Question(s) on RC settings

[RollingWave]

Hi , I'm checking through the EDU and i'm throwing out things that seems out of place to me, maybe there are aspects that I'm overlooking and it would be great if PB or others familiar with the system can explain.

1. horse secondary attacks: most horsemens' secondary attack seems quite high to me, a meager little hobilar has *6* attack ?!?! 4 attack seems standard on most decent early era swordsmen (light men at arms for example), so that a normal little light horse getting 6 seem to strike me as high, is this to compensate for real outcome or is this some sort of an oversight? though in reality even with just 1 attack light horsemen should still run over light infantries just fine due to their primary charge...

2. axe vs mace : both have AP attribute, but most axe wielder gets significant higher attack rating than comparable level mace units, one of the most striking is the viking raider and it's 5 attack(!!) axe, which essentially makes him capable of chopping down light men at arms in one on one fight (or at least would come close to it). while comparabiablly, a Armenian Infantry with his mace has ... ummm. 2 attack?? even with AP factored in that's pretty bad. I can see the logic of axe being slashing + bashing for the reasoning, but since you can't set relative AP effect to different levels in this game (AFAIK anyway), shouldn't we treat axe and mace as the same weapon in this case then?

[bɑne]

Until you get the more detailed answer from someone more knowledgable: Animations.
I really doubt that the attack frequency of those horsemen units is the same as sword infantry, same with axe and mace units.

[Ichon]

I think the mace animation is one of the fastest but someone else have to comment on that for sure.

I don't mind professional light cavalry having +1 stat attack advantage over same era light infantry as all things considered mounted units usually slightly more 'elite' in training equipment received(unless simply representing mounted vs dismounted versions of the same unit) but +2 when the stats are so low is pretty big difference 50% vs 25% for +1.

Really though I'd rather most western light cavalry start at 2-3 base attack unless their animations are really slow for some reason as these guys are usually not melee focused but harassing skirmishers/light infantry or raiding supply, cutting down routers, etc. Eastern cavalry having higher base melee is fine as they are more equivalent to western men at arms or professionals without quite the status of full knights and makes up for eastern armies being more about fast light HA and more fierce light melee cavalry with much fewer heavy shock cavalry than in the west (though some certainly should be represented).

Because most spear militia have 1 attack and represent conscripted peasant levies given a bit of equipment and basic training the only difference from peasants then without there being a huge difference in animations why should light cavalry be 6x as good in melee? Morale would be more key difference than always stats between militias and professionals. Especially since cavalries usually gain XP much quicker they end up vastly superior to the equivalent infantries.

[Point Blank]

Hi , I'm checking through the EDU and i'm throwing out things that seems out of place to me, maybe there are aspects that I'm overlooking and it would be great if PB or others familiar with the system can explain.

1. horse secondary attacks: most horsemens' secondary attack seems quite high to me, a meager little hobilar has *6* attack ?!?! 4 attack seems standard on most decent early era swordsmen (light men at arms for example), so that a normal little light horse getting 6 seem to strike me as high, is this to compensate for real outcome or is this some sort of an oversight? though in reality even with just 1 attack light horsemen should still run over light infantries just fine due to their primary charge...

All cavalry gets an attack advantage in melee compared to equivalent foot units (mounted, striking down on vulnerable target areas etc) and a defense disadvantage, ie cavalry kill fast but are vulnerable in melee. Cavalry are generally an offensive arm.

You need to seperate consideration of attack/charge and mount mass when considering cavalry effectiveness.

2. axe vs mace : both have AP attribute, but most axe wielder gets significant higher attack rating than comparable level mace units, one of the most striking is the viking raider and it's 5 attack(!!) axe, which essentially makes him capable of chopping down light men at arms in one on one fight (or at least would come close to it). while comparabiablly, a Armenian Infantry with his mace has ... ummm. 2 attack?? even with AP factored in that's pretty bad. I can see the logic of axe being slashing + bashing for the reasoning, but since you can't set relative AP effect to different levels in this game (AFAIK anyway), shouldn't we treat axe and mace as the same weapon in this case then?

Axe and mace are effectively identical, except axe has base 3 attack 3 defense, and mace has 2/4. Have you read the RC guide (its a bit out of date now)?

Viking raider axe 3 + superior quality 2 = 5. Armenian infantry average quality mace = 2 attack.

For a long time each additional quality level only provided +1 attack, it was much improved when changed to +2.

[RollingWave]

thanks for answering my question PB, now a further question, i'm implementing two handed spearmens into my submods, so how should I go about balancing their stats? from my own testing even with just 1 attack they seem pretty down right devastating for their relative unit's usefulness (for example, my lamtuna spearmen using two handed animations with 5 attack 2 armour 8 defense 4 shield manage to beat 8 attack / 6 armour 9 skill 5 shield fedual knights while in schitrom (same unit size). obviously proving that the formation's effect is extremely significant.

for now i have set the base at 1 attack and around 4 defense skill , most of them don't have shield so they do have a obvious weakness against missile (most are very lightly armored too). but otherwise they're pretty damn devastating in battle, more than capable of mowing down lighter infantries and cavalries like weed while usually capapable of holding their ground against heavy infantry for a lot longer than you would expect based on stats, I tried to balacne this by making most of them cost quiet a bit more, as they would require some actual training, and require at least 2 turns to train, but still ... it's something that wasn't widely implemented in SS (i know the Mongols had one unit, but it appear to have been overlooked mostly). so i do wonder about it's long term balance if I implement it to the degree that I plan on (muslim factions have a lot of them , as will Italian factions.. and Scotts will have a bit more...

[RollingWave]

If you want to see the effect of these long spearmens...
My basic two handed spearmen, Arab Rijal (infantry), as you can see, it's stat would make a spear militia laugh

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marching against a slightly smaller group of viking raiders, seems like a slaughter for sure

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hmmmm

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not exactly a slaughter is it?

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try the same thing with schitrom formation

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hmmm

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check out the formation effect, notice how many spearmens are hitting relative to the vikings

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this is more like a slaughter... just not exactly the way you'd imagine

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this is the result of 3 arab rijal (two of them have armour upgarde) vs a hoard of urban spear / spearmen / pavise spear and one unit of mounted sergents

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[Point Blank]

What animation set are you using for the spearmen?

For the Sibiryaki Senior Militia (2H, no shield) I was using:
20 MTW2_Aggressive_Pike
15 MTW2_Non_Shield 1
17 MTW2_Pike_primary 1
18 MTW2_Sword_Primary

But this admittedly doesn't work so well because in the animation set pikes have had their defensive animations removed.
The ideal way would be to create a new animation set '2H_Spearmen', which would basically be the pike set plus defensive moves added in.

After that, I would give them a +2 attack bonus for being 2H weapon, a +1 charge bonus for 2H weapon, and +1 defense. In RC basic spearman defense is 1. However because they are using long spears a -1 attack penalty should probably apply. If they were in spearwall and not so much trained for individual combat, like pikemen, and using even longer spears then the penalty would be -3, ie base attack 2, which is what a pike is now.

So overall I'd stat them something like:

type Arab Rijal
dictionary arab_rijal
category infantry
class spearmen
voice_type Heavy
banner faction main_spear
banner holy crusade
soldier arab_rijal, 80, 0, 1, 0.3 ; mass 0.8 x 1.25 for 2H weapon ; size 80 Late Professional
mount_effect horse +2, camel +2
attributes sea_faring, hide_forest, can_withdraw, free_upkeep_unit
move_speed_mod 0.75 ; compensates for fast pike movement anim
formation 1.0, 0, 2.0, 2.0, 5, square
stat_health 1, 1
stat_pri 4, 4, no, 0, 0, melee, melee_blade, piercing, spear, 45, 1
stat_pri_attr light_spear
stat_sec 0, 0, no, 0, 0, no, melee_simple, blunt, none, 0, 1
stat_sec_attr no
stat_pri_armour 2, 4, 0, leather ; defense = 1 for spear +1 for 2H + 2 agility
stat_sec_armour 0, 0, flesh
stat_heat 0
stat_ground 0, 1, 0, -2
stat_mental 11, normal, trained
stat_charge_dist 6
stat_fire_delay 0
stat_food 60, 300
stat_cost 1, 235, 135, 85, 65, 275, 4, 50 ; ignore costs
armour_ug_levels 1
armour_ug_models arab_rijal

I think a key thing is the use of a new animation set that is pretty much the pike set with more defensive moves added in. I also slowed down all pike attacks by 25%, so that would need to be fixed as well. I can take a look at this when I get time. Its actually not much work, I might be able to get it done soon.

[RollingWave]

i'm also using pike animation though for most of them i'm using normal MTW_pike instead of the aggresive pike. i am using longer lances borrowed from BC models as it look far more approriate when held two handed (normal spear using pike formation like Sibiryaki Senior Militia look terrible, the spear's reach looks shorter than a short sword) though I'm not sure if that actually matters in game.

right now my setting is fairly close to yours with the only real variance being a much lower attack since I notice that high attack is ridiculasly awesome for these guys

type Dismounted Arab Cavalry
dictionary Dismounted_Arab_Cavalry ; Dismounted Arab Cavalry, lp
category infantry
class spearmen
voice_type Light
banner faction main_spear
banner holy crusade
soldier Dismounted_Arab_Cavalry, 60, 0, 0.95, 0.30
officer eastern_captain_early_flag
mount_effect horse +2, camel +2
attributes sea_faring, hide_forest, can_withdraw
formation 0.5, 0.5, 2.0, 2.0, 5, square, schiltrom
stat_health 1, 1
stat_pri 1, 4, no, 0, 0, melee, melee_blade, piercing, spear, 50, 1
stat_pri_attr spear
stat_sec 0, 0, no, 0, 0, no, melee_simple, blunt, none, 0, 1
stat_sec_attr no
stat_pri_armour 2, 4, 0, leather
stat_sec_armour 0, 0, flesh
stat_heat 1
stat_ground 0, 1, -1, -2
stat_mental 8, normal, trained
stat_charge_dist 6
stat_fire_delay 0
stat_food 60, 300
stat_cost 2, 595, 180, 75, 55, 415, 4, 100
armour_ug_levels 2, 5, 9
armour_ug_models Dismounted_Arab_Cavalry, Dismounted_Arab_Cavalry_ug1, Dismounted_Arab_Cavalry_ug2
ownership egypt, slave
era 0 egypt
era 1 egypt
era 2 egypt
recruit_priority_offset 10

i don't even dare to set their unit scale that high due to their tremendous effect, i set the charge higher but it really doesn't make any difference as the pike charge animation is weird anyway and if anything they actually suffer a lot more losses while lines collide and do a lot better after extended fighting. hell i gave all the them spear instead of light_spear attribute (since if i understand correctly spear give more attack penalty against infantry ). they really massacer anything that's not heavily armored. and even against heavily armored guys they tend to hold out for quiet a while as long as they're not broken on the initial charge.

personally, I think we need new animations to make this work well, though after reading the animation guides I really don't dare to attempt to do that as it looks excessively complicated for us laymans who can only understand file roots and basic numbers

[RollingWave]

Also, some further questions on the armor setting, it's fabulous work really, but i have some issue with how to use them properly.

for example, fedual knights right now start with 8 armor (6 for heavy mail and 2 for barded horse), but their UG is 11, 15, 16, 23 , with 23 being metallury so that doesn't really matter, but 16 is partial plate which is 11(!!) armour , but that would mean that it's armour go from 8 to 13 , which is impossible in the game?

[Point Blank]

About the attack setting, if the spears are really quite long an additional penalty would be reasonable. The MTW_Pike set has still had its attack anims slowed by 25%. I can do the anim stuff. I don't know, you may prefer to keep the slower attack speed and no defense anims - for pikes I also halve defense (rounding down) and as a further penalty I slowed the speed at which they turn left and right, so if they are hit from the flank they have a hard time. I don't know what combination of these factors would suit your unit.

OK, for the FK, as you say they start with 8 (6+2) armor, also +1 defense for mail (lamellar would just be 7 armor as a comparison, ie mail is less effective vs missiles)
armour_ug_levels 11, 15, 16, 23

11 = heavy mail = starting values 6+2, +1 defense
15 = coat of plates, therefore armor becomes about 8+2, +1 defense
16 = partial plate, armor becomes 10+2, + 1 defense

So at 16, ie partial plate, the entire defense is 12 from the armor and +1 from the defense = total 13
And also be aware that each armor upgrade, from testing, adds somewhere between 2 and 2.5 armor, but I assumed it to be 2. So in fact the final values are almost exactly the same as they would be for a unit starting in partial plate (11) on a barded horse (2) = 13.

[RollingWave]

if you could dabble in the animation though, another one that would make a ton of logical sense would be a two handed lance animation for non-catholic lancers. it's a no brainer that if your going to use a heavy lance without couching, two handed is the most logical way to go.

In the 3rd crusade the English recorded that many of the Muslim champions were wielding lance significantly longer and heavier than theirs, this would seem only physically possible if they were holding it with both hand, and one such record of a champion was that he was killed while trying to retrive his lance when it fell to the ground, which probably suggest that they most likely used it for more than just the charge, but also for melee.

This fits with what i know of the lance use of cavalry in the far east, where they were common, and most likely used as more than just initial charge weapons. i guess it's not THAT hard for someone who actually figure out how to do animation to just add a pikemen's attack animation to a horse rider's lower body. (since right now if you try to give a horsemen a pike animation they'll just stand ontop of the horse )

[Ichon]

Well to make heavier and longer lances possible in combat sometimes systems where the lance was attached to saddle or more to the horse was developed. This was fairly late medieval as the length of a lance was quite important in which side had advantage in a head to head charge. If by 3rd Crusade some Muslims had began to adopt HC tactics and tried to become even heavier HC than the Europeans maybe this happened.

Otherwise like you said it sounds like it had to be 2 handed though I'm not sure how effective that would be after charge. It really depends on how the melee developed.

[k/t]

Axe and mace are effectively identical, except axe has base 3 attack 3 defense, and mace has 2/4. Have you read the RC guide (its a bit out of date now)?

Viking raider axe 3 + superior quality 2 = 5. Armenian infantry average quality mace = 2 attack.

For a long time each additional quality level only provided +1 attack, it was much improved when changed to +2.

How come Dismounted Imperial Knights have 6 attack if they're Superior mace-users? Shouldn't it be 4, or were they supposed to be Elite?

[Beorn]

they may be exceptional

[RollingWave]

another question PB, I notice that most of the current 6.3's shield value seem to be significantly higher than the onces noted in your PDF, is that part of the "old" RC thing?

[Point Blank]

How come Dismounted Imperial Knights have 6 attack if they're Superior mace-users? Shouldn't it be 4, or were they supposed to be Elite?

The foot knights are elite.

another question PB, I notice that most of the current 6.3's shield value seem to be significantly higher than the onces noted in your PDF, is that part of the "old" RC thing?

If I had downloaded 6.3 I could tell you, I actually haven't yet! I really must.

As a generalization, the usual shield values are 2-3 for a buckler/heater, 5 for a kite/round shield, 7 for a pavise. All spearmen get +2 shield with a very low defense, so you'll see most spearmen with 7 shield etc. I can explain the reasoning behind this if you want.

That PDF seriously needs updating

[RollingWave]

ahhh ok, so spearmen gets +2 for shield, I was wondering why the militias were getting +7 shield .

though to be honest, a militia shield is probably not quiet the same as a kite shield in terms of quality, a make shift big piece of plank vs an actually reinforced shield isn't exactly the same thing

[Point Blank]

yeah it would be fine to subtract 1 for low-quality shields, I was thinking of doing that some time as well.

[k/t]

Where can I change the description of units so for the Foot Imperial Knights it will display "Elite" instead of "Superior"? The mounted ones remain as Superior, yes?

I forget if I mentioned it already, but Latvian Crossbowmen don't have a type and quality listed. I'm guessing Local and...Average. Am I right, and where can I write those in?

The Pavise Spear Militia will keep their 9 shields, right? Even though they were militia, they had good stuff. Pavise guys are great, including the Scutatoi (even though they're not using pavises). With armor upgrades and a 9 shield, they can soak up clouds of arrows.

I think we would all like an updated PDF . It's great to see that the system is continuously improved to provide a better experience for all, like this -1 for crappy shields business.

[bɑne]

Where can I change the description of units so for the Foot Imperial Knights it will display "Elite" instead of "Superior"? The mounted ones remain as Superior, yes?

I forget if I mentioned it already, but Latvian Crossbowmen don't have a type and quality listed. I'm guessing Local and...Average. Am I right, and where can I write those in?

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