Initial observations

[lampros69]

Okay, for now I played just a few turns as England and did a few custom battles to check out the combat flow. And I have a few concerns:

1. Low(er) FPS:

Generally-speaking I am getting significantly lower FPS than I did for vanilla. Is this a known phenomenon I should just accept and live with/work around?

2. Shock cavalry dominance:

I did a few knight-type of units v. heavy infantry-type of units test, and cavalry is overwhelming. In both tests, cavalry won the engagement almost instantly, with hardly any loss while taking out half of the infantry. Needless to say this is un-balanced. Are these results abnormal - or are there other counters or mitigating factors I have yet encountered? I understand cavalry is a lot more expensive than infantry compared to vanilla, but the seeming gap in power is not fully compensated by the increased cost.

3. Disintegrating formation integrity:

When units march, they lose formation integrity easily, and they become bloated, loose-formed snakes, instead of shapely, compact wholes. It is an awful eye sore; is there a way to overcome it?

[lampros69]

4. Bleak battlefield:

Seems like all the fights occur at nightfall or something: Everything is dark, and I have a hard time seeing stuff.

[Roma_Victrix]

4. Bleak battlefield:

Seems like all the fights occur at nightfall or something: Everything is dark, and I have a hard time seeing stuff.

Try hitting the "wait" button at the top of the screen during your general's speech. It changes the weather and sometimes even the time of day, like from nighttime to morning, noontime, or afternoon.

[lampros69]

Try hitting the "wait" button at the top of the screen during your general's speech. It changes the weather and sometimes even the time of day, like from nighttime to morning, noontime, or afternoon.

Ah, thanks.

Does this game have more realistic weather and time of the day effects than vanilla? In one battle, there was fog over everything and I could not see a thing except right in front of my own troops. I thought it was a graphics glitch at first but maybe all this is intentional?

[Deteriorate]

Real combat 2.0 adds mass to infantry and reduced cavalry unit numbers, install a submod that has it included or try implementing it yourself

[lampros69]

Real combat 2.0 adds mass to infantry and reduced cavalry unit numbers, install a submod that has it included or try implementing it yourself

Thanks; I will look for it.

[lampros69]

Real combat 2.0 adds mass to infantry and reduced cavalry unit numbers, install a submod that has it included or try implementing it yourself

Addendum: Shock cavalry easily over-powers even pikes. Very unbalanced.

[Point Blank]

Addendum: Shock cavalry easily over-powers even pikes. Very unbalanced.

RC1.0 is included as far as I know.

If you are doing a 1v1 of heavy cav vs pikemen with loose flanks then the cav have a chance. Against pikemen with properly anchored flanks they mostly do not. But be aware there are many levels of pikemen. What units are you running tests with?

RC2.0 has a far more detailed treatment of cavalry especially, it will be released soon (ie within a week I expect).

[lampros69]

RC1.0 is included as far as I know.

If you are doing a 1v1 of heavy cav vs pikemen with loose flanks then the cav have a chance. Against pikemen with properly anchored flanks they mostly do not. But be aware there are many levels of pikemen. What units are you running tests with?

RC2.0 has a far more detailed treatment of cavalry especially, it will be released soon (ie within a week I expect).

The test was English Late Pikemen v. French Lancers. It was a head-on collision, with no flanking.

I just did a truly ridiculous one involving the top English melee swordsmen (the one with 22 Defense) v. Lancers. Lancers lost 3 and wiped out the swordsmen to a man - and I even began the swordsmen on a compact formation so they wouldn't be broken in the initial charge. What was amazing was that there was a prolonged melee and the swordsmen held for a while. Still, they did almost zero damage apparently.

For now I think I will just mod the cavalry to have fewer men - dramatically fewer men.

Also, I noticed that 3 is max HP for a unit and that even bodyguards only have a default of 1 HP? I was using generals with inflated HPs from Retinue and Traits to win all my games in vanilla (in one battle the general alone killed or captured 1600!), so I guess I can no longer resort to this cheap, unrealistic Warhammer-type of tactic!

[Point Blank]

No unit has > 1HP.

French Lancers are the heaviest cavalry in the game. Late Pikemen will have a lot of trouble with them. There were instances in the Italian Wars of cav similar to Lancers charging completely through pike squares. Did you give the pikemen any armor upgrades?

Swordsmen have no effective defense vs cavalry charges though Armored Swordsmen etc with high armor and OK defense will do better. Swords are also without any bonus vs cav in melee.

As I said the next RC version is much updated in this regard.

[lampros69]

French Lancers are the heaviest cavalry in the game. Late Pikemen will have a lot of trouble with them. There were instances in the Italian Wars of cav similar to Lancers charging completely through pike squares. Did you give the pikemen any armor upgrades?

I realize that, but their overwhelming dominance was still a bit jarring on first impression.

Edit: Forgot to address your question - all my tests were done without any upgrades.

Swordsmen have no effective defense vs cavalry charges though Armored Swordsmen etc with high armor and OK defense will do better. Swords are also without any bonus vs cav in melee.

I asked on the RC forum just now, but since you seem to know a lot about that sub-mod:

I also noticed two other things about unit types in general: Pikes are balanced even though they do not use their secondary weapons at all; and 2Hs seem "fixed." How were these things achieved? And generally, I still don't know what the role of 2Hs should be in both vanilla and SS/RC version of Medieval 2. I'd be grateful if you can elaborate this a bit.

[+Marius+]

I found that reducing the armor value of heavy late cavalry units resulted in them being more vulnerable to melee while still retaining their charge effect.

If the defense stats are above 25-26 the cavalry pretty much becomes the rolfstomper of all things infantry.

[lampros69]

I found that reducing the armor value of heavy late cavalry units resulted in them being more vulnerable to melee while still retaining their charge effect.

If the defense stats are above 25-26 the cavalry pretty much becomes the rolfstomper of all things infantry.

I am wary of reducing armor on high-level units, because the effect of plate ought to be overwhelming, esp. v. archers and melees using normal piercing/slashing weapons. But if supposedly AP weapon melees have trouble with them, then I may need to mod other than the number of men in cavalry.

For now, in addition to pikes, I tested 1 unit of Lancers v. 4 units of Retinue Longbowmen (the Longbowmen expended their entire stock of arrows while the Lancers stood, and the Longbowmen only killed 10); I also tested Lancers v. elite spearmen and swordsmen (forgot the names) in a 1 v. 1 basis and both were pretty much instant massacre with zero casualties. But I haven't done any fights v. AP infantry (unless pikes have AP in SS).

[Point Blank]

As I have been working with RC2.0 for so long on my install, I'm only commenting from memory on RC1.0. However yes certainly the mechanism of adding mount armor to rider armor stretches M2TW combat engine to its limits as far as depicting such late medieval/early renaissance cavalry. I am fully aware of that, and that this also gives Armor Piercing units an advantage that is somewhat too large.

Note that RC was originally designed to depict armors of the day commonly over-matching contemporary weapons.

I'll be interested in your opinions of RC2.0 soon, it is much more important now to employ your cav carefully. Their wrecking-ball aspect has been much reduced.

However, please also note the unit costs of cav vs pike etc. Costs were calculated based on historical data of what such a unit would cost to the 'recruiting' faction, rather than pure combat power. In effect this tends to mean that a linear increase in that combat power is accompanied by a non-linear cost increase, eg 50% more combat power can increase cost by 100%. Lancers may cost 2000+ whereas pikemen 500. The intent was for these cost disparities to affect the relative frequency of appearance of such units on the battlefield.

[lampros69]

As I have been working with RC2.0 for so long on my install, I'm only commenting from memory on RC1.0. However yes certainly the mechanism of adding mount armor to rider armor stretches M2TW combat engine to its limits as far as depicting such late medieval/early renaissance cavalry. I am fully aware of that, and that this also gives Armor Piercing units an advantage that is somewhat too large.

Note that RC was originally designed to depict armors of the day commonly over-matching contemporary weapons.

I'll be interested in your opinions of RC2.0 soon, it is much more important now to employ your cav carefully. Their wrecking-ball aspect has been much reduced.

However, please also note the unit costs of cav vs pike etc. Costs were calculated based on historical data of what such a unit would cost to the 'recruiting' faction, rather than pure combat power. In effect this tends to mean that a linear increase in that combat power is accompanied by a non-linear cost increase, eg 50% more combat power can increase cost by 100%. Lancers may cost 2000+ whereas pikemen 500. The intent was for these cost disparities to affect the relative frequency of appearance of such units on the battlefield.

When will RC 2 be stable enough for normal users like myself to implement?

[lampros69]

However yes certainly the mechanism of adding mount armor to rider armor stretches M2TW combat engine to its limits as far as depicting such late medieval/early renaissance cavalry. I am fully aware of that, and that this also gives Armor Piercing units an advantage that is somewhat too large.

Also, can you explain what this means precisely? Does this mean 1) "mount armor" was simply added onto the cavalry unit's armor score, so units like Lancers have disproportionately higher overall armor score relative to comparable infantry (31 v. something like 23); or 2) is there yet another "mount armor" score that operates independent from the cavalry unit's already extraordinarily high armor score (again, 31 in the case of the Lancer)?

[Point Blank]

RC2.0 is stable and will be released with RR/RC submod within a week or so.

Regarding your message above:
1) Yes mount armor is simply added to rider armor, which is why I said 'However yes certainly the mechanism of adding mount armor to rider armor stretches M2TW combat engine to its limits as far as depicting such late medieval/early renaissance cavalry. I am fully aware of that, and that this also gives Armor Piercing units an advantage that is somewhat too large.', and where I said elsewhere that for a given mount armor the armor level is less than for corresponding rider armor to reflect (usually) less coverage and lighter weight (thinner armor).

2) No unfortunately, the rider and mount are regarded as a single entity, though for elephants they are not.

[lampros69]

RC2.0 is stable and will be released with RR/RC submod within a week or so.

Awesome, looking forward to it.

Regarding horse and armor, upon thinking about this more, I still think the better solution to the cavalry would have been giving it an extra HP to depict its greater survivability, rather than extra armor - since the latter option only buffs armoured or barded cavalry. I may mod SS to do that in fact.

[Point Blank]

So, how then will you distinguish between different types of mount armor? There is no other mechanism.

'since the latter option (extra armor) only buffs armoured or barded cavalry.'
That's actually the intention

Adding HP to cav makes them much less likely to suffer losses in charges or to missiles especially.

[lampros69]

So, how then will you distinguish between different types of mount armor? There is no other mechanism.

Hmmm, not sure. I guess give armoured horses armour boosts but a bit less?

'since the latter option (extra armor) only buffs armoured or barded cavalry.'
That's actually the intention

Adding HP to cav makes them much less likely to suffer losses in charges or to missiles especially.

I realize; and I am saying that cavalrymen per se ought to have greater survivability, not just cavalrymen on armoured horses for realism/common sense reasons.

As for the possibility of the HP addition boosting cavalry even further, I think it can be balanced by a combination of a dramatic reduction of manpower per unit and further cost adjustment.

Edit: Another option is to forgo the HP addition and simply give non-armoured horses (smaller, of course) defense and/or armour boosts as well. I guess my point is that men on horseback are generally harder to hit - especially hit with lethal force - in most circumstances with most weapons, and that this is not reflected in most games, including this one.