Recruitable Unit Rebalance Version 7.51 Released.

[Saber Cherry]

All changes can be seen at the top of the first post in the thread. Aside from bugfixes, a bit of additional "flavor," toning down Niefels and mauls, and cheapening a few bad buys, the primary changes are:

1) Giving light infantry and cavalry +1 attack, to reflect the greater dexterity of a trained soldier wearing little armor.
2) A complete and major change to all Black Plate units, resulting in a new Ulm. Please tell me if you like it or not... I have a feeling some people may not, but it makes sense to me. Moreover, it makes their unit lineup more fun, varied, and interesting, while still entirely within the scope of Illwinter's concept of Ulm (in my opinion).

As a side note, virtually all units in the mod that had major changes or equipment changes also have new or adjusted descriptions to reflect those changes.

[FrankTrollman]

I'm still very much against what you did to archery. Longbows and Crossbows already did their respective jobs well. A Longbowman was more expensive to train and much more devastating against at long range and when used against lightly armored people. 9 points armor piercing for a Longbow is completelyu inane, 14 points of non-armor penetrating damage conveys their purpose really well.

That's the part I don't get. While the power of many units is off (especially Horse Archers, who suck), the Shortbow, the Longbow, and the Crossbow all fit perfectly together relative to each other. Why give them a new and different job on the battlefield when they are already desirable and historical as is?

-Frank

[Saber Cherry]

FrankTrollman said:
That's the part I don't get. While the power of many units is off (especially Horse Archers, who suck), the Shortbow, the Longbow, and the Crossbow all fit perfectly together relative to each other. Why give them a new and different job on the battlefield when they are already desirable and historical as is?

-Frank

I may change the longbow back... it's appearing to be overly powerful, and as you say, overlaps the function of a crossbow. The reason I made the change was because longbows were not fitting into their historic role, which is to kill heavily armored enemies at great distance. The historic role of crossbows, on the other hand, is to provide a use for untrained recruits (and to pierce armor at short range), as crossbows are much easier to operate and aim than normal bows. Dominions II does not seem to match either of these weapons to (what I understand to be) their historic roles, considering that

a) in Dominions II crossbows are longer range and more expensive than shortbows, instead of shorter range and cheaper, and
b) in Dominions II longbows are incapable of harming heavily armored units, while in real life they can, and
c) in Dominions II crossbows kill heavily armored units at their maximum range. In real life crossbows do much less damage at their max range than arrows; probably not enough to pierce heavy armor, and
d) in Dominions II, a longbow usually kills a lightly armored unit in one hit. This would be very rare in real life.

I was trying to rectify those things... but since Dominions II is already designed with specific roles for shortbows, crossbows, and longbows, changing them (to be, in my opinion, closer to their historic uses) can have adverse effects, and would certainly change their current relative balance, because it is (as far as I can tell) not historically accurate.

So, that's why this mod is "under development" rather than "complete." If I find (through testing) changes that made the game better balanced, more fun, and more realistic, I'll keep them. If I find changes seem like they would accomplish those things, but in practice, actually break the balance or reduce fun, then I'll adjust or remove them.

I wish I could add things like "Damage reduction rate over projectile's trajectory", "Armor piercing percent", and "Damage type (crushing, slashing, piercing) pierce bonus versus armor type (soft, plate, chain, scale)" and even "Weapon damage modified by x% of strength", and especially "Weapon speed: 1.2 attacks per turn (for example)." Each of these would help differentiate weapons and enable them to be customized to their historic role. But I can't do any of those, so I'm doing the best with the mod tools (and game engine) provided, and thus giving longbows their very real ability to pierce armor, without making them similar to crossbows, is simply not possible.

Have you played with Man and found it overpowered?

[Huzurdaddi]

I may change the longbow back... it's appearing to be overly powerful

I don't know if they are overly powerful but they are quite powerful at least against indeps. Against humans I think that their power would be somewhat muted by the "put little clumps of crud everywhere" tactic.

And as for white centaurs as discussed in the other thread I don't know if they are overly powerful. Yes they are clearly better than Vans which are, IMO, the best recruitable unit in the game. But it's capital only so it SHOULD be better than the Van.

[Arralen]

Saber Cherry said:
Dominions II does not seem to match either of these weapons to (what I understand to be) their historic roles, considering that

a) in Dominions II crossbows are longer range and more expensive than shortbows, instead of shorter range and cheaper, and
b) in Dominions II longbows are incapable of harming heavily armored units, while in real life they can, and
c) in Dominions II crossbows kill heavily armored units at their maximum range. In real life crossbows do much less damage at their max range than arrows; probably not enough to pierce heavy armor, and
d) in Dominions II, a longbow usually kills a lightly armored unit in one hit. This would be very rare in real life.

So why don't you fix it?
a) make them range=20, acc=+5
b) obviously, you need "armor piercing" and not to low damage
c) see a) ..
d) so you basically say that hitting a man through heavy armor is more likely to kill him than hitting an unarmored man? Think again ... never heard about shrapnel from armor piercing arrows
Actually, the only good defense against a longbow is a thick, wooden shield, which will take much of an arrows momentum away by friction, as the shaft passes through it.

[Saber Cherry]

Arralen said:

So why don't you fix it?
a) make them range=20, acc=+5
b) obviously, you need "armor piercing" and not to low damage
c) see a) ..
d) so you basically say that hitting a man through heavy armor is more likely to kill him than hitting an unarmored man? Think again ... never heard about shrapnel from armor piercing arrows
Actually, the only good defense against a longbow is a thick, wooden shield, which will take much of an arrows momentum away by friction, as the shaft passes through it.

a) The battlefield in Dominions II is so short, compared to real life, that range 20 weapons with 1 shot per 2 rounds would only get one shot on light units, and zero to one shots on cavalry... immensely weakening crossbows. Furthermore, xbowmen would invariably rush forward at the beginning of combat unitl something was in range, getting themselves killed... and real life xbowmen would never do such a dumb thing. I think crossbows were normally used from above (towers, walls, hills) rather than from ground level, which is impossible in Doms II. At any rate, I think range 20 xbows would be useless weapons. What I did do was drop the range by 3 (10%) and reduce the pricing of some xbowmen.
b) Exactly, which is why I gave longbows ap.
c) Again, I don't want to nerf xbows to the point of uselessness, or make xbowmen run suicidally out into the battlefield to get into range.
d) No... what I mean is, a 14 damage longbow (Dominions II) generally kills a light unit (leather cuirass only) in one hit by dealing 11+ damage, which is unrealistic. Modded longbows (9 ap) generally do not kill ANYTHING in one hit, since they only do 8+ damage to even units with a leather cuirass only, which is more realistic. On the other hand, while less likely to kill light units than original longbows, they are also more likely to wound heavy units, by virtue of the ap damage. Therefore, the mod makes them more realistic against light and heavy units than before.

I'm trying to adjust the units and weapons to reach a certain goal... but, for example, I'm not entirely certain that crossbows, shortbows, and longbows were even contemporary. You can't balance flintlocks versus Steyr AUGs, no matter how hard you try, because one has no role when the other is available. And furthermore, I can't really put each weapon into its correct role if the battlefield is too small to model that role, or lacks elevation required by a role, or if the engine does not model the degrees of armor-piercing or ability to wound without killing that are vital to accurately represent a weapon. If a damage cap was allowed on weapons (5 damage for all arrows and bolts, for example, with a 10% chance of a critical hit that ignores this restriction), it would make the situation a lot easier...

The simple answer to your question is, I'm trying to fix them, but I'm not sure it's possible... I don't think that Illwinter's stats, my current stats, or your proposed stats are particularly good solutions, but maybe one of them is better than the other two, and approaching a good solution.

[Alneyan]

In addition to reports of longbowmen slaughtering well-protected troops, I also heard of less optimistic reports, where the longbows were only deadly when used at a fairly close range (a sort of kiss of death). Either way, I think your solution works well SC: longbows can kill troops with a bit of luck (a lot of luck in the case of knights), perhaps better than in history, but they will be less fearsome once the enemy has reached the archers.

Of course, that's the theory: in-game actual use of the longbow is another matter altogether. I would think they are fine with your changes: they remain powerful against independents, but another human player can use protective spells/arrow fend/storm to make your archers much less of a threat.

[Arralen]

Saber Cherry said:
I'm trying to adjust the units and weapons to reach a certain goal... but, for example, I'm not entirely certain that crossbows, shortbows, and longbows were even contemporary.

At the Battle of Arsuf (1191 a.D.), the muslim attacked with mounted shortbow archers and javelin throwers on foot in a skrimishing way.

For most of the day, it was only the crusaders left column of spearmen and crossbows which fought back.

Interestingly enough, the muslim couldn't do much impact on the shielded spears or the felt (!) armored crossbows, but took heavy casualties from the bolts. Only the knights horses suffered badly from the constant hail of shortbow arrows.

You may also check the Wikipedia entries about Longbow and Crossbow - according to those, the Crossbow was used in Europe since 800, the Longbow since the 12th century. (by the welsh some hundred years earlier. Claims that it in fact dates back to prehistoric day I doubt sincerily. The romans never conquered the welsh hill country. But if they would have been met by devastating longbow archers, there shurely would be some written evidence, but I never heard of such.)

And furthermore, I can't really put each weapon into its correct role if the battlefield is too small to model that role, or lacks elevation required by a role, or if the engine does not model the degrees of armor-piercing or ability to wound without killing that are vital to accurately represent a weapon.
...
The simple answer to your question is, I'm trying to fix them, but I'm not sure it's possible... I don't think that Illwinter's stats, my current stats, or your proposed stats are particularly good solutions, but maybe one of them is better than the other two, and approaching a good solution.

It shurely wasn't my intention to offend you.
In fact, I think your supposed changes will go a long way to make the missile weapons more realistic.
What they are not, as Frank claims, in the standard game.

And my suggestions wheren't really that much thought-out, but just some numbers I threw into the dicussion.
Some more numbers (must most likely be tweaked somewhat) and intended use of the weapon .. :
Longbow 45 (ballistical archery, even on rear echolons)
Comp bow 35 (ballistical archery on distant targets, or over front troops which are close by)
Shortbow 27 (harrasing fire from the 2nd line into the front of the enemies battle line, or short-ranged direct fire into non-missile troops)
Crossbow 27 (precision fire against "heavy" targets, NO ballistic firing)

[Saber Cherry]

Arralen said:
It shurely wasn't my intention to offend you.
In fact, I think your supposed changes will go a long way to make the missile weapons more realistic.
What they are not, as Frank claims, in the standard game.

And my suggestions wheren't really that much thought-out, but just some numbers I threw into the dicussion.
Some more numbers (must most likely be tweaked somewhat) and intended use of the weapon .. :
Longbow 45 (ballistical archery, even on rear echolons)
Comp bow 35 (ballistical archery on distant targets, or over front troops which are close by)
Shortbow 27 (harrasing fire from the 2nd line into the front of the enemies battle line, or short-ranged direct fire into non-missile troops)
Crossbow 27 (precision fire against "heavy" targets, NO ballistic firing)

No offense taken. Thanks for the suggestions and historical info! I'll check the bows out on Wikipedia, and maybe some other weapons too.

[st.patrik]

why not drop the xbow range to 20/25 (i.e. almost useless) and make them way cheaper to compensate - the thought being that maybe they will die before they get to fire, but wth, they're cheap?