Elite / levy balance

[tone]

While I'm doing a little tweaking of unit costs and balance, it'd be good to get a poll on peoples' experiences of RS2 AI armies that they've encountered.

Is the overall feeling that they contain too many elite units to lesser ones, just right or too few elites?

[Julio-Claudian]

In my experience it's just right, I see a good range of units. The AI normally has 2 elite units at the very least and I get the odd super elite stack to face.

[Antiokhos Euergetes]

I think it has a good balance, but perhaps should take longer to recruit elites and cost more- especially in professional armies

[Sharpe]

Personally I feel there are slightly too many elites and units with high upkeep. I think that elites could take about 20 turns to train to stop them being pumped out and they would have more value. Realistically you should have only 3 or 4 elites in your army.

Maybe dividing troops into classes a bit like Real Combat would help? Peasant, Levy, Average, Superior, Elite and Exceptional.

[Grimbold]

I don't think the problem lies with how many elites the AI recruits for one of it's "proper" stacks.

The problem is that there are more randomized and weak AI armies than there are proper ones. Im not sure if this can be changed, but the AI recruits too many stacks of completely random units with little to no armor/experience, which leaves the player to contend with the few proper stacks that spawn when invading the AI's territory.
It's simultaneously frustrating and disappointing to see a full AI stack on the map and then upon closer inspection see that they're just a bunch of fresh recruits with no bonuses.

As to the elites themselves, what are talking about specificly? Right now on my ptolemaic campaign, im still facing a few proper Seleucid stacks which contain 2 agema phalanx units, 1 cataphract elephant, 1 hyphaistis(spelling) and 1 companion cavalry. Are these what you'd consider elite units?

[tone]

BTW, this is for the normally recruited units, not the scripted armies (which usually have a perfect looking combination of units)


The problem is that if you make it harder for the player to train elite units (more turns), it'll also make the AI less likely to select those units as so many units are shared.

But we could try a compromise where all the more elite units take one turn (for zero turn) and two turns (for one turn)....anyone keen to do some experimenting?

[Grimbold]

BTW, this is for the normally recruited units, not the scripted armies (which usually have a perfect looking combination of units)


The problem is that if you make it harder for the player to train elite units (more turns), it'll also make the AI less likely to select those units as so many units are shared.

But we could try a compromise where all the more elite units take one turn (for zero turn) and two turns (for one turn)....anyone keen to do some experimenting?

Several elite units already take 2 turns to recruit in one turn campaigns.

[Antiokhos Euergetes]

Could work, what about costs?

[carmir]

Voted for just right. Usually the AI sends stacks that have good mix of everything. I don't mind the occasional levy/slinger/missilecav stack, fodder for my armies' sword arms!

[ur-Lord Tedric]

Voted for 'just right', but also want to note (and disagree therefore with the above...)

All AI recruited armies seem to start at Exp3, with Fortified Regions adding +1 and Merged Regions adding +2 - in short, I mostly encounter recruited armies (of mixed types and fairly good mixes at that) of Exp5 (2 Silver) all the time.

When they get Bronze/Silver Armour/Wpn upgrades it can get 'interesting'.

[carmir]

All AI recruited armies seem to start at Exp3, with Fortified Regions adding +1 and Merged Regions adding +2 - in short, I mostly encounter recruited armies (of mixed types and fairly good mixes at that) of Exp5 (2 Silver) all the time.

When they get Bronze/Silver Armour/Wpn upgrades it can get 'interesting'.

This, really.
Don't want to spam or anything but this is what I think in better words than I could have found.

[tone]

I think that the experience thing may be true of 1 turn campaigns, but certainly not of 0 turn campaigns where even 70-80 years into the campaign you can still encounter lots of AI units with no upgrades - no chevrons, no armour or weapons upgrades at all. It seems that the AI would rather spend money on units than buildings where possible.

Now that might be an issue to do with the relative costs of the two - units seem "better value" than buildings to the AI?

[ur-Lord Tedric]

I think that the experience thing may be true of 1 turn campaigns, but certainly not of 0 turn campaigns where even 70-80 years into the campaign you can still encounter lots of AI units with no upgrades - no chevrons, no armour or weapons upgrades at all. It seems that the AI would rather spend money on units than buildings where possible.

Now that might be an issue to do with the relative costs of the two - units seem "better value" than buildings to the AI?

That's very interesting - I didn't play enough 0turn to know that.....

So - 1turn players may get less battles, but they get better and harder battles......

That means 0turn is so much easier..... ..That's made me happy today!

[Paedric]

It may be that the ai is always prioritising unit building, but since they can only build one each turn, they have more money for buildings.

[Grimbold]

Like i attempted to said previously, im going have to disagree with the 1 turn situation mentioned by Tedric.

In 1 turn, the AI goes to battle with a greater number of armies which fit the description provided by Tone, than he goes with a decent force.

Im not saying that an "armorless" or 0 experience enemy stack won't inflict any casualties or anything of the sort, but i see that a campaign where a player faces more decent AI armies would be far more entertaining and endangering to the player.

The disadvantage that comes to my mind of having more of these upgraded armies in 1 turn, is that it may slow the game even more as there is the chance of the AI wearing the player's armies even more, forcing him to go back for refreshing his troops more often.

Still, i stand by my opinion that it is disappointing. Hell if the AI holds a decent amount of rich regions, upgrade your bloody armies!

[Julio-Claudian]

It happens in 0-turn. I see silver chevron armies/units all the time.