The term "balanced army" is the most loaded term in RTW. When the term is mentioned, people think of:
- an army that can handle multiple situations
- an army that consists of multiple types of units
- an army with combinations of units that make the army more than the sum of its parts (my definition)
- an army that that is not abusive in gameplay terms
- an army that good against more than one type of opposition, not necessarily good in all situations
- an army that is balanced between cost and power (ie flexible in games with variable amounts of denarii)
There is no such thing as an army that can satisfy all of the above conditions. I personally don't find balanced armies to be the best. In fact, as long as the strength of my army is greater than the enemy's, and/or my weakness harder to exploit, then I win. If 20 wardogs works for you, fine.
This is my Parthian army for a 10k game, if you're interested (before patch, so if prices changed, just adjest a little bit):
- 2 cataphract camels (1900)
- 4 cataphracts (3560)
- 4 horse archers (1760)
- 1 persian cavalry (780)
- 4 slingers (600)
- 2 archers (380)
- 3 Eastern infantry (990)
(leaves 30 denarii for upgrades)
The obvious weakness of this army to the observed eye is the lack of melee units (or in Ace_Cataphract's terms, a "woman's army"). It can also get trashed by mass archer armies and siege engine armies. But it has a strength - deal a lot of punishment in multitudes of ways. This, the opponant has to deal with. So far, I haven't lost with it online before precisely because this army is UN-balanced.