New realistic Horse archers & javelins missile range, units movement speed

[rusnmat]

SS6.4 is a fantastic mod. Thank you gracul, byg, rozanov, point blank and everybody who created it.
Personally I enjoyed it a lot. However there were a few small things that really bothered me such as :
- many basic & medium horse-archers have almost the same range as good javelins ( 70m HA vs 60m for javelins)
even many mongolian HA ( masters of bows have the same 70m range
- on the other hand Lithuania cavalry has 140m range - double than Magyars, Pechenegs & even many Mongol HAs. Using Lithuania cavalry you can easily win entire campaign, given that they are cheap and abundantly available through basic stables. Conquering Scandinavia becomes piece of cake. As Lithuania, you can easily out-shoot anything that Norse can master. Even late professional crossbowmen & arbalests have a shorter range. So with such stats Lithuania becomes "Mongols of the West"
- there were some other things that didn't make soo much sense to me.
I 've made changes to units stats. Over time it evolved to comprehensive revision for better game-play and historical accuracy
The list of changes:

-increased range on basic & medium HA -skirmisher type ( Pechenegs, Tucomans, Magyars, Turkomans etc) to 95-105m, ( mongols to 130-150)
high range -missile HA left the same.

- Lithuania cavalry range reduced to 125m ( to compensate for the lost range, I added to their defense +1 skills and +1 shield)

- all basic & medium quality archers & xbows had about 10-15 % range increase - so their range is still greater than basic HA

- HA arrows count was reduced by 5 arrows ( now most HA have 40-55 arrows)

- some foot archers arrows count was increased by 5 or more ( now most FA have 30-40 arrows, the best missile archers -50) Cost of best missle archers was increased

- other adjustments, including upkeep and recrutment costs .

--Javelins range reduced to 42-48 m from 50-60 m.
Due to inability of Battle AI effectifely manage more realistic 30-35m range, javelin ranges went up to 42-48m. Still less than in vanilla 6.4

-All foot javelin units ( but L. noble sons due to heavy armor) have 4-10% speed bonus, so they can effectively skirmish

- No/low armor, small shields infantry, archers and gunpowder units receiving 2-6% moving speed bonus

- Very heavy infantry ( high armor & shields) get 5-15 % moving speed penalty

- Better trained, disciplened units get a small moving speed bonus

-General bodyguards reduced by 50% and their armor increased by 1~2.
It makes FM units less powerful and will require more caution when using them. Firstly it tackles bodyguard FM overpowering the battle field. If a player combines a few family members in one army, those auto regenerating bodyguard units become unstoppable. Especially in the early came it makes it harder to dominate the battlefield ( with half amount of bodyguards). Usually faction leader and his heir have some extra bodyguads.
For them the actual reduction will be less than 50%.
Secondly, slightly increasing armor - reduces the chance of general being killed by xbow or archers. Would be harder for a player to kill FM and win the battle this way. It would be more efficient to use those arrows/ bolts to decimate lightly armored troops. Mongol bodyguards size was left their original size (not playable in early campaign anyways) and cumans at 3/4 of size ( having weaker armor) and due to cavalry nature of their nations.

Top tier archers get better accuracy and range, they are more deadly now (higher upkeep and cost)

Crossbows better accuracy & range based on historical recors (incresed costs & upkeep, slower unit speeds)

Arbalests units have the longest range -280 m improved accuracy (but increased costs & upkeep,slower units speed & larger attack delay)

Accuracy & missile velocity adjustments ( peasants/militia units accuracies slightly declined, missile units slightly improved)

Small adjustments for pikemen (slightly stronger vs cavalry, about the same vs infantry, Swiss & Lan. pikemen frighten mounted)

Reduced min. attack delay for axe and mace units. ( Original files have delay for those units 2-4 times greater then for 2 handed longsword) That's why many mace and axe units were less dangerous than good swordmen even when fighting heavy armoured enemy.

SS6.4 units quality bonuses were changed from:
Superior is +2 attack/+1 defense/-15 attack delay/+2 morale/-1 heat
Elite is +4/+2/-30/+4/-2
Exceptional is +5/+3/-45/+6/-3
to:
Superior is +1 attack/+2 defense/-15 attack delay/+2 morale/-1 heat
Elite is +2/+4/-30/+4/-2
Exceptional is +3/+5/-45/+6/-3 - Increased defence skills , and reduced ATK (+5) bonus

Mercenaries have higher upkeep and cost to discourage of hiring too many

Slightly bigger delay for flaming arrows vs regular ones ( now at 2.8 seconds)

Basic spear militia unit size increazed, now the same size as urban militia ( but lowered shield to 6 def, and morale to 4, higher cost and upkeep)

Lithuanian axemen ATK increased to 4, but the leather armour removed ( armour available only through upgrades, now with higher cost , upkeep)

Several Lithanian units now experts at hiding in forest ( country was over 80% covered in dense forests)

Russian junior militia unit increased to spearmen size, ATK at 2 ( higher upkeep and costs)

Followers of Perkunas AP attribute removed, ATK increased by 1, cavalry bonus by 2
( slightly lowered upkeep - to be in line with other religious units)

The new update will need a new campaign.

I just uploaded the new updated files (Feb. 11 2011)
(the latest file have accuracy adjustments for balista towers and siege equipment & Prussian axemen ATK increase to 3 -with higher cost & upkeep)

You can just rename original export_desc_unit & descr_projectile files in SS6.3/data folder and paste the downloaded one. ( you can always go back to original stats by restoring the original file)

Recomended,for the best gaming experience also install descr_walls file, that will give balista/arrow towers the same ranges as field engines/archers. At original SS6.4 they are at 50-60% of field balistas.

---Important. Requirement: SS 6.4 , If you already installed or planning to install another sub-mod ( such as Rozanov's Perm stone forts or Meneth's compilation) that uses only original SS6.4 units, apply these files after that sub mod installation

Thanks to Point Blank, lchon, Rozanov and everybody else for the feedback and special thanks to gracul, King Kong, Point Blank, Byg , Rozanov, Germanicu5 , y2day for the fantastic mod!

[Gorrrrrn]

interesting revisions - will have to road test to see how they work in practice.

two types of horse archers
- those that ride in close and fire at 50-60m and then move away quickly, then return and repeat, if necessary have a change of ponies /horses available.
- those that work from longer range, stationary.

Mongols tended to use the former method which is why they have shorter range.
don't know why Lithuanian HA have longest range, but I doubt they would have adopted Mongolian tactics (?)

javelin range being better than archers seems very suspect - I doubt that their range would be significantly greater than a Roman Pilum - approx 20-30m (max). However as they are skirmishers, we have to give them longer range so that they can use their weapons before retreating.

The minimum range for any archer should be about 100m. It might be an idea to remove "peasant archers" with their hunting bows" from the EDU. Most of the evidence I've read has said that all archers would have used long bows in northern (and other) parts of Europe in warfare right from the start of our period. (The difference between them and later English longbowmen of 14th-15th centuries is that the latter were used in much greater numbers and had much longer training starting from an earlier age, also they had better arrow heads.)
Arbalasts and later English longbowmen would have longer range - up to 200m, although accuracy would degrade with distance.

Generally speaking mounted bowmen (using mainly composite bows or crossbows) would, on average, have shorter range than their colleagues on foot (using identical equipment), and worse accuracy. They could however get out of the way of attacking cavalry, unlike their foot counterparts who were very vulnerable to cavalry attack.

[rusnmat]

Yes, that is the other issue to be address yet. In SS 6.3 average javelinmen have 50 m range, elite ones (L. noble sons, spanish javelinmen) have 60 m (200 ft) range. I can't image anyone to throw javelin for 60m , without even mentioning that it has to have some energy after flying 60 m and be able to kill ( pierce the armour). On the other hand making a range 20m ( 65 ft) will criple all javelin units. I am thinking to change it to 40 m for elite j. and 35m for regular.
I'll do some test battles. The whole thing with HA is on one hand having HA ( as Bekh druzhina) with 200 m range, on the other ( magayrs, turkomans, pechenegs, and many mongolian ha) with 70m. That's triple the range. It's just not right in my opinion. That's why I've made those little changes.

[ninja51]

Well you could just make javalin men run a lot faster. Theyre tactics were to rush up close let one loose then to sprint away. That form of fighting can not be used at all in Medieval because most units have at worse only a slightly lower speed it seems. Letting loose some javalins then running away could be an actual tactic if you made them faster. That way you wouldnt have to give them super catapult arms

[rusnmat]

That's a great suggestion. It will be possible to increase their speed by 10% or so.

[rusnmat]

I just made those changes:
Javelins range reduced to 35-38 m from 60-50m.
-All foot javelin units ( but L. noble sons due to heavy armour) have 10% speed bonus, so they can effectively skirmish
- A few other units with no armour and small shield got 10% speed bonus.
So now those lightly armed guys can actually catch heave armoured infantry..
Units that got those bonuses are:
Sudanese tribsmen, mutatawai, gwent raders, followers of Perkunas, syrian auxillairies and battlefield assasins.
Everything works beautifully

[rusnmat]

I decided to extend my work with the units speeds.
While cavalry speed in vanilla 6.3 is addressed ( it varies widely depending on horses and armor),
all foot units have the same movement speed except pikemen and some heavy Halberds.
Obviously, there should be some speed difference between heavily armored units, medium armored and no armor/no shield units ( also accounting a weapon type)

Medium armored sword and 1handed axe units, lightly armored units with heavy 2 handed weapons are the base speed (same as right now in original 6.3)

All javelin units have 10% speed bonus (except L. Noble sons)

No/low armor, small shields infantry, archers, peasants xbows and gunpowder units receiving 5% moving speed bonus
All low & medium tier archers & xbows get 5% bonus ( units with combined armour and shield less than 6 defence in total)
No and Lightly armoured gunpowder units get 5% speed bonus.
Infantry that received bonus: Pilgrims, Religious Fanatics, Flagellants, Highland Rabble, Highlanders, Viking Raiders,
ME Peasants, Kashtim Thralls, Sudanese Tribesmen, Ghazis, Mutatawwi'a, Drengjar, Desert Raiders,
Junior Militia, Pisan and Geonese sailors, Gwent Raiders, Followers of Perkunas, Daylami Light Infantry,
Lithuanian Axemen, Order Militia, Syrian Auxilliaries, Tribal Warrior


The vanilla SS6.3 game already gives 20-35% speed penalty to pike units and some heavy armoured Halberdiers
But it did not addressed other heavily armoured guys. I think that they also should have at least a small (like 5%) speed penalty.Realisticly heavily armoured infanty will move and run a bit slower than lighter units.
Infantry received 5% speed penalty - heavily armoured units/with large shields
( for spear & 2H axes units total amour & shield defence greater >10, sword & 1H axes >12, halbers with armour >7).
List of the units with 5% speed penalty.
Armored Sergeants, Pavise Spear Militia, Papal Guard, Crusader Sergeants, Mercenary Spearmen,
Armored Swordsmen, Noble Swordsmen, Venetian Heavy Infantry, Dismounted_Chivalric_Knights,
Dismounted Imperial Knights, Dismounted_Gothic_Knights, Dismounted_Italian_MAA ,
Dismounted_Broken_Lances, Dismounted E Chivalric Knights, Dismounted Mercenary German Knights,
Dismounted Khagan Druzhina, Halberd MAA, ME Heavy Spearmen, Dismounted Armored Clergy, Templar Guard, Noble Spearmen, Smolensk Infantry, Kievan Palace Guard, Dismounted KM, Dismounted Armats,
Andalusian Infantry, Noble Hirdsmen, Order Spearmen, Ducal Spearmen, Armored Spearmen,
Lithuania Regular swordsmen, Late Lithuanian spearmen, Novgorod Home Guard, Scoutatoi,
Spartharii tou Vasileos

--Another small change is range increase for Norse archers to 125m ( same as Lithuania archers and Lithuania cavalry)

All changes are savegame-compatible

[Gorrrrrn]

rusnmat:

another thing that has bugged me:
appalling slow animation for low level archers, means they take for ever to release their arrows. is there any way to speed that up?

how well are javelins skirmishing against on-coming cavalry?

(and is this all compatible with krolyn's work -seems you're bother after similar changes?)

[rusnmat]

Rozanov-
Skirmishers against charging cavalry should be slautered, and they are. They can make one volley, after that they are dead meat. With new realistic ranges, they don't through javelins 50-60 m, so they can only have 1 - 2 volley max aganst infantry, then they should run to the flanks or behind of engaged enemy infantry. That's how they will be deadly. If they stay behind friendly infantry, usually they don't have enough range to kill enemy.
I see a merit in slow reloading for peasant archers. They are not trained, therefore they should take more time to reload and fire. I didn't spend much time doing modding and going to some other areas. The game is already beautiful, stable and well thought through. I my opinion the HA ranges and infantry movement speeds were just overlooked. It's easy task to fix it and I did it.
I like shoryn changes to lithuania untis. Stats reflect changes from v. 0.2 update.
After that I made all the changes to the units speed and ranges.
- I like krolyn ship movement and balista tower body piercing changes.
As I understand all my changes should be compatible with any mod that dosn't change units names
I just only changed stats for units in export_descr_unit.txt
To be in effect, my file should be applied after any mod intallation.
It's savegame-compatible and very easy to go back to original by restoring the original file if my changes not liked.

[OneMoreDay]

The Mongols used the following tactics: archery, when the horse races ahead. With such a firing pulse motion horse and arrows are added and firing range increased. Dismounted Mongol archer should give a range of foot archers (bow smaller), but the horse archer must exceed the mounted archers from other countries

[rusnmat]

in original ss6.3 Mongols have 2 HA with ranges 170-190m, the rest of mongol HA were 70m. I increased their range to 130-140 m. Curently the game has a few other long range HA -Bekh druzhina with 200m, Hungarian Nobles -170 m, Rus Jun. druzhina - 170m, and some late Turks & Kwazm. HA with 170-190 m range

[Point Blank]

Long range HA are missile units with less accuracy and less damage. Short range HA have increased damage and accuracy. Because of the game mechanics and how javelins work with the battle AI and skirmishing, ranges of less than 50m are impractical. It would be reasonable to boost short-range HA to 80m though.

Skirmish archers have a slower anim than missile archers, in compilation anyway, but much better accuracy.

[Neptune7]

Please don't put, decrease javelin range and increase javelin speed so they can skirmish, in any future SS release, thanks..

[rusnmat]

Welcome back PB. Congrats with baby-girl!!
Thanks for the info. I didn't know that battle AI is too dumb to manage realistic javelin ranges
After testing for a few days in different battles, I did find out that AI strugles with applying new range javelins in the effective way. For a human it works just fine and very realistic application of their weapons. With those huge ranges javelins units become super infantry units. I 've seen on the forum that Almughavars consider to be one of the strongest units.
And rightfully so, since they can kill at 60m (Javelin with 13 damage) and consider their small recrutment / upkeep costs they are the best unit for the money. Due to AI unability to use realistic range javelins effectively and AI needs all the help it can get, I am considering increasing their range to 44-48m. Will do some tests.. In vanila SS6.3 one unit alread has 45m range - Akonstistai..
PB - what do u thing about different unit speed? After I made the changes, personally I am liking it.
Also, I like the adjusted HA ranges. Yes, I know about more damage from short range HA. They are still short range HAs - range increased from 70m to 95m.
It's still half the range of long range HA ( not a third as before). The thing that I really didn't like that in vanilla 6.3
my javelins slaughtered short range HA as Pechenegs due to the similar range.

[rusnmat]

I just increased ranges to 45-48m. Uploaded and updated the file at the top of the post. Let me know about your experience with AI managing javelins now. I 've done a custom battle. Looks like AI fired all the javelins...

[Point Blank]

If you can find a javelin range that works with the AI and is shorter that would be good.

Yes it would be ideal if short range HA can stay out of javelin range. That is also partly a factor of AI shirmish distances as well as range.

[Ichon]

Nice to see you making those changes you told me about awhile ago available to the public rusnmat. Some helpful suggestions too. I'll try these when I have some more time to play but you seemed to have addressed everything I was most concerned about except the speed difference between cavalries.

Heavy cavalry still moves much too quick most of the time in my opinion. I'd prefer to see most heavy cavalry move at the current Byz BG speed or slower. Then some cavalry like current Boyars or Mailed Knights (medium cavalry) move maybe 5% slower than currently then the HA and light cavalry move 5% faster than currently. So there is a real reason to bring a combined arms army not just to meet roster role playing reasons. FA or LC to counter HA, HC still devastating but not quite as useful for repeated charges in a short amount of time (also maybe tire more quickly) and that combined with the changes to HA ranges and javelins would actually make the battles much more interesting.

[Ichon]

If you can find a javelin range that works with the AI and is shorter that would be good.

Yes it would be ideal if short range HA can stay out of javelin range. That is also partly a factor of AI shirmish distances as well as range.

It makes a big difference that javelin animation for the infantry is so slow as well. Javelin cavalry fire quite quickly in comparison and remain deadly even if slightly out ranged by HA but if the HA out range them by 2x or more then they become much less relevant.

[Point Blank]

It makes a big difference that javelin animation for the infantry is so slow as well. Javelin cavalry fire quite quickly in comparison and remain deadly even if slightly out ranged by HA but if the HA out range them by 2x or more then they become much less relevant.

In compilation foot and mounted javelin anims are about the same speed.

[rusnmat]

-lchon . When I 'll get some time, I might adjust cavalry speeds as well. In original 6.3 there is quite a variation of cavalry speeds already ( there are 5% -20% penaltys for heavy cavalry, also there are fast cavalries as - fast pony speed, as mongols, pechenegs) It might require just some small adjustments, overall it's quiet good. Over weekend I downloaded DLV with BB2.8. It's fun mod as well. I like their defence spending idea. You can recruit more units than usual, but that cost extra ( there are 5 levels). Also the min. HA range is 120m ( ecxept the Lithuania cavalry at 110m ).
All the foot infantry in DLV have different speeds ( anywhere from -20% to +5% with only 1% difference between units like 1.02 and 1.03 )
Personally, I think that javelins are overpowered in or. 6.3. Medieval age wasn't known to be era of javelins, but heavy armored knights, archers and HA. Roman age was dominated by javelins. There were no javelin armies conquiring countries in M. But if the game allows javelins to kill at 60m, that's creates imbalance. Personally, I see javelins in Medieval times as largely mediocer infantry with some short rage missile capability. Since battle AI can't handle the realistic range, the range should be at min. that allows AI to deploy them correctly. And of course, the HA range should be at least twice the javelins.