So even if knights may seem op in 1 vs 1, believe me they're not compared to their price.

[Jeronimo]

Do your tests again, and make it more realistic:
Place 10 knights vs 20 lances, you'll see that your knights will be slaughtered.
Then place 10 knights vs 15 pikemen. (Same amount of iron required)
You'll see, knights will be slaughtered again..
So even if knights may seem op in 1 vs 1, believe me they're not compared to their price.

QFT: 20 lancers vs 10 knights will show better the relation. There is a over-reaction respect Knights... but that's not different from the over-reaction respect changes in food conditions...

Interesting fact is that now you feel relief to train Axemen/Swordman/Scouts... and since Knights still did "something" with 4 hit points, now having +1 makes some players "oh no! Knight is broken! 5 hit points!"... IMO is over-reaction.

Test yourself this (in same armour type/wide line vs wide line)

11 Axemen vs 11 Scouts / 11 Lancers vs 11 Scouts

11 Swordmen vs 11 Knigths / 11 Pikemen vs 11 Knights

My results confirm that despite the +1's HP, anti-cavalry bonuses are great, specially those UUUU from Pikemen.

[T*AnTi-V!RuZz]

Guys, please respect each other's opinion. There's no need to make things personal. Thank you.

[-George Stain-]

Jeronimo, I think your +1 hp idea have shortcomings. I counted it and tested and combos like swordsman/axemen or axemen/knights etc.. they are now much more better than something like lancers/xbows.. tests based on the price of units..

shield units will be useful if change help him only be more resistant against archers.. but change helped against everthing.. but they are already very strong against lancers etc.. so I must say they are OP now. my opinion is that reducing damege axe fighter by 5 from 35 and sword fighter by 10 from 55 (attack is still axe > lance, sword > pike. or something like that) is good for keep game balanced.. I generaly spek about foot soldiers. horse can be still rare elite unit with 55 atack and 5 hp.. becouse he can be good countered and is hard to producing..

thx for read, some suggestions?

[Bo_]

George that's why I think axefighters should be better than lances.
Lances shouldn't be the best unit you can build, now you need most axefighters but also lances to counter enemy knights because knights are now too good for not building them.
If you have only lances you have no chance against axefighters, and if you have only axefighters you have no chance against enemy knights..
For me that's the main reason that it all fits.

[Lewin]

To be honest I'm not convinced that either of these changes are balanced. Here's my train of thought:
1. Increased swordfighter/axefighters to 4HP sounds like a good idea in principle because currently they're not really any better than a lance carrier/pikeman and nobody bothers to train them. However, as Siegfried said with his rock-paper-scissors example, a knight should be better than a swordsman and a scout should be better than an axefighter, so knights/scouts also need a bonus to keep this balance.
2. Knights/scouts sound like they will be very much overpowered with 5HP. 10 pikemen should annihilate 10 knights with only a few losses, in the same way the lance carriers in the battle tutorial annihilate the scouts every time with only about 4 out of 12 units lost. 10 lance carriers should have a decent chance of defeating 10 knights, although this should be tested in the current version of the game. Knights/scouts are already very powerful because they're fast, I'm not sure they need any extra bonuses.
3. I guess we could increase the lance carrier/pikemen anti-horse attack so they can still counter knights/scouts.
4. All of this makes militia/other units much less effective because the other units they will be fighting are now tougher, so militia might become useless. Currently a lot of militia can defeat axefighters/scouts, that will require more militia.
5. Maybe a different approach is better, leave all HP the same and increase the attack of militia/axefighters/swordfighters? (currently they're only marginally better than lance carriers/pikemen)

A few other points that people raised:
- We won't sacrifice singleplayer for multiplayer. The Remake is designed to do both equally well. Judging from our crash reports a lot of people play the campaigns, maybe as many as play multiplayer. Please don't assume that just because you aren't so interested in singleplayer that nobody is. (remember that people who like singleplayer could conversely argue that multiplayer isn't needed) So any changes must not screw up the campaign balance (although minor changes to the campaigns can be made, as they already have been to make allowances for our "different" AI)
- We will not have different unit values/combat system/etc for singleplayer and multiplayer. Both will be the same so the game has a consistent feeling and some tactics/skill from singleplayer is transferable to multiplayer.
- It's not possible to multiply all the HP/attack values by 10 because KaM doesn't work like that. Each strike can do 0 or 1 HP of damage, no more. It would take massive changes to the fighting system to incorporate something like this and the game wouldn't feel the same at all (it would be something more like Age of Empire's combat system)
- We can make storm attack better, maybe you click it to prepare it then when you tell them to move somewhere they will storm. They could also run a bit further and with less variation in this distance they run.
- Storm attack already means you are much less likely to be hit by arrows/rocks for the time you are running, because the aim scatter is multiplied by the target's speed.
- In my opinion this change shouldn't make lance carriers/pikemen useless for everything other than countering mounted units. I think they should be a viable choice in the same way militia is a viable choice, because you can make more of them than you could with axefighters/swordfighters.

I still don't see any clear solutions yet, but the discussion is interesting and could yield results.

Guys, please respect each other's opinion. There's no need to make things personal. Thank you.

I agree, please accept that other people view things differently than you and don't insult them personally for that. Some people could play more singleplayer than multiplayer too, and as I said above balance needs to be maintained in both.

[Bo_]

To be honest I'm not convinced that either of these changes are balanced. Here's my train of thought:
1. Increased swordfighter/axefighters to 4HP sounds like a good idea in principle because currently they're not really any better than a lance carrier/pikeman and nobody bothers to train them. However, as Siegfried said with his rock-paper-scissors example, a knight should be better than a swordsman and a scout should be better than an axefighter, so knights/scouts also need a bonus to keep this balance.
2. Knights/scouts sound like they will be very much overpowered with 5HP. 10 pikemen should annihilate 10 knights with only a few losses, in the same way the lance carriers in the battle tutorial annihilate the scouts every time with only about 4 out of 12 units lost. 10 lance carriers should have a decent chance of defeating 10 knights, although this should be tested in the current version of the game. Knights/scouts are already very powerful because they're fast, I'm not sure they need any extra bonuses.
3. I guess we could increase the lance carrier/pikemen anti-horse attack so they can still counter knights/scouts.
4. All of this makes militia/other units much less effective because the other units they will be fighting are now tougher, so militia might become useless. Currently a lot of militia can defeat axefighters/scouts, that will require more militia.
5. Maybe a different approach is better, leave all HP the same and increase the attack of militia/axefighters/swordfighters? (currently they're only marginally better than lance carriers/pikemen)

1. Well that's why I think everything works great like it is in the patch: Knights are stronger than swordfighters, swordfighters are stronger than pikemen and pikemen are stronger than knight.

2. When I say that lances/pikemen are still way stronger than knights/scouts then I say that because I compare them with the costs. When you look from that point of view it still fits the rock-paper-scissors system. Example: You have only 100 chests to buy weapons, player 1 trains only pikemen. 1 pikeman = 17 gold chests. (1 for recruit + 8 for pike + 8 for iron armor) This gives him 5 lances. Player to buys knights, wich gives him 3 knights. (1 for recruit + 8 for sword + 8 for shield + 8 for iron armor + 5 for horse.) Now face 3 knights vs 5 pikemen, this will give you max 1 loose for the pikemen. What I'm trying to say is you can't compare the power of knights since they're way more expensive. When including price to the calculation, 1 knight = 1,66... pikemen and 1,666... pikeman is stronger than 1 knights. So theoreticly knights are weaker than pikemen. Know that 2 lances can kill 1 knight, while 1 lancecarrier only costs 8 gold chests... But know that in a real game you won't buy your soldiers.

So in a real game 1 lance carrier costs 1 gold chest, 2 corn, 2 timber, and don't forget that it also gives you 1,5 saussige. (1 pig = 4 corn, 1 skin = 2 leather armor, 1 pig = 3 saussiges. So 3/2 = 1,5 saussiges.) And this while 1 knight costs 4 corn, 1 gold chest, 6 coal, 3 iron ore. And, you don't get food, wich means you need more farms...
And 1 pikeman costs 1 gold chest, 6 coal, 3 coal, while you don't spend 4 corn, wich can give you 8 breads or 3 saussiges.

So yes, 1 knight kills 1 lance carrier, and even 1 pikeman. But, in a real game you will not have the same amount of knights as you have pikemen/lance carriers.
If people disagree, I invite them for a 1 vs 1 game where they will only focus on knights while I will only focus on lance fighters and pikemen...
So 16 pikemen vs 10 knights gives you 3 looses for pikemen, and 16 looses for knights. In gold this gives us 51 gold chests vs 300, 6 times more expensive losts for knights than for pikemen. Do 3 knights vs 12 lance carriers, this gives us 2 looses for lance carriers and 3 for knights, wich gives us 16 gold chests vs 90, also 6 times more expensive losts for knights.

3. Well by doing that you would have even greater looses than now, I think 6 is already pretty big...

4. I think making militia less useful is rather a good thing. It's good that militia are a part of the game, but they shouldn't be 50% of some people's army.
I think militia shouldn't be used in the main battle, it just doesn't feel right. When I use militia it's more a tactical unit, to win some time, empty towers, flank...
So militia will still be useful, don't forget that they are the cheapest units in the game. (4 gold chests)
And with other units, lance carriers and pikemen will still be very useful, look at the explanation I give in 2., and for archers/crosbow. Making them less important doesn't mean they will become not important. Crossbow will still be one of the major damage dealers to put behind your melee, while archers are, IMO, a great tactical offensive unit.

5. That could be another option, but not for militia. Militia are already too strong vs lances, axefighters, scouts compared to their costs. I don't think anybody wants to go back to games where it was all about militia + crossbow. For example, yesterday we had a game on back in the desert, where george stain made in 60 min 200 militia and 40 crossbow. He killed the most soldiers. For 1 game it's funny, but I just say it doesn't make sence that you can win with militia and crossbow only...

6. Ok if you don't want to sacrifice singleplayer for multiplayer, I accept that, but when you say there are way more crash repports for singleplayer than for multiplayer, well that's because singleplayer just crashes way more, while multiplayer seems to be very stable. Still I think you know better than I do that with the remake changes the campaignes are now unplayable, when I play the campaigns I'll rather play TPR with the 1.60 patch installed, but well I'm not the one who has to decide about singleplayer/multiplayer priorities.

7. The reason I'm saying all this is not because I'm pretending to know everything, or because it would fit perfectly with my gameplay.
The reason I try to make a point is because I want the remake to be as good as possible, while using the most game aspects as we can. We can't make the game perfect, but we can always improve. We can always try new feauters, if they're not good they can always be removed. So yes we should listen to eachother's oppinion, but only if people know at least what they're talking about...
I'm seeing people giving a clear oppinion how the remake should be, while they haven't played kam for 3 years, others who just started playing 1 weak ago. Making conclusions that make no sence... This doesn't mean that they shouldn't be allowed to give their oppinion, but just think about how objective their arguments are.

Thanks for reading.

[Lewin]

2. When I say that lances/pikemen are still way stronger than knights/scouts then I say that because I compare them with the costs. When you look from that point of view it still fits the rock-paper-scissors system. Example: You have only 100 chests to buy weapons, player 1 trains only pikemen. 1 pikeman = 17 gold chests. (1 for recruit + 8 for pike + 8 for iron armor) This gives him 5 lances. Player to buys knights, wich gives him 3 knights. (1 for recruit + 8 for sword + 8 for shield + 8 for iron armor + 5 for horse.) Now face 3 knights vs 5 pikemen, this will give you max 1 loose for the pikemen. What I'm trying to say is you can't compare the power of knights since they're way more expensive. When including price to the calculation, 1 knight = 1,66... pikemen and 1,666... pikeman is stronger than 1 knights. So theoreticly knights are weaker than pikemen. Know that 2 lances can kill 1 knight, while 1 lancecarrier only costs 8 gold chests... But know that in a real game you won't buy your soldiers.
So in a real game 1 lance carrier costs 1 gold chest, 2 corn, 2 timber, and don't forget that it also gives you 1,5 saussige. (1 pig = 4 corn, 1 skin = 2 leather armor, 1 pig = 3 saussiges. So 3/2 = 1,5 saussiges.) And this while 1 knight costs 4 corn, 1 gold chest, 6 coal, 3 iron ore. And, you don't get food, wich means you need more farms...
And 1 pikeman costs 1 gold chest, 6 coal, 3 coal, while you don't spend 4 corn, wich can give you 8 breads or 3 saussiges.

So yes, 1 knight kills 1 lance carrier, and even 1 pikeman. But, in a real game you will not have the same amount of knights as you have pikemen/lance carriers.
If people disagree, I invite them for a 1 vs 1 game where they will only focus on knights while I will only focus on lance fighters and pikemen...
So 16 pikemen vs 10 knights gives you 3 looses for pikemen, and 16 looses for knights. In gold this gives us 51 gold chests vs 300, 6 times more expensive losts for knights than for pikemen. Do 3 knights vs 12 lance carriers, this gives us 2 looses for lance carriers and 3 for knights, wich gives us 16 gold chests vs 90, also 6 times more expensive losts for knights.

I don't agree with comparing knights equally to pikemen. Pikemen are supposed to be massively overpowered for cost against knights. Pikemen are the knights weakness, you must avoid them at all costs, distract the pikemen with your other units while you use your knights against other targets. Yes pikemen are cheaper than knights, and I think against 10 knights 10 pikemen should win with not many losses, that's the point of pikemen vs knights, it's intentionally overpowered to force you to avoid the pikemen. If 10 knights have a good chance against 10 pikemen there'll really be not much point avoiding the pikemen.

In your example someone who builds pikemen against someone who builds knights, the pikemen guy would obviously always win because throwing knights against pikemen is complete suicide. The guy with the knights needs enough other forced to distract the pikemen and use his knights against other troops, for flanking, getting to archers, etc.

IMO knights against pikemen should be slaughtered like they currently are without the changes, that's the idea of the whole "anti-horse" role. It means in battles you must keep your knights away from the pikemen, and always try to position your pikemen to get to the enemy knights.

3. Well by doing that you would have even greater looses than now, I think 6 is already pretty big...

You should take massive loses if you send your knights against enemy pikemen. That's not what knights are for, if you do that you're basically suicide them unless you have quite a few more knights than they have pikemen.

4. I think making militia less useful is rather a good thing. It's good that militia are a part of the game, but they shouldn't be 50% of some people's army.
I think militia shouldn't be used in the main battle, it just doesn't feel right. When I use militia it's more a tactical unit, to win some time, empty towers, flank...
So militia will still be useful, don't forget that they are the cheapest units in the game. (4 gold chests)
And with other units, lance carriers and pikemen will still be very useful, look at the explanation I give in 2., and for archers/crosbow. Making them less important doesn't mean they will become not important. Crossbow will still be one of the major damage dealers to put behind your melee, while archers are, IMO, a great tactical offensive unit.

Sounds reasonable, I agree militia would still be used because they're so cheap.

6. Ok if you don't want to sacrifice singleplayer for multiplayer, I accept that, but when you say there are way more crash repports for singleplayer than for multiplayer, well that's because singleplayer just crashes way more, while multiplayer seems to be very stable. Still I think you know better than I do that with the remake changes the campaignes are now unplayable, when I play the campaigns I'll rather play TPR with the 1.60 patch installed, but well I'm not the one who has to decide about singleplayer/multiplayer priorities.

Why does singleplayer crash more? Ignoring the fact that there is a bug in TSK19 that always causes it to crash (I'm not counting it in the crash reports, although the fact that 50 or so different people reached TSK 19 shows there are a lot of people playing singleplayer), singleplayer is as stable or more stable the multiplayer. The game code is exactly the same, the only difference is no networking (which can occasionally cause crashes when resyncing fails after a reconnection)
The TSK campaign is quite playable. A few missions are too hard, which we've fixed since r3392.
The TPR campaign isn't working as originally intended, and we haven't spent much time rebalancing it yet.
Yes, at the moment you'll get a more balanced singleplayer game from TPR, but we're always working on improving that and the advantages of the Remake (graphical improvements/resolutions especially) are a good reason to make it work well with singleplayer.

7. The reason I'm saying all this is not because I'm pretending to know everything, or because it would fit perfectly with my gameplay.
The reason I try to make a point is because I want the remake to be as good as possible, while using the most game aspects as we can. We can't make the game perfect, but we can always improve. We can always try new feauters, if they're not good they can always be removed. So yes we should listen to eachother's oppinion, but only if people know at least what they're talking about...
I'm seeing people giving a clear oppinion how the remake should be, while they haven't played kam for 3 years, others who just started playing 1 weak ago. Making conclusions that make no sence... This doesn't mean that they shouldn't be allowed to give their oppinion, but just think about how objective their arguments are.

Nobody actually said "I haven't played KaM for 3 years" or "I started playing KaM 2 weeks ago", you're assuming that because they have different opinions from you? How do you know when those people last played KaM? Assuming things because people have different opinions isn't very respectful either. Or are you assuming it because you don't see them playing online? Unless you watch the server list for most of the day you'll never know that, and if they mainly play singleplayer their opinions are still very valuable because singleplayer balance is also essential.
Even if somebody hasn't played KaM for 3 years, there's no need to make it personal. Just politely explain what you think is wrong about their argument. Don't accuse them of things, treat them like an idiot or make assumptions about when they last played. If you politely explain it and your argument is valid, other people will agree with you and disagree with the person you are arguing against. That's a much better approach than making it personal, you'll get more success and respect by debunking someone's argument with your own argument than by throwing insults around.

This is a discussion, people are allowed to state whatever opinion whatever they like even if nobody agrees with them, and you in turn are invited to rebut/disprove them, NOT insult them.

[Bo_]

When I compare knights to pikemen I do it for the same amount, adjusted same amount. (Costs includes) When looking at the adjusted same amount knights are still slaughtered by pikemen, with massive looses. Pikemen are still the weakness of knight..
Even before the changes: Let 10 knights fight against 5 pikemen, the knights will easily win.
So if you think there should always be massive loses, then this should also be changed, because 10 knights don't take massive loses when fighting against 5 pikemen.
Like you say, you can't compare knights directly with pikemen...
Just for that reason I think there should be an adjusted amount of knights. But well it's a discussion, like you said. There's not 1 person who is right.

About singleplayer, you can win a mission with a command, I tought it was ctrl + V, but well since I don't play singleplayer I'm not going to discuss about that, there are certainly a lot of players focusing on singleplayer only, I respect that.

When I say that people haven't played kam for 3 years, it's because I know that it's true. I'm not someone who is just pretending what people have and haven't done. Look at the archive of the minichat. Pepa I think his name was, when matt asked him the question he said that he hasn't played for 3 years, but he was commenting the gamebalance, with arguments like 'Now it's best to use swordfighters against knights because their hp is +33% and from knights +25%.' His calculations are correct, but his conclusion is completely wrong... For players who just started playing, when they tell me they just started playing, I think I can use that as an argument, I know what they're thinking because I was a beginner too one day, everybody has to start somewhere.

Also I realy don't understand what everybody means with stop making this into a personel fight. I respect other people's opinion, if they use correct arguments.
When somebody is making wrong conclussions while talking about something he shouldn't talk about, like with pepa, I don't feel like waisting more time on them than just being brief. With other people, who wants to learn, who can have a wrong conclusion but at least what they say makes some sence, I take time to tell them why I think they're wrong, like with Bence for example. If you mean Sigfried as another example, I'm sorry but his arguments just made no sence, I've talked about it with other people and in that point I wasn't the only one who agreed. I can't know for sure if he did or did not play the RC, but I just asked him, even if it may not have been on the most polite way.

So yes, there are a lot of people with who I don't agree, like we all do. This doesn't mean I make it personaly.

[Lewin]

I agree 10 knights vs 5 pikemen, the knights should win with minimal losses. But 10 knights vs 10 pikemen the pikemen should win with only moderate losses. From what people have said the pikemen take heavy losses so I'm not sure that's balanced. Knights already have the advantage of being fast that balances the fact they are more expensive. Therefore I think 10 pikemen should only take moderate losses against 10 knights.

About singleplayer, you can win a mission with a command, I tought it was ctrl + V, but well since I don't play singleplayer I'm not going to discuss about that, there are certainly a lot of players focusing on singleplayer only, I respect that.

I don't see how that's a relevant argument to singleplayer not being important. It's like saying "you can win multiplayer by putting everyone on the same team". Well that's true, but does that make multiplayer pointless?

Also I realy don't understand what everybody means with stop making this into a personel fight. I respect other people's opinion, if they use correct arguments.
When somebody is making wrong conclussions while talking about something he shouldn't talk about, like with pepa, I don't feel like waisting more time on them than just being brief. With other people, who wants to learn, who can have a wrong conclusion but at least what they say makes some sence, I take time to tell them why I think they're wrong, like with Bence for example. If you mean Sigfried as another example, I'm sorry but his arguments just made no sence, I've talked about it with other people and in that point I wasn't the only one who agreed. I can't know for sure if he did or did not play the RC, but I just asked him, even if it may not have been on the most polite way.

So yes, there are a lot of people with who I don't agree, like we all do. This doesn't mean I make it personaly.

People can use whatever arguments they like, you still shouldn't insult them personally. In the example you gave of Pepa (I haven't read the mini-chat, I'm just going on what you said) you should have told him "no that's not right, knights still have more hp overall, try it yourself and you'll see". You shouldn't say something like:

No stop talking about something where you know nothing about..

This is a personal insult, it's not a constructive way to have an argument. What Siegfried wrote was subjective, it was his opinion. You're free to argue that his opinion is wrong, but when you say "you know nothing about this" and tell him to stop talking, that's making it personal. This forum is designed for having constructive arguments where everyone's opinion is respected (even if that person used flawed arguments), but anyone is free to disagree and disprove that person's opinion. You must still be respectful towards their opinion, even if you think it's completely wrong and flawed. In that case it should be very easy for you to say why it's wrong, and more productive than insulting them. Remember not everyone sees things the way you do, things that are obviously wrong and not obviously wrong to others.
I actually agree with a lot of what Siegfried wrote that you were referring to:

10 knights vs 10 lance carriers with little to nil losses. That's terrible! Also 10 pikemen only barely survive 10 knights is imbalanced. Pikemen are the meant counter, don't forget that.

IMO 10 knights should beat 10 lance carriers, but with significant losses. And 10 pikemen should only suffer a few losses against 10 knights. That is my personal opinion, I don't necessarily agree with your opinion. But that doesn't mean I tell you to stop talking because I think my arguments are more correct than yours.

[T*AnTi-V!RuZz]

@Bo: In contrast to Lewin, I have read the Mini-chat archive when I got back from work yesterday. I agree with Lewin that you were attacking him personally. He had indeed not played KaM in 3 years, but came with a whole new mathematical view on things and the only thing you said was "No stop talking about something you know nothing about". I was a few clicks away from warning you, but when I was finally done reading the archive, pepa already left.

Let me be clear: everyone has an equal right of giving his or her opinion. I don't care how much they play KaM or how long it's been. As Lewin stated, you should use good arguments to 'win' the discussion, not personal attacks. And even then, you don't have to reply to him! Just let it go if you can't handle it.

I completely disagree with you that you haven't made the discussion personal and I suggest you take Lewin's advice.