Unit Balancing!

[Slaists]

Most of the changes made to the units have not been all that bad.

Some factions however, have taken some big hits.

I have noticed in all my recent campaigns that the Mughals are dominating the Marathas Confederacy every time. Earlier on the Marathas usually managed to win for the most part and sometimes eliminated the Mughals. Now it is a rather quick victory for the Mughals and the expand out into Europe.

I think it could use some looking into.

Hmm. Are we playing the same game? I've played (not to the glorious end) 3 campaigns in 1.3 and in all 3 Marathas eliminated Mughals. I guess, results vary and that's good.

My main problem with native Americans is their numbers; they come at me in 3-4 full stacks which run down the American protectorates who don't seem to enjoy recruiting troops of any sort. I've never, in any campaign, seen Great Britain obtain the US with anything south of Boston

Again, we must be playing different games. The 'berserkness' of North American indians seems to vary widely depending on which faction the player chooses to play. When I played as Britain and France, the natives overran the colonies fast. When I played as UP, Britain, Spain and France (AI) got their protectorates in 1710 intact and healthy. All three games were on VH difficulty.

All of this assumes a true dead zone of something like 90 degrees or more (for a square rigger) in the direction of the wind, where you simply can't make any headway at all, and you'd be a sitting duck if you pointed your ship that way. I don't know if mods like this Darthmod being talked about are doing that, or if they're just adjusting the speed to be a lot slower when you sail directly upwind. Has anybody actually modded zero motion in the direction of the wind, and if so, can the AI handle it? Does the AI know how to tack as a combat maneuver?

(headdesk!).

I am not sure exactly what Darth has done, but trying to go against the wind is a dead affair in his mod. Also, I've seen the AI do tacking very diligently in his mod. Not sure how he achieved that.

i somehow think that primitive bowmen shouldn't have a 50% higher range then musketmen, who would undoubtedly have better range.

however, if the range was reduced to, perhaps, 60, and their rate of fire reduced to 10 shots a minute, and somehow make it take 2 shots to kill any line infantry and above, then i'm sure that the argument would be subsantially reduced.

I have no problem with the current bowmen balance. I find it realistic that bowmen outrange muskets until the age of rifle. As mentioned before, muskets made the armor obsolete, not bows. However, those 'woolen layers' mentioned here would not have done much to stop an arrow. Even full leather armor did not help much to stop arrows in its (historical) time... So, arrows should be deadly for European troops dressed in plain cloth.

And it's easy to run those bowmen down with cavalry.

As almost everybody on the forums seems to hate the whole rebalancing naval units, not to mention the hatred of the ability to sail into the wind, I just thought i'd throw in my 2 cents:

I have almost no historical background for this time period; apart from the fact that people used muskets and there were some big ships. When I started playing the game, I thought that sailing into the wind was sort of a "whatever" sort of thing, and didn't bug me too much. I downloaded a few mods (darthmod, rights of man, etc.) and after playing them to see which I liked, i started resenting the inability to sail into the wind a bit. For a very casual gamer who isn't up for a major challenge, the wind being a serious factor was really troubling to me. I found it semi-realistic, but very annoying. Once I accidently told a ship to sail away from a demasted enemy ship, and it took me a while in order to get my ship to crawl back and make the pesky enemy vessel surrender. It unleashed broadside after broadside into the mess of my ships which were ganging up on the last enemy vessel, and sunk a total of 3 ships in the time that it took me to capture one of theirs and reach the enemy ship.

I am in favor of the sailing into the wind; but I think that the "arcade-style" gameplay should be reintroduced in order for players to choose their preference.

Well, on weather gauge:

"An upwind vessel is able to maneuver at will toward any downwind point, since in doing so the relative wind moves aft. A vessel downwind of another, however, in attempting to attack upwind, is constrained to trim sail as the relative wind moves forward and cannot point too far into the wind for fear of being headed. In sailing warfare, when beating to windward, the vessel experiences heeling under the sideward pressure of the wind. This restricts gunnery, as cannon on the windward side are now elevated, while the leeward gun ports aim into the sea, or in heavy weather may be awash. A ship with the weather gage, turning downwind to attack, may alter course at will in order to bring starboard and port guns to appropriate elevations. Ships seeking to evade capture or attack, however, have the advantage being downwind if they are faster vessels or are close to friendly land."

Pretty neat stuff, isn't it? I find it way more interesting than the current ability of the ETW ships to sail against the wind and spin around while standing still.