The Shield Problem(s)

[Lusted]

They all have side effects... Dropping shield and putting it into skill makes them more vulnerable to missile attack. Putting double into skill makes them overpowered for autocalc (Although it's probably the most perfect solution for actual battle). Adding it into armor makes them more resistant to missile fire than they should be, since it protects from all sides...

So they're not really fixes, they're just making other things unbalanced.

If thats the case i dont mind about this bug, as even with it units are pretty well balanced in my LTc mod thanks to other tweaks i've made.

[The Stranger]

i think you should leave on the shield value because it works against arrows... but you should also add the same amount the shield distracts instead of adds to the defence value. Adding it to the armour wouldnt be that smart because it would greatly improve the effect of armour piercing units. Because the shield bug distracts points in their defensive ability and they will die faster i think that adding points to the defensevalue is good because they can now better defend themself...

[Musashi]

i think you should leave on the shield value because it works against arrows... but you should also add the same amount the shield distracts instead of adds to the defence value. Adding it to the armour wouldnt be that smart because it would greatly improve the effect of armour piercing units. Because the shield bug distracts points in their defensive ability and they will die faster i think that adding points to the defensevalue is good because they can now better defend themself...

Well, armor piercing units have the AP value applied to shield value too... Not just armor. So it doesn't really overpower AP units. Actually adding the shield value to defense skill underpowers AP units. But that's not a huge deal...

The main issue with adding it to armor is that it makes missile troops too ineffective since you can't use enfilade and flanking fire to overcome the shield value.

Personally my preferred solution is to put double their shield value into defense skill. This counteracts the negative value, and gives them the melee advantage that they would normally gain from the shield, leaves them with the shield value against missile fire, and basically doesn't overpower them at all in normal play. It makes them overpowered in autocalc, but I never autocalc a battle so it's no big deal to me.

[Vinsitor]

Personally my preferred solution is to put double their shield value into defense skill. This counteracts the negative value, and gives them the melee advantage that they would normally gain from the shield, leaves them with the shield value against missile fire, and basically doesn't overpower them at all in normal play. It makes them overpowered in autocalc, but I never autocalc a battle so it's no big deal to me.

I don't care about autocalc, this can be the best fix I think

[Vinsitor]

I don't care about autocalc, this can be the best fix I think

Mmm I think I was wrong before

In fact adding the double the shield to defence, it means you have 3 times the defence where shield bonus isn't applied and the defense bonus is (right side, and maybe the back too I think). Thus means that flanking would be less effective in melee combat, in exchange of some volley's hit from the right side.

[Lusted]

@Lusted: Most of the changed you've made in LTC arn't needed if you fix the sheild bug because it actually makes units work without messing auto-calc. the only issue is 2-handed sword units which need a serious stats buff, (and do mess auto-calc up if you do).

The only chance i've made in LTc that messes up auto-calc is my 2 handed bug workaround. The other changes have been through toher things that do not affect a units ability in auto-calc. The only way i would go about adding in the shield fix(adding in the shield value to defense skill but leaving in the shield defense as wel) would mess up auto-calc.

[Foz]

Personally my preferred solution is to put double their shield value into defense skill. This counteracts the negative value, and gives them the melee advantage that they would normally gain from the shield, leaves them with the shield value against missile fire, and basically doesn't overpower them at all in normal play. It makes them overpowered in autocalc, but I never autocalc a battle so it's no big deal to me.

If defense stats apply as purported to, this will really make the units whacky when they get flanked in melee. They have an extra defense from the right equal to twice their shield, while having presumably -2x their shield still on the left. I'm saying this: an 8/8/6 def unit has the following intended defenses in melee:

Front: 22
Right: 16
Left: 14
Rear: 8

Putting 2x shield in skill gives them file stats of 8/20/6 and stats in practice of:

Front: 22
Right: 28
Left: 2
Rear: 8

This to me is absolutely unacceptable, as melee flanking is very common. Putting shield into armour looks like (14/8/0) and in practice:

Front: 22
Right: 22
Left: 14
Rear: 14

This is a little more powerful unit, but does not cause the horrific see-saw of the skill points. Given that it ALSO does not mess up auto-calc as the calculated unit defense stays the same (skill point fix makes the unit have 12 extra armour in auto-calc), it gets my vote.

By the way, the reason we care about auto-calc is not only in case we ever use it, but also the fact that the computer uses it ALL THE TIME. Lusted, while your fixed stats may have the units performing reasonably well on the battlefield, they make autocalc absolutely horrible, as for instance 2H units that will perform great on the battlefield will have the strength of water when the computer autocalcs them because you watered down their stats so much to keep them from slaughtering bugged shield units. This will in turn be drastically affecting the AI's battles, and ultimately the composition of the armies that you encounter in battles with the AI, as the troops you face when expanding have often been around and fighting with various other computer factions for a while. It also may be affecting army composition if you have not costed the units with a very exact balance, as the AI presumably recruits based on the stats and not on actual battlefield performance, and so likely holds the units with nerfed stats in disfavor as a result. In general all this discrepancy you get from modifying stats to create battlefield balance without regard to stat balance will lead to a profound lack of any unit you nerfed the stats of in enemy armies you encounter, not to mention a likely overabundance of things like sword+shield infantry which will have their stats intact and thus typically survive AI auto-calcs mostly unharmed. This is exactly the sort of problem I'm attempting to avoid by balancing the units a different way, and again I feel that the few problems the proposed shield fix presents are absolutely miniscule compared to the destruction of the computer's perception of unit strength that stat rebalancing for battlefield performance (without maintaining unit attack/defense totals) inherently causes.

[Lusted]

Lusted, while your fixed stats may have the units performing reasonably well on the battlefield, they make autocalc absolutely horrible, as for instance 2H units that will perform great on the battlefield will have the strength of water when the computer autocalcs them because you watered down their stats so much to keep them from slaughtering bugged shield units.

2 handed units with my workaround for the 2handed bug(give them the JHI infantry animation and reduce attack) are the only ones in my mod to suffer this problem. I actually balanced them compared to both JHI and shield units.

Im also curious about whether you apply this fix to cav as well.

Plus doesn't your fix defeat the point of shields, which is better defense against missiles?

[Carl]

Plus doesn't your fix defeat the point of shields, which is better defense against missiles?

No as adding it to the armour helps out there. YES it does mean AP missiles and C attacks are bit OTT. Missiles we'll just have to live with. (although the benefits against enfidle fire probably even things out overall). AP melee is partly why I add 2 extra to the defence skill. It helps make 2-Handers without stat changes a littlie less OTT against Shield units (i.e. they suffer some losses), and deals with non-2-hander AP melee units being really OTT.

P.s. What I meant is that you don't need to modify unit stats much with the shield fix or add mass to units. It also brings into play some really important balance points. Namely anything that doesn’t kill a Shield unit on impact will get an automatic Shield Bash inflicted. This never kills as far as I can tell. However, it does knock them out of charge mode. So non-AP/cav units that are charging shield units find them very hard work, as does weak, (i.e, HA), cav. That’s a big change TBH.

I'm not trying to knock the effort you've put in of course, just that I think the Shield fix deals with so many issues at once that many of the other modifications you've already made simply aren’t needed, although I can understand you'd resent abandoning so much hard work. It's annoying me how much modding I’m having to do to get a working game TBH.

[Carl]

This is what I am also using, though I also upped the defense skill of the units without shield to compensate for autocalc and AI building priorities. So far the battles have been playing out nicely with these changes.

BUT IF YOU DO THIS YO ONLY HALF FIX IT AS SHIELD UNITS STILL DON@T BRACE PROPERLY.

Sorry for shouting but a lot of people seem to have missed this very important point. It effect Shield Infantry and Spears against cav tremendously, as well as non-spear Shield infantry against anything in general.

[Foz]

2 handed units with my workaround for the 2handed bug(give them the JHI infantry animation and reduce attack) are the only ones in my mod to suffer this problem. I actually balanced them compared to both JHI and shield units.

Im also curious about whether you apply this fix to cav as well.

Plus doesn't your fix defeat the point of shields, which is better defense against missiles?

I Sure do. Everything with a shield stat gets it put into armour, then zeroed. It would be unfair to fix the spear units, but let the cavalry suffer the 8-point stat swing they would have in melee combat due to their typical 4-point shields. It also helps balance the lower cav units against the later ones. Many late units have more armour but no shields, and as a result the early cav were being absolutely butchered by late cav that had only a minor stat point advantage against them. It in fact removes many discrepancies like that that people had been noticing.

It actually doesn't defeat the point of the shield either, as the unit's improved armour stat protects it from missile fire as effectively as the shield points had been, perhaps even a hair better.

I'd suggest even if you don't intend to apply the fix permanently, that you play a session or two using my shield-fixed vanilla file with a 2H fix in place and maybe a pike fix too. It's substantially better than even I had anticipated it would be, and hard to exactly describe well. Much easier to experience.

@Carl: Thanks for the note about the units bracing when having shield-value zero. I had noticed them doing this when they received cav charges, but not that they were failing to do it when having a >0 shield number. Sounds like another reason the fix should be applied, as it's a non-obvious benefit of being able to zero the shield.

[hrvojej]

Personally my preferred solution is to put double their shield value into defense skill. This counteracts the negative value, and gives them the melee advantage that they would normally gain from the shield, leaves them with the shield value against missile fire, and basically doesn't overpower them at all in normal play. It makes them overpowered in autocalc, but I never autocalc a battle so it's no big deal to me.

This is what I am also using, though I also upped the defense skill of the units without shield to compensate for autocalc and AI building priorities. So far the battles have been playing out nicely with these changes.