FUBAR's Constructive Criticism

**FUBAR-** · February 27, 2015, 07:00 PM

We've all seen Seer's EDU Rebalance Mod (link at the bottom), a logical overhaul of all units' stats based on a realistic system of values. For the past weeks, I've been attempting to construct my own system to balance out various different values of the EDU; many of formulas include a unit's own stats concerning discipline and training levels. Changes are made to Shield, Skill, Lethality, Mass, Attack, Missile Attack, Moral, Charge Bonus, Stamina, and Heat; with values taken from the material, size, and style of the shield, the weapon used, formation, discipline and training are near constant, and a variety of X-factors. The formulas are all aimed to place every unit onto an even playing field, and then add or subtract based on the equipment and capabilities of the soldier, keeping and eye on battlefield effect, and making sure values never stray too far from each other. By keeping everyone's stats within the same area, my goal has been to give any mortal man on the battlefield a fighting chance against another mortal man, while still giving well equipped, professional soldiers an edge against lesser foes. Combat has gained a more apparent X-factor of luck and chance. Despite all the best training and experience... **** happens.

My best example of how this plays out is when I made four different versions of the Machimoi unit, untrained-undisciplined, trained-normal, highly trained-disciplined, and "elite" (note: "untrained" gives a unit the biggest gap between levels, trained, highly trained, and highly trained units have closer values), then pit them against each other first in head on battles, then in various conditions of fatigue, and of being out-numbered. An untrained unit lost 7/10 ten frontal assaults against trained soldiers; but in 5 of those battles gave a very good account of itself, and in one they had an extremely successful first half of the melee, before lady luck turned her favour elsewhere. During one battle they had their proverbial donkeys handed to them, complete with gift wrap and cute little bows of ribbon. This trend follows through the various levels, with elite units winning every bout with untrained and trained warriors, but always taking losses, always having to invest time and effort fighting the foe; no scything through an enemy formation barely "warmed up". With stats close behind each other, the debuffs from fatigue had a distinctive impact; I quite confidently charged an exhausted elite unit with a well-rested group of untrained soldiers, leading to the elite soldiers being pushed back, though both sides took losses at a similar rate. As the undisciplined troops were lacking in moral, they broke off just under half strength, leaving the elite troops the victor, though having taken relatively high losses from a single lesser foe. This situation was replicated several times, with various results, the above being the most likely. The ability of lesser units to still cause casualties, though limited as the gap between troops' stats increases, allows effective "zerging" tactics. My 600 levy Machimoi always stopped the 200 royal guards, though tactics (or the lack thereof) could take my casualties from atrocious to acceptable.

Another change I've made, and perhaps the more radical towards combat, is that I've added the "spear" attribute to most every unit. In fact: one of the few cases lacking "spear" is the hoplites, and various other units whom share the shield_wall ability, as "spear" breaks this function. When two units engage each other, both with "spear" added to their weapons, it adds a mingling effect to the ensuing melee. No more does the front line of formations grind away at each other, meanwhile the back ranks wait their turn, all the while the entire unit gathers fatigue. After the initial charge, the front lines will actively attempt to break past one another, and should they succeed it results in a chaotic cluster-**** where anything can happen, particularly with an EDU design meant to give every battle the feel of tossing a pair of dice. Truly, it is hard to convey into words the battles I've witnessed; were a 1-on-1 skirmish has so much happening in so small a space. On the left flank, ground is being given, a few meters away the soldiers at the center have managed to push ahead, but without support they were cut off and surrounded. On the right flank fighting has dissolved to the afore mentioned cluster-****, where small groups are fighting other small groups, happenstance may lead to soldiers attacking others from the rear, far more likely to land strikes. The left flank recovers, pushing far enough to bring the remainder of those surrounded back into the fold, at the same time the fighting on the right flank goes badly, and resolves with those not killed pushed back and into the gaining left flank. This results in a new front line forming after the whole battle rotated 90 degrees... Now imagine the chaos of a full on 3k Vs 3k battle.

Though this is far from finished, testing is still alpha stage, I'm posting this and details in the hope of receiving feedback from the community. The following spoilers contain notes, formulas, and several EDU entries.

Personal notes, explains the reasoning behind much of the content.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

These rulesets are very open to change, if you've any changes, or have any thoughts to add, please leave a post with your ideas and reasoning. In particular my shield table needs.. refining, and I'm very likely to add to the attack and lethality tables to give slight buffs/debuffs for particular designs of weapons.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

This is the arithmetic used for the units below:
(things got sloppy during the copy-paste...)

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

These are the EDU entries (only up to the stat_mental line) for every one of the examples above, enough to field a fair sized, though not entirely historical, battle. These units are all available to all, if not every, nation in a singleplayer EDU's custom battle roster, in case the trivial script dislikes you as much as it does myself.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Seer7's EDU Rebalance Mod: http://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showth...d&p=2053506522
All the armour stats and quiver capasities are his work. I'd like to thank him for the time and effort he placed into his mod, it inspired much of my own work.

**b0Gia de Bodemloze** · February 28, 2015, 09:03 AM

Nice work!

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