Carl's BugFixer (V1.1)

[Carl]

@Jambo: Your results match mine, the times when the AI dosen't charge home it tend to turn a flank to the charging DEK (OUCH).

Results below:

I did 2 test groups, the tests where conduted with the following stats:

DEK: 21/6/13/ap
Noble Swordsmen (NS): 13/3/22/no

The Skeleton Comp factors are the same as the 1.1 BugFixers, (I.E. 1.33 for the DEK and1.0 for the NS).

The first set of results, (kills on each side when the NS routed, DEK/NS format):

45/17
46/16
43/27
43/9
42/2
41/9
47/14
44/4
44/12
44/14

As you can seee the NS charge home around 50% of the time now, and when they do, they do apriciable damage to the DEK before dying.

To furthar reinforce the point I did a series of tests where I Single-Right cliked (if the DEK arn't running when they enter charge range, the NS charge properly every time for some unfathomable reason).

Results, (same format as before):

32/16
46/21
36/13
44/28
42/7
27/12
32/16
47/21
28/16
43/19

As you can see a kill ratio of between 3:1 and 2:1 tends to be common and the DEK have the advantage of human control which allways gives a buff. Overall I feel happy with those figures TBH. I don't know about Jambo/Foz though...

Also, how do you guys find that Eastern Halberd Militia/Woodsmen/Croat Axemen/Viking Axemen/All Bill Units/e.t.c. are performing, these are significantly weaker that the top of the range DEK/DNK/DPK/DGK/HN/ZH/FH units. Are they suffering from cronic IMBA too?

Overall I can say I like the lower charge distances to date and am going to experiment a bit more. They'll probably stay to a degree as people have been asking for easier cav charges. Likewise, I like the performance f spears vs. cav wioth altered Skeleton values. Mostly because they can just about beat cav of a similar era to themselves, meaning they are actually a good counter for the cav units they are supposed to counter. Before I found they tended to get rolled over.

So thats probably going to make the next release along with a few more defualt formation changes.

Based on the figures and your intuition, how do you guys think that will go...

[Carl]

p.s. If you want a Beta copy of the 1.11 version Jumbo, i'd be willing to send it to you, same goes for Foz.

I respect your two's opinions a fair bit and it was your concern that made me do extensive tests and notice just how bad DEK where beating NS. Before that random observations didn't show the scope of it TBH.

[Foz]

I too find the same thing with the charging... however even single-clicking the DEK and watching to be absolutely certain the other guys charge correctly does not fix it. Note that I'm not doing this test with Carl's mod file, but the issues seem to be identical (that being some sort of charge issue it seems). When I'm the DEK even when I single-click charge, I always win the charge portion of the fight, and often by a lot (the computer has been having what look like successful charges instead of the stop short variety). When I'm the other guys (French DFK is what I'm using this time), the DEK take TONS more losses and the charge comes out about even (again watching to make sure the DEK do not do the stop short charge which I've also seen them do a few times). I'm talking about 3:1 results when I play as DEK, but 3:2 at best for the DEK when I'm the DFK, and often it becomes MAD or very nearly (like 5 DEK left). The DFK have even WON some with me piloting them. I tried it on all different difficulties... and the only thing I'm left with is that there appears to be validity to the idea I've seen tossed around that the human player has an edge in combat against the computer. I can't tell if it's because the computer consistently does something to botch its charges (that I just can't see) or not... Could just be numbers advantage for that, but something weird is up, and I figured I'd bring it to everyone's attention and maybe get some thoughts.

[Carl]

Thats what i'm finding too foz. Are the DFK suffering about 50% more dead on initial contact than the DEK, (who go down to about 42-46 left).


I should like to point out that DEK have a higher Charge stat than DFK and a haigher base attack and about the same defence, (after AP effects), so to do as well as they do, the DFK are doing well. In other words the DFK are charging home fine, considering the stats diffrance they're doing better than i'd honestly expect.

As to weather a 3:1 kil ratio is balanced? Thats subjective, but i'd point out that Pikes vs. anything from the front, Cav vs. 2-Handers/Missiles, Missiles vs. 2-Handers, S&S vs. Spear/missiles, e.t.c manage equal or better than 3:1 in most cases. (Remeber that DEK/DNK/DPK/DGK have about double the missile resistance of most 2-Hander units, so they do better, just as Hashashim and Dismounted Christian Guard do for S&S vs. 2-Handers.)

Theirs defintly some kind of player bouns, i think it's a case of any ties that happen get judged in favour of the player. With the amount of stufff thats happening that could easillly have big knock on effects.

[Foz]

Carl: I'm gonna pass on that beta for the moment, and in fact might be largely under the radar for a day or two. Tomorrow looks to be a busy one, and I have a campaign game itch that I've got to scratch on top of that if at all possible. Who knows though, I may be inspired to check in anyway.

Concerning balance: 3:1 should be okay for DEKs to perform under human control. More than anything I'm just concerned that typical S&S units are not worthless against DEK or 2-handers when the human has the S&S unit, as there's a lot of them and it would suck to have those 2H units making them total garbage. As that 3:1 becomes something like 2:3 when you've got the S&S unit under human control, I'd call that very close to the 1:2 I wanted from having S&S units take on DEKs. To get the DEKs to actually go 2:1 over human-controlled S&S units would probably require a few more attack points, but that would make DEKs even more OTT when under human control themselves, which is clearly not something we want to have happen. So the choices would be:

1. Decrease DEK attack to make them less OTT under human control. This would improve S&S under human control enough against DEK that they'd probably MAD or even win.
2. Bump DEK attack to get S&S to only kill half the DEK unit when S&S under human control, and make DEK more OTT when human controls them.
3. Leave it alone, which leaves human-controlled S&S to kill some extra DEK, but keeps DEK more reasonable when in human hands.

I vote 3, as testing seems to indicate any less attack power for the DEKs would make S&S units (under human control) able to best them, which is not what we want at all. Likewise increasing their stats would make them slaughter everything on the field entirely too well and too quickly. Seems to me like the current stats represent the best compromise.

On a side note, I've been testing with demo animations instead of replaced soldier lines... and seem to be getting largely identical results to what people using replaced soldier lines are getting. Interesting. I'm guessing that while the animations appear rather fast, the attack timing is in fact being controlled by something else, so it's likely the animation isn't as much of a factor as people seemed to think.

[Carl]

Carl: I'm gonna pass on that beta for the moment, and in fact might be largely under the radar for a day or two. Tomorrow looks to be a busy one, and I have a campaign game itch that I've got to scratch on top of that if at all possible. Who knows though, I may be inspired to check in anyway.

Concerning balance: 3:1 should be okay for DEKs to perform under human control. More than anything I'm just concerned that typical S&S units are not worthless against DEK or 2-handers when the human has the S&S unit, as there's a lot of them and it would suck to have those 2H units making them total garbage. As that 3:1 becomes something like 2:3 when you've got the S&S unit under human control, I'd call that very close to the 1:2 I wanted from having S&S units take on DEKs. To get the DEKs to actually go 2:1 over human-controlled S&S units would probably require a few more attack points, but that would make DEKs even more OTT when under human control themselves, which is clearly not something we want to have happen. So the choices would be:

1. Decrease DEK attack to make them less OTT under human control. This would improve S&S under human control enough against DEK that they'd probably MAD or even win.
2. Bump DEK attack to get S&S to only kill half the DEK unit when S&S under human control, and make DEK more OTT when human controls them.
3. Leave it alone, which leaves human-controlled S&S to kill some extra DEK, but keeps DEK more reasonable when in human hands.

I vote 3, as testing seems to indicate any less attack power for the DEKs would make S&S units (under human control) able to best them, which is not what we want at all. Likewise increasing their stats would make them slaughter everything on the field entirely too well and too quickly. Seems to me like the current stats represent the best compromise.

Thats more or less what I think, drop them anymore and we have potentiol issues, raise them anymore and we get issues too, I'd also be worried about the effects on the weaker 2-Handers as well, it could really underpower them if they got an attack cut. If we can sort the charge bug it's going to be easy as pie to get everything working after that I think. It looks to me like they would actually sit somwhere just below 2:1 kill rates if humans controlled both sides.

No worries with the Beta Foz, I know what you mean, I was up while 3 this morning doing a Papal states one, (VERY fun IMHO).

On a side note, I've been testing with demo animations instead of replaced soldier lines... and seem to be getting largely identical results to what people using replaced soldier lines are getting. Interesting. I'm guessing that while the animations appear rather fast, the attack timing is in fact being controlled by something else, so it's likely the animation isn't as much of a factor as people seemed to think.

I havn't sen the Demo Animations TBH, but I would say that when looking at the 2HS units vs. fixed units when the 2HS had the old animations, I noticed attacks where about as frequent, what was happenning though was that the fixed animations where playing out faster, so if they started to swing at the same time, the fixed units would beat the others to hitting the other side, with obvious results.

May just be me but it defintly seemed like the ME_Halber_Animation played out faster than the DGK animation, but both attacked exactly as often.

[Jambo]

It's strange, I too have found differences in results when controlling a unit and then attacking that unit in 1 v 1 battles. It does appear the human has an advantage and it does seem linked to the charge. I guess this is probably just an aside of 1 v 1 and that the AI might act more appropriately in proper encounters? Nevertheless, while short charge distances seem to work better for cavalry, I'm not convinced they're better for infantry.

Anyway, no doubt I'll continue testing, but I am actually trying to find my own happy medium. Where possible, my rebalancing has tended towards adjusting stats to slow combat resolution rather than instigating global boosts. So far I've done the following:

*Added foz's shield fix.
*Added dopp's pike fix.
*Added zxiang's animation fix for 2-h axes and then proportionally reduced these units' inflated attack values (DEKs around the 14/6/13 mark (-7), billmen around 11/6/3 (-4)). This animation set is like the JHI in power.
*Added ap and +3 to attack for 2-h swords.
*I increased low morale units' morale to lessen mass AI routing. Units with 5 morale now have 7, units with 3 now have 5 and units with 1 now have 3. High morale units (i.e. higher than 5) remain unchanged.
*General bodyguard units only have 1 hp instead of 2.

Things I'm seriously considering:

*Subtract 2 from all pikemen attack values. These guys are excellent for their price with the pike fix and rather than boosting others I'd prefer to lessen their attack to give other units more time to manoeuvre.
*Maybe increase all halberd (including JHI) attack values by 2 to give them more similar attack values to pikes and bring them more in line with others.
*If S&S are proving to tough overall then I am considering lowering their attack from 13 to 11 rather than boosting others any further.
*I'm considering the idea of giving the ME_Halberd_Militia animation to all 2HS if it proves to be a better (quicker) animation, since it will make them easier to balance against the 2-h axes.
*If this fails I am considering lowering DEKs, DPKs, DNKs defence values from 5 to 3, since these guys are just monsters whatever I seem to do!
*Tweaking skeleton compensation to deal with any other imbalances.

Regards

[Jambo]

Carl, what animation are you using for 2-h axe units if you're not using the pre-gold demo's, i.e. zxiang's fix? That might explain the differences we're seeing since the demo's animations make DEKs into JHI type units. I guess that's why JHI had comparatively low vanilla syats.

[Carl]

I'm changing the sopilder line to: ME_Halberd_Militia

It's very similar to the JHI one though, might even be the same TBH.

I chosse to use Global boost largly becuase lowering 2-Handers would have meant doing the same to S&S unit, Spears, and Pikes. Then Missile woukld have needed re-balancing as they will be OTT against the now weakend defence of S&S units and Spears and 2-Handers. Then I have to start messing with cav to keep them balanced.

My advice would be to wait till i've finished my bug fixer and then try using it with attack values lowered by about 3 pointas for everyone and see how that goes, it should slow melee kill rates down without buggering anything else up. I might even do this in the re-balance version.

[Lusted]

It is the same animation as the janissary_heavy_infantry from what i've seen in the battle_models.modelsdb file.

[Carl]

Thanks Lusted. I can't tell what line in their control the weapons even WITH Musashi's tutoriol, (plus it's not really possiblle to include it in a mod due to how it has to be installed).

[dopp]

@Jambo: There does seem to be a problem with 1v1 on custom battle map. Defensive units like pikes that would normally stay still in campaign battles will advance in custom even if totally outnumbered. Even archers and crossbows like to advance closer. The AI also seems better at pulling off charges in campaign.

[Empirate]

Help!
Maybe I'm stupid, but I can't figure out how to install this fix. I don't have a folder "Program Files". I'm in Germany, so I do have a folder "Programme", which should be the one in question, but there is no SEGA folder in there! Can somebody please give me a step-by-step? Where can I find the export_descr_units.txt in my M2 folder? Is it sufficient to just replace the vanilla one with Carl's?

[Carl]

@Empirate:

Find your M2TW folder. then go into my SEGA folder and in their you'll find an M2TW Folder, paste the contents of my M2TW folder into your M2TW folder. That should get it working.

I need an auto-installer, but I don't know how to make one TBH.

[rosscoliosis]

I'm finding that 1 vs 1, both un-upgraded, on completely flat land, peasants still beat levy spearmen, though it is a bit closer than it was before your patch. I thought the uberness of peasants was something regarded as a "bug" before?

[Stlaind]

What if someone called peasants "Squires with pitchforks", would they be ok then?

all joking aside it's some I'd consider on the list, but there's bigger fish.

[Foz]

I'm finding that 1 vs 1, both un-upgraded, on completely flat land, peasants still beat levy spearmen, though it is a bit closer than it was before your patch. I thought the uberness of peasants was something regarded as a "bug" before?

Spear units take minuses against any sort of infantry, so perhaps this is as intended. At the very least the peasants will generally not beat up on units that are up a tier from them. Try this on for size:

English Peasants vs. HRE Armored Sergeants. I control peasants.

Vanilla game:

P Kills/AS Kills
60/65

The peasants nearly won the day, against a unit whose stats are way above theirs.

Game with shield fix:

P Kills/ AS Kills
20/49

The peasants give up much sooner, as they are not causing MAD to AS and clearly disadvantaged.

So yeah... I don't mind if they beat crappy spears, as spears are supposed to be disadvantaged by an undisclosed amount against them, but the fix makes them not able to grind down considerably better units, which I think is the real point.

[dopp]

I thought the spear penalty was dropped from RTW, is it still in effect?

[Alcorr]

Will this mod work if I run m2tw off of steam? As long as I click on the mod shortcut I should be ok?

[Carl]

Will this mod work if I run m2tw off of steam? As long as I click on the mod shortcut I should be ok?

Yeah you should be fine as long as you use the Mod Shortcut, I can't think of any reason it shouldn't work, but I don't know exactly what steam is so don't quote me, (what's steam BTW?).

I'm finding that 1 vs 1, both un-upgraded, on completely flat land, peasants still beat levy spearmen, though it is a bit closer than it was before your patch. I thought the uberness of peasants was something regarded as a "bug" before?

See Foz's reply, it is somthing that needs looking at TBH, but it's not an outright bug so once I get the BugFixer done to satisfaction i'll start on that.

Good news guys, Stlaind was able to do a bit of testuing and belives V1.11 is ok for realease so expect that in an hour or two once i've made and tested the formation changes.

[Carl]

V1.11 now up.

It's in the first post along with the updated README.

Link to the first post here

Enjoy.

Carl.

[Moah]

Link just failed for me. Will try again later. Ta!

[Carl]

Fileshack's just gone down Moah. I'll try and mirror it somwhere, (suggestions welcome).

[Carl]

I've mirriored it at Savefile for the moment.

To download, click the link then enter the number (near the bottom of the page), and click Submit. Then wait about 30 seconds for it to begin downloading.

Added a FileFactory Mirrior too.

[Stlaind]

Something to note is that I didn't really have time to do a proper pass across all units changed, so there may be some oddities that I didn't catch.

One thing to note is that some units might get balanced up or down in cost some too once we have a feel for what looks right balance wise.

[Carl]

Something to note is that I didn't really have time to do a proper pass across all units changed, so there may be some oddities that I didn't catch.

Thanks for that, I'm just fairly sure you wouldn't have missed any big ones, thats all. If their are issues leftover they might be small ones.

One thing to note is that some units might get balanced up or down in cost some too once we have a feel for what looks right balance wise.

Whilst this will happen in time, I hope to save the price changes for the re-balance version as it's not really bufixing anymore then. This is just finding obvious non-working stuff, fixing it and then altering the few working bits into line with the debugged stuff, (since the working stuff is UP with debugging complete).

I'll create a seperate thread for the re-balance now so me and stirland and others can comment on more subjective stuff their without derailing the bugfixer.


Overall, what do people make of the Spears, thats my biggest concern, is the Skeletion Comp Factor change too big?

[Stlaind]

I'm just saying the WAAA DEK/DNK/DPK/VHI are too good cries might be without real solution till then.

I felt like they held better, my only real test was (IIRC)Spear militia VS bill militia, which they lost, but it was basically MAD. Bills killed a ton, only reason the bills lost was loss of general.

[Foz]

I thought the spear penalty was dropped from RTW, is it still in effect?

The file says it is still in effect:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

; stat_pri_attr
; primary weapon attributes any or all of
; ap = armour piercing. Only counts half of target's armour
; bp = body piercing. Missile can pass through men and hit those behind
; spear = Used for long spears. Gives bonuses fighting cavalry, and penalties against infantry
; long_pike = Use very long pikes. Phalanx capable units only
; short_pike = Use shorter than normal spears.
; prec = Missile weapon is only thrown/ fired just before charging into combat
; thrown = The missile type if thrown rather than fired
; launching = attack may throw target men into the air
; area = attack affects an area, not just one man
; spear & light_spear = The unit when braced has various protecting mechanisms versus cavalry charges from the front
; spear_bonus_x = attack bonus against cavalry. x = 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 or 12

Whether it's actually correct or not, though, I do not know.

[Carl]

I'm just saying the WAAA DEK/DNK/DPK/VHI are too good cries might be without real solution till then.

Possiblly, but I don't think people understand just how vulnrable to missile the 2-Handers are.

I ran a seris of tests last night with a mixture of Crossbows, Gunpowder, Bow, Longbow, and other unit based missile weapons against 2-Hander, (4 highland Nobles, and 4 Galloglaich vs. 8 assorted missile units under my command). Ran all kinds of combinations. The 2-Handers raerly managed, (melee and missile losses added togeter here), better than 1:1 kill rates and went as bad as 3:2 EVEN when WINNING. It went down to between 3:1 and 4:1 when they lost.

NOTE: in the above kill rates the Missile units are listed first, so at worst when losing they lost 4 for every 1 the killed.

Considering even peasent Archers where managing 1:1 kill rates thats pretty big vulnrabilities TBH. I didn't do a cav test but i'll do a DGK vs. Fuedal Knights shortly, then go on my campaign and come back and put the results up about 8.

On the other hand I think we will have detractors till we eithier get charges fixed or re-price slightly.

I felt like they held better, my only real test was (IIRC)Spear militia VS bill militia, which they lost, but it was basically MAD. Bills killed a ton, only reason the bills lost was loss of general.

I've noticed Bill Militia are weak morale and tend to break as soon as they lose a general.

As soon as anybody gets cav resistance data could you please put it up.

[Carl]

All right. Got some thoughts to share.

First I did some Fudeal Knight tests vs. DGK. The Fuedals where winning with 2:1/3:1 kill rates in their favour, even mailed knights could manage MAD with cycle charging. DGK/DEK/DNK/DPK are the only 2-handers with that kind of defence TBH. SO 2-Handers are proving very vulnrable to enemy cav charges.

Second, the more I play around with Western Halberds, the more concerned I become. The Danish and Papal States ones are effectivlly their main late infantry unit, whilst France, HRE and the other similar nations with this type of unit get it as eithier the last or second to last infantry in their barracks tech tree. hats worrying me even more as it's implying more and more that they are meant to be a big part of late armies. the problem is they are tottally outperformed by Pikes and struggle against S&S infantry. Overall i'm becoming more convinced that Halberds are NOT just a stepping stone between Spears and Pikes and i'm getting worried as they don't really live up to their late era status ATM.