THP's Unit Balance thread

[The Holy Pilgrim]

If you can keep people happy with units being balanced while I work on other things then that is just grand.

Hehe, that would be a good plan.

Mind if I send the EDU occasionally for your opinion? Since this is your mod, I'd like to make sure you're in agreement with how things are being done.

[Duke Serkol]

10. Moblins
- I would probably say the Moblin Grunts are the most disciplined of the lot, but only in that they are able to keep formation. Pretty much every Moblin soldier just wants to get into the fight and bash heads. As such I imagined that they would be the best "charging" faction in the game.
- They don't have the numbers of the Gohma or Kokiri. I would say they outnumber Hyrule though, especially in the case of their smaller units.

Kokiri have large numbers? Never would have guessed (considering how small their viallge was in OoT)

13. Labrynna
- They have a professional army along the same lines as Hyrule, though they also employ the Tokay as slaves, who have almost no training at all
- Their armor is made of bronze, which I imagine is a little less practical then iron. I would consider their weaponry on par with late Medieval era and early Renaissance ( 1400AD - 1600AD ), though they do have a steam-punk vibe which delves into unrealistic territory.

Just a tiny bit, uh?

I know you were just answering questions Neph, but that was a very nice read

[The Holy Pilgrim]

Added the stats of a few revised units to the first post

[quenya]

do you think you could slightly reduce the goron's unit sizes? not as much as the Darknuts, but enough to slightly curb the unfair advantage they have.

[The Holy Pilgrim]

do you think you could slightly reduce the goron's unit sizes? not as much as the Darknuts, but enough to slightly curb the unfair advantage they have.

As of right now, they have as many soldiers as a Zora infantry unit and they're actually evenly matched. That might be changed later on, though.

Really, how I see it, is not how many soldiers there are per unit, but rather how many units you can field in an army. That is how I determine army size, so elites might have a larger unit, but they'd have few units than the typical soldier (though that is not always the case). Larger soldiers and creatures will have fewer soldiers per unit while Huge creatures and Mages will have even less. Massive creatures will have one soldier per unit.

[The Holy Pilgrim]

Ok, after a rebalanced a decent number of units for Hyrule and the Gerudo, I decided to do a test battle.

Initially, I, the Gerudo, had a severe disadvantage and if I were to auto-resolve the battle, it would've been a disaster (that's what I get for picking a fight with a Hylian army my size ).

I had a setup of 4 Dune Archers, 2 Mounted Dune Archers, 2 Marauders (with one as a general), and 3 Glaive Grunts. It turned out to be a total of 1342 women.

The Hylians had 3 Hyrule Infantry, 4 Sword Recruits, and 5 Town Guards. They had a total of 1304 men and women.

During the battle, I camped whilst the Hylians marched towards my army, having my Dune Archers, mounted and foot, firing arrows down upon them, killing quite a few men (Hylians have good armor ). Finally, when they're almost to my lines, I send the infantry forward to block them. Understandably, given that the Gerudo have no armor whatsoever, save for the leather that the Glaive Grunts wear, my infantry were cut down without too much of a problem. The same would've happened if I sent my archers in to fight the infantry, but I thought of a better plan. Knowing that my archers could easily out-run the Hylians and could out-last them in an endurance race, I had all of my archers on skirmish, letting the Hylians tire themselves out all the while I keep pelting them with arrows. This charade goes on for a while; arrows had trouble penetrating the solid steel that the Hylian Infantry wore, but eventually, their numbers began to drop significantly. Once my horse archers ran out of arrows, I sent them to charge the enemy and the victory came swiftly.

Below are the results:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

This goes to show that while the Gerudo are out-classed in armor and weapons, they are far superior in speed, mobility, and endurance than the poor Hylians. Now, this was fought in a moderate climate, so neither side had a terrain advantage. If it were the desert, the Hylians would've been screwed even more

[Mattwensley]

Ok, after a rebalanced a decent number of units for Hyrule and the Gerudo, I decided to do a test battle.

Initially, I, the Gerudo, had a severe disadvantage and if I were to auto-resolve the battle, it would've been a disaster (that's what I get for picking a fight with a Hylian army my size ).

I had a setup of 4 Dune Archers, 2 Mounted Dune Archers, 2 Marauders (with one as a general), and 3 Glaive Grunts. It turned out to be a total of 1342 women.

The Hylians had 3 Hyrule Infantry, 4 Sword Recruits, and 5 Town Guards. They had a total of 1304 men and women.

During the battle, I camped whilst the Hylians marched towards my army, having my Dune Archers, mounted and foot, firing arrows down upon them, killing quite a few men (Hylians have good armor ). Finally, when they're almost to my lines, I send the infantry forward to block them. Understandably, given that the Gerudo have no armor whatsoever, save for the leather that the Glaive Grunts wear, my infantry were cut down without too much of a problem. The same would've happened if I sent my archers in to fight the infantry, but I thought of a better plan. Knowing that my archers could easily out-run the Hylians and could out-last them in an endurance race, I had all of my archers on skirmish, letting the Hylians tire themselves out all the while I keep pelting them with arrows. This charade goes on for a while; arrows had trouble penetrating the solid steel that the Hylian Infantry wore, but eventually, their numbers began to drop significantly. Once my horse archers ran out of arrows, I sent them to charge the enemy and the victory came swiftly.

Below are the results:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

This goes to show that while the Gerudo are out-classed in armor and weapons, they are far superior in speed, mobility, and endurance than the poor Hylians. Now, this was fought in a moderate climate, so neither side had a terrain advantage. If it were the desert, the Hylians would've been screwed even more

Such a relatively close result for an experienced (and dare I say it, handsome ) Total War player implies that it must have been a close and tough fight, what was the AI difficulty?

[Avatar of the Ice Wolf]

Such a relatively close result for an experienced (and dare I say it, handsome ) Total War player implies that it must have been a close and tough fight, what was the AI difficulty?

May I just add something here about AI difficulty? I've noticed that on some difficulties, certain units do not work right. Now, I have not tried this since the latest installment, but previously when the AI was set on Very Hard as Stalfos their Scythe Lords would spend the entire battle running in circles. The AI used them fine on Normal difficulty, but could not let off a single volley on Very Hard. In other words, Very Hard was easier than Normal because the AI seemed to have a distancing problem with the Scythe Lords.

[The Holy Pilgrim]

May I just add something here about AI difficulty? I've noticed that on some difficulties, certain units do not work right. Now, I have not tried this since the latest installment, but previously when the AI was set on Very Hard as Stalfos their Scythe Lords would spend the entire battle running in circles. The AI used them fine on Normal difficulty, but could not let off a single volley on Very Hard. In other words, Very Hard was easier than Normal because the AI seemed to have a distancing problem with the Scythe Lords.

Yes, I noticed this when I was testing if the Gerudo and all of their arrows could actually win against the Gorons (the answer is "yes" ), and the Goron bombers refused to throw their grenades AND for some reason, when in melee, they do not fight.

[Attaxer]

So when would you estimate being able to have this sub-mod completed, sire?

[The Holy Pilgrim]

Normal, just to make sure that all stats are what they actually are. No bonuses or penalties to either me or the AI.

I'm also thinking of implementing new AI so the battles are more difficult and each faction actually uses their intended units (Gerudo are not an infantry faction and the Hylians are not a cavalry faction!).

[Baerke Hinn Gauzki]

Would the ReallyBadAI system function to this purpose perhaps??

[The Holy Pilgrim]

Perhaps, but I'm thinking of a different type of AI.

[The Holy Pilgrim]

No idea.

Hopefully not too long, though. I already have about half of the units for Hyrule, Gerudo, Goron, and Zora complete (heroes not included).

[Attaxer]

That's good to here sir. Mucho Bueno.

[PaulH]

I have nothing to contribute at the moment, but I'm laying down my support for this endeavor. Hopefully if you get it done, it'll be incorporated into the mod at large, rather than as a submod addition.

Also, look into unit costs and upkeep costs if possible, I know enough from previous experience that units are very imbalanced in terms of cost

[The Holy Pilgrim]

I have nothing to contribute at the moment, but I'm laying down my support for this endeavor. Hopefully if you get it done, it'll be incorporated into the mod at large, rather than as a submod addition.

Also, look into unit costs and upkeep costs if possible, I know enough from previous experience that units are very imbalanced in terms of cost

I will be needing some help with the cost of arms and armor in Hyrule and everywhere else, as well as how long it takes to recruit each type of soldier and if they maintain their own equipment (free_upkeep) or if their government pays for it (upkeep).

I will also have to devise a formula for recruitment costs.

[PaulH]

*Nods nods*

I'll try and help if I can at some point, however I am working on something for this mod which might take me a wee bit of time. Should be worth it though.

Oh, and I noticed when playing Kokiri earlier.. the slingshots fired by the Kokiri on Deku Trees are insanely powerful. I conquered almost the entirety of the Lizalfos with only 4 units.

[The Holy Pilgrim]

*Nods nods*

I'll try and help if I can at some point, however I am working on something for this mod which might take me a wee bit of time. Should be worth it though.

Oh, and I noticed when playing Kokiri earlier.. the slingshots fired by the Kokiri on Deku Trees are insanely powerful. I conquered almost the entirety of the Lizalfos with only 4 units.

That brings up another question:

How good are the Kokiri at using slingshots? Are they marksmen with them or are they just proficient?

[UndyingNephalim]

Hopefully if you get it done, it'll be incorporated into the mod at large, rather than as a submod addition.

It will be incorporated for sure. Having another person handle balancing units while I work on other things is very handy, because I just don't have enough time to do something as time consuming as testing dozens of battles to see how each and every unit stacks up against others. That and with all the modding help THP has provided in the past I trust that his results will be good and not biased against or for any faction.