Would there be sufficient demand for a balance fix mod?

[Crandaeolon]

Some time ago, Louis made some balance improvement suggestions, but that thread got dead & buried. I'd like to revisit the issue briefly.

Just wondering if anyone would use a mod that fixes vanilla 1.2 balance. Unlike the larger mods that dramatically alter the gameplay, this one would focus only on correcting the current balance problems. Along these lines:

- Unbalanced units fixed and elite unit prices set to more correct values.

- RPS strengthened a bit. Mainly spear and camel bonuses, javelin effectiveness, phalanx effectiveness vs. cavalry.

- Faction balance tweaked a bit by giving the weakest factions an additional option or two.

- A minor decrease in killing speed, but NO decrease in movement speed.

- Unit bugs fixed (parthian shot, Pontic pike hoplite size etc.)

Let's assume that it would be very easy to install and use; just a new shortcut on the desktop, no modifications to the actual game itself. No need to have multiple copies of RTW on the machine.

So, whaddya think? Would something like this get any support?

[Wishazu]

if some1 is willing to make it then im willing to try it.

[NihilisticCow]

I would certainly be interested as this is something I have often thought about (and experimented with) as I am most interested in playing multiplayer games, but am not particularly drawn to the larger mods (they do not seem to get played much online anyway).
The problem I guess would be the complexity in balancing, with the sheer number of factions and units in play, but any improvement to the balance (and making more factions competitive) would be welcome... Just have to get people online to play the mod......

As regards the changes, I always think a minimalist approach would be best (only doing was is absolutely necessary - no adding/removing units - just making existing units more/less effective or affordable as appriopriate) and rationalising some of the unit sizes (you mentioned Pontic bronze shield unit size).

Btw, what is the bug with the parthian shot? It seems to work fine for me.

[Crandaeolon]

Just have to get people online to play the mod......

That has been the greatest hurdle in past TW games... but, Rome is more unbalanced than either STW or MTW, and a quick question "Do you think this game is balanced?" in the chat lobbies sparked quite a firestorm... so it appears that a minimalistic balance fix mod could have at least _some_ support.

As regards the changes, I always think a minimalist approach would be best

Yes, of course. No units would be added or removed - but this does leave the problem of Gauls. They need an affordable missile unit or some other option to be competitive in 10k games.

Btw, what is the bug with the parthian shot?

In RTW 1.2, some horse archer units and chariots cannot fire on the move anymore. This is a documented bug, and it can be fixed by giving the horse archers the "thrown" attribute in stat_pri_attr. The only side effect is that the targeting cursor looks like a javelin...

you mentioned Pontic bronze shield unit size

Actually, it's the Pontic "Phalanx Pikemen" unit that feels illogical - the bronze shields are ok. Somewhere in the modding forum is a unit bug thread, which is where most of the "bugfix" info comes from.

[NihilisticCow]

Funnily enough, my attempts to play as Gaul started me thinking about the game balance... can't imagine why.
I regularly play 10k games, but playing as Gaul, the high cost of foresters seems to drastically weaken my armies before the game has begun (and they always seem to lose missile - missile duels with other elite archers anyway because of their low armour)... and they just don't have the units to play without them easily (without ambushing - which is rather predictable on many maps and easily dealt with).
I think that lowering the cost of these to a bit lower than the chosen archers (after all this is Gauls main strength and difference, and the chosens have much higher armour anyway) may go some way to helping Gaul. Their strongish melee shouldn't be too much of an issue in overpowering them.

This and increasing the effectiveness of the skirmishers would just leave mainly heavy cavalry problems that gaul also has trouble in numbers... (having weak cavalry and no spear infantry)... For this a buff to warbands might work, e.g. giving them the spear bonus attack versus cavalry (they do appear to have spears anyway)...

Hmmm... I've gone on a bit longer than I meant, but anyway, my point was you don't necessarily need new units for Gaul, there may well be solutions (though I'd love something like arcani for them to support hidden foresters without cavalry)...

[AquaLurker]

Gaul is simlpy weak in every aspect of the game, they have weak melee troops, weak cavalry and over priced archers. The army is simply ineffective against any non barbarian factions.

I think that in a 10k-12.5k games, the only barbarian faction that can put up a decent fight would be the Brits, spanish, Germanians and the Scythians. Dacians, Thracians and Gauls are nosense in multiplayer games.
Numidians can barely compete with any civilised factions. While the obviously over powered factions would be the egyptians and Romans(well duh!!).
All Cataphracts by all means are under priced.

IMHO, the armies that require balancing are basically the Gauls, Dacians, Thracians, Egypt and Rome.

Maybe, moders can try balancing the armies like what they did for SPQR, or maybe SPQR moders can lower their stats(and morale) to the level of the current vanilla RTW version for the general multiplayer community. It would be great!!! I like what they did for the units for all the factions especially egypt.