Complete Pike/Sheild/2-Hander Fix

[Yanar]

Thanks for this all-in-one fix. However I think that in order for this to be playable you need to rebalance a lot more units. For instance the previous king of melee, 840 gold JHI, gets utterly slaughtered by the 530 gold DEK with this file. I tried a little in custom battle by lowering DEK/DNK/DPK attack value to 18 and raising the "working" units like JHI by 4 (like you did with 2Hsword) and it atleast felt closer to what I think they should do.

Also I don't think the costs should be changed for units, it's probably better to change attack/defense stats until the unit "matches" its cost.

[Carl]

@Yanar: I go with the view that their stats indicate what they should be doing, that’s indicative in my mind of what CA wanted and in addition, ALL fixed 2-hinders are WAY under priced with this mod. English bills are just worse. JHI are the ONLY working high power 2-hander in vanilla, so they actually got given a price worthy of their stats, everyone else didn't, and as a result the fixed 2-handers makes JHI look expensive but are actually fairly well cost balanced vs. each other, with the exception of Billmen/heavy Billmen/militia Billmen/heavy militia Billmen.

It's also worth noting that DEK remain the ONLY 2-hander I’ve found that can beat JHI. Considering that the DEK have 9 more attack and 6 more defence, I’d say the JHI do pretty well.

I chose not to re-balance the costs as it's a very subjective thing, and 2-handed swords are subjective enough.

The same issue your describing also effected vanilla pikes for the few people who actually got them to work, (very hard), they could easily beat much larger, (i.e. expensive), forces in these circumstances. (My pike fix just makes it fairly easy to get your pikes working).

For what it’s worth, I understand your complaint, but that kind of balancing is subjective and I feel that units should perform according to their stats, with the cost changed to match stats, not according to their cost.

[Carl]

Just had a thought. Your idea of applying my 2-handed sword fix to JHI is a good one as they are really the only unit that took a hit from the 2-hander fix. doing that would put them back where they where in large part and would mean they arn't so badly messed up in auto-calc.

I think I will do that as it should clear things up nicely.

[Jambo]

One thing that's not be discussed is how the shield to armour fix and any other subsequent rebalancing affects the shieldless halberd units. The halberd units (e.g. voulgiers, halberd militia, swordstaff, etc) presumably might have been balanced versus the old "bugged" shield units and it's unclear how these changes have affected them. Increases to the 2HS units would suggest there may be a need? There's no tests to indicate otherwise.

Regards

[Carl]

I'm not sure myself TBH. But I think your right, it's also worth noting that Halberd Militia and Heavy Billmen cost the same yet are tottally diffrent in terms of avalibility and suppposed quality, both in game and historiclly, which makes me think theirs some seriouslly bad pricing for the english bill units.

I also missed a 2-hander in my fixing (Dismounted French Noble Knights).

Expect a 1.01 version with fixed JHI and HFNK soon. (Like a hour or less). With possiblly a 1.02 late tonight if tests show the composite pike/hlberd units are UP now.

[Carl]

Version 1.01 Now up.

README below:

CHANGES

Below is a list of the various things done in each version of this fix.


1.00

All animation bugged 2-Handers eithier use the Halberd-Militia, (Bills and DEK/DPK only), or Voulgier, (all others), animation set now. No units have been re-priced so a few units, (mostly Bills and DEK/DPK), are underpriced ATM.

The Pike fix simply removes all Pike units secondery weapons.

The Sheild fix is the same as Foz's, and move the sheild value into the armour, then zeros the sheild.

2-Handed Swords have been given +4 Attack, increased to 8 Charge Stat, (this makes up for swords having a worse animation that the rest of the 2-handers), and have been given the AP attribute. This roughly brings them into balance with comparable 2-Handers (price wise) with fixed animations.



1.01

Dismounted French Noble Knights, (DFNK), have now had the 2-Hander animation Fix applied to them. I missed them the first time round

All 2-Handers have been given an additinal +2 attack as DEK/DPK/DFNK where still beating them too hard considering their reletive prices.

JHI have now had the 2-Handed Sword Fix applied to them as they, like 2-handed Swords, where proving underpowered vs. Animation Fixed 2-Handers of a similar or lower price.



INSTALLATION

To install copy the SEGA Folder into C:/Program Files:

If it asks you if you want to Overwrite, click "yes to all". Then Copy the Medievil 2 Total War Mod Shortcut to your desktop and use that to play the game with the fixes in place.



MEDMANAGER INSTALLATION

For the purposes of MedManager, the only file that has been modified is the "export_descr_unit" file.


COMMENTS AND BUG REPORTING

You can Find my online thread relating to this fix at the following address

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=77759


CREDITS

CARL BARRASS (me)

THE_FOZ_4 (For the Sheild Fix)

DOPP (For the Pike Fix)

AND EVERYONE ELSE AT THE GUILD (For the 2-Hander Fix and Support)

[napoleon526]

This might be a dumb question, but does the 1.01 version also have all the changes in the 1.00 fix, or should I install both?

[Moah]

Ermm...

Except now Foz has changed his shield fix to 1.1...

(adding half shield to armour and zeroiing stat - upon the advice of a developer no less. This way the units becoem slightly better against rear attacks than they should be, but slightly worse from the front - averaging out. At least I think that's the gist of teh 12 page argument )

....doesn't that mean that you need to change your all in one fix to add the 2H and pike fixes to his new shield stats?

Because obviously you have nothing better to do than run around modding for us forumites who can't...

But it is very appreciated