Unit Stats

[DimeBagHo]

Inspired partly be some recent comments on the unnatural awesomeness of certain units, and partly by re-reading the EDU guide over at the .org, I've decided to do a thorough over-haul of the unit stats.

Lethality - will, mostly be revised down a little. The base value, for sword units will be 0.8 (used to be 0.9). Spear units will get 0.65 (used to be 0.64). Two handed units will also get 0.65. According to the EDU guide that should even out the effects of the skeletons/animations on the battlefield. Relative to the current stats in version 5.7.7 it will make spear units a little more effective, and two handed units a little less effective.

Armour Piercing weapons are going to get slightly lower (typically -2) attacks than comparable non-ap weapons. For example, Gallic swordsmen get an attack of 10, so Germanic Axemen will get an attack of 8. As a result ap weapons will be a little less effective against light troops, but more effective against armoured troops.

Two Handed weapons will get slightly higher (typically +2) attacks than comparable one handed weapons. All of these weapons are ap, so the net effect will be that two handed units will get a similar attack to comparable one handed units, with the advantage of being ap, and the disadvantage of having no shield.

Most units with ap weapons will get lower attacks under these two rules.

Feel free to suggest other units that you think are over or under powered.

[CaesarVincens]

Most horse archer units could use an overhaul, either reducing their numbers slightly, their attack, or ammo, or maybe a few other things. There has been quite a bit of complaining about Scythia in particular.

[Suppanut]

Why two-handed weapons get lower lethality than one-handed weapon? Is no shield panalty not enough to trade-off its power as reason for two-handed weapon is to made it more lethal but less protection, rate of fire, and chance for second blow if the first stroke is missed(which likely for rookie user as it often harder to use than one-hand weapon)?

[DimeBagHo]

Some animations get more hits than others on the battlefield. In other words a unit using the spear animation will get more kills than a unit using the sword animation, even if the two units are otherwise exactly identical. The new lethality values are just intended to even out the effects of the different animations.

Two-handed units will still get higher attack values, which will make them more dangerous than comparable one-handed units.

[RedFox]

I did notice that battles in XGM could sometimes last a few seconds - sometimes not even long enough to get your cavalry around your enemy, mostly in the case of large battles.

EB had a great system when it came to lethality, but it was somewhat unbalanced against fatigue. With fatigue off by default, somewhat similar settings provide well balanced battles - time wise.

Diadochi EDU settings are mostly following:

Light Spear - 0.45
Heavy Spear (mostly cavalry) - 0.66
Javelin/missiles - 0.6
Knife/dagger - 0.33
Sword - 0.66
Axes - 0.66
Hoplite Phalanx (med pikes) - 0.5
Phalangites (long pikes) - 0.4
Hoplite spear (overhand) - 0.56

Seems to extend the duration of battles ~2.5x

[Zarax]

Looks like good settings, even though isn't knife a bit too high?

[RedFox]

I think you're right Zarax. I usually compensated it with low attack values, but that might actually be why some skirmishers are so potent against my cavalry..

[DimeBagHo]

Lower lethality tends to make archers more effective and cavalry less effective. Ranged attacks don't use the lethality value, so effectively it's always 1.0. Cavalry units don't have a 'knocked down' animation, so effectively attacks against them always have a lethality of 1.0. That's one reason I'm reluctant to make larger changes in lethality - to do it right you need to significantly re-balance the stats for ranged units and cavalry.

[atraps]

Cavalry units don't have a 'knocked down' animation, so effectively attacks against them always have a lethality of 1.0.

That isnt true Dime, lethality differences do effect cavalry just like they effect infantry. An infantry unit with high lethality will perform better against cavalry units then the same infantry unit with lower lethality.

Sorry i know we are talking about lethalties but i noticed that the choosen archer warband (germans) have a axe as their secondary weapon but in the EDU file their secondary weapon is treated like a sword.

[beatoangelico]

Cavalry units don't have a 'knocked down' animation, so effectively attacks against them always have a lethality of 1.0

uh? not having the animation doesn't mean that every attack against cavalry is a hit.

[DimeBagHo]

uh? not having the animation doesn't mean that every attack against cavalry is a hit.

No, but it does mean that every hit is a kill. If you change the lethality of an infantry unit 1.0 to 0.5 then it will "hit" then enemy just as often, but half the time an enemy infantry unit will just be knocked down, and will get back up again. Cavalry don't get up again.

That isnt true Dime, lethality differences do effect cavalry just like they effect infantry. An infantry unit with high lethality will perform better against cavalry units then the same infantry unit with lower lethality.

I ran some tests and it looks like you are right. Guess I should have tested this myself. When I tested with values of 1.0 and 0.5 there didn't seem to be much of a difference, but when I made the values really low (like 0.1) it did take the infantry noticeably longer to kill the cavalry.

[beatoangelico]

No, but it does mean that every hit is a kill. If you change the lethality of an infantry unit 1.0 to 0.5 then it will "hit" then enemy just as often, but half the time an enemy infantry unit will just be knocked down, and will get back up again. Cavalry don't get up again.

that's not true at all. The animation doesn't matter, it's just a visual thingy; being hitten and knocked down and not being hitten for the engine is the same thing. Just try and see...lethality against cavalry works

[RedFox]

Oh and Dime, you better try out the Javelin lethalities too. Before the Roman infantry could pop out 20 equal level phalangites, with lethality 0.6, they rarely kill more than 10.
It definitely does make a difference. Probably same with archers too.

[DimeBagHo]

I've done some more tests with cavalry, timing the battles more carefully, and it looks like lethality works just fine with cavalry. Changing lethality from 1.0 to 0.5 almost exactly halved the casualty rate. Guess I'll have to test the ranged units as well now.

I did some tests with javelins and it looked like lethality was not making any difference. With values of 1.0, 0.5, and 0.1 I got almost identical results (the highest kill rates were on the 0.1 tests, but the differences just looked like random variation).

[DimeBagHo]

Well it's go to know we don't have to worry about re-balancing cavalry, but it looks like ranged units are still an issue with lower lethality values. I'm a less worried about this than before - with lower unit sizes, and less accurate missiles, ranged units have probably been nerfed enough.

On a completely different subject, Thracian Thorakitai are proving difficult to balance. I think the combination of equipment - good armour, large shield, and ap weapon (not to mention javelins) - makes them way too effective for a third level, pre-Marius unit. I'm leaning towards replacing them with something else.

[Unknown Soldier]

On a completely different subject, Thracian Thorakitai are proving difficult to balance. I think the combination of equipment - good armour, large shield, and ap weapon (not to mention javelins) - makes them way too effective for a third level, pre-Marius unit. I'm leaning towards replacing them with something else.

arrragh! no!

[DimeBagHo]

arrragh! no!

No need to panic yet. They won't be going away until I find something equally entertaining to replace them with.

[atraps]

On a completely different subject, Thracian Thorakitai are proving difficult to balance. I think the combination of equipment - good armour, large shield, and ap weapon (not to mention javelins) - makes them way too effective for a third level, pre-Marius unit. I'm leaning towards replacing them with something else.

Maybe we can make the Noble Falxmen a third level pre-Marius unit and the the Thracian Thorakitai a forth level post-Marius unit.

[Suppanut]

Thracian Thorakitai, by its power and coming of Noble Falxmen so I think Thracian Thorakitai should be post-marian units.

[RedFox]

I would recommend toning town the Javelin attack - I guess that's what worked for me.
Diadochi Principes pilum has 9 attack. (unit itself has 10 atk, 25 def)

I would also recommend toning down the Slingers - they have ridiculously deadly stones and honestly I've seen slings being used and they just cant produce such casualty rates on armoured units - especially shielded ones.
I toned down their attack to 7 and removed ap. They should knock out any unarmoured units, but once they have shields it's rather a nuisance than a real threat.