Why the need to re-haul EVERYTHING?

[Kazer]

This probably won't be received too well on a forum that seems to ridicule vanilla M2Tw and to practically worship mod/modders.. but here goes.

I find that many aspects of vanilla are... fine as they are *gasps*. I just don't get the need for modders to re-haul every single aspect of the game, and Stainless Steel is the perfect example.

A few days ago I read up on the features list of the 6.0 version and was impressed by many changes.

New factions? Good.
More provinces? Cool..
Improved textures? Nifty.
Tweaked diplomacy to make it useful? GREAT!
Tweaking agents? Excellent!

and so on... I found that there were other aspects which didn't need as much changing, but decided to give it a whack anyway.

First impressions were good, lots of shiny features and all.
Got into a first battle.. and whoaa, whoaa, what is going on here now?!
Ok, units balance is totally changed, and nothing behaves like I'm used to... doesn't mean it's bad per se, just that I'm gonna get to have to get used to a totally different "rule set"... so I do just that, and some more battles later, I come off totally unimpressed.

Ok, the AI is smarter now. That's good.. it behaves rather erratically in vanilla. But the battle dynamics and unit balances? Just couldn't get into it. The "spears are good against cavalry" seems to have been take so far to the point that my whole strategy is apparently supposed to be centered around keeping my cavalry units as far as possible as anything reassembling a spear if I don't want to them to get annihilated. God forbid a meak spear militia unit engage my general, or I just almost instantly lost said general!
Combats also got slowed to a crawl, to the point where I spent most of the battle after the initial clash at x2, if not x6.
I find it kinda sad that so many needed fixed and cool features come packed in with totally different mechanisms that are, in my opinion, dubious.

Anyway, I did not post this to whine about what I do not like in this mod, what I wanted to do is raise the question: why change apparently every single changeable aspect of the game? Wasn't there ANYTHING done correctly in the vanilla game??

[Caesar Clivus]

It's not that things in vanilla were bad, its just that they needed improvement. I mean if M2TW was a bad game, then no-one would be playing it now. And you couldn't build such good mods from a crap base If anything the fact that so many people mod the game is a testament to just how good it is.

As for SS, battles were slowed down to make them less arcade-like and more like actual battles. And unit stats have been rebalanced to make them more realistic thanks to PointBlank's Real Combat system. This includes spears, which historically were a much greater threat to cavalry than vanilla portrayed.

[RomaVictor6969]

my cavalry will run right over spears as long as there not stopped an or upgraded to heavy armor....an um....spears should stop cavalry anyways...in vanilla i would repeatedly lose 600 to 500 men of assorted units to a general unit...spears should own cavalry when not moving or hit from behind...A a horse is not a machine an will not run into a bunch of stopped men with sharp long pointy sticks....

[Altimis]

my cavalry will run right over spears as long as there not stopped an or upgraded to heavy armor....an um....spears should stop cavalry anyways...in vanilla i would repeatedly lose 600 to 500 men of assorted units to a general unit...spears should own cavalry when not moving or hit from behind...A a horse is not a machine an will not run into a bunch of stopped men with sharp long pointy sticks....

Ah...

did u forget something? "Medieval Horse" or "Knight Horse" had "blinder"

so a horse will not fear anymore because it didn't know that a bunch of stopped men with sharp long pointy sticks was await for it

and so a horse can charge like mad... BANG!!!! eager -> steady -> shaken -> wavering and... ahh!! flee!

Pike is only weapon can stop cavalry, not spear

[Mongooose]

I agree that spear damage to cavalry REALLY needs to be toned down and probably will in the next patch. Apart from that I like the balance in combat.

As to combat slowing down to a crawl, that may be because of the permanent arrows. There is an easy way to disable it but... unfortunately I don't know myself.

[Mhydrian]

Well why did you download a mod if you liked vanilla so much? There are other mods that don't change as much.

AS for spears being too effective, yeah maybe. I mean any random peasant with a pointy stick should not stop elite calvary. But it's still a matter of making calvary too strong. I have no problems with calvary being too weak.

The only thing I can say is that calvary is too slow. I am having issues with spearmen charges catching my calvary while on the move.

[cannon3231]

A lot of the battle tweaks you spoke of are actually enjoyable if you get used to them. I mean, honestly, while it hurts to have a key general taken out by peasants, can one guy on a horse honestly dodge 70 spears thrust at him?

I think if you give it a bit more time, you'll see that each of the tweaks has been done over time to improve all aspects of the game. Remember that this is SS 6.0, the changes have been slowly accumulating...

[Mazrim]

I like the spear damage. Previously (if you had no gaming morals) you could defeat anything except a horde of mounted archers w/ a few units of heavy cavalry. Now I can enjoy using them w/o feeling like I am cheating.

[runtheplacered]

Surprised nobody mentioned this.. but with mods like SS, it brings new life to the game. I completely stopped playing M2TW for a long time before I realized I could give it a whole new flavor with a huge mod like this. So I tried it, and it made me start playing the game again.

[chaos]

All the reasons you give for not liking SS, like the battle dynamics and new unit balances, are exactly the reasons I like it.

If you like vanilla so much, why don't you stick with it? Or learn how to mod, and make one exactly to your personal liking? There are parts of SS that I don't like, like supply traits, I just mod those out and basically create my own personal mod.

[Boudicca]

Considering the spears: Perhaps heavy cavalry should be able to break formation of spear militia and other weak spear units. However I recognized, that it usually takes some time for weaker spear units to take out heavy cavalry. I usually use that time to remove my units from the line in order to regroup, and usually I can make good use of my cavalry that way.

About slower battles: In fact, that makes me use my cavalry more effectively. While the lines are engaged in comat, I can charge from the rear to make a dent here and there. It's just that you need a good combination of troops.

[kiwi1234]

I say watch braveheart...

Heavy Cav, run charge run...

Ass-showing scotsmen pick up pointy sticks at last minute....

Heavy Cav get spanked.

gotta love the movies....

[Tetsu]

I regulary own spears with my cavalry, its just a matter of manouvering and tactics. Swing around the back, charge, break away before they can turn and lay into you. Repeat.

[Cyrus the Virus]

I say watch braveheart...

Heavy Cav, run charge run...

Ass-showing scotsmen pick up pointy sticks at last minute....

Heavy Cav get spanked.

gotta love the movies....

rofl

[TheColdTruth]

Same here I can't play vanilla MTW2 anymore. I'm spoiled with the SS goodness

[s0meguy]

what?????? you attack spearmen frontal with your cavalry? lol

I find that the spear->cavalry attack stats are fine, you just attack them from the back... and don't let them stay thre and fight, because some of the spearmen will turn around after a while and attack your horse which means that you're ed. You use the cavalry charge to rout the enemy units, or to heavily damage them, retreat, I can often do this to spearmen units without taking a single loss.

[Mr.Elendig]

For those that don't like cavalery getting "owned" by massed spears.

Place a pointy stick in the grund, at about 45degree andge, with the tip at stomache height.
Go back a few steps, then run at full speed at it.

It do hurt, dosn't it?

Ofcause, when 1/2 a ton of horse and rider does the same, the dude holding the spear probably will get hurt too, specialy if he can't dodge or brace the spear against the ground, but the horse and rider will be stopped anyway.

Spears when used correctly, can stop and hold off almost anything. Even knights in full plate will have a hard time getting past.
(used right = locking shilds, the lines behind brasing the lines infront, everyone "pushing" at the same time e.t.c.)
The first battle in 300, when they first get charged are actualy represented quite good. Exept that their push is like something superman woud do, and not normal humans.

[silvine]

For those that don't like cavalery getting "owned" by massed spears.

Place a pointy stick in the grund, at about 45degree andge, with the tip at stomache height.
Go back a few steps, then run at full speed at it.

It do hurt, dosn't it?

Ofcause, when 1/2 a ton of horse and rider does the same, the dude holding the spear probably will get hurt too, specialy if he can't dodge or brace the spear against the ground, but the horse and rider will be stopped anyway.

Reported for inciting people to commit suicide

[cherryfunk]

Kazer, the short answer to your question is 'realism.' Massed spears destroy cavalry. Battles were often waged for many hours. And most of us really dislike the arcade like battles of vanilla, and find these changes a huge improvement.

But, it's not hard to mod the EDU file and tweak the stats to reflect what you want to experience...

[Chim]

Kazer, the short answer to your question is 'realism.' Massed spears destroy cavalry. Battles were often waged for many hours. And most of us really dislike the arcade like battles of vanilla, and find these changes a huge improvement.

But, it's not hard to mod the EDU file and tweak the stats to reflect what you want to experience...

Editing the battle_config file at the following lines:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

<melee-hit-rate>
<infantry>5.0</infantry>
<cavalry>1.0</cavalry>
<elephants>0.5</elephants>
</melee-hit-rate>

Should speed up or slow down battle significantly.