Peasants

[Xeno_cws]

I'm just curious as to why they are still in the mod. During my campaings they are a very rare sighting. On the campaign I'm doing now (100-150 turns in) I have only seen one unit of peasants (oddly enough they where silver chevron too).

The only time I have them is when the council gives them too me (which I disband right after) or I need a unit right then and there (rare as well since town militia is almost immediately available.

The stats on them are sad (and it should be), pretty much useless for anything except keeping your populous happy. Then its wait until you get some militia before disbanding them.


If your going to keep them you should really lower the cost and upkeep on them, same with pilgrims at that.


Ummm, one last thing while I talk about units, when I crusade I like to take the holy cross with me; however, I can never seem to be able to hire one anymore. Was this on purpose?

[acegogo]

you can only recruit a holy cross in Italy, and that only if no other faction has hired them before!!!

[Rex Inanimatus]

Historically there was never such a thing as a peasant which you could recruit/call to arms in feudal times. When called to arms they always girdle up the family armour and family weapon. A bit more like the town militia or (much) better.

This was given by the widespread believe in Christianity that lifes were too valuable to throw away needlessly.

[setheroph]

i understand completely m8, if ya really want there upkeep changed, go to programs/sega/medieval2/thelongroad/data in there you will find a read me file named export descar unit (its a list of all the units that appear in game) read the instructions as to where to find the upkeep cost and or anything else ya might wanna change, just remember to make a copy of your export descar unit (or any other file you modify)

appy modding

[tornnight]

I may rename them to some sort of basic militia men. That's really what they are supposed to represent.

In those times most families didn't own a 'family armor'. Peasants had very little.

[Rex Inanimatus]

Great idea Torn to recall something like Rural militia. Mailarmor wasn't very common amongst them though they all had steel helmets and gambessons ( a sort of leather armour). They had little though much was spend on these items because they had to protect themselves frpm bandits, robbers etc. by themself

[Xeno_cws]

Seth I know how to mod them, though thanks for helping

Was just trying to point out that not only are they not used but me and the AI but even if they did their cost/upkeep aren't worth it compared to the attack,defense, and horrible morale.

You can get town militia as readily with higher attack,defense, morale for only a little bit more, plus you can garrison them so they don't cost a dime for upkeep.


Making them Rural Militia, and slightly decreasing their costs would make a little more sense plus factions will start to use the unit now.

[Hanny]

Seth I know how to mod them, though thanks for helping

Was just trying to point out that not only are they not used but me and the AI but even if they did their cost/upkeep aren't worth it compared to the attack,defense, and horrible morale.

You can get town militia as readily with higher attack,defense, morale for only a little bit more, plus you can garrison them so they don't cost a dime for upkeep.


Making them Rural Militia, and slightly decreasing their costs would make a little more sense plus factions will start to use the unit now.

Common mistake here, the AI uses them when and if the buildings are there to produce them, since it uses auto calc for combat, peasent are highly cost effective tropps for the AI and provide most of the early game conquests of new regions by the AI.

If you look at my Byz Scn, you will see i removed them for them from the played faction and repalced them witha double sized unit of stock infantry, in Byz case teh scuttari Bandon, , when the city reaches a certain size, in that way the basic infantry unit of the faction was doubled in size and represented by the peasent unit, which was exactly the same in stats but had twice the number of men in the unit.

the Ai will not use peasent when more advanced units become availble, which happens in a prediucatble length of time, and have a low usful lifspan in TLR, which was why i removed it completly in the end, re useing it for double sized foot stock units for their factions.

[Xeno_cws]

What do you mean, when I was under the assumption that peasants can be recruited no matter what level of building (their only real plus side).

I'll have to take a look again during the early campaign.

[Hanny]

Sorry my bad, ive changed so much from stock TLR i forget sometimes what its parameters are, and dont have the file to check, you may well be correct.

But the point is the use of the AI of the most cost effective unit, since it uses auto calc to determine AI v AI outcomes, peasants are cost efective as auto calc uses numbers regardless of teh units statstistics, so a very expernsive unit because it stats are high, counts only its numerical strength, makeing pesants very cost effective.

As you say, from turn 1 the AI exapnds with what units it can build, since pesants are allowed from day 1 they form the bulk of many stacks, the AI builds acording to whats the best unit, if only peaseants are allowed, then all it can produce are peasants, and these stacks soon take out better stacks of units, ie more advanced stated units, producing experienced pesants, since leadership and experience is part of auto calc you can soon end up with highly effective stacks with peasants in them. IIrc thye build times change with difficulty level, so im used to playing at VH, so new buildings take a long time to produce, in shorter times, ie less difficulty level, the AI gets access to better units quicker, meaning that the pesants get by passed quicker as its hardcoded to go for the next tier of units first, and the buildings to do that are created quicker.


Try editing the start doc with many more spys for a faction, and place them around that factions nighbours, and watch the AI moves via the spys to see the composiotion of AI stacks, you ought to see the AI using them to high effect when it takes out the independednts.

the only other thing i can think off is the pesants uprisngs of history are off badly armed people, without such a unit, your loseing that dynamic.

[Xeno_cws]

But the AI doesn't build peasants....

At least I haven't witnessed the ai having them in any of the armies I've seen.
On flip side they were used all the time in Vanilla.


"the only other thing i can think off is the pesants uprisngs of history are off badly armed people, without such a unit, your loseing that dynamic."

TLR is about making your own history, peasants are all well and good but Town Militia costs a bit more but are better in every regard. Peasants are only good against pilgrims, other than that they break moments after meeting anything else.


Besides is it a good idea to encourage the AI to use such a bad unit? I mean if the AI builds an army and half of it is Peasant, I could easily wipe them out with 3-4 stacks of Levy and still have 1 or so left over. Not very cost effective for the AI now.

[Hanny]

But the AI doesn't build peasants....

At least I haven't witnessed the ai having them in any of the armies I've seen.
On flip side they were used all the time in Vanilla.


"the only other thing i can think off is the pesants uprisngs of history are off badly armed people, without such a unit, your loseing that dynamic."

TLR is about making your own history, peasants are all well and good but Town Militia costs a bit more but are better in every regard. Peasants are only good against pilgrims, other than that they break moments after meeting anything else.


Besides is it a good idea to encourage the AI to use such a bad unit? I mean if the AI builds an army and half of it is Peasant, I could easily wipe them out with 3-4 stacks of Levy and still have 1 or so left over. Not very cost effective for the AI now.

Of course the AI builds them, why would you think it does not?.

peasants fit the historcal use of large numbers of poorly equipped low motivated soldiery that were fairly common, now if you want a fantasy game thats all well and good to avoid haveing them in game. My understanding is that from ahistorical base of acuracy, the game allows you to then re write your own history, not invent dynamics that comntardict history, on a game balance point, another version of militia, to repalce the peasants, is really not really very helpfull either.

its not a bad unit as i keep telling you, its only bad in certain conditions, ie human v AI and fought out in battle, every other condition, and its highly cost effective, which is why you would get slapped sidewise in multiplayer by other using them against you in auto calc mode.

[Xeno_cws]

"Of course the AI builds them, why would you think it does not?."

Because I have stated in about every post here that I have not seen them do so.

"peasants fit the historcal use of large numbers of poorly equipped low motivated soldiery that were fairly common, now if you want a fantasy game thats all well and good to avoid haveing them in game. My understanding is that from ahistorical base of acuracy, the game allows you to then re write your own history, not invent dynamics that comntardict history, on a game balance point, another version of militia, to repalce the peasants, is really not really very helpfull either."


What are you going off about? Did you bother to read my posts? I said as it is now peasants are useless not unhistorical. Increasing their attack power slightly, or defense (or just lowering their cost) would help encourage early age use of these units. If you want to build half your army full of peasants in an attempt to recreate some historical likeness thats fine, but from building armies from the view of trying to build a strong, cost effective army they are a hindrance not a help.


"ts not a bad unit as i keep telling you, its only bad in certain conditions, ie human v AI and fought out in battle, every other condition, and its highly cost effective,"



What is the point of this game at all if it isnt about Human vs. AI? If the computer only used peasants against each other then that would be fine, but they can't. I for one don't use auto calc for every single battle I do (only if its 1000 vs. <300 so facing armies largely equipped with peasants would be lame.

Besides there are better ways for improving AI factions then having them use a crappy unit to save a little bit of money.

[Hanny]

"Of course the AI builds them, why would you think it does not?."

Because I have stated in about every post here that I have not seen them do so.

if you remve allbut the peasant unit, all uniuts you see built are them, ergo the AI builds them, untill more advanced ones replace them.

"peasants fit the historcal use of large numbers of poorly equipped low motivated soldiery that were fairly common, now if you want a fantasy game thats all well and good to avoid haveing them in game. My understanding is that from ahistorical base of acuracy, the game allows you to then re write your own history, not invent dynamics that comntardict history, on a game balance point, another version of militia, to repalce the peasants, is really not really very helpfull either."


What are you going off about? Did you bother to read my posts? I said as it is now peasants are useless not unhistorical. Increasing their attack power slightly, or defense (or just lowering their cost) would help encourage early age use of these units. If you want to build half your army full of peasants in an attempt to recreate some historical likeness thats fine, but from building armies from the view of trying to build a strong, cost effective army they are a hindrance not a help.

I replied to your post, about mnakeing your own history.

you should master cost benifit before telling me what basic maths expalins to be contary to your repeated postsm as the cost benifit of pesants.

What is the point of this game at all if it isnt about Human vs. AI? If the computer only used peasants against each other then that would be fine, but they can't. I for one don't use auto calc for every single battle I do (only if its 1000 vs. <300 so facing armies largely equipped with peasants would be lame.

Besides there are better ways for improving AI factions then having them use a crappy unit to save a little bit of money.

Er, the human player interactions with the AI is a huge part of why we play the game, but how the AI intracts with itself determines to a very large extent, the kind of game we get from doing so, so how it interacts between its own factions determines very much of how the human can interact with those factions.

Auto calc as i expalined to you dermines vastly more combat than you will as a player, and in itthe peasent is a highly cost effective unit.

sorry, but i cvant continue with expalining somethingh this simple. moveing on now.

[Xeno_cws]

"if you remve allbut the peasant unit, all uniuts you see built are them, ergo the AI builds them, untill more advanced ones replace them."


Obviously they are going to build them if their the only unit! I was talking about how they never do during the campaign.

"you should master cost benifit before telling me what basic maths expalins to be contary to your repeated postsm as the cost benifit of pesants."

Well lets test this:

Town Militia (England):

Attack: 2
Charge: 3
Defense: 2 (shield)

Bonus Attributes: Good Morale, Ability to Garrison (no upkeep)

Cost: 709
Upkeep: 117

Peasant (Reino de Espana):

Attack: 1
Charge: 2
Defense: 0 (no shield)

Abilities: None.

Cost: 532
Upkeep: 85


Custom Battle 1:
Town Militia 709 unit vs. Peasant 532 unit
Conclusion: Closer then I thought, 55 militia to 47 peasants (before the peasants broke). As a side note general killed close to 10 or so of the enemy. Peasant General died first, then moments later the militia dies as well.

Custom Battle 2:
Peasant Vs. Militia
Conclusion: Peasants lose this one as well with a 105 dead with the milita only losing 64. Peasant general falls first, but the militia one manages to stay standing.


Custom Battle 3:
Town Militia vs. Levy Spearmen.
Conclusion:Militia lose this round, with 94 dead while the levy have 76 fallen. Both generals fell with militia first then Levy right after.

Custom Battle 4:
Peasant vs. Levy Spearmen
Conclusioneasants lose with 105 left and Levy lost 61. Both Generals fell fairly close together with the peasants one dieing first. Alot closer then I thought!

Custom Battle 5:
3 Town Militia Vs. 4 Peasant (roughly the same cost)
Conclusion: Town Militia win. Town militia lose 144, while peasants lose 245 (no chase). Initial charge town militia actually lost more men, but it quickly even out and then peasants started losing badly. The formation for them was 2 wings and to mid (one behind the other). I met the wings 1 for 1 and had my general unit meet the mid, in the middle (basically straight charge as usual). After one unit broke then immediately did (maybe 1-2 seconds delay).

Custom Battle 6:
4 Peasants vs. 3 town militia
Conclusioneasants win, only losing 178 while militia lost 254. An odd occurance happened each of the 3 times I played this custom battle. The enemy would send 2 militia units to meet mine however its general unit would just hang back and occasionally charge and retreat, then rest for a bit/repeat. This never happened in any other battles so far which I find odd. Even when I charge it directly it attacks then runs away (sometimes far away). In any event if all three units did attack it would likely still be a victory for peasants though a lot closer I believe. I have saved one of the replays (the last one I did) if you want to see it.


Well thats enough custom battles for now. I'll admit I'm surprised at the way the peasants held up especially on 1v1 battles. I still believe, though, that without the free upkeep ability they are still a pretty useless unit in the grand scheme.

"Er, the human player interactions with the AI is a huge part of why we play the game, but how the AI intracts with itself determines to a very large extent, the kind of game we get from doing so, so how it interacts between its own factions determines very much of how the human can interact with those factions.

Auto calc as i expalined to you dermines vastly more combat than you will as a player, and in itthe peasent is a highly cost effective unit."

Wasn't insinuating that AI vs. AI unimportant, just that in terms of gameplay Human vs. AI is more important. I rather enjoy seeing an AI faction become more powerful and capture more cities then me, but fighting an army that is half full of cost effective peasants for me is boring.

"sorry, but i cvant continue with expalining somethingh this simple. moveing on now."

Tsk, no need to be so rude and look down upon me. If you can't be civil then please do.


Edit- I have screen shots of all the battles, before and after if you want them I can post them.

[Hanny]

Obviously they are going to build them if their the only unit! I was talking about how they never do during the campaign.

i already explained why its possible you have not observed seeing them, it depends on the difficulty level as to how long the AI has them to build from, once it replaces them with more advanced units it no longer builds them, hence it depends on the difficulty level as to how long they are in game and observable.

It is a fact they are built, dispite your claims to the contary.
when and how long the AI builds them is dependednt principle on the difficulty level, at war status of faction and building present.

Well lets test this:

Town Militia (England):

Attack: 2
Charge: 3
Defense: 2 (shield)

Bonus Attributes: Good Morale, Ability to Garrison (no upkeep)

Cost: 709
Upkeep: 117

Peasant (Reino de Espana):

Attack: 1
Charge: 2
Defense: 0 (no shield)

Abilities: None.

Cost: 532
Upkeep: 85


Custom Battle 1:
Town Militia 709 unit vs. Peasant 532 unit
Conclusion: Closer then I thought, 55 militia to 47 peasants (before the peasants broke). As a side note general killed close to 10 or so of the enemy. Peasant General died first, then moments later the militia dies as well.

Custom Battle 2:
Peasant Vs. Militia
Conclusion: Peasants lose this one as well with a 105 dead with the milita only losing 64. Peasant general falls first, but the militia one manages to stay standing.


Custom Battle 3:
Town Militia vs. Levy Spearmen.
Conclusion:Militia lose this round, with 94 dead while the levy have 76 fallen. Both generals fell with militia first then Levy right after.

Custom Battle 4:
Peasant vs. Levy Spearmen
Conclusioneasants lose with 105 left and Levy lost 61. Both Generals fell fairly close together with the peasants one dieing first. Alot closer then I thought!

Custom Battle 5:
3 Town Militia Vs. 4 Peasant (roughly the same cost)
Conclusion: Town Militia win. Town militia lose 144, while peasants lose 245 (no chase). Initial charge town militia actually lost more men, but it quickly even out and then peasants started losing badly. The formation for them was 2 wings and to mid (one behind the other). I met the wings 1 for 1 and had my general unit meet the mid, in the middle (basically straight charge as usual). After one unit broke then immediately did (maybe 1-2 seconds delay).

Custom Battle 6:
4 Peasants vs. 3 town militia
Conclusioneasants win, only losing 178 while militia lost 254. An odd occurance happened each of the 3 times I played this custom battle. The enemy would send 2 militia units to meet mine however its general unit would just hang back and occasionally charge and retreat, then rest for a bit/repeat. This never happened in any other battles so far which I find odd. Even when I charge it directly it attacks then runs away (sometimes far away). In any event if all three units did attack it would likely still be a victory for peasants though a lot closer I believe. I have saved one of the replays (the last one I did) if you want to see it.


Well thats enough custom battles for now. I'll admit I'm surprised at the way the peasants held up especially on 1v1 battles. I still believe, though, that without the free upkeep ability they are still a pretty useless unit in the grand scheme.

cost per pesant compared to cost per other man of other units is what your after, you can do it from unit totals but its less accuarate.

You can deduce the % chance to hit and inflict a hps loss of each man in comabt, knowing this value is of course very usfull for costing the men in the unit, but for our purpose is for determing the cost effectivness of a all men in the game engine, which for aunit is unit cost into men in unit. Also you can adduce and asign exact values for this for comparison, ie the test run you did shows that +1 to charege, attack and +2 to defense produice a range of results which can be normalized to show the expected outcome of this, and compared to the cost per man against that of a different ststed unit show the expected progresion cost in points value to combat perforemce, for instance usfull for determining if smiths ought to increase by 1 2 or 3 per advance to make them cost effective building advances in terms of battlefield perforence of units so upgraded, ie dont bother with them just have more men with lower stats as the advantage of a +1 is not worth the cost to build.

As your unit cost shows, the pesant is more cost effective on aman per man basis when used in auto calc, which was my game mechanics point, which is seperate from your point about human battles, since auto calc determines vastly more combats its important not to adjust this mechanism without fully understanding the implications.

your test runs are intruguing as to unit behavoir for sure.

Wasn't insinuating that AI vs. AI unimportant, just that in terms of gameplay Human vs. AI is more important. I rather enjoy seeing an AI faction become more powerful and capture more cities then me, but fighting an army that is half full of cost effective peasants for me is boring.

Wrong. the AI will sooner or later move to more advanced units so the battles you face will unlikly involve the pesant unit, except for the initial turnms which depends on diffuclty level, since the AI expands more effiecently with pesants than other units, it can remove indepents quicker than otherwise, thats a design choice of course as to how long you want teh independts to remain so.

Tsk, no need to be so rude and look down upon me. If you can't be civil then please do.

please do what?.

facts are not rude and im not looking down on you on anyone else, facts are simply neutral.

it is a fact that the peasant is a highly cost effective unit. even when badly used.

Edit- I have screen shots of all the battles, before and after if you want them I can post them.

Not rerquired, as they dont actually show cost benifit values, meerly produce the data that does.ie what is the cost of production of teh units comapred to what they reduce the enemy strength by, thats is one cost benifit calc your test runs produce, if you stopped the battle before running down the rout that is, which would skew the data.

Given the results of each test run, you compred a value of a unit v a pasant unit, the difference in cost of each unit, compaered to the losses each suffered shows a realtionship to the difference in cost of the unit, 700 to 500 or so, yet theat difference in cost compared to losses is what i point out to you to look at. if the cost of each side in the test were eqaual, you would have had a better set of results to work from.

I have a excell table showing cost per man in a unit, % chance to hit and produce a hps loss ( editable for % chance to hit against the avarage armour value of each faction in game, lethality of weapon sytem etc, and unit and individual cost, editable depending on all relavent in game attributes), there is no dispute over the cost effectiveness of the peasant in my mind.

the net is a cold medium for exchange and easy to give offence, when i intend to give offence you will be in no doubt about my intention to do so, so i apolgise if i have unwittingly given offence as that was not my intent.

[STReetSamurai]

Peasants are not totally useless, I use them in multiplayer.

I put them in front of my ranged to run in front of any cavalry charges in order to reduce the damage on my more important units.

[Hanny]

Peasants are not totally useless, I use them in multiplayer.

I put them in front of my ranged to run in front of any cavalry charges in order to reduce the damage on my more important units.

A worthy tactic.

Cicamstances can also dictate the use of a unit more than its stats value, since you can produce more peasant unit for the same cost, you will be able to have flank and or rear attacks more easily, as well as using some units to deplete missle fire from the enemy.

[Xeno_cws]

Hmmm not a bad idea!

[Rex Inanimatus]

Cannon fodder.... even in Multiplayer their use is rather odd since their lack of morale and cost effectness. town militia is so more effective with only a slight increase pf cost