The Complete EDU Guide

[Aradan]

Nah, I think -8 is too much. I'd say a -3/-4 is good, but if you care to make it more complex you can use a percentage instead of a fixed value. So, for example, a 9-atk unit would get a -2, while a 20-atk one would get -5 (values are rounded of course). Same for horsemen.

[florin80]

Thank you!
I`m a bit tired so hopefully it`s not a stupid question. If the penalty for the pikemen affects its attack does that mean it will affect both the primary and the secondary weapon values? And if they switch to swords they will still get the same amount of penalty?

The percentage system seem better in this case. Do you apply it as a rule to all ground modifiers and all types of units? I.e. the bonus/penalty being a percent of the existing attack of each unit instead of a fixed number.

[Aradan]

Yes, ground bonuses apply regardless of primary or secondary weapon. So, you gotta find a balance, taking in mind that a unit will not always use the primary weapon (though the AI does mostly).

No, I'm still using the fixed value system, the percentage one is more complex to code into the .xls, but I'll probably do it in the next version of FATW.

[florin80]

Right. That`s the reason -8 it`s way too drastic in the example I`ve given. I was looking at the RTRPE EDU stats and iirc the person who changed these considered that one can`t do anything with a long pike in a forest. But didn`t think about the second weapon and indirectly made the same unit when fighting with a xiphos just as helpless in the forest.
And speaking of which I`m seeing some odd things in the rtrpe edu. The fact that they`re using 4 mount effects instead of just 3 aside, some of the values are huge. For example some cavalry units have elephant -40. In vanilla I see much smaller values. I haven`t noticed it in your guide, so is there a minimum and a maximum value for these mount effects? Like for the stat_ground? And what do they apply to? Attack, defense....
And one more. The cavalry in rtrpe have horse -2. Could there be any reason for this? I don`t see it. They simple negate each others.

[Aradan]

Extra mount effects after the third are ignored.
They affect attack indirectly, I believe (have not found out exactly how yet), and they can take values like +-30, maybe more. I know -30 works, because we've used it in Gods and Fighting Men to make a very powerful "god" vulnerable to a specific mounted unit and it works.
No apparent reason for the horse vs horse bonus... Maybe just to make cavalry battles slower, as both would get an attack reduction? Ask the coder of the EDU.

[florin80]

Those people have been gone for years. Otherwise I would have asked them directly.
Still, elephant -40 for all cavalry units seems excessive. The one I`m looking at now has a total defense of 15, 6 attack and 23 charge. Only if you put all of them together you have from what to take 40 away. In vanilla they have -8. How much would you recommend? In your stats I`ve only noticed penalties for horses even after checking the lines you`ve guided me to. Maybe I`m misreading something.

And, btw, I`m probably gonna stop harassing your thread soon.

[Aradan]

Well, we had no elephants in VI2, hence the lack of elephant bonuses.

Seeing as cavalry is immune to elephant tossing attacks, a -5 would be appropriate. Depends on the mod settings though, I guess.

Feel free to harass it as long as you like.

[florin80]

What happens to the bonuses/penalties of stat_ground when they overlap? For example if a cavalry has -2 on snow and -4 in forests and the battle is played in a snowy forest, will they add to form a -6 penalty?

If they do stuck to each other, what happens if the sum of the stat_ground penalties is bigger than their attack? For example the penalty is -10 and the unit has 8 for attack.

[Aradan]

They do stack, but I think when they exceed the unit's total attack, they have a limit (+1) in the to-kill, calculation, so that the unit doesn't get totally useless. I have not tested this case to the death, so maybe I'm missing sth here; kinda hard to calculate when things go near the limits.

[florin80]

Thanks! I was just reading the section on the attributes and I noticed two things:

# mercenary_unit: unit is a mercenary unit available for hire to all factions in certain regions. It also prevents a unit from replenishing losses and forces it to use the 'merc' texture and sprite lines in DMB for all its faction owners.

What did you mean with the bolded part? The recovery after the battle(cured injured units) or the fact that it can`t be retrained? Because units with mercenary_unit attribute can be given faction ownership and made available in edb(and hence they`re retrainable). Which admittedly is not the case in vanilla much as I know.

# warcry: no longer hardcoded to barbarians in BI.

Isn`t this also true for RTW v1.5?

[Squid]

For the first part, any unit in EDB can be retrained even if it is a "mercenary_unit".

[Aradan]

What Squid said, and true. I'll update, thx.

[Squid]

I seem to recall that the org version of the document has that bit removed, but in my old age memory does funny things.

[Aradan]

Must be the old memory.

Though it is a bit of a pain to maintain the guide at two places...

[florin80]

How would you distribute the hide attributes?
By type of troops(i.e. skirmishers get hide_improved_forest no matter where they come from because they`re light troops) or based on the unit`s home region(gauls and dacians for example getting hide_improved_forest and a persian javelineer only getting hide_forest)? I`m interested on how you see it. And is there any point for the hide_anywhere in a history based game? What fighting unit could - and would - hide on a dirt plain or on a beach?

And what did you mean by this:

Also, units with secondary weapons will use that to charge, and once in proper melee will switch back to their primary (units classified as spearmen will keep using their sec if enemy gets very close).

For example I`ve never seen cavalry using their secondary weapon(sword) for the charge if they`re not missile units. They use the first weapon, the spear.

And speaking of which. What`s the importance of the spearmen class? Does it have any hardcoded bonus/penalty independent of the weapon attributes, or what is its purpose?

[Aradan]

The classes are used for sounds/etc etc purposes, as well for formations (the AI matches "spearmen" units with enemy "cavalry" units etc.

hide-anywhere: unless you have a unit like arcani or ninjas or wood elves, I suggest you ditch it.

hide-attributes: Usually is assigned on a per unit-type base (skirmishers, hunters, etc), but low-level light infantry units or higher-level specialist units will get the improved version depending on culture/origin. So, all skirmishers will take hide_long_grass, but gaul/dacian skirmishers will also get hide_improved_forest, for example. Makes sense?

[Lord Dakier]

Hi Aradan, playing Blue Lotus and there is one faction that are 'supposed to have amazing marksmen' the crossbows that fire fast are short ranged, weak and dont really kill. I know how your the best when it comes to this so... I want to make them so that you could almost call them infantry so they need to have good missile ratings and fairly good infantry stats.

Imagine them more Napolean like... when the enemy comes close they need to be able to go at it melee while other missile units backing them fire.

type BLTW_sunogung
dictionary BLTW_sunogung
category infantry
class missile
voice_type Medium_1
soldier BLTW_sunogung, 30, 0, 1.3
officer BLTW_officer_choson
attributes sea_faring
formation 2, 2, 2, 2, 5,square
stat_health 1, 0
stat_pri 17,2, xbow, 40, 60, missile, archery, piercing, none, 1, 1
stat_pri_attr ap
stat_sec 8,2, no, 0, 0, melee, simple, piercing, knife, 0, 0.075
stat_sec_attr no
stat_pri_armour 10, 5, 0, metal
stat_sec_armour 0, 0, flesh
stat_heat 1
stat_ground 2, -1, 3, 2
stat_mental 10,disciplined,trained
stat_charge_dist 30
stat_fire_delay 0
stat_food 60, 300
stat_cost 1, 750, 275, 170, 170, 750
ownership spain

[Aradan]

type BLTW_sunogung
dictionary BLTW_sunogung
category infantry
class missile
voice_type Medium_1
soldier BLTW_sunogung, 30, 0, 1.3
officer BLTW_officer_choson
attributes sea_faring
formation 2, 2, 2, 2, 5,square
stat_health 1, 0
stat_pri 17,2, xbow, 40, 60, missile, archery, piercing, none, 1, 1
stat_pri_attr ap
stat_sec 8,2, no, 0, 0, melee, simple, piercing, knife, 0, 0.075
stat_sec_attr no
stat_pri_armour 10, 5, 0, metal
stat_sec_armour 0, 0, flesh
stat_heat 1
stat_ground 2, -1, 3, 2
stat_mental 10,disciplined,trained
stat_charge_dist 30
stat_fire_delay 0
stat_food 60, 300
stat_cost 1, 750, 275, 170, 170, 750
ownership spain


Green is the missile attack, increase it if you want better fire-power
Red is the melee attack, increase if you want to make them good at fighting
Blue is melee defense skill, increase if you wabt to make them tougher in melee (won't affect defense against arrows)

I can't tell you how much to change the stats, as I'd need to know the other units' stats for comparison.

[Lord Dakier]

The samurai are probably the best average soldiers. Obviously these archers should be just a bit less stronger.

type BLTW_samurai_swordsmen
dictionary BLTW_samurai_swordsmen
category infantry
class light
;speed normal
voice_type Medium_1
soldier BLTW_samurai_swordsmen, 48, 0, 1
officer BLTW_officer_akagi_zensen
attributes sea_faring,hide_forest,warcry
formation 1.3, 2, 2.6, 4, 4,square
stat_health 1, 0
stat_pri 4,2, no, 0, 0, melee, blade, slashing, sword, 25, 1
stat_pri_attr no
stat_sec 0,0, no, 0, 0, no, no, no, none, 25, 1
stat_sec_attr no
stat_pri_armour 10, 3, 0, metal
stat_sec_armour 0, 0, flesh
stat_heat 7
stat_ground -3, 0, 0, 0
stat_mental 5,impetuous,untrained
stat_charge_dist 30
stat_fire_delay 0
stat_food 60, 300
stat_cost 2, 550, 180, 100, 200, 550
ownership greek_cities, seleucid

[Aradan]

Well, just compare their respective lines and numbers I bolded in the previous post.

stat_sec         8,2, no, 0, 0, melee, simple, piercing, knife, 0, 0.075

The purple part is really hurting the unit's attack. 0.075 is a *very* low chance of killing, since Samurai have it at 1, I suspect you are using vanilla values, so make the purple value 1 as well.
After you do that, make the orange part 25, that's the standard for melee units.
Make the red part 3, to make your crossbowmen a bit weaker than the Samurai.

stat_pri_armour  10, 5, 0, metal

And finally lower the blue part 2 or 3.


That's the layman's approach to unit balancing though, you might want to consider assigning values depending on weapon and armour used, unit "class", etc, instead of this free-form approach.