Balancing Units

**MEGAS ALEXANDROS** · August 24, 2006, 04:55 PM

I recently downloaded vikrant1986's Mauryan Faction Mod... but i discovered that his units where in fact too powerfull... in fact to an allmost pornographic way... an example: elephants with 40 attack and 15 hit points and like 17 missile... so i started to balancing them... then i realiced that many units in RTRPE are a bit powerfull... an example: Hypastist... i'm still amazed how 1 hit point makes the difference between a Hypastist GOD/Terminator/Inmortal and a Hypastist sissie/Dead-meat/no-good soldier.

So here's my question: How do you guy's balance your units?

another example are the elephants... or they are too powerfull or too weak... exactly the difference between the seleucid cataphrac elephant and the carthaginian (joke) elephant.
How do you balance them?

these are my two problems: Hypastist and elephants... and possibly the spartans (3 hit points? i know of thermopylae but isn't too much?) :hmmm:

So... thanks for any help.

**florin80** · August 24, 2006, 05:50 PM

There are 3 guys who did the rebalancing work for RTRPE. Shos, Sanky and Crymson. They should know more about it, but I assure you that all the rebalancing job was very meticulously done.
Now, about the elephants. There is suppose to be such a great difference between the carthaginian and his asian counterpart.

**JoeyJubb** · August 24, 2006, 06:29 PM

Originally Posted by florin80

There is suppose to be such a great difference between the carthaginian and his asian counterpart.

I remember reading somewhere about this! It's because the African elephant is smaller and cannot support a tower on its back - the Indian elephants are much bigger with a different shaped skull / backbone so that they are able to carry towers on their backs as well as trample, gore and generally do more damage than the African ones.

**Antiochus the Great** · August 24, 2006, 06:38 PM

Exactly, their larger size also makes them more capable of supporting the armor they are covered in.

**MEGAS ALEXANDROS** · August 25, 2006, 08:34 AM

I've worked all night balancing these mauryan units... and i've come to respect all you guys... it's an amazing amount of work and detailed... and try and error... my hat comes off to you guys.

and that's balancing i cont imaging the work that toke to do this mod... it's really amazing.

I agree with you on the elephants

, but about the hypastist's... is there any reason why they have 2 hit points or is there any way of making them good but not inmortals?... and ofcourse the spartan hoplites... why 3 hit ponits?... too powerfull?... what do you think?

Thanks again guys

**JoeyJubb** · August 25, 2006, 09:57 AM

The spartan hoplites in RTR have only 2 hit points, maybe that'll balance things better

**Shos** · August 25, 2006, 10:02 AM

Originally Posted by JoeyJubb

The spartan hoplites in RTR have only 2 hit points, maybe that'll balance things better

They DID have 3 hit points in RTR 6 Gold.

**JoeyJubb** · August 25, 2006, 10:14 AM

Originally Posted by Shos

They DID have 3 hit points in RTR 6 Gold.

Yeah okay okay, I was just contributing what I know.

**vikrant** · August 26, 2006, 04:53 PM

MEGAS ALEXANDROS
ur doing great job
thnx

**MEGAS ALEXANDROS** · August 29, 2006, 02:33 PM

You're welcome vikrant1986, in fact I should be the one thanking you, for creating the Mauryan expantion mod... I love it!!!

About the Spartans i personally believe 3 hit points to be way too much...

**evil-SHADOW** · August 30, 2006, 03:03 AM

Originally Posted by MEGAS ALEXANDROS

You're welcome vikrant1986, in fact I should be the one thanking you, for creating the Mauryan expantion mod... I love it!!!

About the Spartans i personally believe 3 hit points to be way too much...

But Thermopylae... :hmmm:

**Dramascus** · August 30, 2006, 10:07 AM

personally i think the hypaspists are pretty average considering their upkeep costs. they may have staying power but you still only have half as many of them as a normal sized unit, so they do half the damage. they are very good for sieges though.

as for other rebalancing, i changed the gallic chosen swordsman and spearmen to have both the 'inspire' and 'scare enemy infantry' traits, since i thought it was rather lame that they cost 600 upkeep with 2 turn recruitment yet are mediocre compared to a unit of princeps. i left the thracian chosen swordsmen since they also have bastarnae, which are possibly the best infantry in the game (armour piercing!).

one thing i think really needs to be looked at is the venadae bagudum (or whatever its called), theyre pretty much identical to the naked fanatics, basically one can hide in long grass and the other has a tiny bit better stats... i think there needs to be some sort of truly distinguishing feature between them that makes them both worth having in an army.

i know the gauls are being looked at for the next version so chances are this will all be improved

**MEGAS ALEXANDROS** · August 30, 2006, 02:03 PM

I remember Thermopylae very well, but I also remember Leuctra and Mantinea... Remenber RTR's time frame, spartans are not the super power they used to be, I know it will be very crappy if the spartans in the game resembled the spartans of that time, so I'm more than OK with powerfull spartans

... but 3 hit points are too much, remember that they are infantry not elephants or chariots... what I have changed is more attack but only 2 hit points.

I agree that Hypastist have a an expensive upkeep and i also agree that changing the 2 hit points for just 1 makes them as good as dead, but what can i do to BALANCING them?, that's the question... more attack, upkeep, defense? :hmmm:

also...don't you think that numidian units sucks? (in battle not the graphics... that i love by-the-way), i played against the romans, the macedonian, the ptolemaic, greeks and carthaginian... and I got defeated in a way I've never believed I could be

... surelly I have learn now to be more humble :wink:

I agree with you about the choosen swordsmen, I'm changing them right now... thanks for the tip

**MrT785479** · August 30, 2006, 03:40 PM

As far as spartans, hypaspists, etc. I just go through the export_descr_unit and find all infantry units with 2 or 3 hit points and put them down to one hitpoint, but bump up their defense ratings to help make up for it a little bit. So for Spartans I give them at least 3, sometimes 4, to all of their defense stats for a total of about 9-10 more defense than they had. This does not make them as good as if they had three hit points, but that is on purpose.

I feel that 2 hit points is too much because of what it does when the unit is either hit by missiles or a cav charge. For instance, even if you hit hypaspists from the back with missiles almost nothing gets done unless you put in like 4-5 volleys, and that will get you about 3-4 kills. The problem is that even though their defense skill and shield rating isn't taken into account their armor is still essentially doubled which makes the missiles do almost nothing. If you spread out the defense between their shield, armor, and skill, then they are still very effective in hand to hand combat because all of their defense accounts towards that, but they are still very vulnerable to missiles and cav charges from the back, which I think is how it should be.

**mcantu** · August 30, 2006, 06:09 PM

I have no problem killing and routing lots of Hypaspists with missile fire from behind...esp with flaming arrows or javelins with the 'armor piercing' trait. The problem with them is that they are too damn fast! They always charge ahead of the main line to your flanks and can outrun medium and heavy cavalry.