The Shield Problem(s)

[Carl]

That dosen't do anything for the effects against infantry though (and they are very important). I'm also not convinced we'll see the on contact MAD that occurs with them properly braced. Of course if you've tested it and you do see this. Fair enough.

Finially, which is easier. Moving a sheild value to the armour. Or adding the Sheild to the Defence Skill, AND rebalanmcing 2-hander stats, (which messes up auto-calc), AND playing with unit masses, AND implimenting some kind of fix for the lost Effects vs. Infantry?

It's clearly easier to transfer the sheild to the armour and makes the units perform as intended when engaged from the front and sides, (assuming defence skill affects a 180 degree arc when the sheild is set to zero as appears to be the case with 2-Handers).

[Carl]

You need to put those charge bonusus back in or it will mes things up. Likewise AP 2-Handers SHOULD be massacering sheild units. Pikes and AP 2-handers are the best late infantry, they are also sluaghtered by cav and archers (unlike Sword and sheild units). Noble Swordsmen with the Charge Bonuses back in correctly can tack on Mailed Knights, but Anything better massacres them with some, (but not massive losses).

To test this objectivly you need to use a fresh file set with ONLY the sheild fix, swaped animations, and if you ant, the pike fix. Anything else will skew things massivly in some way towards IMBA.

[Lusted]

It's only cav charge bonuses i have reduced to stop them wiping out spearmen in 1 charge, but my reduction in cav charge bonuses has been sort of counteracted by my increasing cavalry mass.

[Carl]

It could still be having knock on effects. anything with an 8 charge stat, (or one with 6 and very good stats), should decimates Sword and Sheild units. Your statment makes me belive this isn't happening for you and thats what prompted my post.

Sorry if i was a bit over aggressive about it BTW.

[hrvojej]

It's clearly easier to transfer the sheild to the armour and makes the units perform as intended when engaged from the front and sides, (assuming defence skill affects a 180 degree arc when the sheild is set to zero as appears to be the case with 2-Handers).

But it's clearly less in the spirit of the game, IMO. The TW games have always been about units having different defense on different sides. If they now have the same value for all sides for both melee and missiles, especially if the skill applies in a 360 arc without a shield as you seem to imply, then I am playing an Age of Empires game and not a TW game any more. We might as well dump everything into armor and forget about it.

And btw, I didn't notice any difference with bracing/not bracing.

[Carl]

They won't brace when in Guard/Hold mode. Yiou must also be tottaly still, if you order them to move whilst reciving a chage they won't brace.

And defence on diffrent sides dosen't matter here. Leave the sheild value in and you get too high a defence on one side and almost no defence on the other. Lets also remeber that this is a GAME. It's meant to be a Balanced. With the sheild value still their and crazy defence values for sheild units and weakened 2-handers and other similar stuff the game isn't balanced at all, in or out of auto-calc. we allready know the sheild isn't working right against missile fire and may be effected by AP so theirs no point keeping it, and considering most sword units have a defence skill VERY similar to their sheild value, it doesen't actually change their left/right defence values by more than a point over what they should be with working sheilds. So with working sheilds you'd still be playing an AOE game not a TW game anyway. Except it isn't things like that that set the systems apart. It's the fact that the TW games actually include Startegy and complex Tactics as apposed to simpile ones. As an AOE player i can tell you that the fixed game STILL uses the rock/paper/scissors system that has dominated RTS so long, (with good rason). and at the basest level isn't much diffrent in terms of unit interaction in head on fights. It's things like Morale, Flank and Rear Charges, units instead of individual models and many other things that set the games apart. these introduce a lot of new tactics to the TW games that AOE can never have. The sheild fix dosen't change that one bit. it just makes units work more as intended.

p.s. it's 180, not 360.

[hrvojej]

And defence on diffrent sides dosen't matter here. ... *snipped for brevity*

Right... To each his own.

[Carl]

Right... To each his own.

Of course, Agree 100%. We each have our own veiw on how things should be, and are free to implement them like that in our mods.

I was mearly trying to point out that the sheild fix only really disfavours HA as a unit class in general. Whilst not fixing it disadvantages 3 classes. Spear units, Sword & Sheild Units, and Cav with a sheild. It might give them slightly better rear charge resistance and Enfidle fire resistance than we'd like. But overall it fixes a much bigger set of problems much more cleanly and without creating as many more and is thus a better fix in general IMO.

[Musashi]

The shield into armor fix nerfs all missile troops Carl... Even with foot archers you generally try to flank because enfilade fire is the best kill rate of any attack type in the game... Making it so that archers can't do any better when flanking/rear firing makes them basically worthless (Which explains why you think the Scots are so good) whereas they're the best killers in the game without that kind of fix.

PS: I've stated this before but you seem not to believe it -- AP counts against shield as well as armor, so moving armor into shield doesn't make AP anything better.

[Foz]

The shield into armor fix nerfs all missile troops Carl... Even with foot archers you generally try to flank because enfilade fire is the best kill rate of any attack type in the game... Making it so that archers can't do any better when flanking/rear firing makes them basically worthless (Which explains why you think the Scots are so good) whereas they're the best killers in the game without that kind of fix.

PS: I've stated this before but you seem not to believe it -- AP counts against shield as well as armor, so moving armor into shield doesn't make AP anything better.

Of course, I thought archers (at least English ones that I've played with a lot) were underpowered already even without making any fixes/changes to the EDU. I was running tests earlier and the computer marched (they never decided to run) pikemen at some Yeoman that I allowed to sit still and auto-fire at the pikes. They were highland pikemen, with stat_pri_armour 0, 3, 0, flesh. That is, 0 armour, 3 skill, 0 shield, which should mean zero rating against missile fire. I disabled skirmish too so they'd keep firing as the pikes approached. To my horror, ~1/3 of the pikes were still alive when they got to the yeoman. They took several volleys from close range (probably ~12 in total), including one from about 6 feet away, which while it almost entirely hit the front line of men, did NOT cause all of those men to fall over dead. In fact I would estimate that at least half of the arrow impacts did not directly cause deaths, from any given distance. I have no idea why this would/should be the case, but it really makes me wonder if archers stats are too low.

It may be necessary to balance archer stats up to the level of fixed shield units and 2h units, as the archers now appear to have far worse game effects than similarly costed dismounted knight units. For instance compare working armoured swordsmen with yeoman. They cost almost the same in recruitment and upkeep... but it's clear that the yeoman are not nearly as powerful. I don't know what exactly to propose for stats yet, but the balancing will probably be considerably more subjective than what I've previously been doing, which makes it touchy at best. I won't be surprised if a missile attack value of 13 or even more for yeoman is required to make them feel as useful as various dismounted knight units clearly are.

It should be noted too that this is an issue I feel has been present at least for English archers since the beginning and is not caused by any of my modding: The yeoman I tested are completely unmodified, while the pikes have only their swords taken away (the pike fix) which affects their ability to die from missile fire not at all. I would submit that yeoman that cost 650 and 150 upkeep should completely dismantle a 0-missile-defense unit like these highland pikemen before they ever get to melee range... especially since >75% of the last 3 volleys appeared to be registered as hits, yet men hit by 3 or more arrows sometimes still failed to fall over dead. This should not happen, especially with completely unarmoured troops...

As for Musashi's comment about the shield fix not making AP anything any better, I heartily agree, as my limited testing of it and battlefield experience have shown it true. Tests have borne out that the armour points protect as well as the shield ones do against AP missile fire, so people claiming the fixed units are weaker to AP missile fire b/c of having armour points instead of shield points will have to make a compelling case with data to support that conclusion.

[Zenicetus]

Of course, Agree 100%. We each have our own veiw on how things should be, and are free to implement them like that in our mods.

I was mearly trying to point out that the sheild fix only really disfavours HA as a unit class in general. Whilst not fixing it disadvantages 3 classes. Spear units, Sword & Sheild Units, and Cav with a sheild. It might give them slightly better rear charge resistance and Enfidle fire resistance than we'd like. But overall it fixes a much bigger set of problems much more cleanly and without creating as many more and is thus a better fix in general IMO.

Speaking as someone sitting on the sidelines (this is a very interesting thread)... comments like that make me very nervous about applying a "shield fix" to a full campaign game. At least, not without deep testing, in that context.

Someone mentioned up-thread that auto-calc is important because the AI uses it all the time, which is a crucial point. Every time you hit the "turn" button, the Ai is auto-calc'ing based on stats. I don't want to suddenly see the Mongols nerfed in the campaign game (just taking one possible example), because suddenly HA's are less effective.

Okay, back to lurking on this thread now.

[Foz]

I apologize ahead of time and mean no disrespect Blademun, but I have to rip your assumptions about the 3-quadrant system to shreds.

One of the very early tests I ran included 3 key elements. Those were the following:

-Testing a unit with 22 armour/0 skill/0 shield
-Testing same unit with 0 armour/22 skill/0 shield
-Testing same unit with 0 armour/0 skill/22 shield

It was one of the pivotal tests for me, because it showed that shield points did NOT do the same thing as other defense points. On the flip side of that coin, however, is a point pivotal to your discussion:

-The all armour point unit produced combat results nearly identical on average to the all skill point unit.

Since I can't seem to find it at the moment and it's possible I didn't actually post those numbers as they were part of other testing, I'll put the results that back it up right here:

Armored Swordsmen 22/0/0 vs. Dismounted Noble Knights 15 attack no ap

AS Kills/DNK Kills
50/30
40/29
55/29
40/25
45/43
-----
230/156

Armored Swordsmen 0/22/0 vs Dismounted Noble Knights 15 attack no ap

AS Kills/DNK Kills
39/17
60/48
60/59
38/23
34/19
-----
231/166

I'm also including a set I ran just now with lock_morale.  I set shield 1 to be sure skill would only affect the right side in case shield 0 makes it have 180 degree arc.

Dismounted Feudal Knights 13/8/1 vs. Dismounted Norman Knights 21/0/1

DFK Kills/DNK Kills
61/52
61/49
61/56
47/61
45/61
-----
275/279

The results immediately indicate your front-left and front-right thinking must be flawed. The first 2 sets show that an all armor unit performed the same in CC as an all skill unit. If skill only applied on the front-right, we would presumably see the all skill unit take a performance hit, as half the attacks against it should come from front-left and thus be against a 0 defense value.

The third set that I just ran tonight is much more carefully constructed. lock_morale removes the morale factor, making units fight to the last man. The DFK have 8 skill points where the DNK instead get an extra 8 armor points. I gave each unit shield 1 to force the skill to only affect right if it in fact becomes 180 degrees in the absence of a shield (this may be set already for each unit instead of relying on shield value to determine it). The result shows an even matchup, where we would expect DNK to be dominant if a front-left and front-right field were used, as half the attacks against the DFK would come from the front-left and thus have a 12 defense instead of their front-right 21. The DFK suffer no such performance hit because of having skill instead of armor.

What all this means is that there is a front rating which sums armor, skill, and shield, and into which the majority of attacks in frontal melee combat go. Skill therefore does not apply to front-right, but rather to front AND right, and likewise shield would go front and left. The way I picture it is with quadrants (that means 4 btw), one for each of the cardinal directions, with their borders at 45 degrees, 135 degrees, 225 degrees, and 315 degrees (i.e. diagonals, like NE would be on a compass). That representation may not be completely correct, but it is for certain at least that some field directly in front of the man gets all 3 values (armour, skill, shield) counted for it, and that field is wide enough that it accounts for the vast majority of melee attacks in frontal melee combat.

After understanding that, go back and look at the shield-to-armour fix, and you'll note that in all cases it makes the all-important front number the amount the devs would've assumed it to be, as well as the left number, while making the right and rear numbers too high by an amount equal to unit's shield amount. It's a VERY important distinction to make, as the screwy numbers don't affect typical front combat like you suggested.

Speaking as someone sitting on the sidelines (this is a very interesting thread)... comments like that make me very nervous about applying a "shield fix" to a full campaign game. At least, not without deep testing, in that context.

Someone mentioned up-thread that auto-calc is important because the AI uses it all the time, which is a crucial point. Every time you hit the "turn" button, the Ai is auto-calc'ing based on stats. I don't want to suddenly see the Mongols nerfed in the campaign game (just taking one possible example), because suddenly HA's are less effective.

Okay, back to lurking on this thread now.

That's exactly why I've been saying the armour fix is the way to go. All the discussion about HA's being less effective is only in the context of the battlefield. The shield-to-armor fix maintains the defense total as calculated by the game, and therefore doesn't affect the massive amount of auto-calcing the computer does! The mongol HAs will only be affected when actually in battle with you. And even then, the effect has been exaggerated: shield units will have at most 6 more missile defense to the right and rear than they used to (newly covered areas by the armor points), and the exact same amount they did on the left and front (where shield was already being applied). That at most 6 point difference is effectively halved if the archers in question have AP. The biggest thing is that HAs may be underperformers on the battlefield in melee now, since they might have been balanced stat-wise against the shield-bugged units, which would cause up to a 12-point defense swing in a lot of cases...

[Blademun]

I have to agree with above. It almost sounds like you guys are trying to neuter the game.

The days of your HA simply shooting half the enemy army to death and then running the rest down with formed charges are well over IMO.

A little bitter, eh? Last time I checked, historically, a good HA army (mongol/Byzantine/Turk) was suppose to do just that to a all infantry army.

While I feel its nice that we have the opportunity to 'balance' the games for ourselfs, it shouldn't be left to a small community of modders to decide how the game shall play for all of us. Already, when we are discussing strategy, its automaticly assumed that your using the '2H fix' and the 'Pike' fix. I can see this new 'sheild' Fix being mandatory for strategic discussion in the not too far future.

It is a shame that the shield does not contribute to melee fighting like it should. However, I still feel the idea that sheild values contribute negativly to defence in melee is still debateable. However, if it IS true, I would prefer to wait for a official patch.

Why? Well lets state the problem: We want our shields to have a effect in melee.

Well, of the possible solutions, the best two ways are to:

A: add sheild to the armour and 0 the shield value. This has the effect of nerfing the depth that CA took in simulating archery based combat. It also does not produce the above desired effect.

Why? Well lets talk about what happens when you add to armour.

There are three 'quadrants' of defense to each solder. The Front-Right, Front-Left, and Rear.

the Armour value adds to all three quadrants. The Skill value adds to the front Right, and the Shield value adds to the Front-left. So, Lets look at a vanilla DFK from a Quadrant perspective assuming the shield bug is true.

Front-Right: 7 Armour + 8 skill= 15 defense
Front-Left: 7 armour + -6 shield= 1 defense
Rear: Defense = 7.

Now add the Armour fix.

Front-Right: 14 armour + 8 Skill= 22 Defense
Front-Left: 14 armour + 0 shield.= 14
Rear: Defense = 14

This game is balanced under the assumption(not knowing of the shield bug) that DFKs are actually: 15, 13, 7 respectively, not 22, 14, 14. Thus, we get a unit that is overpowered in terms of the way this game was meant to be played. What -you- think is how it suppose to be doesn't matter as much. If you think Dfk's should be Zomg death knights, then great, mod your game...don't declare it a universal fix for everyone.


The other Fix:

B: Keep the shield value and add double the shield value to the skill value to offset the inverse effect sheild has on melee defense. This also does not produce the desired effect:

With this fix the DFK's Quadrants are

Front-Right: 7 Armour + 20 SKill(6*2+8)= 27 Defense(Zomg)
Front-Left: -6 Shield + 7 armour= 1 Defense
Rear: Defense = 7

So we get a Dfk who's Quadrants are 27,1,7. Crazy, but at least arrow fire will continue to work like its suppose too.

TO me, both of these 'fixes' are not really fixes at all. Assuming one used the Shield-to-armour fix..I think there is only way it could be done barring a official patch. You would have to go through every unit in the game and readjust their stats to balance accordingly with the new and improved shield units. With that goes hours upon hours of balance testing just like the designers went through when they made this game.