Issues about campaign balance

[Bardo]

I open this topic to comment some issues I find while playing the campaign, in case someone has possible suggestions. I'm also interested to know if CapnDan was able to address any of them in his campaign addon.

1) Roads.
I like the movement rates in the beginning of the campaign, but the lack of roads for some factions/regions makes it very tedious to move your units from your area of recruitment to the enemy lands.
I know it has been pointed by many players in this forum, but I never played a campaign long enough to notice it myself.

Should all factions be able to build at least the first road level?

2) Population extermination.
A big part of the balance of this mod is based on a script that exterminates the population when a settlement is conquered by a different culture. I always liked this script suggested by wlesmana because it make the game much more challenging (it is harder to expand), and it transform the population into a resource much more valuable than it was in vanilla rometw (something that fits better the lore for factions like elves and dwarves).
I like how the script reduces the population to 400 (the minimum) when you capture a new settlement, and you need to wait around 20 or 30 turns until it grows to the next city level (over population 2000) before you can start recruiting units consistently. This way your border cities are always vulnerable and you have to recruit your best units in your core cities.
Something I did not like was to see that losing one of your large cities (with thousands of people) and then recapturing it again was causing the same reduction to 400 population. This was a big disadvantage for the AI, and a big annoyance for a player losing a capital by mistake.
My solution was to restore the population when you recapture one of your original cities (those marked with the icon of your faction). For example, if Mordor captures Minas Tirith, the population is reduced to 400 because they were humans that can not be used to recruit orc units. But, if Gondor recaptures it, the population is restored according to the city level: 2000 for towns, 6000 for cities, 12000 for large cities like Minas Tirith. It is supposed that most of the original inhabitants scattered through the region when conquered, and then returned. The problem is that this causes a possible exploit because it is possible to reduce the population of a large city under 12000 before it is captured, for example by recruiting lots of fast units, then to let it be captured, and then to restore the 12000 population by recapturing it.

Do you see it as a serious issue? Do you think it'd be better to rebalance the mod without this script? Or just without this "recapture" exception?

3) Upkeep costs of units
The recruitment cost in this mod uses to be 3 or 4 times the value of the upkeep cost. It means that it is more expensive to keep a unit idle for 3 or 4 turns, than to disband it, and then to recruit it again (as long as the recruitment times are not a limitation).
This ratio between upkeep and recruitment cost affects a lot the strategy of the players in campaign. If upkeep is high (similar to recruit cost) then it encourages a suicidal strategy (or war of attrition) where you are continuously recruiting units and sending them to die in battle as soon as possible, because keeping them in your cities is a waste of money. I don't like that this reduces the importance of the result of the battles, and gives more importance to the economy and the capability to raise new armies quicky.
In the other hand, if upkeep is much lower than recruit cost, it makes it hard to recover from a defeat, encourages to keep large garrisons in your cities, but also allows the player to use several full stacks of units to attack, and becomes a big disadvantage for the AI that uses only 1 stack to attack.

Do you think the upkeep costs are too high compared to recruitment costs? If so, do you prefer to be able to support several full stacks and use them as reinforcements to outnumber the AI with 2 or 3 armies vs 1?

To be continued...

[Bardo]

4) Merge damaged units.
I notice that I do not use to merge my damaged units in this mod, because I can retrain several damaged units in one single turn, while it costs one or more turns to build a new unit. But I'd prefer if the mod encouraged to merge the units, because it is a bit annoying to keep a continuous movement of units from the core cities to the border cities and then back to be retrained.
I'm not sure how to know whether it is worth to retrain the units or not, but it is related to the upkeep costs and the turns needed to travel from training to combat. I mean, it is worth to retrain units when recruitment times are high, and when it needs few turns to travel to combat again (due to good roads or close cities).
Do you find it worth to retrain damaged units? or you just merge them to avoid paying the upkeep costs while they are traveling?
I guess with current settings, there are units (or factions) that are worth to retrain, and other units that are not. Do you think it should be readjusted?

5) Use militia to migrate population
When a city reaches pop 12000 or so, the recruitment of units hardly affects the population growth. If the city grows the minimum of +0.5%, that is 60 soldiers per turn. If you recruit elite units (with few soldiers, or recruitment times higher than 1), the city will surely keep growing until it reaches +0% growth rate due to squalor, and all those habitants will not contribute to incease your population any more.
I use to think that it is a good tactic to recruit militia units (many soldiers with low cost and low times), and to disband them in your smaller cities where the growth per habitant and the income per habitant is higher. For example:
+1000 people in a large city, with +1% growth rate, produces +10 pop per turn, and practically the same income from taxes.
+1000 people in a town, with +5% growth rate, produces +50 pop per turn, increases a lot the income from taxes, and allows to upgrade the town faster.

I do not like to see the mod encouraging this migration, but I'm not sure how to avoid it. I see ok if it is a good tactic to do it sometimes, but I do not like if this is a requirement to optimize the growth of your cities, and I'm not sure if this is the case in this mod.

6) Population growth
I find growth a bit slow between 400 and 2000, and a bit too fast between 6000 and 12000, but I do not know how to adjust it better without introducing non-linearities (you know, like hardcoded taxes where cities with 7000 population produces more income than cities with 10000).
Would you prefer to wait less turns until a settlement can be upgraded, even if there are more chances of big cities out of control due to squalor?

[CapnDan]

Oh, whaat?! Mod shop talk?? Well there goes my next hour or so, count me in!

1) Roads.
I like the movement rates in the beginning of the campaign, but the lack of roads for some factions/regions makes it very tedious to move your units from your area of recruitment to the enemy lands.

I think the lack of roads takes some getting used to but the arguments I've heard along the lines of "it fits the lore and relative timeframe of the mod" I think are very convincing. Also, I'm actually a fan of the idea that reinforcement units/armies will need to travel several, several turns to get to the front. It introduces a whole bunch of additional strategic options and considerations. ie. send just a couple of units to shore up main armies at the risk of having them ambushed/destroyed along the way - use more militia type units which can be retrained closer to the front - more strategic considerations needed in when/where you send armies - etc.

2) Population extermination.
A big part of the balance of this mod is based on a script that exterminates the population when a settlement is conquered by a different culture.

Because of the way the cultures are quite specialized and the alliances being quite strong in the main campaign this basically means that exterminate is an 'always on' sort of thing. I almost never get to conquer cities where it isn't, it's often a shock to get to see the other two options. That being said, I like the script and think it contributes a lot to the character and challenge of the mod.

Do you see it as a serious issue? Do you think it'd be better to rebalance the mod without this script? Or just without this "recapture" exception?

To be honest, I don't think I've ever even noticed the automatic replenishment script at work..

3) Upkeep costs of units
The recruitment cost in this mod uses to be 3 or 4 times the value of the upkeep cost. It means that it is more expensive to keep a unit idle for 3 or 4 turns, than to disband it, and then to recruit it again (as long as the recruitment times are not a limitation)

Do you think the upkeep costs are too high compared to recruitment costs? If so, do you prefer to be able to support several full stacks and use them as reinforcements to outnumber the AI with 2 or 3 armies vs 1?

I remember this was a topic of conversation back in beta testing too and ultimately I think even the initial detractors were finally content with the higher unit upkeep costs. On the face of things, it's another factor that maintains the campaign-long need for the use of weak local militia units (because main army units, are kind of expensive, as they ought to be). Maybe worth noting too that as units gain experience (silver chevron or beyond in particular) they're worth quite a bit more to keep alive. Similarly, there are economic disincentives baked into the mod to limit armour and weapon upgrades (which the Campaigns Addon expands on slightly by further limits in build trees directly), so, a +2,+2 with silver chevron unit is easily worth two or three of the same unit newly trained. Add in the longer recruitment times and the "disband re-recuit" strategy is probably not worth it nearly at all.

Oh, and even more so in the Campaigns Addon as most of the better units can only be recruited in limited regions, therefore making those units quite a bit more precious and valuable.

4) Merge damaged units.
Do you find it worth to retrain damaged units? or you just merge them to avoid paying the upkeep costs while they are traveling?
I guess with current settings, there are units (or factions) that are worth to retrain, and other units that are not. Do you think it should be readjusted?

Similar to #3 I think retraining ends up becoming a matter of player choice and preference. I took this idea to the extreme with the Numenor faction in their campaign where the really powerful Numenorian units can only be trained in Fornost, waaaay away up in the north where roads can't be built. So decisions about merging or sending away for a long trip to retrain or keeping dwindling units closer to the front lines becomes a very meaningful set of strategic decisions. Same idea, just a little less extreme, in the main campaign. I like it, keeps LotRTW apart from the rest of the pack to an extent.

6) Population growth
I find growth a bit slow between 400 and 2000, and a bit too fast between 6000 and 12000, but I do not know how to adjust it better without introducing non-linearities (you know, like hardcoded taxes where cities with 7000 population produces more income than cities with 10000).
Would you prefer to wait less turns until a settlement can be upgraded, even if there are more chances of big cities out of control due to squalor?

I have basically no problems with how it is at present, although it is true that the first 800 pop in a smaller settlement can take a fairly long time.
What about changing the extermination script to a baseline of 600-800? It's that first few hundred that really tends to drag (filling that pop gap is the main/only real thing that I use sellsword spearmen for actually).

[Bardo]

Thanks for the answers, CapnDan.

1) I personally would like to see some more roads available, at least for orcish factions. But I find it playable as it is.

2) The current script is good enough for me too, but I also liked your idea to include a version of the campaign free of scripts, and I'd like the mod to be balanced this way too.
I think this script to reduce population is the script that has the biggest effect on gameplay, and I have no idea how would it be to play without it. Maybe I'll test it someday...

I have basically no problems with how it is at present, although it is true that the first 800 pop in a smaller settlement can take a fairly long time.
What about changing the extermination script to a baseline of 600-800? It's that first few hundred that really tends to drag (filling that pop gap is the main/only real thing that I use sellsword spearmen for actually).

I agree, and I like the suggestion to reduce the population to 600-800, but the way the script works, it has to reduce the population to 400 first (the hardcoded minimum), no matter the original population, and then to increase it to 600 (for example) if it is a small town. The problem comes when the captured town had a original population lower than 600, then we are creating population out of nothing, and this can be exploited as I said in my first post: you reduce the pop to 400 by recruitig, then you let the town be captured (or lost due to riots), and when you recapture it, it appears with 600, so you win 200 each time you do it.
However, as I said, this exploit is already possible with large cities, where you can get +6000 pop. This extra +200 pop in small towns is surely not worth the trouble, so I'd see ok to readjust the script.

3) I think upkeep costs could be reduced a bit, specially for human factions, but such changes would force to test again all the campaigns, and I was reluctant to touch it. I was curious to know if you were also tempted to readjust the upkeed costs for some other faction, apart of the noldor.
The reference table is placed in the first sheet of the .xls incuded inside the mod. I don't know if you opened it, but there are information there that could be useful for your addon. I'll pm you about it later.

Unit Costs Multipliers
Faction			Recruitment /Ratio /Upkeep
MORDOR			1,5	3	0,5
ORC RABBLES		2	3	0,6666666667
ISENGARD		1,5	3	0,5
DUNLENDINGS		2,5	2,5	1
EASTERLINGS		3	2,25	1,3333333333
SOUTHRONS		3	3	1
NOLDOR			2,5	3,75	0,6666666667
LOTHLORIEN		2,5	3,75	0,6666666667
MIRKWOOD		2,5	3,75	0,6666666667
GONDOR			3	2	1,5
(regional)		2	2	1
ROHAN			2	2	1
(regional)		3	2,25	1,3333333333
DWARVEN			2,5	3	0,8333333333
DALE			3	2	1,5
FREE PEOPLES		3	2	1,5
REBELS			3	2	1,5

I forgot point 5...

5) Use militia to migrate population
When a city reaches pop 12000 or so, the recruitment of units hardly affects the population growth. If the city grows the minimum of +0.5%, that is 60 soldiers per turn. If you recruit elite units (with few soldiers, or recruitment times higher than 1), the city will surely keep growing until it reaches +0% growth rate due to squalor, and all those habitants will not contribute to incease your population any more.
I use to think that it is a good tactic to recruit militia units (many soldiers with low cost and low times), and to disband them in your smaller cities where the growth per habitant and the income per habitant is higher. For example:
+1000 people in a large city, with +1% growth rate, produces +10 pop per turn, and practically the same income from taxes.
+1000 people in a town, with +5% growth rate, produces +50 pop per turn, increases a lot the income from taxes, and allows to upgrade the town faster.

I do not like to see the mod encouraging this migration, but I'm not sure how to avoid it. I see ok if it is a good tactic to do it sometimes, but I do not like if this is a requirement to optimize the growth of your cities, and I'm not sure if this is the case in this mod.

For the same reason, I like your decision to increase the cost of mercenaries. I find that I only use them, as you say, to increase the population in towns with less than 2000 habitants.

[CapnDan]

1) I personally would like to see some more roads available, at least for orcish factions. But I find it playable as it is.

Yea, if it's just first level roads, seems reasonable, although it still doesn't FEEL like the orcs would be much in the way of road builders. Roads are freaking complicated, expensive logistical nightmares that require ages of planning and a ton of dedicated follow-through. Just doesn't seem very orc-y to me.

I agree, and I like the suggestion to reduce the population to 600-800, but the way the script works, it has to reduce the population to 400 first (the hardcoded minimum), no matter the original population, and then to increase it to 600 (for example) if it is a small town. The problem comes when the captured town had a original population lower than 600, then we are creating population out of nothing, and this can be exploited as I said in my first post: you reduce the pop to 400 by recruitig, then you let the town be captured (or lost due to riots), and when you recapture it, it appears with 600, so you win 200 each time you do it.
However, as I said, this exploit is already possible with large cities, where you can get +6000 pop. This extra +200 pop in small towns is surely not worth the trouble, so I'd see ok to readjust the script.

Yea, good point about the potential exploit, unfortunate but I think the current script kind of maxes out what the engine is really capable of..

On the other hand, if a player is gonna cheat the system (which effectively is what they're doing) is would be much easier to just use add_population. :p

3) I think upkeep costs could be reduced a bit, specially for human factions, but such changes would force to test again all the campaigns, and I was reluctant to touch it. I was curious to know if you were also tempted to readjust the upkeed costs for some other faction, apart of the noldor.

Tempted at a couple of point, yes, but the end result was feeling much the same as waay back when the building costs were doubled. I think the higher upkeep costs are useful in a variety of ways that contribute favourably to gameplay (basically cannot spam elite tier units, veteran units more rare/valuable, overall economic balance maintains even with a faction that has conquered most of the map, and others).

Gondor, for example, has some very high upkeep costs for many of its units, but these are very strong units for the most part and if they player could just spam these, well there'd be not so much challenge/fun!

[Dom9127]

Thanks for your great work on this mod and having an open discussion about its features.

1. The game-play focus of this mod is the war game rather than development. Canonically much of Middle-Earth is a wilderness that is difficult and dangerous to travel across, and most large scale public works have been halted or abandoned. So I think having limited road building makes sense.

2. I think the disadvantages of losing a city out-ways the benefits of the exploit and I doubt many players use exploits in their campaign. Its pretty trivial to use battlefield exploits or the console and impossible to prevent the player from doing so.

3. I think the current balance is fine, I very much agree with CapnDan.

4. I always retrain to keep the experience, but then again in all games I hate waste and love to conserve my units.

5. Similar to point 2, I think its not worth putting in lots of time and effort to prevent the player from meta / power gaming; RTW is just far too broken for that.

Keep up the great work.

[Bardo]

I appreciate the answer.

5. Similar to point 2, I think its not worth putting in lots of time and effort to prevent the player from meta / power gaming; RTW is just far too broken for that.

I understand your point here, I just did not like to introduce even more ways to exploit the rules.
In case of point 2 (extermination script), it is clearly cheating, but players could do it unwittingly if they lose a city with low population. However, I agree it is not that important, and I'm liking the idea to change the script so it never reduces the population under 800 (instead of 400).
About point 5 (use militia to migrate population) I see it as a valid tactic, but I think it would not be needed (or worthwile) if the population was reduced to 800 instead of 400.