The Shield Problem(s)

[Janderclander]

This is for The_Foz_4

Here is a post I wrote somewhere else and I was wondering if you could create a script like the one for the shield fix for this:

"Can someone tell me what file / line contains the variable that makes units more likely to route when the general is dead?. It might be historically correct, or not, but I do not like the fact that once the AI general is killed, the battle is almost over as units rout and you end up with results such as Kills 1200, Loses 150.
Can that morale bonus from the general be canceled or reduced easily?

It is either that or one by one, go through every unit in the EDU and give them a morale boost. I also found out that in this file, you can add lock_morale to the end of the stat_mental field of each unit. Like this:

stat_mental 3, normal, trained, lock_morale

This stops unit from ever routing. It might be a bit extreme but it can be quite amazing, seeing all units fighting to death, instead of routing and being killed anyway by cavalry.

I will try it when I go home. Might take a while to modify every single unit though"

Just to add that parameter to every unit. Thanks

[Janderclander]

Another solution would be to give every unit a morale boost with a similar script, but a believe playing on VH already does this and it does not seem to be very effective since units route easily when their general is gone.

If it is not too much work, you could maybe create a second file that gives, lets say, +7 to everyone and compare what solution is best

What do you say, the_foz_4?

[SnowlyWhite]

I'll toss 2 cents in, despite the hotness of the topic going down:p

1st of all - foz - regarding an eventual patch by ca; while it's obvious that the source of the problem is a - instead of +(boy, that happened to me a ton too:p), hoping for a patching is imho ifi. If they patch that, it means that they have to do all the rebalancing(since it's obvious that the testers balanced around the way it's currently working). I don't see how any sane producer would accept this...

2nd - Carl - regarding the whole ha discussion(though it's hardly the place), you're forgetting a ton of things.

a. it's an "no way I win this" situation in 35-40% which greatly reduces their overpowerness. Anyone playing a ha faction will notice that:

- it HARDLY works on bad weather;
- when you get out of your "native" environment(the east + russian steepe) and you go on the catholic factions, it can be a sure loss on a ton of occassions.
If you field a full cav. army(which I do alot when playing east), you have to take in account that, after you got the russian steepe and the east and you start moving into the westernese lands, you find a ton of forests. Where... you don't win, period. It's like a pre modded 2hander... it doesn't work in... replace "against cav." with "in forests".
Obviously, you can be lame and, reload, and place your army somewhere where there ain't any forest(though I dare you do that in Poland:p) or reload when he ambushes you. The problems start in Italy and are a pain further on.
Leaving aside that your HAs are hardly effective in a siege either(unless you mange to convince the guy to sally) if you patched the game accordingly and the ai leaves more then 1 poor sob in the city.

b. the reason why the unit is very powerful is simple - it shoots while moving and is fast mount(a ha without fast pony ain't a ha worth recruiting, period).
The shield working or not working is simply irrelevant for someone who played a ha faction extensively.

This, combined with the fact that the "light" cavarly of the west ain't fast pony bar the border horsies(*hint* Jerome *hint* - if you make light cavalry, it should be fast pony... that's why it's light cavalry in the 1st place:p Plus, without a practical way of pinning the opponent... you're in for a very very very time consuming merry go round) means you have a field where... noone catches you.

AND THIS IS PROBABLY THE PLACE WHERE THE HA REALLY BECAME POPULAR:

while it's good to play a ha faction, the real problem(at least for me) is playing AGAINST a computer played ha faction when I'm with a western army.
The computer... doesn't get bored; you can sit there against some poor unit of cossacks depleting it's ammo against your golden chevroned general, who barely feels anything, but still... even at x3 speed, you'll waste ~5 mins. looking how your general runs after those people, only to never catch them. Combine that with the fact that the game pauses when you alt+tab, and you're in for a ton of very frustrating battles where... you just look at the screen while reading only to wait for him to withdraw.
This ain't real life... if their cav. is fast moving and yours aint... you'll never catch him. You don't... barely catch him, you don't catch him after suffering some losses, you don't catch him period.
Worse of all, you don't catch his normal missile cavalry either. Since he keeps the distance. For a test, try running HRE vs Poland... you'll be in for a frustrating 10 mins. of your general chasing his Strzelcy without ever catching them. Obviously the Strzelcy would barely bruise your general, but still it's "time poorly spent" to quote the diplomats:p

On the other hand, if you make the ha not able to shoot on the run, you're simply taking them out of the game.
Why would anyone use a unit that has only 2/3rd of the men, is highly susceptible to missile fire, acts poorly at best in melee(read it can beat poor FAs and nothing else) when he can go for a FA? Which also, in a decently modded game, has about 1/3-1/2 of the upkeep and way lower recruiting costs? Which also have flaming arrows(at big bonus in my book).
Only to chase some routing cavalry? How many cav. do you usually see the computer field?

b1. Why the shield fix doesn't really affect HAs(at least in the way I play). Btw., you can easily replace HAs with jinettes too(though actually I find jinettes to be HAs on steroids).

The idea is that, in a cav. army:

- your anvil is the heavy cav.(usually I run a 7 heavy cav., 1 general, 12 vard byzantine army, same thing, replace catas with knights of santiago/chiv knights, whatever and vard with jinettes for spain and so on);
- your HAs will remove the enemy shooters then "assasinate" the enemy general.
The FAs would normaly be the answer to the HA, pitty that the comp. never actually protects them - an english army player led would tore appart a HA army comp. or not, a comp. one doesn't. The situation is even more obvious when playing an italian army, full of pavises.
- your heavy cav. charges and afterwards your HAs charges from the back(since you're full cav., the fight happens when you want if you have some experience - he... mathematically never catches you:p).

The shield working or not working is highly irrelevant, since:

you have a high dreaded general(you have too, in a full cav. army with this tactics 55-70% of his casualties would be prisoners - you can't afford releasing/ransom them, unless you want to do the same next round too and the round after next round and so on:p), their general is dead, you charge from their backs while surrounding them. They... break on contact, no matter what. The HAs could actually have 0 charge and 1 in melee for that matter...

[Foz]

@Jander: What exactly is it you want the thing to do? I gather you want units less likely to rout, but you mentioned about 5 different ways to maybe do it. I need a clear 1 to do. Also I'll point out that I'm not sure we have access to any part of the game that deals with generals causing morale penalties when they die (possibly it's in the hardcode). If we do have access to it somewhere, then I'm not familiar where it is done in the game files. So you can make the units more rout-resistant for sure, but possibly not eliminate the effect of their general being dead.

[JaM]

I'm still not sure if it is the best solution to put half shield value to armor and half to defence.

I think we have to distinguish shields, as not all shields are same. Those big shields most of spearmen holds are quite heavy and bulky. Spearman in close combat equipped with that shield and 2.5m spear will be not very effective in melee,but he will be able to resist missile fire and keep cavalry at bay with his spear. That why all spear infantry always fought in formation and were killed imidiatelly after formation was broken. I know that Romans used large shields in melee, but they didnt use them with large swords. Gladius was stabbing sword and therefore was easy to use with large heavy shield in formation.


At the other end, small shields are not that heavy ,they can help you to block blows of your enemy and provide limited protection against arrows.

My oppinion is that negative shield value should stay, as it allow to make units perform realistically against different type of attack. Units just need more balanccing work.

My suggestion is add same defence value as the shield has for all spear units (to negate " - " effect), and for all melee infantry armed with small shield to halve the shield value and add it to armor. That way melee units will have same missile resistance, flanking them will be a good idea (with shield fix it is unimportant) and negative bonus will not efect them that much.


It is easier to add few points of defence to all units that dont have shield and balance it to have autocalc work, than loose that kind of reality.

[dopp]

We tried that, but then spear units become too powerful in autoresolve because their defense goes through the roof.

Having separate shield bonuses for missile and melee combat was cut out of the unit files, along with scaled armor bonuses for upgrades (ie +4 armor for padded upgrade rather than +1). Re-enabling it crashes the game.

[Jambo]

Jerome Grasdyke advised that the best option was half to armour and half to defence skill. That's good enough for me. Balancing the other troop types can be done afterwards.