VI Balancing

[longjohn2]

I have the opportunity to make some balancing adjustments for VI, so I thought I'd ask the community for suggestions.

The main ones that people seem to think are underpriced are
Byz Infantry
Handgunners
Lancers
Any other suggestions.

I've also procurred a couple of extra columns in the spreadsheet, that let the period and faction availability for custom and MP battles be controlled separately from the SP game. I'll use this hopefully to make each faction a bit more flavourful, and to make the distinction between periods sharper.

In particular
The religious order troops (that are really high period units) will be banished from the early period.
Lancers will only available be in Late
Ditto for Pavise Arbs (although I'm not so sure about this one).

Again any other suggestions for troops that are available outside the period they really should be.

[tootee]

Great to see you back here LJ. All please post your views in concise pts so such that it's easier for LJ to work on them, and leave *endless?* long debate to other threads.

1. MP game should end when there is no more active player on one side.. currently players who quit with active troops causes a lot of annoyance.

EDIT: Added suggestion

[Kocmoc]

hi,

any shooter need uprgads.
specialy the cavarcher and the normal archer.
u can have a look at a stat file we made long time ago, we playtested it and many agreed with a better "feeling".
much honour to u as u come around and give us the feeling we can do something.

reduce the bonusses of all cavs, at the moment cav rout everything wichout beeing fighting, cavs need jsut be close and ....the enemy unit routs....

spears need to be more effectiv vs cav vs other h2h units imo its ok, but vs cav....let them kill some more, there is just not a real counter for this dangerous overpowered cav...

koc

[baz]

not sure making arbs late only is a good idea either imo, what would be best is that if there was a nice balance between archery and arbs (like musks and archers in MI)

i agree with koc about spears they need to be more effective vs the cav only

also i would like to see you do some testing with possibly a little more morale on the base units perphaps, anyway if you got time try it (basically a lot of units seem to rout when it would appear they should not) im sure other posts will go into this

anyway what i say is dont go too crazy with it and ask us any questions you have regarding explaination of a requested change , hopefully we will be able to show you evidence in a replay or something ..

[Knight_Yellow]

i think byz inf should only be 60 men then id be happy, the sheer number of them is way too powerful

lancers should cost a s*** load to upgrade.


also highlanders should be in mp for the original campaign i mean why the hell does ireland get in if the scotts cant?

[Kongamato]

Lower Byz Inf stats or unitsize.

This is asking for a lot, but could you make chargebonuses somewhat dependent on ranks?

You probably already addressed this, but when Mounted Crossbowmen are available in Early regular crossbow inf ought to be in there as well. Perhaps Pav Crossbows in High?

Since Foot Knights are just dismounted cav, perhaps the taxman should consider them at equals with their mounted cousins i.e. 3CK +2CFK = tax

Given any thought to adding more morale changers, like Encouraged by the General or Dismayed by Destruction of Army?

I look forward to VI.

[MF_Ivan]

Quote[/b] (longjohn2 @ Feb. 01 2003,17:19)]The main ones that people seem to think are underpriced are
Byz Infantry
Handgunners
Lancers
Any other suggestions.

Byz Infantry- good against all other spear and mainstay units, will win against an equal order foot opponent but will lose to a cavalry one. Raise the price? Yes, but not that far they lack in vs. cavalry which is their main weakness.

Handgunners- Its interesting that you point this out, but hardly anyone uses them, if you should change anything is reduce their price and increase their accuracy and do the same for arquebusiers.

Lancers- As far as these go, well I do hate them. But they are already priced up there. No need to increase them any further, any person buying these knows they take a hit in their infantry department.

I hope you do fix up the random season in SP, I sure would like to see some snow. But thats probably not your department.

GL.

[ElmarkOFear]

1. I would like to see the Amulghavars get into the VI game. They are in the Brady guide for MTW as are the Golden Horde cavalry units. Would be nice to include them.

2. Cav are too strong. Maybe make them fatigue faster or reduce their charge bonus. Either that or make spear units cheaper.

3. Eliminate the during battle valour increases. This would also help to reduce the power of cav somewhat.

4. If a partner drops, can you make it to where his army routs off map without your army getting a reduction in morale? Maybe just make the dropped player's army dissappear automatically.

5. I would like to see more teeth for Armor Piercing units when fighting against armored enemy units. Right now, it doesnt make much difference whether a unit has armor piercing bonus or not.

6. My biggest worry is that the new game will not fix the problems the game has with Windows XP. I have not been able to play on any of my 3 pc and 1 laptop until i reinstalled Win98 on one of them. I know that is not what you are looking for in this thread, but I feel it is very important for the games continued success.

Thanks, LongJohn.

[tootee]

Elmo, I'm using XP and so far no problem on my platform.

LJ,

1. I think instead of changing the cost of cav, you can try removing the charge bonus of cav (or of any unit for that matter) when they run into enemy, i.e. cav will only enjoy charge bonus iff they hit the unit clicked on. The way I see it, the problem is not with cav costing, but with the way they apply charge bonus. I feel the costing for cav is good as of now.

2. As for lancer, I seldom use them but I like to see them on the battle.. at 850 florins for the best armoured/attacking/defending cav is only reasonable if it is handicapped in some way.. e.g. slower in speed compare to other cav, lower morale *not historically correct I know*. An alternative solution to changing their cost.

[Magyar Khan]

Quote[/b] (ElmarkOFear @ Feb. 02 2003,01:49)]1. I would like to see the Amulghavars get into the VI game. They are in the Brady guide for MTW as are the Golden Horde cavalry units. Would be nice to include them.

2. Cav are too strong. Maybe make them fatigue faster or reduce their charge bonus. Either that or make spear units cheaper.

3. Eliminate the during battle valour increases. This would also help to reduce the power of cav somewhat.

4. If a partner drops, can you make it to where his army routs off map without your army getting a reduction in morale? Maybe just make the dropped player's army dissappear automatically.

5. I would like to see more teeth for Armor Piercing units when fighting against armored enemy units. Right now, it doesnt make much difference whether a unit has armor piercing bonus or not.

6. My biggest worry is that the new game will not fix the problems the game has with Windows XP. I have not been able to play on any of my 3 pc and 1 laptop until i reinstalled Win98 on one of them. I know that is not what you are looking for in this thread, but I feel it is very important for the games continued success.

Thanks, LongJohn.

1 any golden horde unit that is balanced is highly welcomed

2 cav is too strong but DONT make them fatigue faster. a small dowgrade of charge bonusses and more effective spears (esp spearmen units) will do.

3 this is very important as well. valourgain during battle is one of the vets tricks to dominion a vet for a long time. and makes v0 power units too strong, like lancers

4 let a dropped army on the field, and let it battle UNLESS every enemy is dropped or routed, so when all dropp u dont have to fight ghostarmies to end your game.

5 not fully sure of this, esp if cav charges are reduced. perhaps elmo is right

6 oops thx elmo i am about to buy a new system and it seems i need a dual boot system

Thanks LongJohn

Furthermore

all archery need a solid upgrade, esp if arbs are moved to late high and early dont have archers usefull enuf to field in comp games since all combat cav/inf will stay too strong. so increasing them with accuracy, arrows and reloadtime will give archery a purpose.

i do hope people wont complain about me making horsearchery to my own liking, these people make me and .
Horsearchery and the use of it are the cream of a battle.

EDIT and ofcourse adding morale sliders or even upgrades plz, the average florin per side in an mpgame has inflated to 20-25k. i know this must strike u, if u ever intended battles' armies to 5-6k.

the fact that u ask us for some input will be taken as the result of our endless whining and moaning, which gives us hope for future versions

[youssof_Toda]

Ater all this I've only one little complaint: the superior range of the arbalesters. They reach much futher than any other rangeunit (esp arch cav). I wondered if you could make the difference a little smaller, or maybe the reloadtime longer.

[Rath]

Agree with most of the stuff already posted, especially regarding archer units (both on foot and horseback) - the arrows need vast improvement for them to be of any use in a tight situation.

In regard to Cav power - firstly make spear units more effective vs cav (only, not vs swords) - and stop valour gain (or modify it so that it is very very hard to gain). If this was done i think u wouldn't need to tamper with the actual cav, as they still should be very effective vs non-spear units.

[Crandaeolon]

These suggestions of "vast" improvements and these lists of "increase this AND this AND this for those units" are dangerous. Remember, the reason why cavalry became overpowered was not a _single_ modification, but a combination of many. (cavalry price reduction, spear price increase, cav pushback bonus, valour upgrade price increase...)

So, please use caution in the rebalancing process.

Here's another list, in order of importance (IMHO):

1. Spears should be stronger against cav. Perhaps an increase/modification of the bonus vs cav? (Current bonus: +1/+4; new bonus +2/+4 or +3/+3?)

2. Archer units should have increased firepower. Not more than 15-20%. (Modeling the composite bow would be nice )

3. Valour increases in battle should be removed from MP.

4. Lancers should either lose a combat point (melee) or go slightly up in price; their speed should also be reduced to the level of Gothic Knights.

5. Horse archers should be roughly equal to normal archers in accuracy. (They can't fire on the gallop anyways.)

6. Byz inf should get a slight price hike. (+25-50 florins?) Not too much, since Byz inf are the strength behind the Byzantines.

7. Handgunners should get a price hike. (MF_Ivan, no one uses them for their shooting ability, but they are very powerful in melee when upgraded.)

8. Arbs should be moved to late era only. Arb and Xbow accuracy should be slightly reduced when compared to archers; X-bows should have a faster reload time than arbs. (from 15 to 12?)

EDIT: ooh, I almost missed this

Quote[/b] ]Lancers will only available be in Late

This alone will make High period games different... I'm surprised there's no uproar yet...

I think those are the most necessary/wanted balance changes. Thanks for taking the time, LJ

[RageMonsta]

Monsta is a historian and would like to see the power of the Horse Archer units balanced to a more realistic place...also the importance of the missle unit...after all they managed to be around for the whole period and were maintain even into the gunpowder era as back up for the slow fire and unpredictable handgun....and Monsta thinks the issue of armour is of importance with this veiw.

Indeed Cavalry was 'king' in the Medieval era..but when we look at the examples of when Mongol units met in battle the proud mounted European knights..the outcome was often destruction of the knight(look also at what happened to the slow Europeans in the desert)....even in a 3 to 1 battle in favour of the knights...now this was not due to the Mongol Heavy Cavarly nor the foot troops...it was more to do with movement....and the Horse Archer...therefore some points must be added about the (non)effective use of the HA in the game now.

Understood it is not easy to get a balance between real fact and game play but some examples must be looked at...

The Longbow for example could penetrate chain mail from max range (which is about double the short bow range...maybe needs to be reflected in the unit)...

Plate armour could stop the arrow but....was only used to a mass degree in the later periods and then still only by the richer soldier...therefore missiles in the game should be better until Late period.

Horse Archers turning and movement speed should be closer to double that of mounted knights...or at least alot faster...even during the Napoleonic era the charge for Heavy Cavalry was short lived..and at best a fast trot...and that was without armour on the rider.

Horse Archers could fire while moving and at a 360 degree turn....why have we gone from a 2-3 kill average per volley (depending on target)in STW and MI/WE to and average of 2 kills per 3 volleys? (est numbers here).

We do not need to change to many factors but it seems that any troops armed with a shield seems to get a bonus of defence against arrows..this should only be in regards to a LARGE shield...

Lets take for example the mighty pike man...evidence suggests that they were indeed for long periods a fore to be reckoned with but...missle units often broke their ranks..and that was death to the pike...

The game play of MTW has been reduced to a mass brawl because of the little or no impact of the arrow...i agree with the slow rate of fire for the crossbow (average about 3 per minute at best)but this theory of non tactical intricate battles during the era died many years ago...if you read Oman and then read something a little more up to date you can see how the common idea of Medieval warfare is wrong..

Longbows should fire further.

LBs should fire more than 24 (as they carried wagon laods of arrows given to them in clips)...so maybe 30 for arguments sake..

Anything not in plate armour is a victim to the arrow of the LB...and too a degree
to the shortbow.

Reflect the speed of the light cav by reducing the turning and movement of Heavy Cav..or at least cause them to be unable to maintain this charge speed for long periods.

Please for the sake of the game bring back some form of missle based balance...after all this is not Age of Empires

Send those awful Lancers to the Late period.

Valour gain is a problem and should be addressed...maybe only if the unit starts lower than 2 should it gains anything...?

Maybe a solution to the Cavarly problem is to make the bonus of spear greater against them...but still reflect the power of the knight.

Long post and lots more to say..more detail but i have bored enough now..

The skill require to play the game on an MP has fallen..there seems to be many examples of 'steamroller' armies...if the skill falls therefore the life span of the game falls...therefore so does the interest...

in short-

missiles up
cav down

all balanced of course (maybe easier said than done&#33

Thanx for asking us (was it the Xmas beating you guys took? :P ) ...given chance I am sure we can produce a tested example for you...

(note to the bOrg flamers all historical evidence given is 'off the cuff' if you want to challenge any of my views do so and then Monsta will release his magic book of truth and eat your eyes...of course away from this lovely topic area&#33

edit for vast HTML errors...not to mention the spelling and grammar..

[TosaInu]

Hello LongJohn,

Great news about the seperate era and faction availability.

-Byz inf. They become a problem (ihmo) when extremely upgraded and used in very large numbers of units (despite the rushtax). The Byz lack a 'decent' spearunit, they simply need a more allround unit like the Byz Inf. Which is a good thing as this makes an army really different as opposed to 'just' displaying another sprite/color.

The 'weakness' of the Byz Inf is their morale, but since most games are 15k each and over, to compensate for the extremely poor morale, that weakness is reduced while their strength is increased. I'ld vote for a minor increase in their cost, about 20 florins. That would keep them about the same at v0 and would at the same time make upgrading and purchasing many less attractive.

-Please increase morale with some 4 points for units (this is the reason that cav appears so strong, even spears panic) or add a slider or a host settings menu with CA defaults preset (morale, fatigue, gamespeed, rushtax settings, more ammo).

Some games with more morale in the stat have been played and that certainly improves the game (though that's higly subjective).

-Please don't make cav fatigue faster, a better morale for units (you could limit the morale upgrade to melee units, missile units should not have good morale) and more defensive anti cav for the spears (+2) will solve the problem of too strong cav, while they remain a danger vs swordinfantry and missiles.

-The charge bonus for cav is a good thing: they are not mounted infantry, but have extra power due to motion.

-The battleawards are great in campaigns, but creates 'loopholes' in MP. Problems with overpowered cav, especially Lancers, is due to the fact that a cheap valour 0 (optional weaponupgrades) unit easily becomes v1-v4 in battle. Either 'give' the option (in the host settings menu) to turn battleawards off, or if it gives problems with the SP code, give the awards after the battle is fought. Or just turn it off in MP, since that would also display correct info in the logfiles (logs are frequently consulted by MP players).

-The host settings menu could also allow the host to set where the rushtax should kick in (1-16 units) not just the fixed 4 units.

-Some missile speeds in Projectile Stat seem too low: Longbows for example can't utilise their range well.

-I guess arbalesters range is fine, since they could be considered as strong crossbows. A stronger crossbow increases the reload time significantly, since the devices to prepare the bow become more complex. A 'basic' crossbow is reloaded by a simple hook and rope within 20 seconds. The 'magnums' could require up to 1 minute. 1 minute reloads is not recommended (main reason fatigue). Something like crossbow 15 like it is now and 20-25 seconds for the arbalest seems fine. Moving arbalest to late is a great move.

-Please consider a change to order foot to differentiate them from the it inf, like: samurai status on (religious -> more fanatic fighter), 100 -> 80 men and +1 def (keeps cost same).

-Archers. There are 3 bows in projectilestat, while there are many archer units in the game, ranging from basic archers, genoese sailors, trebizonds, horsearchers and longbows. Longbows are special, thus one stat is for them only (justified). That leaves 2 for all the others. All horsearchers use 1 and all infantry archers use the other. Utilise the 'dorming' sets like the NINJA and Arrow From Model to make the splendid archers really perfom better (I'am not sure a whether arrow from model can be used, but NINJ can).

In STW, missiles did shoot better per volley with increased 'valour'. Though you had to increase it a lot to see a difference. I'm not sure whether it's because MTW 'only' offers v4 max (H4 didn't show real improvement in STW) or that it's completely removed. But upgraded archers should shoot better, not become melee units. Higher valour should increase the accuracy/lethality, not the melee.

Increasing ammo from 28 to 36 for archers (not xbows) is a safe way to make them better.

-Allow more than 1 stat to be present at the same time, like maps. The host selects one, and others can join if they have the stat (reloading stats is possible).

Top of the list for me are:
more morale
removal of 'always rain' (games always end with rain, even arid dry all day).

It's great that you ask the community about the balancing and it's really appreciated. As you may notice, there are quite some different and similair concerns/solutions. None necessarily worse or better than the other, but more depending on style, knowledge, skill or expectations.

Things like a host settings menu (basically already present, Options on/off toggles) and the option to store more than 1 stat (also basically present) will easily allow groups of players to tailor games to their needs (some like chainrouting, others hate it, while the fighting to dead with morale off isn't their thing either). And will make it much easier to try a different one.

[tootee]

LJ, another possible technical bug?

1. Some of us can't seem to make [G]rouped units run by double-left-clicking or using the hotkey. It works fine in SP but not in MP. Hope you look into this issue if it is a fact for everyone. Simply select all and group them and double-click to see what I mean.

Thanks.

[CBR]

Ok..where to start...

We really need a general morale increase for all units..morale slider would be nice perhaps but is not as important if we just can get a general increase. I dont know..perhaps 95% or more plays 15k per player or more so we can buy valour for units..but it means some units get more valour than other units and changes the balance.

Yes I know we can just agree on a certain valour for units before a battle but it is damn annoying explaining it to newbies or people you dont play with regularly..everything happens...from people leaving the game when they hear about the rules..still dont buy the agreed amount and some who, for several reasons, just never will play these rules. Yes we can do it but its basically annoying to have rules like that.

Either make the change for custum/mp battles only or change the current "morale off" that gives +12 morale...I dont know how many use that option in sp nor mp anyway..+12 is simply too much. Right now I would say +6 morale. I consider that as the most important change which will improve gameplay a lot.

Changes in unitcosts:

Pav crossbows: 250
Arbalester: 300
Pav Arbalester 350

Cost difference is right now too small so crossbows and non pav versions in general are simply not worth it. Oh yes if morale is not generally increased for all units so we play with less florins..about 5k, these new costs wont improve much if you have 15k+ florins. But if it is, and for those of us who might play valour 3 games, these small changes will matter.

Lancers:

Hmm a bit tricky really. If we play high florin games the Spanish player will always have an advantage buying Lancers.. if cost is increased to 925, as Yuuki suggested, yes the advantage is not as big but its still an advantage.

If we play at lower florins (5k) with higher morale or play valour 3 games then the Lancers really dont need a cost increase as the Spanish player has less money to buy other units. At 15k+ its just one or less upgrades to the cavalry compared to a player who buys chiv knights instead.

Missiles:

Yes it would be nice if bows could be increased in power. There is also a few problems there and armour/shields is the main reason.

There is no big difference between an unarmoured unit with no shields(armour 1) compared to armour 5 which a lot of units have..think some tests showed a 50% reduction in losses. And as lots of units have large shields that give +2 armour, the real differences in the game are small.

Crossbows and especially arbalesters have better armour penetration than normal bows but slow reload.

Bows should be the best thing against unarmoured targets because of no armour and fast reload.

But thats not what we see in the game. Right now I dont know if that can be done with the current armour/missile system and dont know if you want to change missiles at all to improve archers a bit.

So if no changes are done I would suggest putting crossbows in early just to have some missilepower in that era. Pav crossbows in High perhaps arbalester too and then move pav arb to late.

And plz give horsearchers the standard shortbow. No need to decrease their accuracy when they cant fire on the move anyway (oh yes let them fire on the move with decreased accuracy, but guess thats too much Im asking for)

And it would great if missile units were better at hitting moving targets..maybe increase arrow speed to about the same as crossbows..that might give that effect. Again it might be too much to ask for. But historically there was no real difference in start velocity anyway, although bolts doesnt get slowed down as much IIRC.

Massed archerfire simply cant hit much against charging cavalry which they should.

An increase in arrows would be nice..36 perhaps more.

Maybe give arbs a slower reload 20 perhaps

Spears:

Dont think they need to be improved against cav. But making them cheaper would be nice (go back to 1.0 costs) If you want to really kill cav fast you need the halbardiers/billmen..its historical and we have the units in MTW so they should never be weaker than spears when fighting/killing cav.

Uhm most likely missed loads of stuff..I'll come up with something more later

CBR

[TosaInu]

Added to what CBR said (but not necessarily his view):

xbows were widely used in 1100 in Europe, so adding normal xbows to early with less armor (current 3 seems too high) to make plain archers competitive could be nice. The pav xbow (and arb) in high and pav arb in late, nicely illustrates the dynamic missile-armor contest. Dropping the upgrade modifier in Projectile Stat for these units is a good idea (they are quite good at v0 and surely don't need cheap upgrades).

The other reason for a strong Lancer is indeed that playing at 15k allows to purchase a couple of them. As said: cheap v0 suffices.

Cheaper spears. There's probably 'room' for that. Since spears became much weaker as compared to 1.0 (cheaper knights, cheaper swords, more expensive spears, more expensive upgrade and infantry bonus vs spears). Increasing cav defense for spears doesn't affect the balance with other units and does not turn them into cav killers. I agree that the increased upgrade cost, allows spears to have the 1.0 baseprice.

[tootee]

1. Hashishin. They are totally worthless in MP context (not sure about SP). At v0 costing 600, they can't even kill pavise-arbalester. What is the use of their ability to hide in open area, when in h2h they cant even outfight the p.a. The ninja of stw are so much fun to play with.

[TosaInu]

Was the pav upgraded Tootee? My cav is having serious problems with the pavs too: on hold and some cheap armor upgrades make them stand 'forever'.

[AMPage]

Some of my views on things are totally different from others, so i don't expect some of the things i say to really be looked at. I'll have some fun with it anyway...

Here it goes...

The balance of units should be equal for all factions. Right now you have lot's of unused units and some factions. This is because of overpowered, underpowered, and different unit sizes. I think if you want balance for mp than you have to leave out historical accuracy for you will always have these problems. Right now kills/losses at the end of the game don't always mean a whole lot cause of different unit sizes. It would be better to have it to show kill worth/ loss worth based on the cost of the units killed.

To fix this you could go about it a few ways. You can have just about all units like in STW 60 unit sizes. This would fix all these small unused trying to get a lot of kills making up for their small number and having small over powered units like some cav making lot's of kills cause they were meant to be strong. It would also fix byz inf being really strong cause of not just it's stats, but it's 100 unit size. If you get carried away with tons of 100 unit sizes units then you got nothing but a huge wall and less movement tatics invovled. Also you need to have it where all cav, foot h2h, missle, spear, and other units etc, should always be equal to there same type at the same florin amount. Each faction needs to be equal having all its units same strength as the next. If you're going to have overpowered units in a faction then all the others need overpowered units to balance it out.

If you're going to have different unit sizes, you should allow more then 16 units in a game. Have games set not only with florin amounts, but troop amounts too. You could set a certain amount of slots for each unit type; cavalry, foot, artillery, and special units. Example the host sets it 1,000 troops per player, slot limits, and florin amount. So you start automatcilly with 1,000 peasants and you can train them with the florins you have into each unit type with the allowed slots. Host could have the slots set at sometimes like 6 cavalry, 10 foot, 6 artillery (if it's a siege), and 4 special units ( like napha or hashishin). Whatever peasants aren't used, that player still gets so he has 1,000 troops when the game starts. When the game starts you could have it where no can withdraw a unit off the map untill atleast 5mins has pass to give everyone a chance to fight all units. You could also have it where the attacker always gets extra slots for unit types based on the map being played. Example the attacker gets more arty slots for castle maps or more foot troop slots for hilly tree maps.

That's just a rough idea to help spice up mp more...

And another idea for Eras...

When playing early era and you finish a battle, you could have it continue on to the next era. All the units when moving on to the next era get replaced by better ones or most of them. It would be a nice system to have since i mosty see high period being played the most.

Host options...

Should do away with this rush tax and allow the host to set limits on units as he wishes. I would like to see games balanced at default 5k per player and have a moral silder. Allow the host to change settings without rehosting.

Valor upgades during battle...

If you take these away then the rare times i use weapon upgrades, won't be used at all. Best would be if you do take valor upgrades during battle away, then have something like attack, defense, armor, moral and more upgrades all possible when selecting units and no valor upgrading. What also might work is having valor upgrades, but being able to buy 1 weapon and armor upgrade less then 1 valor upgrade and each lvl. Example a unit with 1 valor +2weapon +2armor will cost a bit less then a unit with +3 valor no weapon or armor upgrades given that they unit, cause they are equal in stats except the one will have +4 extra moral so that one should cost more.

Missile units...

Increase the kills per volly with archer units. Maybe allow players to buy double the ammo at a fair cost. Allow some missile units be able to shoot and run at the sametime, the ones which could possibly do that. Have units when stopped and getting in formation, get in formation much faster and have missile units wait untill all are in formation fire when ready. When you target a unit to fire at it, that missile unit shouldn't start it's reload cycle over when it's already ready. Missile units should kill more firing at units which are on the move and not in a defensive postion. Also need a resting option for missile units since they tire quite fast (infact a resting option for all units would be nice). Missile units should have an additional upgrading option 'accuracy' or have it increased with more with valor.

Cavalry...

It's a good idea have cavalry rule the field, but gameplay dosn't benefit from that. It's best to have cavalry used for flanking, breaking weak tired units, and chasing down routers 'only'. It may be accurate to have cavalry mow down foot troops with anti cav weapons easy, ok that's nice, but it's best for gameplay to leave it for being able to mow down units without anti weapons from flanks only. Cavalry can do great damage on any units by flank or almost any units, but have it the worst on units weak vs cav. Leave the fatigue rate on cav alone, even the fatigue on foot troops should be reduced i think or atleast have that resting option.

General...

the general of an army should always be a special unit i think. Like a small cav unit. You could although have a strong general or a weak general. The general could give moral bounses, even combat bounses depending on the valor, which the higher the better. Also have just then general unit be able to have a valor max at 6 maybe, where at 5 and 6 he gives a small combat bouns to troops in the area.

Troop icons...

It would be nice at the bottom of your screen your troop tabs also should what each troops current moral is. The moral could show up as a number or a color. Also would be nice to have more fatigue blocks, more them just 4 for each lvl. Maybe have like 12 for each lvl and have them as small dots to help show when the unit is about to become quite tired from quite fresh... etc

Alright i'll stop there for now. I know this is more a wish list, but hey it would help the game a lot i think. And i memtioned some things others have so that just means i totally agree with them.

[longjohn2]

Thanks for the responses everyone. Sadly many of them are rather beyond the scope of what we have time to do for VI.
There are too many suggestions for me to reply to individually, but I'll make a few general comments.

Gil is continuing to work on lobby and stability issues. I don't know the specifics of what's been done though.

I don't want to reduce the power of the cavalry. I think each TW game needs to have a distinct flavour, and the flovour of this one is heavy knight. That said, moving the order knights out of early, will make less dominant in that period, and the new Viking period will be even more infantry oriented.
Might reduce spear costs a smidge though.

I'll look at removing the in battle valour upgrade for MP, but I'm not sure how difficult that will be.

I also don't want to increase archery power too much, as they seem to be pretty effective in SP. I have made some improvements to their ability to hit moving targets though.
Again I think removing some heavy troops from early will make them more useful in that period.
I may increase the horse archery accuracy a bit, as this is a hangover from Shogun, but turning them into uber units might be fine for vets, but would lead to a lot of frustrated newbies.

There'll be a few more units availabale too. There are some new ones anyway, plus highlanders, swiss and almoughavars will be available for selected factions.

Thanks again for taking the time to reply.

[Magyar Khan]

hmmmmm frustrated newbees. i wish i was a newbee then.

[ElmarkOFear]

I am a frustrated newbie Well at least I play like one.

[FearofNC]

thanks for taking time to listen to us... imho.. some of the ideas mentioned here are good...but i think alot of them would create more imbalances... when altering the stats...im for a more cautious approach...i think very small tweaks would bring balance back into the game.

lancers- imho...their speed is the only imbalance they have.. it is possible to upgrade a chiv knight for example to 10.5 armour... but doing this makes them as slow as slugs. if the lancers would act like it has 9 armour instead of acting like it has armour of 5 or 6 then it wouldnt be such a game killer.

pavase- the problem isnt how much they kill...but how well they absorb other missles...u can take 7 archers against 3 pavs and still lose. now a good solution to this imho...is to make incoming missles that strike either the top ( like archers would do ) or the flank cause more casulties. a large shield up front would continue to soak up other crossbow bolts that come in on a flat trajectory...but not the shots from archers that fall from above...or missles that impact on the flanks..i would also increase the range of the archers ever so slightly...maybe 100 more...just enough to give them a few shots in before the pavs can fire at them...would also allow archers to reach further to strike other troops behind the "pav wall"

cav arch- they need more range one shot from a crossbow unit weather it be crossbow or arbs will decimate a cav arch.. these units should be able to fire from a greater distance...making the other side react either with lite cav or there own cav arch. currently...they are mearly a distraction...that with 1 or 2 good shots from a pav can be taken out of the game equation.

the accuracy of archers firing at a moving target could be a non-issue if we could select a place on the map for the missle unit to fire at.. i would much rather click a spot on the ground and have my archers rain arrows onto the spot then the game engine trying to lead a moving target better.

and last but not least...plz allow the host to turn factions off...that is...allow each player to choose from all the available units in game as a hosting option.. this might not be historcly accurate...but it would be great fun

[Crandaeolon]

I know there was not supposed to be arguing in this thread, so please forgive this one intrusion. I'm an archery freak, so I can't help it.

About archery: please do not mess with the ranges. I know they aren't historical or even close to historical, but normal & cav bows at 5000 and longbows & arbs at 6000 is a good compromised abstraction and perfectly fine balance-wise. Increasing archery firepower, decreasing arb&X-bow accuracy a bit, decreasing X-bow reload time slightly and moving pav arbs to late should solve the "imbalances" of missile units in MP.

Some reasoning: increasing longbow range would make the English much too strong if other factions don't have missile units of equal range. Moving all arbs to late could result in the same effect in High era games; therefore IMO only pav arbs should be moved to Late.

Cav archers should get an increase in firepower, but _definitely_ not in range. They already have mobility as their asset, if they could outrange other missile units they would become too strong and easy to use. Currently, using cav archers properly requires skill; it would be a shame if they were reduced to a cheese unit.

Perhaps all "dedicated" archers should get more arrows while skirmisher types could remain at the default.

And again, composite bows would be a nice addition into the game...

Thanks for accepting input, happy (and cautious) rebalancing

[Puzz3D]

Unit cost adjustments:

1) Lancers increased. The 800 florin lancer is 44% stronger than the 650 florin chiv knight but it's only 23% more expensive. The balanced cost for the lancer would be about 925 relative to the chiv knight. An alternative would be to slow them down. After all, they are heavily armored and have the same armor as the gothic knight which is 9/12/16 speed..

2) Byz inf increased. It has 6 combat points including the shield, 100 men and 0 morale for 175 florins. The feudal maa has 7 combat points including shield, 60 men and 2 morale for 175 florins. The Byz inf enjoys a 67% advantage in men, but the feudal maa is 20% better in combat. You could say the Byz inf has a 47% advantage here not counting the morale disadvantage. A 15% increase to 200 florins would leave the Byz inf with about a 30% advantage over the Feudal maa.

3) Templar knight decrease. This unit has 4 less charge than the chiv knight, but is only 8% less in cost. Isn't 4 charge roughly equivalent to 1 melee which is 20%. It seems to me the Templar should be less than 600 florins. An alternative would be to make it 650 florins and give it +1 melee point to make up for the -4 charge. This is a special unit for the French, and is currently inferior to other mounted knights.

4) Spears decrease. Probably a return to v1.0 cost levels. Spears already took a substantial hit in v1.1 from the combined effects of, lower cost of mounted knights, chance of pushback by cav, +1 melee bonus to swords when fighting spears and the 70% cost of valor upgrade since they desperately need the morale boost the upgrade provides.

5) A return of upgrades on ranged units to be the same as non-ranged units. The current discounted rate causes some ranged units to become very strong when upgraded several levels, such as handgunners and janissary infantry to name two. Those two units end up with 14 combat points when upgraded to v4 which is better than most regular hand-to-hand infantry units in a 15k. It also results in ranged units withstanding a cav charge for too long or even beating the cav. Clearly playing at 15k and up has some problems. It also introduced a bug whereby a player coming directly from SP to MP without a restart of MTW goes out of sync when a battle starts because the ranged unit upgrade costs are incorrect. This also often generates the "spent too much" message.

6) More difference in cost between the pavise and non-pavise unit types. CBR's suggestion of 50 florins more for the pavise units seems good to me.


Unit availability:

1) Agree with Tosa. Xbows in early, pav xbow and arb in high and pav arb in late.

2) Swiss pikes for germans in late would be more historical, but maybe it gives HRE german faction too much.


Unit stat errors:

1) Longbow's speed parameter is too low for them to shoot their full range of 6000. They will go through a firing animation as thouigh they are shooting at max range, but no projectile is released.

2) Malitia Sgt is a polearm unit and listed as anti-cav in the Strategy Guide, but in the spreadsheet there is no anti-cav bonus being given.


Ranged unit adjustments:

1) Make an improvement of ranged unit accuracy with valor upgrade. Right now there is imperceptible improvement. This would tie in with returning ranged unit upgrade costs the non-ranged rate. Weapon and armor could continue to be melee/defend/armor improvements.

2) More arrows for archers. This ties in with possible improvements of kills per volley. Right now typical kills for an archer in a MP battle is in the 15 to 20 range. There is little need to bother countering archers when kills are that low. Pav arbs typically generate 40 to 60 kills in a MP battle, and that's when countered with similar pav arbs. Uncountered they can do even better than that. Even the longbows have disapponting performance in this regard, although, they do better than regular archers. I don't want to see a return of the WE/MI projectile wars, but I think some increase of the danger from archers would improve MP. I don't really see it as adversely affecting SP either. Human SP players withdraw depleted archer units and bring on fresh ones during a battle, but the ai doesn't know enough to do that so more arrows will help the ai. Also, the muslim factions will be helped since they have those combo ranged/archer units. It's difficult for muslim factions to compete with the christian factions right now in MP. The Russian faction, which really isn't competitive in MP, might also be helped here since Boyars and Brigands are a strength for them and their infantry is relatively weak.


Changes to the ammo, morale and fatigue options:

Well my suggestion is to make the secondary options less extreme. They are currently not used at all in MP, and I've never seen a post from any SP player that uses them either. I think players want limited ammo, morale and fatigue effects because it greatly enhances the gameplay. However, many of us would like to play 5k florin games with better morale, and we might want to play a winter battle with the nice fog effects without the high fatigue rate. It takes forever to finish a winter battle now. Same goes for desert because the sandstorm inevitably comes up. I've played both SP and MP with the morale off option, and believe that the +12 is too much of a boost since it effectively saturates the morale system. A more modest morale boost still has plenty of routing, but it brings cavs ability to rout down a bit which I believe would satisfy all the "cav is too strong" players.

Host selectable is the nice thing with these options in MP. No need for rules which are time consuming to explain and always viewed with scepticism, and we can't do anything about fatigue even with a custom stat anyway. Custom stats are fine for a limited number of players, but these host selectable options makes the altered gameplay available to everyone. This would provide 8 possible combinations of altered gamestyles which still incorporate the limited ammo, fatigue and morale which are fundamental to the gameplay. The original gameplay is still there with teh options in their default position. So, my suggestions are for the second settings loosly:

1) 2x ammo (gives players who like ranged battles just that)
2) 1/2 fatigue rate (allows a quicker rush game for those that want that)
3) +6 morale (allows 5k battles without the mass routing)

These are not hard numbers and could be different, but the idea is basically to give altered gameplay without completely turning off the feature.

My list isn't complete, but I can't make suggestions on units and factions that I don't use.

Thanks for asking for suggestions LongJohn and good luck.

[FearofNC]

will think about a good response to puzz's ideas..but first i must try and end the pav debate before all of you agree to it.

moving the pav to late will make high period unplayable.... with the advances in heavy cav from early...all you will see is cav battles.

one of the best defenses to cav is the pavaise...and moving them to late will ruin high period play imho. regular arbs dont stand a chance of holding 2 seconds vs a cav unit... the rush game would rule unchallenged. plz consider making them weaker agaisnt other missles...not removing them from play.

[CBR]

A pavise doesnt give more defense to crossbows or arbs, only +3 armor against missiles.

CBR

[Kocmoc]

sorry but who fear a pav in high?

missles are just useless, u can easy rush and juts dont notice the missle, we use the missle like old days, but thats more a tradition than a useful action.

all what i see are doubleclick armys, as it isnt important to move ur army properly.
i dont realy care for the "unbalances", as we dont get some good missles and the cav just do what they want.


koc