[EB] EDU Balance Proposals

**Lazy O** · 07-22-2011, 18:55

Hello people.

On behalf of two of the most loved generals of EBO (me and Robin) *snickers* we present to you, our proposals, faction wise, on what needs, according to our honest opinions, to be done about the current rosters. We aim to provide suggestions to make as much Units useable as possible .

Arche Seleukia

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Archer Balance

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Getic Skirmishers - Who to pick?

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Baktria

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First of all, for those who wish to know the background for these changes, here is the chatlog.

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Change the Baktrian Elite Infantry on the same model as the Hypaspists
Reduce cost of Baktrian Light Infantry to around 1.25 or 1.3k , give 1 extra attack.
Give Indian Elephants more elephants, no price change.
Give Baktrian Hippotoxotai cantabrian circle and make them cheaper.
Change the Indo Baktrian Elites into a non elite heavy Hoplite with a longsword (Massalian Hoplite/Hypaspist Hybrid)
Reduce the cost of Taxilan Agema to around 3k Region, buff up sowrd attack1 or 2 points.

Well thats pretty much it, Baktria has a smallish roster so not much thought needed , just some sprucing up.

Hayasdan

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Half Chat log (The first half was lost) :

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[LIST][*]Give armenian medium infantry +2 attack[*]Armenian Spearmen to be cheaper.

Knock down the price of Armenian Medium cavalry by 100 or so.
+2 attack to the Georgian Infantry.
Well thats about it, hopefull more attack will solve Hai infantry being incredibly useless compared to everything else in this game.

For the Saba, the only thing robin says is Red Sea axemen should be cheaper.

Makedon

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Chat Log

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Buff Triballi defence skill, 12 or 13 . Or add an extra attack.
Reduce cost of Deuteroi phalanx, make a difference in quality mor noticeable to the Panda phalanx.
MASSIVE cost reduction needed for the Hysteroi phalanx, make those reformed pikes worth it, cut price down to 2,3 or 2,4k , same as the Chalkispededes.

Well thats pretty much all there is, just reducing the cost of pikes allows Makedon to afford some of their better non pike units.

**Brave Brave Sir Robin** · 07-22-2011, 19:12

If I may refine what Lazy O is saying about some of these things since our chat log was deleted and I think he confused a few things and I would like to make others more clear.

The Jewish spears just need to be cheaper, not more men. That is what we agreed. Somewhere in the range of 100 less would be desirable. All eastern axe types are too expensive, especially the ones with javs. They are basically glorified skirmishers with their armor and they rout very easily.

As far as Theurophoroi they should be in between Thorakitai and Peltasts but right now they are basically just bad Thorakitai. The extra stamina helps here and 1 more morale bridges the gap as well.

Klerouchoi Phalangites were useless imitations of pez. Don't think morale is needed but price should just be reduced. Elite phalanx should keep the 120 men since their price is already considerably higher than other elites yet they don't fare well outside phalanx mode.

Persian archer spam is the new heavy archer spam. Needs to be nipped in the bud so -1 attack would help. They are basically levies anyway. Meanwhile we felt that heavy persian archers should be better and therefore they get the extra men but also a big price increase. Choosing between the two should now be a matter of quality over price where before it was quality and price with the regular persians. Personally I feel that 1.5k is appropriate.

Hykanian hillmen were grossly overpriced and need a reduction similar to other eastern axe units. Similarly Parthian spears were pricy for a light spear unit with fidgety morale. Galatian heavy cav shouldn't be comparably expensive to cataphracts and somewhere between lonchophoroi and catas.

Of course this is just what we think but all the players feedback would be appreciated. We will try to get to all factions in due time.

**Lazy O** · 07-22-2011, 19:18

Whatever he said

**gamegeek2** · 07-22-2011, 22:05

Right, here´s some things.

1. If we want all these implemented for August we must delay the start until August 2nd as I can only resume work August 1st, is this acceptable?
2. Hypaspistai fight in very tight formation. They´re elite hoplites with swords. As for the Makedonikoi, yes I will look at that. Do they have very hardy right now?
3. Jewish Spears change sounds reasonable. Would have to follow stat guidelines but I think its doable.
4. I´m thinking of boosting Thureophoroi to 100 men. Not sure if that´s unreasonable or not.
5. Klerouchoi change is a good idea. I´ll definitely implement that.
6. Persian archer spam is historically accurate. Now, they have 4 atk atm you say? I could give them 3 attack and a cost reduction of 100 or so I guess. Wouldnt they still get chewed up by Bosporans though?
7. Heavy Persians 100 men sounds good. I will have to look at it more.
8. Eastern axes will either get cheaper or receive the ¨barbarian bonus´ - which do you want?
9. Elite phalanx with 120 men would mean they cost about 4000 again. I could stat them as veterans though, not elites, and reduce the cost significantly, while still having them as better than regular phalanx. What say you?
10. Galatian Heavy Cav cost the same as Remi Mairepos, IIRC. They are very hardy and have 25 defense IIRC.

**vartan** · 07-22-2011, 22:14

I would like to hear multiple voices in this thread. I'm also not going to be giving my thoughts on these matters (I do have opinions, we all do, but impartiality is needed here on my part). Also, this should not be implemented until after August unless you would like another 2.1, in other words, another poor production full of mistakes that went unnoticed (it's true). Good luck.

**gamegeek2** · 07-22-2011, 22:17

Poor production? Hey, I fixed most of those mistakes before the tourney began in earnest. :(

**vartan** · 07-22-2011, 23:36

Originally Posted by gamegeek2

Poor production? Hey, I fixed most of those mistakes before the tourney began in earnest. :(

Look at the latest tournament score report.

**The Celtic Viking** · 07-22-2011, 23:46

How about reducing the cost of artillery? And making the three-span arrow projectors either as good as the Roman Scorpions or just make them slightly cheaper? (Both costing the same when Scorpions are simply better can't be right.) At least those two should be a reasonable option to bring.

**gamegeek2** · 07-23-2011, 02:48

Originally Posted by vartan

Look at the latest tournament score report.

Player skill not a factor

**Lazy O** · 07-23-2011, 06:54

I do not know about the phalanx, I do not use them, The only time I used an elite phalanx, was against vega when i wanted a flank completely protected, the African 120 man 2.7k phalanx did that comfortably.

On the Remi Issue, the cost as iti s now is very unreasonable, nobody will use them for that price, something in the range of 3.3 3.4k will make them be considered as buffed up Brihentin.

**Brave Brave Sir Robin** · 07-23-2011, 07:24

As far as Persian Archers go, we havn't tested per se which archer defeats which. But from in game experience i can honestly say that the new Persian Archers and Archer-Spearmen seem to beat or match every archer unit in the game except for Bosphorans who are heavily armored and have a 2 shield value iirc. I think they are an even match for Imperials and possibly Syrians. They beat Cretans. This makes no sense for a unit that costs so little and gives a HUGE advantage to any eastern faction which can recruit them. Not to mention they simply rain death down upon the lightly armored troops that many barbarian factions bring.

I'm unsure, so what again is the barbarian bonus? I'm not sure whether cheaper or bonus would be better.

We didn't go over gallic factions yet but the concern with Galatians is the same as the concern with Remi. They are better than Brihentin, but not 700 so. The fact that they cost not even 200 less than Hell Cats is absurd considering their comparable vulnerability and lack of mass and charge. Yes they move like light cav, but that is still not worth it when you can recruit Hell Cats instead who tear apart opposing cavalry and rout infantry with one momentous charge all the while being arrow proof. About 3.4-3.5k sounds reasonable.

As for phalanxes, you are right. They do tend never to break so I guess 3.1k is an acceptable price.

I'd also like to point out to Vartan, if you were referring to my score in terms of an unbalanced edu, if anything, Gamegeek slightly debuffed the gauls going into this month. He made chariots pricier and took away command eagles from the druid unit.

**Lazy O** · 07-23-2011, 08:13

How about doing it today? Would take about half an hour to test which archer beats what. I cannot do it with the AI.

**-Stormrage-** · 07-23-2011, 11:56

I dont think elite phalanx's need +20 men they are fine just as they are.

Persian archers cant possibly compete with imperials or cretans or bosphorans or syrians what are you talking about. Persian archers dont even have armour and they have what only 4 attack?

@lazyo , im always up for testing.

**Lazy O** · 07-23-2011, 13:30

Archer results are up now. Thanks to stormrage for the tests. And gg2, do not do to the thureophoroi what you did to the Libyans, if you increase to 100 men and make them 1500, they become useless for that price since they cannot kill anything, low lethality, and -4 penalty for light_spear attack.

**antisocialmunky** · 07-23-2011, 15:49

-Thureophoroi are just a heavy skirmisher basically. They should not be too good - pretty much average. I think they are pretty good where they are as KH. Very hardy would make them extremely potent against barbs so I would down vote this change. They are what they are, put one XP on them for a 1400 unit that is mostly immune to scaries.
-Peltastai are actually great units. The main failing being morale. I would infact, bump their morale up just a tad.
-I do think that Klerouchoi Phalangitai are somewhat redundant but their purpose is to be a widely recruitable phalanx unit. Do you think it would be feasible to reduce Pez be 200 and elites be 160 instead of 240? I know its somewhat heretical to not make something as near to 256 as possible but I think it would better depict Diadochi man-power shortages for high quality Alexandrian phalanx. Have Klerouchoi and cheaper phalanx fill the 240 man roll.
-Persian archers... Agreed to a certain extent.
-I think you should re-stat the Hyps and Mak Peltastai to be a little cheaper. TABs at the elites, these are shock troops that hsould be in the 2.4K range if silver shields are in the 3K range.
-Shortsword is fine depending on the unit.
-Iranian light cavalry is the heaviest light cavalry in the game. They should not be made cheaper.
-The axe units are only ineffective due to upping of the sword sword attack on everything and giving everything 'hardy.' They should be cost down or have their attacks statted up. The western axes were similarly hit but there are more axes in the east than the west.
-Can we take fear off everything not naked or chariot? Its really making a wide range of 'average' units useless. :\
-Hetaroi Aspidophoroi is a missile resistant cav unit so I'm not sure if you want to cost down them. I think there's been insufficient tests on cav since people have been taking mass infantry armies and you should hold off on any rebalancing of that.

I would also oppose taking 'good against' cav off the hillman. I don't think it was a mistake that its on there and it adds some flavor and uniqueness. We want to make every unit useful, not ever unit hot swappable and interchangeable.

My main observation for Baktria is they lack good ranged archers for dualing so giving them access to Persian heavies would solve most of that and we can deal with balancing later. Baktria is fairly powerful but it lacks the missile protection other factions have. I would also say that Persian heavies should be kept mostly where they are. They are somewhat underpowered in vanilla but I think just a tiny change would help them out quite abit.

**Lazy O** · 07-23-2011, 16:39

Originally Posted by antisocialmunky

-Thureophoroi are just a heavy skirmisher basically. They should not be too good - pretty much average. I think they are pretty good where they are as KH. Very hardy would make them extremely potent against barbs so I would down vote this change. They are what they are, put one XP on them for a 1400 unit that is mostly immune to scaries.

They are meant to be an in-betweenish sort of unit to the Peltast and Thorakitai, with 11 morale, crappy attack and defence, they just do no justify their

Originally Posted by antisocialmunky

-Peltastai are actually great units. The main failing being morale. I would infact, bump their morale up just a tad.

Thats what we said, 1 point of morale imo, and moar javelins :D I feel javelin units as a whole do need a buff to make people actually use them effectively.

Originally Posted by antisocialmunky

-I do think that Klerouchoi Phalangitai are somewhat redundant but their purpose is to be a widely recruitable phalanx unit. Do you think it would be feasible to reduce Pez be 200 and elites be 160 instead of 240? I know its somewhat heretical to not make something as near to 256 as possible but I think it would better depict Diadochi man-power shortages for high quality Alexandrian phalanx. Have Klerouchoi and cheaper phalanx fill the 240 man roll.

Talk in large scale, and recruitment options and "availability" does not apply here. As of now, they are a worthless unit compared to the Pez, and not as cost effective as the Levies.

Originally Posted by antisocialmunky

-I think you should re-stat the Hyps and Mak Peltastai to be a little cheaper. TABs at the elites, these are shock troops that hsould be in the 2.4K range if silver shields are in the 3K range.

Thats what we said.

Originally Posted by antisocialmunky

-Shortsword is fine depending on the unit.

The low tier units are useless, more lethality and attack will fix that.

Originally Posted by antisocialmunky

-Iranian light cavalry is the heaviest light cavalry in the game. They should not be made cheaper.

Even prodromoi have a better charge, they need a stat buff.

Originally Posted by antisocialmunky

-The axe units are only ineffective due to upping of the sword sword attack on everything and giving everything 'hardy.' They should be cost down or have their attacks statted up. The western axes were similarly hit but there are more axes in the east than the west.

Your point is? We leave crap as is and do not worry about useless stuff cluttering up the roster?

Originally Posted by antisocialmunky

-Can we take fear off everything not naked or chariot? Its really making a wide range of 'average' units useless. :\

Id be pretty frightened facing up to a TAB.

Originally Posted by antisocialmunky

-Hetaroi Aspidophoroi is a missile resistant cav unit so I'm not sure if you want to cost down them. I think there's been insufficient tests on cav since people have been taking mass infantry armies and you should hold off on any rebalancing of that.

Incorrect. No cavalry is immune to missiles. Just being immune to missiles does not mean you are useful. To be useful, you have to do damage, you could get Prodromoi for the same price who do much more damage. The Hetairoi belong to factions who almost all the time have missile superiority so being immune to missiles does not matter much.

Originally Posted by antisocialmunky

I would also oppose taking 'good against' cav off the hillman. I don't think it was a mistake that its on there and it adds some flavor and uniqueness. We want to make every unit useful, not ever unit hot swappable and interchangeable.

What sense does it make for a lowly axe armed peasant to have a non sensical bonus against cavalry? Please elaborate.

Originally Posted by antisocialmunky

My main observation for Baktria is they lack good ranged archers for dualing so giving them access to Persian heavies would solve most of that and we can deal with balancing later. Baktria is fairly powerful but it lacks the missile protection other factions have. I would also say that Persian heavies should be kept mostly where they are. They are somewhat underpowered in vanilla but I think just a tiny change would help them out quite abit.

The Persian archers are protection enough , they make enemies waste so much ammo they make high end archers useless, and are too dangerous to infantry to be left alone.

**Kival** · 07-23-2011, 17:03

Hui, so many things... most important for me is:

1. No additional lethality for shortswords! There should be a noticable difference to bigger swords. I'd agree to increase the attack value of shortswordunits and this would make a lot of sense, becuase it's easier to wield a handy weapon as a big monstrum.

2. Axemen should be buffed in some way. I'd give them their old lethality back, because axes are very lethal and deadly it's just more difficult to fight with them properly (so low attack + ap + medium lethality makes sense). I can not agree with axes having the exactly same lethality as _short_swords!

3. It makes sense for me to give thurophoroi very hardy because they should have very high stamina, they are meant to fight light cav, skirms etc. They are actually not so bad and the light_spear attribute only reduces their defense.

4. Persian archers are devastating. Perhaps they lose the missile duel - though I did not think so - but they are really devastating for light infantry with their 100 men=arrows. They are too cheap for that. Archer-spearmen are cheaper and have spears too! They cannot be killed by cavalry, other archers need a lot of time and they can also kill many many light infantry units with their arrows.

5. Additional fear effect for some units (like TAB) makes sense but perhaps it should cost more.

**Lazy O** · 07-23-2011, 18:14

Check Aradans EDU guide on TWC, light spear is -4 attack.

**vartan** · 07-23-2011, 18:36

Originally Posted by Lazy O

What sense does it make for a lowly axe armed peasant to have a non sensical bonus against cavalry? Please elaborate.

I've probably played as the Hai more than all of you combined. That unit is less useful than fecal matter on the battlefield. Maybe you'll get your javs out. Maybe you'll charge in. But unless you have two supporting units, you're going to be sent to hell for it. Even the Baktrian Light Infantry stands a 1-on-1 chance in the stead of the hillmen, even if it comes down to their slightly higher morale.

EDIT: Robin, gg2, 2.0 was tested to some extent, 2.1 less so. When is this roller coaster going to stop going downhill and actually take a swing upward?

**Lazy O** · 07-23-2011, 18:50

When you show it a direction and come on hamachi more often :P

------------

Heres to anybody who thinks the Persian archers are balanced

http://www.mediafire.com/?4gn4tgllfd9hzny

Also posting Getai Skirmisher tests soon. Thanks much to vega for that.

**Vega** · 07-23-2011, 19:24

Its a pleasure to help you guys

**Kival** · 07-23-2011, 19:35

Originally Posted by vartan

EDIT: Robin, gg2, 2.0 was tested to some extent, 2.1 less so. When is this roller coaster going to stop going downhill and actually take a swing upward?

The changes were not so bad. There are not many if any real mistakes. One can complain about some decisions, but they were not game breaking.

**Lazy O** · 07-23-2011, 20:08

Im actually surprised nobody exploited persian archers against Robin yet....

**Kival** · 07-23-2011, 20:33

Originally Posted by Lazy O

Check Aradans EDU guide on TWC, light spear is -4 attack.

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=111344

light_spear: Gives default bonus of +8 to defence vs cavalry, and penalty of -4 to defence vs. infantry. Offers less pushing power than spear.

**antisocialmunky** · 07-24-2011, 00:33

Originally Posted by Lazy O

They are meant to be an in-betweenish sort of unit to the Peltast and Thorakitai, with 11 morale, crappy attack and defence, they just do no justify their

They are fine, they feel fine for a 1300 cost unit.

Talk in large scale, and recruitment options and "availability" does not apply here. As of now, they are a worthless unit compared to the Pez, and not as cost effective as the Levies.

Nah, rather see historic stuff represented in some way. Its still EB and would be a feasible way of differentiating phalangites. You didn't even talk about it it, instead you ranted something about them being a crap unit.

The low tier units are useless, more lethality and attack will fix that.

Or you can make them cheaper spam unit by costing them down. Its useful to have decent filler units.

Even prodromoi have a better charge, they need a stat buff.

Unless something has seriously changed, they were the criteria we used for heavy\light cav distinctions.

Your point is? We leave crap as is and do not worry about useless stuff cluttering up the roster?

... I'm saying how to fix them.

Id be pretty frightened facing up to a TAB.

I think its taking away from the game that scary is so prevalent.

Incorrect. No cavalry is immune to missiles. Just being immune to missiles does not mean you are useful. To be useful, you have to do damage, you could get Prodromoi for the same price who do much more damage. The Hetairoi belong to factions who almost all the time have missile superiority so being immune to missiles does not matter much.

Again, missile resistant. Big shield. READ.

What sense does it make for a lowly axe armed peasant to have a non sensical bonus against cavalry? Please elaborate.

No reason but I don't think it was left in unintentionally.

The Persian archers are protection enough , they make enemies waste so much ammo they make high end archers useless, and are too dangerous to infantry to be left alone.

I really wish you would actually read stuff seriously, maybe I could take you seriously because you're just going 'LOL, LISTEN TO ME BECAUSE I PLAYED THIS GAME.' No, Baktria gets shot apart because you cannot deal with heavy and steppe archers. I've played them for 2/3 months last year and they still have this hole and all their very good units are low armor.

Im actually surprised nobody exploited persian archers against Robin yet....

Archers aren't very useful when melee happens that quick :p

@GG2 - I think you guys shouldn't tweak this EDU too much, we still don't know the full effects of the big big EDU changes like the cav and stuff. All you're going to do with big changes is going to make it harder to balance because you're see sawing balance too much. The game feels much better balanced so I don't think anything really drastic is needed. The main thing is some of the light AP units feel a little underpowered. The sized 200 Celtic axes barely breakeven on Thorakites which doesn't feel right.

**vartan** · 07-24-2011, 05:57

Originally Posted by antisocialmunky

@GG2 - I think you guys shouldn't tweak this EDU too much, we still don't know the full effects of the big big EDU changes like the cav and stuff. All you're going to do with big changes is going to make it harder to balance because you're see sawing balance too much. The game feels much better balanced so I don't think anything really drastic is needed. The main thing is some of the light AP units feel a little underpowered. The sized 200 Celtic axes barely breakeven on Thorakites which doesn't feel right.

This.

P.S. EDU 2.0 was of course a clear shift from the original. Nevertheless it still utilizes EB's costing schema, and you can still count on many stats in the original unit lists (i.e., the deviations are not as drastic as the version number would imply). As long as changes in stats do not deviate more than a couple of integers or a few percentage points, and the costing is done the same, the changes won't be drastic and will aim to improve specific problems in the game, which is precisely what we're hoping for here (unless I'm mistaken and the majority of people are hoping for a new costing and stat schema).

**Lazy O** · 07-24-2011, 06:33

That would be a false hope, GG2 cannot possibly have enough time to come up with a whole new system.

**-Stormrage-** · 07-24-2011, 14:21

I think, the missile system needs to be reworked. First of all the difference between the low tier and high tier archers is huge, i mean whats the point of having these weak light archers in the first place they are not even used becuase almost all of the factions have the high tier archeers and these just devastate low tiers archers. i think the gap between high tier and low tier archers MUST be reduced. antoher way you can improve this horrible unbalance is by removeing the archer limit. What this archer limit does is it removes the million dollar question in strategy games, Quality or Quantity. This is NOT in EB sadly please please please give us the ability to decide between quality or quantity . right now this doesnt exist, right now , the question is , Do you have best quality archer'? if yes then you win no strategy no nothing the factions with weak archers cant do anyhting to touch you because they cant use their strategy which is bringing quantity. This is the essense of balance Quantity and quality.

To some things up, if you want to take one step closer to making EB balance, then this is what MUST happen "
1) reduce the massive armour difference between light and heavy archers ( heavy archers have as much armour as infantry.
2) Take away that archer limit to encourage factions to choose between having many light archers OR few Heavy archers.
3) Off topic- The heavy cavalry limit is NOT necessary , Heavy cavalry is expensive and if someone brings too much heavy cavalry then he will not have money for infantry and archers. In other words heavy cavalry spamming is not possible, so why the restrictions ? if someone WANTS to sacrifice infantry superiority for heavy cavalry superiority he should have that option.

**antisocialmunky** · 07-24-2011, 14:48

We could run an anything goes tourney. Its more feasible now that infantry is stronger. If we eliminate the limits, I think it'll be easier to balance. After all, the limits are another balancing system and using two systems at once is a pain. Also steppe is overpowered in the current setting. We could remove everything but merc/phalanx limits.

**Lazy O** · 07-24-2011, 16:04

Use CWB Rules.

/This post is a joke, people here are getting carried away.

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