Carl's BugFixer (V1.1)

[Carl]

Created a new thread as the old one was long and it was a pain linking to the other post in the old thread and I couldn't get the title of the thread to update to show changes to the version number.

To Clarify an often asked point:

Foz's V1.2 Sheild Fix that is used in this BugFixer zeros the sheild and moves half into Defence Skill and half into Armour

Below is the Link to the Download and the README File included in with it.

Version 1.11

Download Mirriors (all free to my knowlage):

Savefile Mirrior

FileFactory

README:

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 found to be weak with their Vanillia stats once the Bugged 2-Handers where fixed, (in relation to the price diffrances between the two), so the Changes listed in the next line have been applied/

2-Handed Swords have been given +4 Attack, increased to 8 Charge Stat, and have been given the AP attribute.



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-Handed Swords have had their extra attack raised from +4 to +6 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, they where proving underpowered vs. Animation Fixed 2-Handers of a similar or lower price.



1.02

Sheild Fix updated to the same as that used in the 1.2 version of "THE_FOZ_4's Sheild Fix".



1.10

Animation Bugged 2-Handers have had their animation changed to that of ME_Halberd_Militia as apposed to the old Halberd_Militia animation. This produces more natural looking animations that the origonal fix.

2-Handed Swords have had their animation changed to the ME_Halberd_Militia animation as it looks as good as their defualt animation, and raises their animation speed to the same as the bugged Animation 2-Handers.

2-Handed Swords have had the re-balancing fix applied to them changed to the following, AP attribute added, +10 attack added, Charge Stat increased to 8, they where fopund to still be wanting in terms of opower for price.

All Eastern Halberds, (those Halberds that lack the Spear Wall ability), have also had the 2-Handed Sword Fix listed above applied to them, (with the exception of the AP attribute as they allready had this), as they where found to be underperforming.

All Western Halberd units, (those with the Spear Wall ability), where found to be underperforming for their price in relation to every unit in the game now as they where also balanced against the Bugged 2-Handers/Pikes, (which they are a Hybrid of),

Western Halberds have had their unit size increased to 60, have gained +5 attack, have had the Spear attribute Aapplied to their primiary "pike" weapon, and the Light_Spear attribute applied to their secondery weapon. De to the nature of the "Pike" part of their weapon, and the Light_Spear attribute they suffer no penalties when fighting infantry.



1.11

Furthar Formation tweaking has taken place to improve the defualt formation performance of units, and thus the AI.

An Eastern Halberd unit, (Transylvanian Peasants), was omitted from the 1.1 changes to Eastern Halberds. This error has been corrected.

Cav Charge distances have been tweeked to make formed cav charges easier for the player.

Infantry cav charge distances have ben tweaked to increase AI countercharge response sucsess rates.

The spears of Spear Units have had their Skeleton oCmponsation Factor tweaked to raise cav charge resistance to a level matching that implied in the advisor descriptions.

The changes to Skeleton Componsation factor should also aid them vs. peseants.



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. No important data is overwritten, it mearly places the contents of the SEGA folder into the existing SEGA folder in Program Files automaticly.



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 web address:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=78069


CREDITS

CARL BARRASS (me)

THE_FOZ_4 (For the Sheild Fix)

DOPP (For the Pike Fix)

LUSTED (For charge distance changes)

STLAIND (For help with testing)

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

I would much appreciate testing on the Halberd and 2-Handed Swords. I feel happy wth them but my tsting has been limited and i've never played with these units in a campaign before so I can't say how they effect overall army compostion for the armies they are in. Does it unbalance the compostion?

The Mods can lock the old thread if they wish to without complaint from me as I won't be using it for anything important now.

EDIT: V1.11 now up.

[baron_Leo]

Carl, I can only quote Peter Griffin on this issue "YOU - ARE - GOD!!!" :-) I did not have time to do in-depth testing, but for what I have seen it is perfect.

[Carl]

Thnx, and I doubt it's perfect though. I thought the same with V1.02, but reality has shown sHS and Halberds where really behind the curve. Hell it's taken 3 revisions to get 2HS sorted to full satisfaction without risking auto-calc balance.

p.s. 2 Downloads so far. Where is everyone.

[Stlaind]

if I have time this evening I'll defniately pull it down and do some testing (sigh, test software at work, test mods at night)

[Carl]

if I have time this evening I'll defniately pull it down and do some testing (sigh, test software at work, test mods at night)

Hell, i've had the game a MONTH and I don't think my total play time exceeds 3 days, the rest has been testing and digging in files fixing bugs the rest of the time.

Pikes are as they where, but I think you'll find flanking/rear attacks if you can pull them off are very effective. Western Halberds do Beat down on 2-Handers a fair bit, but thats because they nullify the charge and get a couple of rounds of free kills in whilst doing so.

[Stlaind]

I think I might do some poking at it and see if I can find any solutions that I feel are better. I'm just now starting to feel like I've got enough of a feel of mechanics that I won't horribly break things.

[Foz]

Thnx, and I doubt it's perfect though. I thought the same with V1.02, but reality has shown sHS and Halberds where really behind the curve. Hell it's taken 3 revisions to get 2HS sorted to full satisfaction without risking auto-calc balance.

Don't forget that Jerome suggested that autoresolve is using the battlefield mechanics, just on a smaller scale. So it's really not a concern: if you get them working how you want on the battlefield, it should be mirrored very well in autoresolve.

[Carl]

Can you point me to the post where he said this as I don't remeber it, (probabbly just missed it BTW when skimming a post of his).

Thnx for the info though BTW.

[Jambo]

Just a thought, but rather than boosting everything to coincide with the animation-fixed 2-handed axe units, another method might be dropping the attack of animation-fixed 2-handed axe units? They most certainly do not need to be 21/13 ap (DEKs), 20/13 ap (VG), etc. Even with the shield fix in place you can take around 6-8 attack points off the DEKs and they still beat DFKs with ease. Even more so if you were also to go through with removing 2 attack points from DFKs to coincide with their mounted form (which I think would be a great idea)!

One upshot of increasing attack across the board is you'll be inadvertantly speeding up combat resolution, in turn leading to quicker routing in battles. Maybe it would be advisable to reduce the attack of others rather than increase attack to balance to the monstrous 21/13 ap DEKs.

[Foz]

Can you point me to the post where he said this as I don't remeber it, (probabbly just missed it BTW when skimming a post of his).

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...&postcount=337

I realize that the way he says it there is a little ambiguous, but I inquired further in a PM to him, and he said the autoresolve essentially fights the battle on a very simplified battlefield using reduced unit sizes, and still accounts for the same factors like morale, flanking, etc that you see on the battlefield.

[Carl]

Thanks for that Foz. I read that but missed the implication the first time.

@Jambo: I'll try a few tests, but TBH i'm not hopeful. Like I say, I like the way Dismounted Chivalric's, Dismounted Christian Guard, Dismounted Conquistidors get beat, but inflict about 25-30% losses. If I was to decrease the attack of DEK I'm worried it's going to push those losses into the 50-70% range which is not really how I feel 2-Handers of that quality should be performing. I'll try out Bill Militia as they are similar in most respects to what re-balanced DEK might look like. If things look ok their i'll try nerfed stats and you might see that in the next release.

Your point about fast fights is well made. but I figured that was part of the point of 2-Handers anyway, they where a lot faster than pikemen at killing things. Fights still last a while in my expiriance. Just not as long perhaps as they shopuld. I'm also planning a full balance mod that is seperate to my bugfixer that rebalances costs and messes with other units a bit (in broad strokes only), that might aliviate any lasting issues.

[Stlaind]

Personally based on what I saw with DGK last night I would prefer that the special dismounted S+S units be a decent fight, but I'm not sure that I have the backup for that.

[Carl]

That really depends on what you consider a decent fight Stlaind...

For me it's top level S&S getting beat by top level 2-Handers, but not without the 2-handers suffering moderate losses, (less that 50%, better than 10%).

Some people, (is this you?), would prefer to see S&S manage heavy losses or even a win, but thats subjective and i'm wary of letting that happen due to the advantages of missile resistance and cav resistance the S&S get over 2-Handers, (they arn't minor ones eithier DFK can almost beat their mounted Countrparts if they stay still when reciving a cav charge and they have nearly double the missile defence normally).

[Carl]

Some Good News, some Bad News, and some Intresting News:

The Good News:

I agree, S&S units get hit a bit hard ATM. DEK went through Noble Swordsmen just a touch too quick, (about 10-15 seconds at 3 times speed, i'd prefer about 15-20 really), and didn't quite suffer the 25% losses I wanted to see. It seems the switch in animation has added a small amount of power to 2-handers. DGK, and JHI are actually better than DEK now and would be even worse.

The Bad:

A drop in atack of just 8 points for DEK resulted in losses whilst beating Noble Swordsmen jumping from a too low 20% to a too high, (IMO), 60%. I also can't lowe S&S defence as that messes up their advantages over 2-Handers.


Overall expect to see me tinkering in the days to come in preperation of my re-balance mod. I'm limiting this to major bugfixing only, (The kind of re-balance needed by unbugged 2-handers/Halberds fall into this, but adjusting S&S balance after this point dosen't really).

The Intresting: Tests have shows that DFK appear to be rather worse than their stats sugest, doing much worse than Noble Swordsmen. I'm now going to run a direct Noble Swordsmen vs. DFK test and see what happens.

[Musashi]

Carl:

WRT halberdiers, have you considered going into the modeldb file, and creating a new soldier type which uses the halberdiers' primary animation, but another animation for the secondary weapon (Since the game treats the two as totally different weapons)?

[Carl]

I didn't know that was possible Musashi...

Thanks for the Info, i'll give it a try and see what happens, you never know...

Also, i've run a test of DFK vs. Noble Swordsmen. The DFK got beat. If I controlled them I lost with the enemy being down to less than 10 men, and if I controlled the Noble Swordsmen, the DFK where lost with less than 40% losses to the Noble Sowordsmen.

It appears Moral efects fighting abailitie (explains why high Valour missile units are better at range BTW, and imples that NHA are better than the stats claim...).

[Foz]

Just a thought, but rather than boosting everything to coincide with the animation-fixed 2-handed axe units, another method might be dropping the attack of animation-fixed 2-handed axe units? They most certainly do not need to be 21/13 ap (DEKs), 20/13 ap (VG), etc. Even with the shield fix in place you can take around 6-8 attack points off the DEKs and they still beat DFKs with ease. Even more so if you were also to go through with removing 2 attack points from DFKs to coincide with their mounted form (which I think would be a great idea)!

One upshot of increasing attack across the board is you'll be inadvertantly speeding up combat resolution, in turn leading to quicker routing in battles. Maybe it would be advisable to reduce the attack of others rather than increase attack to balance to the monstrous 21/13 ap DEKs.

You're suggesting DEK with stats 14/6/13 ap will beat 13/3/21 DFK with ease? I highly doubt this. The def stats of the DFK were 7/8/6 IIRC which become 10/11/0 with the half-n-half fix. That means they have 16 defense after AP is applied to their armor. So the matchups appear to be the DEK 14 attack against DFK 16 frontal defense, and the DFK 13 attack against the DEK 13 frontal defense. The charge should give the DEK an early advantage, but DFK should have an edge in the general melee. I simply can't imagine that the DEKs post results that I would consider anywhere in the realm of "ease" during this fight, even granted that they may have a faster attack animation. I'd anticipate them taking about 75% losses, and it seems reasonable that they may even lose the fight some of the time. In any case I'll look at it later, but I'll be surprised if the DFKs don't hold up far better than you claim.

On a different note, you can't really balance the 2H units down to the level of the non-broken 2HS or JHI and DGK type units. The reason is that the the good S&S units have 21+ defense now, and typically about 15 once AP is applied. As we all expect the heavy units to beat S&S units, an attack value reasonably above 15 will be required to make this happen, as the S&S units typically have attack values that match the defense values of the 2H units.

Also, I don't think boosting the attacks of the various underpowered units actually makes combat take any less time than it did in vanilla for the most part. Most of the vanilla units we're comparing the heavies to like DFK for instance had shields that screwed them out of a net 12 defense points (being 6 point shields). With that in mind, you have to assume that combat would take about the same amount of time with those units, then, if you upped the units that were not broken by 12 attack. Carl has given most of these units +10 attack and AP, which I would say is a little on the overboard side (but should not make combat substantially faster except against non-shield units): AP against most heavy units now counts for 4-6, so I recommend a boost of 6-8 and AP, or a straight 12 point attack boost with no AP. I prefer AP and 6-8 attack more, as it keeps things a little more reasonable against lower level units b/c AP does less to them.

[Carl]

I'd anticipate them taking about 75% losses, and it seems reasonable that they may even lose the fight some of the time. In any case I'll look at it later, but I'll be surprised if the DFKs don't hold up far better than you claim.

Thats what I found Foz.

Carl has given most of these units +10 attack and AP, which I would say is a little on the overboard side (but should not make combat substantially faster except against non-shield units):

The reason for +10 attack and 8 charge is mostly to do with JHI/Zwei Handers/Forlorn Hope/Highland Nobles/DGK vs. DEK/DPK/DNK.

Really the DEK/DPK/DNK should lose vs. all but the Highland Nobles, and suffer MAD against tthe Highland Nobles, (+100 Florin cost diffrances for everyone but Highland nobles over DEK). This pretty much requires a Higher attack (since after AP the defence values are about the same for all units, and animations are now the same). +8 would have actually left JHI 1 behind and the rest only just ahead. 8 Charge stat also helps out as it ensure the really expensive units (DGK/JHI) are doing their job. In general thats what happens in my expiriance, allthough it depends somewhat on who you control.

It is maybe just a TOUCH OTT and if testing proves that i'll try em with +8 instead of +10. But with the price diffrance between DEK and the others, (even considering DEK are underpriced), I figure that it's best if the DEK get beaten in with some decisivness. Plus I wanted a Fix I could apply across the board, (that way it has equal effects across the board, nd is less subjective than individual balancing and re-pricing).

p.s. Just explaining the reasoning behind the decision.


As an aside. Try Venetian Heavy Infantry. they beat all but DGK and are far more Cav/Missile resistant than 2-handers. Their probably the best overall unit in the game now and they only have the sheild fix on them...


Otherwise, Foz raises some good points, the question is weather vanillia was too quick now...

[Foz]

1 more point to raise ATM: I don't think it's safe to assume that cost in the campaign game should equal performance necessarily. It's possible for instance that DEKs checking in at a low price is in order to make up for the fact that England lacks any good early infantry options, where most European factions are given access to armored sergeants, mounted sergeants, and/or others. Similarly one could suggest that DGK are so pricey due to the fact that the HRE has so many units available at an early point in the game. So for my part at least, I am not inclined to say that units should beat other ones simply because they cost more, as I'm fairly certain that other faction-related factors besides unit stats are coming into play in their pricing.

[Carl]

Good Point Foz, but the diffrance in cost between DEK and DGK was big enough for me to fel that DGK should be winning, Plus Portugual and France get effectivlly the same unit and have much better cav as well as ok missile units. Plus of course, the HRE has much worse missile power than Portugual/England. Overall I'd say these factions, (france especially), have as good an overall lineup as HRE and thus don't really deserve to have such cheap units beating DGK/JHI. Of course thats a subjective judgment, but so where the general claims they where underpowered.

I tend to take the line that in general, (not allways), two units fulfilling a similar purppose should win/lose on whos the higher cost. genreally lack of acess to somthing and unique units tend to make this work in the campaign, allthough MP testing would be prefrable. Of course thats a subjective judgment, but so where the general claims they where underpowered. I.e. what units factions have/do not have will deal with balancing more than cost diffrances between unit of the same/similar capability.

You DO make a good point Foz, thats why I want testing and feedback. is one faction suddenly much easier than it should be. If it is thats extra info for rebalancing. However that belongs in the balance mod. As I say, to keep this as non-subjective as possibnile i'm trying to make across the board changes to all units identiclly.

[Stlaind]

That really depends on what you consider a decent fight Stlaind...

For me it's top level S&S getting beat by top level 2-Handers, but not without the 2-handers suffering moderate losses, (less that 50%, better than 10%).

Some people, (is this you?), would prefer to see S&S manage heavy losses or even a win, but thats subjective and i'm wary of letting that happen due to the advantages of missile resistance and cav resistance the S&S get over 2-Handers, (they arn't minor ones eithier DFK can almost beat their mounted Countrparts if they stay still when reciving a cav charge and they have nearly double the missile defence normally).

I would say that a kill ratio lower than 2:1 would be what I had in mind, but like I said, I'm not sure I have a really solid reason for saying that (I suppose I'd prefer M2TW to compare more to a meat grinder when units are compared individually across "tiers" perhaps, I really do prefer the long fights).

But I'll do some testing of what you've got and see what I can come up with.

[Foz]

Can you post a list of all units that you've increased the attack power of in this fix, Carl? How much you did it by would be helpful too in each case. I'd like to play with the numbers, but it's going to be difficult to make sure I've found them all with just generalizations like "2-handed sword" instead of actual unit names that you've changed. If there's some easy thing to search for in the file for each type you modified then you can just let me know what that is in each unit type's case, but if not then a full list would be most helpful.

Also, did you actually wade through the file by hand to make all these changes? If so, props, it probably took a while.

[Stlaind]

hmmm, just did a bunch of one off tests..... seems like the changes didn't end up with the absolutely frightening routs of S+S that I had feared, except in 3 DGK : 4 DCK, which is fair, at those levels you'd normally be seeing other types in the fight for sure

[Foz]

Wow... people weren't kidding when they said how bad 2HS unit animations were. From what I can see, it's all in the charge. I pumped the DGK +12 attack from vanilla (no AP) and put them against DEK (demo animations)... and the DEK annihilated them pretty handily. The DEK inflicted some 30% or 40% kills just on the charge. When I set the DGK to use DEK animations via the soldier line, though, then THEY instead accomplished massive kills on the charge and went about 2:1 against the DEK. Even with their own animations the DGK appeared to be beating the DEKs in general melee, it's just that they could not cover the large deficit that the charge had caused. So I tried it another way... with both units having DGK animations, and sure enough the DGK with stats 26/6/14 (no AP) went 2:1 against the DEK with standard stats and AP.

So... is there anything we can do about the DEK charge animations? Or anything we can do to make the charge animations of 2HS units more effective? Either one is likely to bring the units back into some reasonable balance w/ respect to each other. I'm just not experienced enough with that sort of editing in this game to know exactly what's required to make a unit use part of another's animation set...

[Jambo]

That's the point I was trying to get across earlier - that the DEK's "fixed" animations make them into killing machines, particularly when compared to the default slow 2HS animation.

Edit: I've since realised this wasn't what the_foz_04 was asking regards animations so you can ignore the following speel -

"Changing a unit's animation is really easy. Each unit has a "soldier" line, e.g. for Highland Nobles:

soldier          Highland_Nobles, 48, 0, 1.2

Simply change Highland_Noble to some other unit to use the other unit's animation, e.g.:

soldier          ME_Halberd_Militia, 48, 0, 1.2

This is quite a good example since Carl's claimed that the ME_Halberd_Militia animation is very similar to the 2HS but yet faster and therefore possibly more in line with the DEKs. One potentially we could use."

One probably shouldn't just compare by cost and type, since there's also where they come in the tech tree to consider and this is possibly even more important for balance. For instance, Scotland gets access to Highland_Nobles comparatively early.

In addition there's also upkeep. Most notable is that DEKs more than make up for their lowish cost by then costing 225 in upkeep; a value that's substantially more than many other 2H equivalent.

[Jambo]

As I said before, instead of pumping up the 2HS attacks to crazy levels, one could also consider lowering the ubiquitous DFK's attack by 2, say, bringing it into line with its mounted version. The DFKs are a relatively early unit, which for whatever reason CA has decided to make comparatively indifferent to the later S&S (e.g. DCKs and Noble/Armoured Swordsmen) that are supposed to replace it. Only 1 armour point separates these units.

[JeromeGrasdyke]

I realize that the way he says it there is a little ambiguous, but I inquired further in a PM to him, and he said the autoresolve essentially fights the battle on a very simplified battlefield using reduced unit sizes, and still accounts for the same factors like morale, flanking, etc that you see on the battlefield.

The autoresolve goes to considerable lengths to try and properly mimic the battle - it's actually a fairly sophisticated model, even taking into account major battlefield features like rivers, town walls, siege equipment and so on, as well as unit frontage, flanking, fatigue, statistically correct kill chances, charges, ammunition amounts and so on. But in this context I would have to add that it's unlikely that the Med2 autoresolve takes account of the effect of the animation set on battle outcome. Certainly the Rome one did not, which was appropriate at the time as the animation influence was largely eliminated from actual fought battles through the use of time-to-next-attack penalties.

[dopp]

The autoresolve goes to considerable lengths to try and properly mimic the battle - it's actually a fairly sophisticated model, even taking into account major battlefield features like rivers, town walls, siege equipment and so on, as well as unit frontage, flanking, fatigue, statistically correct kill chances, charges, ammunition amounts and so on. But in this context I would have to add that it's unlikely that the Med2 autoresolve takes account of the effect of the animation set on battle outcome. Certainly the Rome one did not, which was appropriate at the time as the animation influence was largely eliminated from actual fought battles through the use of time-to-next-attack penalties.

Thank you for confirming something I have suspected for a long time. I was working on increasing the sink rate of naval autoresolve in RTW, and figured out that auto-resolve was actually playing out (more or less) an entire battle in fast-foward with AI control on both sides.

On a side note, it seems that the AI likes to charge generals into the thick of it ASAP, which is why so many generals get scarface and winning first when I auto-resolve.

[sapi]

@Carl, a belated 'good work' on the latest incarnation of your fix - having everything in one place makes things much easier

@Jerome/dopp - good point - that explains how generals pick up so many of those traits. It'd be interesting to see how much you could influence the development of your own generals through judicious use of autoresolves

[Carl]

@Foz:

The list of units first:

2HS and Eastern Halberds:

These get an 8 Charge Stat, +10 Attack, and AP.


Highland Nobles
Zwei Hander
Forlorn Hope
DGK
JHI
Halberd Militia (The eastern one, Turks, amongst others, get this type)
Eagle Warriors, (These had a non-working animation too, but I gave them the fix as most Aztec animations are very OTT, with a less OTT animation you could see these guys under-performing a LOT, plus it makes the New world even harder).

Western Halberds:

These Get +5 attack, and the Spear attribute added to their primary weapon. The Light_Spear attribute is added to the secondary weapon.


Halberd Militia (The western one, HRE, amongst others, get this type)
Voluge Militia
Volugiers
Sword Staff Militia
Swiss Guard
Obudshaers


Hope that helps Foz.

Also, did you actually wade through the file by hand to make all these changes? If so, props, it probably took a while.

Yeah, but I used your down-loadable 1.2 shield fix EDU files for the shield fix, their weren't many units to edit after that TBH. Now I've got the changes in my head I could probably re-create the file from scratch in 15 mins. Try editing DOW RGD's by hand, you can end up doing a LOT more in those...

Wow... people weren't kidding when they said how bad 2HS unit animations were. From what I can see, it's all in the charge. I pumped the DGK +12 attack from vanilla (no AP) and put them against DEK (demo animations)... and the DEK annihilated them pretty handily. The DEK inflicted some 30% or 40% kills just on the charge. When I set the DGK to use DEK animations via the soldier line, though, then THEY instead accomplished massive kills on the charge and went about 2:1 against the DEK. Even with their own animations the DGK appeared to be beating the DEKs in general melee, it's just that they could not cover the large deficit that the charge had caused. So I tried it another way... with both units having DGK animations, and sure enough the DGK with stats 26/6/14 (no AP) went 2:1 against the DEK with standard stats and AP.

Yeah, the Charge animations of the Halberd units I Nicked are very fast so they tend to get the first blow it. It's actually 25% that die on the charge, (their 4 ranks deep and the entire front rank gets it:(), but by the time it registers, general melee has been going a few seconds and a few more have dropped dead. The trouble is with the front rank dead the DGK don't get a blow in before the charge bonus has worn off. and are now outnumbered. It's a quick trip to a loss for the DGK then. That partly why I gave them 8 Charge stat. A High charge stat seems to speed up the Charge animation, so in combination with their high Attack, AP and new animations, it means they always get the first blow in and get very decisive victories, (at this level of attack, +3 attack doesn't seem to matter as much as you'd expect).

So... is there anything we can do about the DEK charge animations? Or anything we can do to make the charge animations of 2HS units more effective? Either one is likely to bring the units back into some reasonable balance w/ respect to each other. I'm just not experienced enough with that sort of editing in this game to know exactly what's required to make a unit use part of another's animation set...

Not that I know of, their isn't an animation editor available for this game so it's something we can't really do.

One probably shouldn't just compare by cost and type, since there's also where they come in the tech tree to consider and this is possibly even more important for balance. For instance, Scotland gets access to Highland_Nobles comparatively early.

In addition there's also upkeep. Most notable is that DEKs more than make up for their lowish cost by then costing 225 in upkeep; a value that's substantially more than many other 2HS equivalent.

The thing is, I'm trying to give CA and idea of what works, and what effects specific changes have, but that means I have to worry about things like Custom battles, (and MP), where tech levels are highly simplified and Upkeep/Recruitment Pool Size/Replenish Rate are simply not applicable.

On the flip side you do raise a VERY good point in that right now DEK have a Very High Upkeep, that naturally means that they do need to be good for their price. And in general I would say they are, they get draws against Zwei Handlers, just barely beat Highland Nobles and are bettered by JHI and DGK, (ohh and VHI, but they ain't a 2-Hander). It's not likes theirs a lot of units will beat them, and in all honesty they still tend to kill most of the DGK/JHI, (i.e. it's MAD), they're still the 4th best non-pike unit in the game, and of the units that beat them, one is effectively a high defense 2-Hander in many ways, another is only available in custom, and the third is JHI, who where the top dogs in vanilla so it's not that bad really. In fact if you where fighting anything but another 2-Hander you probably wouldn't notice a significant difference, 2-Handers fights are one of the bloodiest battle around with even low end 2-handers inflicting heavy losses on much higher level 2-Handers. Thats what High Attack, AP attacks vs. Low Defense Skill Low Defense Values does.

Your Point on Highland Nobles is an even better one though. My only real counterargument is that the Scots other infantry is remarkably good, both for it's type and for it's tech era, plus they don't actually beat DEK and are somewhat worse against other units. In effect they get access to a top of the range 2-Hander a tier or two earlier than anyone else, but it isn't quite the best 2-hander around, (it's a mater of their defense defense TBH, even 2.5 less defense matters at this level because the values are so low).

The auto-resolve goes to considerable lengths to try and properly mimic the battle - it's actually a fairly sophisticated model, even taking into account major battlefield features like rivers, town walls, siege equipment and so on, as well as unit frontage, flanking, fatigue, statistically correct kill chances, charges, ammunition amounts and so on. But in this context I would have to add that it's unlikely that the Med2 autoresolve takes account of the effect of the animation set on battle outcome. Certainly the Rome one did not, which was appropriate at the time as the animation influence was largely eliminated from actual fought battles through the use of time-to-next-attack penalties.

Thanks for that:D. I presume we can infer from that statement that Animations ARE having a effect on combat results above and beyond what calculations show?

As I said before, instead of pumping up the 2HS attacks to crazy levels, one could also consider lowering the ubiquitous DFK's attack by 2, say, bringing it into line with its mounted version. The DFK's are a relatively early unit, which for whatever reason CA has decided to make comparatively indifferent to the later S&S (e.g. DCKs and Noble/Armored Swordsmen) that are supposed to replace it. Only 1 Armour point separates these units.

The problem here is that DFK AREN'T my biggest worry. It's Noble Swordsmen/Dismounted Chivalric Knights/Dismounted Christian Guard. Like I pointed out in a post further up. DFK are actually a lot worse in comparison to the later S&S units that their stats difference suggests. If you lower the Attack of 2-Handers by even a Little it will hurt the 2-Handers, particularly the units below the level of DEK/Highland Nobles. already struggle vs. top end S&S units. If I make them any weaker they'll get beat silly.

Also as noted, any changes I make have to be across the board, so i could lower DFK attack, but if I was to do that I'd want to do the same to every S&S unit which is pointless IMHO. The entire idea here really is to reduce the arbitrary nature of these changes by making them global changes to re-balance unit classes rather than individual units.

@Carl, a belated 'good work' on the latest incarnation of your fix - having everything in one place makes things much easier

Thanks, and Your Welcome. Glad to be able to help.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Despite saying I'm concerned with the Custom (and MP), balance further up. Don't mistake that for me not caring about SP. Mearly that this is simply a BugFixer designed to fix the known bugs then bring the unbugged 2-Handed units into line with their performance when the enemy was bugged, (within reason of course). However, making it balanced in Custom makes feedback on this BugFixer a lot more useful for CA as it doesn't need total re-balancing for custom, (I hope). Hopefully that means they can use bits of it to help them out. Even if it helps give them ideas it's a good thing. I'm effectively aiming for something CA could directly implement in the 1.2 patch if they wanted to, (not that they would), without it messing up game modes other than SP. So yes I DO care about SP, it's just I want to try and cut down some of CA's workload for them, that, (hopefully), means we get a better 1.2 patch, and thats to everyones benefit.@Foz:

The list of units first:

2HS and Eastern Halberds:

These get an 8 Charge Stat, +10 Attack, and AP.


Highland Nobles
Zwei Hander
Forlorn Hope
DGK
JHI
Halberd Militia (The eastern one, Turks, amongst others, get this type)
Eagle Warriors, (These had a non-working animation too, but I gave them the fix as most Aztec animations are very OTT, with a less OTT animation you could see these guys under-performing a LOT, plus it makes the New world even harder).

Western Halberds:

These Get +5 attack, and the Spear attribute added to their primary weapon. The Light_Spear attribute is added to the secondary weapon.


Halberd Militia (The western one, HRE, amongst others, get this type)
Voluge Militia
Volugiers
Sword Staff Militia
Swiss Guard
Obudshaers


Hope that helps Foz.

Also, did you actually wade through the file by hand to make all these changes? If so, props, it probably took a while.

Yeah, but I used your downloadable 1.2 shield fix EDU files for the shield fix, their weren't many units to edit after that TBH. Now I've got the changes in my head I could probably re-create the file from scratch in 15 mins. Try editing DOW RGD's by hand, you can end up doing a LOT more in those...

Wow... people weren't kidding when they said how bad 2HS unit animations were. From what I can see, it's all in the charge. I pumped the DGK +12 attack from vanilla (no AP) and put them against DEK (demo animations)... and the DEK annihilated them pretty handily. The DEK inflicted some 30% or 40% kills just on the charge. When I set the DGK to use DEK animations via the soldier line, though, then THEY instead accomplished massive kills on the charge and went about 2:1 against the DEK. Even with their own animations the DGK appeared to be beating the DEKs in general melee, it's just that they could not cover the large deficit that the charge had caused. So I tried it another way... with both units having DGK animations, and sure enough the DGK with stats 26/6/14 (no AP) went 2:1 against the DEK with standard stats and AP.

Yeah, the Charge animations of the Halberd units I Nicked are very fast so they tend to get the first blow it. It's actually 25% that die on the charge, (their 4 ranks deep and the entire front rank gets it:(), but by the time it registers, general melee has been going a few seconds and a few more have dropped dead. The trouble is with the front rank dead the DGK don't get a blow in before the charge bonus has worn off. and are now outnumbered. It's a quick trip to a loss for the DGK then. That partly why I gave them 8 Charge stat. A High charge stat seems to speed up the Charge animation, so in combination with their high Attack, AP and new animations, it means they always get the first blow in and get very decisive victories, (at this level of attack, +3 attack doesn't seem to matter as much as you'd expect).

So... is there anything we can do about the DEK charge animations? Or anything we can do to make the charge animations of 2HS units more effective? Either one is likely to bring the units back into some reasonable balance w/ respect to each other. I'm just not experienced enough with that sort of editing in this game to know exactly what's required to make a unit use part of another's animation set...

Not that I know of, their isn't an animation editor available for this game so it's something we can't really do.

One probably shouldn't just compare by cost and type, since there's also where they come in the tech tree to consider and this is possibly even more important for balance. For instance, Scotland gets access to Highland_Nobles comparatively early.

In addition there's also upkeep. Most notable is that DEKs more than make up for their lowish cost by then costing 225 in upkeep; a value that's substantially more than many other 2HS equivalent.

The thing is, I'm trying to give CA and idea of what works, and what effects specific changes have, but that means I have to worry about things like Custom battles, (and MP), where tech levels are highly simplified and Upkeep/Recruitment Pool Size/Replenish Rate are simply not applicable.

On the flip side you do raise a VERY good point in that right now DEK have a Very High Upkeep, that naturally means that they do need to be good for their price. And in general I would say they are, they get draws against Zwei Handlers, just barely beat Highland Nobles and are bettered by JHI and DGK, (ohh and VHI, but they ain't a 2-Hander). It's not likes theirs a lot of units will beat them, and in all honesty they still tend to kill most of the DGK/JHI, (i.e. it's MAD), they're still the 4th best non-pike unit in the game, and of the units that beat them, one is effectively a high defense 2-Hander in many ways, another is only available in custom, and the third is JHI, who where the top dogs in vanilla so it's not that bad really. In fact if you where fighting anything but another 2-Hander you probably wouldn't notice a significant difference, 2-Handers fights are one of the bloodiest battle around with even low end 2-handers inflicting heavy losses on much higher level 2-Handers. Thats what High Attack, AP attacks vs. Low Defense Skill Low Defense Values does.

Your Point on Highland Nobles is an even better one though. My only real counterargument is that the Scots other infantry is remarkably good, both for it's type and for it's tech era, plus they don't actually beat DEK and are somewhat worse against other units. In effect they get access to a top of the range 2-Hander a tier or two earlier than anyone else, but it isn't quite the best 2-hander around, (it's a mater of their defense defense TBH, even 2.5 less defense matters at this level because the values are so low).

The auto-resolve goes to considerable lengths to try and properly mimic the battle - it's actually a fairly sophisticated model, even taking into account major battlefield features like rivers, town walls, siege equipment and so on, as well as unit frontage, flanking, fatigue, statistically correct kill chances, charges, ammunition amounts and so on. But in this context I would have to add that it's unlikely that the Med2 auto-resolve takes account of the effect of the animation set on battle outcome. Certainly the Rome one did not, which was appropriate at the time as the animation influence was largely eliminated from actual fought battles through the use of time-to-next-attack penalties.

Thanks for that:D. I presume we can infer from that statement that Animations ARE having a effect on combat results above and beyond what calculations show?

As I said before, instead of pumping up the 2HS attacks to crazy levels, one could also consider lowering the ubiquitous DFK's attack by 2, say, bringing it into line with its mounted version. The DFK's are a relatively early unit, which for whatever reason CA has decided to make comparatively indifferent to the later S&S (e.g. DCKs and Noble/Armored Swordsmen) that are supposed to replace it. Only 1 Armour point separates these units.

The problem here is that DFK AREN'T my biggest worry. It's Noble Swordsmen/Dismounted Chivalric Knights/Dismounted Christian Guard. Like I pointed out in a post further up. DFK are actually a lot worse in comparison to the later S&S units that their stats difference suggests. If you lower the Attack of 2-Handers by even a Little it will hurt the 2-Handers, particularly the units below the level of DEK/Highland Nobles. already struggle vs. top end S&S units. If I make them any weaker they'll get beat silly.

Also as noted, any changes I make have to be across the board, so i could lower DFK attack, but if I was to do that I'd want to do the same to every S&S unit which is pointless IMHO. The entire idea here really is to reduce the arbitrary nature of these changes by making them global changes to re-balance unit classes rather than individual units.

@Carl, a belated 'good work' on the latest incarnation of your fix - having everything in one place makes things much easier

Thanks, and Your Welcome. Glad to be able to help.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Despite saying I'm concerned with the Custom (and MP), balance further up. Don't mistake that for me not caring about SP. Mearly that this is simply a BugFixer designed to fix the known bugs then bring the unbugged 2-Handed units into line with their performance when the enemy was bugged, (within reason of course). However, making it balanced in Custom makes feedback on this BugFixer a lot more useful for CA as it doesn't need total re-balancing for custom, (I hope). Hopefully that means they can use bits of it to help them out. Even if it helps give them ideas it's a good thing. I'm effectively aiming for something CA could directly implement in the 1.2 patch if they wanted to, (not that they would), without it messing up game modes other than SP. So yes I DO care about SP, it's just I want to try and cut down some of CA's workload for them, that, (hopefully), means we get a better 1.2 patch, and thats to everyones benefit.