Rebalance Mod game now running on a 24h timer.

[quantum_mechani]

Huzurdaddi said:

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 ).

I could write an AAR for this game, though I played Pan quite a bit different with white centaurs getting such a boost.

[Saber Cherry]

Ironhawk said:

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?

No other mundane melee weapons are AP, and AP is pretty rare even for magical weapons. Lances are not AP, despite the description. Unfortunately, Action Points and Armor Piercing have the same abbreviation... lances get a damage bonus based on the unit's speed, and kill things easily because they do massive damage, not because they pierce armor.

That's a very good point, though - I certainly would not want to render an entire unit category obsolete to make a single weapon useful. One *possible* solution is to give mauls a negative attack modifier, and lances a positive attack modifier. When you think about it, it would be WAY easier to hit a moving target with a sword than with a maul, yet they have the same (0) attack modifier. OTOH, a knight charging into a battle is probably going to hit SOMETHING with his lance before his momentum dies. If lances can hit and damage most things, while mauls tend to miss agile units and are best used on heavy / slow things like Living Statues and super-heavy infantry, then both would still have a niche. Not to mention that lances - being a cavalry weapon - are still ideal for many things that mauls can't do, like racing across the field to kill pretenders while they are still buffing.

Anyway, my preliminary thought is to change mauls from (5ap, 0, -1, 0) to (3ap, -1, -1, 3), and I still think they will be highly useful. Considering how seldom Cavalry is deployed (though that may change with the pricing in the mod), lances might be due for an upgrade, like ignoring shields. Part of the point of lances (war lances, not joust lances) is that they can go right through wooden shields and kill an armored unit. They should damage / stun / dehorse / knock down someone even if it is blocked by a metal shield, though I'm not sure that shields with thick enough metal to stop a lance were ever commonly deployed. Either way, it makes sense to me for lances to ignore defense. As a little footsoldier watching a giant, armored, lance-wielding, mounted knight bearing down on me, I wouldn't lift up my leather-bound wooden shield - designed to block swords and rocks - and assume I'll somehow live, if only I keep the shield between me and the lance.

So, I think giving #flail (shield ignoring) to lances - heavy lances, at least - would be a good change. I don't think light lances should get that, though I'm not really sure what they are. If they're just spears aided by charge momentum, I doubt they could pierce shields AND still do damage, since true lances have a very long, sharp, steel head specifically designed for very deep piercing attacks. In fact, it makes sense for heavy lances to get both #flail and #armorpiercing, but that might make them too powerful.

[Ighalli]

Yeah, my armies arnt 100% longbowmen... Maybe I'm expanding too slow, but at least I'm taking no casualties from indies, so it's a tradeoff. I don't play Man all that often, so I'm just experimenting really.

[Saber Cherry]

100% longbow armies leave you vulnerable to cavalry and archers - not to mention that they're quite expensive. It's true that with ap, they're much better than base Doms II pure-longbow armies. But the rest of Man's lineup is also better, with possible exception of the Wardens, who were already good... and building purely longbows and mages, you'll have lots of resources left over every turn, which you'll probably wish you had used later on when capitol resources are limiting...

I'm not an expert playing Man, but I only build pure armies when playing Ulm, and Abysia. Speaking of which, I wonder if Abysia's units are too homogeneous? Does anyone else build armies purely of a single unit type when playing Abysia?

[Huzurdaddi]

Saber Cherry said:
No other mundane melee weapons are AP, and AP is pretty rare even for magical weapons. Lances are not AP, despite the description. Unfortunately, Action Points and Armor Piercing have the same abbreviation... lances get a damage bonus based on the unit's speed, and kill things easily because they do massive damage, not because they pierce armor.

NO [censored]! I've never understood why Ghost riders do tons of damage on their charge. If figured that sure it's AP but still it should not do the kind of crazy damage that it seems to do. This makes total sense. Longdead horsemen have tons of AP so the damage they do must be huge. Now it makes sense. Thanks! I don't know if it changes anything wrt. my tactics but now I understand what is going on.

Ighalli said:
Yeah, my armies arnt 100% longbowmen... Maybe I'm expanding too slow, but at least I'm taking no casualties from indies, so it's a tradeoff. I don't play Man all that often, so I'm just experimenting really.

Well I don't know if I would make my armies 100% longbow men. During my tests I had a little chaff in front and in time converted the chaff to vine ogres. But generally my armies were composed of primarly archers. To pay for this I went after farms which was easy to do as the longbowmen could take HC and/or Knights with ease.

quantum_mechani said:
I could write an AAR for this game, though I played Pan quite a bit different with white centaurs getting such a boost.

Whoa. Light lance. More attack. Lower cost. Sounds *very* good. What bless did you go with? Given the new data ( at least to me ) on how lances work I would figure that a W9 blessing would crush. A F9 would work well also since the unit has hooves.

[Graeme Dice]

Saber Cherry said:
Does anyone else build armies purely of a single unit type when playing Abysia?

Lava warriors and morningstar infantry are pretty much all I build.

[Graeme Dice]

Huzurdaddi said:
Longdead horsemen have tons of AP so the damage they do must be huge.

Longdead horseman have a spear and a 10 damage hoof. So they have two attacks, one with 13 damage and one with 10 damage. Knights of the Unholy Sepulchre are the only undead with lances.

[Graeme Dice]

Huzurdaddi said:
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.

Pangaea's early game strategy is actually fairly straightforward. For Illwinter's scales, you might take something like:
Order 3, sloth 3, misfortune 2, magic 3. Pick a monster for a pretender in very hard research games, or a giant humanoid in standard research games. Recruit dryad's for researchers and centaur warriors for troops. Only recruit Panii when you need them to cast specific spells. Gold is your major limiting factor. Centaur warriors give Pangaea a huge amount of early game punch, and remain effective for a very long time. They are even capable of taking down full-fledged SCs. (An air queen with wraith sword, jade armour, and luck pendant.) Against normal troops, 20 centaur warrior's will kill kill 20 Hoplites with fewer than 5 losses.

Research alteration up to mother oak, then cast it right away. Then research conjuration to Lamia's. You now have you standard troops for most of the rest of the game ready. Pile these against SCs, and the lifedrain fatigue can take them down. Research construction for blood stones and other items. Trade for a starshine skullcap so you can boost your astral magic. Make sure to research up to charm, which gives you what is probably your most effective anti-SC weapon. Watch out for wrathful skies, as it will hurt you badly. If you can catch air mages without storms, use harpies.

[Saber Cherry]

Huzurdaddi said:
Whoa. Light lance. More attack. Lower cost. Sounds *very* good. What bless did you go with? Given the new data ( at least to me ) on how lances work I would figure that a W9 blessing would crush. A F9 would work well also since the unit has hooves.

Ooops, I think I boosted White Centaurs way too much I was trying to keep them equivalent to Black Centaurs, which I was pricing to be affordable even though CW has almost no money, but that was a bad idea... W9 would bring them up to 21 defense, 22 hp, 12 protection, 13 strength, 12 attack, 16 mor, 14 mr, with 3 attacks per turn (average)... and stealthy, healing, 3 strat moves, forestry, all for 60 gold and 2g/turn. Quite a powerhouse... they'd probably kill most SC pretenders easily.

[Huzurdaddi]

Graeme Dice said:

Longdead horseman have a spear and a 10 damage hoof. So they have two attacks, one with 13 damage and one with 10 damage. Knights of the Unholy Sepulchre are the only undead with lances.

Just took a look at a replay and the undead horsemen summoned via Ghost Riders have the following weapons: light lance, hoof. This is a replay using Zen's mod so I don't know if this is different from the base game but I doubt it.

Like I said this finally explains, at least to me, why ghost riders crush so much. With 25 AP I wonder what kind of damage that charge does ( 25+3? If so, wow, ouch. ).