Balance mod project

[Soyweiser]

Originally Posted by Adept

More or less survivable is all a matter of their pricing. Realism > arbitary balance in a game like this anyway. At least to me.

Incidentally, something about the katana: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLWzH...eature=related

Realism? in a fantasy game? What about the Oni throwing fireballs?

Wow that dude is irritating. Spends more time talking about other swords than the katanas. A well random internet experts.

[Squirrelloid]

Originally Posted by Adept

More or less survivable is all a matter of their pricing. Realism > arbitary balance in a game like this anyway. At least to me.

Wasn't the title of this thread 'balance mod project'? Not 'historicity mod project'?

Anyway, if you're going to go down that road...

-Ashigaru should cost 0g. Equipment is paid for in resources (check), and the troops were paid in food (supplies, check). Actually paying money and upkeep on Ashigaru is even less historical than whatever 'silly' stats katana have, since weapons stats are entirely arbitrary.

-Giving jomon troops less hp than other nations is silly.

-I dunno what you find so silly about stats. Samurai are equivalent to knights, which tend to have 12/12 att/def. Elite samurai could certainly be even better than that, so 13/13 isn't so out of the question. The difference is that most of jomon's lineup is entirely 'elite' troops plus conscripted militia, which is weird from a modern perspective but historically describes a number of armies quite well. (see most armies of the early middle ages).

(FWIW, since all katana are master crafted, the appropriate benchmark of comparison probably isn't standard weapons, but magic weapons, where its 3 att 2 def doesn't look too out of place at all.)

[rdonj]

While we're on the subject of realism, given that spiders can only really move by pumping blood into their legs... giant spiders are incredibly unrealistic as moving creatures and should definitely be made immobile.

Also given that Jomon's currency of the time was food, wouldn't it make more sense if all of jomon's units cost 0 gold?

[Corinthian]

Adept, there are many more or less overpowered things in Dominions. In fact I doubt its creators even tried to balance many things. Leaving them to be balanced by diplomacy and metagaming instead.

But you are making a huge mistake if you think Jomons weapons are among those things.

Lets compare the katana with the broad sword. On a cursory look the katana would win hands down. The stats being 6/3/2/3 vs 6/0/1/2. But wait! The Katana is a two-handed weapon were as the broad sword only use a single hand! That means the broad sword user will have a shield of some sort. That would make the stats 6/3/2/3 vs 6/0/4/2. Plus enc 1 and aprox air shield 40% for the broad sword. I'd say that very comparable.

A better weapon to compare the Japanese weapons against is the Great Sword. It is also two handed and have the stats 9/1/2/4? Versus the katana it loses 2 points of attack and gain 3 points of damage. Thats slightly worse but still comparable.

The only Japanese weapon that have a clear edge is the naginata witch is a halberd with 1 point better attack. But it only comes on a unit that no one ever buy for other reasons, or is capitol only. To compensate for this they get the worthless Yari spear. Witch is a nerfed version of the pike.

Furthermore, I was under the impression that Jomon was one of the weaker LA nations. Not THE weakest, mind you. But still a challenge nation. Even Agartha will probably bowl you over once they get the spell Fire Arrows and some good indie archers.

[Adept]

[quote=Soyweiser;779246]

Originally Posted by Adept

More or less
Wow that dude is irritating. Spends more time talking about other swords than the katanas. A well random internet experts.

With the exception that Lloyd is an actual expert, not some random dude spouting nonesense on the internet.

As for balancing, Jomon is getting balanced by the same cost -> skill equations as everything else, and same goes for the oriental weapons. If they need more oomph, that can be done by adjusting the mages and priests, not by having unbalancedly skilled and cheap (in gold) troops.

[Deathblob]

How about long bows?

I've always been a fan of long bows, and I'd like to see someone finally introduce some realism where they are AP like crossbows. Maybe for balance up the resource requirement, to reflect the extensive training long bow men partook in?

[Adept]

[quote=Corinthian;779413]Adept, there are many more or less
A better weapon to compare the Japanese weapons against is the Great Sword. It is also two handed and have the stats 9/1/2/4? Versus the katana it loses 2 points of attack and gain 3 points of damage. Thats slightly worse but still comparable.
[quote]

This is exactly what I did. There is absolutely no sense in the huge attack and defence modifiers in the katana vs. the greatsword.

Don't worry nay sayers, nobody is forcing you to use my fixes when they are done. But with that, I'm gonna make them fair and honest, and won't be swayed with logic that says Jomon needs super weapons to compensate for their suckiness.

As for them having less hp, they are supposed to be smaller than most nations. On the flipside they have more morale and more precision. That's a perfectly reasonable tradeoff.

Jomon are missing some extra hitpoints form their commanders, and I'm also giving some of their people standards (as the graphics suggest they should have).

Anyway, wait for the release before you complain

[Adept]

Incidentally, what do you guys think about adjusting the slings a bit. Here's a reference site: http://slinging.org/

I'd drop the damage a bit, and reduce the accuracy penalty to -1.

[Samhain]

Slings are far more difficult to master than bows. I'm not sure that the -2 penalty is enough. This is why slinging is not nearly as popular today as archery.

I believe the reason that ancient slingers were so effective even relative to their bow armed contemporaries was that sling training was both far cheaper and much more accessible.

Any mother could make a battle worthy sling for her son in little time, say a lazy afternoon. The boy could then load it with stones picked from a local stream, the best of which could be passed on to his great grandson.

A bow built for warfare and each arrow it fired on the other hand required substantial investment of time and materials from likely more than one specially skilled craftsman.

As for damage, my understanding was that slings tended to fire larger projectiles and at higher velocities. Though, as the projectile was much more blunt they had lower PSI at the point of impact and, therefore, less penetration.

Further complicating the issue would be that there was arguably much more variation in sling stones than with arrows as the former could range from irregular stones shaped by river water to purpose made ceramic balls or even oblong lead projectiles that spun like a bullet in flight.

Some sources I've read also said that among some armies used stave slings almost exclusively. These two handed devices were capable of throwing much larger projectiles but were even harder to master.

I'm not sure if any of this helps. I just felt like sharing some of my research on the subject.

[Deathblob]

Thanks! That's very useful info.

But don't you know that bows are more difficult to master than crossbows? Especially the long bow? So, by your logic, there should be crossbow clubs all over the place now.

If sling bullets are truly spinning and not just tumbling, won't they veer off to the left or right, like a golf slice? Does it depend on the material, like if it had dimples (like a golf ball)?

A properly fletched arrow will spin in flight and not slice off to the right, which is why I think long bows are far superior. I think you will get much better penetration out of a long bow arrow than any sling bullet.