English(and others) bowman maintenance costs

[llib]

Hello,
can you think about altering maintenance costs for english bowmen(as most notable example)? I mean, there are lower-maintenance cost peasant bowmen, and then three levels of longbowmen which does cost totally same per turn but have big difference in stats. Result is - 2 units totally wasted(except for emergency cases), and when you compare performance/cost of peasant bowmen, you'll see it's 3 of 5 England's bow units worthless.
I know this is same in Vanilla and almost same in most mods, but it still ... is not good.
More of AOR would be much appreciated also.

[born2dive67]

umm sorry could you explain that a little more precise like what units and show examples of cost/performance ratios your describing. thanks

[Vangar]

What I think he means is that a unit of peasant archers (poorly equipped, little or no training, no armour) has the same upkeep cost as longbowmen (if I remember correctly it's 125 florins), who are better equipped, trained etc. The next level of longbows, Yeoman archers, are already armoured and are capable of hand-to-hand combat but come with the same upkeep (125 florins). That means as soon as you out-teched peasant archers or basic longbows, they become useless because the better units cost the same.

Since upkeep simulates the troop's maintenance, better bowmen should be more expensive to keep, since their equipment is better and has to be held in good quality wheras peasant archers most likely use their own equipment which is rather a tool fpr hunting than a weapon of war.

I hope I got it right ^^'

[shoshenq]

What I think he means is that a unit of peasant archers (poorly equipped, little or no training, no armour) has the same upkeep cost as longbowmen (if I remember correctly it's 125 florins), who are better equipped, trained etc. The next level of longbows, Yeoman archers, are already armoured and are capable of hand-to-hand combat but come with the same upkeep (125 florins). That means as soon as you out-teched peasant archers or basic longbows, they become useless because the better units cost the same.

Since upkeep simulates the troop's maintenance, better bowmen should be more expensive to keep, since their equipment is better and has to be held in good quality wheras peasant archers most likely use their own equipment which is rather a tool fpr hunting than a weapon of war.

I hope I got it right ^^'

Yeah but better bowmen dont work at fields/chores and one could argue that actually recruiting peasants is more expensive than recruiting professional soldiers, or at the very least, much more expensive than we would think at first.

[Vangar]

Yeah but better bowmen dont work at fields/chores and one could argue that actually recruiting peasants is more expensive than recruiting professional soldiers, or at the very least, much more expensive than we would think at first.

Oookay... but DLV isn't a realism mod, as it describes itself (therwise repman had to change lots and lots of things ) and we don't have to overexaggerate it like this I'm glad about it, actually, since otherwise someone would look up wikipedia and call every single aspect of the game unrealistic and it gets removed, and we lose lots of interesting and fun units, like it happened to Rome Total Realism

It's mainly balancing reasons. It would make sense that better units are more expensive to keep, but on the other way I don't understand why it's so complicated as ivanhoex pointed out. Couldn't you just alter the costs in regular steps? 125 for peasants, 150 for longbows, 175 for yeoman, 200 for retuines? That would do the trick, actually. Other units upkeep are quite similiar. Militia is about 120 whereas knights are about 250.

[born2dive67]

ok, haven't noticed this, right now playing Sicily. will check their Muslim archers to peasants: ok did that and Muslim archers are like 25 more than peasant archers but with like double the dmg and armour.

[ivanhoex]

hello


you want this to happen? help me and it will happen for sure.

this is how:


write a line for cost for each unit style, with this values:
-is (type of weapon) + (level of training) + (starting armour level) + (is Merc)
-cost is: ( ? )


where:
type of weapon:
-Bow
-Compo Bow
-Longbow
-Crossbow
-Heavy Crossbow
-Horse Bow (if you dont want to include horse i have no problem)
-Horse Compo
-Horse Longbow
-Horse Crossbow
-guns/pistol
-arquebus
-musket
-mounted pistol/gun
-mounted arquebus

you can use my excel sheet to see wich units have each (missile troops)


level of training:

(see my thread somewhere i clearify about how i separate this, like in the third page more or less)

-Not Trained (peasantry / early militia)
-Trained (low castle ranks / free warriors (brigands) / late militia)
-Well Trained (mid level castle troops / early knights)
-Elite (those very special troops for each faction + late knights)

(again you can find units already categorized at my sheet)


Level of Starting Armour:

(check EDU, see them yourself, or see my excel sheet)

-if armour_upgrade_level = 0/1/2 = light/no armor
-if armour_upgrade_level = 2/3/4 = mid armor
-if armour_upgrade_level = 4/5/6 = heavy armor





so for example you should present this line for each case:

is a Longbow, Well Trained, armour mid
cost: 1, 710, 150, 75, 55, 710, 4, 170

(that data represents units like the Retinue Longbowmen)




first you should decide how much money do you plan to use for each factor, table it and find the values by adding all together

(like making a table wich states that longbow adds +300 to cost, well trained adds +200, mid armour adds +210)

also give me what values you used so i can change values on the fly when i change any value of a unit later on

i recommend to use values from the EDU and experiment with that, like finding several bowmen with almoust same characteristics, then comparing them together for price differences




i am asking you to build the code lines coz unless you get an EDU automaton to work with the DLV EDU (i havent) then you are in problem by changing values for units one by one... all those little number... we have more or less 450 units in DLVs EDU.




if you want to avoid trouble, then first of all check for the cost values in MLC82 EDU (the mod that adds Real Combat values to DLV). see if that seems ok for you, then it will be TOO much easy for me to implement in my EDU as well

[llib]

Weekend, maybe...
Of course I understand your position - stop whining, help make it happen.

[ivanhoex]

^^

yap


besides, im being too good here, in fact you should factorize as well things like "can hide anywhere" "armour piercing arrows" "delay" "run speed" "stamina" "morale" "bonus on X terrain" "has a sword (instead of dagger)" "etc etc etc etc XDDDD

and after all that, you should still be quantitizing how much will the AI use the unit, despite the "suggestion" of the unit_offset


so all in all is quite a tough job to do



thats why i have yet to find time to do it XD

[ivanhoex]

is not = portuguese arquebusier than normal arquebusier. same thing anywhere

[Vangar]

I guess it was supposed to be the answer on my question, but I don't understand what you just said, sorry ^^'

You mean the portugese arquebusier is better than a regular arquebusier, thus has to be more expensive. Well, even then the principle is the same. Take a basic ranged unit of a faction and alter the costs regularly. As for gunpowder units, take the regular arquebusier, compare it to the portugese one and if the values of the portugese gunman are that much better than increase his costs by 50 or so?

[ivanhoex]

yap, but... what makes a unit better?

the unit can have greater range or heavier armor, but the other unit has some extra stamina or makes ppl fear or... you have to actually get unit by unit adds pro substract cons and then you will have a ballanced cost...


if not, do as i said in my first post, take 3 variables and build upon that, you can always adjust after that and it gives a pretty close picture

or copy the cost from another mod, like real combat, that is supposed to have already done all the maths