2h Fixes: Discussion

**Lusted** · 01-09-2007, 11:50

I think i managed to balance the 2 handed fix quite well in my LTC mod, using the JHI to replace the bugged one.

I also increased the mass of spearmen so they do better against cav, as spearmen in normal M2Tw are useless. Making spearmen better against cav beings back more of the rock, papaer, scissors dynamic.

**Zatoichi** · 01-09-2007, 12:55

I have spent a long time trying to rebalance the billmen, Dismounted Knights etc with the original animations from the demo. I ended up reducing the attack and charge values quite drastically as a result of one-on-one testing against Dismounted Chivalric Knights, basic spearmen and basic cavalry. I've also made minor adjustments to the recruitment cost of castle trained billmen (a very slight increase).

I'm happy with the way these units are matching up now, they feel 'right' to me personally.

However, I still don't know what effect these changes are making to the AI - it all has a knock on effect with the AI's desire to recruit these units in the first place, and the effect on the AI's auto-calc'ed battles. So I can't say with all honesty that I have achieved a more balanced game, but at least when playing as England my billmen don't get chewed up by cavalry, and neither do they decimate units which cost 4 times the amount to train.

**Radioman** · 01-09-2007, 13:15

Originally Posted by Zatoichi

I have spent a long time trying to rebalance the billmen, Dismounted Knights etc with the original animations from the demo. I ended up reducing the attack and charge values quite drastically as a result of one-on-one testing against Dismounted Chivalric Knights, basic spearmen and basic cavalry. I've also made minor adjustments to the recruitment cost of castle trained billmen (a very slight increase).

I'm happy with the way these units are matching up now, they feel 'right' to me personally.

However, I still don't know what effect these changes are making to the AI - it all has a knock on effect with the AI's desire to recruit these units in the first place, and the effect on the AI's auto-calc'ed battles. So I can't say with all honesty that I have achieved a more balanced game, but at least when playing as England my billmen don't get chewed up by cavalry, and neither do they decimate units which cost 4 times the amount to train.

I'm using the XNGfix and did alot of like tests until I matched my Dismounted English Knights against Dismounted Portuguese Knights. In my EDU file they are exactly the same stat wise, except a slightly higher att bonus for the English units...Every test concludes with the Portuguese winning!!! Does anyone know why this is???

**pevergreen** · 01-09-2007, 13:21

Charge? Random Duels? English General Getting knocked around.

**Zatoichi** · 01-09-2007, 13:26

Originally Posted by Radioman

I'm using the XNGfix and did alot of like tests until I matched my Dismounted English Knights against Dismounted Portuguese Knights. In my EDU file they are exactly the same stat wise, except a slightly higher att bonus for the English units...Every test concludes with the Portuguese winning!!! Does anyone know why this is???

It depends who you are controlling in your tests, who charges, whether the general dies early on or not - it's very hard to do one-on-one unit match ups and achieve reliable results. It would be much better to link up 2 PCs and play these fights out against another human opponent so you could model exactly what factors you were looking for, but that's not an entirely practical solution. Oh, and also it's extremely dull!

**Foz** · 01-09-2007, 18:29

Originally Posted by JCoyote

Actually the halberds should be handing the swordsmen a beating. They have anti-armor ability, and are armored; swordsmen are armored, but lack anti armor ability. The balance is the swordsmen are less vulnerable to missile fire under all conditions. whereas the halberds don't have shields. I think it would balance a bit closer if both sides were firing in missiles during their fight.

But, point being, there is more to balance than simply how well they hammer each other in melee. There are compensating factors for swordsmen still, and in some situations swordsmen might still have even a melee advantage, like on walls.

I have a lot of training with a sword; even so, given a sword and shield a halberd in modestly coordinated hands still has an advantage against me on an open field.

I still wasn't satisfied that results were making sense, so I removed the AP stat from DNKs since it purportedly makes all the difference. The Armoured Swordsmen were still completely destroyed every single time. The AS's should have a 1 point advantage in frontal defense and an even matchup for attacking. As expected they took a bit bigger hit on the charge than the DNKs took in return, but immediately after that they continued to get absolutely beaten into the ground. This in spite of the swordsmen slashing at what appeared to be a considerably higher rate of fire than the DNKs. Anyone know what's going on here?

I'm guessing maybe the shield and defense skill of the swordsmen are never allowed to apply at the same time, meaning they would in practice be at 14 def from the left and 16 from the right, never achieving their claimed 21 defense from the front. Or maybe it's just that the "front" area is so small that in practice they never get the full overlap of all bonuses. If either is in fact the case, it would mean that the 2-handed units aren't overpowered, but rather that the shield units are horribly underpowered due to working not as intended. I sorta hope this is the case, as it would neatly explain the issue I'm seeing as well as the horrible ineffectiveness of spear troops (Armoured Sergeants for instance list 5/3/6 for armor, and would be at 8 from armour+skill or 11 for armor+shield instead of their frontal 14 from all 3 during combat).

It's certainly too early to claim this is the case yet, but I'll do testing (starting with non-AP DNKs set at 15 attack, the hypothetical swordsmen avg value) and share the results as soon as I'm home today.

Originally Posted by Lusted

I think i managed to balance the 2 handed fix quite well in my LTC mod, using the JHI to replace the bugged one.

I also increased the mass of spearmen so they do better against cav, as spearmen in normal M2Tw are useless. Making spearmen better against cav beings back more of the rock, papaer, scissors dynamic.

You mean only by replacing the animation, or by using it plus modded unit stats? If it's the latter I'll have to plug in the file and mess with it soon to see what I think. My list just seems to grow!

Originally Posted by Zatoichi

I have spent a long time trying to rebalance the billmen, Dismounted Knights etc with the original animations from the demo. I ended up reducing the attack and charge values quite drastically as a result of one-on-one testing against Dismounted Chivalric Knights, basic spearmen and basic cavalry. I've also made minor adjustments to the recruitment cost of castle trained billmen (a very slight increase).

I'm happy with the way these units are matching up now, they feel 'right' to me personally.

However, I still don't know what effect these changes are making to the AI - it all has a knock on effect with the AI's desire to recruit these units in the first place, and the effect on the AI's auto-calc'ed battles. So I can't say with all honesty that I have achieved a more balanced game, but at least when playing as England my billmen don't get chewed up by cavalry, and neither do they decimate units which cost 4 times the amount to train.

You've done a lot of work, so link the file: we might all like it

**Lusted** · 01-09-2007, 18:38

You mean only by replacing the animation, or by using it plus modded unit stats? If it's the latter I'll have to plug in the file and mess with it soon to see what I think. My list just seems to grow!

Both, modified animation only results in severly overpowered units. I think i dropped the attack for all units with the bug by at least 8 after changing their animation.

**Carl** · 01-09-2007, 18:54

@the_foz_4:

You might also want to compare the mental stats of the two units and also weather one has better hardiness, (can't be bothered to check ATM as i've just spent 4+ hours digging around myself).

These factors appear to have a BIG affect on kill rates to me as I’m working on my own 2-hander fix and the basic trick I’m doing is to give ALL units equipped with a given weapon type the same animations set. Thus in theory, only training, discipline, special abilities, and stat values actually affect the match-ups between units with the same weapon type.

So my Heavy Billmen and JHI have the exact same animation now, (Halbeard_Militia), but the Billman have 4 better attack 1 better charge and 2 better defence than the JHI yet they STILL get absolutely thrashed by the JHI. The only differences I can spot is that the JHI have better morale, Training, Discipline, and are "Very_Hardy" as apposed to the Billmens "Hardy".

Thus bear in mind that these can make a big difference on their own, it isn't just attack, defence, charge, and animations that determine kill rates.

Finically, someone did a test a bit back and found that attack trumps defence. Apparently if you have 2 units that are identical, EXCEPT that 1 has high attack and low defence and the other is the exact reverse, (i.e. it has a defence value the same as the other units attack value and an attack value the same as the other units defence value), it will get beaten, (i.e. the unit with the high defence). So your results do seem to match up with that in any case and with my own experience with DEK.

**Zatoichi** · 01-09-2007, 21:12

Originally Posted by the_foz_4

You've done a lot of work, so link the file: we might all like it

Well, I've done a bunch of other bits and pieces to my EDU as well, so I'll just post the relevant lines - but please bear in mind this is the culmination of me taking other peoples' ideas from a thread over at TWC (namely Zxiang1983, VaultDweller, Godzilla, Raguen and Lusted to name but a few) and running my own tests and tweaks. The results are pleasing to me, but I'd encourage anyone to have a play with the 'original' demo 2Hander animation and mess with the stats themselves.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

**Radioman** · 01-09-2007, 21:56

Originally Posted by Zatoichi

It depends who you are controlling in your tests, who charges, whether the general dies early on or not - it's very hard to do one-on-one unit match ups and achieve reliable results. It would be much better to link up 2 PCs and play these fights out against another human opponent so you could model exactly what factors you were looking for, but that's not an entirely practical solution. Oh, and also it's extremely dull!

Thanks that makes sense, if you have friends to play with...Nonetheless I guess that it's just one of those crazy things. I wonder if I give my DIs. english Knights exp. points, perhaps that will do. I've done 2 on 2 as well always ending in the same way...