light spear balance (vs. swords) in 1.2

Originally Posted by vollorix

I, too, reduced the attack value of all spearmen ( -4 ).
From all the games i´ve played since then i can say the following:
- The Phalangitai units aren´t really concerned, except their ability to fight AI FM, which are rediculously strong anyway ( last time a FM of Epirotes just cut his way through my Deuteroi phalanx, routing 2 units with a little support from Thureophoroi ).
- The Hoplitai Haploi perform now as they should, imo; but the Classical Hoplites suck a lot against sword infantry, especially against "ap" units. I think, one should give them at least 2 attack back ( though, they are still quite cool against horsemen ). On the other hand i use BI.exe and therefore "shieldwall" - if you do, let them as they are, because otherwise they are simply unbreakable/unstopable.
- I haven´t tried the elite units like Agema Ordeton etc. - but since this guys are quite tought anyway, and they can make shieldwall, too, they might be ok.
- Ippikrates Hoplites are normaly underpowered, so to compensate the loss of attack value, and also to make them usefull, i´ve improved their stamina to "very hardy" - now they are quite ok.

That would be all for now, i´ll post some more observations when i have something usefull to say again.

Been awhile since this thread goto started, but since I was one of the primary plantiffs, here's my most recent take on things.....

-4 across the board is imbalanced. So what I did some time back, was introduce a sliding scale, dependant on the units cost, training and supposed abilities.

Levy spearman -4 attack in virtually everycase (same with almost all Archers that have spears as secondary).E.g. Levy Hoplites should be a garrison/peacekeeping force. They should not be line infantry ever. Look at any "suprisingly good unit" thread and Levy Hoplites are right up there. Well take away the 4 attack and they perform very normally, as should be.

The middle spear units, -3 attack, the better ones -2 attack. Phalanx units have double shield value when in phalax mode, so giving them 5 shield (when its a tiny little thing as well) is ridiculous. Normal Phalanx therefore have a "2" shield and Elite Phalanx have "3" shield, in addition to the above modifiers. This makes them slightly susceptible to missile file (instead of impervious as before), but still tough as nails from the front. Autocalc is seemingly unaffected.

These honestly work very well in SP mode (never tried) MP. My last huge campaign was as KH (all spear), current is Mak, having some superb proper mixed full stack action vs a strong AS atm.

I changed my EDU a lot over the last years to improve balance. I don't really like the idea of reducing the spear attack, at least not in EB on rtw.exe where you don't have the spear_bonus attributes. Heavy cavalry can already beat spearmen cost effective-wise with repeated charges, reducing their attack makes them even weaker. The problem aren't to strong spearmen but too weak shortsword units. Longsword wielding warriors perform relative good against spearmen only shortswords suck against both of the others. So what I did was to give more lethality to the shortswords (1.0->1.3 and 1.3->1.5) and sometimes extra attack or defence points to single units who were completely underpowered, like pontic thorakitai. Falcata and kopis now have 1.4 lethality instead of 1.1 but one attack reduced (similar to clubs I think), it's hard to balance them because of the overpowered ap-attribute but I think they work better now.
I did some other changes too, longswordmen got +1 defence skills, cavalry +1 or +2 defence and heavily improved secondary weapons (+20% lethality mostly in additions to the changed swordsword lethality). Phalangitai got reduced shield defence (3 for levies, 4 for the others) and -1 armor (the team said they already did this but as far as I understand the armor system I couldn't see difference to non-phalanx-units) and lowered secondary attack but gave some more defence skill.

I tested a lot in costum battles and played several months with different factions and the balance is way better but far from perfect since that's not possible in the RTW engine especially not without the extra attributes of BI.

Originally Posted by Rahl

I changed my EDU a lot over the last years to improve balance. I don't really like the idea of reducing the spear attack, at least not in EB on rtw.exe where you don't have the spear_bonus attributes. Heavy cavalry can already beat spearmen cost effective-wise with repeated charges, reducing their attack makes them even weaker. The problem aren't to strong spearmen but too weak shortsword units. Longsword wielding warriors perform relative good against spearmen only shortswords suck against both of the others. So what I did was to give more lethality to the shortswords (1.0->1.3 and 1.3->1.5) and sometimes extra attack or defence points to single units who were completely underpowered, like pontic thorakitai. Falcata and kopis now have 1.4 lethality instead of 1.1 but one attack reduced (similar to clubs I think), it's hard to balance them because of the overpowered ap-attribute but I think they work better now.
I did some other changes too, longswordmen got +1 defence skills, cavalry +1 or +2 defence and heavily improved secondary weapons (+20% lethality mostly in additions to the changed swordsword lethality). Phalangitai got reduced shield defence (3 for levies, 4 for the others) and -1 armor (the team said they already did this but as far as I understand the armor system I couldn't see difference to non-phalanx-units) and lowered secondary attack but gave some more defence skill.

I tested a lot in costum battles and played several months with different factions and the balance is way better but far from perfect since that's not possible in the RTW engine especially not without the extra attributes of BI.

Glad to hear that you found a formula that works! But when you said "without the extra attributes of BI," did you mean that you're not running Europa Barbarorum on the BI engine? I'm eager to try out your setup, but I use BI, so I'm thinking that I should look before I leap; I imagine it does make a significant difference.

Originally Posted by Rahl

I changed my EDU a lot over the last years to improve balance. I don't really like the idea of reducing the spear attack, at least not in EB on rtw.exe where you don't have the spear_bonus attributes. Heavy cavalry can already beat spearmen cost effective-wise with repeated charges, reducing their attack makes them even weaker. The problem aren't to strong spearmen but too weak shortsword units. Longsword wielding warriors perform relative good against spearmen only shortswords suck against both of the others. So what I did was to give more lethality to the shortswords (1.0->1.3 and 1.3->1.5) and sometimes extra attack or defence points to single units who were completely underpowered, like pontic thorakitai. Falcata and kopis now have 1.4 lethality instead of 1.1 but one attack reduced (similar to clubs I think), it's hard to balance them because of the overpowered ap-attribute but I think they work better now.
I did some other changes too, longswordmen got +1 defence skills, cavalry +1 or +2 defence and heavily improved secondary weapons (+20% lethality mostly in additions to the changed swordsword lethality). Phalangitai got reduced shield defence (3 for levies, 4 for the others) and -1 armor (the team said they already did this but as far as I understand the armor system I couldn't see difference to non-phalanx-units) and lowered secondary attack but gave some more defence skill.

I tested a lot in costum battles and played several months with different factions and the balance is way better but far from perfect since that's not possible in the RTW engine especially not without the extra attributes of BI.

actually, the spear_bonus_x attribute was added with the RTW 1.3 patch. iirc, the EB team made the +4 across the board addition to spear units when the spear attribute was being used (back in EB 0.8x) because it gives -4 attack to spear units. when they switched to light_spear though (which gives -4 defense skill), they did not remove the +4 attack or move the +4 to defense skill. so, IMO an across the board reduction of -4 to the attack of spear units makes total sense.

Originally Posted by Drewski

Been awhile since this thread goto started, but since I was one of the primary plantiffs, here's my most recent take on things.....

-4 across the board is imbalanced. So what I did some time back, was introduce a sliding scale, dependant on the units cost, training and supposed abilities.

Levy spearman -4 attack in virtually everycase (same with almost all Archers that have spears as secondary).E.g. Levy Hoplites should be a garrison/peacekeeping force. They should not be line infantry ever. Look at any "suprisingly good unit" thread and Levy Hoplites are right up there. Well take away the 4 attack and they perform very normally, as should be.

The middle spear units, -3 attack, the better ones -2 attack. Phalanx units have double shield value when in phalax mode, so giving them 5 shield (when its a tiny little thing as well) is ridiculous. Normal Phalanx therefore have a "2" shield and Elite Phalanx have "3" shield, in addition to the above modifiers. This makes them slightly susceptible to missile file (instead of impervious as before), but still tough as nails from the front. Autocalc is seemingly unaffected.

These honestly work very well in SP mode (never tried) MP. My last huge campaign was as KH (all spear), current is Mak, having some superb proper mixed full stack action vs a strong AS atm.

Drewski, this sounds like a pretty well-thought-out fix. Do you think you could please upload it? I'd love to take it for a spin. Plus, all of the other uploaded fixes in this thread give me the Game Front "File not found, you will be redirected to..." message.

Originally Posted by Alkibiades14

Drewski, this sounds like a pretty well-thought-out fix. Do you think you could please upload it? I'd love to take it for a spin. Plus, all of the other uploaded fixes in this thread give me the Game Front "File not found, you will be redirected to..." message.

Maybe too soon...but...bump? I'd really love to try your current solution, Drewski.