Sillygoy's Unit Stats Standardization, so you don't get annihilated by General's Bodyguards (for 096)
The aim of this EDU rework is to standardize unit stats so that things make sense. It is my opinion that unit stats as they are in the submod are all over the place, with useless militia, useless Knights of Jerusalem, and demigod General's Bodyguards who with only 20 of their number can kill 170 professional spearmen and dismounted knights before dying themselves. The standardization flattens out overpowered and underpowered units and decreases the disparity of combat effectiveness between unit qualities such that all units are viable. In other words, your braced spearmen will no longer disintegrate on impact (lose 120+ men out of 150 wtf?) with lancer cavalry, but your General's Bodyguard can still rout a unit of Spear Militia all by themselves.
Extra description copy-pasted from original post in the General Discussion thread:
Originally Posted by Just let me post
If the changes you are doing are going to be consistent, I'm definitely trying it.
Good you are enjoying it, and please don't fall too deep into this rabbit hole of a file Those little numbers used to took days of out my life, heh
Well it certainly took up the better parts the better part of two days lol. Thank God that I am finished, and my changes are more or less presentable now. It was quite the journey. Unit stats were all over the place. It seems to me that Byzantine and Islamic units were balanced with each other in mind and the rest of Europe was left to the dirt. Dismounted Knights of Jerusalem and Templar Sergeants were literally worse than Light Men at Arms.
Stats have been standardized according to this system:
Militia: 4 attack and defense skill Average: 6 attack and defense skill Superior: 8 attack and defense skill Elite: 10 attack and defense skill Exceptional: 12 attack and defense skill
This applies to everyone. So ranged units like heavily armored Venetian Archers have 8 defense skill and can probably be used to hold the line against some militiamen if you're desperate.
Spoiler for Version 1.0 epic style description:
Other changes:
Cavalry have +2 bonus defense skill for being mounted.
Dedicated melee infantry have +1 bonus defense skill.
The defense bonus provided by shields has been increased between 3 - 5.
Armor has been standardized as well. Without upgrades, early armored units will typically have 4 - 5 armor; mid ones will have 7 - 8; and late ones will have 12 - 14. Byzantium still enjoys its early game armor advantage however. All units have a standard 2 base armor since 3 is padded and 4 is light mail through upgrades.
Infantry with two-handed weapons except pikes have +4 attack and a hefty charge bonus.
Reduced attack delay of all Peasant Militia from 90 to 75.
Royal HirdsmenBodyguard (Mid Era Exceptional):
Attack: 16
Charge: 6
Armor: 8
Defense: 13
Shield: 0
Cavalry charges have been standardized. All lancers have 8 base attack. Light lancers may have no more than 9 charge bonus. Medium and heavy lancers have a charge bonus of 11 - 14 depending on their quality.
Ranged units other than javelinmen have been given an extra 3 - 4 missile damage so they can be of some use. A good volley from Peasant Archers will drop 3 - 5 Andalusian Spearmen from the front instead of 0.
Superior and Elite European infantry that stood at 48 men per unit now have 60 men (150 men at huge) to conform to the standards set by their Islamic counterparts.
Foot archers with just daggers/knives have 2 attack. Those with swords have 3 - 5. Elite and exceptional archers (typically dismounted noble cavalry) can even have 6 - 10. It only makes sense that noblemen can know how to fight with swords.
Georgian Dismounted Heavy Horse Archers (Early Era Elite): Attack: 8 (melee 8)
Charge: 4
Armor: 7
Defense: 11
Shield: 5
Some cavalry examples:
Fari Lancers (Mid Era Elite (although the Moors can recruit them immediately in the campaign)): Lance Attack: 8 + 12 charge
Sword Attack: 10 + 5 charge
Armor: 5
Defense: 12
Shield: 6
So those are the main changes. There are probably some minor ones I can't exactly recall at the moment.
Effects on gameplay:
Everyone dies slower since they have a flat defense rating tied to their unit quality.
Cavalry charges are still devastating without being world ending. Good cavalry can no longer liquefy entire units unless the cavalry enjoy a manpower advantage over their charge target, and they are not attacking shielded troops from the front.
Standardizing the stats has made things more reasonable and readable.
20 General's Bodyguards can no longer walk up to Mercenary Spearmen and Dismounted Sword Mailed Knights and kill 100 and 70 of them respectively in a city before going down themselves (what prompted me to start modifying the EDU in the first place).
Got a new version up. You'll like this one.
Changes:
melee_hit_rate has been reduced from 2.0 to 1.0 so units no longer have their attack ratings artificially doubled (this is partly why lancer cavalry liquidate entire units in vanilla SSHIP).
All units have 50 attack delay now for the sake of fairness, as some animations are ungodly slow while others are ungodly fast. Lances have 60 attack delay.
Lancer cavalry have 8 - 10 base lance attack depending on their era to represent advancements in lance technology.
Charge bonuses for lancer cavalry are still typically 11 - 14, with bonus points depending on their cultural or military uniqueness. Gendarmes, the ultimate lancer cavalry, have a tremendous charge rating of 10 + 18.
One-handed weapons that are not spears can only have 1 charge bonus, unless the unit using them is unique in some way.
Dedicated foot swordsmen have +2 attack. Some ranged units who are also trained in swordfighting (typically dismounted noble cavalry) also get this bonus. Despite this bonus, swordsmen still cannot really break a braced spear unit of equivalent quality.
Example of a culturally unique ranged unit that is also expected to hold itself in melee:
Great weapons (such as zweihanders) still have +4 attack, but their charge bonus has been buffed to 8. They also have a +2 bonus against cavalry due to their length. If they are polearms, they have +4 bonus against cavalry instead.
Cavalry have +4 bonus defense skill for being mounted instead of just +2.
All spears have at least +4 bonus against cavalry, negating their bonus defense skill and bringing them down to the level of infantry.
All spears have at least 6 charge bonus.
Cavalry who use swords do not get the +2 bonus to melee attack as foot swordsmen do.
All axes and maces are now armor-piercing.
Cavalry units that use axes or maces have -2 melee attack.
Cavalry have -1 to their shield rating compared to infantry using an equivalent shield.
Example of a unit that uses a great weapon:
Janissary Heavy Infantry (Late Era Elite): Attack: 14 (halberd)
Charge: 8
Armor: 8
Defense: 11
Shield: 0
Re: Sillygoy's Unit Stats Standardization, so you don't get annihilated by General's Bodyguards
What bothers me is that my sub-mod already modifies the EDU file a lot ...
To be able to use your new statistics, I will have to take the time to review the entire file.
If your work turns out to be a real improvement, I should take the time to review everything in my EDU.
For your concerns about shields, did you read my post in "General Discussion"?
Re: Sillygoy's Unit Stats Standardization, so you don't get annihilated by General's Bodyguards
I just launched a campaign with Aragon in VH / VH mode. In 1134, I took Valence with Prince Garcia, but from 1135, the Moors attacked me with an army of 2,500 men. With my reinforcements, I have 1,700 men ...
And indeed, the statistics seem very disadvantageous for Aragon:
I was literally massacred without being able to resist despite my 2 units of knights on foot posted in front of the enemy's ladders and towers. A knight outing was routed by Berber archers ... and so on ...
I think your rebalancing will do everyone good !
Re: Sillygoy's Unit Stats Standardization, so you don't get annihilated by General's Bodyguards
Originally Posted by sillygoy
The aim of this EDU rework is to standardize unit stats so that things make sense. It is my opinion that unit stats as they are in the submod are all over the place, with useless militia, useless Knights of Jerusalem, and demigod General's Bodyguards who with only 20 of their number can kill 170 professional spearmen and dismounted knights before dying themselves. The standardization flattens out overpowered and underpowered units and decreases the disparity of combat effectiveness between unit qualities such that all units are viable. In other words, your braced spearmen will no longer disintegrate on impact (lose 120+ men out of 150 wtf?) with lancer cavalry, but your General's Bodyguard can still rout a unit of Spear Militia all by themselves.
I always wanted to do something similar, to the point that I made a program to do the work for me, but I felt a lot of research needed to be done before any modifications. The reason for this being that when everything is uniform there is no uniqueness, no difference, no variety anymore. The little discrepancies in the units granted a unique flavor to everyone of them. On the other hand the obvious imbalance in several units did and continues to bother me immensely. How can a single general surrounded by a sea of units in the center square on a settlement, take so long to die.
I will try your work and see how it feels. If nothing else, you have provided a canvas on which to work, and base further changes and refinements (and if you did all these changes manually, that was nothing short of a monumental task) Good job!
Last edited by XXZit; May 23, 2020 at 01:03 AM.
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Re: Sillygoy's Unit Stats Standardization, so you don't get annihilated by General's Bodyguards
Originally Posted by Nemesis2345
I will be using this right now , i actually wanted to research yesterday why 17 bodyguards kill 100 spearmen in 1 charge , even uphill lol.
I will post feedback. Thank you for the work , sillygoy
Thanks bro. I started modifying the EDU precisely because of how ridiculous General's Bodyguards are. I am sorry for sounding like a broken record but I am surprised there has been no substantial rebalancing of this before I came along.
Originally Posted by kostic
What bothers me is that my sub-mod already modifies the EDU file a lot ...
To be able to use your new statistics, I will have to take the time to review the entire file.
If your work turns out to be a real improvement, I should take the time to review everything in my EDU.
For your concerns about shields, did you read my post in "General Discussion"?
Yeah that's gotta suck. I suppose the standardization of stats makes things a bit easier but man, considering every unit and modifying the EDU by hand is really a momentous task.
Also yes, I did read your post. It is useful advice. I think I will reduce cavalry's shield rating by -1 while giving them an extra defense bonus of +2 to compensate, as cavalry really do need the extra 20 - 30% survivability because they can get ganged up on by even 4 - 5 infantry to their front.
Originally Posted by XXZit
I always wanted to do something similar, to the point that I made a program to do the work for me, but I felt a lot of research needed to be done before any modifications. The reason for this being that when everything is uniform there is no uniqueness, no difference, no variety anymore. The little discrepancies in the units granted a unique flavor to everyone of them. On the other hand the obvious imbalance in several units did and continues to bother me immensely. How can a single general surrounded by a sea of units in the center square on a settlement, take so long to die.
I will try your work and see how it feels. If nothing else, you have provided a canvas on which to work, and base further changes and refinements (and if you did all these changes manually, that was nothing short of a monumental task) Good job!
Thanks bro, the kind words are much appreciated. Yes, I did change everything by hand, to the point of mental exhaustion (which is rather quaint feeling).
I do not understand one thing though - if Feudal units (such as Fari Lancers/Archers/Footmen and Knights of all sorts) are already of limited availability on the campaign map, then why are they further penalized on the battle layer by having less soldiers than their elite professional counterparts? If you play as any of the Christian Iberian powers at the start your 120 superior-quality Knights will be outnumbered by 150 elite-quality professional Christian Guards foot. Before my stats rework this was a bloody impossible matchup. Now they can tie up the Guards for other units to flank them on flat ground, or even beat them if they are defending uphill of the Guards.
Re: Sillygoy's Unit Stats Standardization, so you don't get annihilated by General's Bodyguards
Sorry for the double post but it seems my user level isn't high enough to edit mesages. I also have some changes in mind for veterancy. It would be as this:
So Spear Militia at max veterancy would be Superior, your usual Knights would be Elite, and General's Bodyguards would be downright heroic (able to take on 5 - 6 militiamen per man at once rather than just 4).
However I don't know where veterancy levels are governed. Can someone tell me where it is?
{INFO_UNIT_EXPERIENCE_BODY} The troops get hardened as they fight battles. Each soldier who killed or captured enemies adds to the unit’s overall experience. If he dies this experience is lost. What follows, to get an experienced unit one needs to kill many enemies (irrespectively of their quality) without losing own (experienced) soldiers. And, you know, the best fight usually in the first line and they’re most likely to die. What follows, in the Medieval 2 engine this mechanism makes the ranged missile units (eg. archers), artillery, heavy and light cavalry getting experience chevrons fast, as they’re either die seldom or kill or capture large numbers of enemies.\n Experience increases the attack of a unit by +1 (bronze chevrons), +2 (silver), or + 3 (golden). For the missile units, also including artillery, it also increases the accuracy of shooting (not shown in the stats).\n Retraining gives the new recruits same experience equal to the old soldiers – but only if you give retrain orders right before end the turn. However, this retraining system allows for behavious that is often seen as an exploit. Some players have a home-rule not to swap soldier between units but either combine the units entirely or you retrain these units separately.\n It is worth noting that in the SSHIP there’re very few building giving some initial experience to the units and this bonus does not exceed 2 cheverons.
Last edited by Jurand of Cracow; May 23, 2020 at 06:12 AM.
Re: Sillygoy's Unit Stats Standardization, so you don't get annihilated by General's Bodyguards
Originally Posted by sillygoy
Thanks bro. I started modifying the EDU precisely because of how ridiculous General's Bodyguards are. I am sorry for sounding like a broken record but I am surprised there has been no substantial rebalancing of this before I came along.
it wasnt always bad, in one version of SSHIP militias were viable at stoping most cavalry and spearmen were dropping cav like flies, i dont remember exactly which version it was since it was quite a while ago
my guess, it might be that the balance got fugged by battle_config, for some reason sometimes it resets, unless you mark it "read only" actually i dont know for sure if that's the case in SSHIP but it was in 6.4
i remember after playing for a while and everything working as intended at some point suddenly cavalry started doing insane damage with their charges once again, turned out the "melee-hit-rate" which i set to 1.5 got reseted to 2.0 or 3.0 or some other really high value like that
curently as it is if you set the hit rate to 1.0 then balance is very good imo, except cav secondary attack, but that's all
it wasnt always bad, in one version of SSHIP militias were viable at stoping most cavalry and spearmen were dropping cav like flies, i dont remember exactly which version it was since it was quite a while ago
my guess, it might be that the balance got fugged by battle_config, for some reason sometimes it resets, unless you mark it "read only" actually i dont know for sure if that's the case in SSHIP but it was in 6.4
i remember after playing for a while and everything working as intended at some point suddenly cavalry started doing insane damage with their charges once again, turned out the "melee-hit-rate" which i set to 1.5 got reseted to 2.0 or 3.0 or some other really high value like that
curently as it is if you set the hit rate to 1.0 then balance is very good imo, except cav secondary attack, but that's all
I think that is an overly complicated way to go about melee combat, and leads one to make many mistakes. Melee hit rate (and attack delay) to me sounds like it just sets the pace of melee combat, while the stats themselves are the determining factor in units' performance in that combat, because those numbers are ultimately just cumulative dice rolls to kill and die that are further affected by battlefield conditions (fighting uphill, braced, cav charge, stunned, etc.). Whether attack delay should be different between units is a matter of debate as well since hits are processed only at the end of an animation, and some units have very fast ones (sword cav) and others have very slow ones (greatswordsmen). I will give some some gross examples in the vanilla EDU:
Those poor Spear Miltia. They have the lowest attack rating the game is able to process. They literally cannot get any worse than that. They have an attack delay of 90 too.
SE (South European?) Bodyguard (Early Era Exceptional): Lance Attack: 7 + 12 charge
Sword Attack: 8 + 5 charge
Armor: 12
Defense: 6
Shield: 5
Ah and that is why Spear Militia disintegrate against Bodyguards. They only have 7 defense to to work with against a lance charge of 19. This means that ALL of the impacting cavalry will kill at least one man on impact. And then, when the general melee starts, each blow from each Bodyguard entity has a 50% chance of killing a Militiaman who is ready and waiting for him. And with an attack delay of 15 vs 90, you know the Bodyguards will get a lot of shots in than the Militia. The poor Militiamen, meanwhile, only have 1 attack rating with to deal with the Bodyguards' 23 total defense. That is only a 4% chance per blow to do anything. So the Bodyguards do not get stunned and just keep on killing them. Each man in a Bodyguard is therefore capable of killing 20+ Militiamen on his own. It's ridiculous.
Ah yes, these professional mercenary spearmen. With a defense rating of 14 vs the Bodyguards' charge of 19, each Bodyguard has at least a 60 - 70% chance of killing somebody on impact. They have 3 attack vs the Bodyguard's 23 defense. 13% chance to do anything per blow with an attack delay of 60. They have 16 defense against the Bodyguards' 8 attack. So each blow from the machine-gun 15 attack delay the guards have has a 25% chance of doing something.
They may sound good but I saw 20 guards kill 100 of a unit with similar stats (Mercenary Spearmen) and 70 Dismounted Knights in a prolonged melee. Quite ridiculous really.
Don't get me started on ranged units that weren't javelinmen or gunners because archers and crossbows were useless. (3 attack, 6 attack)
In hindsight, the vanilla stats were not as bad as I thought they were, but given that your most-relied on unit early on as a European power are gonna be Spear Militia it hurts a lot when they're useless.
Re: Sillygoy's Unit Stats Standardization, so you don't get annihilated by General's Bodyguards
Im somehow PRO for the archer changes , technically in early era , if you were hit with an arrow you would mostly get incapacitated or die. There was no good armor to stop arrows at that time , even chainmail could be penetrated by arrows , bolts would 100% penetrate , this is why the bigger shields were a thing early. So i agree with your buff to shield and buff to arrows also.
I also agree with Kostic on unit individualisation , there has to be some variation between troops rather than same flat stats all across them , but as you said , you have to manually edit each unit. I might do that in the future , if i feel the lack of individualisation.
All in all , i like how the bodyguard got nerfed , they were simply too strong , the only reason you wouldnt fight with it is if your general had bad hitpoints traits such as wounded or sick , even so he would rarely die in a charge.
The mod works well so far, i managed to crush an army but i also got crushed with me having extra 200 troops and higher win-rate.
Re: Sillygoy's Unit Stats Standardization, so you don't get annihilated by General's Bodyguards
Thanks for the kind words, but as for individualized units, I feel like there is only so many ways you can kill someone with a spear and defend yourself with a shield. Ultimately the determining factor between units are their equipment and their qualities. If they are superior spearmen then they should kill 2 mere militia spearmen. If they are nobles who mainly fight with bows but are also swordsmen, then they should equal superior troops in swordfighting. Light cavalry should have less charge bonus than heavier cavalry. And units with great weapons (like Royal Hirdsmen) are brutal slaughterers with a good charge bonus.
It is as simple as that, because all we have to play with are numbers that determine dice rolls.
Re: Sillygoy's Unit Stats Standardization, so you don't get annihilated by General's Bodyguards
Hi sillygoy! I always find that Scoutotai with spears have better defence (only one point more but still) from sword version a stupid because its the same unit but with different weapon.
Scoutatoi with spears: stat_pri_armour 5, 9, 7, metal ; mail
Scoutatoi swordsmen: stat_pri_armour 5, 8, 7, metal ; mail
What do you think about giving them the same defence stats in your unit stats standardization?
Re: Sillygoy's Unit Stats Standardization, so you don't get annihilated by General's Bodyguards
Oh, I must have missed that one. Feel free to give them 9 defense skill as well. Given that I did all of this by hand, and given how the EDU is so hard to review, it is inevitable that there will be some mistakes.
For example I gave Fari Archers 3 attack skill when they should have at least 6, and I accidentally gave some Mid Era knight units 5 starting armor instead of 8.
Re: Sillygoy's Unit Stats Standardization, so you don't get annihilated by General's Bodyguards
Actually I gave spear Scoutatoi 9 def because they were listed as Superior in the EDU, while sword Scoutatoi are just Average for some reason, so I gave them 8. There are some inconsistencies in the vanilla EDU, so forgive any inconsistencies you may see in my rework. Besides, since everyone's defense values are rather homogenous now the inconsistencies in my rework don't have a substantially detrimental effect on unit performance.
Re: Sillygoy's Unit Stats Standardization, so you don't get annihilated by General's Bodyguards
I remade the battle quoted above during which my Aragonese defense army had been destroyed by that of the Moors ...
Well, using another tactic, I managed to defeat them !
From the start of the assault, I sent my cavalry (including the general's bodyguards) to attack the carriers of the ram, as well as other carriers of ladders and assault towers. The result was quite a panic in the organization of the opponent ! The latter then concentrated their assault on a wall (with 3 ladders) at the top of which my 2 units of knights on foot perpetrated a terrible massacre.
A second attempt by the opponent to use the abandoned ram again was immediately wiped out by a second exit from my remaining knight units. Finally, I took some of my soldiers out of the compound to attack in the back the attackers of the main wall who, by force of number, had ended up reducing my knights on foot to a few men and were now faced with militias of melee and archer units.
Over the course of wear and tear, multiple charges and losses caused by the arrows taken from the loopholes of my defense towers, the Moorish sodates finally fled ... during all this time, the 3 units on horseback of their leaders did not not intervened. Seeing the disaster, they turned around.
This epic fight lasted more than an hour.
My victory was total, despite the imbalance of the statistics rightly mentioned on this subject.
Re: Sillygoy's Unit Stats Standardization, so you don't get annihilated by General's Bodyguards
This may be an interesting thread for you in the further changes. BTW, have you read the threads from before a few years leading to the RR/RC 2.0 submod?
Re: Sillygoy's Unit Stats Standardization, so you don't get annihilated by General's Bodyguards
i dont think hit rate is overly complex, you're right that it sets the pace of battle but the important thing is that it affects cav charges aswell, one can choose not to use it but i think it's important in keeping unit stats numbers at reasonable levels and not over inflate them by for example giving huge defense stats in order to make units more resilient (no i dont think your defense buffs are huge i am just making a point)
never argued there were no incosistences, those foot jerusalem knights are obviously neglected, again i recall them having decent stats in one SSHIP version, maybe it's a typo, maybe an oversight on SSHIP's part, they happen, and they seem to happen to you too, i am still reviewing my own take on balance and find some here and there too
yes read RRRC2.0 threads, back when me and a few others used to crap on PointBlank for cav being overpowered, good times, good times, no hard feelings tho
Re: Sillygoy's Unit Stats Standardization, so you don't get annihilated by General's Bodyguards
Originally Posted by Jurand of Cracow
This may be an interesting thread for you in the further changes. BTW, have you read the threads from before a few years leading to the RR/RC 2.0 submod?
Hmm, he makes interesting points for light infantry. I have played other titles that attempt to portrayal mass combat before Napoleonic era authentically and my foot javelinmen have always been adept at running away from the enemy. I guess I will increase their move speed bonus for being light units by 2x so they can flee better.
He makes an interesting remark about how 160 Thureophoroi can get reduced to 100 from a frontal charge by cavalry with a high charge bonus, and he proposes modifications to mass to fix this issue. I don't think the physics engine has less to do with it rather than imbalanced stats. Braced spearmen seem to enjoy a 50% bonus to their defense and my speculation that matching attack and defense values leads to a 50% chance per blow of the defending target being killed does seem to hold weight through repeated tests in custom battles.
I do not agree with his idea about how defense values should be different between armored (lower) and unarmored (higher) units. First of all, fighting in armor is a skill that the armored man has presumably learned to some degree of competence. Secondly, armored units already get fatigued in this mod very easily (I think being exhausted reduces the unit's attack and defense skills by 50%). It would just end up penalizing later-period armies who all feature very heavy armor. Thirdly that's an overly complicated way to think about the numbers which the game coldly sees as cumulative dice rolls. Combat in Medieval II is much more simple compared to real life - otherwise units would have stats that determine how good they are at wrestling armored knights down so they can stick a dagger through their visor.
As for RC, well, I have only really been using the design document you linked as a reference.
Re: Sillygoy's Unit Stats Standardization, so you don't get annihilated by General's Bodyguards
Effectively. In pitched battle, it is impossible for an Aragonese army at the start of the game to compete with a Moorish army.
My army was made up of several spear militia units (ug1 and ug2), axie militia (ug1), 2 units of knights on foot and on horseback, several units of javelinmen and archers, 3 units of alforrats (light cavalry) ...and my general and his bodyguards.
The army of the Moors was hardly more numerous but their spearmen are formidable, supported by a unit of black guards on horseback and one of Christian guards on horseback, supported by 3 units of Andalusian archers (that my Alforrats did not even failed to flee)
... This battle was a disaster! I find it difficult to admit that my units had so little resistance when they were in slight advantage of height, at the foot of the enclosure on which I had placed archers to support my men.
Your review of the statistics is really necessary!
Sillygoy's Unit Stats Standardization, so you don't get annihilated by General's Bodyguards (for 096)
Originally Posted by Just let me post
If the changes you are doing are going to be consistent, I'm definitely trying it.Those little numbers used to took days of out my life, heh
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I find it difficult to admit that my units had so little resistance when they were in slight advantage of height, at the foot of the enclosure on which I had placed archers to support my men.
