Kingdoms Battle Map Balance - Latest Blog entry

[Zenicetus]

Zenicetus
If their accuracy increases, their numbers can be reduced while maintaining the same offensive firepower.

It's not only about offense, but defense as well... or actually, survivability of unit cohesion over time. A HA unit with 30 archers simply doesn't last as long on the battlefield as one with 40 archers, regardless of how much damage it's inflicting (because, obviously, it can be taking fire from more units than the one it's shooting at).

In a tough battle where the HA unit is taking incoming fire and sustaining losses, it's going to lose morale and rout 25% faster if the numbers are cut by that amount... unless there's some morale boost to make up for it, which I haven't heard about. Even if the morale WAS boosted to prevent early routing, the unit still won't last as long in combat as an effective fighting force, as it does now. So I'll have to be more cautious in the use of HA's... and for no other reason than an arbitrary (as far as I can see) reduction in numbers.

Add that on top of a potential increase in micro, if the increase in accuracy isn't a perfect 1:1 balance and I have to use more HA units on the field... and it just doesn't sound good to me.

If it normally takes 10 HA's to inflict one kill per volley, you can kill on average 4 enemy soldiers per volley with the old unit size. If you increase their accuracy so that it only takes 5 HA's to inflict one kill, a unit of 30 HA's will inflict 6 kills per volley. That would be a 50% increase in offensive power.

Well, we don't know the accuracy boost will mean anything like that much increase in offensive power. Since foot archers aren't being reduced in number, that would be a massive boost in offense for Eastern foot archers compared to Western units. I don't see that happening. Even if the boost was that big, it doesn't mean that much, if I don't have enough soldiers to absorb incoming fire and last through the battle.

Until we see how they play out, I don't think it makes any sence to argue over it. Post Kingdoms we may discover that the increase in accuracy is too much and needs to be toned down to keep 30 man HA units from dominating other units.

I'm not trying to argue about it, I'm just wondering how they're possibly going to balance this out... especially at normal army size. I can see where this reduction in unit size might make sense for melee cav with all the other balancing adjustments, but for HA's? I'm not seeing the light, so far. They don't have the punch from a charge that you get with melee cav... that's not how they operate. They depend on lasting long enough on the battlefield to do their harassment and wearing-down thing, and they're relatively lightly armored too (most of them).

I'm also interested because it might affect whether I actually buy Kingdoms or not. I enjoy using HA-based Eastern factions... not exclusively, and I'm not that good at it, but I'm trying to get better. It's a fun break from the Western army build and tactics. But the one real hassle of running a HA army is the micro, and if this new balancing means I have to use more HA units than I do now in a stack, or if they rout faster because the units are smaller, I just might pass on Kingdoms. I don't think CA would make that mistake, unless they're only beta testing with huge army sizes, but I haven't heard anything from Lusted that really alleviates my concerns here.