Kingdoms Battle Map Balance - Latest Blog entry

http://www.totalwarblog.com/

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As outlined in the recent blog by Jason, there has been some significant re-balancing of unit stats for Kingdoms, the expansion pack for Medieval II. I am Jack Lusted, now a Games Tester at The Creative Assembly UK, but when I helped Jason by contributing to the balancing of Kingdoms I was a modder from the Total War Community.

Although the last blog described the process involved in balancing Kingdoms, it did not say what has changed. In this blog I will aim to explain how the balance has altered from Medieval II, give examples of how specific units have changed, what most unit types should be used for, and how the balance varies between the four Kingdoms campaigns.

The re-balance is not a small one, there have been some big changes. Almost all, if not all of the units have had changes to their stats. Some minor, some major. This is to reflect the fact that the whole balance of the game has been re-examined.

The really big change is to cavalry. Cavalry unit sizes are now smaller, and their stats have been dropped. They are now 30 soldiers on normal unit sizes, which means on huge they are 60. But before you all cry 'nerf!', let me explain what this means in-game. The smaller unit sizes makes cavalry more maneuverable as the size of cavalry units in update 1.2 proved to be a little unwieldy at times. Now you can use them more fluidly. And despite having their stats dropped, an increase to the mass of the mounts they ride means that heavy cavalry still pack a devastating punch from the rear or flank. This means that heavy cavalry have moved away from frontal charging wrecking balls, towards how they were used in the original Medieval: Total War - fast moving flanking units who pack a devastating punch. Even with a frontal charge, they can still wreak major damage upon non-spear, pike, or halberd troops.

There have been several global stat changes. All armour values have been reduced by 2, and all shield values have been raised by 2. These changes are designed to increase the importance of shields in combat when charged, but make units more vulnerable from the rear. Most units without shields have also received a boost to their defense skill so they have not been weakened in melee. The exception being missile units but they now have greater accuracy and therefore more deadly projectiles, so it balances out.

An example of one of the units that has had major changes to its stats are the Zweihanders. In update 1.2 this unit had the following stats:

Attack: 14
Charge bonus: 6
Attack attributes: none
Armour: 7
Defense Skill: 4
Cost: 680

In Kingdoms their stats have been changed to:

Attack: 15
Charge bonus: 9
Attack attributes: armour piercing (only counts half target armour when attacking)
Armour: 5
Defense Skill: 8
Cost: 520 (390 in Americas where all unit costs are lower. More on that later)

Quite a big change as you can see. Now they are true shock troops who have a very powerful charge. With the changes in unit stats, there has been a redefining of how some unit types are used. I'm going to go through and try and cover every unit type and how they should be used in Kingdoms.

Heavy cavalry - no longer sweep all before them in frontal charges. Spearmen, pikes and halberds can all stop frontal charges from them, and heavy infantry are better at resisting them. However heavy cavalry still deliver a punch that can't be beat to the rear and flanks of other units, which combined with the fact they're cavalry, means they can get into positions which allow them to deal the hammer blow. Rear and flanking charges also come with morale penalties to the enemy so they're great at routing parts of the enemy line.

This has proved to be a more fun balance, and one that offers better for gameplay. Do not think that heavy cavalry are now underpowered, they are not. For instance in the Crusades campaign, knights are crucial to t he Kingdom of Jerusalem. No other unit can match the maneuverability, impact of charge or morale effect from a charge that heavy cavalry has. They're not nerfed, they just have a different use now.

Light cavalry - fast and maneuverable - they should be used for dealing with skirmishers, routers, horse archers and possibly rear charges into infantry if the infantry is engaged.

Horse archers - with the improved missile accuracy and smaller more manageable cavalry unit sizes, these guys are as deadly as they should be. Vulnerable to archers and faster light cavalry.

Elephants - no major changes here, still the wonderfully fun point and click weapons of destruction they've always been. Just like before flaming arrows, artillery, javelins etc. are the counters to them.

2 handed swordsmen - all 2 handed sword units have gained the armour piercing ability and similar changes to the Zweihanders. They are now perhaps the best shock infantry in the game, but are vulnerable to missles and cavalry, and will suffer heavy casualties in prolonged melee. If used in conjuction with sword and shield infantry to exploit the damage done by the 2 handers charge, they should be able to breach most battle lines.

2 handed axe / polearm units - these guys have been made tougher in melee, and have had slight tweaks to their attack stats. They can now survive better in melee and deal out lots of damage on the charge. Think of them as infantry versions of heavy cavalry. Vulnerable to missiles and cavalry charges.

Spearmen - their main use in Kingdoms should be as the most common anti-cavalry unit type, but with the boost to their attack, they can also take on other infantry a bit better. But as always suffer from the penalties they get from having the spear trait so will be outclassed by other infantry.

Pikemen - the specialist anti-cavalry unit. With much higher mass in Kingdoms no cavalry charge can beat them frontally, and they can also deal with infantry slightly better too. Very weak when flanked and not as good as spears against other types of infantry.

Halberds - they have received boost to their attack values and to mass, so they are better against both cavalry and infantry. Good assault troops, but slow moving and vulnerable to missiles.

Halberds without spearwall - from instance Janissary Heavy Infantry. Have had boost to their attack and defense stats and reductions to cost. Great shock troops but can also do better now in prolonged melee.

Sword and shield infantry - no big changes here, these are still the best prolonged melee infantry unit, and probably the best all round unit type. There is now more variation between units like dismounted Feudal Knights and Dismounted Chivalric Knights.

Missile infantry - have been weakened in terms of their melee abilities slightly, but this is compensated by their increased missile accuracy will become more important due to the higher number of casualties they can inflict with their missiles.

Whilst the overall balance for each of the Kingdoms campaigns is the same, there are differences between each campaign for game-play reasons.

In the Teutonic campaign, all cavalry units are stronger with higher secondary attacks. The Teutonic Order units are also stronger than equivalent unit of other nations, but this is balanced out by the fact that the elite units need to have a cetain percentage of catholicism in a region before they can be recruited. The Order is reliant on those troops to expand and further it's goals so this balances things and prevents the Order from becoming too powerful, too quickly. The Orders units also cost more because of their higher stats so things are also balanced out this way.

For the Crusades, like the Teutonic campaign all cavalry are stronger with higher secondary attacks. But unlike the Teutonic campaign, the Crusader factions do not have superior troops compared to their Muslim enemies. Even so the Crusader nations will be fairly reliant on their strong cavalry to win the campaign.

With Britannia it is spears that are the unit type that receive a boost. This results in a proliferation of good anti-cavalry units, so infantry will dominate the Britannia campaign. But cavalry are not completely negated, they will still be usable units, just not as powerful as in the Crusades or Teutonic campaigns.

And finally in the Americas campaign, New Spain gets smaller units, but sword armed infantry and cavalry with 2 hit points, and a new generals unit with 3. This is to reflect the small numbers of Spanish troops used in the New World, and the extra hit points prevent the smaller units from being overwhelmed. Unit costs are also adjusted to reflect these changes, so overall most units are cheaper but Spanish units are about the same as in M2TW. The Native units will not be pushovers either, and will put up a strong fight.

That just about wraps up my overview of the balance changes made through the unit stats and hopefulle, gives you an idea as to how you'll be adapting your tactics to use these changes in each of the four campaigns in Kingdoms.

Regards,

Jack Lusted

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Hope this is informative, and i'll try to answer as many questions as you guys have.

Very informative, thanks. :bow:

Will people have to buy Kingdoms to get the vanilla game re-balanced or will there be a free patch released at the same time?

Regardless, I am looking forward to the rebalancing as much as to the new Kingdoms campaigns.

I am a little curious about pikes though:

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Originally Posted by blog

Very weak when flanked and not as good as spears against other types of infantry.

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Does this mean that even frontally, pikes are not as good as spears against other types of infantry? I would imagine that frontally a phalanx would be formiddable even against infantry, but that it would be very weak if disordered or flanked.

Pikes aren't as good as spears against other infantry, their main role is anti-cav. They can hold off infantry, but once the infantry reaches their main line they will be slowly beaten as they are outclassed in close combat.

Looks like some great work!

I am curious though, does the rebalancing affect the main M2TW campaign, or just the Kingdom's expansions?

Thanks in advance!

Looks good.

Thanks for the info, Lusted, this is a great news indeed. I hope it will improve the gameplay. I'm especially glad that you (CA) decided to decrease melee capability for missile inf, and added AP for the 2H swordsman.

I'm a bit sad that you lowered stats for heavy cavalry, but I guess it will improve realism.

Maybe you should introduce a new trait, scarred_when_charged_with_heavy_cavalry :beam: , and give it to some low quality troops, and maybe archers. This would lower their morale and maybe start the rout when faced with heavy cavalry charge...

Nice post... my hopes are high for kingdoms :2thumbsup:

Its great to see that units will each have their own much clearer roles on the battlefield now. Army composition will now have to be a lot more balanced and realistic. I'm particularly glad to see the 2h-swordsmen being designed more as shock troops, it'll be fun seeing my Highland Nobles smashing into the enemy line with the Highlanders and Dismounted Knights filling the gaps and enduring against the broken enemy.

One thing though, the difference between 2h-swords and 2h-axes/polearms could have been a bit more defined, for the sake of variety. Makes polearms the anti-armour unit, and leave the swords as the shock unit. This would make it beneficial to build realistic armies later on in the campaign with units such as Billmen to counter the more heavily armoured enemies; while units historically used earlier such as Highland Nobles would remain stronger in the early stages of the campaign.

Also, I hope the consistency of cavalry charges is improved. In 1.2, if a heavy cavalry charge hits a lower class infantry unit, 75% of the infantry can die in seconds, which is maybe a bit extreme. On the other hand, probably 3/4of the time my cavalry run or walk into the enemy with their lances raised, then get bogged down and take heavy casualities trying to retreat.

Still, sounds very promising. If only my PC would stop crashing with M2TW...:shame:

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Originally Posted by Jack Lusted

The really big change is to cavalry. Cavalry unit sizes are now smaller, and their stats have been dropped. They are now 30 soldiers on normal unit sizes, which means on huge they are 60. But before you all cry 'nerf!',

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NERF!!! Sorry, just had to get that out of my system. :beam:

I'll second or third the question about whether these changes will apply to the original game also, or just for Kingdoms? I haven't paid that close attention to Kingdoms as it's been in development, so maybe I missed that info.

If it does apply throughout the rest of the game, I'm wondering if this won't actually be a nerf for Eastern armies that rely heavily on HA tactics?

Or does the increase in missile accuracy balance the reduced soldiers per unit? If not, I can't see how it won't be a major change when you're playing (for example) the Turks in the original campaign. I guess it doesn't matter that much, if it's only for a more narrowly targeted balance aimed at just the Kingdoms campaigns.

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Originally Posted by phoenixrsng06

Looks like some great work!

I am curious though, does the rebalancing affect the main M2TW campaign, or just the Kingdom's expansions?

Thanks in advance!

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Quoted for emphasis...

Greatly appreciate the work going into this and am hopeful the rebalancing applies to the Grand Campaign too...

I swear to god if they make the Native Americans like the Aztecs in MTW2 online wise I will go scalping at creative assembely! lol

but ya I'm really happy with the changes, Hvy cav in mtw2 are ridiculous leaving to overplayed knight unit factions and weak over priced muslim and orthodox factions.

GO Kingdoms! Finally being able to play the Irish and Irpquois

archers more accurate,better counter units, better spearmen, less men in cavalry - can we start talking about uber-england and much weaker nations based on cavalry but without ha. I see another polish petition to ca, poland is nerfed like hell.

When is Kingdoms being released anyway?

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archers more accurate,better counter units, better spearmen, less men in cavalry - can we start talking about uber-england and much weaker nations based on cavalry but without ha. I see another polish petition to ca, poland is nerfed like hell.

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Not really. Whilst archers are more accurate they are weaker in melee now, so close the distance with them and they are done for. Cavalry units might be smaller but they are still powerful, and factions like Jerusalem in the Crusades are reliant on their heavy cav thanks to the extra mobility and punch they bring. And yes i suppose cavalry has been nerfed in it's frontal charge steamroller mode, but they are still hugely useful in battle thanks tot heir powerful rear andf flanking charges and mobility. Poland will not be weak, it's grerat cavalry like Polish Knights and Polish Guards will still play a key part in it's armies.

Believe me if you'd played it you would know that cavalry are far from useless.

i dont mean only about cavalry but i mean about whole poland faction in compare to neighbours. Poland dont have long range archers so anyone bother about them only if they want stakes in army and so far only units changed will be woodmen and halabardiers that have right now a stunning defence =1. For comparison:
- hre: zweihanders upgraded, horlon hope upgraded, its enought to make roast of polish troops in infantry battle.
- russian: berdish, horse archers upgraded.
- hungary: croatian axes, archers, horse archers, who know about battle assasins but even without it whey are better on foot and on horses.
I see polish armies with 18 cavalry units and 2 artillery units after kingdoms.

You seem to have missed the point that this is a complete rebalance. Ever unit has had their stats changed in some way. So Halberd militia do not have 1 defence anymore, they have 5 defence now. You cannot make judgements about what units will be like in Kingdoms as whilst i've tried to go into as much depth as possible in the blog, you will need o play Kingdoms to see just how much the balance has changed. It's not just a case of "these guys get more attack, those guys stay the same". Every unit has been changed in one way or another.

ok, as you wrote in crusaiders campain christian kingdoms will have very powerfull cavalry. are those correct stats for them :
http://www.gram.pl/upl/artykul/20070803202046.jpg
http://www.gram.pl/upl/artykul/20070803202033.jpg

They look like a merchant militia with charging option.

Yeah those are the correct stats. Weak frontal charge, good rear and flanking charge(unfortunately the unit card does not show mount mass which makes charges for cavalry more powerful than they appear from that). Good in melee but vulnerable when bogged down.

Also a question for you - have you played the Lands to Conquer mod?

Thanks for all the information Lusted!

Just a quick question, you may not be able to answer it but I figured I'd ask anyway.

Will the seperate features of each campaign be able to be used in one single one?

For example, can I take the religious conversion from the Teutonic Campaign and the hero's from the Crusades and then put them in a seperate campaign? Or will the features be "campaign specific"?

Also, the Teuton's hire via conversion, as you say, does this means you can now set a certain religious percentage in a settlement as a pre-req for any unit, or will that too be campaign and faction specific?

Finally, and most importantly, can I bribe Kingdoms out of you, all these damn features have got me excited and I go back to Uni a few weeks after it comes out! :laugh4:

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Will the seperate features of each campaign be able to be used in one single one?

For example, can I take the religious conversion from the Teutonic Campaign and the hero's from the Crusades and then put them in a seperate campaign? Or will the features be "campaign specific"?

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Well all the campaigns use the same .exe so i would guess so yes.

No sorry. I play mostly on vanilla and do it long enought so that ca have time to release new patch, expansion or another tw game :) . I also have polish version and dont really know how it would look with english mod.

Well that mod features an unofficial version of the Kingdoms balance in it. You could try that out to see what i'm talkimg about.

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Originally Posted by Jack Lusted

Well all the campaigns use the same .exe so i would guess so yes.

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Fantastic :2thumbsup:

It all sounds units will behave alot more realistically now, lets hope it all comes together!

A side note, I do hope LTC continues if you still have the time :yes:

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Originally Posted by NagatsukaShumi

Also, the Teuton's hire via conversion, as you say, does this means you can now set a certain religious percentage in a settlement as a pre-req for any unit, or will that too be campaign and faction specific?

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I think it will be a little stalling element for Order to expand. Such situation like cartage have when fighting barbarians in rtw - if they want phalanxs from there they need to build another city level and buildings by themselves.

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Originally Posted by Jack Lusted

Well that mod features an unofficial version of the Kingdoms balance in it. You could try that out to see what i'm talkimg about.

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So we're basically paying 30 bucks for a mod which will supposedly fix the game AGAIN?
I am still waiting for the patch (after all the expansions) that will fix my RTW...

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So we're basically paying 30 bucks for a mod which will supposedly fix the game AGAIN?

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You misunderstand. Icek was asking questions about the balance, and i thought it would be best for him to try it for himself, and there is amod out that uses an unofficial version of the balance. The mod in no way, shape or form has anything else from Kingdoms in it.

Quit whining guys - please.

Kingdoms is more than a rebalance, as should be easy to figure out.

Is it a new game? no - it's an expansion. I think it's great that Lusteds rebalancing goes into the expansion, rather than having to mod the game to get it to perform well.

One could have expected more from the original game, but that was before Lusted joined the team, so don't complain to him about it.

I'm sure it will still be possible to play Poland, France, Hungary, Byz or any other horse-reliant nation. Maybe the days of steamrolling frontal charges are over, but that is a good thing imho. If you wan't those days back just mod the game and give all polish units 3 hp and 20/20 attack/defence. You'll win easy... Remember cav is more than the visible stats. It's mass (that has been increased) and it's mobility.

Temp-sticked

Thanks lusted :thumbsup:

Well i dont need really try it to buy kingdoms and im not a polish nationalist to defend blindly something that i didnt see by myself, but i have a question about teutonic campaign: i like the idea of stronger cavalry in this campaign, in fact you need it to beat such abomination with fear factor http://www.gram.pl/upl/artykul/20070803204552.jpg but why poland isnt playable from the start and must be unlocked especially when danes are?

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Originally Posted by NagatsukaShumi

Thanks for all the information Lusted!

Just a quick question, you may not be able to answer it but I figured I'd ask anyway.

Will the seperate features of each campaign be able to be used in one single one?

For example, can I take the religious conversion from the Teutonic Campaign and the hero's from the Crusades and then put them in a seperate campaign? Or will the features be "campaign specific"?

Also, the Teuton's hire via conversion, as you say, does this means you can now set a certain religious percentage in a settlement as a pre-req for any unit, or will that too be campaign and faction specific?

Finally, and most importantly, can I bribe Kingdoms out of you, all these damn features have got me excited and I go back to Uni a few weeks after it comes out! :laugh4:

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Originally Posted by Caliban

Your talking about modding the Grand Campaign into Kingdoms here. I sat down with the programmers and talked about how possible this would be. We decided that it would be possible if the mod installer unpacked, then copied the required assets from M2TW into a fresh mod folder.
Then you could fiddle it to work with the kingdoms exe. Modders would also need to do this in order to include the Kingdoms factions back into the grand campaign. And it would be one huuge mod folder But all quite possible.

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There's a fair bit of information on the subject in the last few pages of this thread; just do a quick search through for Caliban's posts and you should find some information on the modability of the expansion.

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Originally Posted by Magraev

I'm sure it will still be possible to play Poland, France, Hungary, Byz or any other horse-reliant nation. Maybe the days of steamrolling frontal charges are over, but that is a good thing imho. If you wan't those days back just mod the game and give all polish units 3 hp and 20/20 attack/defence. You'll win easy... Remember cav is more than the visible stats. It's mass (that has been increased) and it's mobility.

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france, hungary , biz have ha - end of story. The frontal charges should be in medieval games, in fact polish husars beat sweden forces and turks long after medieval with such tactics. But i understand its the way to balance the game. And please mister Mangraev, stop writing such things like moding every units to max. stats because you simply embarass yourself.

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Originally Posted by sapi

There's a fair bit of information on the subject in the last few pages of this thread; just do a quick search through for Caliban's posts and you should find some information on the modability of the expansion.

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Cheers sapi :2thumbsup:

It still doesn't sound like we have a direct answer as to whether the changes affect the main grand campaign. I read in another of Lusted's threads on the main total war site and he said the changes will be apparent in custom battles, but again didn't mention the GC. I think Lusted may be running for office with such fine political tap-dancing :beam:

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Originally Posted by phoenixrsng06

It still doesn't sound like we have a direct answer as to whether the changes affect the main grand campaign. I read in another of Lusted's threads on the main total war site and he said the changes will be apparent in custom battles, but again didn't mention the GC. I think Lusted may be running for office with such fine political tap-dancing :beam:

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no offence but do you know a meaning of word "global" ?

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Originally Posted by Jack Lusted

Cavalry units might be smaller but they are still powerful, and factions like Jerusalem in the Crusades are reliant on their heavy cav thanks to the extra mobility and punch they bring. And yes i suppose cavalry has been nerfed in it's frontal charge steamroller mode, but they are still hugely useful in battle thanks tot heir powerful rear andf flanking charges and mobility.

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Could you address the question I raised earlier about HA's? If the units are now 30 soldiers instead of 40 on normal size, then a HA faction like the Turks will suddenly be fielding 25% fewer archers. That seems like a pretty big change that would affect both tactics and army composition. You'll have fewer pinning forces like infantry if you need more HA units to make up the difference, or if you keep the same pinning force, you'll have to work a lot harder to do the same job with 25% fewer archers. Seems a little wacky to me, but I guess ya'll know what you're doing.

At first I thought maybe increased missile accuracy would make up for it, but you couldn't have taken that too far without making foot archers and crossbowmen overpowered (since they're not getting the same reduction in unit size). I'm just wondering how this will balance out.

Well the increased accuracy does make up for it a bit, plus foot archers and crossbowmen get a drop in their melee attack as well. Plus the smaller cav unit sizes are more useable as with the smaller size they are less likely to get stuck on things, or be too unwieldy.

it makes snese , its too easy to cath up with jinetes and mamluks now bcoz they dont how formation too well.

Hmmm.... I don't have much trouble getting stuck on things with HA's except inside settlements, or the occasional forest, and even that's manageable. But then I play with "normal" size armies... partly to keep the frame rate high, and partly because it's just easier to manage. I hope CA isn't making design and balance decisions based on people using only huge armies. We're not all doing that.

Anyway, I guess we'll see how it works when it comes out. If someone is beta-testing a HA-heavy faction like the Turks or Hungarians in the vanilla campaign, to see if this reduction in number of archers isn't a major problem for the realistic use of HA's, then it should be okay.

i also play on normal sizes and, as i wrote above, its to easy to catch ha. They always leave some horse as tail and when you catch it the whole unit start a melee fight.

sorry to start nagging about pikes again, I read in the blog that pikes would still be anti-cav with limited usefullness against infantry, however "wrong" that may be I understand why you keep it that way, but are pikes stil going to be unable to keep heir pikes lowered when advancing?

I mirror the worries highlighted by Zenicetus.
More accuracy for archer units.....25% loss in unit size for HA??

Melee stats drop for archers.....Turkish??

This is beginning to sound a bit bad for eastern factions.

Why not apply those changes to melee cav and archer units and leave the HA and hybrid units as they were?

With increased accuracy for archers and a 25% drop in size for HA, why would anyone use HA? Ordinary peasant archers would easily be able to deal with them on a 2 to 1 basis :thumbsdown:

.......Orda

Hi Lusted. Excellent post. Thanks for the effort !

Question: Will the "Egyptians" get new HAs, and stronger cavalry than 1.02 ?

Also just wanted to point out (as you probably know): Broken Crescent. They're doing very well and have a massive amount of info which relates to the Crusades campaign in Kingdoms. They have a great variety of new HAs and cavalry, I'm wondering if Kingdoms will be able to compete ?.

Here's a few shots, I have'nt kept up with Kingdoms so not really sure what the roster is like. I've only noticed one Egyptian/Ayyubid unit: the Khassaki.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

https://img406.imageshack.us/img406/2447/bc1zt6.jpg

https://img186.imageshack.us/img186/5310/20jt0.jpg

https://img168.imageshack.us/img168/4421/21zj4.jpg

https://img224.imageshack.us/img224/1373/13mp9.jpg

Hi Lusted I have some questions:

1. Have any of the combat animations changed at all?
2. Has the effects of discipline, training or stamina received any changes?
3. Will melee weapon upgrades still give +6 attack?
4. Does the mass of the riders factor into cavalry charging power?
5. What effects do back-mounted shields (used by Varangian Guards, Dvor Cavalry, etc.) now have?
6. Will patch 1.03 be released concurrently with Kingdoms?

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This is beginning to sound a bit bad for eastern factions.

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I thin i forgot to mention this in the blog but units with composite bows have their own projectile type now, with better accuracy than normal arrows. Whilstit may look like the eastern factions are now weaker, they are not. Especially in the Crusades campaign where both the Turks and Egypt get quite a few new units.

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Have any of the combat animations changed at all?

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No.

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Has the effects of discipline, training or stamina received any changes?

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No, but the effect of terrain on some units has been changed.

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Will melee weapon upgrades still give +6 attack?

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I'll have to check with the Oz guys.

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Does the mass of the riders factor into cavalry charging power?

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Yes, but the mass of the mount is more important.

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What effects do back-mounted shields (used by Varangian Guards, Dvor Cavalry, etc.) now have?

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Same as before.

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Originally Posted by Miracle

Hi Lusted I have some questions:

1. Have any of the combat animations changed at all?
2. Has the effects of discipline, training or stamina received any changes?
3. Will melee weapon upgrades still give +6 attack?
4. Does the mass of the riders factor into cavalry charging power?
5. What effects do back-mounted shields (used by Varangian Guards, Dvor Cavalry, etc.) now have?
6. Will patch 1.03 be released concurrently with Kingdoms?

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Melee upgrade gave +6 to attack in Vanilla?

Lusted:
According to this thread, pike units do seem to be getting better animations:

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Originally Posted by Caliban

You will be happy to know that the pike units in kingdoms have been overhauled, their speed has been increased and they now wield their weapons correctly and we have also re-balanced their stats.

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So are you absolutely sure no other units get improved animations? The 2H Axe animation in particular seems to still need some work.

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Originally Posted by Gaius Terentius Varro

Melee upgrade gave +6 to attack in Vanilla?

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According to Lusted himself, yes. [Reference]

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According to this thread, pike units do seem to be getting better animations:

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No their animations haven't been changed, other things have that result in a better speed.

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Originally Posted by Jack Lusted

I thin i forgot to mention this in the blog but units with composite bows have their own projectile type now, with better accuracy than normal arrows. Whilstit may look like the eastern factions are now weaker, they are not. Especially in the Crusades campaign where both the Turks and Egypt get quite a few new units.

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I still don't get this. There are foot archers that use composite bows, but they're not getting the 25% unit size reduction like HA's will. What happens when HA's go up against foot archers using composite bows? The increased accuracy from the new projectile type is the same on both sides, but the reduced numbers are still a major nerf for the HA's.

Instead of fixing something by making smaller HA units "easier to manage," it might actually increase the micromanagement of running a HA-heavy army, because you'll need more HA units in a stack to accomplish the same thing you did before this change.

Will the anti blobbing thingy be toned down? I am so sick andtired of my units starting off in a square formation only to end up in the horde formation (like the peasants in RTW) after a minute of fighting and creeping backwards at that.

about archers/misile infantrys melee stats being reduced, will this affect the "dual" archers too(norse archers, venetian archers, scos guard etc,) so their dual role is lost, or is it just the "pure" archers that are reduced.

for those who worry about their HAs going up against foot archers, cant you just run the foot archers down?

they need to be reduced so new cavalry can always beat them.

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Originally Posted by anders

about archers/misile infantrys melee stats being reduced, will this affect the "dual" archers too(norse archers, venetian archers, scos guard etc,) so their dual role is lost, or is it just the "pure" archers that are reduced.

for those who worry about their HAs going up against foot archers, cant you just run the foot archers down?

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If the archers are taken off skirmish mode, they will reduce the HA to half its size in no time. Even if a charge by the HA is successful, they will lose some in the unit. Do you see 18 - 25 HA causing much of a stir among 75 spearmen with shields?

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I still don't get this. There are foot archers that use composite bows, but they're not getting the 25% unit size reduction like HA's will. What happens when HA's go up against foot archers using composite bows? The increased accuracy from the new projectile type is the same on both sides, but the reduced numbers are still a major nerf for the HA's.

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Precisely!
Even against ordinary archers they will suffer too many losses to then be effective, because of the 2-1 ratio. Regardless of accuracy, the HA unit is still half the size of the archers

....Orda

Orda,

If you are shooting at enemy archers with your horse archers, you may wish to try a different tactic. Set the cav to loose formation and charge the enemy archers.

If they are in front of enemy spears, they should fall back before your horse archers. Your horse archers can then go back to skirmishing (where they are much quicker) and open up on the spears.

If they are out in the open, 60 archers who have had their melee ability reduced should get chopped to bits by 30 HAs that charge them.

I've a feeling that once we start playing with Kingdoms more of this will be easily seen. I've tried out LTC and I've found Cav to be just as useful as before, but you can't just charge everything head on anymore. It does take some getting use to, but the changes are not so massive that you have to relearn how to use your armies.

In my own private rebalance of units, I found that although having lowered cav attack values but increased mount mass as well as increasing projectile accuracy (the composite and bodkin ones for archers and the steel crossbow for xbows), cavalry are very vulnerable to missiles, so their normal units size would still allow them to deal a good deal of damage.
Decreasing the cav unit size may make them move more easily on larger unit sizes, but on small and medium, they will be cut down by any army that has several decent missile troops.

I would imagine that a unit of longbows having a high range and hiding behind an infantry (not necessarily spear) formation will stop the cavalry charge before they could deal any large amount of damage while having to ride around the flanks or rear. Archers may be weaker in melee, but that doesn't help the cavalry.

Also, the other trouble with weaking cavalry stats, although making their charges slightly more powerful, is that they will be very weak in melee (along with their now smaller unit size), meaning all they are good for is charging and chasing routers. Considering that with each charge the unit they are charging can just ignore their current opponent and turn towards the cavalry (double click run disengage quick turn+attack) to cut them down (again, smaller unit size so faster to kill).

On a side note, have cav charges against cav been fixed in Kingdoms? In M2TW it is quite dishearting to see cav charge each other with damage only being done with the swords. Same if cavalry charge another cavalry that is static but in formation.

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Originally Posted by John_Longarrow

Orda,

If you are shooting at enemy archers with your horse archers, you may wish to try a different tactic. Set the cav to loose formation and charge the enemy archers.

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This isn't about tactics, it's about numbers. HA's are suddenly losing 25% of their numbers before the battle even starts.

I'm having trouble seeing how anything can balance that, including changed tactics. And for that matter, why should I have to change HA tactics that worked perfectly well in the vanilla game, and that are more-or-less historically accurate? We'll just have to be shuffling more HA units around the battlefield to make up the numbers of archers we had before, which means more micro-management hassles, and we'll have a smaller pinning/distraction force of infantry (or whatever) to work with. Every additional HA unit I have to put in the stack to make up the 25% force reduction, has to come from somewhere else.

I sure hope they're testing this change with factions like Turks and Hungarians, to make sure it doesn't throw the whole HA dynamic out of whack, and that it doesn't add more micro to an already micro-heavy battle tactic.

Zenicetus

If their accuracy increases, their numbers can be reduced while maintaining the same offensive firepower.

If it normally takes 10 HA's to inflict one kill per volley, you can kill on average 4 enemy soldiers per volley with the old unit size. If you increase their accuracy so that it only takes 5 HA's to inflict one kill, a unit of 30 HA's will inflict 6 kills per volley. That would be a 50% increase in offensive power.

As such, if missile accuracy is increased proportionately to their reduction in numbers, HA's will still be just as useful as they are now even with fewer troops. It is possible that their accuracy was increased enough that they will inflict more casualties per volley with a 30 man unit than they did before the rebalance with a 40 man unit.

If this is how they are balanced, it would make a lot of sence. It would also keep them in line with other cav units (ie, not stronger than the reduced number of light cav in opposing forces) without giving up their offensive power.

They would not be able to match other missile units one on one, but they can't do that now. They will still have to do exactly what they do now when confronted by superior enemy missile units.

Until we see how they play out, I don't think it makes any sence to argue over it. Post Kingdoms we may discover that the increase in accuracy is too much and needs to be toned down to keep 30 man HA units from dominating other units.

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Originally Posted by John_Longarrow

Zenicetus
If their accuracy increases, their numbers can be reduced while maintaining the same offensive firepower.

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It's not only about offense, but defense as well... or actually, survivability of unit cohesion over time. A HA unit with 30 archers simply doesn't last as long on the battlefield as one with 40 archers, regardless of how much damage it's inflicting (because, obviously, it can be taking fire from more units than the one it's shooting at).

In a tough battle where the HA unit is taking incoming fire and sustaining losses, it's going to lose morale and rout 25% faster if the numbers are cut by that amount... unless there's some morale boost to make up for it, which I haven't heard about. Even if the morale WAS boosted to prevent early routing, the unit still won't last as long in combat as an effective fighting force, as it does now. So I'll have to be more cautious in the use of HA's... and for no other reason than an arbitrary (as far as I can see) reduction in numbers.

Add that on top of a potential increase in micro, if the increase in accuracy isn't a perfect 1:1 balance and I have to use more HA units on the field... and it just doesn't sound good to me.

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If it normally takes 10 HA's to inflict one kill per volley, you can kill on average 4 enemy soldiers per volley with the old unit size. If you increase their accuracy so that it only takes 5 HA's to inflict one kill, a unit of 30 HA's will inflict 6 kills per volley. That would be a 50% increase in offensive power.

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Well, we don't know the accuracy boost will mean anything like that much increase in offensive power. Since foot archers aren't being reduced in number, that would be a massive boost in offense for Eastern foot archers compared to Western units. I don't see that happening. Even if the boost was that big, it doesn't mean that much, if I don't have enough soldiers to absorb incoming fire and last through the battle.

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Until we see how they play out, I don't think it makes any sence to argue over it. Post Kingdoms we may discover that the increase in accuracy is too much and needs to be toned down to keep 30 man HA units from dominating other units.

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I'm not trying to argue about it, I'm just wondering how they're possibly going to balance this out... especially at normal army size. I can see where this reduction in unit size might make sense for melee cav with all the other balancing adjustments, but for HA's? I'm not seeing the light, so far. They don't have the punch from a charge that you get with melee cav... that's not how they operate. They depend on lasting long enough on the battlefield to do their harassment and wearing-down thing, and they're relatively lightly armored too (most of them).

I'm also interested because it might affect whether I actually buy Kingdoms or not. I enjoy using HA-based Eastern factions... not exclusively, and I'm not that good at it, but I'm trying to get better. It's a fun break from the Western army build and tactics. But the one real hassle of running a HA army is the micro, and if this new balancing means I have to use more HA units than I do now in a stack, or if they rout faster because the units are smaller, I just might pass on Kingdoms. I don't think CA would make that mistake, unless they're only beta testing with huge army sizes, but I haven't heard anything from Lusted that really alleviates my concerns here.

he did say that in the crusades campaign the eastern factions get new units. Is it really that important to write several hundred words about it? I seriously doubt that reducing the numbers from 40-30 will affect them, they've always been hard to fight catch and kill from a western empire side of view now it sounds like itll be even harder, so I don't see that you ahve that much to complain about.

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he did say that in the crusades campaign the eastern factions get new units.

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Indeed they do, the Turks get 6 and Egypt 8 in the Crusades campaign.

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But the one real hassle of running a HA army is the micro, and if this new balancing means I have to use more HA units than I do now in a stack, or if they rout faster because the units are smaller, I just might pass on Kingdoms.

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You won't, even with the reduced numbers horse archers are still powerful and you won't need to use more army slots on them to make up for the reduced numbers. The smaller number of troops actually makes them harder to hit when in loose formation as there are fewer of them.

Lusted,

If the change is comparable to playing LTC, then what most players will notice is they actually take casualties on their cav. I've been playing a Scots campaing and I found I do need to reinforce my border horses after a fight because, unlike vanilla, I do loose horsemen.

For some people this will be a major change. For me, it mean I actually have to treat cav the same as other units, a change I like. I've already done all of the mini-campaigns and I was amazed at how deadly the Hungarians are in the Italian campaign. If Kingdoms has about the same balance as LTC does, I don't think HAs will be weak.

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Originally Posted by Durallan

he did say that in the crusades campaign the eastern factions get new units. Is it really that important to write several hundred words about it? I seriously doubt that reducing the numbers from 40-30 will affect them, they've always been hard to fight catch and kill from a western empire side of view now it sounds like itll be even harder, so I don't see that you ahve that much to complain about.

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They get new units in Crusades campaign.......only.
Since those several hundred words make a valid point, yes it is. HA are vulnerable to arrows and anyone who knows how to use archers will quickly reduce the HA to a point where they can be more or less ignored. Regardless of better accuracy, they will still be vulnerable to arrows and 30 will be reduced in number faster than 40.

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If you are shooting at enemy archers with your horse archers, you may wish to try a different tactic.

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I do not waste HA arrows on cheap units like archers

.......Orda

Orda,

I'd suggest you download Lands to Conquer and try it out. There is a different feel to it, and all units tend to take more casualties. That should tell you about what you want to know for how cav is changing.

I ecited this post after playing lands to conquer. I charged frontally on dfk with polish guard and killed them instantly losing one men. Then i charged into spear militia with polish knights and killed 60% of unit with first blow, second charge defeated them, i lost 33% of unit. but i was scared when i saw dismounted english knights stats (19 att, 16 def) and heavy billmen (14,13) :|

Yeah DEK and Heavy Billmen are great shock troops, and if backedf up with other infantry can break the enemy line and can be a crucial part of a battle. But their weak against missiles and in prolonged melee by themselves. And they are useless against cav charges.

And yes the best way to see what the Kingdoms balance will be like is to try LTC or the seperate balancing files i released at TWC.

I must write this because if LTC balance is kigdoms balance then i dont understand why portugal is so powerfull and poland so weak. Portugal, an almost not egsistant kingdom in medieval, have powerfull aventuros to stop cavalry, dismounted portugese knights to pwn infantry, 2 long range units musketers and heavy x-bows, jinetes and sword militia when polish only usefull heavy infantry is dismounted polish knights[a11,d18],dismounted nobles with spears and without bonus fighting cavalry is useless, woodmen are to weak and dont have a long range unit. frontal charge and infantry battle will lead to polish defeat, and before cavalry do any side/rear attack they will be shooted by long range units. My expertise: give polish a long range unit because they are the only faction in the game besides azteks that dont have it and remove or nerf dismounted portugese knights from portugal selection(they description says that they lack a professional army anyway).

Well Poland do have a good quality spear unit in their Spearmen, especially with armour upgrades. Their Dismounted Polish Knights will beat Dismounted Portugese Knights in prolonged melee if they withstand the charge which they will. Plus Poland have one of the best cavalry units in the game in Polish Guard which outclass the Portugese knights, and Dismounted Portugese Knights would stand no chance against them. And of course Poland have Polish Nobles who are great javelin cavalry, and the manouverability of the Polish Guard combined with infantry can easily beat the Aventuros.

I'm just wondering, if you decrease all armour by two points(and "balance" this by increasing shield and defense values), make ranged units more accurate and reduce cavalry size to 2/3rds, won't that make late era cavalry like gendarmes and lancers useless compared to knights with shields, especially if the enemy has ranged units? You might say not against gunpowder since that ignores shields, but the AI hardly ever uses gunpowder effectively except for artillery. Yesterday I lost 21 of 80 gendarmes to a salvo of crossbow bolts from danish crossbow militia, i can't remember losing that many knights of any other type to a single salvo and it happened twice in a row. Considering that late armour was designed to withstand projectiles from most angles and that shields weren't used anymore because the armour actually worked, I find that very odd.

I also often find that my ranged units get around 200-400 kills each in battles on huge unit size, my close combat units can only get that much in city battles and most of them are DFKs. Currently I find that DFKs and equivalents are so good that they can take pretty much every infantry role, including flanking and cavalry defense, making all other infantry units pretty much useless. Their defense is so high that they can survive most attacks from the front and after you built some you also get a swordsmith guild which makes their swords so deadly that they can kill anything.

Another thing are shield sizes, in RTW most shield bonuses seemed to be given by how big a shield was in size, but in M2TW almost all infantry shields give 6 defense and cavalry shields give 4 defense, at least for western factions. I found that especially weird since DFKs and FKs have exactly the same shield, but their shield values differ by two. Now you can say that DFKs can use their shields better due to being on foot, but IMO that should be reflected by their defense value, shouldn't it? Because against ranged units both shields should give the same protection and horse armour should count seperately, maybe that's why knights get less of a shield bonus?

That's my input so far, maybe I can try LTC sometime in the next days.

stop complaining about weak polish units icek, you got strezcly, polish guards, husars, polish retainers, and polish noles, its a great cavalry selection with good performance and a cool "slatcha goes to war feel" that can accomplish a lot, especially against inf. heavy westeners. only problem is the charging cavalry come a bit late/high in the building order.

Huh. My cavalry take plenty of casualties as it is; if you try to pull them out to charge again, they just rout and die. If you leave them in, they die unless they routed the unit they charged. Playing M/M, vaniller 1.2. I'm not seeing any need for them to take more casualties.

So if we want the rebalancing in Kingdoms in the grand campaign, we should use LTC? No patch for the GC? That's kind of odd, but I guess it's semiofficial now.

I use cavalry based armies, always have, lightweight for the most part and with many HA. By nature of unit size, my army is always smaller and now it is going to be reduced by a further 25%. I do not see this as an improvement

.....Orda

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Originally Posted by anders

stop complaining about weak polish units icek, you got strezcly, polish guards, husars, polish retainers, and polish noles, its a great cavalry selection with good performance and a cool "slatcha goes to war feel" that can accomplish a lot, especially against inf. heavy westeners. only problem is the charging cavalry come a bit late/high in the building order.

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yes poland got only cavalry. and prepare that fighting poland on gs will be fighting nomadic all-cavalry armies only. And since we dont have range them expect that you will face a full cordinated frontal charge that in reality i doubt even english could withstand, and i hope in m2tw 1.3/1.4 will be the same.

Poland is definately going to be a challenge in the Teutonic Campaign, no doubt about that. For what it's worth, I'm becoming pretty fond of the Strezlcy. AP missles, AP axe, sheild, decent armor...I just hope they don't get hit too hard in the rebalancing.

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Originally Posted by Orda Khan

I use cavalry based armies, always have, lightweight for the most part and with many HA. By nature of unit size, my army is always smaller and now it is going to be reduced by a further 25%. I do not see this as an improvement

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I don't either. It still seems to me that the cav reduction was applied across the board, based on a balancing for melee cav without thinking about how HA's would be affected. Lusted has mentioned two mitigating factors - slightly increased accuracy (which does nothing to affect survivability of a small unit), and "the smaller number of troops actually makes them harder to hit when in loose formation as there are fewer of them."

I dunno.... that last bit sounds like theorycraft to me. Any way you look at it, a smaller unit is still closer to loss of morale and routing than a larger one, as they start to take damage. The idea of going into battle with what is already a small army if you're HA-based (as you point out), and then taking a further 25% reduction in forces before the battle even begins, just feels arbitrary and wrong. HA-based armies are already a challenge to use well; they're far from overpowered. They didn't need this change.

Question: can the unit sizes be modded back to the original size? I don't pay much attention to mods, so I don't know what's hard-coded and what isn't. Speaking of which... is this 25% reduction in HA units already in place in the LTC mod?

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is this 25% reduction in HA units already in place in the LTC mod?

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Yes it is.

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can the unit sizes be modded back to the original size?

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Yes it's a simple value in the export_descr_unit.txt file.

I agree with Orda. HA should stay the size they are. Factions that have themusually didn't have a problem recruiting them. They are already smaller than regular archers and much more expensive, which pretty much balance out things. HA weren't like European heavy cavalry, and armies who did use them, tended to use them in much larger numbers than Europeans used heavy cavalry. They could use a bit of tweaking though, to reduce the micromanagement. Somehow RTW:BI was much more friendly in this regard, IMHO.

Ok, will wait and see, but I think reducing the size of HA is a bad idea, both from historical and gameplay point of view. It's not enough to say "eastern factions will get some new units to counter improved westerners". HA should be effective as they were...

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Originally Posted by Mad Mac

Poland is definately going to be a challenge in the Teutonic Campaign, no doubt about that. For what it's worth, I'm becoming pretty fond of the Strezlcy. AP missles, AP axe, sheild, decent armor...I just hope they don't get hit too hard in the rebalancing.

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oh yeah, those strezcly are a great unit AP makes all the difference, and available in great numbers too.

Ok icek, I see the lack of long range, but what unit would you historically have as a polish long-range unit? just accept that poland is a cav. faction and use that for what its worth. granted it would be great to meet the steppe hordes with good ranged foot units, but its funnier trying to beat them at their own game. vanilla, streczly with upgrades and some exp do good against mongol heavy HA.

and orda and all you other guys compalining about HA unit size; dont slaughter it until youve tried it, besides HA and all cavalry were that size in RTw as far as i remember and that worked allright.

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Originally Posted by Sarmatian

I agree with Orda. HA should stay the size they are. Factions that have themusually didn't have a problem recruiting them. They are already smaller than regular archers and much more expensive, which pretty much balance out things. HA weren't like European heavy cavalry, and armies who did use them, tended to use them in much larger numbers than Europeans used heavy cavalry. They could use a bit of tweaking though, to reduce the micromanagement. Somehow RTW:BI was much more friendly in this regard, IMHO.

Ok, will wait and see, but I think reducing the size of HA is a bad idea, both from historical and gameplay point of view. It's not enough to say "eastern factions will get some new units to counter improved westerners". HA should be effective as they were...

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rofl HA in BI were so overpowered it was unbeleivable. The standard multiplayer rules were max 2 HA no CC because of this. Sounds to me you just want an easy game, as if the AI didn't make the SP battles like playing a retarded monkey already:whip:

If you do the maths there is actually no difference between the +25% accuracy and -25% unit size, they have exactly the same firepower (although if it's like LTC 3.1 HA will get a boost due to unit stats being increased and unit stats of almost all the other units being decreased.) They may all die quicker but they will kill quick as well making it almost identical except for the fact that all the other units defense will be weaker.

So far I'm liking most of the changes, althuogh i've only done unit vs unit tests thus far. I'm just about to play online with a clanmate to properly gauge the balance although so far I feel some of the 2 handed units are overpowered although the new normality for missiles may counter this.

Another worry is the lowered armour values will decrease the worth of AP units in general and i can see this has been overcompensated for with infantry, however English Longbows and AP cav still seem to have the same level of stats comparative to all the other units. A change I would like to see however is a slight range increase of Longbows and possibly Composite bow Archers to reflect thier true range if there's still time, but again this may imbalance things with England especially looking to become an intensely strong faction.

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Originally Posted by Kronos

If you do the maths there is actually no difference between the +25% accuracy and -25% unit size, they have exactly the same firepower (although if it's like LTC 3.1 HA will get a boost due to unit stats being increased and unit stats of almost all the other units being decreased.) They may all die quicker but they will kill quick as well making it almost identical except for the fact that all the other units defense will be weaker.

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No, it doesn't balance like that unless your unit is the last of your army standing on the battlefield, and only going up against one enemy unit. In a normal mixed battle, they may kill faster with the one unit they can target, but at the same time they can be taking fire from other units they aren't targeting. It may help win the battle by cutting down the enemy at a slightly faster rate, but they still have to absorb damage from multiple ranged units at times, and last long enough to do their job.

And that's just a function of defensive stats and armor (HA's don't have much) and the number of soldiers in the unit. Fewer soldiers means the unit dies or routs faster, and this is something that can't be balanced by an increase in offensive power. Well, unless you give them modern weapons or something... then yeah, it might work. :)

Anyway, if I can change it back to 40 HA's per unit with a simple edit in the export_descr_unit.txt, it doesn't matter.

Jack,

Excellent posts. Your job has to be a lot of fun, no doubt about it.

I discovered Total War games a little over a year ago after I got into Civ IV. And I have to say, I have never enjoyed a game experience so much. CA truly lives up to their 'creative' monniker. The depth of the game experience, from campaign strategy, economic warfare, spies, assassins, settlement governance, the psychological aspects of your faction member, to actual combat, is just amazing. And the game designers even have a sense of humor. I love the smart-alec remarks of the rebel units, the voice overs, etc. It's all a kick to me.

I'm looking forward to Kingdoms. I haven't always enjoyed the combat aspects of M2TW, not like I did RTW. So it will be interesting to see how the Kingdoms expansion changes the combat experience in actual game play. I thought that the unit movement in the combat portion of the game experience lacked fluidness. Cavalry seemed to move and react slowly to commands.

Thanks for sharing with us.

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Originally Posted by anders

Ok icek, I see the lack of long range, but what unit would you historically have as a polish long-range unit?

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a stupid heavy x-bows, if we talk about history then find me information about heavy knights in portugal army, reitars in HRE medieval army, battlefield assasins in hungary, panzer-pikemen in scotland, powerfull armies of venice and other historically accurate units. Poland can do well in open field but they are pwn by powerfull in that age portugal in settlement battle.