unit stats

[Blizzard]

I'm having a campain with the Sweboz and noticed that almost all units have armor values between 2 and 4 and none of them wear any armor also almost none of them helmet.
What's up with those armor values?
Now I understand your reason when you say gaetsae have an armor value of 5 (cause of their helmet - though I think 1 or 2 armor would be more than apropiate) but for units that have no armor and no helmets I find such armor ratings exagerated).
If your argument is making battles last longer it's enough to increase morale and defensive values but don't make any unit in the game a panzer.
In my opinion units stats need serious tweaking or unit specialisation tends to become zero.
Whats the point having an elephant in your army when two gaesatae hit points and skills almost equals with having an elephant? Makes me feel that I play the game with just a few units the rest being just eyecandy - making the differences between cultures almost zero.
Sweboz archers for example have an armor of 4 and with all that armor and the spears they have as secondary weapon they manage to roam the battlefield at 50 miles/hour.
Also noticed an unit with no other description than unit placeholder and upkeep 0. Cant remember its name though - in a town north of ak ink. the rebels had about 5 units of them in that town.
Instead of reaching maximum units possible I suggest you concentrate on finishing the units already existing in the game since they still require a lot of work.

[swabian]

the hastati just wear a small breast plate and a helmet and have armor 9 (same as gastiz/ferulharjoz/germanic general unit, which is wearing a decent chainmail). it's not only the sweboz. actually the majority of the units has some armor, including those who, apparently, should have no armor. the interpretation is quite obvious imho: the shield offers partially allround protection and partially additional protection against attack from the front and the (right?) side. the actual shield values seem to be reduced and partially 'transfered' to the armor and/or defense ability values.

[Blizzard]

the shield value is not reduced I've seen values of 5 and 6 for shield which I think it's more than enough at 0.1/0.2 rate of killing or whatever that value is
I think the high armor values make units less vulnerable when flanked or attacked from behind which is big step back from realism and descreases the values for strategic movements on the battlefield
if all this is a measure against the high lethality of missile troops than their attack skill should be tweaked not the armor increased because from what I've seen looking into export_unit_desc the killing rate for ranged attack is still 1

[swabian]

maybe i don't remember correctly. i thought the shield values were higher in vanilla. however, i totally agree that this is lowering the importance of tactical maneuvering, especially in addition with the low 'killer-value'. i actually intended to edit this, but i observed that increasing the 'killer-value' has a much more distinctive effect on the tactical dynamic than the defense values could ever have within a reasonable range, so i left them as they are and just edited the 'k-v'.

edit: the best solution to moderate the effect of experience on missles would be to drastically increase both, armor and missle values, imo. maybe the responsible EB member thought the same thing but realised it rather inconsequently (well... it's just a beta)

[Blizzard]

maybe some scale of value should be adopted - from 1 to 2 points for helmet
leather armor - 2-4
chainmail 4-9
etc
yes that would let some troops vulnerable to certain manouvers or style of formations but thats where the commander's skill comes to test: using the atus available (for example a barbarian army would be a more suitable for skirmishes, and fast manouvers on the battlefield, tactical redrawals and luring the enemy into ambushes)
yeah I know the AI is completely stupid ... maybe a rethinking of battle formations is necessary?
you should really feel the differences between cultures when you play and for each there should be a strategy that needs to be discovered when facing certain enemies.

btw a note for those complaining about casse chariots: they do their job just fine
I just got a heroic victory agains overwhelming odds using them to break enemy formations the enemy had approx 1600 soldiers including some elite and light cavalry while I had just the troops the casse start with + an unit of fresh recruited botaroas approx 500 - 600 men .While the heir was creating chaos in their first line my leader was decimating an unit of leuce epos sent to flank me. I attacked with the rest of the infantry the dezorganised line and all started to turn agains the enemy when one of their unit routed. Their general tried to attack my leader but was killed(btw chariots are highly effective against light cav). Their incoming reinforcements were demoralised seeing their allies routing and took their example really fast once their captain got killed and I got an heroic victory(lost my heir in the process but it worth the price since the whole middle england was opened for me).

[LorDBulA]

We have wery complex system for generating stats.
Basicly every type of armour and every element of armour and weapons have stats made for them.
Armour rating, and cost fo armour.
Attack and cost for weapons.
Shileds have also separate stats , etc.
There are also modyfieres like sweboz didnt have much iron so everything that is made of iron costs more etc..
There are also modyfieres for troop quality, levy/profesions/elite etc...
And more.
Its quite complex.

No stats are maid from thin air.
I wont be able to tell you exactly what armour should have what stats since i dont work on them and cant find right now appropriate thread.

[Pritzl]

That's a very impressive approach LordBula. However, do not underestimate the need for post-aggregation fudging. i.e. once you've worked up a unit's stats, etc. based on the elements, a little tweaking may be in order. e.g. Elephants that insta-rout versus javelins, particularly from 'bonus fighting elephants' type troops but manage to mow down an entire legion in melee.

For the record, I think missile units are right where they should be at the moment; not as effective as in vanilla but still worthwhile, especially if used against a unit's back or unshielded flank.

[QwertyMIDX]

Some of the stranger armor values are the result of tweaking after the application of the system. Most barbarians have slightly higher armor values than they would via the stats system because if they didn't civilized factions would just steam roll them in combat, which we know isn't how it happened. I know it's fun to look at the stats and say "this looks strange" but the way stats work in RTW isn't always the most logical way and telling us when strange things happen on the battlefield is much more helpful than telling us what stats each unit has. I know what the stats are, I want to how they're performing in game.



Most missile units are ok, but experience boasts really screw them up due to the fact that leathality doesn't work for them.

[Cybvep]

Some of the stranger armor values are the result of tweaking after the application of the system. Most barbarians have slightly higher armor values than they would via the stats system because if they didn't civilized factions would just steam roll them in combat, which we know isn't how it happened. I know it's fun to look at the stats and say "this looks strange" but the way stats work in RTW isn't always the most logical way and telling us when strange things happen on the battlefield is much more helpful than telling us what stats each unit has. I know what the stats are, I want to how they're performing in game.



Most missile units are ok, but experience boasts really screw them up due to the fact that leathality doesn't work for them.

You must do some text-related changes, then . Some examples:
Armour->Armour & Endurance
Hit Points->Vitality (IMO "Vitality" is much more 'climatic' than "Hit Points" )

[Pritzl]

Wel, in that case, maybe we should compile a list of issues? Mine is short atm but I haven't played that long:

• General's cavalry: with some factions it almost seems like the fabled MTW generals are back. With others it's almost disgraceful how quickly they die/rout.
• Gesaetae: A bit too hard to kill requiring anywhere from 3-4 units dedicated to taking out a single unit of them when in melee.
• Elephants: Far too powerful in melee, far too weak against javelins from elephant-bonus troops.

[swabian]

isn't it contradictional to introduce a complex system for armor values and simultanously add general armor bonuses for the purpos of balancing?

[Pritzl]

isn't it contradictional to introduce a complex system for armor values and simultanously add general armor bonuses for the purpos of balancing?

Not really, so long as the rebalancing is done post-testing, i.e. not on a simple stats versus stats matchup. The reason I believe this is necessary is that, as others have noted, R:TW uses a unique stats system, and while we have the highlights, we don't know everything about how it works. So, final play-testing is very valuable in checking that any approach you have taken with the stats actually translate into realistic combat outcomes.

[swabian]

it is undoubtedly necessary, yes. i really like the EB methods, allthough i don't allways agree with the results they produce, but i agree with the principle. it would be interesting to have a look on the deteails. i'd also like to know the reason for coding the regions with hidden resources alpha, beta, gamma, etc. @any EB-member: is it possible to have insight in those systems in the futeure?

[swabian]

an other way to get around the experience problem is to make the units recruitable at an experience level > 0. one would have to lower the stats accordingly of course.

[Pritzl]

an other way to get around the experience problem is to make the units recruitable at an experience level > 0. one would have to lower the stats accordingly of course.

Although I wouldn't necessarily buy into that right away - you do want your veterans to be better after all, it definitely has it's merits. The alternative as you said would be to raise 'everything' to minimize the impact of experience, but then you affect everything, not only missile troops which are the main problem wrt experience affecting their stats.

Taking both into consideration, how does this sound: all troops (particularly missile troops) that are expected to over-benefit from increased experience be recruited with a basic experience level > 0 after having their base stats adjusted accordingly.

[swabian]

i edited most of the elite units to be recruitable at higher experience levels. the gesatae at level 4. it is my impression, that gaining higher levels of experience needs much more effort.

Taking both into consideration, how does this sound: all troops (particularly missile troops) that are expected to over-benefit from increased experience be recruited with a basic experience level > 0 after having their base stats adjusted accordingly.

this will be probably necessary, at last, one should consider it in some cases.

@blizz: i'd sugest to make them berserkers, so they definately wont flee, i think.

[QwertyMIDX]

an other way to get around the experience problem is to make the units recruitable at an experience level > 0. one would have to lower the stats accordingly of course.

I actually support this, I have been pushing for it for a while.

As to your list of unit issues Pritzl, I've been working on Elephants (more armor, less DS mostly, trying to find a balance), have given all general's cav 1 HP, but have not and do not plan to change the Gesaetae, other than making the unit smaller (which I have already done).

[Blizzard]

I did some tweaking on units stats
added +5 moral to all units
and since I'm not an adept of 2hp I modified the stats for gesatae too
for who wanna paly around with them here's how they look:

type barb gaesatae gaul
dictionary barb_gaesatae_gaul ; Gaesatae
category infantry
class heavy
voice_type Heavy_1
soldier celtic_infantry_gaesatae_tindanotae, 40, 0, 1.2
officer standard_celtic_standardbearer
mount_effect elephant -3
attributes sea_faring, hide_improved_forest, frighten_foot, very_hardy
formation 1.2, 1.4, 2.4, 2.8, 5, square
stat_health 1, 0
stat_pri 8, 0, javelin, 51.8, 4, thrown, simple, piercing, spear, 10 ,1
stat_pri_attr prec, thrown
stat_sec 25, 65, no, 0, 0, melee, simple, slashing, sword, 0 ,0.5
stat_sec_attr no
stat_pri_armour 1, 20, 5, flesh
stat_sec_armour 0, 0, flesh
stat_heat 3
stat_ground 2, -1, 3, 1
stat_mental 27, impetuous, untrained
stat_charge_dist 40
stat_fire_delay 0
stat_food 60, 300
stat_cost 2, 3341, 835, 50, 70, 3341
ownership gauls, scythia, egypt, slave

[QwertyMIDX]

Charges higher than 63 just register as 63 in game. So the change to 65 should just be to 63. If you're going to nerf them you should aslo make them a bit cheaper. They pay a lot for their drugs in the stat system and going from +1 HP and +2 Morale to just +2 Morale is a serious hit.

They also have WAY less armor for their helmet than any other unit in the game, which seems a bit unfair as they pay for that too.

[Blizzard]

they gained also in attack and defense skill
and their kill ration is 0.5
just wanna say that I decimated a full stack of arveni (average toops most of the lugoae and mala gaeros with two units of heavy cav) with just 3 units of them
in the final only 11 gaesatae remained
one unit was completely decimated
other routed when 6 were left
and other continued fighting till the end
only one unit had 1 experience
the other had 0
the 11 gaesate remained gained 2 silver chevrons exp
I think I made them even stornger than before lol