[Release] Public Battle Balancing (01/12/16)

[Commissar Caligula_]

What? In TATW he is a unit in battle mode.

Yes, but in Rise of Mordor we're planning on him being simply the officer of a unit of 160 orcs or however many, rather than a 1 man unit.

[AlexiosThe1st]

I don't really want to change my system of stats, I think armoured troops SHOULD have lower combat stats but last longer.

Not sure if you've changed your stance on this, I started reading page 1 and that's as far as I've gotten. I completely disagree with this. You cited the "Game of Thrones" fight with Bronn and a heavily armored knight as your reasoning for this.

Firstly, GoT is better than most TV/movies when it comes to portraying combat with hand weapons, but they're far from perfect and should hardly be considered a source for a reasonable discussion about armed combat. And on top of that, I think that fight in particular was rather poorly done.

It seems a common opinion in the fantasy genre that heavily armored troops are at a disadvantage when fighting lightly armored, agile troops. In my opinion, this is rubbish. Armor can be a disadvantage in certain contexts, but a full plate harness isn't actually that heavy. It weighs generally less than a modern soldier's combat load (40-60 lbs depending on period and region).

But certainly, the argument that someone skilled with a sword would fight "better" (higher melee attack value) without his armor than with it, is reasonable. Armor does limit movement to some degree.

That said, when comparing a militia unit to a professional unit, it seems to me absolutely ridiculous to say that the militiaman would have greater "skill" with a weapon. And this is more or less my main point. I'll happily concede that when comparing two units of supposedly equal skill (professional, elite, etc.) the one with more armor should have a slightly lesser melee attack value. But never should a levy unit be more "skilled" than a professional one. I'd be fine with having the Lore Masters have a much greater melee attack value than the Noldorian Swordsman, but I think Gondor militia should not have a greater melee attack than professional soldiers.

I think the basic concept is sound, that a lighter unit would be more mobile, agile etc. than a heavily armored unit. But that's ignoring a far more important measure of skill, training.

[Commissar Caligula_]

I'll concede that my balancing does have a few flaws in it lols, another one is that quite a few units would go into negative numbers for their melee attack/defence, but I've had to cap it at 1 being the lowest.

Luckily the lore guys made their own balancing system as well which we're using, and I've got until the first public release to fix my system and release it as a sub-mod.

[Alkar]

Not sure if you've changed your stance on this, I started reading page 1 and that's as far as I've gotten. I completely disagree with this. You cited the "Game of Thrones" fight with Bronn and a heavily armored knight as your reasoning for this.

Firstly, GoT is better than most TV/movies when it comes to portraying combat with hand weapons, but they're far from perfect and should hardly be considered a source for a reasonable discussion about armed combat. And on top of that, I think that fight in particular was rather poorly done.

It seems a common opinion in the fantasy genre that heavily armored troops are at a disadvantage when fighting lightly armored, agile troops. In my opinion, this is rubbish. Armor can be a disadvantage in certain contexts, but a full plate harness isn't actually that heavy. It weighs generally less than a modern soldier's combat load (40-60 lbs depending on period and region).

But certainly, the argument that someone skilled with a sword would fight "better" (higher melee attack value) without his armor than with it, is reasonable. Armor does limit movement to some degree.

That said, when comparing a militia unit to a professional unit, it seems to me absolutely ridiculous to say that the militiaman would have greater "skill" with a weapon. And this is more or less my main point. I'll happily concede that when comparing two units of supposedly equal skill (professional, elite, etc.) the one with more armor should have a slightly lesser melee attack value. But never should a levy unit be more "skilled" than a professional one. I'd be fine with having the Lore Masters have a much greater melee attack value than the Noldorian Swordsman, but I think Gondor militia should not have a greater melee attack than professional soldiers.

I think the basic concept is sound, that a lighter unit would be more mobile, agile etc. than a heavily armored unit. But that's ignoring a far more important measure of skill, training.

I agree with this, militia spam must not become a thing. xD

[Commissar Caligula_]

Feedback

I'm using italian version of Steam that's probably why I can't see names for units and factions. A copy paste with no translation would be just fine even for IT file.

Ok here's the temporary translations for Czech, French, German, Italian, Polish, Russian, Spanish and Turkish.
The translations consist of all base Total War Attila text being the language you choose, whilst all Rise of Mordor text is in English.
This means the text won't just be blank if you're using a different language.

Download Link: https://drive.google.com/drive/folde...HVNREh4bDBNUWs
Choose the language you want to choose, download the file, extract it using winrar or 7zip and then move the .pack file to wherever you installed Total War Attila, such as C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Total War Attila\data
To run the mod, simply tick the latest version of Rise of Mordor on. The language file will auto-enable as it is a MOVIE file type. Thus if you aren't playing Rise of Mordor, move the translation mod to some other folder so it isn't active.

Credit: ALL credit for the idea goes to Swiss Halberdier and the Unit Pack Compatibility team. I just took all their files and tweaked them to work for Rise of Mordor.
All credit for the text files goes to the Rise of Mordor lore team; Maestro1 and Cshewey
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?680610

You can translate it to your own language if you want, but I'd say its a waste of time since we'll probably update all the text files with new stuff.

[Mr.Jox]

What? In TATW he is a unit in battle mode.

Rise of Mordor isn't a TATW

[Swiss Halberdier]

Credit: ALL credit for the idea goes to Swiss Halberdier and the Unit Pack Compatibility team. I just took all their files and tweaked them to work for Rise of Mordor.
All credit for the text files goes to the Rise of Mordor lore team; Maestro1 and Cshewey

Thanks a lot for the Credits Caligula. It was a pleasure to help and teach you how to do these custom language files based on my UPC work.
I wish to the whole RoM team good luck with this impressive overhaul mod!

[Tietonian]

Nerfing combat performance based on the wearing of armor is completely unrealistic and not supported by any real-world experience. The only thing I could see happening is the more heavily armored units getting tired more quickly (kind of like Cataphracts and such do in the vanilla games).

I say the above with great respect and gratitude to the people actually working on the balancing as opposed to just saying things on the internet...

[Commissar Caligula_]

Nerfing combat performance based on the wearing of armor is completely unrealistic and not supported by any real-world experience. The only thing I could see happening is the more heavily armored units getting tired more quickly (kind of like Cataphracts and such do in the vanilla games).

I say the above with great respect and gratitude to the people actually working on the balancing as opposed to just saying things on the internet...

Yeah my balancing does require a few changes lols. Whilst the idea sounds stupid, I personally do think that it works well in practice.

Anyways, next release will probably be the lore balancing. We're just ironing out missile damage then it should be good to go. This balancing should make you happy in terms of the ideas behind it, and the actual in-game performance.

[Tietonian]

I forgot to add this to my original post but I think the low health point idea is rather clever. It never made sense to me that a unit would be showered with missiles for a few minutes and then all of a sudden get cut in half! I think basing a units resistance to hits (missile or otherwise) off of some arbitrary health value instead of realistic evaluations of armor/shield-missile/melee interactions is kind of silly. I'm definitely looking forward to the lore balancing as well as further iterations of this one!

[Prozn856]

Pikes are completely broken right now, using just two units of Gondor Fountain Guard I destroyed 4 entire armies from Mordor and Isengard while losing around 10 soldiers.

[Kellhus]

Do it works with Attila base game?

[Commissar Caligula_]

Do it works with Attila base game?

No, since 90% of the stuff this mod does is applied to custom units individually, only broad stuff such as morale and fatigue rules apply to Attila, and they'd ruin the balance in Attila anyways.

[Kellhus]

I mean, Need I to purchase all the DLC content in order to play this mod?

[Gamersville101]

no?

[♔atthias♔]

I mean, Need I to purchase all the DLC content in order to play this mod?

no only attlilla is needed

[Kellhus]

no only attlilla is needed

ThanksThat was my point.

[One Eyed]

I have played only one battle, which is surely not enough to make any statement on current balancing, and few minor test battles. Here's my opinion so far, i will probs update it later:
- weakest dalian bow unit has the same range as the most elite elvish bows. I mean, i hate those pointy eared bastards, but you cannot take away their skill in bow
- Rhovanion regent has the same speed as snagas(i guess it's a mistake and you'll probably fix it soon)
- snagas hold out too long, it took about 2 minutes for a unit of shipmen and laketown guard to destroy them. They are not OP, it's just they are supposed to just drop by looking at enemy but they're holding line for quite some time
- Dalian spearguard is just a worse version of laketown guard, but they cost the same, and spearguard don't seem to have better missile block chance, which is stupid considering their armor and shield
- Literally 30 berserkers dropped immediately after charging the pikes. I know that pikes job is to hold the line, but holy what was that
- no uruk-hai unit has resistant to fatigue buff. They are breed specifically for war, very sturdy, especially berserkers, they shouldn't even know what tired means
- No spread out formation
- UI looks amazing, i got a boner from looking at the main menu, and almost came when the dalian UI showed up
- why do olog hai have less attack than mountain trolls? Aren't they like, better at killing stuff?
That's about it, other than that i have no real issues right now (except the fact that I can't really understand why are you holding up with giving models to public release, but hey, your mod, your decision), can't wait for more factions to check out

[xalvissx]

IIRC, there will not be any cavalry for the Dwarves, so how would you guys plan to make them so that they avoid the problem with TW:WH Dwarves, that is, lack of mobility, so players will not sit in a box or in a corner and camp the entire game ?

[Commissar Caligula_]

IIRC, there will not be any cavalry for the Dwarves, so how would you guys plan to make them so that they avoid the problem with TW:WH Dwarves, that is, lack of mobility, so players will not sit in a box or in a corner and camp the entire game ?

They'll get mercenary Dalian cavalry, but at the moment only one unit is planned. Perhaps more need to be planned, since TW:WH Dwarves' lack of mobility is pretty terrible.