My thoughts on patch 1.02

[Lord Toranoga]

First off I think the changes to the unit speeds are a big improvement.

But I wonder if an infantry unit would run faster charging into sharp spears than running for his life. Maybe charge and run speeds should be the same for infantry except for SA which would drop their bows and arrows(less weight now)and charge with just a small Katana.

I wish the A.I. was improved, and Geishas were weakened or able to be turned off. Maybe next patch.

With the troop stats my main gripe is with Yari Ashigaru.
Their melee base value is the same as their defense value. With dojo upgrades the melee value goes up even higher to two. This suggests an offensive unit. Yari Samurai have a higher defensive value compared to its melee value, suggesting a defensive unit.
Both are suppose to be more defensive in nature. Yari Ashigaru need their defense value raised and melee lowered.
Also,their armor is 0 now. Does that mean they have no armor at all,or just reflects their poor armor compared to samurai units?

If honour is morale(no one yet from C.A. has given me an answer about it), then I think YA's morale should be raised to -2.

With all the armor HC has, shouldn't they be less routable than NC? NC has a morale of 8 and HC just 6. Heavy Cav were the elite troops. Their morale should only be topped by Monks and Ninjas, and equal to Kensai.

Warrior monks were fanatical. I feel they should have the highest morale, equal to or higher than Ninjas. I realize Ninjas need high morale for behind the enemy line work, so I am not suggesting lowering Ninja's morale too much if thats what they need, but keep in mind they gain honor quick and that helps morale.

Muskets reload quicker and all around are a better firearm, so I feel their morale would be higher than Arquebusier units and not rout as easily. -3 for morale would be better.

I don't know why everyone thinks No-Dachi were so bad at defense. Its hard to get close to man if he is swinging a long sword back and forth. He can chop spears in half.
I only suggest raising the defense to 0.

Why do Cav archers get a 10 charge bonus,more than NC and HC?
Why do HC get a stronger charge bonus than NC? You couldn't of used speed to determine these values because NC is faster(and rightly so because of less armor)than HC,but why do CA's, who's main function is not charging, get a 10 charge bonus? I can't figure out your reasoning for these values.
Please explain.

Yari Cav getting 15 for a charge bonus seems like a lot! Plus they get a +4 bonus when attacking other Cavalry. But I would have to playtest with them before making a conclusion.
Also, Yari Cav being the fastest, and still having armor the same as Cav archer seems wrong. I would change it to 2. Even their profile says that they are LIGHTLY ARMORED.

Finally, shouldn't the unit profiles get changed to reflect the recent changes.
NC says that it is slower than heavy Cav,that needs to be removed.
And Yari Cav says that they are the only unit capable of catching Cav Archers. Thats no longer true,Cav archers runaway at 23 and all cavalry units charge faster then that.

This patch has been a step in the right direction, but we can do better with time.
I also feel the units should be a little closer shoulder to shoulder, and Kahn7's suggestions about improving turning speeds should be investigated.



[This message has been edited by Lord Toranoga (edited 11-28-2001).]

[DoCToR]

YA:
We had to be very careful with the YA for a number of reasons. In fact, there was such a problem with the YA rush in older versions due to their exceedingly cheap koku cost of 100. Armour, weapon and honour upgrades are so cheap for a 100 koku unit that it was possible for the YA to beat a similarly priced WM.. Therefore to prevent this and make them more susceptible their armour was reduced from 2 to 0. Therefore, now a pumped up YA will be very susceptible to missile fire.

Their defence and melee values are the same as they were before. Their prime advantage is their greater foot speed over their infantry counterparts, thus enabling them to be more of an utility unit, especially against cavalry.

If you want higher honour (morale) units then be prepared to pay the koku for them. At 100 koku, they aren't supposed to be good units..... you can buy 5 of them for a WM and still have 50 change

Cav
HC are a defensive unit and are supposed to work within the main bulk of your army (i often have them as my Taisho now). Therefore a morale of 6 is more appropriate and discourages people from using the HC as a NC. The NC has the morale of 8 and is an offensive shock unit which is supposed to operate away from the main army threatening flanks and the rears of enemy units.

WM are still tough, believe me, especially now the ND att has been put back to 5. Remember ND is still a relatively cheap unit, you can buy nearly 2 of them for 1 WM. Use them for attacking only, don't let them be attacked or flanked as their defence is poor.

YC are faster and can still catch CA.

I urge you to play the game rather than judge the units based solely on their stats in the troopstats file.

Have fun,

DOC

------------------
MizuDOC Otomo
DrJambo Ouchi

[Lord Toranoga]

I have the feeling the changes are made more for multiplayer play balance than for single player historical accuracy. If YA were too powerful for the cost, maybe just raising the cost would be better.



[This message has been edited by Lord Toranoga (edited 11-28-2001).]

Quote Originally posted by Lord Toranoga:
I have the feeling the changes are made more for multiplayer play balance than for single player historical accuracy. If YA were too powerful for the cost, maybe just raising the cost would be better.[/QUOTE]

It is true, we mainly looked at the multiplayer side, but there's a reason for that. The AI is not a human mind, it often doesn't exploit the game's unbalances. However a human mind does, and that's what we wanted to solve.

Tera



------------------
Honour to Clan Torîi Aku.

Visit my resource centre here!
Evil is within us...

[Lord Toranoga]

I would prefer to set all the units to historical accuracy,and then tweak their costs until proper play balance is achieved.

[Whitey]

I got really annoyed in the campaign when my units didn't have the same effect they once did, hell, I lost men

but yeah - balance is great with the new stats, wierd, I'd been playing with cavalry that basicly mirrored your new stats (but with HC pumped a bit further) for a week or two, nice to think I was on the right lines there

I was also using Yari infantry with high defence ratings and reduced flexibility in manouver and slower speed (except charge speed) This makes them far far more defensive, and I prefer the feel of them...I also see you guys havn't changed any of the spacings on units, not a problem as such but it does take away a small element of change that was possible...

I really like the changing of the Proximity thresholds, very good idea that adds to the game.

just my thoughts....

and maybe one of you people can answer...'what the hell are phantoms???'

------------------
"Mon centre cède du terrain, ma droite se replie. Situation excellente. J'attaque!"
- Foch

[DoCToR]

Toronaga, the majority of these changes were made in an attempt to try to balance the MP game..

If you want to modify the troopstats for your SP experience the way you like it, you still can. You can also play with modified troopstats in friendly MP games as long as you both have identical troopstats and projectiles files.

For instance, i like to play with 80 unit YA when all other are at 60!

However, these hardcoded stats must be used for competitive online play.

Whitey, if we'd had more time on our hands we'd have definitely looked into the manoeuvrability options.. alas time ran out ;(

Phantoms were never included... interestingly they have the same stats as the original YA?!





------------------
MizuDOC Otomo
DrJambo Ouchi

[Obake]

Toranaga,

You have to remember that the individual numbers in the troopstats are not the measure you should use to measure balance. You have to look at the end result of the combination of them all and how that synergy relates to the other units. Along those lines, try testing individual units against each other in custom battles and if you can find someone to do it with you, online as well. You were on the right track when you asked if the low armor for Ashi is a reflection of their level relative to the samurai units.

You must also remember that there will always be sacrifices to historical accuracy for the sake of gameplay. It took 8 of us 6 weeks to get to where we are now. Balancing is nowhere near as easy as it appears and using price as the primary balancing factor would have been a disaster. We only considered price changes after most of the work had been done. Any modifications to price would have been a final tune-up and nothing more than a sloppy band-aid if used on the front end.

In answer to your question re all other Cav units being able to charge faster than CA, the charge speed is only invoked when another unit is within the proximity threshold. As a result, the other Cav units cannot maintain that charge speed at will and therefore the CA will always be able to scoot out of the way. Even if you set another Cav unit to chase down the CA (other than YC) that unit will end up tiring out as it repeatedly charges at the CA. Fatigue plays a huge role and eventually that unit will no longer be able to charge the CA, let alone run after it.

Hope this clarifies things a bit and helps your understanding. If not, keep posting your questions.

------------------
Obake

Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level, then beat you with experience.

[BakaGaijin]

I had a marathon SP play session, Sengoku era, and I must say I do rather like the new stats. Everything just *feels* right. I'm not scared to charge my cavalry anymore.

------------------
Disappear into the Darkness!!

[Puzz3D]

Lord Toranoga,

We had no way to alter the unit costs. A small tweak at the end was the only option. It would have been nice to address unit spacing and turning, but the deadline closed in on us. The big push the final week to get the overall play balance adjusted was exhausting. We think all the units are useful without any one being overpowered. We also tried to ensure that the rock, paper, scissors system is working properly so that taking armies composed of only two of those components is not overpowering. A large number of battles by a lot of players will show to what degree we were successful.

I would like to see a mod developed that is as historically accurate as possible. Yamaga's ruled battles is probably the way to go to utilize such a mod online.

MizuYuuki ~~~
Clan Takiyama ~~~

[Vanya]

Quote Originally posted by DoCToR:
...For instance, i like to play with 80 unit YA when all other are at 60!...[/QUOTE]

Now... THAT seems interesting. Would make YA more appealing by giving them more numbers. Hmmm... 60-man unit of YS or... 100 man unit of rabble for half the koku...?

[Whitey]

thats what I suggested in the Mods forum, no-one liked the idea though...karma...

[Kraellin]

vanya,

we actually did try that. one thing you have to remember if doing that is that the absolute maximum number of men you can have in a unit at ANY level of troop sizes, is 120 men. any more and the game will crash. so, if you normally play 60 unit size and mod the ya's to 120 to play in the 60 unit game, when you go to the 80 unit game, the game will crash because the unit size for ya's are now out of bounds.

we tried, at one point, to compensate for this by making ALL of the other units smaller in a 60 unit size game, but it just didnt look right, play right, or feel right, and, it also means rebalancing other units accordingly. we eventually had to discard the idea because it just messed too many other things up.

it's still very do-able; dont get me wrong. by all means make a mod; just remember that one rule about max size for any unit in any unit size mode is 120 men.

K.


------------------
I'm sorry, but i never apologize.

[Erado San]

Also, if you set the troop numbers for the standard 60 troop per unit game, keep in mind that all numbers must be dividable by 3. Then, as you switch to 80, the new troop number comes out as an integer. The engine can't handle 66.3 troops in a unit.

[Khan7]

Well, IMO YA are actually over-weak, so that by upping them *just* a bit they can be a more feasible and desirable unit. Making spears more important also helps here.

Matt

[DoCToR]

Yeah agreed Erado, it is actually better to have them at unit size 90 instead of 80 for the 60 unit size! Then if you were to play unit size set to 80 you'd get 120 YA....and you'd be able to go no further. If you keep YA at 80 when set to the 60 unit size and were then to go to the 80 unit size then you'd have 104 or 108 YA (80 / 3 x 4)

Hope that helps.

To compensate their increase in number i set their attack and defend values to -2/-2. Works very well in SP campaigns....

Just remember the very wise words from Meester Kraellin about maximum unit sizes though

------------------
MizuDOC Otomo
DrJambo Ouchi

[Puzz3D]

It's easy to avoid the crash problem with variable unit size. Just make the YA 60 and everything else smaller. Then play at the size you want the YA to be. For instance, make all other units 30, and then the 120 unit size will give you 60 man units and 120 man YA.

The major problem with the variable unit size is that you loose the larger unit size options for the regular units. In my example, the regular units can never be bigger than 60 men. It's definitely a very interesting tactical option, but you do have to rebalance the YA if you make it bigger.

MizuYuuki ~~~
Clan Takiyama ~~~

[Whitey]

what I was thinking of was more a redesignation of units - leaving Yari troops at 60 men (maybe YS at 48), reducing No-Dachi troops into smaller tactical units (36) and pumping them accordingly. All archer units retain their 60 strength, except musks and arqs, which I would reduce to 36 and restore their power as before (a kind of 'guns are rare but powerful' setting)

I always liked the idea of toying with kensai and turning them into a 12 man 'elite no-dachi guard' unit with much the same role as before.

reducing all cavalry to either 48 or 36 and increasing their stats so they can fare well against infantry while outnumbered was always a dream of mine - turning them into a true elite, but a vulnerable one. Obviously this completely messes with the Mongol Invasion stats...

boy you testers had a hard job

thanks

[Kraellin]

whitey,

yup. all very do-able. try turning the kensai into a 120 man unit and pumping their stats some time. it's a grin :)

i hope you guys also realize that if the sprites were able to be modified we'd have a FULL unit editor capable of making all sorts of mods that actually looked how you wanted them to look for whatever period you wanted to mod them to. khan7's acw mod could actually wear the blue and the gray. fantasy mods of orcs and trolls and elfs and dragons and so on could be done. want to play africa circa 1500? mod the sprites, mod the stats, and you've got it. got a particular middle eastern war you want to simulate? there ya go.

and, if you really wanna get fancy, someone figure out the campaign map and how to mod it.

K.


------------------
I'm sorry, but i never apologize.

[Catiline]

Off to editing mods and patches with you

------------------
Oderint dum metuant