Carl's Re-balance (Discussion only ATM)

In the process of doing my bugfixer i've decided a seperate re-balance mod baced off it would be a good idea. The BugFixer is for those that just want the bugs out or want to do their own mods on an unbugged version.

the Re-Balance version will include my own, (along with Stirlands ), re-envisioned version of the game and will thus include a lot of stuff (such as price changes and changes to individual units rather than classes of units), that fall outside the realm of BugFixing.

So if you have an Ideas after playing my BugFixer that you feel I might be intrested in and that fall outside the realm of BugFixing. Drop em here.

heh, you want to paste the massive chunks of of discussion you and I already had or should I?

One thing I'd like to see (more for campaign balance) is an english longbow militia. I want to face longbows damnit.

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heh, you want to paste the massive chunks of of discussion you and I already had or should I?

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Paste anything you thinks appropriate (you'd have a better idea I think).

Thanks for the work BTW.

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One thing I'd like to see (more for campaign balance) is an english longbow militia. I want to face longbows damnit.

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The idea had passed through my head too. That, or, english specific peaseant Archers with better range.

Re: price changes

I'd be interested to see how the game would play if knights were much more expensive.

Combined with the fact they only require castle walls, I find I fight with full stacks of them.

OTOH, I'd rather see the AI use them more.

personally for campaign balance I think lower prices over the whole spectrum are needed as the AI is very spendy.

EDIT: limits would still need to be set on max recruitable at a time and turns per unit available. However, I htink with price a bit more out of the way for the AI it might stand up to players a bit better.

Someone in another thread suggested that the AI is currently using a military buildup policy for all of its settlements, which more than anything seems to be why the AI churns out so much militia and not quality castle units (as opposed to this being some sort of price concern for the AI making it avoid castle units).

Also I don't agree at all that knights you get from walls are underpriced. Keep in mind that they bear the weighty 225 upkeep that is just under that of a cav unit. The real price of a unit is much less about the up front cost you pay, and much more about the upkeep you'll pay to have the unit around for any length of time. In just 3 turns the upkeep expense of a knight has in most cases already surpassed his recruitment cost, and after 5 I think it is the case for every single unit in the game.

To illustrate this, consider training 10 DFKs and using them for 10 turns. The cost you pay to recruit them is 10 * 570 = 5700. Their upkeep over the 10 turn span is 10 * 10 * 225 = 22500. That's ~4 times as much. Since the knights drain your economy so much each turn, it's really silly to rely on them heavily as lower upkeep units represent a much better investment. It almost kills me to recruit DFKs when I play England now, because I know the Armored Swordsmen (at 150 upkeep) are SO much better for my economy (as are the 150 upkeep archer units). So to close, I strongly recommend we resist the urge to place too much emphasis on the recruitment cost of the units, as it is certainly not the most important part of the unit price.

Very well put the_foz, couldn't have summed it up any better. Mounted Knights range from 210 to 320 upkeep, so to balance things up with the AI, one could consider slightly increasing the upkeep of the good units. After all we all the know the AI will have less of them. Oh and an AI money script helps too, but that's another topic altogether. :)

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Originally Posted by Foz

Someone in another thread suggested that the AI is currently using a military buildup policy for all of its settlements, which more than anything seems to be why the AI churns out so much militia and not quality castle units (as opposed to this being some sort of price concern for the AI making it avoid castle units).

Also I don't agree at all that knights you get from walls are underpriced. Keep in mind that they bear the weighty 225 upkeep that is just under that of a cav unit. The real price of a unit is much less about the up front cost you pay, and much more about the upkeep you'll pay to have the unit around for any length of time. In just 3 turns the upkeep expense of a knight has in most cases already surpassed his recruitment cost, and after 5 I think it is the case for every single unit in the game.

To illustrate this, consider training 10 DFKs and using them for 10 turns. The cost you pay to recruit them is 10 * 570 = 5700. Their upkeep over the 10 turn span is 10 * 10 * 225 = 22500. That's ~4 times as much. Since the knights drain your economy so much each turn, it's really silly to rely on them heavily as lower upkeep units represent a much better investment. It almost kills me to recruit DFKs when I play England now, because I know the Armored Swordsmen (at 150 upkeep) are SO much better for my economy (as are the 150 upkeep archer units). So to close, I strongly recommend we resist the urge to place too much emphasis on the recruitment cost of the units, as it is certainly not the most important part of the unit price.

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I understand that very well, and unless there is a way to change the way the AI sets settlement spend policy, then it will use all of it's cash to generate militia every turn.

Short of that I bet that dropping unit price and availablility across the board will improve AI army selection.

Can you make some type of AI script that makes them recruit better units please?

I know it would be hard to make the AI stop doing dumb things, like declaring war with a stack of two pesants then offering a truce next turn, but hopefully making it recruit good units would be do-able. And maybe a script that makes it have variety in each stack instead of all siege weapons and crossbows?

That along with a cash script would be perfect. And easy installation like your de-bugger.

Keep up the good work! I will deal with the crappy vanilla ai with hopes it wont be around much longer due to your work.

Nugs

Thing is a script does several things:
1. It doesn't solve the real problem that the AI can't recruit the proper units without
2: It makes the AI impossible to starve out. This can be done through rapid siege/devestation across a lot of territiories.
3: makes it so that with one city and one faction member the AI would have an economy comparable to one that could support a 15-20 territory empire.

I'd love to hear how Lusted has achieved more varied AI armies.

@Stlaind: I havn't tried playin with a cash script, but it may actual be a good idea as the idea of the AI coming back from 1 territory down apeals. The problem with re-scripting the AI is that a lot of the stuff's hardcoded and can't be changed. Whilst it may be possibble to achive more varied armies without it, i'm not sure how far we can go with that. Lusted's input would be welcome though as i'd love to know what he's done.

However we might have to resgin ourselves to using a cash script for the Ai if worse comes to worst.

For some reason I remember a file that set AI type for factions in RTW.

While I don't remember which file it was I suspect that that file is the source of the AI woes.

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the Re-Balance version will include my own, (along with Stirlands ), re-envisioned version of the game and will thus include a lot of stuff

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A little suggestion:

Read this thread: (about the Knights)

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=80565

Little hint: referencing a thread which has pretty much nothing but Lusted saying some's ideas are un-implementable doesn't help anything, especially if you've not added anything into this thread yet.

Not trying to be snarky, just wondering what your objective was.

I'd like to also add that 90% of the stuff their is impossibile to put in game. Let me also add that the spears as present in V1.11 of my bug fixer remove much of the superman knights issues and make massed knights less of an issue overall, in no small part due to the Sheild fix, but the Skeleton Componsation factor also cghanges things somewhat.

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I'd love to hear how Lusted has achieved more varied AI armies.

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Various things. I set most ai factiojn build priorities in descr_strat to smith from napoleon for whatever it is. I did not change this for Russia, Byzantium, Turks, Mongls, Timurids or Aztecs. I set Poland and Hungary to Henry.

I then edited recruitment pools and replenishment rates so the elite units had smaller pools and took longer to replenish, but less elite units als had slightly reduced pools.

I also removed some low level units from high level buildings.

I then adjusted unit costs making missile and militia units more expensive as it encourages the ai to build more elite units as they are more cost effective.

And then you have to give the ai time. I can't stress this enough. It takes the ai time to get going, get buildup and churning out well balanced mixed armies. In the early game it will produce all militia armies, but if you give it time you will see much better armies.

Thank you.

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Originally Posted by Stlaind

personally for campaign balance I think lower prices over the whole spectrum are needed as the AI is very spendy.

EDIT: limits would still need to be set on max recruitable at a time and turns per unit available. However, I htink with price a bit more out of the way for the AI it might stand up to players a bit better.

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If you plan to lower unit prices and at the same time make the unit pool smaller then the result will be a large amount of useless florins. Currently people earn florins to be able to recruit and wield large armies, and they still have a hefty profit, if you decrease both the price and the amount of recruitable units there simply won't be anything to spend the money on. It will make the entire economy rather pointless as you will be able to have a good army with less build up and development (which is now needed to earn florins)

In Any game I've played so far I can afford to have a 1000fl per turn tribute to at least one ally and the pope, and pump out a professional army.

The fix is two part for a reason. part one is to get the AI to build the higher end units, part two is to restrict the player's advantage in said units.

I don't really see much of a true negative impact from lower prices across the board.

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Not trying to be snarky, just wondering what your objective was

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Trying to be helpful,nothing more than that.
Now,I deeply regret my post.(the first and the last)

Carl can you give us an all-in-one installer for your bug fixer and the Ultimate AI mod ? (check mod forum, I'm sure you know it.) The AI mod looks good, just dont want to mess with anything cause I have zero clue if it will work. He gives instuctions on installing the AI mod in an exisiting mod, but still not sure if your files will work with his.


Thanks!

Nugs

I can have a look at least.

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Originally Posted by Lusted

And then you have to give the ai time. I can't stress this enough. It takes the ai time to get going, get buildup and churning out well balanced mixed armies. In the early game it will produce all militia armies, but if you give it time you will see much better armies.

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Even in vanilla the AI can produce some decent armies by the time the Late Era rolls around.

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Originally Posted by Carl

I'd like to also add that 90% of the stuff their is impossibile to put in game. Let me also add that the spears as present in V1.11 of my bug fixer remove much of the superman knights issues and make massed knights less of an issue overall, in no small part due to the Sheild fix, but the Skeleton Componsation factor also cghanges things somewhat.

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Hi, in what way have you changed the Skeleton Componsation factor and how does that change affect things? Thanks :yes:

To add my opinion to Lusted post above, have you consider to make some of the castle units available in city? For example, city can recruit DFN but with much smaller pool (1 max) and lower replenish rate. I find that helps the factions that only control city and they have no way converting their city to castle. Now they are not forced to employ all militia army any more.

I'm not sure if this is a feature or not, but the morale on most, if not all, of siege units is far too uber. Long after the general has died and all units routed, they will stand there and fight. They should either do an orderly retreat or be routed. Very often they will fight to the last man. It would seem they should be more susceptible to routing then other units, but this is not the case.

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Originally Posted by eire1130

I'm not sure if this is a feature or not, but the morale on most, if not all, of siege units is far too uber. Long after the general has died and all units routed, they will stand there and fight. They should either do an orderly retreat or be routed. Very often they will fight to the last man. It would seem they should be more susceptible to routing then other units, but this is not the case.

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True. 9 Morale for siege engineers?? Pur-lease! :dizzy2: Personally, I was fed up with 18 carpenters holding a 60-knight charge and killing some 15 of them before finally dying (not routing!), so I changed their morale profile to that of peasants, which works just fine. They still work the siege engines properly, but if they are engaged in melee, they die. This is how it should be, IMO.

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Hi, in what way have you changed the Skeleton Componsation factor and how does that change affect things? Thanks

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I've changed all foot spear units Skeleton Comp Factor from 0.6 to 1. It seems to increase charge resistance and to a degree kill rate.

Good point guys on Seige Equipment too.

Don't worry, i'm listning, but refraining from commenting overmuch ATM.

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I don't really see much of a true negative impact from lower prices across the board.

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Lots more full stacks running around(and i mean a lot more). Units dont need lower prices, the ai can recruit devent armeis with the few tweaks i said. Lower unit prices will just provide a surplus of cash for the player which the player will spend on paying other factions for example. The ai doesn't do this, it will just churn out as many troops as it can. If you want lots and lots anf lots of armies then lowering unit prices will do that, but if not there is no need to do it.

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To add my opinion to Lusted post above, have you consider to make some of the castle units available in city? For example, city can recruit DFN but with much smaller pool (1 max) and lower replenish rate. I find that helps the factions that only control city and they have no way converting their city to castle. Now they are not forced to employ all militia army any more.

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But that removes one of the big differences between castles and cities. Personally i just raised the amount of units recruitable per turn in each castle level so the ai produces more castle troops.

I wonder if it's possible to make the AI use a different build policy than it currently does in cities. If the speculation is correct that it imposes military build everywhere (which I'm guessing is correct since AI cities I capture typically have the maximum available unit-production buildings with considerably less economic upgrades) then the best solution to this would be changing its build policy in settlements. Anyone have any idea if this is possible? I'm not at home right now to dig through the files, nor have I delved into the AI files much...

I'd suggest you increase movement for all units, but especially agents and ships...makes the game a little less ponderous (on the campaign map). Something like 1.5 times their current movement.

I'm bumping this up, I'll add links to appropriate posts but a big arguments been going on about where Halberds should be relative to pikes and how they should function. It really belongs in here as bar some tweaking I'm pretty much done with Halberds in the bug fixer. AP Pikes was the only way to get them working, but I honestly don't like that method and would like to discuss other methods that might be suitable for the re-balance mod where I can start making more individualistic changes.


Links:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...5&postcount=90

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...9&postcount=95

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...5&postcount=96

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...6&postcount=99

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...&postcount=101

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...&postcount=102

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...&postcount=104

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...&postcount=105

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...&postcount=106

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...&postcount=107

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...&postcount=108

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...&postcount=110

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...&postcount=111

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...&postcount=112

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...&postcount=113

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...&postcount=114

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...&postcount=115

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...&postcount=116

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...&postcount=117

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...&postcount=118

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...&postcount=119

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...&postcount=120

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...&postcount=121

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...&postcount=126

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...&postcount=128

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...&postcount=129


A link to page three of the thread, the argument spills over from half way down three onto page 4 (makes for easier reading than all those individual links, but they cut the unimportant posts out):

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...t=78069&page=3


Give me a minute and I'll write a summary of the situation.

The situation is this, in my v1.11 bug fixer Halberds where still proving underpowered. No matter what i did they where getting soundly beat by Pikes and struggling with S&S. Considering their price and tech tree position this was a silly situation to have. Every Halberd in the Game is Late Tech era, the same as Pikes, and they are all very expensive comparative to pikes, (Halberd Militia are double the price of Pike Militia for example). Indeed the way they are set up in game (Pikes with a better secondary weapon), should eliminate most of the big weaknesses that Pikes typically suffer from. Namely Flank/Rear attacks and having their formation compromised. Their better Armour but lower speed tends to equal roughly the same missile defense, or maybe a bit less depending. Overall it's also clear that CA intended them to be better than Pikes.

The problem is three-fold.

1. Pikes are already pretty good. Anything better is risking serious IMBA.

2. It takes away from the unique feel of Halberds who are currently a kind of 2-Hander and Pike rolled into one.

3. With A pikes the Halberds are nearly untouchable unless you flank them and they beat anything you put in front of them so fast it's scary.


As a result of this i decided to try something else. Say a combined 2-hander/spear unit. Initial experiments where promising with a quick change to Obudshaer's with no stats rises showing them to work brilliantly. Sadly, to get Halberd Militia working like this required MASSIVE defense raises. This totally IMBA's the top level halberds and even the mid level halberds are a Little OTT.


I'll use a modified version of something I put in one of my previous posts:


I'll give you the news in 3 Portions, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.


THE UGLY

Like all Spear units, they need a good basic defense to be able to survive Late era Cav charges, I was thus forced, (to make Halberd Militia useful), to raise their total defense by some 14 points. 10 Armour, 4 Defense Skill. (For Voulgeirs I could have got by with as Little as 6 points, and 9 for Voulge militia. Less for Swordstaff militia and Obudshaer's.)


THE GOOD

Removing the Phalanx and Long_Pike Abilities has greatly increased their speed making them much more maneuverable and thus useful on both attack and defense.

The Spear attribute seems to keep their kill rate under control by and large, and thus they aren't Uber, (more in a moment on specifics).

Their Missile resistance is raised, whilst a bit Uber in some cases, (see "THE BAD" in a moment), it's generally a Little less than what working Shields would have but a bit better than what most 2-handers have. A bit of a mix really.

More specifics on kills: generally they will beat S&S with a 3:2 or 1:1 kill rate, and the same for Late Cav. They tend to be beaten by 2-handers, with the 2-Handers managing a 3:2/2:1 kill rate against them. Spears I haven't tested, but I'd expect a general massacre as with all other infantry. Halberd Militia are considerably worse than this getting beaten 2:1 by S&S and much more by 2-Handers. They are about 2:3 with Cav though.

In other words they don't tend to beat any non-Cav unit decisively, but they don't tend to get beaten decisively either. Even when they lose they take most of the enemy with them and when they win they lose most of the unit.

However they are good all rounders.

In effect you don't really expect them to beat anything as well as another unit in your army would, but they won't get beaten by anything as bad as some units i your army would. (i.e. 2-Handers might beat S&S better than Halberds would, but the halberds will do better when faced with missile or Cav).

Their Primary disadvantages are their Price and the fact that specelists units can outperform them against individual targets, so an army of these will cot more than an army of specelists and be less effective, they do however give you a nice all rounder which can sometimes be a very valuable asset.


THE BAD

Auto-Calc doesn't take account of animations and they rely somewhat on having worse animations than proper 2-handers to keep the balance between them and proper 2-Handers.

Their missile defense is just a touch too good. They are currently closer to S&S than 2-Handers, this is mostly because of Halberd Militia, I could cut 5 points of Armour of everyone else and they wouldn't notice the loss vs. Cav charges. Halberd Militia would.

They are a bit too good vs. pikes because they have such a long weapon and such good defense. As a result they are pretty much the only unit that can strike at a Pikemen without having 5 or so attacks directed at him every round of attacks. Voulgeirs for example get beaten by Noble Pikes by a 3:2 kill ratio in the Pikes favor, considering the quality of Scottish infantry and the campaign tech levels, (big enough to mater to me here), this IS too low a kill rate, it should be more 2:1/3:1 IMHO.

The REALLY BAD news, Swiss Guard and Obudshaer's are to good ATM, I'll deal with each separately:

Swiss Guard aren't too OTT, but they are a bit. 17 Armour is far too good a missile defense, (considering how many well armored spears the Papal States gets), and their total of 26 defense all round is so good that all non-AP units struggle to hurt them. They tend to get 1:1 kill rates against 2-Handers and 3:1/4:1 against S&S, they are also impossible for pikes to deal with. Their only real balancing point is that they are Papal States only and that the Papal States don't get many other good melee units (Halberd Militia, Pike Militia and DFK are their best ones besides Swiss Guard). If they where the only problem I'd let them slide as 2 units of any S&S/2-Hander/Pike will beat 1 unit of Swiss Guard.

Obudshaer's are the real issue, with an even higher total defense of 31 and an Armour value of 23 they are just are TOO good. No non-AP missile unit could touch them, (thats daft, my HA dislike or not, it's too much of an effect on HA), and even some AP units will struggle. Don't get me wrong, with the Danish Infantry typically being poorly defended vs. missile fire, having a Halberd that is above average wouldn't bother me, but when they are virtually immune it's just not fair. They make Swiss Guard look daft as they can beat any Pike or S&S unit with less than 5 dead. Although strangely DGK can still beat them so it's defiantly Armour related. Cav also don't do much worse for some reason. Whilst I could have accepted Swiss Guard, these are simply too much.


As you can probably tell, much of the problem is elated to Halberd Militia, in buffing them I over-buffed everyone else in defense making them far too hard to kill TBH.

Indeed testing late last night showed than with the defense add-ons reduced to +5 Armour and +4 Defense Skill, only Obudshaer's and Halberd Militia weren't balanced, (although I need to do further Voulge Militia vs. Cav tests). Swiss Guard WHERE a touch good but I think I know what to edit to cure that.

Thus overall I'm convinced much of the problem with halberds in that form lies with the need to buff Halberd Militia so much which implies said Halberd Militia are a bit on the weak side compared to the others. Obudshaer's are IMBA just because they have such a good basic defense (17), ad any raises to them can quickly leave the unit almost impossible to hurt due to how high the defense is.

Of course thats just m,y favorite solution at the moment. 'd love to hear some more that don't involve turning them into AP pikemen. The only point to bear in mind is that the Western Halberds would need to be resistant to late era Cav charges as Poland, Hungary and Denmark don't get pikes or top level spears, so rely on Halberds for their late era, infantry based, Cav defense.

A littile bump :bounce: to let you know i'm done editing.

An anwser to this pos of Foz's.

Hopefully the Halberd Discussion will now move here.


All right, answers relative to Foz. Many thanks to him for helping me organize some thought, (frustrating though it is to realize I haven't been clear enough).

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short of proving a bug, you can't really suggest that CA intended units to perform in any way other than they actually do.

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In other words, halberds are MEANT to switch to melee, whereas pikes should not switch unless they get into serious trouble. The animation set and weaponswitch code should NOT be the same for both.

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As noted earlier I largely agree with Dopp but let me explain how I think each unit should perform.

Things Both should do: Both should Poke with Pike when charged and brace for charges. Both should Poke with Pike if not in General Melee range of an opponent. Both should switch to general melee attacks when an enemy is close enough to attack them with their own General melee attacks. These should be assessed on the basis of individuals within the unit, the whole unit shouldn't switch to general melee just because 3 of their guys are in general melee. Likewise, even if theirs just one guy who is in range to poke and isn't in general melee, he should poke.

Halberd Specific Stuff: Halberds should always attempt to close the distance so they can engage in general melee, but should keep poking until they are that close.

Pike Specific Stuff: Pikes should always attempt to avoid General melee and push the opponent away with their Pikes.

To help clarify:

Poke= What Pikes do when they use their Pikes.

General Melee=What Pikes do when they draw their swords.


The problem here is simple. If the Pikemen hasn't switched to a sword, then the Halberd isn't close enough to hack and thus should by all rights poke back, in which case the better Armour and AP of the Halbedier should see him win.

On the other hand, if the Halbedier is close enough to hack the Pikemen should be using his sword, said pikemen now has an even worse melee ability, and his opponent has a much better ability meaning he should win even more convincingly.

The only 2 ways to get Pikes to win. The First, is to make it so that the Halberds ONLY poke when receiving a charge and at no other time. This is basically what happens with Fixed Pikes vs. Halberds in V1.11 of my BugFixer.

This approach has 4 problems:

1. Although the Halberds will still do some damage, it tends to result in 3:1/4:1 kill rates in the Pikes Favor, thus the pikes quickly an efficiently decimate the Halberds as they hold them at a distance. Fixing their 2-hander animation bug and the Pike Changeover code may make things a bit better, but only so much IMHO.

2. It's really illogical, if they could poke 5 seconds ago at this distance, why can't they do so now.

3. It isn't really balanced. The Papal States for example lacks sufficiently good flank Guards to stop some armies from wiping out their Halbediers Flank Guards, whilst their Halberds are also getting beaten by the enemy Pikes. Denmark also has issues as although they have good flanking infantry, it's relatively unprotected vs. enemy Cav and missiles as they lack decent Armour and they don't have good enough spears to even slow down late era enemy Cav. Mounted Huscarls are pretty much your only hope at this point.

4. It exposes Halberds as the total idiocy they are and shows what i already knew. That they where only given the Pike abilities and Spear wall to make them Cav resistant. The reality is that Spear wall hurts them more than it helps them by and large as the mobility hit leaves them very vulnerable to the enemies Pikes. The trouble is the factions with them need the Cav resistance, (France HRE and Papal States aside).

The second Method is to artificially Nerf the Pike attack of Halberds to the point where Pikes can beat them when poking. heir are also 4 issues with this method.

1. see point 1 above.

2. see point 3 above.

3. see point 4 above.

4. Doing this needs a working changeover code that DOESN'T have them all switch to general melee mode just because a few are in general melee range.

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As for prices, aren't the pike prices historically correct? (relative to other unit costs, I mean) I seem to recall discussion somewhere that halberds are in fact expensive to make, as they require the expertise of a sword smith, where the pike has a simple end that even an apprentice blacksmith in some backwater town could easily make. Carl already pointed out that halberds wear a lot more armor too, so it seems entirely justified that men fitted with good armor and high quality weapons should cost a LOT more than men wearing very light armor (most pike units wear none at all) and carrying simple weapons.

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I actually don't think anything should be done about their costs. As I just mentioned above, the field equipment of a pike unit is absolutely cheap to produce, being mostly just the cost of a pike per man as they typically don't wear any armor. Recruitment costs are FAR outweighed by upkeep costs anyway, and so their low cost in no way makes them broken... Especially since a few missile units will easily decimate them before they are near enough to do anything. It's not like they're some kind of unbeatable unit - they die to missiles and to attacks from anywhere that isn't the front.

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The problem is Foz, that whilst I do try to keep historical feel, (DUH!), where I can. However, I'm not going to sacrifice balance for that. So if Swiss Guard and Obudshaer's are more expensive than Noble Pikemen they have to justify that expense, (by either being better or part of armies that need their abilities less, neither is fully true of either the Danes or the Papal States). If they don't then they should be cheaper, or the Pikes more expensive.

The same holds true of Voulgeirs/Voulge Militia/Swordstaff Militia/Halberd Militia vs. Pike Militia/Pikemen/Avertoues.


Also, I WON'T be using Upkeep, OR Recruitment Pool Size, OR Replenish Rate to balance the units in my Re-Balance mod, I'll adjust those to fit how I balance the units and to encourage diversity in both armies and between factions. As well as to encourage good AI armies and to create differences between factions with similar units.

(No offence meant BTW, I understand what your saying but i'm just choosing to use a diffrent method of balancing, thats all.)


Don't get me wrong, despite saying I think the best Halberds should beat the best Pikes head on because of overall faction Balance, thats ONLY because of how Halberds are right now, (p.s. the better Armour doesn't help vs. missile because of the lower movement speed of halberds). If they where the same as they where now but where able to run and charge like a 2-hander I wouldn't mind pikes beating them as they could avoid them.

In fact thats my really problem with Halberds, they AREN'T historically accurate in any way shape or form and are set up more as weaker, (than an equivalent cos 2-Hander), 2-handers with extra Cav resistance, (due to their Pikes and Spear Wall abilities). Unfortunately, giving them Spear Wall took away the normal defense of 2-Handers against Pikes. Namely the 2-Handers simply avoid attacking them head on.

Armies with Pikes tend to try and keep their flanks secure and force the enemy into their pikes, whilst those with 2-Handers instead try to avoid the pikes head on and break through the Flank Guard.

Halberds combined the inability of 2-Handers to beat Pikes head on with the inability of Pikes to avoid engaging other Pikes head on. It's an automatically bad combination no matter what the anti-Cav benefits, (or the flank/rear Resistance compared to Pikes).

In reality until you take away the mobility disadvantages, (and thus allow them to easily avoid the Pikes head on), you won't get a working Halberd unit thats really balanced IMHO.


One possibility I'm exploring is to slightly raise the mass of the Halberds to see if that doesn't let me use lower defense values and thus get working Halberds without insane defense values that make them IMBA vs. infantry.

I largely agree with how they should behave in the game.

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Originally Posted by Carl

The problem here is simple. If the Pikemen hasn't switched to a sword, then the Halberd isn't close enough to hack and thus should by all rights poke back, in which case the better Armour and AP of the Halbedier should see him win.

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AP is worthless against pikes, they have no armor in most cases. Better armor is applicable, but the game seems to portray pikes as longer than halberds, so it's possible the pikes should have an advantage due to that.

The next bunch of your post discusses making pikemen beat halberds. I do not care at all which one beats which. What I care about is that you don't F up the balance between the 2 units in vanilla by adding points to one and not the other. They fill such similar rolls in the armies of the factions that have them, that it is not fair to alter one without doing the same to the other. I don't think I've ever said anything that was along the lines of trying to make one beat the other, and if I have, I did not intend to do so. I want them to remain relative to each other in the same way, and that notion stems from the fact that I thought you were trying to be true to what the game designers were trying to do with the game. If not, fine, but if that's the case then this is the point where I jump off.

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The problem is Foz, that whilst I do try to keep historical feel, (DUH!), where I can. However, I'm not going to sacrifice balance for that. So if Swiss Guard and Obudshaer's are more expensive than Noble Pikemen they have to justify that expense, (by either being better or part of armies that need their abilities less, neither is fully true of either the Danes or the Papal States). If they don't then they should be cheaper, or the Pikes more expensive.

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I already explained that they do justify that price difference. Thier weapons and armor have better stats and cost more to manufacture, and consequently they are largely pikes without the drawbacks. Having no drawbacks is something that ought to be worth an awful lot of gold in and of itself, but even that being the case, I'm allowing for the unit to exist with the other perks too.

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(p.s. the better Armour doesn't help vs. missile because of the lower movement speed of halberds)

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What planet are you on? Guys with good armor can take more volleys than guys with none and STILL have less losses.

Scots Pike Militia vs Retinue Longbowmen:

41 dead pike militia from 9 volleys before Retinues took off running

Halberd Militia (w/ +10 armor) vs Retinue Longbowmen:

33 dead halberd militia from 15 volleys before Retinues took off running

So don't tell me the armor doesn't help. Even if they took the exact same number of casualties crossing the field, it would STILL cost the archers more arrows to cause those casualties, and that too is an advantage since those are arrows not being fired at other men in your army.

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Halberds combined the inability of 2-Handers to beat Pikes head on with the inability of Pikes to avoid engaging other Pikes head on. It's an automatically bad combination no matter what the anti-Cav benefits, (or the flank/rear Resistance compared to Pikes).

In reality until you take away the mobility disadvantages, (and thus allow them to easily avoid the Pikes head on), you won't get a working Halberd unit thats really balanced IMHO.

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You're going off on tangents that assume no other units exist. Halberds do not need to beat pikes or be able to outmaneuver them. They only need to be able to break cavalry (which was the original and only valid point brought up concerning what they need to do, as it's the only thing the halberd nations are left without if the halberds cannot do it). We don't need this debate to degenrate into a pissing match between pikes and halberds. Ranged attacks are SO effective against pikes that you should never have to worry about your halberds encountering them, and if they do, your halberds deserve to die horrible deaths for your foolish commanding of them.

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One possibility I'm exploring is to slightly raise the mass of the Halberds to see if that doesn't let me use lower defense values and thus get working Halberds without insane defense values that make them IMBA vs. infantry.

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The halberds work fine against cav when they have spearwall, don't they? I swear, you just keep changing things that break the unit further and force it to become more and more IMBA, when it was doing everything it needed to before you even touched it.

[/FrustratedRant]

My observations do not stem solely from historical preference, but also from a practical modding perspective. It's currently impossible to make halberds poke more without taking away their distinctive hacking animations completely. There doesn't seem to be a way around it, nor do I think that there should be. I agree that halberds are part spear and should use their reach when necessary. But they are also part axe and do hacking pretty well. CA has done a good job in effecting a compromise: they work as spears for the important part (breaking the charge) and then work their magic by chopping in melee. They'll do their job effectively enough against cavalry, and put up a decent fight against non-pike units. I wish the contest could be more even against pikemen, but the fact is, most other powerful units also have trouble surviving confrontations with pikemen, hence my comment that trying to balance something to beat pikemen in melee is going to see stats skyrocket, or strange attributes applied.

This whole thread is good for a laugh. You guys are ending up with perfect
balance between cost and power, and ridiculous battle outcomes. In your
world, just because a guy with a two handed sword and advanced plate
armour costs more to equip, he should be able to defeat a naked guy on a
horse... even if the rider is charging with stirrups and a lance.

I just hope your ideas of what the game should be does not influence the
developers or modders like Lusted.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tuidjy

This whole thread is good for a laugh. You guys are ending up with perfect
balance between cost and power, and ridiculous battle outcomes. In your
world, just because a guy with a two handed sword and advanced plate
armour costs more to equip, he should be able to defeat a naked guy on a
horse... even if the rider is charging with stirrups and a lance.

I just hope your ideas of what the game should be does not influence the
developers or modders like Lusted.

---

Whilst I don't necessarily agree with some of the changes proposed in this thread, such as massively boosting armour for halberds, a post like this is no help whatsoever.

It begs the question whether you actually know what Lusted's done in his fine mod at all...? It's full of stat re-adjustments and balance tweaks.

Wouldn't you be better posting something constructive?

Anyway, regarding the discussion at hand I tend to agree with the_foz. Western phalanx based halberds should retain their flavour and remain different from their Eastern counterparts. Boosting their defence is not something I'm inclined to agree with, particularly since that's supposed to the achilles heel of halberds and pikes. On that note, the only successful change I've found that the AI can also use, is to remove their secondary attack just like some have done for pikes.

> a post like this is no help whatsoever.

Of course, it's no help whatsoever. It is not meant to be. I'm disgusted with
the way this mod is going, and I want to be a jerk. I admit, I have nothing
to add to this particular discussion, much in the way I wouldn't add to a
discussion about the color in which a guy should die his short hairs.

> what Lusted's done in his fine mod at all...? It's full of stat re-adjustments
> and balance tweaks.

Yes, and amazingly enough, with all his tweaks, the battles still make sense,
and warriors behave a lot more like their historical counterparts that they do
in the vanilla version. As opposed, for example, pikemen who march through
longbow fire to successfully engage and rout men who should have
shot them to pieces.

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AP is worthless against pikes, they have no armor in most cases. Better armor is applicable, but the game seems to portray pikes as longer than halberds, so it's possible the pikes should have an advantage due to that.

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I can't say for sure on the reach thing, it doesn't look like that in game to me. But they stop poking so fast I can't tell.

The AP comment was with regards the best Pikes vs. the Best Halberds, of course it has no effects at the lower levels.

Also, an extra point that I realized whilst posting the next reply. They don't actually have better attack in vanilla, they have much worse/similar. They have +5 attack in my Bug Fixer.

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The next bunch of your post discusses making pikemen beat halberds. I do not care at all which one beats which. What I care about is that you don't F up the balance between the 2 units in vanilla by adding points to one and not the other. They fill such similar rolls in the armies of the factions that have them, that it is not fair to alter one without doing the same to the other.

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I understand that, the problem is their isn't any balance between halberds and anything in vanilla, they beat 2-handers, but everything else of a similar price just rolls overs them.


Here's a list of what I had to add to Halberds to get them working in V1.11 of my BugFixer, (because of shield bugfix effects), along with a list of why:


Give their Primary Weapon, (the Pike, not the Axe) the Spear Attribute.

Reason: Cav charges head on into them, (even with 60 men), where easily wiping out 2/3 of the unit. The best Cav where simply rolling over them, although not without 50% losses to the Cav, (Tested With Voulgier, Halberd Militia where MUCH worse, (like 90% dead with nearly no dead Cav)). They where OK vs. weak knights, but late era ones just demolished them.


Add +5 Attack to both their Primary and Secondary Weapons.

Reason: Even though their main weapon (their Axe) was unaffected by the Spear Attribute, they where still getting beaten by even weak S&S. After this Halberd Militia can beat Swordsman Militia, Voulgeirs can do the same but a bit better, but can't beat Noble Swordsmen, Swiss Guard/Obudshaer's can beat Noble Swordsmen. It's worth noting at this point that the Halberd Hack animation has similar 2-Hander animation Bugs as most 2-Handers, and that this doubtless skews things a Little.

NOTE: If their animations weren't Bugged i doubt the +5 attack would be necessary.

Raise their unit size from 48 to 60 men.

Reason: Cav that charged them where lapping around the edges of the formation and wiping it out from the Flanks.


Thus my point is that overall it takes a LOT of modification to actually get them to beat anything. The only unit they seem to do well against in Vanilla is 2-handers who have their charge nullified by the Pike Component. Everything else just rolls over them like they aren't there.

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don't think I've ever said anything that was along the lines of trying to make one beat the other, and if I have, I did not intend to do so. I want them to remain relative to each other in the same way, and that notion stems from the fact that I thought you were trying to be true to what the game designers were trying to do with the game. If not, fine, but if that's the case then this is the point where I jump off.

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I never meant to imply that you thought Halberds should beat Pikes. That's my opinion on the matter. I'm quite clear that you think they should be weaker than Pikes when stabbing, (because they have better hacking ability), whilst I'm convinced they aren't balanced like that.

As to sticking to designer Intent. I'm honestly not sure what their intent WAS with halberds anymore. All they do well is beat other 2-handers and damage Cav.

Overall I think it comes down to point of view, I at first thought they where Pikes with a good secondary hack attack (like 2-Hander). Further messing in vanilla and a closer look at their stats and attributes makes me think they where meant as 2-handers with charge resistance. Theirs a big difference between the 2 really. The Pikes one require they have a Pike. The 2-hander is best with a Pike, (infantry charge resistance), but could use a spear instead, (which is what my high defense one is an experiment in really, replacing the Pike with a Spear).

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What planet are you on? Guys with good armor can take more volleys than guys with none and STILL have less losses.

Scots Pike Militia vs Retinue Longbowmen:

41 dead pike militia from 9 volleys before Retinues took off running

Halberd Militia (w/ +10 armor) vs Retinue Longbowmen:

33 dead halberd militia from 15 volleys before Retinues took off running

So don't tell me the armor doesn't help. Even if they took the exact same number of casualties crossing the field, it would STILL cost the archers more arrows to cause those casualties, and that too is an advantage since those are arrows not being fired at other men in your army.

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The problem is you've given the Halberd Militia more Armour. I was talking about vanilla. So with basic Armour values, here the figures for Voulgeirs:

42 dead from 14 volleys before the archers took of running.

You are Right about the number of missiles used, but the Voulgeirs are also 3.5 times as expensive. Even if Pike Militia where twice as expensive, the Voulgeirs would still cost half again as much. SO, the Voulgeirs are sacrificing support units to get the enemy to use more arrows on them. In effect it should balance out in theory.

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You're going off on tangents that assume no other units exist. Halberds do not need to beat pikes or be able to outmaneuver them. They only need to be able to break cavalry (which was the original and only valid point brought up concerning what they need to do, as it's the only thing the halberd nations are left without if the halberds cannot do it). We don't need this debate to degenerate into a pissing match between pikes and halberds. Ranged attacks are SO effective against pikes that you should never have to worry about your halberds encountering them, and if they do, your halberds deserve to die horrible deaths for your foolish commanding of them.

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Your right their are other units and I actually went into how they impact things once already. The point made was that, (comparative to Scotland, France, and Spain, (the big Pike Users)), the Danes and Papal States have NO advantage over them and many disadvantages. The claim that the Pikes should never make it to the melee with the Halberds is also daft IMHO. The Halberds are too slow to run away from the Pikes so you've got at the most 8 volleys with archers and about 4 with crossbows before they get into melee. Your own tests with Retinue Longbowmen vs. unarmored Pikes showed you could only kill 33 guys from the unit in that time. Even on small unit size that just over half the unit. The pikes are STILL very effective at this point in my experience. Neither Denmark nor Papal State's missile units are likely to outperform Retinue Longbowmen on kills.

The other problem is that the Halberds all cost significantly more than a lot of pikes, (even taking the under-costing of Pike Militia into account). This means that to get the same number of units of Halberds as the enemy has Pikes, you need to sacrifice a LOT of supporting units, (Missiles, Flank Guard, and/or Cav), to get the Halberds. This make it even easier for the enemy formation to arrive at your formation in good shape and/or beat your flank guards.

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I already explained that they do justify that price difference. Thier weapons and armor have better stats and cost more to manufacture, and consequently they are largely pikes without the drawbacks. Having no drawbacks is something that ought to be worth an awful lot of gold in and of itself, but even that being the case, I'm allowing for the unit to exist with the other perks too.

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The problem is they DO still have most of the drawbacks of Pikes and Lack one of their chief advantages of Pikes.

Whilst they ARE more missile resistant, they suffer from a High Price which negates much of this advantage.

They are more Flank Attack resistant than Pikes, but any decent non-Spear unit in the Flank will STILL beat them, they'll just take more of the enemy with them when they go down. They just don't have the Attack values of a 2-hander to see of weak non-Spear melee units.

They lack the ability of Pikes to hold an opponent at a distance as they always try, (and should try), to switch to general melee. When they do that the enemy is now able to strike back en-mass, thus they lose far more of their number than pikes would as Pikes are more able to hold enemies at a distance, and thus suffer losses only from the odd enemy that gets through.

Lastly, they too suffer from a mobility problem and as a result are unsuitable for placing on the flanks of an army. Like Pikes they need to be used as a solid center with the rest of your army devoted to protecting their flanks and otherwise supporting them. Under these circumstances, the only time the enemy should be attacking the Flanks/rear of your Halberds with more than a badly depleted unit is if they collapse one of your flanks. If they do that to you, (and you aren't doing the same on the opposite flank), then the basic battle plan has failed and your probably going to lose, flank/rear resistance or not.

Thats the real issue here, their low mobility forces you to use them in Formation similar to those of a Pikes, and as a result the only important factor in these situations for the Pike/Halberd is their kill rate to the front. this is extremely high for working pikes, but nowhere near as good for Halberds. Thus Halberds are worse for a given Price. Add in their similar overall missile resistance, (over a given time period), and it's abundantly clear that armies with Halberds are totally inferior if they don't have better flank units/missile units, both overall and for their price (since the Halberds are more expensive).

Overall I don't believe either Denmark or the Papal States have better Flank units than Scotland/Spain/France.

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My observations do not stem solely from historical preference, but also from a practical modding perspective. It's currently impossible to make halberds poke more without taking away their distinctive hacking animations completely. There doesn't seem to be a way around it, nor do I think that there should be. I agree that halberds are part spear and should use their reach when necessary. But they are also part Axe and do hacking pretty well. CA has done a good job in effecting a compromise: they work as spears for the important part (breaking the charge) and then work their magic by chopping in melee. They'll do their job effectively enough against cavalry, and put up a decent fight against non-pike units. I wish the contest could be more even against pikemen, but the fact is, most other powerful units also have trouble surviving confrontations with pikemen, hence my comment that trying to balance something to beat pikemen in melee is going to see stats skyrocket, or strange attributes applied.

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Overall I agree with you Dopp in everything you've just said. My main complaint is the way that the low mobility of Halberds forces Halberds to be used in the same manner as pikes, something Pikes are much better at both for given stats AND for a given price.

Quote:

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This whole thread is good for a laugh. You guys are ending up with perfect
balance between cost and power, and ridiculous battle outcomes. In your
world, just because a guy with a two handed sword and advanced plate
armour costs more to equip, he should be able to defeat a naked guy on a
horse... even if the rider is charging with stirrups and a lance.

---

I'll largely echo Jambo's comments here. However to give you an explanation. Halbediers HAVE to be able to beat Cav in game because it's the ONLY infantry unit that Poland, Hungary, and Denmark get that can possibly be allowed to beat Cav and not be out of character compared to other unit in their class. Denmark is actually Infantry based and thus NEEDS a unit like this no matter what.

Quote:

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Anyway, regarding the discussion at hand I tend to agree with the_foz. Western phalanx based halberds should retain their flavour and remain different from their Eastern counterparts. Boosting their defence is not something I'm inclined to agree with, particularly since that's supposed to the achilles heel of halberds and pikes.

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I agree that they should remain unique, and my attempts to change them keep that. They work nothing like Eastern Halberds and have their own unique style, their just different to the old Halberds in some ways.

When it comes to fixing halberds we have 3 basic options when moving on from my V1.11 BugFixer.

A): Increase the Halberd units stats until they have a cost to performance ratio is equal to pikes (taking into account how well supported they are withing the army/armies they appear in).

B): Decrease their cost till they have cost to performance ratio is equal to pikes (taking into account how well supported they are withing the army/armies they appear in).

C): Remove their Mobility Disadvantage so that they are no longer used in the same way as Pikes and thus don't need to be able to beat them.


I went for C. Your solution (make them AP Pikes), is A.

Using C whilst keeping their Cav resistance means Giving them more defense so they are actually resistant to Cav charges is an absolute necessity. Removing the Spear Wall also completely changes how they work, so they shouldn't necessarily have the same advantages and disadvantages of what Halberds had previously.

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As opposed, for example, pikemen who march through
longbow fire to successfully engage and rout men who should have
shot them to pieces.

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First they don't work like Pikemen in the raised defense version as they lose their pikes.

Second, I don't like them having +10 Armour either, in fact +5 is more than enough for all but Voulge Militia and Halberd Militia. Thats why I'm experimenting with higher mass. (Although it's taken me half the day to write this reply so I haven't got any testing done yet~:() This overpowered defense rise of 14 points is also responsible for their ability to beat pikes Head on. I don't WANT them to beat pikes head on once I've taken Spear wall away from them.

Three, They are actually meant to perform like weaker versions of 2-Handers, but with the advantage of having a Spear type weapon to use against Cav. But they are weaker and more expensive than 2-handers, and (with just +5 Armour), not normally better protected from missiles, (and Obudshaer's are crazy in vanilla, 13 points of Armour with no changes, so they arn't the best thing to use as a comparision after changes).


Hope the above bit helps describe how they work better and what I'm trying to achieve with my experiments.

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Originally Posted by Carl

Thats the real issue here, their low mobility forces you to use them in Formation similar to those of a Pikes, and as a result the only important factor in these situations for the Pike/Halberd is their kill rate to the front. this is extremely high for working pikes, but nowhere near as good for Halberds. Thus Halberds are worse for a given Price. Add in their similar overall missile resistance, (over a given time period)...

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Uh, no. A given time period would be the SAME number of enemy volleys. Voulgiers took 14 volleys to the pike's 9, but took the same number of casualties, which is ~1.5 times as many volleys. 3/2 inverted is 2/3, so the same number of volleys should kill about 2/3 as many voulgiers. Anyway, not really that important, just wanted to clarify.

Since the problem here is primarily the disparity between halberds and pikes when they in fact should fill almost the exact same purpose in an army, I'd recommend we take one of the following 2 actions:

1. Give halberds the pike animations (with secondary attack set none to avoid pike glitch) or just remove their secondary attack. This turns them into pikemen essentially. We'd then have to consider toning pikes and halberds down so they are less ridiculous at grinding whatever is to their front.
2. Give pikes the halberd animations (keeping their vanilla secondary attack stats). This (I'm guessing) is a way to keep their secondary attacks intact, which has the prospect of unbreaking the pikes (OTT b/c of no secondary attack) while still avoiding the problem of them having swords. Pikes would become swordsmen still, but the sword would use halberd animations and presumably be as good (animation-, not stat-wise) as the halberd's secondary attack then. Then you can bump up pike and halberd attack stats across the board until they can beat cavalry, and they should grind each other down about the same amount from the front in combat.

As far as I can see these are the only 2 options that are not going to throw the units out of whack when facing each other, which some people have expressed as a concern.

I think I prefer making pikes halberd-ish and then boosting both, because then at least pikes will draw swords some of the time and it may reduce the meatgrinder effect. Will test when I'm home.

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Uh, no. A given time period would be the SAME number of enemy volleys. Voulgiers took 14 volleys to the pike's 9, but took the same number of casualties, which is ~1.5 times as many volleys. 3/2 inverted is 2/3, so the same number of volleys should kill about 2/3 as many voulgiers. Anyway, not really that important, just wanted to clarify.

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I think you knew what i meant though:smash:.

For any who is Confused: When i said same time period, i meant the time period it takes Halberds and Pikes to close with each other compared to Pikes closing with Pikes. It's longer with Halberds closing on pikes than it is with Pikes closing on Pikes. Thus in the time it takes them to close the Halberds will take more volleys and suffer about the same losses as pikes.

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2. Give pikes the halberd animations (keeping their vanilla secondary attack stats). This (I'm guessing) is a way to keep their secondary attacks intact, which has the prospect of unbreaking the pikes (OTT b/c of no secondary attack) while still avoiding the problem of them having swords. Pikes would become swordsmen still, but the sword would use halberd animations and presumably be as good (animation-, not stat-wise) as the halberd's secondary attack then. Then you can bump up pike and halberd attack stats across the board until they can beat cavalry, and they should grind each other down about the same amount from the front in combat.

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AND

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think I prefer making pikes halberd-ish and then boosting both, because then at least pikes will draw swords some of the time and it may reduce the meatgrinder effect. Will test when I'm home.

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A few Points:

1. Their isn't actually any issues with the Pikemen Sword animation, the problem is that the Pikemen switch to their swords too soon and don't do a good job of holding enemy units at bay with the Pike points, (much of this is because they only attack in 2 ranks, instead of the 4 I'm told they did in RTW).

2. Despite that the Halberd animation IS better than the sword one, so it should help them when using swords.

3. The pike animation of Halberds is much slower, as a result Pikemen are simply never going to use their pikes against anything except Cav as anything except Cav will be able to just get past the pikes between attacks and force a switch to swords.

4. Pikemen would need major defense buffs if they are going to compete against swordsmen in this mode, with their animation still being slow they are going to be heavily limited in how much you can buff them via attack alone IMO.

5. With a lot of micromanagement it's actually possible to get Vanilla Pikes to perform like they do in the "fix", it just requires you to babysit the pikes constantly.


Also a Question:

1. Whats your specific problem with Pikes in Dopps Fix? Is it kill rates, (how many they kill for how many they lose), or kill speeds, (how fast they kill their opponents)?

MY VIEW

I have no issues with even 10:1 kill rates for pikes, they should be like the Phalanx's of RTW in that if you attack them head on it's nobody's fault but your own if you get soundly beaten.

On the other hand I DO have issues with the kill speed of Pikes. They are WAY too high IMHO.

In effect i believe Pikes should be able to beat 5 and 6 to 1 odds if the enemy attacks them head on, and do it with few losses. However, I DO NOT believe they should do this quickly. Currently, even fairly expensive units can't keep pikes tied up whilst you try to get into the flanks of said pikes. In reality even simple Town Militia and Spear Militia should be good for this, and should be able to do it for a LONG times at that giving you plenty of time to actually find a way into their flanks.


OVERALL

Overall I'd say that option 2 is best for bug-fixing (limited re-balancing necessary), whilst 1 is better for Re-Balance mods likes this as it's more how pikes should be, (IMHO of course), but is much harder to make work.


p.s. Did I manage to explain my Halberd Concerns more clearly this time round? (Based on some comments in your last post I think I did but I'm not sure).

p.p.s. Since 2 is probably better for My BugFixer I WILL be whatching your test results with intrest.

My largest issue with the pike "fix" is the fact that for all intents and purposes, pikes are an immovable object from the front, even if troops get through. This, combined with the fact that flanking a pike formation gets rather iffy at best (you're basically making a frontal attack with only the bonuses for being on the flank, none of the weakness that TW pike formations are supposed to have from the side).

I have less issue with micromanagement being required, as then it takes the player's attention away from other issues present in many fights, particularly if the AI starts to field a balanced force. Phalanx formations were quite balanced in RTW (Ignoring the superspartans) largely because of the flank/rear weakness. Take that away and you might as well be training heavy cav at cities.

I don't really have much of an issue with the fixed pikes. I would like to see them pull out their secondary weapons, and them doing so would make them perform much more reasonably in combat I think. Like you said Carl they are a bit too efficient at wiping out the enemy quickly ATM, but after playing with things a while it doesn't seem as horrible as I at first thought.

As for the 2 above suggestions I made, you can scratch the one the makes pikes halberd-like. They pull out the swords, but it looks ridiculous (they hold them as if they're surrendering, blade flat in 2 hands lol). Also seems like they're still prone to having everyone do the switch-over still too, which isn't cool.

The other one is promising though - I just removed the secondary attacks of the halberds and under attributes added "pike." It seems to make their spearwall a bit more effective doing that. I had voulgiers doing well against even high level cavalry, and I think if I make them use the larger unit size, it'll be about where I think the units should be at. Didn't get a chance to look at them against other units much though yet. I don't think any other attack or defense modding will be required though to make it work out.

One more possible solution: nerf pike attack. Or has this already been tried? Pikes could do with something like 5-6 attack for militia pikes, 7-8 for Tercios and 9-10 for Swiss. It might also be possible to slow down the attack animation.

From what I have seen, pikemen engaged from the flank simply turn in place and poke, no different from before except they use pikes rather than swords. It's not like RTW where the whole phalanx executes a perfect right face and jabs at you with all four ranks. The 'fix' doesn't break their basic vulnerability from the sides and rear.

Pikemen and halberds were pretty useless in the orginal MTW too. Pikemen kept getting outflanked precisely because of their multiple fighting ranks (meaning you had to deepen their formation). Halberds had this miserable attack of 1 that required all their other bonuses and AP to bump up to merely average. Elite versions (SAPs and Janissaries), however, were easily the best troops in the game.

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I don't really have much of an issue with the fixed pikes. I would like to see them pull out their secondary weapons, and them doing so would make them perform much more reasonably in combat I think. Like you said Carl they are a bit too efficient at wiping out the enemy quickly ATM, but after playing with things a while it doesn't seem as horrible as I at first thought.

As for the 2 above suggestions I made, you can scratch the one the makes pikes halberd-like. They pull out the swords, but it looks ridiculous (they hold them as if they're surrendering, blade flat in 2 hands lol). Also seems like they're still prone to having everyone do the switch-over still too, which isn't cool.

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Thanks Foz, I suspected it might not work. Just so you know, reducing formation gaps dosen't work eithier~:(. 1.2, (the defualt), seems to be as low as it will go.

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The other one is promising though - I just removed the secondary attacks of the halberds and under attributes added "pike." It seems to make their spearwall a bit more effective doing that. I had voulgiers doing well against even high level cavalry, and I think if I make them use the larger unit size, it'll be about where I think the units should be at. Didn't get a chance to look at them against other units much though yet. I don't think any other attack or defense modding will be required though to make it work out.

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Intresting, i'd forgoton about the Pike bit in the attributes line. Probably explains why I had to really mess with their attack and animations, (I gave them Pikemen animations), to get them poking fast enough to actually kill much.

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My largest issue with the pike "fix" is the fact that for all intents and purposes, pikes are an immovable object from the front, even if troops get through. This, combined with the fact that flanking a pike formation gets rather iffy at best (you're basically making a frontal attack with only the bonuses for being on the flank, none of the weakness that TW pike formations are supposed to have from the side).

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I'd partially agree with most of that Strland. They are in my expiriance vulnrable to having their formation broken up, but not perhaps as vulnrable as they should be, their slow turn rate with pikes and poor defence hurst them in melee, but their pikes attack animations are MUCH faster and the attack value isslightly bigger, so they find it very easy to kill opponnents. Likewise, if you flankl them then you have to have them engaged to the front or they will turn to face you and it's like attacking the front, if they are engaged, only those not allready stabbing and those your attacking turn towards you. Again, a bit better than it should be as the switchover code should make them allways use swords to the flank and rear.

As you say, they are affected much less by formation disruption and flank/rear attacks though and thats a problem TBH, but i'm not sure it's one we can do anything about. CA needs to re-implement the old switchover code from RTW IMHO.

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One more possible solution: nerf pike attack. Or has this already been tried? Pikes could do with something like 5-6 attack for militia pikes, 7-8 for Tercios and 9-10 for Swiss. It might also be possible to slow down the attack animation.

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I was going to try lowering the attack actually, and speeding up the animations, plus play with lower Skeleton Comp Factors, with any luck it should lower kill rate and increase the attack rate so that they are better at holding the enemy ot of the formation.

The about face bit from RTW is intresting, thats probably how we've ended up with current Pikes, they tried to optomise the code to stop that and help other things, and got it wrong.

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Originally Posted by dopp

One more possible solution: nerf pike attack. Or has this already been tried? Pikes could do with something like 5-6 attack for militia pikes, 7-8 for Tercios and 9-10 for Swiss. It might also be possible to slow down the attack animation.

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Originally Posted by Carl

I was going to try lowering the attack actually, and speeding up the animations, plus play with lower Skeleton Comp Factors, with any luck it should lower kill rate and increase the attack rate so that they are better at holding the enemy ot of the formation.

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I've been trying to figure out if nerfing pike attacks will be necessary. My main goal has become making the halberds operate as good as the pikes (since the pikes are crappy if made to operate as poorly as the halberds), hopefully without tweaking their stats... then being able to apply across-the-board changes to both and put them into balance if needed. I might be at the point of having them working at the same level via the changes I outlined above (halberds get: pike attribute, no secondary attack, and probably largest unit size. Kept own animations). They were similar against cav, but I haven't worked with them enough to have a feel if they're similar against other things.

As for speeding up or slowing down animations, how do we do that? (In case you guys aren't aware, the "wait between attacks" value that's set for each weapon appears to have no effect - at least it didn't when I played with it for archer units... so I hope you're not trying to use that) An interesting point about the skeleton comp factor is that if it works like Carl thinks and just amplifies attack by the given percentage, we can use it to adjust unit stats for a given class without messing with actual attack stats. It may provide better results doing that, too, because a +5 attack may double one unit's attack power while only adding 1/4 to another, where a .5 skeleton comp factor bump should make all units changed 50% more effective. Pikes could for instance try .75 (assuming they're 1.00 now) and get attack values (again assuming we correctly understand how it's applied) very close to what Dopp just outlined.

Also Carl, I'm not sure pikes need to be better at holding the enemy out of their formation. It's unrealistic to suggest that absolutely no one would ever get in range to take a swing at a pikeman, and it's currently the only way they take any losses at all from the front. It looks to me like a relatively low number of foot troops ever get close enough to swing, which to me seems just fine - every once in a while some guy can bat pikes away long enough to get inside their reach. Mostly they get breached on the charge anyway (even from foot troops this is when most get in swinging range) so making them poke more frequently won't really address that problem anyway since they don't poke when receiving a charge.

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Originally Posted by Carl

Likewise, if you flankl them then you have to have them engaged to the front or they will turn to face you and it's like attacking the front, if they are engaged, only those not allready stabbing and those your attacking turn towards you.

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Best option here is to take cavalry around behind them. Pin them with the heaviest armored unit you have, and then release the cavalry from behind. The pikes don't ever turn until general melee begins, and by that time even mailed knights will have crushed tons with the rear charge. I've also noticed you can come in on an angle from behind and take down a whole side plus the entire rear, which appears to maximize the charge's effectiveness b/c of hitting more surface area than a direct charge from the rear does. The best angle is probably parallel with the corners of the unit (i.e. draw a line through 2 opposite corners, and make sure your cav comes in facing along that line):

PPPPPPPPX
PPPPPPXPP
PPPPXPPPP
PPXPPPPPP
XPPPPPPPP

P is the pikes, and X is the line you want your cavalry to face. Note how the perimeter on the lower right defined by the Xs is 13 men, where a rear charge can only hit 9 directly. You can of course draw that line through the other 2 corners if your cav are swinging in from the enemy's left.

Of course you can also always fire into the melee with archers if you can't get a cav unit to the rear. You'll lose some men, but your troops engaging the pikes actually have more armor from their rear than the pikes do from the front in most cases. Better still if you can get an oblique shot, it keeps more of the friendly unit out of harm's way and gives your archers a deeper target too (since the enemy unit is wider corner-to-corner than it is front-to-back).

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As for speeding up or slowing down animations, how do we do that? (In case you guys aren't aware, the "wait between attacks" value that's set for each weapon appears to have no effect - at least it didn't when I played with it for archer units... so I hope you're not trying to use that)

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You where using the wrong stat for Missiles anyway when you tried that Foz, it's a tottally diffrent one for Missiles from melee to quote the EDU file:

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; stat_fire_delay  Extra delay over that imposed by animation, hetween volleys

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However decreasing the animation dely seems to have had no effect, so eithier that stat also control's melee, or the animations are as slow as they can go, (more likliy IMHO).

Also, Skeleton Comp factor isn't working right. Units with a vanillia value of somthing other than 1 are effected by changing it, but those with a value of 1 in vanillia are not.

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Also Carl, I'm not sure pikes need to be better at holding the enemy out of their formation. It's unrealistic to suggest that absolutely no one would ever get in range to take a swing at a pikeman, and it's currently the only way they take any losses at all from the front. It looks to me like a relatively low number of foot troops ever get close enough to swing, which to me seems just fine - every once in a while some guy can bat pikes away long enough to get inside their reach. Mostly they get breached on the charge anyway (even from foot troops this is when most get in swinging range) so making them poke more frequently won't really address that problem anyway since they don't poke when receiving a charge.

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The idea WAS to make them unpenetratable from the front, that way we could give them their swords back~:). Unfortunatlly experimenting with lower attack values has shown that even when under attack by half the pike unit, a Swordsmen can still make forward progress into the unit, you can't keep him stunned enough. So even if i'd been able to get faster attacks I doubt it would have worked.

I do agree it would have been unrealistic, but it wouldn't have looked absolutly stupid IMHO, and would have solved the problem for us.

Regarding giving halberds the larger unit size, are we talking just the phalanx-based western halberds or are we also talking the eastern halberds, e.g. ME_Halberd_Militia, Transilvanian_Peasants and JHI?

Also, what does giving them the pike attribute actually do?

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Originally Posted by Carl

You where using the wrong stat for Missiles anyway when you tried that Foz, it's a tottally diffrent one for Missiles from melee to quote the EDU file:

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; stat_fire_delay  Extra delay over that imposed by animation, hetween volleys

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However decreasing the animation dely seems to have had no effect, so eithier that stat also control's melee, or the animations are as slow as they can go, (more likliy IMHO).

Also, Skeleton Comp factor isn't working right. Units with a vanillia value of somthing other than 1 are effected by changing it, but those with a value of 1 in vanillia are not.

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@stat_fire_delay: BOO! It's already 0 for all the archer units we'd need to make faster.

As for the animation delay, I'm guessing it's a similar case to the skeleton comp factor: as every unit I've seen has the (presumed) default 25 for it, the game probably ignores any changes. Don't know why it would do that though. Maybe another bug, cuz I'm guessing that every value in the text file should be read and used.

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Originally Posted by IsItStillThere

I'd suggest you increase movement for all units, but especially agents and ships...makes the game a little less ponderous (on the campaign map). Something like 1.5 times their current movement.

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No.

:)

Why?

Because as it is now, the game is basically a siege game unless you fight in parts of africa or the steppes. You take your army, blitz to the next little city, siege and conquer it in one or two turns. I've changed the values a bit and if anything, they should be lowered just so you get some more field battles and avoid the super-blitzin' that wins the game in 20 turns.

Carl,

I really hope you don't use the term 'bugfixes' as a mod name for what you are proposing.

1) Other than the Foz's shield fix (which is his fix), many of the proposed 'bugfixes' you are proposing are subjective at best. If you want an example - your pike fix by eliminating the secondary weapon is dubious.

2) Personally I consider a real fix to be one that other respected modders have adopted. Lusted and Darth for example have not adopted your pike fix or your other 'tweaks'.

3) You are taking the same name of a highly regarded mod for RTW that dealt strictly with bugs and using it as your own. That I think is distasteful.

No offense intended. This is just my opinion.

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really hope you don't use the term 'bugfixes' as a mod name for what you are proposing.

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This mod will be called "Carl's Re-Balance Mod", the other one is the BugFixer, and is called fully "Carl's BugFixer".

The re-balance is TOTALLY SEPARATE from the BugFixer.

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1) Other than the Foz's shield fix (which is his fix), many of the proposed 'bugfixes' you are proposing are subjective at best. If you want an example - your pike fix by eliminating the secondary weapon is dubious.

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It got into my BugFixer simply because people where wanting a single mod that combined Dopps Pike Fix, Foz's Shield Fix, AND a 2-Hander Fix, other units then received some changes when it became clear they where made underpowered by the changes as some units had been balanced vs. bugged units and others vs. them when they where unbugged and many in auto-calc only and not on the actual battlemap.

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2) Personally I consider a real fix to be one that other respected modders have adopted. Lusted and Darth for example have not adopted your pike fix or your other 'tweaks'.

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Thats your prerogative, I gave people what they where asking for, nothing else, what they wanted was a mod that combined numerous "fixes". They also complained (rightfully) when it became clear some units where too weak because of the effects of what I'd done. Also, I believe Lusted and others have chosen to lower fixed 2-Hander attack and defense rather than raise the weak units. this is unacceptable to me as it effectively Nerf's 2-handers to the point of uselessness, theirs nothing they can do that fixed S&S won't do as well, and the S&S have better missile defense. The same argument (why take Pikes when S&S are better), is also the reason I like the Pike Fix, and possibly why others like it, and thus asked for it.

I can't comment in detail on Lusted or Darth as I've never heard of Darth and whilst i keep intending to download Lusted's LTC mod I've been busy trying to get everyone happy with my BugFixer.

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3) You are taking the same name of a highly regarded mod for RTW that dealt strictly with bugs and using it as your own. That I think is distasteful.

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I was unaware their was an existing mod under this name, and I'm sorry if you feel that I'm not fixing real bugs. As i say I'm only following an old saying:

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Give the people what they want.

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In addition, since I do not want to confuse people into thinking my mod shares any connection to the RTW one, or offend the makers of the original Mod, I will change the name forthwith to:

Carls Pike/Shield/2-Hander Fix

I will not however be able to change the title of the existing thread, but it is getting overlong, a new one is needed and I've got a new version nearly finished, so I'll start a new thread soon under that title.

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No offense intended. This is just my opinion.

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None taken, and in turn, none meant to you, mearly trying to explain myself.

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Also, I believe Lusted and others have chosen to lower fixed 2-Hander attack and defense rather than raise the weak units. this is unacceptable to me as it effectively Nerf's 2-handers to the point of uselessness, theirs nothing they can do that fixed S&S won't do as well, and the S&S have better missile defense.

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Well in my mod they are the best shock troops in game, and can beat equivalent S&S units, but are more vulnerable to cav and missiles.

So they're great for attacking, and can make a quick hole in the enemies lines for the rest of your troops to exploit, but they have thier weaknesses.

I haven't adpoted the pike fix as i think it makes them too powerful. It also makes pikes too strong from the rear as they just turn round and use their pikes. In my mod i just increased their mass by 2(helps keep enemy units away) and they seem to do better.

I've not touched halberds yet, as im not quite sure what to do with them. Part of me considers them quite well balanced as they are better against cav than other infantry except pikes, and they can do well in melee, but not as strong in either as specialist units like pikes/S&S units.

And if you want to make archer units fire faster, you need to edit the 2nd to last number on the stat_pri line. It is set to 25 by default. I set longbowmen to 0, tested them ingame with a unit of peasant archers next to them firing at the same time and they clearly fired faster.

Thanks for tking the time to clarify things lusted. The missile fire rate thing was actually to do with Foz attempting what you said as an experiment a while back.

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Originally Posted by Lusted

And if you want to make archer units fire faster, you need to edit the 2nd to last number on the stat_pri line. It is set to 25 by default. I set longbowmen to 0, tested them ingame with a unit of peasant archers next to them firing at the same time and they clearly fired faster.

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It's set to 25 by default... and apparently refuses to budge from that. I think all longbows fire faster than peasant archers - the catch is, those longbows set 0 in fact will not fire faster than themselves with the 2nd to last number left at 25. I didn't think to test a modified unit side by side with a normal one, but did run a unit of some sort of scottish pikes against the archers, first normal, then with that number set 0, then with it set 200. That should be 2.5s between attacks, 0s (minimum delay) between shots, and 20s between attacks. In all cases the archers I was using got off 9 shots at the incoming pikes before melee happened. My assumption was that the value is being ignored by the game - it seems likely that once they (CA) realized they had set no unit to use a value other than 25 they probably just optimized it by making it a constant in the hardcode.

In any case I'm off to duplicate my retinue longbowmen twice to see if the 3 of them fire in unison no matter what I set it to.