Rebalance Mod game now running on a 24h timer.

[Saber Cherry]

Arralen said:
May I ask you a favour, Cherry? Could you keep Ulm out of your Rebalance Mod? Ulms Inf should be very special anyway. Furthermore, our mods wouldn't be incompatible then. I really hate it if we both put a lot of work (you considerably more than me ) into it and one makes the other invalid ...

Mmmmm... While I agree that there's a potential problem, I don't really like that particular solution. The intent behind the mod is to apply certain principles to ALL recruitable units of specific categories in the game; leaving out any nation, theme, or indy type causes balance problems or inexplicable irregularities (like, why do indy cavalry get bonus strength and HP, but not those of Nation X?). Unfortunately, this philosophy can cause incompatiblities with all nation mods, and the only way to solve that is to leave all nations out of the mod - which defeats the purpose... or leave out nations that are specifically being worked on by other people - which ends up being a lot of nations - and which again defeats the purpose.

I'm not trying to make a giant conglomerate mod in order to render all other mods worthless (like the "One Ring"), and I really doubt my mod could have that kind of effect. Look at Space Empires IV, for example - there are a huge number of mods out, many of them partially or totally overlapping, without particularly hurting each other.

Here's my proposed solution:

I took quite a lot of information, opinions, and ideas from your Ulm mod thread, and I'll be more than happy to credit you (and other thread participants) for them. However, I'm pretty sure that the final version of "my vision for Ulm" will be different from the final version of "your vision for Ulm," even though there will also be some similarities. So if you want, you (or anyone else with a nation mod) can take my mod, delete the Ulm units from it, add your Ulm units, and release it as "Recruitable Rebalance with Arralen's Black Steel of Ulm" or whatever, which would eliminate any incompatibilities.

I never really thought about accidentally treading on other peoples' toes, and I hope that's a reasonable response, because I don't want to invalidate anyone else's work...

[Ironhawk]

Arralen said:
EDIT: Just skimmed through the unit roster with my mod active. See and behold: All inf has either 6,8, or 10 movement points. So there's the possibility to mix sensibly them already present. Try it out.

All ulm inf in the rebalance mod have 5, 7, and 9 speed. So, while not the same exact values that is actually the speeds I have been working with and it has poor results. The faster units are invariably the lightly armored ones and they get to the front or the flanks where they are quickly killed, collapsing the squad morale.

At the very least, the "heavy" versions of all the ulm infantry need to be the same speed. [Heavy Axe, Flail, Hammer, Maul, Morningstar, and Pike] That way you can mix and match units into your ultra-heavy infantry blocks, since they are basically all you ever use anyway. It would be like a modular army. Want some more attacks in your squad? Add in some Heavy Flail. Need to bring down a heavily armed target? Add in some Heavy Maul.

[Saber Cherry]

Ironhawk said:
At the very least, the "heavy" versions of all the ulm infantry need to be the same speed. [Heavy Axe, Flail, Hammer, Maul, Morningstar, and Pike] That way you can mix and match units into your ultra-heavy infantry blocks, since they are basically all you ever use anyway. It would be like a modular army. Want some more attacks in your squad? Add in some Heavy Flail. Need to bring down a heavily armed target? Add in some Heavy Maul.

Speaking of which, I think making Mauls 5ap damage was too much... Barbarians and Maul-using Ulmians became immensely powerful in this mod. I'm considering a change to 4ap or even 3ap, which still allows Barbarians and Ulmians to damage protection 30+ targets regularly (at the price of -1 defense and no shield) and possibly increasing the rcost and attack or defense penalty.

On the other hand, it did finally make mauls useful

[Ighalli]

Useful yeah, but on the other hand a block attached to the end of a stick isnt supposed to be better than a greatsword! The problem is with the AP flag I think. It would be nice if it ignored half the armor up to a max of X. Then maybe the maul would reduce enemy armor by 5 while fire attacks would half it no matter how much armor they have. Ahh well...

[Huzurdaddi]

So I have a question for you guys? Is Man dominating? In my test games his AP longbowmen put him at the top of easy expanders. He was very difficult to stop. I was wondering if this trend would continue in this mod.

[quantum_mechani]

Huzurdaddi said:
So I have a question for you guys? Is Man dominating? In my test games his AP longbowmen put him at the top of easy expanders. He was very difficult to stop. I was wondering if this trend would continue in this mod.

Actually, Man is around the middle of the pack. Ulm, Jotunhiem and Pangaea seem to be leading in most areas.

[Saber Cherry]

Huzurdaddi said:
So I have a question for you guys? Is Man dominating? In my test games his AP longbowmen put him at the top of easy expanders. He was very difficult to stop. I was wondering if this trend would continue in this mod.

I really hope Dominions III allows variable armor-piercing ratings (0-100% in 5% increments at least). If 9ap is much too strong on a longbow, though, I can always increase the price, drop it to 8ap, or (worst case scenario) return the longbow to its original stats, where it can't hurt knights at all. I'll be experimenting with #flail today (the command that makes morningstars ignore shields), and maybe I'll be able to make Blow Pipes (woodsman) ignore shields, since they are short range and highly accurate weapons that you would not aim at a shield. If so, I'll make boulders and ballista bolts ignore shields as well, if they don't already (I'm not sure).


Edit: What do you know, #flail works on projectiles. Watching longbowmen with #flail and 90 ap damage versus indies with 12-defense round shields is pretty funny.

[quantum_mechani]

One balance note: Independent lizard troops are quite inferior compared to barbarians and other fodder at the moment.

[Huzurdaddi]

quantum_mechani said:

Actually, Man is around the middle of the pack. Ulm, Jotunhiem and Pangaea seem to be leading in most areas.

Interesting. Perhaps man is not using the 100% longbow armies or perhaps something horrible happened to him early on ( not a stretch there is a lot of random stuff in this game ).

Jotunhiem also worked very well in my test games I can easily see them doing very well.

Ulm ... well I never play Ulm but they were beefed up quite a bit.

As for Pangaea I've never played them and I don't understand them at *all*. It would be really cool if someone made an AAR of this game with saved turn files and explain how the heck to do well with Pan. What a bizzare nation ( again: IMO ).

[Ironhawk]

Saber Cherry said:
Speaking of which, I think making Mauls 5ap damage was too much... Barbarians and Maul-using Ulmians became immensely powerful in this mod. I'm considering a change to 4ap or even 3ap, which still allows Barbarians and Ulmians to damage protection 30+ targets regularly (at the price of -1 defense and no shield) and possibly increasing the rcost and attack or defense penalty.

On the other hand, it did finally make mauls useful

Yeah now that mauls are AP, they can probably drop a point or two in damage. But I wouldn't go further than that. They are two handed after all, so if the maulers ever come under missle fire, they are pretty much done for.

I agree, it *is* really nice to have the maul be useful!! It went from being a joke weapon to filling a really useful niche. Was there never any AP infantry melee weapon prior to this?? I'm thinking back now and I cant recall one... well, lances I guess? But thats not really infantry per se. On the topic tho, does anyone feel that mauls might be moving in on the territory of heavy cav? 13-14 dam ap attacks every round instead of once per battle?