Recruitable Unit Rebalance Version 7.51 Released.

[TheSelfishGene]

Graeme Dice said:

... and its a Death economy, so your income will be constantly shrinking. So having many IOs mean more and more upkeep for less and less income. If you don't 'cross the Rubicon', militarily speaking, fairly early on, you die in a spiral of bankruptcy. This is of course an issue for everyone to some extent, but it hits BF Ulm harder and more directly than most.

[Graeme Dice]

TheSelfishGene said:
... and its a Death economy, so your income will be constantly shrinking.

But then so is Abysia's when you play with their standard death-2, and that doesn't start to have a really noticeable effect till turn 60 or so. Many of your provinces will not have any taxes for bloodhunting purposes as well.

If you don't 'cross the Rubicon', militarily speaking, fairly early on, you die in a spiral of bankruptcy.

At 0.2% dying per turn, you'll have lost ~12% of your income in your capital by turn 60. Most of your newer provinces will have lost more than that just due to bloodhunting.

[TheSelfishGene]

Graeme Dice said:

But then so is Abysia's when you play with their standard death-2, and that doesn't start to have a really noticeable effect till turn 60 or so. Many of your provinces will not have any taxes for bloodhunting purposes as well.

Not to belabor this point, since this thread is about Saber Cherry's excellent mod, but death-2 is 'standard' Abysian scales? See this is what seperates the winners from losers in multiplayer games. I would lose every single game i played - against the computer! - with those scale choices. You just know exactly what works down to the turn, and damn all and everything else, i suppose.

[Saber Cherry]

tinkthank:

I like the strat-2 move of most bowmen, fine. I would prefer them to maintain their 10-precision, however, for their cheaper price.

So I have this changed in my mod of your mod:

Heavy Archer Prec 10
Heavy Xbow prec 10
Indy Longbowmen: prec 10

Hmmm... makes sense to me (I assume archering is harder with a helmet and plate cuirass...). Except for the indy longbow, who IMO deserves 11 precision, especially at 12g each. Longbowmen (from what I understand; please correct me if I'm wrong) are people who devote their life to the longbow, and their skeletal remains can be unearthed, examined, and shown to be from a longbowman because their hand and fingerbones are deformed in a certain way, due to the strength and practice required to use them. Whereas shortbows and (particularly) crossbows can be given to recruits who are taught to use them in weeks or months.

Mari Xbow: prec 10 (Context of Cheaper Flagellants, cheaper units of your mod)
Flagellants: GCost 7 (still dirt cheap IMO, thats the upkeep of a modded Militiaman too!)
Knight of the Chalice: Stays at 90. Did you feel he has no niche at 90?

Xbow: I tend to think of Marignon units as elites across the board. But you're right, prec 11 seems like too much considering I dropped the price. Maybe I should either make them prec 10 (-1) or 10 gold (+1)...

Flags: I don't know. Considering that they need no armor, training, or salary, it's hard for me to justify charging ANYTHING for them I never build them unless I have a bless-effect pretender (useful for flagellants, like water, air, or fire). Anyone else have input on the cost of flagellants, considering trained light infantry is 7-8g and miltias are 3-5g?

Knight of the Chalice: I have no idea why I did that. Maybe I mistyped? Or maybe they just "felt" expensive and I didn't fully consider how good they are. At any rate, I'll put them back at 90.

Lobos Gcost 4 (too good at 3) (Cherry, do you play Ryleh? Lobos are hands down the BEST recruitable fodder in the game, I loved them at 5 gold; you cant compare them to Militia, which rout -- these guys will sit there and take a beating, and I think 4 gold is a fine price to pay for the difficult task of lobotomizing those poor froggies.)

I rarely play Ryleh, but it's fun to watch froggies poison themselves (due to range-0 attack) against Atlantain poison spears and poison armor I put them at 3g 2r instead of 5g 1r where the extra resource is to note that you don't get an unlimited supply of lobotomized slaves. They lower gold cost is for three reasons:
1) Their theme gives super-cheap lobo guards, and unless I dropped them to 3, human militias would become cheaper, which makes no sense!
2) They require magical leadership...
3) They should not have a salary; that's crazy.

At any rate, I cannot think of any justification for them costing more than 3 gold. However, I CAN think of justifications for dropping their stats. Should physical and mental abuse to the point of insanty increase HP? No... Should it drop you fighting skill? Yes... and by more than 1 att and 2 def. What do you think about lobo guards that are 3 gold and 12 hp (standard), 8 att (-2 from atlantian standard), 6 def (-3 from atlantian standard)? At that point they are much worse than the worst human militia in combat, aside from their 50 morale.

So... I think I'll drop their stats as described (-1 hp, -1 att, -1 def from base game) but keep the 3g price.

Warlock Apprecs: GREAT change with the douse, but nix fear, prec stays at 8 (for no increased cost) (who cares, they cast prec100 spells anyhow)

I boosted the precision to keep them in line with other Abysian mages, and for 1 other reason: some blood combat spells need precision. Of course, nobody ever casts them, so it shouldn't matter, but who knows... As for lesser fear -5, come on, it affects NOTHING! It says "they are greatly feared" in their description

Riderless Spiders given smallish gold cost (30 hunter spider, 10) -- you have to pay for food, heheh -- but seriously, no upkeep is too good for these units

(riderless) hunter spiders are perhaps the awesomest recruitable units in the game. Those costs make sense, assuming those units need tenders. I wouldn't want to turn my back on a riderless hunter spider if nobody was bothering to keep him on a leash Hmmmmmmmmmm.

Yeah... I guess that's fine. Even with those costs, I still kind of hope my riders get killed, so that I get a much cheaper unit that's about as good as before

Machaka Archer 11 prec for 6 gold? (I dont know about this yet, havent had time to test. I think it may be too good, unsure.)

Non-spider Machakans have to be good at SOMETHING I assume they do a lot of hunting, as a pre-agricultural society. Also, their archers get no armor and die in droves. I always recruited indy archers as Machaka. But if you find them to be too awesome, they could change...

Vaetti cold resistance: Fine. Why not Nornae and Seithkonae 25 CR too!?

Nornae and Seithkonae are humans who happen to live with/near the Jotuns, while Vaetti (I assume) were created / evolved in a cold place. In retrospect, it seems fair (to me) to give Vaetti 50% CR.

I sort of wonder what the effect of 25% FR / CR is on fatigue when fighting in hot / cold places...

Here's a question, since you were so thoughtful to change all those descriptions: The Salamander still reads something like "When injured, can erupt in flames??" -- but it never does. Would it be possible to mod the unit so that OnDeath: small area fire?

I wonder... I don't think so, but I'll look into ways to add the ability, or else modify the text to be less misleading.

Cu Sidhe: No supply bonus. (Do you eat your dogs?)

I gave them a supply bonus of 1, with this logic:

1) They are fay (wild...-ish) hound capable of hunting and foraging for themselves.
2) They are size 3, and thus eat 2 food.
3) They are traveling with an army, and thus not capable of foraging as much as normal (they still need some additional food).
4) They were a pretty bad unit.

Hopefully, supplybonus 1 + size 3 = a unit that consumes half as much food as normal. Combining that with a better "weapon", hopefully they will become a useful unit. So, the "supplybonus" is misleading, considering that they still are a net consumer of supplies.

D. Sidhe: No reduced price. Why make them even cheaper?

I gave them bronze armor, resulting in +2 rcost and -1 protection (seems close to Illwinter's bronze armor guidelines). As a result they are slightly worse, so I dropped the cost 10% to compensate. I've only played that theme once. Is 35g still a fair cost even with them becoming slightly worse due to bronze armor?

All (Light) Cavalry: Kept the drastically reduced price, but maintained the low horsey precision.

And I gave them +2 hp, +1 str... and yet, they still aren't very good Especially with light archers getting 2 strat moves, which they deserve. I plan to keep them as they are unless I hear reports of them being overpowered...

Am wary about giving all those cavs higher morale, too. It is not the rider, but the horse which is hard to control.

Hmm, shows how much I know about cavalry Still, Dominions' morale system greatly penalizes small groups of strong units, and it's terrible (and unrealistic) when a group of 10 heavy cavalry routs because one gets killed by the opposing 10 medium infantry.

OK that is all I had the time for so far, really must work, but will try to do this more systematically soon.

Thanks for all your work -- great mod!

You're welcome, thanks for the feedback!



rabelais:

I love the idea of this mod. Go Saber Cherry!

Some comments:

1. Hunterspiders that lost their riders were already upkeep free

2. AP Longbows is overkill, IMHO. Perhaps give them a reduced chance to be stopped by shields, instead?

BF has to endure much to get (AP) rangers. Which leads to:

3. Rangers were plenty good already. Fear them buffed.

1) I wasn't sure... I was setting them as 0 just in case. However, as mentioned above, there seem to be a couple justifiable reasons for making it nonzero. What do you think?

2) If I could find a way to do that, it would be great Good suggestion! I'll have to experiment with the #flail command (att bonus versus shield) and see if it works on ranged weapons. Otherwise, I'll keep AP, as their seems to be good historical justification. If it is overpowered, I can always bump the price of longbow units (on the basis of the much longer training longbowmen undergo). If anyone wants to run a test to see if you can mod a ranged weapon (with #flail) to ignore shields (try giving round shield 20 defense), feel free... I have no computer on which to spend time with Doms II for a few days.

3) You're right, I gave them pretty darn good stats for a 12 gold stealthy unit Seems too good. When I play BF Ulm, I ignore units and spend all my effort on blood, making vampires, and so forth. I don't think I've ever built a Ranger, because those vampire barons are just too much fun And the Zweihanders look really cool. Hmm...

On the other hand, Rangers wear almost no armor and use the crappiest standard 1-h weapon in the game, the Axe. Real rangers use swords. Considering that their bad armor and bad melee weapon make them poorly suited as anything except archers, and that they cost 20-50% more than normal xbows, I think 12g is fair. But if they got a broadsword and ringmail hauberk, it would be a different matter At this point, I think I'll leave them as they are... unless their seems to be a consensus or anecdotal evidence of their overpoweredness.



TheSelfishGene:

Great mod! Really addressed some outstanding issues. I do have some short thoughts on the mod however;

Cavalry is perhaps a bit too cheap. There is a substantial difference between 10 armor and 20 armor; its not just double in effectiveness, its like 4-5x. So when you make, say, Black Knights cheaper AND stronger, they become pretty much the buffest national units in the game. Which may or may not be a bad thing, balance is not a zero sum game and Ulm pays for its Knights by being weak in many other areas, but i gather the Cavalry mod was added in at the last minute and didn't go through as rigerous a testing procedure.

Less rigorous, yes. As for last minute... it took me about 12 hours Unfortunately, I went in phases and first adjusted prices and stats, and later adjusted a few pieces of armor and probably forgot to re-change the prices. Black Knights die like flies before astral / air spells and especially Nether Darts / Bolts. But I agree, 50g is too cheap for possibly the best "standard combat" unit in the game... I'll put them back at 60.

I like the Firbolg Rule of Thumb; is this recruitable unit better than a 10 gem, 5-Path Firbolg? If it is, and its only costing me 50 gold, you might need to think about adjusting something here or there.

Interesting logic. Of course it also costs 70 resources, so you can't make more than 2-3 per turn (and personally, I'd rather have a Firbolg, esp. when playing Ulm), but they are also available from turn 0. So I'll put them back at 60.

Short Bow archers seem useless now compared to xbows because everything has fairly decent armor. I think, imo, a bit too much armor was added to the game...at least with indie troops.

Hmmm? I didn't add any armor to indy troops that I remember, other than Villians.


... I'll post the rest later, gotta run right now

[Saber Cherry]

TheSelfishGene:

Some random thoughts and obserations:

Prince General has not been improved. Still 10/10 hitpoints.

Oooh! Thanks, I missed that.

Lowbowmen have 10 precision instead of 12? That should be changed back. I'm not really certain i like the Change; a weaker, faster firing crossbow...

Indy longbowmen have 11, Man longbowmen have 12. I can't think of any units with 10 precision and a longbow, but I may have messed something up... was there one in particular you noticed that had longbow + 10 prec.? But the longbow weapon change... hmm... well, weaker, faster-firing, longer range, more expensive compared to Xbow. But compared to the original longbow, essentially the same on light units, and much stronger on heavy units. I wish I could give it 25% armor piercing. But doesn't it seem wierd to you that in Dominions 2, longbowmen are useless against knights? Quite contrary to reality. I really like Rabelais's suggestion, and I'll see if I can get it to work.

I like the Change to Imperial Tien Chi troops.

Thanks!

Could you buff Black Forest Ulm's Illuminated One's somehow? Give them the assassinate abiliy, or a slight chance of causing bad luck in the province they occupy. They aren't bad, but BF Ulm is a pretty weak theme that relies almost 100% on a buffed VQ. Trying to play them WITHOUT a combat VQ is a very difficult exercise with their limited magic skills and poor morale troops. The Illuminated Ones are well rounded but rather inefficient per cost; and with death, BF Ulm has a hard time with upkeep, so a 160 gold non sacred caster is more expensive in the long run he looks at first. I see the I.O.s as a kind of traveling old man, with train of servents and hooded girls behind him, journeying to dine at the tables of foreign kings and dignitaries; practising unholy rights at night in his room when no one is looking, throwing poisonous converational barbs at state dinners, subtly manipulating the crowd, stirring up strife wherever he goes, and sometimes just for kicks dominating some poor serf to go burn his own house down, or kill some noble he disliked.

So i'm fond of them but would like them to a be a bit more powerful than they are now.

I'll look at them; the current mod mostly ignores leaders with magic paths. I don't like themes to force your pretender choice, which BF Ulm does. Maybe there's some way of making Sanguine Heritage castable by national mages (assuming at least one +path item is equipped). And having units fulfill their description is never a bad thing, either


Scott Hebert:

BF Ulm? Mass Ranger annihilation works well, so I hear. FPRIVATE "TYPE=PICT;ALT="

Illuminated Ones, as written, are rather disappointing. Granted, they ARE spies, and they should pay for it, but it could work out better. For me, changing Illuminated Ones/Members of the Second Tier from Astral Primary to Blood Primary would be a useful thing to do.

Illuminated One: B
Member of the Second Tier: SBB

Anyway, just a thought.

Blood isn't very illuminating, but maybe SB? And/or throwing a random onto a mage might be interesting.

My main issues with BF Ulm, from a 'fun' standpoint, are:

1. Bloodhunting Micromanagement (no fun)
2. Pretender 'must' be able to cast Sanguine Heritage
3. Illuminated Ones are pointless (Fortunetellers do everything they do and more)
4. Scales are bad (Death and Misfortune are things you don't want with a Blood nation)
5. Rather random Bloodhunters (I'm not paying 160g for a 1-blood hunter)

As an aside, Zen's mod making the Fountain produce Blood Slaves every turn is REALLY GOOD for BF Ulm.

1) True, but it hits all nations.
2) Yes. Like Tien Chi, this is (IMO) unacceptable (for national mages to be unable to cast national spells).
3) Yep... what about making them making them (BBDD?) with a different name and description?
4) ... I never like death (with living nations). I don't care about misfortune so much, esp. with fortunetellers. But hey, they are thematic
5) I agree...


Thanks for all the feedback, everyone! I'll see what I can do, but remember that no solutions will be ideal to everyone

[Saber Cherry]

Note! This is just a preview; I have not yet uploaded a new version of the mod.

Ok... thanks for all your input! These are the changes I've made so far (many from forum input, many not). At least, the ones I've documented. I still need to look at some other things (like archer costs, adjusting longbows, and messing with BF Ulm's mages). If you have any problems with the changes, please say so...


Cosmetic Changes:

Added a bunch of new weapons and armors (maybe 10 of each) These are generally for aesthetics (like gilded armors, silver armors, etc) and do not change balance. Even the ones with different stats often don't change anything, but I'll list some:
Avalon Knights get silver armor - just like regular full chain, but -1 encumbrance. This has no effect since they are mounted.
Ulm units with full helms get Full Hlmet of Ulm. This is 2 prot, 0 def, 0 enc. In other words, a weaker version of the Black Steel Helmet. Since this has no effect other than giving units +1 defense, and defense is virtually useless to Ulm units, it probably has no measurable effect.
Fire Lord and all Marignon's gold-colored units get Gilded Armor. Stats do not change.
Tien Chi Eunichs get kung-fu training, and learn Punch and Kick (instead of Fist). They are now able to beat blood slaves in combat, which you sort of expect from a field commander.
Tien Chi healing immortal gets a magical pruning knife.
All TC immortals get super weak armor (Immortal's Robes (2, 0, 0), or Flea-Infested Cape (1, 0, 0) for the old man).


Important Changes:

Tien Chi immortal swordsman got way better. He was terrible before (in combat) partly because he had 2 weapons and no ambidextrity. However, some of the bonus is integrated into his sword and "imaginary" shield, so giving him a new weapon and shield will make them go away again (somewhat).
Sling becomes -1 prec instead of... whatever it was (-3?).
Slingers get 9 prec (-1, total of 8 with sling). They're still terrible, except against flagellants or with flaming missiles, but better than before.
Man Foresters got better stats and supplybonus 2 (feed themselves and 1 other person, probably with rabbits and truffles).
Throwing axe precision went from -4 to -2.
Axe Thrower gets precision 9.
Lobo Guard dropped -1 hp, -1 att, -1 def, since they were abused to the point of mindlessness.
Hoburgs got lower resource costs. Just as big units have higher rcost for armor, tiny units deserve lower rcosts for armor. I doubt anyone built Hoburg HI, especially since (I think) hoburgs are grassland-only.
Crab Hybrid gets ambidextrous 4 (since I gave pincers length 2 rather than default 0)
Spider Warrior dagger replaced by Poison Dagger. Makes sense, right?
Man's Green Knight gets custom armor, reinvigoration 1, and regen 15% (instead of 10%).
Machaka riderless spiders get upkeep (great spider: gcost 10 {.66g/turn}, hunter spider: gcost 30 + sacred {1g/turn}). They are still an incredibly good deal, but someone needs to be paid to tend them (they don't get the money).
MAR Royal Xbows became 10g (+1).
Knights of the Chalice went back to 90g (+10)
Daoine Sidhe back to 35g (+3)
Ulm Rangers: I wanted to give them a patrol bonus but there is no way to do that yet Instead they got #neednoteat (and a description change about wilderness survival) and traded axe (terrible weapon) for shortsword (good weapon). Gold cost: +1 to 13g. They should still avoid melee, but at least have a chance.
Ranger Captain: +5g (to 50g) and leadership went from 10 to 25. Also, same changes as Ranger.
Black Forest Ulm Commander: 25 leadership went to 50 leadership, to be on par with other Commanders of Ulm. BF units are weaker, anyway.
Black Knight: Returned to 60 gold (+10)


Non-unit changes:

Added #foodmult 150. This gives 50% more supplies. It makes the AI less likely to starve, makes units that eat less disadvantageous over non-eating summons, makes light units and militias more useful, and reduces the need for winebags, summer swords, cauldrons of broth, and nature picks on pretenders specifically for those items. If / when I make Chuckwagon units, this might be taken back out. The constant need for magical winebags when using mundane troops is annoying.

IMO, a higher #foodmult over default is vital to balance units... though I admit it is not an ideal solution, and it won't magically make hordes of militia as desirable and useful as hordes of vinemen or longdead.



Sound ok? Aside from things still to do, of course.

For example... I'm considering increasing the price of every recruitable mage in the game by 10%, EXCEPT the ones that are already "too expensive". If a 180 gold mage (say, a Vanheim Dwarf) can kill 50 units unboosted in a couple battles in the early game... why is he much cheaper than those 50 units? It makes you want to spend all your money on mages (which is what good players often do). 10% probably is not enough, but I'll do it and see how it feels.

[tinkthank]

Great!

After more testing, although I have come to appreciate even more the fine changes you made to national troops (GREAT - thanks! Love your mod!), I have come to be sceptical about one type of change (only): those changes to the Indy troops. Although you have done a fine job now of making most of these very viable to purchase, and additionally accomplished a nice feat in making Independent Province Nations more variable, slightly tougher, and more flavorful, you have also applied the same principles you used in beefing up the underused and niche-seeking national troops, who often sat sadly in a corner drinking tea out of a paper bag (IF they were lucky) just hoping one day to sit sadly in a niche. The effect of this is that it often now seems just as good to me to purchase Indies as national troops. I don't like this for only one reason (NOTHING to do with Balance): It encourages making the armies more homogenous, and hence also detracts from the national flavor impact of different nations. (Don't ge me wrong: it doesnt do this a lot, but I did notice it after a few more test runs with me.)

In other words, trying to phrase this without using "balance" at all: I think the "niche" which Independent troops should fill is actually a quite different one than that of national troops. I think this indy niche should be to (a) be purchased when really needed in a hurry out in the front or (b) to enhance a nation's access to a type of unit otherwise completely lacking (e.g. archers for Abysia, Atlantis, Van or Heavy Cav for Pythium or whatever) or (c) to buy when you really have some cash left over or (d) give the strong national themes a "local" flavor in the provinces those troops are naturally at home or (e) something else.

For this reason, I would really like to see most of those troops get a price increase (or read: have their original prices dropped NOT QUITE AS MUCH as you did, quite excellently so, with the national troops) or somehow be made less comparable to national troops.

Additionally, I would like to see map movement restricted again, specifically as examples Indy Archers be scaled back down to map move 1 (this btw would still make them fine province defenders or great buy-me-quick-near-the-front troops and good Indy Nationals). Low mobility would not only scale down those troops overall strategic value while keeping them viable for niche filling but would also (at least to my playing style) encourage the garrisoning of troops in as many provinces as possible (as an alternative defense form to mad castling, even if this form is no way equal in terms of balance to having a castle in every province, obviously).

(On an aside: do you have a comprehensive list of the changes to Indies, or could you send them to me? I could do some of these changes then for myself without pestering you, and offer them here on the boards on the off chance anyone would want them.)


Another Side Note Suggestion: For Ulm, I think a novel but decent tweak would be instead of the individual battle-style improvements in armor or armaments (although I like it, especially the magic weapon on the guardians) or a reduction in price, give each and every Ulmian a boost in MR of 2 or in some cases 3: Ulmians are infused in mundanity. (So just the opposite rationale which gave them crappy MR to start with.) Yes, Ulm is supposed to make up for its crappy MR by pushing its crappy Drain scale, but even in doing so they only get back up to "normal" -- I think a nice tradeoff for lacking magic whatsoever would be having decent resistances to it.

So.... thanks very much! Whole new worlds are opening up, and I think I am going to enjoy playing with different styles now some races I would like to like, like Pan New Era and Machaka, and new styles with races I already like, like Man and Marignon and Tien Chi....!

[PvK]

Ya, this sounds really nice, SC! Now I just need to steal time to play it...

PvK

[Saber Cherry]

PvK said:
Ya, this sounds really nice, SC! Now I just need to steal time to play it...

PvK

It's not nearly as major an undertaking as Proportions but hopefully it accomplishes a similar goal...

[PvK]

Ulmites being a favorite of mine, I'll comment just on what I've read in recent posts here, since I haven't gotten time to try this yet.

* Giving Ulm troops a helmet that doesn't reduce defense will in fact be helpful, at least to some of the troops (e.g. Chain/Hammer/Shield), particularly when they start gaining experience, at least against average regular troops.

* I second thinktank's suggestion to give Ulmites higher MR. If it were moddable (tis not), I'd have every level of drain scale add to their MR, but failing that, +2-4 MR for Ulm would be neat IMO, and I'd do that rather than improving their helmet design.

* Did you look at Ulm morale? Anyone know why Ulm pikeneers get +1 morale compared to the other troops? +1 morale would also be useful for the other troops, but IMO +MR is better - there are ways for Ulm to deal with their morale - not so much for their MR.

PvK