Deus lo Vult: Battlefield Balanced v4.36 <25/01/15>

[Agis Tournas]

Yep, grab the EDU from here.

Then I really recommend you grab the weapon upgrade removal from here http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=218717

And the staggered gunpowder appearance is here http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=219977 if you want it (only works with weapon upgrade removal).

OK, now I am really confused :hmmm:
Could you please explain what each of these files do?
How can I use all of them?
Maybe in your first post - so that everyone could have a full view of the changes.
Sorry if I ask too much

Thank you
Cheers
Agis

[Taiji]

Each thread explains itself. I can appreciate that it's confusing, some people don't like removing the weapon upgrade but they will want fixes in the battle ballance stuff. Wanting to meet different peoples desires I've made quite a mess

I gave an the order of install in that post you quote

Sorry about the messy multiple thread fiasco, I'll probably merge it all at some point, to save the hassle.

EDIT: It's all save compatible but I'd recommend installing the weapon upgrade removal before starting a campaign so that no units start with pesky weapon upgrades.

EDIT: Updated EDU, details on first post.

EDIT: more updates, I want more feedback!

like how is cav spread now?

are rivers of men still a big problem?

how is the spearmen/cav, pikemen/cav, halberds/cav, etc. (anything like that)?

who dies too easy?

who has too much attack?

which units seem to be on the wrong tier quality and price wise?

is not giving free upkeep to high quality units, forcing them into forts ok?

how are charges? too few inf charging? cav stop too soon?

is anything particularly good at the moment?

answers to any of these questions would be much appreciated

[musicdemon]

Taiji, I'm getting a CTD at the splash screen from the EDU. Here's the text from my log:

20:18:34.765 [system.rpt] [always] CPU: SSE2
20:18:34.765 [system.rpt] [always] ==== system log start, build date: Feb 25 2008 version development ===
20:18:34.765 [system.io] [always] mounted pack packs/data_0.pack
20:18:34.765 [system.io] [always] mounted pack packs/data_1.pack
20:18:34.765 [system.io] [always] mounted pack packs/data_2.pack
20:18:34.765 [system.io] [always] mounted pack packs/data_3.pack
20:18:34.765 [system.io] [always] mounted pack packs/data_4.pack
20:18:34.765 [system.io] [always] mounted pack packs/localized.pack
20:18:38.140 [script.err] [error] Script Error in mods/DLV_ext/data/export_descr_unit.txt, at line 14696, column 22
unrecognised weapon attribute '4'
20:18:38.140 [script.err] [error] Script Error in mods/DLV_ext/data/export_descr_unit.txt, at line 14696, column 22
failed to read statistic for unit type 'Axemen'
20:18:38.140 [data.invalid] [error] DATABASE_TABLE error found : error reading record from file mods/DLV_ext/data/export_descr_unit.txt.

[Taiji]

Thanks Musicdemon, I'll upload a fixed EDU right now.

[musicdemon]

What is this, a 5 star resort? That is some fast service

Alright! I've made it to the campaign map with no problems. Thanks again

[Taiji]

@musicdemon, a pleasure

@all, Even when I set them up exactly the same as Novgorod, Polish Druzhina cause a CTD on launching a battle. It's utterly baffling. The only solution I have so far is to remove them from Poland's rosta which is really annoying.

[ivanhoex]

about druzhina, have you checked this:

-unit description for faction: polland
-textures for faction: polland //this cant make it ctd but its always worth a checking XD
-model_db typos for faction: polland
-unable to find flagbearer/officer. (it is not asigned to polland as unit)

-in every case, double check that unit dictionary name is spelled perfectly, with all caps and etc in place.




also pleaseeeee!!! fix archer militia for kiev!
and make lit a normal faction, i m getting tired of retyping their edu everytime you get out a new edu lol...

also pikemen are WAY TOO OVERPOWERED!!!! even more so when you can get merc pikemen in lowest tier castles (which i find to be extremely wrong!) i can conquer a full stack good quality troops castle using but 4 pikes to do the dirty work.
can you make them not able to climb? they are the ultimate wall assault / deffend troop ever.
i think there is a way to force phalanx not being able to be chosen out. it might handicap the AI pikes a bit, but they wont be able to stay atop a wall any longer and therefore they will be most cured of this issue for good.

also spears at the walls are too tough to beat (i can tell out of the many times AI got their best assault units broken against my infra quality spear militias in a 100:1 ratio) //they still didnt try to climb with pikes.. i believe that would be good enough to break my deffense lol





edit:

tried taking out "square" formation and "start_not_phalanxing" out of pikemen and they are not able to switch... but you and the AI still can order them to go up the wall... so no good there.

btw... its me or pikemen do not have "pike" attribute!? maybe i deleted it? didnt look like it though..

[Taiji]

Hey Ivanhoex, About druzhina, I have checked all you suggest and all should work fine. Nothing I can see is different from Novgorod except the textures for shields, when I use the novgorod shield textures for poland it is the same; CTD.

Archer militia for kiev, I seem to remember you mentioned their textures are messed up. Yes I will fix that ASAP, thanks for the reminder

Lithuania, I've been trying to do as you suggest with them, I appreciate your input. What have I missed so far?

Pikemen, I know of no way to stop them climbing. They have to be powerful to deal with later threats, I won't weaken them just because they're available as mercs so early. I do agree with you though, we should maybe modify things so that pike mercs are not available so early. There are currently quite a few of these kinds of discrepancies with the arrival of mercs, it would be nice to push back their dates by quite a bit. Pikemen do need to be stronger than they used to be to be able to cope with "shuffle forward" and raised armor values.

Thanks for the feedback mate, keep it up

EDIT: Amazing problem with ee archer militia, I've switched them for junior militia from Rusichi but they have the exact same texture problem. I get the feeling the game is trying to mess with my mind!

All the pikemen have that "pike" attribute you mention.

Fighting on walls has gone even more in favor of whoever has the majority since "shuffle forwards". We really need a campaign AI that brings at least double your defenders to a siege.

[ivanhoex]

or no more shuffle forward...

[Taiji]

NOOOOO!!!! Shuffle forward is HOLY! God gave us shuffle forward and we must be thankful!

Honestly though, I love it! It makes the battlefield much more dynamic, units push each other around so much more. Holding back the enemy at a choke point with a single unit is almost impossible now (obviously excepting walls ).

I no longer get that kung fu movie experience of wondering why those guys in the background are just dancing around making ninja poses while the 2 guys fight.

Personally, it brings so much to the battlefield that I can't imagine going back.

[ivanhoex]

i agree, its more dinamic.

but you cant play a siege battle and feel fair.

doors are an absolute mess, you cant stop your guys popping outside of the castle, i wonder how it would be in a few years in game when i have oil...

and no more talk about walls...



edit... maybe just a little walltalking: when i siege and send spears to the walls they can at least try, pikemen or heavy spears work well. axemen and swordsmen are quite a little behind (you need sheer amounts of armor to climb a wall against spears)

[Taiji]

Actually I played a siege defence battle and it felt fair, they had 2700 men and I had 1300. They beat me, I reloaded, they beat me, I reloaded, they beat me, etc.

I could stop them on the walls but couldn't hold them at the gate at all.

Of course in the end I beat them but it was using luck and our oversized units + flawed seige AI that tries to place too many units on a wall. The battle took more than 20 mins with all the freezing

EDIT: Oops I see what you mean about baltic spearmen - That price combined with that ability is rediculous!

Ok, so what else have I messed up in lithuania?

[ivanhoex]

militia spearmen have around 8 attack, skirmishers should have about the same amount of damage than peasant archers, maybe one more. that would be 3-5 attak, not 8

all units in rags have around 4 armor, but same unit for a normal faction will have 0 1 2 or 3 tops

all archer cav has too much attack in melee and too little aim (thats problably an issue with all factions) they become ugly light cav. in fact alan light cav has less attack in melee than the archer counterpart.

animation for sword in the skirmishers is wrong (probably repeated issue in other lit units.)

[Raaka]

If I remember correctly (cant bother to check now ^^) lithuanians hardly have any better troops and limited upgrades as well. Anyways you comments are straight to the point, I suppose stat adjusting was missed when lithuanians were bought to the game...or then Taiji is just a Lithuanian fanboi!

[ivanhoex]

when lit was incorporated, i built a new edu correctly setting them down to normal

later on a lot of changes have been implemented i cant say if units have same stats as when i corrected them or not


lit get regulars soon enough and those are excellent troops.
the ones i mentioned are all rabble type.

[Taiji]

Lith skirmishers have a mix of falchion and axe so I made them swordsmen and gave them 5, +2 for being level 2 training and no ap. They're not great value for money but I suppose I could make them level 1 training.

Somehow they have stats for a shield they don't have, I'll fix that.

You're right about their animations being wrong, someone gave them spear animations, I'll fix that also.

Thanks for pointing stuff out mate, it all helps make this better

EDIT: BTW with lithuania they lack a fair representation because mostly they have no upgrades. Giving them leather armor essentially for having brown clothes seems like a very small measure towards addressing the balance. Have to cut some corners with great work that doesn't fit the time frame well enough

[ivanhoex]

they are javelineers not swordsmen. they train with javs, and have some sort of swords for when it gets ugly. just like any other missile troop around

and yah, they are as trained as peasant archers are

[Taiji]

I've been doing some interesting testing and found some cool stuff. It seems 'spear' gives -6 defence vs all infantry and -12 defence vs slashing damage type. It's awesome... I might need to drop 'spear altogether but on the other hand I could do something cool with it. First I'd need to raise defence so that all spear units can feel the full -12 penalty. Then I could raise their defence by differing amounts depening on training level, making them more or less effective vs other infantry. Also with a higher base level of defense the -6 vs slashing could be interesting, it could also be game breaking baring in mind what happened with the weapon upgrade.

Light_spear on the other hand causes a -6 penalty to defence vs all damage types, I can't believe noones tested this stuff.

Also I've found a way of slowing units down when they upgrade to partial plate, only a little but still it's nice.

Update coming soon I guess

@Ivanhoex, Those archer militia you mentioned are amusing, I switched them with some Rusichi units but they have the same problem. How??

[Raaka]

Real combat is using light_spear on all spearman units, and spear, long_pike for pikemen units. Can't remember the details on this but I suppose point blank never got spear to work. If you going the spear route, good luck for that

If light_spear is giving that static -6 vs all, how about just raising their defensive value as much as needed. If there a damage type specific decrease (-12 slash) it might be really difficult to get that work flawlessly.. Is there other downsides in light spear comparing to spear?

I personally find the fights to be a bit too fast but I luckily fights can be slowed down just by pressing shift and -...

'R

[Taiji]

I've been chatting with PB about it and we're both wondering what to do precisely. I want more testing doing.

Look in the EDU and you'll find two versions of norse swordsmen.

Set one to:

stat_pri 1, 1, no, 0, 0, melee, melee_blade, slashing, spear, 25, 1 - this is set to using slashing damage type.
stat_pri_attr no

Set the other to:

stat_pri 1, 1, no, 0, 0, melee, melee_blade, piercing, spear, 25, 1
stat_pri_attr spear - this is set to use spear.
Then on both set:

stat_pri_armour 0, 14, 0, flesh

Then you see how much you have to raise defence skill by to compensate for 'spear', I predict that you will need to raise to around 26 defence before they fight evenly.

+rep and my gratitude to anyone who tests it

EDIT: @Raaka, I really appreciate your feedback mate "I personally find the fights to be a bit too fast" is some of the best feedback I've had so far. +rep to you sir


EDIT: after around 6 hours of reworking the defence values for infantry I can now begin work on cav, this is taking forever

edit: 19/12/09, in case anyone's interested I made a load of mistakes testing the 'spear' attribute. Not much useful stuff in my posts relating to it, be warned.