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Thread: Unit costs and upkeep

  1. #1

    Default Unit costs and upkeep

    Hi guys,

    While I have already raised the "costs" of heavily armoured knights and other units to more sensible levels in this mod. Upkeep has so far remained unchanged from the stats in vanilla. However some of the vanilla upkeep costs do not make much sense to me, so its time improvements were made to them. For example there is little difference in the upkeep costs between mounted knights and dismounted knights? Not only does this not reflect what the real upkeep costs would be like, but this also seems unbalanced to me. As a heavy cavalry unit is more mobile and devastating than a heavy infantry unit. Anyway I have decided to make increases to the upkeep cost of all cavalry units in the EDU, with the more expensive armoured horses getting a slightly higher increase than the rest of course. Also elite crossbowmen got a small increase to their upkeep. I have attached the changes in the EDU to the bottom of this thread. Take a look and you may use them with patch 3.2 if you start a new campaign.

    Below is an image posted by MrChris from another thread which I will use to explain the effects of my new changes.


    In the picture above you can see an elite army slaughtering the Aztecs. But how much did this army cost in patch 3.2? and how much was it to maintain each turn? Here are the old costs coloured in blue, and the new costs coloured in red.

    Yeoman Archers: cost 560, upkeep 150, Yeoman Archers: cost 650, upkeep 150,
    English Knights: cost 1020, upkeep 185,
    English Knights: cost 1020, upkeep 325,
    Armored Swordsmen: cost 610, upkeep 150, Armored Swordsmen: cost 710, upkeep 225,
    Dismounted English Knights: cost 690, upkeep 225, Dismounted English Knights: cost 790, upkeep 225,

    If you add this all up to make the army in the picture above you will get the following results:

    Cost of training this army in patch 3.2 = 13990
    Cost of upkeep for this army in patch 3.2 = 3285

    New cost of training this army = 15170
    New cost to maintain this army each turn = 4425

    So the overall cost has gone up by a bit, but crucially the cost of maintaining such an army for a long duration will cost much more. Which is what I want, instead of recruiting all of the best units when they become available. I want you to think more about your armies, can you afford to mass produce elite units and keep them in the field? It could be argued that my upkeep changes do not go far enough, and heavily armoured knights should cost even more to maintain. But I do not think I should make increases to upkeep much larger than this. What do you think?

    The EDU attached below is probably what I will use in the next update. Its worth mentioning that I have not made changes to unit attack or defense. The only changes are slightly cheaper gunpowder units with the fire by rank removed. Heavy Dismounted units cost a little more. Increased costs of elite crossbowmen by quite a bit. And as already mentioned upkeep costs. If you would like to leave me feedback here, feel free to do so.

    Attachment removed, see post 17 for a more recently moddified EDU.

    Dave
    Last edited by Dave Scarface; July 31, 2008 at 04:05 PM.

  2. #2
    Stylix's Avatar MOS Team Member
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    Default Re: Unit costs and upkeep

    I like it. It certainly makes sense. It only stands to reason that the more advanced the troops and the more equipment they carry they should cost more and be more expensive to produce. Thanks.

  3. #3

    Default Re: Unit costs and upkeep

    Thanks Stylix, I hope some of you guys will try playing a campaign with my latest EDU changes. As the campaign develops and better units become available, this will present more of a challenge later on. As it should prove harder to afford having 5 or 6 full stacks of the best troops at any one time.

    Dave

  4. #4

    Default Re: Unit costs and upkeep

    This looks great! I think I'm going to wait for the new patch to come out before I download the new EDU, just to keep things simpler for my lazy self, lol. I'm looking forward to all the new improvements to this mod Dave, hurry up with a release before my head implodes!!!!

  5. #5

    Default Re: Unit costs and upkeep

    Lol thanks, I am afraid the delay in my developers forum being done may hold up my next update, sorry. I wanted my new team to at least test it for a few days before I release it The last two updates that I released were not up to my usual high standards. Because I do not have the time to test them extensively enough as i used to. Which is part of the reason I have now decided to get together a team to help me produce bug free releases again.

    Best,
    Dave

  6. #6

    Default Re: Unit costs and upkeep

    No worries, I'm sure well get it out in tip-top shape

  7. #7

    Default Re: Unit costs and upkeep

    Anyone got any feedback for me on this then? I would like to include this in my next update. I also think I should put the upkeep of dismounted knights up a touch as well. It seems only logical that they should cost more to maintain as well.

    Dave

  8. #8

    Default Re: Unit costs and upkeep

    I haven't tried it as of yet, still trying to finish of my campagin.

    Whilst we are on the subject of cost is there any way possible you could put the price down and time of building on things, i mean i have a population of 10,000+ and it going to take 16 years to build something it slows the game woefully and with the current prices you can only build a settlement up at a time (not that fun when your empire is large or small)

  9. #9

    Default Re: Unit costs and upkeep

    @maltesefalcon,

    i mean i have a population of 10,000+ and it going to take 16 years to build something it slows the game woefully
    Which buildings? there are no buildings in this mod that take 16 turns to construct. The longest building times are for huge stone walls and citadels which take 12 turns (6 years). You have to take into account that this campaign is 0.5 years per turn. So building times are going to be longer than what you may normally be used to in vanilla. This together with my growth rate helps the campaign to progress much slower. Which in turn makes the game hold your interest for far longer.

    I don't know about you guys, but I found development to be a bit quick in the original campaign. You would get to higher buildings to early and also the gun powder event occured far to soon. When I think about it now I shudder to think why CA decided to go with 2 years per turn, what were they thinking? And if you look at other mods like LTC, DLV, SS they have one thing in common. They all made these increases to costs and building construction times.

    Dave
    Last edited by Dave Scarface; July 29, 2008 at 01:42 AM.

  10. #10
    Incontinenta Buttox's Avatar Protector Domesticus
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    Default Re: Unit costs and upkeep

    Dave,

    I like the idea, and I think it should be implemented into the next update. I agree that elite units should be much more expensive to maintain.

  11. #11
    Incontinenta Buttox's Avatar Protector Domesticus
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    Default Re: Unit costs and upkeep

    Quote Originally Posted by maltesefalcon View Post
    I haven't tried it as of yet, still trying to finish of my campagin.

    Whilst we are on the subject of cost is there any way possible you could put the price down and time of building on things, i mean i have a population of 10,000+ and it going to take 16 years to build something it slows the game woefully and with the current prices you can only build a settlement up at a time (not that fun when your empire is large or small)
    Do you want to be able to produce tanks and stealth bombers by 1400?

  12. #12

    Default Re: Unit costs and upkeep

    definately should be implemented

    I myself like to create armies and keep them going, when they capture a settlement I move in a garrison to replace them while they go off to retrain them

    it makes army composition something to think about, in that screeny I had a field army that annihilated anything the Aztecs threw at me because I didn't bother with armoured sergreants , I kept high numbers of longbowmen because of the lack of enemy armour and experienced mounted knights really do plow

    I think it would have been far less entertaining had I just say create 2 random stacks and used those instead

    although in that battle it was quite funny as we were attacking a sieging army and the garrison basically insta routed lol

  13. #13

    Default Re: Unit costs and upkeep

    wow, my bad Dave 16 years was a mistype on my behalf, but what about the prices mate 8000k for a calapat yard that doesn't produce catapats and stops the production of ballista

  14. #14

    Default Re: Unit costs and upkeep

    Hi Dave,

    I think that the unit pool for cavalry in castles should come down a little for the all types of mounted knights, forcing you to field lighter cavalry which seems to fall by the wayside after you gain access to the better stuff.

    I do agree that dismounted heavy units should be way more expensive, maybe up their upkeep to 300 plus and let the unit pool replenish much more slowly, anything to make the game harder and keep a role for all types of units alive longer.

    Maybe also make retaining for armour upgrades much much more expensive to reflect how lucky you would have had to have been to have recieved any protection at all let alone dishing it out to everyone. Just because units are produced in a place that may have an armoury/blacksmith does'nt necessary mean that all units should get armour upgrades. You should have to pay seperately to get this after the units are produced or just pay much more when produced but the cost should not remain the same as it was before the armoury/blascksmiths where built.

    (appreciate none of the above maybe possible).

    Just some thoughts though,

    cheers
    Last edited by brousell; July 29, 2008 at 01:47 PM.

  15. #15
    THARN's Avatar Senator
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    Default Re: Unit costs and upkeep

    Does this effect the ai Factions much?>
    Im playing Byzantine atm on H/H and am having a heck of a time with Hungary and their Massive armies of crossbowmen/archers and heavy cavalry/. I can barely keep up now as Antioch/Venice/Hungary are hitting me from all sides. If upkeep went up and hurt me-I would hope It has the same effect on them.

  16. #16

    Default Re: Unit costs and upkeep

    Dave,

    Just need to be careful not to hurt the AI too much with upkeep, I don't think you need to make things too much more expensive, remember after a certain point in the game the player will usually have alot more money than the AI, meaning that these changes won't be that restrictive to the human player in the later game, where the AI may struggle.

    However if your looking to get people to build more realistic armies you can always adjust the regeneration rate and unit pool size in EDB, it is a pretty effective way to limit the amount of a certain type of unit appearing in the game I used to do it with siege weapons to stop the AI building too many, I just made them have a unit pool of 1 max and if purchased it would take 10 turns before the pool got a replacement. Don't restrict them too much though or the AI will just fill it's stacks with what's available.

    Getting a bit OT here but can you reduce the amount of units Antioch and Jerusalem get at game start, I've played around with this and reduced them from all provinces and moved some remaining units to Ascalon to keep it safe from the Egyptians.

    I aslo reduced the agressiveness of these two factions against AI oponents, so hopefully they don't take over the region as much.

  17. #17

    Default Re: Unit costs and upkeep

    Deleted.
    Last edited by Dave Scarface; August 21, 2008 at 03:17 AM.

  18. #18

    Default Re: Unit costs and upkeep

    Does anyone have any feedback for me on the new unit upkeep costs post 3.4? No opinions from anyone on this yet since it was released.

    thanks,
    Dave

  19. #19
    Incontinenta Buttox's Avatar Protector Domesticus
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    Default Re: Unit costs and upkeep

    Quote Originally Posted by dave scarface View Post
    Does anyone have any feedback for me on the new unit upkeep costs post 3.4? No opinions from anyone on this yet since it was released.

    thanks,
    Dave
    Dave,

    Viking raiders upkeep seem a bit costly. More expensive than dismounted Huscarls which is a more elite unit. Otherwise, I am liking what I have seen so far.

  20. #20
    Stylix's Avatar MOS Team Member
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    Default Re: Unit costs and upkeep

    You know the saying 'no news is good news' and so far I agree with this. I have enjoyed the new update costs and believe it is more realistic.

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