A note on custom battles and multiplayer

**webba84** · January 18, 2015, 08:37 AM

A quick announcement for anyone who is playing a lot of custom battles or multiplayer in the Dominion of Men beta.

The system by which unit stats are generated in this mod is very complex and it takes into account certain bonuses that are given to units by default in the campaign but which are not in the custom battles.

You may have noticed that most units in the campaign have a large amount of experience and gold weapons by standard, which greatly increase their attack, defense and morale. This is all good because their base stats have been designed to take it into account.

If you don't add the same bonuses to the units in custom battles several of their key stats (primarily attack) will be much weaker than they should be, and correspondingly the armour stats of many heavily armoured units overwhelming good. If you have been finding some heavily armoured units impossible to kill in custom battles this is probably why.

To fix this simply mouse over the experience and weapons toggles on the unit selection screen to check what bonuses to apply, or look in the campaign. It is generally 3-6 levels of experience and gold (3rd level) weapons, though their are some exceptions to this. (non-mannish faction units do not need gold weapons, for example)

Again, you should not base any understanding of unit stat balance in this mod on custom battles or multiplayer unless you have applied these bonuses correctly.

If you have any questions about how this all works just post them here and we will force MoN or Aradan to come and answer them

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**MasterOfNone** · January 18, 2015, 08:42 AM

lol. I believe Aradan added in contextual mouse-over help into the CB interface (put cursor on weapon or chevron).

**webba84** · January 18, 2015, 08:47 AM

So he has - has anyone mentioned how brilliant Aradan is lately? I feel like people should say it more often.

**caspoi** · January 18, 2015, 09:37 AM

why don't you simply change the base stats of the units?

**Stark1** · January 18, 2015, 10:14 AM

Because then stats will change when they get upgraded/gain experience, messing up unit balance.

If you spent hours building balanced campaign you don't want it screwed up by few experience points. Without starting like this levy units with lots of XP would be able to overpower expensive elites, thus,

on both economy and battle balance.

EDIT - What, even s-c-r-e-w-i-n-g is forbidden word?

**caspoi** · January 18, 2015, 10:22 AM

Originally Posted by Stark1

EDIT - What, even s-c-r-e-w-i-n-g is forbidden word?

Apparantly. Well, I always found it realistic that non-elite units would get elite when they get enough experience, although you have a point about upkeep.

**Thangaror** · January 18, 2015, 11:16 AM

Well, one issue for example is that with nine experience the defence value becomes massively unbalanced overpowered compared to the shield, which is just nuts.

Also gaining nine (plus three for weapon upgrade) attack points gives an insane attack value that in reality could never be achieved, because the unit is only wielding a dagger or a staff (remember the crazy all-gold peasants from revolts in TNS that slaughtered your armies?!)

**caspoi** · January 18, 2015, 11:32 AM

Originally Posted by Thangaror

Also gaining nine (plus three for weapon upgrade) attack points gives an insane attack value that in reality could never be achieved, because the unit is only wielding a dagger or a staff (remember the crazy all-gold peasants from revolts in TNS that slaughtered your armies?!)

ah, yes. I once did a little experimenting in vanilla where I upgraded some catholic priests and watched them hammer down all their enemies with their staves... I think I see you point now.