Unit Balancing (1) - Crusader Knights

Many are saying that the Crusading Knights and their mounted knights counterparts aren't balanced at all. (Knights Templar, Knights Hospitaller, Knights Teutonic, Knights Chivalric, Gothic Knights, Knights Santiago) So I decided to do a small test on a flat map, fine day. I'm using the Alan Mercenary Cavalry but there are SEVERAL similar cavalry available, in the range 125-300...that would give the same results. Examples? Steppe cavalry, Lithuanian cav, Armenian cav, Mounted Sergeants, Polish Retainers, Saharan cav, Ghulam cav, Mamluk cav..zZzZZ.

Battle Tests: Alan Mercenary Cavalry V3 (591 florins) vs Knight Hospitaller V0 (875 florins))

Game 1: Hospitaller wins, 3 left.
Game 2: Alan Merc wins, 10 left.
Game 3: Alan Merc wins, 19 left
Game 4: Alan Merc wins, 22 left.
Game 5: Alan Merc wins, 20 left.

The Hospitaller is 284 florins more, and loses. Many noticed this in online play, too. Definetely not worth getting knights when you can get these beasts.

Let's see the stats:

Knight Hospitaller V0: 5 Att 5 Def 7 Arm 8 Mor

Alan Merc Cav V3 (284 florins less): 6 Att 4 Def 3 Arm 10 Mor

The Alan Merc is faster and since most missiles hardly hit, the armour won't help. But I might give my cav a very cheap armour upgrade and give it a defensive + armour boost, can't I? Plus a V1 Hospitaller would cost me 1313 florins...ouch!

The Knights Hospitaller, Chivalric, Teutonic, Santiago have the same stats. The Knight Templar costs less but it still fits in the imbalance.

Gothic Knights cost 975, an Alan Merc V4 would cost around 880, and it would win without any problems with around 25, at least, left.

This must be fixed, I think. Maybe it's good for single-player purposes but no-one will really get Knights in multiplayer games, maybe just for a challenge. There are other tiny imbalances (Almohad Urban Militia, Feudal Man-At-Arms) but they are negligble and have their own disadvantages. However I think this is a really huge imbalance that needs attention ...over to you. This has been underlined by Tosa before, but it didn't get much attention.

Bottom line: Right now, mounted Knights are almost worthless. For a hugely less amount of money I can get loads of better and faster cavalry, why bothering? A significant reduction in price would be extremely useful. A "spicing up" would be another solution, but maybe it's better not to touch the stats...maybe...your call. At least then we can upgrade them without spending all our cash and the Knights might well be slow and expensive, but at least, worth their cost a bit.

Tera.

P.S.

Didn't test Lancers, but I guess they're on the same tune...
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Clan Kenchikuka
evil is within us...


[This message has been edited by Terazawa Tokugawa (edited 09-21-2002).]

[Action]

Great tests. IMHO the only way this (and the many other similar issues) is going to be solved is seperate prices for multiplayer and singleplayer.

Quote Originally posted by Action:
Great tests. IMHO the only way this (and the many other similar issues) is going to be solved is seperate prices for multiplayer and singleplayer. [/QUOTE]

That would be absolutely fantastic, would solve the ahem, many problems of gameplay vs historical accuracy ...which often clash too much. In SP valour increases per wins / general's rank ...knights would in most cases kick ass ...but in MP you gotta pay for it, and a lot, definetely too much.

I guess that can't be realised in one of those patches though, and they said they won't do big changes - but a price reduction would be good...I know Gil has been thinking of it already. Spicing up of Knights's stats...hmm...urrgh, more opinions!

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Clan Kenchikuka
evil is within us...


[This message has been edited by Terazawa Tokugawa (edited 09-21-2002).]

[JRock]

Be careful discussing anything related to the game or asking for things to be fixed because Jaguara might come in here and tell you you're whining and not satisfied with the game. OMG!

Anyway, my opinion is that all the Crusader Knights should be individualized a bit because it's kinda boring that they all have the same stats. Give one a slightly better attack, another a slightly better armor, another a slightly better defense, and another a slightly better charge. Etc. You know, make them each slightly unique.
Perhaps in improving them, they can become slightly unique amongst themselves as well.

[This message has been edited by JRock (edited 09-21-2002).]

[Jaguara]

Quote Originally posted by JRock:
Be careful discussing anything related to the game or asking for things to be fixed because Jaguara might come in here and tell you you're whining and not satisfied with the game. OMG!
[/QUOTE]

Can I add this to my sig? Though I might edit it down to...

"Be careful discussing anything...because Jaguara might come in here and tell you you're whining. OMG! "



Now to keep this On Topic...

Well, I tend to think that even unit balancing should only go so far. Fiddling with stats too much can quickly become an endless process - look at what happened in STW. So many balance changes, each throwing off a dozen other things.

I say leave the stats alone - if anything should be changed, make it the cost - use that to balance the units as best as possible. Even then, with the upgrade system, I am not sure that ANY balancing of stats will work at ALL levels - balance it for Honor zero, and it will be off with upgrades. In other words, I think the nature of the upgrade system makes it near impossisible to come up with a good cost algorithm. I think Puzz3D had said something to this effect in the old STW days.

Anyway, regardless, at some point I think it is fair for the developers to say "After this point (being a determined point in time), the balance stays as it is". And though that may mean that some units are underpowered or unbalanced, that is just part of the game - accept it or move on. The sooner they do that, and the sooner we get "Napoleonic Total War". Also, otherwise we are constantly relearning how to play the game due to continuous rebalancing.

Diablo2 was the worst for that. You would build a character, only to have the skills you chose, and the style of play you had learned, to be 'rebalanced' and rendered useless.

Anyway, just my 2 cents.

Jaguara

Edit: re-reading this, I just wanted to clairify, I think Tera and Tosa DO have a point here that should be addressed...but I don't think that 6 months from now we should still be 'whining' about balance adjustments.

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Toda Nebuchadnezzar : " Trust Jaguara to come up with a comedy line!"

james : "[Jaguara] your are being sarcastic (no question about it)."

[This message has been edited by Jaguara (edited 09-22-2002).]

[Cheetah]

I agree with both Tera and Action. Knights definitely have to be readjusted for MP, but this could ruin SP. The only solution to have separate price/stats for MP and SP. If it were up to me I would keep the Knights as costly as they are but I would spice up their stats so that they should beat every light/medium cavs for the same price.

[Mike_Smith]

We have the potential here for a GREAT online game with MTW battles. But tweaks ARE needed.

Here's a list of the problems that need fixing:

1) Missile weapons (arrows and gunpowder) are generally weak.

2) Cavalry move a bit too slow.

3) Javelin range should be extended slightly. They require too much micromanagement to make them worthwhile.

4)As this post proves, Crusading Knights are not worth the Florins.

5) Spearmen vs Swordsmen are too effective.

Overall it's a good job for version 1.00.

[Puzz3D]

The unit costs are calculated in the spreadsheet from the various stats. The lower morale, lower charge and lower armor is what makes the V0 Alan Merc with 4 melee points only 175 florins while the mounted knights with 10 melee points are 875 florins. However, the lower morale disappears when you upgrade the Alan Merc to V3. It actually ends up with +2 higher morale than the knight and equal melee stats. The 2 points lower charge, probably representing about a 10% disadvantage, is not a big difference, but does offset the higher morale somewhat. The lower armor is an advantage because the Alan Merc won't fatigue as fast as the knight.

I think the valor upgrades are too cheap. You get +2 melee and +2 morale for 50% added cost. The +2 melee increases the combat ability of the unit by 44%. That means the +2 morale is only costing 6%. I would make the valor upgrade 70%. That way a V3 Alan Merc would cost 860 florins and be quite close in combat ability to the 875 florin knight.

If you look at another unit pairing, the Feudal MAA and the Chiv MAA, the 70% valor upgrade works there also. A V1 Feudal MAA has the same charge, attack, defend and morale stats and 1 less armor than a V0 Chiv MAA without the shield included. Both have large shields, but the Chiv MAA gets a 0.5 modifier on it's shield meaning 1 less melee point than the V1 Feudal MAA, and the armor ends up being equal to the front. At current pricing the V1 Feudal MAA is 225 florins and the V0 Chiv MAA is 275 florins. It's pretty obvious which one you would puchase in multiplayer. If the valor upgrade is 70%, the V1 Feudal MAA costs 255 which is still the better bargain but they are within 8% of being balanced now.

I haven't looked at other units, but I think the 50% cost of the valor upgrade is too low and contributing to multiplayer imbalance. Changing the cost of the valor upgrade has absolutely no effect on the single player campaign.

[This message has been edited by Puzz3D (edited 09-22-2002).]

[This message has been edited by Puzz3D (edited 09-22-2002).]

[andrewt]

One problem is that single player costs are balanced with both buying costs and support costs in mind. For example, chivalric knights are only a bit stronger than feudal knights but are way more expensive. This is balanced by smaller support costs in single player but there is no such mechanism in multi.

While it deepens the single player game, it would be hard to balance multi unless they do something to add in support costs to multi buying costs.

[Gringoleader]

I reckon the difference between Alan Mercenary Cavalry and heavy Knights is not their combat skills vs one another, but how well they deal with medium infantry and spearmen. In a protracted battle against infantry the knights are better than the light cavalry.

The heavy knight units are designed as shock troops to smash up enemy infantry formations, light cavalry doesn't have that same ability for killing infantry because it has less armour.

[MagyarKhans Cham]

guys so much more is misbalanced if u look more carefull. I advise u to ask Orlok Kocmoc for a test game and ask him to show his best armies.

a valour upgrade also increasing def and att is too much.

in sp u pay for buildings to obtain certain -special- units
in mp u just buy them.

putting up these topics is nice but will not solve the issue. facts will be fragmented amongst the threads and the devs will counter them easily. the mp-community must work on a better more solid piece of text based on facts, examples (replayfiles) and calculations. Made compact into wellwritten texts.

[MagyarKhans Cham]

gringo theoretically ur right, sadly the practice is different.

puzz3d is right.

sp prevails in everything over mp when teh game was developed.

[Puzz3D]

The lack of logfiles and working replays is making it more difficult to grasp this balance issue. The most fundamantal thing to do in multiplayer is check units with no upgrades. The unit costs are based on the non-upgraded unit. LongJohn said that, if you upgrade units too much, you effectively remove the contribution that morale makes to the cost. That's because morale is a threshold effect and not a proportional effect.

Why is there an upgrade system in multiplayer? I think it's unnecessary. If the multiplayer upgrade system cannot be adjusted to prevent introducing imbalance, then get rid of it or make the cost of the upgrades very high. I don't know if there is imbalance with the non-upgraded units because nobody plays the game online that way. Why is that? I think I know, but I'm not saying because I got jumped all over when I mentioned it in another thread.

[MagyarKhans Cham]

perhaps u could email our khan at magyarkhan@hotmail.com

i have an eager wolf with more info than he can bear for his fun sake. we should combine efforts and factfinding.