Barbarian Kingdom mod test

I didn't say the Mod was too powerful, I can't make that determination without playing it. But lets just take a couple of examples for sake of balance.

LC have Lesser Fear -4 (Or is it Cause Fear?). This is normally reserved for supernatural or blessing effect units.

LC are not capital only or sacred. There is no limit to the LC. That means potentially you could create entire armies (if resources/gold permits, and with your current costs, that isn't hard) of just LC all firing arrows and if they are engaged bring their fear into effect.

No Sacred unit that can get a Fear Blessing has archery, they all require movements to engage or be enganged, they can't sit back and pepper them with arrows.

Imagine either Wind Guide and/or Flaming Arrows (especially flaming arrows for penetration) with only LC?

Also imagine playing your new BK vs Ulm, who have virtually no priests?

These are balance issues and not at all inclusive of what is 'real' or 'historical'. Also there is no way to represent the fact that your LC lose their horse or any other effects which they suddenly lose their quick striking power and become weak, badly armored footmen.

All of these considered, fear is a bad choice to give for an ability and Awe is more in my mind both balancing.

I feel that it's important to take into consideration when you are making what you consider 'a more balanced ...etc' different playstyles. Not only those who like to spend points on pretenders but those who spend them on scales, and those who wouldn't build 'standard' armies and build only single units in order to see the effect. I would think just adjusting the defense/attack would be enough of a simulation of the quick striking and feinting of the LC and you wouldn't have revert to going to special events.

[Keir Maxwell]

Originally posted by Zen:

LC have Lesser Fear -4 (Or is it Cause Fear?). This is normally reserved for supernatural or blessing effect units.

Zen you seemed to have missed my comments that the fear is out for know as its to powerful combo'd with the Lance. Once the Lance can go I look at it again and test it. I'm not going to rule it out by definition for if it proves the best way to simulate aggressive LC then thats what I'm want to do. The proof is in the pudding.

I'm not actually sure how powerful fear -4 is as specultaion ranges from the almost useless to handy. Its all dependant on what is the first square assigned for the fear effect as fear -4 only affects one square adjacent to the fear unit.

I have no problems with people taking the mod to task for lack of balence etc as this mod is intended to improve the balence - such criticisms are entirely approriate. I must post it now its had a test and been adjustd so if anyone else in interested they can try it. Illwinter might even like it.

Just to make it very clear - fear is out for now as they don't need it with having a Lance but I definitly want to remove the Lance as it is seriously anachronistic and also potentially overpowering. Fear will not be put back unless testing shows it to not be overpowered as my aim is balence not over the top super troops. Really I just tried it as a way of representing the fact that the troops being represeneted do not fight in a standard fashion so it makes sense to experiment a bit in trying out how to make them work.

I have learnt something from this mod - if things are out of balence it looks like its generally only by a small amount and you don't need to make big changes to get a significant change in results.

cheers

Keir

[ January 16, 2004, 22:07: Message edited by: Keir Maxwell ]

[Keir Maxwell]

ok ver 0.02.
-------------------------------
#modname "Conquering Horde"

#description "This mod is aimed at improving the Tien C'hi Barbarian Kings mounted troops and enabling them to be used as the basis for the Barbarian Kingdoms. It is intended to place the race somewhere near the middle of dom races not to turn it into a super nation. I'm keen to hear feedback from playtests and open to changes where necessery.

The LC get a +1 base defense, a Buckler, +1 morale, +3 precision, +2 rcost and +5 gcost. The HC get +2 precision, +1 morale, Full Chain Mail, +4 rcost and +3 gcost. When the clear command becomes operative I will remove the Lance from the LC and make them a bit cheaper.

The changes in cost are attempting to keep the troops in line with the present dom2 structure. As this is something of a mystery to me constructive criticism is particularily welcome here."
#Version 0.02
#domVersion 2.06

#selectmonster 792
#prec 10
#armor "Full Chain Mail"
#rcost 34
#end

#selectmonster 930
#prec 10
#rcost 32
#armor "Full Chain Mail"
#end

#selectmonster 938
#prec 11
#def 12
#mor 12
#gcost 25
#rcost 13
#armor "Buckler"
#armor "Full Leather Armor"
#armor "Helmet"
#end

#selectmonster 939
#prec 10
#mor 13
#gcost 27
#rcost 32
#armor "Full Chain Mail"
#end
------------------------
This Version attempts to be more rigourous in assigning increases in cost as the Last was completely subjective. I have tried to use the general approach of dom, gold for stats and res for equipment, but haven't yet had time to sit down and do a good comparison with other units so advice is great. I don't have a good idea of cavalry cost adjustments as in the past they have not got alot of usage beyond the Van.

Off to try out Kau Feng and see what he does for the Conquering Horde. Muhahahaha

Cheers

Keir

[Endoperez]

For Zen: In fact there is a possibility to make LC to lose their horses. Just give them less hitpoints and when they die you get LI. The Lamia/Serpent ability.

[Arralen]

Originally posted by Zen:
No Sacred unit that can get a Fear Blessing has archery, they all require movements to engage or be enganged, they can't sit back and pepper them with arrows.

Danoine Sidhe from Man's "Last of Tuatha"-Theme.
Essentially medium inf. with javelins.

I really like blessing them with Death-4 bless (lesser fear -3). If set to "fire nearest" they advance until in throwing range, and ..guess.. start "firing". Usually they'll get only one round of missile lobbing, as the enemy closes in in the next turn. Invariably on the following turn the enemies routes .. seen this even with indy knights which had taken few losses up to that point (1 of 9 IIRC).

But I have seen them sitting there, exchanging volleys with enemy Javelinists, too (guess who won, despite being in 2:3 disadvantage). They don't move as well, if the enemy is in range at the start of the turn.

A.

[ January 17, 2004, 12:40: Message edited by: Arralen ]

I know, you can do it. But right now it isn't done I wish it did. That would be a great way to introduce units unhorsed and still fight (A classic theme).

If a mod comes out and when the tools work, I'd love to see all cavalry work akin to the Hunter Spiders with either riderless war horses, or dismounted riders

Things that use Javalins in my mind are not using missile weapons per say, because in order to use a Javalin you have to close. Unless there is some big javalins out there with more than 2 rounds of range.

[Keir Maxwell]

Done a couple more tests with less success which proved as much about the problems with luck as mod balence issues.

I may have underdone it slightly in my 0.02 mod. Part of the idea coming in was that LC are overcosted and I think I let that idea slip when I made the cost 25% higher cost in gp and better. So I'm to give the first 2pts of prec and the +1 def for free. That bring the gold cost of the LC down to 22gps. The trouble with the LC being more expensive is their primary role is as archers and if they cost too much then you would be unwise to use them early (foot bow instead) which is what I want to avoid. Latter you generally have the resources for HC so you tend to concentrate on them so the time to build up the LC is early. If necessary I'll take all the bonus's bar the precision one away to keep the cost down.

The other thing I'm going to try is replacing the Lance with a Javelin and see what happens. Hopefully they will shoot with the bow at long range and use the Javelin when close. If they will only use one and I can make it the comp bow thats fine as what I'm trying to do is dump the lance without giving them two hand to hand attacks. It may not work.

When I tried using a pretender other than the Lady of Fortune I got severly manhandled by luck - 1/5th pop emmigrated from capital t.9 1/5th from biggest other 3 turns late, plague, Trog attack, all in the first 16 turns. I was also been attacked by two neighbours early (bad starting position) and had Kau Feng (PoD) feebleminded by a random arrow shot as he lurked in the back wearing rainbow armour. I decide to give up on this one when my prophet bought it even though militarily I was still putting up a fight and taking the war to the enemy - I just didn't have enough gold coming in and hadn't got a second castle even though I was using the cheap wizard tower. The random events did not destroy me and there were good ones (total of 150gps in cash) but I end up with that feelling described by so many - I'm paying for maximum luck scales and I still get bad luck.

I went back to LoF and things went much better. I have never had a significant bad event in my capital using LoF and while this is probably just luck she has become my lucky taliesmen. In fact I think the only reason I have a far kinder view of luck than most is using the Lady of Fortune. Have I just been really lucky with her or does she have an ability to stop bad events in the province she is in?

As luck issues are making it hard to get a good take on this I'm going to start using a simple luck mod. Basically its Saber Cherries idea of +-13% luck/misfortune on quality of events with no other changes to scales. This means with luck3 you have a 89% chance of an event being good - I think it was 95% in dom1 so this is not that extreme compared to what many of us are used to playing with.

I'll post the relevant parts of this to the luck/order thread.

Cheers

Keir

[ January 17, 2004, 21:06: Message edited by: Keir Maxwell ]