Carl's BugFixer (V1.1)

[Carl]

All right. Got some thoughts to share.

First I did some Fudeal Knight tests vs. DGK. The Fuedals where winning with 2:1/3:1 kill rates in their favour, even mailed knights could manage MAD with cycle charging. DGK/DEK/DNK/DPK are the only 2-handers with that kind of defence TBH. SO 2-Handers are proving very vulnrable to enemy cav charges.

Second, the more I play around with Western Halberds, the more concerned I become. The Danish and Papal States ones are effectivlly their main late infantry unit, whilst France, HRE and the other similar nations with this type of unit get it as eithier the last or second to last infantry in their barracks tech tree. hats worrying me even more as it's implying more and more that they are meant to be a big part of late armies. the problem is they are tottally outperformed by Pikes and struggle against S&S infantry. Overall i'm becoming more convinced that Halberds are NOT just a stepping stone between Spears and Pikes and i'm getting worried as they don't really live up to their late era status ATM.

[Stlaind]

This echoes a lot of what I wsa thinking at first, however, cost wise those do pretty well.

Armor and animation quality go a long ways with halberds it seems.

[Jambo]

I'm now a bit confused as to which thread I should be posting in.. lol. Anyway, regarding halberds, what I've done so far is give them a universal +3 to their attack whilst at the same time a -2 to the attack of all pikes. I won't have the fortune of being able to test the changes until tomorrow but suffice to say I agree with the premise that halberds are meant to be good late units. You don't get the Danish ones until quite late in the tech tree.

[Stlaind]

The rebalance is intended to grow to include more than just fixing issues created by the bug fixes I think

[Carl]

Stlaind hit the nail on the head. Re-balancing units that have been made UP by Bug Fixing falls in this thread. Stuff that fall outside bugfixing or re-balancing units that are UP by bug-fixing falls into the other thread.

[dopp]

Overall i'm becoming more convinced that Halberds are NOT just a stepping stone between Spears and Pikes and i'm getting worried as they don't really live up to their late era status ATM.

The Militia ones are, but the elite ones need to be competitive at least with the 2handers/sword and boards.

[Carl]

The Militia ones are, but the elite ones need to be competitive at least with the 2handers/sword and boards.

The problem is Dopp that furthar play with various factions has made me realise that of those that get Halberds, only France and HRE get Halberds AND Pikes, even at militia level. France gets at least 1 of every unit class, HRE also gets an above average number of unit classes too, and thus I don't think eithier is a fair test case.

In every other amry bar france and HRE the Halberds are a direct REPLACMENT for Pikes, even at the Militia level. They get Halberds INSTEAD of pikes. That worrying me as Halberds are slower than Pikes, yet tottally unable to even challange them. It's that damm bugged switchover code again. If they actually poked with their weapons when they wern't in melee range, (as appossed to all hacking because one or two can hack as they do now). I havn't tried a test in vanillia yet but i'd expect them to beat bugged pikes sensless, and considering the price disparity in most cases this makes plenty of sense really.

[dopp]

In every other amry bar france and HRE the Halberds are a direct REPLACMENT for Pikes, even at the Militia level. They get Halberds INSTEAD of pikes. That worrying me as Halberds are slower than Pikes, yet tottally unable to even challange them. It's that damm bugged switchover code again. If they actually poked with their weapons when they wern't in melee range, (as appossed to all hacking because one or two can hack as they do now). I havn't tried a test in vanillia yet but i'd expect them to beat bugged pikes sensless, and considering the price disparity in most cases this makes plenty of sense really.

Halberd Militia are recruited from Militia Drill Square (level 4). Pike Militia are recruited from the Militia Barracks (level 5). How can a lower level unit be a replacement for one that is higher level? Granted, many elite halberds should probably beat militia-level pikes, but I think it would be challenging to expect them to beat elite pikemen head-to-head. Otherwise, they become too powerful, since they don't need to maintain formation to be effective and are free to maneuver.

The fundamental problem is that with the 'fix', pikemen become untouchable from the front (literally, because the enemy is unable to close with them in the first place), but without the fix, pikemen are rubbish (because they ALWAYS allow the enemy to close with them). They are the unbalancing element atm, not the halberds themselves. How do the halberds fare against other units? It's no good balancing them against such an extreme case as pikes only to mess them up against everything else.

History part: Feel free to correct me, but I don't think halberds replaced pikes; it was the other way around. The Tercio initially contained halberdiers, but later reduced the number significantly in favor of more pikes. The Swiss switched from halberds to pikes, if I recall correctly. Certainly by the 17th century, pikes had replaced most of the other weapons for infantry melee fighting.

Pikes had the advantage over halberds in terms of reach (and pikes kept increasing in length in order to maintain that advantage over enemy pikes). Halberds were primarily useful at close quarters. A pike is generally unsuitable as a weapon outside of formation fighting. Halberds were used when/if the push of pike became too close, but they needed to be part of a pike formation themselves in order to beat pikes. They were supplementary, not primary weapons. To implement what you seem to be proposing; that pure halberd formations essentially become the nemesis of pikes, is probably taking things a little too far.

[Carl]

Halberd Militia are recruited from Militia Drill Square (level 4). Pike Militia are recruited from the Militia Barracks (level 5). How can a lower level unit be a replacement for one that is higher level?

Because (to my knowledge), NO ONE but HRE gets that. For everyone else it's either Halberds OR PIKES, NOT BOTH. (p.s. caps are for emphasis). HRE and France are the only armies that get pikes AND halberds. Everyone else gets one or the other. I haven't checked Poland and Hungary yet, but I know that for Papal States and Denmark that Halberds are their last tier unit. I suspect that Halberd Militia are the same place for Poland and Hungary although I'd have to check.

The fundamental problem is that with the 'fix', pikemen become untouchable from the front (literally, because the enemy is unable to close with them in the first place), but without the fix, pikemen are rubbish (because they ALWAYS allow the enemy to close with them). They are the unbalancing element ATM, not the halberds themselves.

Not really Dopp. If they fixed the switchover code so that only those who where in melee range pulled swords you'd get the exact same situation as now. Right now if someone gets into melee range all the nearby pikes turn toward's him and away from the front, yet the unit remains impenetrable from the front. If those that turn their pikes toward's him pulled swords out at this point as they should, (whilst the rest of the unit keep their pikes), then the only real change would be those that got through would do more damage before dying. They aren't performing much different to how they should Dopp.

Interestingly, I find that on huge unit sizes (Which is naturally my balance target), with their unit sizes upped to 60 halberdiers are devastating. They beat pikemen that are better quality even (Halberd Militia can take on Highland Pikemen, and occasionally even Scottish Heavy Pike Militia).

2 Problems here.

1. your doing 1v1, that means that means theirs no other unit protecting the flanks of the pikes. try 4v4 so that some pikes can only be engaged head on.

2. Your using default formations, in reality fixed pikes/spears have formations that are far too deep. My Pikes now deploy 4 ranks deep which means that you can't make the Halberd's formation any thinner, (if you try for wider, the center just disintegrates vs. anything and you get worse results, I checked). Thus under my BugFixer you won't see them getting in the flanks for you. I tried even on Huge and it didn't happen. Try controlling the Pikes and widening the formation till your only 4 ranks deep and try that against comp Halberds, or edit your EDU ranks numbers for Pikes.

[dopp]

Because (to my knowledge), NO ONE but HRE gets that. For everyone else it's either Halberds OR PIKES, NOT BOTH. (p.s. caps are for emphasis). HRE and France are the only armies that get pikes AND halberds. Everyone else gets one or the other. I haven't checked Poland and Hungary yet, but I know that for Papal States and Denmark that Halberds are their last tier unit. I suspect that Halberd Militia are the same place for Poland and Hungary although I'd have to check.

The fact remains that most (if not all) halberd units are one tier lower than even basic Pike Militia on the building tree, which means a) 12000 less population required to build them, b) 9600 less florins to build them, and c) 5 less turns to build them. Per city. That's got to count for something. And elite French pikemen are even higher on the tech tree, requiring 12000 more florins for an Army Barracks and 6 more turns. It's just like if Musketeers cost 27000 more florins to build per city than other missile troops (which they do), they had better be the best missile troops.

If they fixed the switchover code so that only those who where in melee range pulled swords you'd get the exact same situation as now. Right now if someone gets into melee range all the nearby pikes turn toward's him and away from the front, yet the unit remains impenetrable from the front. If those that turn their pikes toward's him pulled swords out at this point as they should, (whilst the rest of the unit keep their pikes), then the only real change would be those that got through would do more damage before dying. They aren't performing much different to how they should Dopp.

I'm sorry, I don't quite understand what you mean here. Pikemen that draw swords in vanilla lose their advantage of reach and will fight as swordsmen until the combat is concluded. Taking away their swords fixes the problem where they abandon their pikes almost instantly after contact, but this gives them a huge reach advantage all the time, even when their formation has been penetrated and they should be at a disadvantage. That's why I said the 'fixed' pikes are still a little imbalanced to use.

To be honest, I'm not sure how you would make halberds competitive with pikes using the tools we have at our disposal, unless you either buff their stats sky-high (especially their defense) or turn them into pikemen as well by removing their secondary 'weapon', leaving them free to poke (no hacking). Their tactic of taking the charge and then switching over to normal melee puts them at a disadvantage, because they are neither as well armed or as well protected as the elite swordsmen that are the only units currently able to survive a head-on confrontation with pikemen.

[Carl]

The fact remains that most (if not all) halberd units are one tier lower than even basic Pike Militia on the building tree, which means a) 12000 less population required to build them, b) 9600 less florins to build them, and c) 5 less turns to build them. Per city. That's got to count for something. And elite French pikemen are even higher on the tech tree, requiring 12000 more florins for an Army Barracks and 6 more turns. It's just like if Musketeers cost 27000 more florins to build per city than other missile troops (which they do), they had better be the best missile troops.

The problem with that is that it isn't true of Denmark, It isn't true of Poland, it isn't true of the Papal States it isn't true of Hungary. All rely on Halberd equipped unit to provide either their last tier city or castle troops, (I'll hold my hand up and admit I got Papal States wrong, they do have Pike Militia when I double checked). That leaves no doubt in my mind they where meant to be powerful effective troops. In addition, since they occupy a late tech tree position in Poland and Hungary's Tech Tree, (and are much more expensive than Pike Militia), I'm of the opinion that Halberd Militia SHOULD be competitive with last tier melee units from other factions, (within the constraints that Hungary and Poland aren't totally infantry focused, and should have weaker infantry than those factions which are).

Lastly, not everyone sees these as unimportant SP additions. In that enviroment, the only availability difference between Halberds and Pikes is Cost, the Halberds Cost more. Thus all things considered they sure as hell had better be outperforming Pike Militia. Upkeep, Recruitment Pools Size and Replenish Rte and Position in the Tech tree in SP are methods to create differentiation between factions with similar unit rosters in the Campaign, they ARE NOT the primary means of balance for me, (although i do consider them to a degree when balancing as they are still important). They are more a secondary means to help balance out the complexities of campaign play and other campaign specific factors. The primary means of balance however is base Price, Faction Play style, and Custom Battle tech level, (which is simply a broader version of the SP tech levels). They are the bits that matter to me as I know they will be balanced in Custom, and experience playing other games tells me that a balanced custom mode almost always equals balanced campaigns too. The only Campaign specif thing I constantly worry about is Auto-Calc as thats such a big thing and effects battle odds too.

On the flip side, I don't believe that Halberds should beat Pikes head on, I'll go into that in more detail in a moment though.

I'm sorry, I don't quite understand what you mean here. Pikemen that draw swords in vanilla lose their advantage of reach and will fight as swordsmen until the combat is concluded. Taking away their swords fixes the problem where they abandon their pikes almost instantly after contact, but this gives them a huge reach advantage all the time, even when their formation has been penetrated and they should be at a disadvantage.

My point is Dopp that their formation is penetrated when they are unfixed BECAUSE they switch to swords, not IN SPITE of it.

What Do I mean in more detail:

1. What Happens without the Pike Fix: The Swords Charge in, most actually get slowed down by the Pikes. A few swords get through the pikes and make it to melee however. The whole Pike unit then switches to swords and those slowed down are now free to speed up and the pikes get hit en-mass at melee range, resulting in the formation being compromised totally.

2. What Happens with the Pike Fix: The swords hit, most get slowed down, a few make it to melee. Those Pikes engaged in melee now put all their attacks against hose engaging them in melee as do the ranks behind them that arn';t in range of those who where slowed down. Those pikes who are not engaged in melee and who are in range will continue to attack those slowed down and force them out before they make it to melee. The few swords that have made melee then get ripped to pieces and the whole formation now focuses on the other swords who are now held at bay.

3. What Should Happen if the Switchover Code was Working Right: The swords hit, most get slowed down, a few make it to melee. Those Pikes engaged in melee now switch to swords and put all their attacks against those engaging them in melee. The ranks behind them that aren't in range of those who where slowed down attack them with their Pikes too. Those pikes who are not engaged in melee and who are in range will continue to attack those slowed down and force them out before they make it to melee. The few swords that have made melee then get ripped to pieces and the whole formation now focuses on the other swords who are now held at bay.

The difference between 2 and 3? Those swords that do make melee range will do more damage as the Sword attacks are worse than the Pikes by some margin, but they will still have 2 ranks of Pikes prodding them plus 2 or 3 swordsmen pikes attacking them. If they fix the Switchover code the Pikes will still be nearly impossible to compromise on a large scale, but will suffer more losses from small scale compromising of the formation.

To be honest, I'm not sure how you would make halberds competitive with pikes using the tools we have at our disposal, unless you either buff their stats sky-high (especially their defense) or turn them into pikemen as well by removing their secondary 'weapon', leaving them free to poke (no hacking). Their tactic of taking the charge and then switching over to normal melee puts them at a disadvantage, because they are neither as well armed or as well protected as the elite swordsmen that are the only units currently able to survive a head-on confrontation with pikemen.

I've actually been trying to make them work as a kind of 2-Hander/Spear cross ATM with some success. Basically they have Spear Wall formation removed along with their secondary weapon and the Long_Pike Attribute for the Primary Weapon. They keep the Spear Attribute for their Primary Weapon.

As i said, Limited Success however, so 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


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 ain'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 specific 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 s with all other infantry.

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).


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.

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 Pikeman without having 5 or so attacks directed at him every round of attacks. Voulgiers 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 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 Obaushear'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 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.

Obaushear'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), 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 Halberdier 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.


Despite all that doom and gloom I'm generally happy with Halberds, they feel unique from both Pikes and 2-Handers and are worth their money, it's just the high end ones that are proving OTT and much of this problem is stemming from how poor the defense skill of Halberd Militia is at Vanilla settings. We have to raise it s much to make it competitive that it's pushing even Volouge Militia to the limits of balanced and Voulougiers/Swordstaff militia to the limit.


The real problem with balancing Halberds is that they (in vanilla), suffer from the switchover bug, the Animation bug and are fairly underpowered in vanilla for their price on top of everything else. So where not only having to kill the effects of 2 bugs, but where also having to do CA's job and actually balance them properly in the first place.

I'm going to experiment and see if can't fin the point at which Obaushear's become OK balance wise and then see how that effects the rest of the Halberds in compression.

[Carl]

p.s. What do people think ov V1.11 then?

[Bongaroo]

Thanks for putting this together. I was only able to play an hour last night after installing the BugFixer. I started a new campaign as Scotland, so I haven't had time to see any effects but after reading through the readme, it looks like I will be very happy for a while.

[Revenant]

Carl: Did you consider to remove spearwall formation from all halberds and raise their stats accordingly? This will make a sort of cheap weak AP assault infantry from them, similar to billmen.

[Musashi]

They're not supposed to be assault infantry. Halberds were a higher tech development of pikes, they're defensive infantry with a bite.

[Revenant]

They're not supposed to be assault infantry. Halberds were a higher tech development of pikes, they're defensive infantry with a bite.

I do not they were higher tech developement of pikes - they were used earlier than pikes (if we take only middle ages) and pikes lasted much longer, various polearms remained only as ceremonial weapons in later times.

I agree they were more versatile than pikes, though. You can cut, slash, drag and stab with them...

But maybe the best solution will be to leave them as weaker type of "pikes" with AP ability and the faction without pikes will be just more vulnerable to cavalry.

[Carl]

Carl: Did you consider to remove spear wall formation from all halberds and raise their stats accordingly? This will make a sort of cheap weak AP assault infantry from them, similar to billmen.

It's a possibility, but as noted a couple of posts ago by me, a number of factions use Halberds as a replacement for pikes. They really need the Cav defense, and without spear wall they are going to struggle to provide it IMHO. This is a particular issue for the Danes.

Also, HRE, France, and Denmark already get 2-handers, I also believe the same is true of the eastern factions that get them, (Although I haven't played those yet so I'm not sure TBH).

The problem is that turning them into AP Pikes risks making them IMBA, yes they cost about double he price of a comparable Pike unit, and are slower. However, they are much more missile resistant in general than most Pikes and the high level Halberds are cheaper on upkeep than the High level Pikes, (although this isn't an issue for custom Battles it is something that has to be remembered as the campaign is the most common form of SP play, for reference low level Halberds are similar or more expensive than the low level pikes on upkeep).

In other words we have an issue in which we can't really make them 2-Handers, but if we turn them into AP pikemen we risk unbalancing them. It's a double edged sword.

Thanks for putting this together. I was only able to play an hour last night after installing the BugFixer. I started a new campaign as Scotland, so I haven't had time to see any effects but after reading through the readme, it looks like I will be very happy for a while.

Thanks for the opinion.

[Jambo]

What about making them 60 man units like pikes? As well as giving them a little attack hike, this is the best solution I've found so far.

And/or increase their skeleton compensation factor to 1.33?