Issue about the \'fixed\' Valours from buildings.

[Kraxis]

First of all this is great, though there is going to be some strange situations (Feudal MAA > Chiv MAA).

But, how am I going to know which building adds the bonus?
Take Byzantine Cavalry, they need Horse Breeder, Bowyers Workshop and Swordsmiths Workshop, and given their nowhere near set role on the battlefield relative to other types, they puzzle me. Are they Cavalry (like knights and Pronoiai Allagion), are they Horse Archers (I know they are listed like this but it is still not very clear) or are they even counted as a swordunit???

Since the Horse Breeder is listed as the first building I would guess that is 'their' building... But that conflicts with their status as Horse Archers (who are alligned with the Bowyers).
The Sipahi of the Porte are Heavy cav and that fits well with the Master Horse Breeder, meaning they can't get any Valours (they couldn't even if it was the Bowyers as it is a Master as well).

And what about Highlanders, Vikings, Peasants and Bedouin Camels? They have Forts as their prerequisite, can they really go all the way to Valour 4 (5 in the cases of Vikings, Highlanders and Peasants)???

What I'm trying to ask, I guess, is if we can take the first building in the techtree as the 'important' building?

------------------
BTW, Danish Crusades are true to history.

You may not care about war, but war cares about you!

[Yoko Kono]

krax it will be the same as shogun where yari cav needed a horse dojo and spear dojo but the horse dojo cav the honour bonus
all cav should get bonuses from the horse buildings, spear troops from the spear buildings, infantry from the swordsmith buildings; and missle infantry from the bowyer buildings

at least thats how i would imagine it to be

im just wondering how vikings, woodsmen, peasants and highland clansmen bonuses will work?
will they get extra valor from bigger castles or from buildings?

[Kraxis]

That is how I believe it will work too, but I can't be sure...

The Mamluke HA has the Bowyers Workshop as the first building in the techtree. So that would indicate that it is the prime building, just like with the Boyars...
That would though make Ghazi have the Mosque as their prime building....

The Byzantine Cav is such a strange case because the can do everything, so what are they???

Lithuanian Cav is another strange unit, it needs Horse Farmer (lowest building), Armourers Guild and Swordsmiths Guild. That means that the building giving the bonus is two tiers lower than a requirement building... Strange... or is it perhaps the Swordsmith that gives the bonus? That would hole (even more) my theory of the prime building being the first listed.

Those Fort units (forgot about the Woodsmen in the last post) are indeed strange... Potential 4 Valours... Perhaps they can't gain Valours?

------------------
BTW, Danish Crusades are true to history.

You may not care about war, but war cares about you!

[Grifman]

I think this thread is misnomer - buildings don't give valor. You get two enhancements from buildings. Religious buildings increase morale. And higher level weapons buildings give increased attack - so a second level sword building will increase attack +1 for Byzantine infantry. I'm not sure about the question at hand though - what about multiple buildings? And what if the building required isn't a weapon maker?

Grifman

[Kraxis]

Quote Originally posted by Grifman:
I think this thread is misnomer - buildings don't give valor.

Grifman[/QUOTE]

Quote From main page, about upcoming patch:
54) Buildings now correctly give valour upgrades.
[/QUOTE]

Also I used the ' around the word fixed, as meaning not as set Valours, rather as corrected Valours.

------------------
BTW, Danish Crusades are true to history.

You may not care about war, but war cares about you!

[This message has been edited by Kraxis (edited 10-06-2002).]

[LittleRaven]

Quote Originally posted by Grifman:
I think this thread is misnomer - buildings don't give valor. [/QUOTE]

Buildings don't give valor now, (well, some of them do, but not correctly) but they CAN give valor. Currently, the Spearmaker gives +1 valor at level 2, +2 valor at level 3, and then no valor at level 4. One of the items mentioned in the patch readme is that buildings will give correct valor.

What Kraxis is confused about (as am I) is exactly what correct valor is. Valor is EXTREMELY powerful, so if buildings work like they did in Shogun, balance is going to be a bit tricky. For instance, if they work Shogun-style, a level 2 swordsmith will produce FMAA at valor 1 and CMAA at valor 0. But valor 1 FMAA are better than valor 0 CMAA, so why would anyone ever build CMAA?

And then there's the question of how units that require multiple buildings will work, and how those that require forts will work. Hopefully we can get one of the devs to comment on this...

[Kraxis]

Quote Originally posted by LittleRaven:
What Kraxis is confused about (as am I) is exactly what correct valor is. [/QUOTE]

Erhm... well not really , I assume that the Valours are the same as in STW, they go up each time the building is upgraded.

But you are indeed correct when talking about the FMAA vs CMAA and the fort units. I'm just getting the feeling, the moe I think about it, that they don't get any Valours at all... Too bad as Vikings and Highlanders will get outdated very fast. I love both of them.

------------------
BTW, Danish Crusades are true to history.

You may not care about war, but war cares about you!

[LittleRaven]

Quote Originally posted by Kraxis:
Erhm... well not really , I assume that the Valours are the same as in STW, they go up each time the building is upgraded.
[/QUOTE]

Oops. Sorry. Didn't mean to talk out of school.

I'm not so sure that the Shogun solution will work, though. Leaving the MAA comparison behind for the moment, I think balance is likely to get badly skewed. Consider, say, steppe cavalry. They only require a horse farm, (I think, I left my chart at my brothers house.) so you could get valor 3 steppe cavalry fairly easily. Now, valor 3 steppe cavalry are going to be a near match for valor 0 chivalric knights. But if things work like they did in Shogun, steppe cavalry won't get more expensive to build. Moreover, horse buildings don't require castle upgrades. So a player with access to the steppes could be getting valor 3 steppe cavalry very quickly. These guys will be a near match for the best chivalric cavalry (which won't appear for a LONG time) plus they are fast, and will only cost about 1/8 the price. And this is only one balance issue out of many that could occur.

Maybe I'm just figuring things wrong, but I don't think so, and I can't believe that the devs would overlook a balance issue like that, so I'm wondering what kind of fix they have in mind.

[This message has been edited by LittleRaven (edited 10-07-2002).]

[Yoko Kono]

Quote Originally posted by Grifman:
..And higher level weapons buildings give increased attack - so a second level sword building will increase attack +1 for Byzantine infantry...[/QUOTE]


this is incorrect
higher level buildings were intended to increase valor not attack (tho they dont function correctly)
to get buildings to increase attack you need iron in a province and then build a metalsmith in which case any troops will have an icon in their unit piccy showing they have upgrades

[andrewt]

With the spearmaker (which is the only one working right now), they give the same additional valor to all units that list them as the valor building. From in-game experience spearmaker gives +1 and spearmakers' workshop gives +2 to both saracen infantry, muwahid foot, nubian spearmen and murabitin.

I'm aware that it is supposed to be workshop and guild per the stat file but this is the way it is in the game right now. Maybe the first one is ignored.

[Grifman]

Ok, I stand corrected.

Grifman

[Kraxis]

LittleRaven Horse buildings do need castleupgrades, but you are right about the Steppe Cavalry, though the comparison was betwen Valour 4 Alans and V0 Gothics.

Steppe Cavalry is not as good as Alans but I see your point.

If it is true that buildings do give former upgrades to new units we will see Valour 3 of everything, evening the forces, but we will see fights where no unit will run.

I guess we have to see, but I would still like to know for sure what buildings give Valours to what units..

------------------
BTW, Danish Crusades are true to history.

You may not care about war, but war cares about you!

[hrvojej]

Kraxis, horse buildings *do not* need castle upgrades, in the same way that farm upgrades don't need it. And the Lithuanians need master horse breeder, the picture on the tech tree is right, but the name of the building is not.

I think that I have noticed the clansmen go up in valour as you upgrade the fort to keep, castle, etc. so I guess that's how it's going to work with the rest of the lot.

edit: Can you imagine what will the valour 5 peasants from Provence be like? Grrrowwlll.....!


[This message has been edited by hrvojej (edited 10-07-2002).]

[Kraxis]

Quote Originally posted by hrvojej:
edit: Can you imagine what will the valour 5 peasants from Provence be like? Grrrowwlll.....!


[/QUOTE]

Yup and put them under the command of a Rank 8 general.
"Children this is what Valour 9 Peasants look like."
GAH!!!!

I can just imagine the Late French rush... Peasants...

------------------
BTW, Danish Crusades are true to history.

You may not care about war, but war cares about you!

[LittleRaven]

In fact, the more I think about it, the more imbalances seem to be created by buildings giving valor.

Consider another case: Lithuanian Cavalry. These guys require a master horse breeder, so presumably you'll never be able to train anything more than a level 0 unit.

Now consider the Polish retainer. He only requires a horse breeder, so you'll be able to get valor 2 retainers VERY easily. (I checked, horse buildings DO NOT require castle upgrades) Now, Polish retainers are a little bit more expensive than Lithuanian cavarly, but their base stats are better too. Personally, I think Lithuanian cavalry are already underpowered, given the huge investment it takes to produce them. Add the fact that they could never gain valor from buildings, and they become completely pointless. I realize that Polish retainers are supposed to be an asset for the Poles and thus shouldn't be balanced totally with other cavarly, but a large valor boost would throw them completely out of balance. Within the furst 30 turns (in the early era!), a Polish player could be producing cavarly that had the same stats as Chivalric Knights but with higher morale, for 300 florins a pop. There's no way that's balanced.

Or for the Islamic players out there, consider Desert Archers vs. Turcoman Foot. Both are archers, both have base stats of charge 1, attack 1, defense 2. Other stats are identical, except that Turcoman Foot cost slightly more but have lower upkeep.

BUT desert archers require only a bower. Turcoman foot require an archers guild. So by the time you could be producing Turcoman foot, you could produce valor 2 desert archers instead. These guys would cost less, but have attack 3, defense 4, and morale +4.

Buildings and valor are a very tricky combination. I really don't know how the devs are gonna solve this one.

[This message has been edited by LittleRaven (edited 10-08-2002).]

[hrvojej]

I think I'll wait and see whether the correct valours will unbalance the game. This is the way the game is intended to work, so we might be prejudicing if we say that it will. In any case, the ai will be tougher, and that's something that I look forward to.

On the case of the Lithuanians, I view them as the only cavalry with a lance available to the Russians, so they have to work hard to get them. Other factions have their own units, so there's really no imperative to tech up to get them.