[Submod] Vanilla DEI Units Ballance Mod
I love DEI, it has done a great job bringing a different feel to the same game. But it is not without fault. Now here are some facts.
1. Combat is slow.
2. Combat is slow.
3. Combat is slow. (Mom told me that if something is important you should say it 3 times. )
4. Battle tactics are pretty simple and easy to pull off. One squad of hoplites can hold 10 elite infantries and buy you like 10 minutes to pull off any tactics you want. And AI just have no way to stop you, because AI are built based on fast paced game style.
5. Most of the time, I just fast forwarding the entire battle. And I really really miss the battle crying animations and battle animations and blood and taunting in normal speed.
6. Ideas that shield side is harder to penetrate and rear is extremely vulnerable are good and define this mod.
7. Ability changes are good. It now feels more tactical.
8. Most of the time, when units rout, they retreat like they are marching. Cuz their speed is so low, they can't perform proper rout animations.
Now, here is what I think.
1.I am not an experienced game designer or data miner or math nerd, I can't just meddle the numbers and expect anything good and balance would happen.
2.Vanilla unit stats are fairly balanced, and AI are also built based on it.
3.DEI unit stats are balanced as well.
4.I am lazy, and there are like 1000 units and weapons in this mod.
5.I know programming.
So this is what I am gonna do. I am going to write a C# program that scales the stats of units and weapon from their range in DEI to the range in vanilla game in a linear fashion.
For example, melee attack in DEI ranges from 2 to 40, and in vanilla game it ranges from 5 to 79. So I take an attack of Sparta Hoplite, which is 20, I scale it to the range of vanilla, which is 40. In this way, I can raise the game speed up to the level of vanilla game, while maintaining the flavor of DEI.
Here is a list of what I actually did.
1.Land Units : charge_bonus, dismounted_charge_bonus, dismounted_melee_attack, melee_attack, morale, bonus_hit_points, reload are scaled into vanilla level.
2.Melee Weapons: bonus_v_elephants, bonus_v_cavalry, bonus_v_infantry, damage are scaled into vanilla level. AP damage(weapon deadliness) is left alone, since DEI added a lot of shield piercing, armor piercing effects, it could be balanced without needing to change it.
3.Battle Entities: run_speed, charge_speed, mass for men, horses, elephants, camels are scaled into vanilla level.
4.Defense stats, like armor, defense, shield missile block chance are left alone. Cuz this is where the flavor of DEI comes from.
5.Elephant HP are left alone. Cuz if they get back their HP and still have berserk, they are gonna wreck anything that stand before them.
6.Missiles are left alone. Cuz the missile block chances are tuned down in DEI, so it actually is pretty balanced.
7.Morale and fatigue effects are left alone. That's where flavor of DEI comes from as well.
So here is what I noticed after the changes.
1.Combat speed is faster, close to vanilla game. And you don't have to fast forward most of the time.
2.Front line troops can still hold their ground pretty good. But not as long.
3.If you try to re-position your units while engaging, you are gonna lose a lot of lives because of increased attack.
4.Spartan Hoplite beats almost every elite sword units in frontal attack decisively. And I checked and found out they are the same level badass even in DEI. Actually every hoplites are badasses.
5.Cav charges are wrecking balls. But they will lose a lot trying to pull out.
6.You can still manage to lose under 500 men in a balanced battle, killing 1500 enemies.
7.They rout properly, in a loser's fashion.
Since all of the stat balances are done by programs, there are going to be some weird instances and bugs. Tell me if you notice something strange or unbalanced.
Download Link:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/wc...s_Balance.pack
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Originally Posted by KAM 2150
You mean that there is no real difference between the individual units and their abilities which makes them either stronger or weaker against other opponents?
