Rebalance mod beta v0.5

[the_mango55]

This is the first release of my rebalance mod, which will eventually include a large number of changes for all factions. This release includes many of the text and some of the balance changes, while we wait for the graphic files to be figured out.

To see more of what will be included in the final release see This thread.

Download links
http://files.filefront.com/Install_R.../fileinfo.html
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=L9V4CXSF

After install, make sure you keep "run after install" selected, it creates your config file, and if you don't have it the changes won't take effect. If you forget to do this, go to your Medieval II Total War directory and launch the file named "cfgfixer."

ON TO THE CHANGES!

**GUN UNITS**

Reduced accuracy of guns
Increased damage of guns
Reduced cost of most
Changed building requirements
Increased unit size
Reduced melee combat abilities

**BOW AND CROSSBOW UNITS**

Reduced damage of all crossbow units by 2
Reduced maximum fire angle of crossbows to 30 degrees (no firing straight up)
Reduced maximum fire angle of bows to 45 degrees

**CAVALRY UNITS**

Reduced all cavalry charge bonuses by 2
Reduced the mass of the mounts (should reduce charge more)

**ARTILLARY UNITS**

Doubled cost of regular artillary units, reduced upkeep of balista and catapult
Reduced damage to buildings from catapults and balistae
Added 1 extra ballista in their units
Doubled number of gunpowder artillery
Halved damage against walls
Tripled price of gunpowder units
Tweaked accuracy and range of some units

**2-HANDED AXE UNITS**

Changed animation to Zweihander
Reduced attack by 2-3

**OTHER GENERAL CHANGES**

Changed town/spear militia from 1 defense 6 shield to 3 defense 4 shield
Nerfed peasant units from 4 attack 3 defense to 2 attack 2 defense
Removed highest level city barracks (no units built there anymore)
Armored Sergeants given 2 more defense points

**FACTION CHANGES**

ENGLAND

Billmen improved, given bonus vs cavalry.
Added Armored Sergeants

BYZANTINE EMPIRE

Changed tech tree a lot
Improved Byzantine Spearmen to be relative equals of Sergeant Spearmen
Added new unit - Klibanophoroi - heavily armored mounted archer
Added new unit - Pronoiai Allagion - heavily armored western style cavalry

HRE

Dropped Zweihander on tech tree
Added Dismounted Gothic Knights
Improved Dismounted Imperial Knights

SCOTLAND

Replaced Peasant archer with Highland archer
Replaced Highland acher with Kerns

SICILY

Improved Dismounted Norman Knights
Gave Norman Knights mailed horses

MILAN

Increased upkeep of genoese pavise units

VENICE

Corrected the Venitian archer and VHI models

MOORS

Reduced upkeep of Tuareg Camel Spearmen
Increased starting population of Granada

MONGOLS

Added (somewhat low) upkeep to mongol units, to make them less Godlike
Increaded starting money and kings purse

TIMURIDS

Replaced their Cannon Elephants with Rocket Elephants
Added upkeep to Elephants
Increaded starting money and kings purse

TURKS

Raised JHI on the tech tree

RUSSIANS

Differentiated the Dismounted Druzhina and Boyar

Here are a coupe of pics:

New Byzantine units


Normans look 10x better now


Let me know what you think, I haven't been able to playtest all of it, so if there are bugs or balance issues, make sure you let me know about it.

it's called the Rebalance mod after all!

[turd]

damn! very nice.

[Eudorus]

Damn those units look AWSOME!!!
giving this one a go, DL NOW!!!!

EDIT

Normans look 10x better now

10x man Id say 100x they were real,.... um, er TACKY before

[Taneda Santôka]

Great! Is there a way you can moddify Norman Knight's armour upgrade? Give them the same look as upgraded Byzantine Latinkons and not this full plate look very close to all western knights. The scale armour is much more appropriate!

[Eudorus]

Just been thrashin' around as england and Im wondering is there any faction you'd like tested?.

Let me know what you think, I haven't been able to playtest all of it, so if there are bugs or balance issues, make sure you let me know about it.

got HEAPS of time to kill if there is just let me know

Is there a way you can moddify Norman Knight's armour upgrade? Give them the same look as upgraded Byzantine Latinkons and not this full plate

I like them how they are, armour was different the world over there where a few methods to making armour (gothic knights got it right) and this is Sicily not England or France so they should look and be a bit different. (IMHO)

[Armfelt]

Hey could you release a version without the animation change, since somebody managed to get the demo animations working?

[sera]

Kudos mango, I've been waiting for a holistic rebalancing mod!

**GUN UNITS**

Reduced accuracy of guns
Increased damage of guns
Reduced cost of most
Changed building requirements
Increased unit size
Reduced melee combat abilities

As you know, the vanilla firearms units are much stronger both offensively and defensively than their stats indicate. Is there a way of having their stats at least somewhat accurately reflect their true power? I mean, the defense stats of some of these units are really low, yet they seem almost impervious to archery/crossbow fire.

**BOW AND CROSSBOW UNITS**

Reduced damage of all crossbow units by 2
Reduced maximum fire angle of crossbows to 30 degrees (no firing straight up)
Reduced maximum fire angle of bows to 45 degrees

Do you think there's a way of reducing the attack speed of crossbow units slightly? The initial attack should, if possible, realistically be almost instant though (x-bow already loaded, no need for reloading). The latter would of course go for firearms units as well. With such an approach you could reintroduce the vanilla damage.

**CAVALRY UNITS**

Reduced the mass of the mounts (should reduce charge more)

Most agree charge is overpowered, but do you differentiate between light and heavy horse here? Light horse could do with lowering its charge power more than heavy horse. Worried this might negatively affect charge too much. This was the age of the horse after all (right up to the introduction of pikemen, highpowered crossbows and firearms).

**2-HANDED AXE UNITS**

Changed animation to Zweihander
Reduced attack by 2-3

Good call. Do you consider implementing the 2H-Axe animation "fix" here? The units that benefit from these animations become quite overpowered and would need rebalancing though (hopefully without having the stats become misleading!).

**OTHER GENERAL CHANGES**

Removed highest level city barracks (no units built there anymore)

Does that entail that we lose the affected units from gameplay all together? If that is the case; not so good.

MOORS

Reduced upkeep of Tuareg Camel Spearmen
Increased starting population of Granada

You might want to look into the Moorish units produced by castle barracks. Tier 2 Berber Spearmen is better than Tier 3 Nubian Spearmen. Same stats, cost and upkeep. But the Tier 2 unit have 3 abilities to none for the Tier 3. This is devolution, not evolution!

The Tier 4 Lamtuna Spearmen is also highly lackluster compared to price/upkeep (580/185 for a 9att/10def unit!). Especially with the improvements you do to Tier 3 Armoured Sergeants.

Also consider adding a financial building or two to the faction (possibly Bank and Paper Priniting as per HRE building roster). During the 12th century Muslim Spain generated more revenue than all of Christian Europe combined according to some sources (mostly due to paper, and textiles).

Valencia should be Moorish at the start and El Cid a Spanish General with VERY LOW loyalty. El Cid did not conquer Valencia (supported by Zaragoza) before 12 years after game start and held it only 7 years before the Moors reconquered it again.

TURKS

Raised JHI on the tech tree

Again; possible to have stats reflect the true power of this unit (and anyone else who uses the same animation)?


* Other things I wondered about is the possibility of implementing the "Vulnerability to missiles" ability back in. I've noticed certain units have this ability listed when selecting units from custom battles, but not in game. Some later units have very low defense (due to lack of much armour and shield); how about upping their defense skill slightly and reintroducing the Vulnerability to missiles ability for such units?
Generally all units without shield and little armour should be candidates for this trait.

* Possibility of modding buildable regional type of troops independent of faction. Eg. Swiss Pikemen available to any faction (with the proper building) holding Bern, Genoese Crossbowmen in Genoa, Longbowmen in Wales, etc.

[Scarface123]

I've added a mirrror to Strategy Informer

http://www.strategyinformer.com/pc/m.../mod/9939.html

[Hybris./Oster.]

changing the sicily´s bodyguard to norman knights would be cool!

But anyway great mod, testing it now.

[KaerMorhen]

Rebalance mod beta v0.5 compatible with LtQ1.21 or not???

[the_mango55]

As you know, the vanilla firearms units are much stronger both offensively and defensively than their stats indicate. Is there a way of having their stats at least somewhat accurately reflect their true power? I mean, the defense stats of some of these units are really low, yet they seem almost impervious to archery/crossbow fire.

I have changed the defense a bit, I did quite a bit of testing with them, and they lose to elite archery units now, so they definately aren't immune to arrows.

Do you think there's a way of reducing the attack speed of crossbow units slightly? The initial attack should, if possible, realistically be almost instant though (x-bow already loaded, no need for reloading). The latter would of course go for firearms units as well. With such an approach you could reintroduce the vanilla damage.

I have looked into this, but I'm not certian. I think there may be a way to increase delay between shots, but I don't think they can come pre-loaded.

Most agree charge is overpowered, but do you differentiate between light and heavy horse here? Light horse could do with lowering its charge power more than heavy horse. Worried this might negatively affect charge too much. This was the age of the horse after all (right up to the introduction of pikemen, highpowered crossbows and firearms).

The heavy mounts are still much heavier than the light mounts.

And the charges are still devastating on the open plain .

Good call. Do you consider implementing the 2H-Axe animation "fix" here? The units that benefit from these animations become quite overpowered and would need rebalancing though (hopefully without having the stats become misleading!).

Yeah I didn't exactly know how this fix worked, and I didn't want to include someone else's work into my mod before asking permission. I will probably test that out and possibly include it in a later release if I feel it

Does that entail that we lose the affected units from gameplay all together? If that is the case; not so good.

The gunpowder units were moved altogether from the barracks to the alchemist lab/university tree. Since the only unit used by this building was musketeers, it won't remove any units.

You might want to look into the Moorish units produced by castle barracks. Tier 2 Berber Spearmen is better than Tier 3 Nubian Spearmen. Same stats, cost and upkeep. But the Tier 2 unit have 3 abilities to none for the Tier 3. This is devolution, not evolution!

Yes, this has been in my to-do list. I'm going to put an armored spearman in it's place after I can edit graphics more.

The Tier 4 Lamtuna Spearmen is also highly lackluster compared to price/upkeep (580/185 for a 9att/10def unit!). Especially with the improvements you do to Tier 3 Armoured Sergeants.

Thanks, I will look to upgrade their defensive skill a bit.

Also consider adding a financial building or two to the faction (possibly Bank and Paper Priniting as per HRE building roster). During the 12th century Muslim Spain generated more revenue than all of Christian Europe combined according to some sources (mostly due to paper, and textiles).

Interesting idea, I will probably add something, and probably make the caravan stop buildable in cities.

Valencia should be Moorish at the start and El Cid a Spanish General with VERY LOW loyalty. El Cid did not conquer Valencia (supported by Zaragoza) before 12 years after game start and held it only 7 years before the Moors reconquered it again.

Interesting ideas, but I think Valencia is rebel for balance reasons.

* Possibility of modding buildable regional type of troops independent of faction. Eg. Swiss Pikemen available to any faction (with the proper building) holding Bern, Genoese Crossbowmen in Genoa, Longbowmen in Wales, etc.

This is also on my to-do list, along with a much more varied mercenary selection.

Rebalance mod beta v0.5 compatible with LtQ1.21 or not???

No, you could *possibly* use the world folder from ltq to give the changes on the campaign map though, but that would be it.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that it IS compatable with Shaba Wangy's diplomacy mod, and I recommend it highly.

I've added a mirrror to Strategy Informer

Thanks!



But anyway, I'm off to graduate from college today and tomorrow.

I will be back Wednesday evening and will get working on any balance issues you guys find!

[Rammstein]

did you increase the unit size over 150? i thoungt it was not possible?

[sera]

Had to reinstall the game and haven't gotten around to doing any unit testing. However, the HRE Forlorn Hope (30man 2-H sword unit) should have 2hps. I tested Sherwood Archers against Forlorn Hope and the merry men in tights slaughtered the HRE unit without even having to fire an arrow (pure melee)! I'm astounded by CA's obvious lack of play testing of this game!

The gunpowder units were moved altogether from the barracks to the alchemist lab/university tree. Since the only unit used by this building was musketeers, it won't remove any units.

Understand your rationale, but wouldn't it look sort of out of place to have your crack units (pardon the pun ) suddenly be recruited from labs and unis?

But anyway, I'm off to graduate from college today and tomorrow.

I will be back Wednesday evening and will get working on any balance issues you guys find!

Best of luck!

[DrJambo]

Regarding the 2H axe animations I also used the 2H sword to fix them. This animation is slower and far less deadly than their default anims in the pre-gold demo. Because of this you then don't have to nerf their stats as much. This is preferable since it can have other implications on the AI's decision to build them and also on autocalc results.

Nice fixes though. Seems you've thought through them very well indeed.

How did you actually do the change to the Norman horses? I'd like to do this too.

Cheers

[sera]

Mango, one of the most important issues in my mind would be to restore stats as a reliable indicator of unit strength.

As you very well know, most of the 2-H weapons (with the probable exception of 2-H Swords) seem to have animations that supercede their stats factoring in combat efficiency. I understand this issue also affect the AI unitbuild priorities and auto battle calculation as well? The solution probably lies in slowing the attack chain of said overpowered animations down sufficiently to raise their stats to a realistic level. This should be done to all affected units (eg. JHI, Voulgier and other halberd units). And if introducing the 2-H Axe animations, certainly to these.

As for the firearms vs. archer/crossbow strength. All my vanilla tests clearly indicate both the offensive, but perhaps especially the defensive stats for firearms units are misleading. Firearms units will trash other missile units with significantly better stats. Don't know how the situation is changed with your firearms tweak, but that wouldn't adress the defensive overpower (at least vs. non-firearms missile units). Clearly some testing is required here - especially if you want to make the stats truly mean something.

Ram - personally I think the attack rating/damage it does to walls and gates should be lowered somewhat. Especially considering the lack of murderholes for MTW2.

Hope you got some spare time on your hands or even better, are open to collaboration with other modders. This is likely going to take quite a bit of time!

[sera]

Done some further testing. Not taking unit cost and maintenance into account.


Dismounted Gothic Knights, Dismounted English Knights and Janissary Heavy Infantry is balanced fairly well against each other. DEK beat DGK, JHI beat DEK, DGK beat JHI. This is as it should be considering the strengths (and weaknesses) of each.

Each of these 2H units are stronger offensively than both the Varangian Guard and Dismounted Imperial Knights but these units are stronger defensively vs. misile troops and charges.

Seems well balanced.

[the_mango55]

This is definitely going into the final version

[Dogma75]

Is this mod compatible to Shabas diplomacy mod?

[sera]

2H blunt/axe unit(s) still not fixed:

Croatian Axemen


List over 2H blunt/axe units from Redmark includes:

woodsmen
croat_axemen
religious_fanatics
billmen
heavy_billmen
bill_militia
heavy_bill_militia
berdiche_axemen
varangian_guard
norse_axemen
english_huscarls
galloglaich
tabardariyya
baltest_2haxe (presumably balance test 2h axe, not a real unit)

MTW2_Slow_2H_Axe:
dismounted_english_knights
dismounted_noble_knights
dismounted_portuguese_knights
free_company_men_at_arms

MTW2_Fast_2H_Axe:
mutatawwi'a
eagle_warriors

[the_mango55]

Is this mod compatible to Shabas diplomacy mod?

Yes it is.