Recruitable Unit Rebalance Version 7.51 Released.

[PDF]

About Arbalests : Ulm *only* has Arbalests as missiles at start, so even if they're bad they're better than nothing.
Additionally a critical mass of arbalests can rout indies outright, or break a charge (on their 2nd volley on round 4).
Even in middle game, Arbalests are the only weapon able to pierce the more common high-protection units.
So they're not that bad IMHO.

[Huzurdaddi]

Another question about Abysia: Do you think it was wise to increase the combat stats of the slayer to match those of human assassins? The slayer has 17 HP and 9 prot. He is very tough. And when I say very tough I mean Indep commanders have a rediciliously low chance of taking him out.

Everyone should have a chance to play Abysia at least once in this mod. It's comical!

[Saber Cherry]

Huzurdaddi said:
Another question about Abysia: Do you think it was wise to increase the combat stats of the slayer to match those of human assassins? The slayer has 17 HP and 9 prot. He is very tough. And when I say very tough I mean Indep commanders have a rediciliously low chance of taking him out.

Maybe, maybe not. Slayers have poison daggers instead of the superior poison dagger + shordsword, and are very expensive. In my experience, unmodded, unequipped Slayers are very unlikely to kill more then 2 indy commanders before dying or being wounded, and they certainly can't take out a commander with bodyguards. In fact I never found them (cost-effectively) useful for anything, without magical items, but used them anyway just for fun. If you compare a modded Slayer to a Star Child or Empoisoner, they come out far, far behind. Slayers may have gotten too much of a stat boost, so perhaps I should set them back -1/-1 to attack 13 / defense 12, but in so doing I'd also reduce their gold cost to perhaps 75. I'll look into it.

[Boron]

Saber Cherry said:

Maybe, maybe not. Slayers have poison daggers instead of the superior poison dagger + shordsword, and are very expensive. In my experience, unmodded, unequipped Slayers are very unlikely to kill more then 2 indy commanders before dying or being wounded, and they certainly can't take out a commander with bodyguards. In fact I never found them (cost-effectively) useful for anything, without magical items, but used them anyway just for fun. If you compare a modded Slayer to a Star Child or Empoisoner, they come out far, far behind. Slayers may have gotten too much of a stat boost, so perhaps I should set them back -1/-1 to attack 13 / defense 12, but in so doing I'd also reduce their gold cost to perhaps 75. I'll look into it.

You have to keep in mind that Abysia is a bloodnation.
One lifelong protection is enough and a slayer can kill almost any commander/mage unless it is a SC.

[Huzurdaddi]

Boron,

That's a great strategy for later in the game and makes people's lives headaches. But the stat increase to the Slayer did not really affect the effectiveness of that particular strategy.

However if you equip a slayer with a sword of fire he will kill all indep commanders. I ran over 100 assassinations last night and lost 3. He is even better than C'tis empoisioners equipped with a skull talisman. And about equal to an empoisioners with a skull staff and enchantment-3.

It's just that good.

[Saber Cherry]

PDF said:
About Arbalests : Ulm *only* has Arbalests as missiles at start, so even if they're bad they're better than nothing.
Additionally a critical mass of arbalests can rout indies outright, or break a charge (on their 2nd volley on round 4).
Even in middle game, Arbalests are the only weapon able to pierce the more common high-protection units.
So they're not that bad IMHO.

Well... except Ulm now has Sappers, who carry crossbows. At 20g, they are not a good generic missile unit in my opinion, but for example Ironhawk employed them effectively as his main missile unit in the Test game, and their sapping ability came in very handy. Arbalests are certainly much more effective against high-protection units like Knights, HC, and Dragons, though, whether original (14ap) or modded (12ap sn).

[Ironhawk]

Saber Cherry said:
Well... except Ulm now has Sappers, who carry crossbows. At 20g, they are not a good generic missile unit in my opinion, but for example Ironhawk employed them effectively as his main missile unit in the Test game, and their sapping ability came in very handy. Arbalests are certainly much more effective against high-protection units like Knights, HC, and Dragons, though, whether original (14ap) or modded (12ap sn).

I did use some Sappers, yes. They are too expensive to perform in the traditional role. But their effectiveness lies in that they are a walking seige engine AND a decent missle unit. Buy 20 of them and your army just got +100 siege points with no significant loss of firepower - hello!!!

While Arbalests may seem attractive because of thier high damage potential, its really just wasted by thier low ROF. If they get 3 shots off in an entire battle it is a miracle. On top of this, they are actually even worse when used in combination with Ulmish units since they can actually kill a BP or BK unit!! Better to have Sappers or even better (for indys) shortbowmen, who can fire willy-nilly right into your heavy Ulmish troops formations and not hurt any of your own men.

There is a possibility that Arbalests could have some kind of niche role as a heavy-armor killer type missle. But in my experience, I would rather be putting those resources to BP Morningstars or BKs which I know will be effective and combine them with long/short/xbow & battle magic.

[FrankTrollman]

In general, I think you went way overboard on giving out the #flail tag to weapons. I mean, lances?! That's why mounted people carry shields in the first place.

Yeah, rather than making every weapon and its mom kick shields in the jinglies, you should just make weapons generically and actually useful. The Arbalest should be #ratt -2, that's all it really needs to be a powerful incentive to play Ulm.

All of those changes really just made shielded units basically not worth it, and perversely therefore made Greatsword Barbarians overpowered. Since there's no incentive to have an army composed of anything but two handed weapon users, moderately decent THW guys became astoundingly the top of the heap. Standard heavy infantry has no survivability in this mod, so there's no real reason to employ it.

-Frank

[Ironhawk]

While I do agree that lances don't need any help, I dont see it as that big of problem. I mean if someone hits you with a lance as it currently stands... its not going to matter if you have a shield or not, since its going to do like 25+ damage anyway.

What does #ratt -2 do?

What other weapons got ignore-shield?

[FrankTrollman]

"#ratt -2" makes the weapon attack every other turn instead of every three turns.

Cherry has made the following weapons ignore shields:

Arbalests
Boulders
Blow Pipes
Lances

The following weapons have been made armor piercing:

Jaguar Bites
Niefel Axe Explosions
Niefel Swords
Mauls
Boulders
Alicorns

I honestly don't understand why any of this happens. The more you make weapons ignore the defenses of your opponent, the more you encourage people to run around naked with a big sword. In general, armor piercing should be extremely rare - as it's a specialized damge bonus against Ulm (and those losers need all the help they can get).

Remember, AP just means it bypasses half your armor. It doesn't mean it bypasses half your protection. If you want unicorns to be able to threaten dragons, just have them do more damage, do not give them a specialized bonus against Ulm.

-Frank