Archery poll

[FrankTrollman]

In that case, they are fine as is.

Remember that even a unit you would never ever buy has strategic import in this game as long as it is local to some areas. It means that:
[*] Certain provinces are easy to capture, and easy for enemies to take back from you.
[*] Certain nations get inferior province defense. Coincidentally, some of these nations have the easiest time conquering neutrals in the first place.
[*] Your "good" army can't always be made on the front, sometimes it has to be made way in the back of your empire and then walked through swamps and crap.
[*] The ability to build your national troops in places you build a castle is important and good.

Now, it's a very easy argument that the current rules go too far on this, especially on the castle thing. But I really don't think this can/should be solved by making the slingers any less terrible than they are now.

The only changes I'd like to see are:
[*] I want the minimum resources to spend on a shortbowman to be 5 or 6, with the exception of the Villain. Those guys come from magic sites, and they should actually matter.
[*] Arbalesters fire every other round instead 1/3 rounds. They are marketted as a Crossbow upgrade, and right now they are a trade-off that costs more.

-Frank

[PDF]

I can't quite understand how one can ask for "useless units" ...
Sure slingers should be weaker than LBows or Arbalests, and maybe also than Sbows, but then they should be comparatively cheaper, and not have on top of that a ridiculously low morale ...
Else you should as well delete them and use the slot for something useful !

[Ironhawk]

FrankTrollman said:
Remember that even a unit you would never ever buy has strategic import in this game as long as it is local to some areas. It means that:

Except in the most extreme, extreme cases, I will never spend money on a "useless" unit, regardless of its location. It is better to save that money, and spend it on a useful, cost efficient units elsewhere. Every unit has to be balanced to be cost-effective - not powerful, mind you! - just cost-effective. The unit's cost must match its value, whatever the value/power that the unit happens to be.

When all the units are properly balanced, I can assure you that I will still build 95% of all my units in national forts. But there will now be realistic cases where I can rationalize spending money on some indy slingers in a heavy warzone or some light infantry to patrol or be chaff.

[Sandman]

Slings are stone age weapons, though. They can't and shouldn't be able to compete with high medieval stuff. And since slingers are humans, it's most unthematic to make them cost the same as lobo guards, in order to make them balanced.

[BigDaddy]

Sandman, you aren't really correct. Slings are a very ancient weapon, that were none the less very effective into the medieval time period against unarmored troop. As effective as any bow in fact (against unarmored units by range and damage done). But this mod isn't about making things true to reality, its about making units somewhat useful. So, either slingers need to be stronger or cheaper. I would say just increase their range.

[BigDaddy]

Saber Cherry,

It seems everyone has their own idea about how to balance archers/slingers. So, to make the responses more useful, it would be good to understand the spirit of your mod. Is it to make the units realistic, balanced per current cost, or balanced cost at current strength?

Tell us your vision, and we can help you achieve it!

[Saber Cherry]

BigDaddy said:
Saber Cherry,

It seems everyone has their own idea about how to balance archers/slingers. So, to make the responses more useful, it would be good to understand the spirit of your mod. Is it to make the units realistic, balanced per current cost, or balanced cost at current strength?

Tell us your vision, and we can help you achieve it!

Basically...

1) Make units more balanced by adjusting their cost, stats, and weapon stats.
2) Changes should not decrease realism or thematicism, and should increase them when possible.

Nothing can be perfectly balanced in a game as complex as Dominions. But when something is near-useless (like slingers or light cavalry), unrealistically bad (much less effective than history indicates), and unthematically bad (races with national light cavalry or slingers ignore them), the intent is to improve or cheapen them, whichever makes more thematic sense. So for militia, it is cheapening them... for light cavalry, strengthening and cheapening them... and for slingers, probably an increase in accuracy and range is best, while remaining clearly inferior to (and cheaper than) archers, to avoid any fundamental changes. Since many of the real world dynamics are not modeled by Dominions - like the difference in momentum between sling and bow projectiles, which results in better chances of breaking bones and damaging armor for slings, greater resistance to drift caused by the wind, and greater additional damage when slung from high castle walls, and the difference in "supplies" allocated to elite versus conscripted units - these factor have to be rolled into the price, resource cost, weapon and unit stats.

So you can't really make units both realistic and balanced, as not enough systems are modeled, and perfect balance is impossible to estimate. But in any case where a change will move a unit more toward "balanced" or more toward "realistic," without disrupting game mechanics (like suddenly making slingers better than archers), I think it's a good change.

[PDF]

SC,
I agree on your views
As for slingers they need a boost in Morale IMHO (from "awful" to just "not good" ). Sling damage at 9 would be ok if their range and prec were at least decent and the slingers didn't run before shooting ..

Supply : you can mod a unit to consume additional supplies, command is #supplybonus with a negative number to increase consumption. It could be a way to represent the higher standard of supplies (food but also housing, repairs...) needed by elite units? Just an idea, maybe bad ..