NTW unit layout

[The Stranger]

i think to be a good mod, you should have balanced battles. and balanced and realistic upkeep and recruitcost. i have a layout but it is unfinished. any suggestions are welcome.

Morale Layout

peasants = 0
very light training = 2
light training = 6
medium training = 9
heavy training = 12
elite training = 14
berserker training = 16
spartan training = 18


Armour layout

no armour = 0
leather armour = 3
light metal armour = 5
linnen armour = 6
chainmail armour = 7
metal armour = 9
heavy metal armour = 10-11
lorica segmenta + armour = 12
total armoured = 18

Shieldtype Layout
no shield = 0
small shield = 2
medium shield = 3 (4)
large shield = 5


Range Layout

pilum = 35
javelin = 50
slinger = 80
normal bows = 120
composite bows = 170

__________________________
Training Bonusses (for defence value)

Defence capability

peasants = 1
light troops = 3
medium troops = 5
heavy troops = 6
elite troops = 7

no training = +0
light training = +1
good training = +2
missile troops = -1

______________________
Weapon Damage

spears = 5-15
daggers = 1-4
gladius = 2-12
javelins = 8-15
bows = 5-15
lances = 6-16
axes = 9-19
6-15

Charge Bonusses

spears = 2-10
daggers = 0-2
gladius = 2-5
lances = 5-15
axes = 5-10
swords = 5-12
____________________
Infantry Maintain Cost, (for 160 per unit)

peasants = 20$
levies = 50$
light infantry = 70$
medium infantry = 100$
heavy infantry = 150$
elite infantry = 200$
Food = +50 (for every unit)$

Infantry Maintain Cost Extra's (dependent on Training Building)

1st building = +0$
2nd building = +30$
3rd building = +50$
4th building = +70$
5th building = +100$
Elite Society units = +50$/+100$ (or units that pay there own weapons, like hoplites) cuz they want land or compensation

Infantry Recruit Cost, (for 160 per unit)

Peasants = 50$
Levies = 100$
light infantry = 120$
medium infantry = 150$
heavy infantry = 210$
very heavy infantry = 250$
elite society units = -50/-100 (or units that pay there own weapons, like hoplites)

no armour = +0$
leather armour = +25$
light metal armour = +35$
linnen armour = +50$
chainmail armour = +65$
metal armour = +80$
heavy metal armour = +90$
lorica segmenta + armour = +105$
total armoured = +150$
_____________________________________

Fatigue Bonus

no armour = 0
leather armour = 1
light metal armour = 2
linnen armour = 2
chainmail armour = 3
metal armour = 4
heavy metal armour = 5
lorica segmenta + armour = 5
total armoured = 6

Bonus vs Cavalry

spears = +1
short phalanx = +2
phalanx = +3
long pike = +4
______________________-

To be done

Upkeep and Recruit cost system
Speed and Stamina system
Attack and Charge bonus system

Recruit Cost

-50-?$ for training a turn
-?$ for compensation
-?$ for equipment

Maintainance Cost

-50$ for food
-?$ for equipment (depends on upgrade cost)
-0-?$ salary
_______________________
done by
QuickDagger
Weapon Types
Class Attack Bonus
Arrow Heavy 8
Arrow Light 6
Axe 1 Handed 8
Axe 2 Handed 12
Axe Trhow 6
Bullet 4
Dagger 4
Dog Bite 4
Falx 10
Hatchet 4
Head 4
Javelin Heavy 8
Javelin Light 6
Mace 6
Quarterstaff 4
Spear Horse Heavy 8
Spear Horse Light 6
Spear Long Heavy 12
Spear Long Light 10
Spear Short Light 8
Spear Short Heavy 10
Sword Broad Long 8
Sword Broad Short 6
Sword Kopesh 8
Sword Rhomphaia 8
Sword Scimitar 8
Sword Sickle 4
Trident 6
Warhammer 6


Shield Size
Class Defence Bonus
None 0
Small 2
Medium 4
Large 6

[ScionTheWorm]

I don't understand very much of this, but I think reqruitment of weak units should be very cheap and more experienced more expensive - a significant gap between them in cost and training time (0 turns, 1-3 turns). Then in most battles the armies will contain mostly weak units, reflecting reality and if balanced good, giving good gameplay. Besides, we're possibly not having peasants in the mod in the sense they are in vanilla; weak and cheap spearmen will probably have this role. I guess they should have morale 0 and maybe a lot of the peasants-stats, I don't know.

[The Stranger]

I don't understand very much of this, but I think reqruitment of weak units should be very cheap and more experienced more expensive - a significant gap between them in cost and training time (0 turns, 1-3 turns). Then in most battles the armies will contain mostly weak units, reflecting reality and if balanced good, giving good gameplay. Besides, we're possibly not having peasants in the mod in the sense they are in vanilla; weak and cheap spearmen will probably have this role. I guess they should have morale 0 and maybe a lot of the peasants-stats, I don't know.

what is it that you don't understand tell me, and i'll explain it

[Rodion Romanovich]

Ok, it sounds good but it's hard for me to syntesize what this will mean in practise for the units.

I hadn't gotten that far in the planning yet, but by running some tests with vanilla units I found out which combinations I thought behaved well when facing each other. For example we want a slower battle speed than vanilla R:TW, and we want to power down the ability of the cavalry to run over infantry.

So I thought infantry such as huscarles should have stats around the same as (or slightly better than) urban cohorts, and elite infantry even better stats. The militia and medium infantry should be between principes and praetorians, and the spearmen should be around german spear warband to the first greek hoplites or slightly better than greek hoplites for the most professional feudal foot sergeants and others. We were planning to use phalanx formation for the better spearmen, such as armored fyrdmen and feudal foot sergeants and so on, and then balance it so they don't beat the good infantry in a long engagement but inflict more casualties than they take in a short engagement with good infantry. They should also be able to rout militia infantry in a frontal engagement. Finally, we will probably power up the anti-cavalry bonus of all spear units to make it impossible for cavalry to win against spearmen in an attack from the front, although the best cavalry may kill many spearmen in an attack they should take very many losses in the process. We should also make sure that a flank attack from infantry on a spear unit should rout it quickly even with lower quality infantry unless the spear unit is very professional and have swords as backup (like the armored fyrdmen). If they have swords as backup, they should be able to hold their own for a while against levies but if simultaneously under attack from the front or any other direction should rout in a matter of say 10 seconds. With these adjustments, the cavalry and missiles could be kept almost as it is.

More detailed planning about combat stats was supposed to be carried out later, but above are the requirements of how the units should behave in certain battle situations that we were going to use as starting point for the balancing.

For cost, we'll make cavalry much more expensive than it is in vanilla R:TW compared to the footmen. All royal army/tagmata etc. troops will be expensive but professional and take some time to train. Professional archers and horse archers will have VERY long training times. All militia/themata/feudal militia etc. will have shorter training time (for the simplest militia 0 turns is good) and be much cheaper to recruit but the upkeep cost won't be too low and will often make it most useful to disband the militia between wars. The extreme difference between professional and militia troops should make so that AI and players tend to create armies consisting of a combination of militia and professionals, where militia will form the bulk. The economy of the player shouldn't allow him to create a very large royal army, and neither should it allow him to keep his militia also in times of peace, but instead force him to disband it and recruit it when needed. Some factions, like the Byzantines, will however be richer and can build up much of their army around mercenaries, but still they need militia to form the base of their armies.

I still haven't translated this to exact R:TW stats, but by checking the descr_units file it'd be possible to create a list like yours by checking the stats of the units I mentioned. However, like I said it's hard for me to visualize what your list will mean in practise, so if you could give examples of vanilla R:TW units that the mod's units will be equivalents or almost equivalents to with the system, then it's easier to follow.

The vanilla R:TW infantry also ranges too much in quality. The cheapest units are too much weaker than the best ones, making it ridiculous with brigands and weaker enemies as soon as you've built up economy somewhat, and the resulting in too easy and too total domination. Historical chronicles like to exaggerate the difference in skills between militia and better troops, but still there is a huge difference. A good enough difference is actually achieved even if you use principes defense, offense and morale stats for the weakest infantry and urban cohorts of better for the elite infantry. Using vanilla warband stats for militia and urban cohort stats for the elite makes the difference too exaggerated and gives the boring "1 second engagement then one unit routs"-system of vanilla R:TW. Therefore, in most cases I recommend having quite good stats even for the weakest troops and have a smaller difference. This isn't possible to do with armor of course, because unarmored troops should obviously have 0 in armor like in your list.

Edit: A quick look in export_descr_units.txt tells me this:
- I think morale should be better for the weaker unit types in your list. Around 6 would be good for the weakest militia and around 10 for the better militia. The best units could have 16-18.
- Obviously I agree that for armor the unarmored should have 0. and the best should have something like 10-15 IMO. I think we should have something like:
* Unarmored: 0
* Leather (and equivalents): around 2
* Chain mail: 6
* Plate mail: 8
* Completely covering cataphract style armor: 10-12
- Shields: It looks good IMO.
- Offensive, defensive and charge stats: It'll take some longer for me to check those.

[ScionTheWorm]

Will there be taken any actions againts the tendencies of one/two factions ruling the whole map after some years? Like Macedon, egypt and carthage in vanilla... it's quite unrealistic if for instance after 40 years the vikings dominate whole northern europe. I think the Roma mod for RTR 5.41 had a really good solution for this (build buildings for converting the culture etc., and at the same time have huge but weak armies in the rebel provinces)

[Rodion Romanovich]

Yes, by powering up the militia to around principes to praetorian quality while making the elite like urban cohorts and better. This will result in a smaller difference between elite and militia, which will make it challenging even after you've got the best economy in the game. But the elite will also always be so much more expensive than the militia that all factions will need to keep a high percentage of militia in their armies even after becoming more powerful. That'll make it harder to blitz early and conquer much, then take advantage of that economy to become even richer and get an even easier time blitzing more. Blitzing will also be made harder by the fact that we'll try to make troop training buildings incompatible so that if you conquer an enemy settlement you need to tear down their barracks and build own barracks before you can train anything in the settlement.

This is more realistic in many ways - for an offensive war you also can't now bring just one army and count on getting retraining, perhaps one stack and a backup stack of replacements is needed, and you can also count on the enemy calling in his feudal/themata/local militia to fight when attacked, making it much harder to expect a victory by a quick lightning strike.

Finally, many cities will be so poor that the garrison needed to maintain public order will cost as much as the player earns from holding the city. Only the really rich cities will really be well worth holding, but on the other hand the poorer cities can often be needed for a better defense and elimination of a frontline.

[ScionTheWorm]

This sounds fantastic!
These are not wishes, just some questions:
-Will there be a lot of (if not weak, then expensive) mercenaries?
-It sounds like everybody will be really poor. Will it be possible to upgrade your cities to get larger income, so we don't HAVE to conquer to get a stable economy (expensive and maybe restricted to certain provinces ports, mines etc..). Maybe this would be unrealistic; a poor city in finland would still be a poor city in finland after 5 years.

[Rodion Romanovich]

This sounds fantastic!
These are not wishes, just some questions:
-Will there be a lot of (if not weak, then expensive) mercenaries?
-It sounds like everybody will be really poor. Will it be possible to upgrade your cities to get larger income, so we don't HAVE to conquer to get a stable economy (expensive and maybe restricted to certain provinces ports, mines etc..). Maybe this would be unrealistic; a poor city in finland would still be a poor city in finland after 5 years.

Yes, it'll be balanced so that you can have a small standing royal army at all times without getting bankrupt, while at the same time upgrading your cities somewhat. However the militia can only be called in for shorter periods of time unless you conquer and upgrade a lot of things. A country that is at war too much - and thus needs it's militia all the time - will get in trouble. However a conquest of very rich lands such as Flandria and Friesia will be important improvements. The richest cities will be so much richer than the smaller cities that the player will often, when attacking a country, send his army straight for the rich capital instead of progressing by capturing one weak city after another. Often it'll be easier to conquer a country by taking the rich capital first, then sending out smaller troops for mopping up and conquering the smaller cities. However, it's also a risky thing to go deep into enemy territory unless you know much about the enemy's strength. Walls will also be more expensive so many smaller settlements will have weak or no walls, making it possible to use raid tactics in wars. Hopefully all those wishes will be possible to put together and make it work well, even with the AI.

Re mercenaries: yes, there'll be plenty of quite good mercenaries, however they'll be expensive, often even compared to a normally recruited royal army.