SSHIP - General Discussion

[sillygoy]

I must say I am enjoying the changes I'm making. Western European Spear Militia are now on par with Moorish ones (I wonder why they were vastly inferior in the first place) and cavalry is still devastating without being world-ending. Before my changes, an enemy General's Bodyguard of 20 horsemen casually walked into a bunch of Mercenary Spearmen and Dismounted Sword Mailed Knights in a city and killed 100 and 70 of them respectively before succumbing themselves.

The massive difference in combat effectiveness between unit qualities has been shrunk so there is more emphasis on maneuver and positioning rather than counters (which are still important).

I'm willing to run through the entirety of export_desc_unit.txt and making changes to every unit and upload it if anyone likes.

[Tripledot]

My own edit to the EDU included decreasing charge distance for most infantry from 6 to 2, and it's had an interesting effect on gameplay since most units don't engage with a charge at first (smaller/damaged units are still susceptible to charges though). Makes battles into slugfests as there are fewer initial casualties when two units meet.

As for early game balance- I've noticed that Armored Sergeants vastly outperform regular Spearmen/Urban Spear Militia, mainly due to their high defense value. Combined with XXZit's tweaks, they can quite handily defeat light cavalry and even take on General's Bodyguard if they manage to engage with them before the cavalry can get off a charge. RE: generals, I think what makes generals (and heavy cavalry in general) so potent in combat comes down to the speed of their attack animations, which end up allowing them to take on spear units in melee despite being bogged down. The best way to address this IMO is to increase the delay between attacks for heavily-armored cavalry (faster attack rate for light cav would be balanced out by their decreased survivability*). Raising it from 15 to 50 seems to get them to attack at a more reasonable (slower) pace.

*plus, it would make them more useful for chasing down troops, a function which units like Feudal Knights are currently better than Mounted Sergeants at

[sillygoy]

Spear Militiamen are quite literally dead weight and only nominally better than Peasant infantry as they are right now. The weapon type light_spear doesn't seem to give any bonuses against cavalry, and with an attack rating of 1 and General's Bodyguards having a defense rating of over 20+ they will just get slaughtered by the Bodyguards' own very high attack skill and fast animations.

Just tweaking the stats alone (Spear Militia have 4 att and 2 + 5 + 7 def & early GB have 12 att and 6 + 14 + 7 def) has made things a lot more reasonable.

[Just let me post]

I'm willing to run through the entirety of export_desc_unit.txt and making changes to evehry unit and upload it if anyone likes.

If the changes you are doing are going to be consistent, I'm definitely trying it.


Good you are enjoying it, and please don't fall too deep into this rabbit hole of a file Those little numbers used to took days of out my life, heh



light_spear gives bracing/defensive bonus but no attack bonus vs cav (and I think no penalty vs infantry). spear_bonus_x and mount_effect x increase dmg vs cav. And only "spear" and/or "mount_effect" display "bonus vs cavalry" hint in unit description

Oh and I've noticed that tampering with def factor (second value in stat_pri_armour) even by a small margin can really screw with unit's balance so I tended to avoid it.

A guide to the file if anyone is interested:
http://medieval2.heavengames.com/m2t...de/index.shtml

[Dekhatres]

The best way to address this IMO is to increase the delay between attacks for heavily-armored cavalry (faster attack rate for light cav would be balanced out by their decreased survivability*). Raising it from 15 to 50 seems to get them to attack at a more reasonable (slower) pace.

this something i've been looking at aswell last few days, i've messed around with that value in the past and i dont remember it having any noticeable impact, will look into it again

[Just let me post]

Increasing attack delay may have a secondary effect of increasing anti-armour effectiveness:

Removing AP can work out great in my opinion, it has been tried here and there and some people are very satisfied with the results, myself included. My take on the issue was giving maces and similar heavy weapons increased attack but a hefty attack delay, so they will repeatedly be interrupted by a swift swordsman but have greater chance to penetrate armor and shield once they score a hit.

Unit statistics modding have been done a lot in Stainless Steel, like the Real Combat submod where PointBlank has presented a very thorough formula for calculating stats. I do not agree with all his choices but the system has an inherent logic and is meticulously presented which I admire greatly. There have been some discossions about removing AP over there.

I posted my approach to the issue in the Call of Warhammer mod forum for a submod, found here;
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...stics-sytem(s)

OT https://www.twcenter.net/forums/show...Total-War-EBII

[Tripledot]

this something i've been looking at aswell last few days, i've messed around with that value in the past and i dont remember it having any noticeable impact, will look into it again

They still kill a lot in close quarters melee combat due to high attack values, they just go from attacking pretty much constantly to pausing for a second or two between swings. Also, stupid question, but you did change the values for their secondary, rather than primary, attack, right?

The massive difference in combat effectiveness between unit qualities has been shrunk so there is more emphasis on maneuver and positioning rather than counters (which are still important).

I'm willing to run through the entirety of export_desc_unit.txt and making changes to every unit and upload it if anyone likes.

If you're going to edit the EDU, you might want to take a look at Nemesis2345's work in this thread.

[Dekhatres]

They still kill a lot in close quarters melee combat due to high attack values, they just go from attacking pretty much constantly to pausing for a second or two between swings. Also, stupid question, but you did change the values for their secondary, rather than primary, attack, right?

i believe so, again it was a long time ago, eventually i just set all cav secondary attack to 1 and it's much better but i think chevrons affect secondary attack so 9 chevrons cavalry can still do some nasty stuff in melee
cavalry combat in general is just a fugging mess, i've done a bunch of tests with 2 cavalry units that had exact same stats, i just charged one into the other and weird stuff was happening, you'd expect the units to be pretty evenly matched in terms of casualties bcause they had same stats but it wasnt, in the initial phase of the fight they would suffer similar casualties because they charged each other, about 10-15 seconds after the charrge is over my guys would start getting a lot of kills, like about 15-20, then for some reason the situation would reverse and the enemy would start getting massive amounts of kills, in the end i lost all men and enemy still had like 25-30 knights left, out of a unit of 60, that's half the unit, it's not a small difference at all, yet their stats were 100% equal, you'd expect it would have been a far more even fight, btw i used the same formation depth as the AI, i did it carefully as to be an even fight as possible

the reason i ran these tests was because i was trying to make feudal knights have 1 melee attack vs infantry and 10 vs other cavalry, i added the spear attribute to their secondary attack, didnt have any effect, i tested a one feudal knights unit with the spear attribute against another feudal knights unit without the spear attribute, nothing changed, the situation i described above kept reapeating itself nearly all the time, so i droped the whole idea

just having all cavalry with 1 secondary damage is the best option overall, cavalry combat is slow and allows you to support it with infantry, the AI tends to do the same since it seems AI always has a spear unit chasing your cavalry, i am generally happy with the way things play with these settings

[Lifthrasir]

Gentlemen, that's with a great pleasure that I can announce that SSHIP v0.9.6 has been won the 2019 Modding Awards in the Submod category of M2TW (all results here).
I really thank all those who voted for SSHIP. This is trully appreciated

The other great news is that JoC is at the 2nd place for the Favorite Modder category of M2TW, right behing the almighty Gigantus
A well deserved place and congratz Mate

[sillygoy]

If the changes you are doing are going to be consistent, I'm definitely trying it.

Good you are enjoying it, and please don't fall too deep into this rabbit hole of a file Those little numbers used to took days of out my life, heh

Well it certainly took up the better parts the better part of two days lol. Thank God that I am finished, and my changes are more or less presentable now. It was quite the journey. Unit stats were all over the place. It seems to me that Byzantine and Islamic units were balanced with each other in mind and the rest of Europe was left to the dirt. Dismounted Knights of Jerusalem and Templar Sergeants were literally worse than Light Men at Arms.

Stats have been standardized according to this system:

Militia: 4 attack and defense skill
Average: 6 attack and defense skill
Superior: 8 attack and defense skill
Elite: 10 attack and defense skill
Exceptional: 12 attack and defense skill

This applies to everyone. So ranged units like heavily armored Venetian Archers have 8 defense skill and can probably be used to hold the line against some militiamen if you're desperate.

Other changes:

• Cavalry have +2 bonus defense skill for being mounted.
• Dedicated melee infantry have +1 bonus defense skill.
• The defense bonus provided by shields has been increased between 3 - 5.
• Armor has been standardized as well. Without upgrades, early armored units will typically have 4 - 5 armor; mid ones will have 7 - 8; and late ones will have 12 - 14. Byzantium still enjoys its early game armor advantage however. All units have a standard 2 base armor since 3 is padded and 4 is light mail through upgrades.
• Infantry with two-handed weapons except pikes have +4 attack and a hefty charge bonus.
• Reduced attack delay of all Peasant Militia from 90 to 75.

Example:

Andalusian Spearmen (Early Era Average):
Attack: 6
Charge: 4
Armor: 4
Defense: 7
Shield: 7

Royal Hirdsmen Bodyguard (Mid Era Exceptional):
Attack: 16
Charge: 6
Armor: 8
Defense: 13
Shield: 0

• Cavalry charges have been standardized. All lancers have 8 base attack. Light lancers may have no more than 9 charge bonus. Medium and heavy lancers have a charge bonus of 11 - 14 depending on their quality.
• Ranged units other than javelinmen have been given an extra 3 - 4 missile damage so they can be of some use. A good volley from Peasant Archers will drop 3 - 5 Andalusian Spearmen from the front instead of 0.
• Superior and Elite European infantry that stood at 48 men per unit now have 60 men (150 men at huge) to conform to the standards set by their Islamic counterparts.
• Foot archers with just daggers/knives have 2 attack. Those with swords have 3 - 5. Elite and exceptional archers (typically dismounted noble cavalry) can even have 6 - 10. It only makes sense that noblemen can know how to fight with swords.

Example:

Peasant Archers (Early Era Militia):
Attack: 6 (melee 2)
Charge: 1
Armor: 2
Defense: 4
Shield: 0

Georgian Dismounted Heavy Horse Archers (Early Era Elite):
Attack: 8 (melee 8)
Charge: 4
Armor: 7
Defense: 11
Shield: 5

Some cavalry examples:

Fari Lancers (Mid Era Elite (although the Moors can recruit them immediately in the campaign)):
Lance Attack: 8 + 12 charge
Sword Attack: 10 + 5 charge
Armor: 5
Defense: 12
Shield: 6

Alforrats (Early Era Superior):
Lance Attack: 8 + 9 charge
Sword Attack: 8 + 4 charge
Armor: 4
Defense: 10
Shield: 0

Chivalric Knights (Mid Era Elite):
Lance Attack: 8 + 12 charge
Sword Attack: 11 + 5 charge
Armor: 8
Defense: 13
Shield: 7

So those are the main changes. There are probably some minor ones I can't exactly recall at the moment.

Effects on gameplay:

• Everyone dies slower since they have a flat defense rating tied to their unit quality.
• Cavalry charges are still devastating without being world ending. Good cavalry can no longer liquefy entire units unless the cavalry enjoy a manpower advantage over their charge target, and they are not attacking shielded troops from the front.
• Standardizing the stats has made things more reasonable and readable.
• 20 General's Bodyguards can no longer walk up to Mercenary Spearmen and Dismounted Sword Mailed Knights and kill 100 and 70 of them respectively in a city before going down themselves (what prompted me to start modifying the EDU in the first place).

I do not know if it warrants a thread or not but I will upload the modified EDU here. Also, congrats on the modding team for winning best M2TW submod of 2019! Certainly it changes the campaign layer so much it's kind of hard to believe. Just the unit stats were the problem.

export_descr_unit_CHANGES_V5.rar

[kostic]

@sillygoy : Your changes seem good to me. I will have to adapt my EDU for my KCC sub-mod. Thank you for sharing your improvements with us.

@Lifthrasir : I am very happy that your sub-mod is a winner ! It will attract other players !

[Just let me post]

@ Lifthrasir
@Jurand of Cracow

Wow, congratulations on winning all of that!

@sillygoy

This is looking really good, I like the consistency and your methodology. This could become a norm EDU

I am only concerned about two things:

1) Cavalrymen's shield values: they shouldn't be as high as infantry ones. A shield of a cavalryman only covers a small portion of him, while infantryman can (in some cases) completely hide behind it. So IMO cav shields could be -1 or -2 compared to its infanty counterparts.

2) Defense values are soooo high. As I mentioned before, in my experience it may really skewer balance, even if it looks good on paper (or in .txt file). It also indirectly buffs archers (never a good thing in total war imo), as they will be much easier to kill units with than engaging them in melee. Plus it makes AP units less relevant, as armour isn't as important.

Just my 2 (euro)cents.

[Jurand of Cracow]

If we're talking about consistency and methodology, this material may help you in modifying EDU.

[Just let me post]

If we're talking about consistency and methodology, this material may help you in modifying EDU.

Well this is some next level spreadsheet

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

FOOTMAN'S SHIELDS
Shield Type Shield Defense Heat Other
Penalty
------------------------------------------------------------------
strapped to back +1 Armor +1
archer’s/small buckler 1 +1 +1
buckler 2 +1 +1
small round 3 +1 +2
heater 3 +1 +2
large round 4 +3 mov_speed_mod -0.1
kite 5 +3 mov_speed_mod -0.1
scutum 6 -1 +4 mov_speed_mod -0.15
pavise 8 -2 +5 mov_speed_mod -0.2


HORSEMAN'S SHIELDS
Shield Type Shield Defense Heat Other
Penalty
------------------------------------------------------------------
strapped to back +1 Armor +1
small buckler 1 +1 +1
buckler 2 +1 +1
small round 3 +2
heater 3 +2
large round 4 -1 +3 Mounted Charge Weapons Attack -1
kite 5 -1 +3 Mounted Charge Weapons Attack -1


***All shields except 'strapped to back' will be heat + 1***

[sillygoy]

I am only concerned about two things:

1) Cavalrymen's shield values: they shouldn't be as high as infantry ones. A shield of a cavalryman only covers a small portion of him, while infantryman can (in some cases) completely hide behind it. So IMO cav shields could be -1 or -2 compared to its infanty counterparts.

2) Defense values are soooo high. As I mentioned before, in my experience it may really skewer balance, even if it looks good on paper (or in .txt file). It also indirectly buffs archers (never a good thing in total war imo), as they will be much easier to kill units with than engaging them in melee. Plus it makes AP units less relevant, as armour isn't as important.

Just my 2 (euro)cents.

I agree on your thoughts about cavalry's shield values. By the middle of modifying the EDU I was kind of wondering what shield should get which bonus but I don't know what type each unit uses. But I didn't really think too hard on it gave most medium and heavy cavalry 7 since cavalry do need the survivability to face numbers 2 - 3x their own with the new rework. The next time I run through the EDU (shivers) I'll reduce cavalry's shield bonuses by -2, but increase their defense skill bonus for being mounted from 2 to 4 to compensate.

As for archers - well, after playing several campaign battles (Castille betrayed me, those dogs), I can safely say that archers are useful without being overpowered. They still get mauled by any dedicated melee unit and especially cavalry but do not disintegrate, which is what I wanted to see for every unit. Javelins are still very useful against armored targets and not even General's Bodyguards are safe from a unit of javelin-throwing light cavalry now that they no longer start with a basic armor value of 12+ (or nigh invincible). They are still quite beatable by any dedicated cavalry who can catch them though. My impression is that ranged and melee combat as they are now kill targets at around the same rate. Soldiers do die more slowly overall because of the increased defense stats across the board, but this makes gives battles more spectacle, in my opinion.

My reasoning for the defense buffs is simple. Maybe I am wrong but I've always seen the stats as mere dice rolls. 4 attack vs. 20 defense is a 1 in 5 chance of landing a killing blow, but a unit with 8 attack vs. 20 defense has a 2 in 5 chance - 100% better but the defending target is not instantly obliterated. Knights doing an 8 + 12 lance charge on the same target kill a number of men that is half the number of knights on impact. But if we subtract -7 to that defense to make it 8 + 12 vs 13, then each charging knight is pretty much guaranteed to kill at least one person when he hits. 60 knights kill 60 infantrymen (out of 150) on a flank/rear charge and then they can convince the footsloggers to run away with their superior melee skill. There's probably a hidden bonus to flank/rear charges so they could very well kill more on impact. In practice, combat seems to go this way for me, and is quite readable as a result.

If we're talking about consistency and methodology, this material may help you in modifying EDU.

Thank you for linking this design document. Now if only there was some way to easily know which unit uses which shield ....

[sillygoy]

Actually if 20 vs 20 is a 50% chance then 4 vs 20 is more of a 10% chance to land a killing blow. Similarly 8 + 12 vs 13 would net 'only' 30 casualties in the charge, which is in line with what I have seen so far.

[Max.1985]

I wanna thanks to the people made the SSHIP submod! I have always enjoyed de vanilla game but with stainless steel and this submod, the game is is far more enjoyeable. GREAT WORK.

[Lifthrasir]

Welcome along these forums and thanks for your kind words

[sillygoy]

Well, I made a thread. Sorry for the snarky thread title but you should have seen my face when 20 General's Bodyguards casually walked up to Mercenary Spearmen and Dismounted Sword Mailed Knights in a city street and killed 170 of them before going down.

[kostic]

Thank you for linking this design document. Now if only there was some way to easily know which unit uses which shield ....

To know the protections of shields, there is a fairly simple principle: in the 12th century, shields were rather large, those in the shape of a drop protected the knight up to the legs, even on his horse. As armor has improved, the shields have gradually decreased in size and therefore have less protective power.
So, for simplicity, units at the start of the game could overall have more shield protection than for subsequent units.
Of course, in detail, all the shields are not created equal (the small shields of the javelliniers do not have the same protective power) but the principle seems good to me on the whole.