Removing armourers and blacksmiths

[Belisario]

What's your opinion about removing armourers and metalsmiths or their defense and attack bonus? How would affect this to the gameplay?

[Martok]

If nothing else, it ought to help balance the game better for the AI, which cannot take advantage of those two buildings (and their upgrades) nearly as well as a human player can.

[caravel]

It can only improve it. This was something I was working on for the Pocket Mod. As Martok has said if you're going to mod the game for balance it's a good idea to remove anything that the AI can't take advantage of, these include dismounts, mercenaries and to a lesser degree upgrades. While the AI can actually build upgrades, it never builds them in the right provinces. So you end up facing heavily armoured peasants or javelinmen with the best steel available. Also Iron is not widely enough available so only a few factions end up with the upgraded melee attack, this has an unbalancing effect and increases predictability.

You can also look at it from the historical/realistic viewpoint. Better armour would not have been worse in the desert, it would in fact have been lighter, more protective, better ventilated and allow for easier movement. Better quality swords/axes would not necessarily lead to a better attack. Better training/experience and morale would be a bigger factor. We have to assume that all weapons would be battle worthy in the first place, if perhaps more rustic than a weapon forged by a master craftsman. Also not all units would have been equipped with the best weapons and armour. Sending in units for "upgrading" just doesn't make any sense.

The Metalsmith line are dependant on the resource Iron, you can easily remove this dependency and instead add an Iron Mine dependant on this resource. The Metalsmith line can then be disabled or used as a prerequisite building if needed. The valour/weapon/armour/morale upgrades can also be removed from any building if needed.

So potentially the Metalsmith line could be renamed as Blacksmiths with the weapon upgrade effect removed and the line used as prerequisites for certain units such as cavalry, siege equipment, crossbows, axes etc. The valour bonuses for the Master level buildings can be retained with one added to the Blacksmith line if needed.

The provincial valour bonuses are another balancing issue. Due to how these force the AI to tech up to the valour bonus unit as a priority they can be very detrimental and it is probably best that they all be removed.

[Belisario]

I agree with you that the AI normally don't take advantage of these bonuses and upgrades. I also think that remove certain crappy units could benefit the AI, what is your opinion?

[Martok]

I also think that remove certain crappy units could benefit the AI, what is your opinion?

Probably, yes. VikingHorde's XL Mod removed peasants from the game, which definitely helped the AI factions somewhat. In addition, factions in XL can train better units right away (FMAA, FS, etc.) due to everyone (including the human player) starting with a higher level of infrastructure -- and so the AI trains fewer UM and vanilla spearmen as a result.

[caravel]

Peasants are best removed as the AI spams them like mad. I took the approach of leaving peasants available to revolts but made them non trainable to all factions.

Spearmen and UM can be improved a little. For the Pocket Mod I made Catholic/Orthodox UM and MS into Catholic Outremer units with better stats and removed the muslim ones altogether. I was going to reuse either the Muslim UM or MS info pics as some kind of Andalusian Halberdier if I'd have found any kind of historical basis for this, but never got around to it.

For Spearmen I made them into early Sergeants, FS into high Sergeants and CS into late Sergeants and adjusted stats accordingly. I removed Round shield Spearmen From all factions, except I think the Novgorods and Russians. The Danes didn't need them as they had their own Spearmen called Carls for the early period.

This pretty much covered most of the "crappy" units apart from perhaps Vanilla HA's which I split into two units: Arab HA's and Steppe HA's recruitable only in the obvious areas and only by associated factions. These were re-equipped with the compound bow which made them more worthwhile.

[Belisario]

Interesting comments! I would like to mod my installation of MTW XL for a better balance. I also have one's eye on commerce; as we know the AI isn't able to manage commercial routes properly. It's true that VikingHorde tried to resolve this problem and I have seen some factions deploying ships well (for instance when the Danish or other faction gets 6,000 florins in Saxony!).

I would want to change the current system of commerce. If you look at it from the historical point medieval kings/rulers didn't profit from commerce in this way. They weren't merchants (well you can argue the dux of Venice); instead of this they collected taxes from these activities. The Merchant line of buildings could be dependant on a "commerce" resource and receive a fixed income like mines. A better option could be add specific merchants (wool merchant, silk merchant...), then in a region like Flanders more specific merchants would be available reflecting its rich commercial/industrial activity.
But, what is the limit of buildings in the Crusader_build_prod file?

I also think that agricultural income needs a balance. For instance in most games the Spanish becomes a superpower in part due to the richness of their lands.

[Innocentius]

I also think that agricultural income needs a balance. For instance in most games the Spanish becomes a superpower in part due to the richness of their lands.

That brings up a whole new issue: How balanced do you really want the game to become?

One great thing about MTW (and with XL: even more so) is that certain provinces are worth more than others. Estonia is worthless; it's small, gives no real income and rebels all the time - why the hell would anyone want Estonia when you could take such wealthy lands as Flanders? Oh, that's right, there are five factions and their navies between you and Flanders.

If you reduced the income of the Iberian provinces, the game would lose an interesting feature: that of goals. Besides, most AI-factions tend to try and take the Iberian peninsula from my experience, even far-away factions such as the Serbs and Eggies.

[bondovic]

I always remove the armour bonus and use the armourer line of buildings as prerequisite for building units with armour. I do give a +1 armour bonus from Master smith though. Also i reduce speed by 1 point per armour starting at 3 for infantry and at 4 for cavalry. Then I bump the charge value in the same manner, but this time by 2 points per armour for cav.

[Ravencroft]

I think that removing the weapon/armor bonus would really help.

However, I keep the armourer as a prerequisite for knights and heavy cavalry.

Maybe the metalsmith could be used as a prerequisite for swordsmiths, armourers and foundries. Removing the iron prerequisite however raises another issue: What to use it for?

Hi by the way bondovic .

[bondovic]

How rude of me. Hi, Raven + all!

[Brave]

I am not too sure that I would ever remove these upgrades, they show a passage of time where upgraded armour would have come into play.

[caravel]

I am not too sure that I would ever remove these upgrades, they show a passage of time where upgraded armour would have come into play.

Eras and the newer units introduced represent this. Armour and weapon upgrades simply increase attack and armour points and can seriously unbalance the game as well as making the upgraded units next to useless in the desert. Also as I've said before the AI is not good at using them.

[Knight of the Rose]

This is perhaps out of line with the thoughts made in this thread. It seems we're all old gamers who want to squeeze just a little out of an old game.

Just for the record: I agree totally with anything that has been said about the AI, and yes it could need some help against human players.

None the less, noone has mentioned this aspect:

Having 'upgrades', be it armor, weapons or morale, gives the player something to think about /prioritise: Should you build those expensive units and expand now, or should you build some upgrades before launching the attack. The classical turtle and blitz discussion. But why turtle if you can't build anything while turtling?

IMHO it will significantly 'flatten' the gameplay on campaign level. If that is not a concern, then by all means, remove those armorers.

/KotR

[Raz]

I like PMTW for how it limits the effects of armour upgrades. Instead of just slapping on more armour it allows the production of better units... That is all.