Question on Balancing Units (PFM Tables)

[McCarronXLD]

Hey there,

I have recently started rebalancing champloo's gold unit pack for use with DeI and then from DeI to Ancient Battle Realism sub-mod. I have mostly everything complete save for two things.

1) In the Land_unit_to_unit_abilities_junction there are several abilities I do not know the purpose of in the DeI mod. They are named as "a_mp_test_" and are then followed by a number. I am not sure what these abilities are and what kind of units should receive them.

2) Armour. DeI's armour selection in Land_units is vastly different than vanilla Rome 2's in the PFM. I'm having a hard time figuring out what kind of armour should be placed on these units.

Thanks!

[quaz601]

the a_mp_test I think is the stamina ability for different units

for armour you're just gonna have to compare with the units you want to adapt as in which DEI resemble the units you want to adapt and copy

[McCarronXLD]

Fair enough. Was hoping there was a rule of thumb I could go by!

[MagicCuboid]

Also bear in mind that DEI is in a process of rebalancing all of the units, so you may have to rework these units in month or so (just a guess).

[McCarronXLD]

Also bear in mind that DEI is in a process of rebalancing all of the units, so you may have to rework these units in month or so (just a guess).

Oh geeze.. didn't stop to think about that. Don't think it'll be too much issue, though. The problem right now is adapting non-DeI units to DeI stats. Having a hard time figuring out the pattern to armour and stamina distribution so I may relate it to the units in the pack. After the above things are taken care of it'll be easy to replicate whatever balancing the DeI implements.

[McCarronXLD]

I think I have figured out the stamina system but I am still lost on the armour. Could really use a guide as to how to distribute it! So many armour types.

[Cope]

From what I could tell from the armour system there is no way of making global changes unless you are already aware of what you want. The designer will have had his own logic and system behind the armour stats, but as far as I can see there is no obvious method by which whole sale changes can be made without cross referencing the current armour stats with your own: an arduous task, but that seems to be the nature of the beast.

That being said it is worth noting that I'm by no means experienced in the art of stat adjusting, and others will know more than I, but from what little contact I've had with PFM, I feel confident in saying that there is often no 'quick fix' to things you find problematic. It's just a case of familiarizing yourself with the tables and being prepared to put in a fair amount of effort in order to try and get the results you're after. The real trick, of course, is being able to accurately predict how stat changes will affect unit performance across the whole game. That requires an in depth understanding of how Rome II battle stat mechanics work: a skill which to me, a mere layman both in terms of PFM and mathematics in general (though I do have a GCSE ) seems very difficult to acquire.

If I were you, I'd simply make new armour based on the stuff that is already there and name it similarly. For instance, the original might be called like vh_light so you could call your new armour vh_light_new. That way you'll be able to remember which of your new armours should replace the old ones.

That's all I got - sorry.

[McCarronXLD]

No need to apologize! I have completed editing everything and now it just comes down to testing to make sure there are no issues. Thanks for the help all!

[LevinS89]

Awesome McCarron! I was going to do the same with that gold unit pack, but I'm on the Sebidee unit packs right now, also trying to figure out the armour balancing ,etc.

Could you tell me how you found the balance in the end, especially regarding the armour? And I can't wait to see a release of your mod mate!

[McCarronXLD]

Not sure if I will release it, at least not until DeI does a rebalance and streamlines everything haha. It could very well still be out of balance and I wouldn't know it!

In the end I figured out which database entry went to which stamina level and then I distributed that accordingly. (Lower the stamina the higher the armour, cavalry had a certain high level of stamina, etc). Focus on a_mp_test_1 through a_mp_test_5. 1 is for heavy infantry and the like, 2 is for spear units and lighter infantry, 3 is for pikes, 4 is for cavalry, 5 is for missile infantry.

As for armour it came down to trying to relate the gold pack units to current DeI units in the Land_units table.

vh_strong armour for heavy infantry, vh_medium for lighter melee infantry, vh_medium for average melee cavalry, nm_medium for missile cavalry, vh_strong for heavier melee cavalry and shock cavalry, vl_medium for slingers and archers, vl_strong for skirmishers/peltasts, vh_light for Pikes, spc_arm_hide for elephants, vh_medium for chariots, then there are some self explanatory ones for cataphracts and segmentata as DeI armour types share similar names to those vanilla names.

Unit spacing did not need to be adjusted, unit count and animal count did. I halved all melee and melee defense stats, then removed 10 from bonus HP. Remember to remove all special abilities that do not belong in DeI (such as Use the Whip, Draco or Headhunt, etc).

Think that covers everything!