[EB] EDU Balance Proposals

about the cohort spamming, i thought roman armies were historically cohort spams.

about the javs, only +2 attack do you think that will make a difference.

increasing accuracy sounds like a drastic change, i like it. from the front it might not matter cuz units have shields but attacking from the rear would be devastating thus rewarding the player who managed to maneuver his slings behind the enemy. Personally i support the idea.

P.S Any chance Thracian peltasts can get AP back?
and consider looking into agrianian assualts ,They might be under powered not getting much kills in my games. Same goes for the thracians even with high lethality taking away AP from them was a big attack nerf.
Here's a suggestion, because they lost AP how about increasing their attack.

Roman armies were historically roughly half legionaries and half auxiliaries. This translates as about 9-10 cohort units (yes, a spam), not 19 units and a general.

No chance they get AP back, with AP they were even more OP than AP Drapanai, which is saying something.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by gamegeek2

This plan is my current, modest proposal. A more radical plan would involve altering the descr_projectile_new file, to change missile accuracy.

Bow/sling and ammo determine base range and cost of weapon

Levy/Crap: -1 attack, -5% range, +0 base cost
Normal: 0 attack, 0 range, +.15 base cost
Good: +1 attack, +5% range, +.3 base cost
Very Good: +2 attack, +10% range, +.45 base cost

Javelin determines base attack range and ammo + cost of weapon (technically it does vary, i forgot to mention that)

Normal: 0 attack, 0 range, +0 cost
Good: +1 attack, +10% range, +.15 base cost
Very Good: +2 attack, +20% range, +.3 base cost

Foot Skirmishers: +2 additional attack, +10% additional range
Cavalry Skirmishers: +4 additional attack

Id also want to increase cohors cost so its just above 1800, only so cohort only armies are not possible. Im thinking to reduce marian and imperial cost reduction to -17.5% to do this (currently it is -20%).

---

Looking forward to the results.

Quote:

---

No chance they get AP back, with AP they were even more OP than AP Drapanai, which is saying something.

---

Then how about giving them attack to make up for the loss of AP.
If you look closely only units with AP are stated at 8 or 9 attack, this is natural so they dont become OP. but thracians lost their AP and they are still at 9 attack.

There are some cheap longsword units ( pretty tough nuts ) with 9 attack, Thracians also have a longsword (sorta) and have a decent melee attack for a skirmisher.

Do you understand lethality, storm? BTW before the new EDUs, Thraikioi had 7 attack and AP.

Check the recommendations with Makedon.

Also, skirmishers and arhcers/slingers mass is VERY bugged, they make cavalry stop to a halt, Ok, I understand, Elite Skirms could do that, im okay with it, but Balaeric Slingers? Gund i Palta? Crap Archers? I understand Bosphorans were melee troops as well thats fine but all the other missile troops should not be able to stop cavalry this is just ridiculous, I had 3 whole units of Aspidophoroi stuck in shepherd Slingers, in the same battle, Robin had 2 Lanceari units halted by Persian LEVY archers.....

I think its horse mass being somewhat lower than in other mods and vanilla. Maybe I could lower archer and slinger mass as well, though.

Hmm, horse mass would be the main factor, but would that not be editing the mounts_database file?

I dont know if you guys have seen this before, but I found it interesting, essentially a wargaming group, made up of actual and professional historians.

http://www.byzant.demon.co.uk/dbm.htm

Yeah, I generally agree with the changes. I think that the greek phalanx levies should have some sort of reason for their pricing. A morale bonus would be nice.

I think Elephants unit size/cost need to be rethought. We need to do some research on actual elephant number in armies. I know it used to be that elephants cost as much as 3 heavy cav but could only fight 2 head (which is not using them correctly because if you bring supporting cav, you can pin and then flank rofl pwn cav). The main issue is that its kinda a pain to control them because their formations are so spread out. I like elephants at half the size of vanilla EB due to that. Thus you should try and make it so each of the base elephant units is about as effective as a heavy cav unit as a base-line.

Heavy Cav kill Elephants 1v1. There is no contest. They simply stink too hard. If you bring a simple 800 mnai skirm, it wastes so much enemy money, and basically every other unit in the game has javelins, making elephants a SERIOUS liability.

You can make them more cost effective but I'm not comfortable with 1 unit of elephants being more powerful than a single unit of high end heavy cavalry. They do need to be most cost effective agreed since while Carthage used elephants, they weren't exactly all that common. India has a long history of elephant use.

I'd like cheaper but less effective elephants, too. You should be able to use elephants without choosing crap units for the rest of the army.

how about 7k for decent elephants. and why is cavalry supposed to be better then elephants?i thought elephants scare horses.

P.S GG i think you forgot to add the "bonus when fighting cavalry" trait to some phalanxes and i think spearmen should also get a bonus . i think you can contort the bonus value with "Spear_6" or something like that.

I'd say give Indians a discount of about 10% on elephants. Have the base naked (unarmored lol) one cost ~4500 (base 5000 * 90%) and have the same amount of numbers. Then make the elephant cataphracts a 1/2 sized unit that costs 5400 (6000 * 90%). You don't really need to make elephants worse since one or 2 skirm units will beat multiple ones (sad). You may want to make them slightly more vulnerable to missiles.

You should also make phalanx counter elephants to a certain extent as well because right now, you can't kill them/stop them with any sort of infantry. You'd also need to tweak their moral up (probably need to give them the discipline tag as well).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by antisocialmunky

I'd say give Indians a discount of about 10% on elephants.

---

Who is Indian for you? Baktria and Saka?

Probably both. I suppose the reasoning is to make them cheaper (more common) than the African Forest Elephant which later went extinct.

So you'd want the Indian elephants to cost 4500 and 5400 (at least for baktria and Saka Rauka) but the african elephants should stay the way they are?

Rebalance them too. :]

I'm tired today.

I see.

Another proposal:

We should increase the javelin attack of all skirmisher-like units too not only for the ones which have skirm in their name or the skirm ability. For example garamantine infantry should get a bonus, too. In my own EDU modification I increased nearly all javelin attack stats but that would perhaps be too much and not solve the problem that most skirmishers are useless in comparison.

That would be useful as well but we would need to figure out the AP javelin vs non-ap javelin balance so we would have to include AP javs in any new proposed system.

Personally, I feel as if line infantry have decent enough javelin attacks as is. They usually ranged anywhere from 6-8 or 4-6 for ap ones. Skirms are usually more in 5-6 range which is no good since they derive almost their full value from those 6 or so javs. Afaik, there are no skirmisher units that use AP javs so if we don't bother changing the values of the heavier javelin-throwing infantry units then we don't need to worry about that balance.

Right, well light skirms with no skill bonus, like Artish Pada, are now at 6.

We really need to find a way to improve sweboz. The suggestion to lower their costs will not really help because all units just die too easy and do not really kill much.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kival

We really need to find a way to improve sweboz. The suggestion to lower their costs will not really help because all units just die too easy and do not really kill much.

---

I'd said we should gave em better numbers, at least they should function more like Zerg

That may be feasible especially with new data on population densities of central Europe.

I'd also say it may be good to remove 'fights well in trees' or add it to skirms and loose order units. Right now its too imbalancing to even think about fighting barbs in trees.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by antisocialmunky

That may be feasible especially with new data on population densities of central Europe.

I'd also say it may be good to remove 'fights well in trees' or add it to skirms and loose order units. Right now its too imbalancing to even think about fighting barbs in trees.

---

True, but what maps are you getting people to play where there are trees?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by antisocialmunky

I'd also say it may be good to remove 'fights well in trees' or add it to skirms and loose order units. Right now its too imbalancing to even think about fighting barbs in trees.

---

I'm not buying it until you tell me how often you fight on a map with more than 1% tree coverage.

http://ebwiki.tk/wiki/Category:Maps

More numbers dont help, with such low armor, youd be lucky to get away with 70 men before the fight starts.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lazy O

More numbers dont help, with such low armor, youd be lucky to get away with 70 men before the fight starts.

---

LOW ARMOR!!! HAHAHAHAHAHA nice one