My EDU balancing system

[fallen851]

I hope the title of this thread adquately describes the system I came up with to balance units. It changes how the game is played quite a bit, especially making important differences between civilized (heavily armored, low charge, resistant to missiles, low attack) and barbarian units (light armored, powerful charge, vunerable to missiles, high attack).

A few quick comments about the below: #1 Fatigue is a factor I developed to help reduce the charge of heavy armored units, and reduce their ability to attack, as well as balancing out defensive skill (I hope the reasons for this are self-explanatory). #2 Level is a factor I developed to provide a base for each unit, so you need to select a "unit level" (which is supposed to be a representation of unit ability, willingness to fight, and training/experiance) before compling the statistics (ie peasants would be a level 1 unit, and Spartans a level 10 unit, although this depends on your opinion of their ability).

Equations:

Select Level 1-10
Morale = Level + 2
Charge Bonus = (Level + Weapon (* 2 for cavalry spear, * 1.5 for other cavalry weapons) - Fatigue * 2) * 3
Defensive skill = Level - Fatigue
Melee Attack = Level + Weapon - 1/2 of Fatigue
Missile Attack = Level + Weapon
Heat = fatigue * 4 (minimum of 2)

Reduce Moral and Defensive skill by 1 for Mercs

Always Round Up

No Charge Bonus for Phalanx Spears.
Pike fatigue is not added when caculating charge bonus or attack of secondary weapons of Pikemen.

Weapons:

Pila: +5, AP
Bow: +6,
Sling: +6
Javelins: +9

Pike: +2, +1 fatigue
Spear: +3
Long Spear: +3

Mace: +4
Axe: +4
Two-Handed Axe: +6, AP, +1 fatigue

Dagger: +1
Short Sword: +2
Gladius: +3
Long Sword: +4
Falx: +5, AP

All lethality is set at .55
Cavalry Spear Lethality set at .47

Armor:

Light helmet: +1
Medium helmet: +2, +1 to fatigue
Heavy Helmet: +3, +1 to fatigue

Heavy Cloth: +1
Leather: +2
Breast Plate : +2
Mail: +5, +1 to fatigue
Heavy Mail: +6, +1 to fatigue
Plate Armor: +7, +2 to fatigue
Heavy Plate Armor: +8, +2 to fatigue

Armor is reduced -2 for unarmoured mount with armoured rider (shield and leather/cloth does not qualify a rider as an "armoured rider").
Armored cavalry recieve +1 fatigue.
Units with light cloth or no shirt recieve minus 5 heat.

Shields and Directional Armor:

Greaves: +1, +1 to fatigue
Directional Breast Plate: +2
Pikeman Small Shield: +3
Peltast Shield: +4
Barbarian Shield: +6, +1 to fatigue
Hoplon: +7, +2 to fatigue
Large Barbarian Shield: +8, + 2 to fatigue
Tower Shield: +9, +2 to fatigue

Based on my EDU research, when adding shields or directional armor, add half the points to the shield value, and then half the points to the normal armor value. If the shield gives an odd number of armor points, add the greater value to to the shield value. The +1 greaves gives is simply added to shield value.

For instance if you have a tower shield, you would add it like this:

stat_pri_armour 4, 0, 5, metal

Why is this? Shield values do not provide the same protection against missile weapons as normal armor (they provide about 3/4 as much protection I think). This helps balance that out, though since AP values aren't calculated when going against shields, it makes shields less effective vs AP, and also increases rear and side defense. I'm not sure yet if this is a sacrifice I'm willing to make, further testing will follow tommorow.

Here is the research:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=62744