Balancing issue in 2.2 and possibly in 2.3

[notger]

Dear Lusted:

While playing 2.2, I realised that archers with composite bows or bodkin arrows are very very dangerous, now. In my opinion, too dangerous.

Several tests ended all the same: The mentioned archers, when set up against an infantry unit (tested armored seargants and dismounted knights) always wear the infantry unit down to 50% before they reach the archers.
(Yes, the infantry unit was running.)
Setting up the sicilian muslim archers against pavese crossbowmen led to the same result: The Milanese were completely wasted with the archers having lost about 10-14 men.

As I understand balancing, archers are for pounding lightly armoured troops (spearmen, archers, fast horse, militia) and crossbowmen are against heavily armoured troops (dismounted knights and whatever).

Right now, this balancing does not work correctly. I did some tests with the vanilla 1.2 setting (all accuracy_vs_units settings in the descr_projectiles commented) and it was a better experience for me. Archers killed spearmen and got them to rout finally, but not without a hand-to-hand fight. Armoured troops stormed up to the archers and killed them.
(All tests were done with skirmish-mode off on the archers.)

I suggest reversing the changes to the accuracy to the vanilla mode.

A further source of misbalance could be your mentioned additional penalty for heavily armoured troops in the desert. This could make crusades too weak.
1. Crusaders were well aware of the temperatures and did travel a long time, thus having enough time to adapt.
2. Crusaders sometimes came from countries equally hot as Judea: Spain, Portugal, Sicily, South France.
3. There are means of protection against the heat, which, as I recall, were used: Light colors above your armour, chain mail instead of plate armour.
I propose the following fix: Divide the troops into two parts. The ones are the crusader troops and troops wearing chain mail shirts with linen/cotton above, suffering normal heat attrition, the other are the plate-mail-monsters, suffering an extra penalty.
Is that doable?

Sincerely yours,
Notger.

BTW: I really enjoy my current 2.2 Sicily campaign. But boy, guess who backstabbed me though being my ally in a mutual war against Venice? Yes, it is him, the Milanese snake. He simply does not know what is good for him. And just for the record: It is a stalemate with Venice, which is so rich that it can pump out a full stack every turn and keep Milan and Sicily (and Hungary!) at bay. And I play on M/M. I have never been that much on the defense side of a war before. Great job!

[Istari6]

Notger -

I'm having the same difficulty with overpowered archers in 2.2, despite the fact I love the rest of the mod.

For those of us who haven't tinkered with the specific .txt files before, could you give a brief walkthrough of how we'd reset the archer accuracy to the vanilla 1.2?

Thanks much!

Istari

[Lusted]

While playing 2.2, I realised that archers with composite bows or bodkin arrows are very very dangerous, now. In my opinion, too dangerous.

Yes i know, i posted about this in the 2.2 thread. If you'd read it you would know im going to be changing the values for 2.3.

I propose the following fix: Divide the troops into two parts. The ones are the crusader troops and troops wearing chain mail shirts with linen/cotton above, suffering normal heat attrition, the other are the plate-mail-monsters, suffering an extra penalty.
Is that doable?

All western units have got a slightly increased heat penalty, but armoured troops get as bigger one.

[todorp]

Wow, these longbows are very potent!!! I just fought a battle I Moors vs. AI England LTC v2.2 VH/VH. I had 4 mercenary crossbows, 4 moors militia crossbows and the rest were militia spearman. The AI England had 4 longbows, 2 peasant archers and the rest militia spearman. I was sieged in Leon and sallied out. I put the 4 mercenary crossbows on the walls and sallied out with the 4 moors militia crossbows and the militia spearman in a sparse formation and stretched them right next to the wall.

The show began, the English advanced a little and I was hit by the first longbow volley, 20-30 killed in each unit, next 20-30 killed again and my 4 militia crossbow routed. I compressed the formation of the militia spearman and charged, half of them routed from the longbows before they made contact .

I love the LTC v2.2 . Just the longbows bother me. Is it possible to tone them down a bit before v2.3. Can some one post what needs to be done.

[Pirate36]

Repman used your unit files in his DLV 3.0 Mod (i believe it is your older version so maybe you have changed it). After playing a few days I find the units completely un-balanced. Spearman are too strong verses all other melee units - specifically sword units. I believe you wanted to counter cavalry so bad that you made sure the Paper (spearmen) countered the Rock (cavalry) but you forgot to make sure the Scissors (Sword) still cuts the Paper (Spearman) .

Also the missle units are like machine gunners. Well maybe more like snipers . Please take this as constructive criticism. I understand from experience how time consumming modding is and especially trying to balance TW unit files and please everyone.

Thats the great thing about modding though. You can change them yourself to make yourself happy.

Great Mods and good work by the way both LTC and DLV.

[Lusted]

Before commenting on unit balance make sure you are using these versions of my files:

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=96113

As they are the latest.

[todorp]

Before commenting on unit balance make sure you are using these versions of my files:

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=96113

As they are the latest.

Thanks a lot I'll replay the battle at Leon with the latest files tonight, when I come back from work.