Recruitable Unit Rebalance Version 7.51 Released.

[BigDaddy]

I think Recuperation would be cool on them, because they heal wounds when they change shape!

[Thilock_Dominus]

It's #regeneration 10 - which means the unit heals 10 hit points for every 100 hit points it started with. So if you set it to 1 the unit heals 1 hit point for every 100

[Saber Cherry]

Regeneration 1 gives .1hp/turn, which is rounded up to 1/turn. I gave them regeneration for 2 reasons:

1) To keep battle wounds down, and
2) Because were-creatures always have regeneration.

I also boosted the strength because I saw a jaguar from 2 feet away through plexiglass, and their jaw muscles are bigger than my thighs. They naturally prey on turtles and crack them open with their jaws...

That's a good point about shape-shifters being able to heal their wounds when shape-shifting occurs... recuperation might be a good idea. However, according to the description, they aren't really were-creatures except during combat (when they shed blood), as opposed to werewolves, which can shift at will. Hopefully, the slightly higher HP on the human form and regeneration of the shifted form will reduce afflictions, and the more jaguar-like strength value will allow them to harm armored units despite their lack of weapons.

[Oversway]

So what is the overall idea of this? You are making sure that all recruitables have a fairly even gold cost? I think that is great for independants, but I thought that for some nations, they were supposed to have cheaper troops to make up for some other deficit (weak and/or expensive mages)?

Anyways, I think its very cool to make some of the troops more interesting.

[Pocus]

good mod, tell us when it is finished so we can pbem with it!

[Saber Cherry]

Oversway said:

So what is the overall idea of this? You are making sure that all recruitables have a fairly even gold cost? I think that is great for independants, but I thought that for some nations, they were supposed to have cheaper troops to make up for some other deficit (weak and/or expensive mages).

Hmm, it probably would have been a good idea for me to mention the idea behind it... =)

In dominions 2, there are some troops that I just never recruit, or only recruit as a last resort. Some of them have inexplicably high costs. For example, why would you pay 7 gold for and unarmored, untrained, shieldless militia... and why should it cost 70% as much as a well-trained, well-equipped professional soldier? Historically (AFAIK), peasants were just sent out to fight alongside professional soldiers without being paid anything.

So, my goal is to change unit pricing or stats MODERATELY and THEMATICALLY such that units that I would previously never consider recruiting... or were inconsistant with their descriptions... are better. Jaguar warriors? They're terrible for their price, and inexplicably weak. Shamblers? Unarmed and unarmored, they die in droves yet eat huge amounts of food, cost a fortune, and have very low morale considering their description says they "do not fear smaller opponents." Ryleh hybrids? Without ambidextrity, they have an attack of 6! That won't even hit a militia. Barbarians and barbarian leaders? Both way too expensive considering the leaders have 10 leadership, the barbarians have 9 morale, and with little armor, they all break rather instantaneously - and also, their combat skills are too low considering barbarian society is focused on fighting, raiding, and chest-beating rather than building, farming, and learning. Slingers? Wow... no sane person would recruit these guys if there was any alternative, and it's hard for me to imagine recruiting them even if there was no other ranged unit availible. They're just too terrible - for the price. And again, with no training and no inclination to participate in dangerous melee combat, why should they get paid nearly as much as regular troops, anyway?

This preliminary version doesn't make any huge changes. For example, even though I feel (unarmored) militia and slingers are worth about 3 gold, I only dropped them 30% to 5 gold. Furthermore, any changes I made to independants were generally made to national troops as well - for example, I made the baseline cost of minimally-equipped indy light infantry (shield, spear, leather cuirass) 8 gold (to reflect how undesirable they are), and propogated that across national units as well, unless they had special advantages (amphibious, natural protection, stats over 10, javelins, flight, and so forth). Well-equipped light infantry was dropped to 9. I'm planning on bumping up the price of some heavy and super-heavy infantries (to maybe 11g) and give them an accompanying boost in stats (like +1 HP and str) to reflect the fact that the soldiers recruited to wear the heaviest armor and equipment would probably be amongst the largest and strongest in the province, as there is always natural variation within a population. Some countries, like Ulm, will keep all their troops at 10g as a national advantage, though I've boosted all Ulm's troops with +1 HP, +1 str, and -1 enc. Furthermore, I gave Ulm's newer units (sappers, wolfherds, and etc) stats commensurate with Ulm's older units, since they share the same penalty (-1 mr).


In summary... I'm trying to make troop choices less blatantly obvious, and give purpose to to units that previously had none, while always reflecting the flavor of the unit (or nation) descriptions.