Something for you guys to test

[Lusted]

Right here are the files me and Palamedes have been working on for 2.3, put the files contained in the .zip file in Medieval II Total War\landstoconquer\data.

Please post what you think of the balance changes as they are quite extensive.

[quemar]

downloading
big thanks

[Monkey_basher]

Downloaded this and did a few quick tests.

Archers/Crossbowmen: Higher tier units seem abit too powerful.
Treb, longbow, pavise are all devastating.

Gunpowder: Tested with fire by rank. Muskets get comparable kills to pavise. Has the morale damage been increased, or just my imagination?

2H-Swords: Forlorn hope seem to outperform dis gothic knights.
Perhaps remove 2hp and give them normal unit size.
Halberds: Satisfying no complaints with them. Crush both cavalry and infantry head on, weak to flank attacks.

Pikes: Reasonable, they seem to switch to swords far too quickly though. Not sure if anything can be done about this though without removing the secondary weapon, which just makes them too overpowered.

[RazorbackII]

Sorry if I missed this information. What exactly do the files do? I am guessing they balance the units (?) but I have been known to be wrong from time to time lol.

[Lusted]

The battle_conifg.xml affects some settings related to battles. The descr_battle_map_movement_modifiers.txt affects unit movement over various ground types. The descr_mount.txt affects mount mass and other things. The descr_projectile.txt affects projectiles stats such as accuracy. The export_descr_unit.txt affects unit stats.

[deRougemont]

Sweet; will give it a try..

[RazorbackII]

Cool; I'll download it and get back.

edit:// One question. What should I look out for, I sometimes fail to notice subtle or even major difference as long as it isn't graphical.

[Giorgos]

Let's see the changes...heading into the game to try the longbows out.

edit/ Good, the longbows are more balanced now. Sieging armies don't get massacred when approaching walls. I like what i see so far.

[DrJambo]

Quick question - what does increasing or decreasing the skeleton compensation factor achieve?

[Lusted]

I have no idea, Pala doesn't either, it doesn't seem to have any noticeable effect. I think Jason tried changing it when he was looking at some of Darths changes, but sometimes Darth seems to change tihngs without knowing what they do.

[General A. Skywalker]

Mr Lusted, sir, do you know when approximately the official 2nd patch comes out? Can't wait for the new Byzantine skins...

[Queen Annes Revenge]

hey lusted, with these files the balance is MUCH improved. great work!

i believe however that the early spear units are overpowered (i noticed you gave them quite a stat boost). specifically the spear militia, saracen militia, and armored sgt's. they easily take down dismounted imperial knights and other early heavy infantry, and against dismounted feudal knights it's close to a draw (barely coming out behind). They stop a charge by French Lancers with hardly any casualties.

Shouldn't the most well armored cavalry in the game steamroll over early spear units with a full impact frontal charge? Pikes should be the counter to top tier cavalry (and they certainly are with your changes).

aside from that, i think that a large part of being able to withstand a heavy cavalry charge should relate to how much experience a unit has... though i doubt you can mod this.

[DrJambo]

Ok, several points here:

*Reducing the defence value of swords - yep. They were too high in relation to other units. I might not have taken 4 defence points off them though.

*Increasing the mass of mounts in relation to their armour level - yep. Clearly horses with armour would have more punch.

*Decreasing charge and attack of cavalry - not sure yet. Although it would seem logical if mass has increased and the increase in mass has a big impact in itself.

*Decreasing cav size and cost - not sure why you've done this. I tend to prefer more costly, larger unit sizes, so that one values their expensive units more. There's possibly too little variation in costs between units in your EDU file and when your faction gets wealthy, the impact of cost will be completely negligible.

*Increasing spear units attack and defence - again not sure on why this was done? Spears are generally unwieldly in close quarter combat and hard to use defensively when compared to the ability to parry with a sword. With the reductions made to cavalry, isn't this change rather unnecessary? Why not just increase the spear_bonus value? Spears also appear really early in the tech tree and they seem really powerful now!

*Increasing defence of 2-handed units and lowering their attack - hmm. I do tend to prefer the idea of these guys as high attack shock troops. With the new increased defence value they're nearly as good at defending as units with shields, which is puzzling.

*Overall, on looking through the units there seems to have been a general levelling of the stats, i.e. those with high defences got them slightly lowered and those with high attacks got them lowered. I'm not sure if this is good for variety, but maybe it does play ok.

*Modifications to the movement rate of the terrain types - yep, very nice. THis worked well for Rome.

*Projectile accuracies versus units - what do these values actually do?

*Likewise the minimal changes made to the battle_ai file - what do these do?

[Lusted]

*Decreasing charge and attack of cavalry - not sure yet. Although it would seem logical if mass has increased and the increase in mass has a big impact in itself.

Mount mass has a huge effect in charges, so a reduction in charge bonus was needed.

*Decreasing cav size and cost - not sure why you've done this. I tend to prefer more costly, larger unit sizes, so that one values their expensive units more. There's possibly too little variation in costs between units in your EDU file and when your faction gets wealthy, the impact of cost will be completely negligible.

Cav unit sizes made thema bit too unwieldly, now with the smaller unit size they are more manvourable and also more balanced in close combat.

*Increasing spear units attack and defence - again not sure on why this was done? Spears are generally unwieldly in close quarter combat and hard to use defensively when compared to the ability to parry with a sword. With the reductions made to cavalry, isn't this change rather unnecessary? Why not just increase the spear_bonus value? Spears also appear really early in the tech tree and they seem really powerful now!

This was one of the big changes Jason made, and i sort of agree with him but more balancing needs to be done in this area. The spear_bonus cannot just be increased as it provides a negative in combat with infantry so spears would become useless against any infantry. They likely need a small reduction in attack stats, but they needed a boost to performance.

*Increasing defence of 2-handed units and lowering their attack - hmm. I do tend to prefer the idea of these guys as high attack shock troops. With the new increased defence value they're nearly as good at defending as units with shields, which is puzzling.

Ah, but they have the ap value as well so they are still useful as shock troops, and still much more vulnerable to missiles than other infantry.

*Projectile accuracies versus units - what do these values actually do?

Affect how accurate projectiles are against units, the lower the value the more accurate. Allows for more variety between missiles and an easier way to make missiles more powerful.

*Likewise the minimal changes made to the battle_ai file - what do these do?

Im not sure, Jason will know about that.

[DrJambo]

I guess what I meant to ask was what's the default value of the "projectiles vs units"? And what does giving it a low number actually do? The reason I'm asking is the value in the descr_projectile file is commented out...

Regarding spears, I thought it was the "spear" attribute which gave the penalty against infantry. Is it actually the spear_bonus value which does this?

[Lusted]

I guess what I meant to ask was what's the default value of the "projectiles vs units"? And what does giving it a low number actually do? The reason I'm asking is the value in the descr_projectile file is commented out...

I don't know what the default value is as i added in most of the values.

Regarding spears, I thought it was the "spear" attribute which gave the penalty against infantry. Is it actually the spear_bonus value which does this?

Yup its the spear_bonus value that gives a negative in melee combat.

[Queen Annes Revenge]

still, spears are way too good against cavalry right now. just because a unit wields a spear doesn't mean it should slaughter every opposing horseman. like i said, the pikeman are balanced right- weak against infantry, deadly against cav. they are the cavalry specialists (in the later game), not spears, and should be the only ground unit type able to withstand a full speed charge of heavily armored knights.

[DrJambo]

So how did you know what values to add for the projectiles vs units? Trial and error, or through advice from Jason?

Ok, good to know that it's the spear_bonus value. Does it reduce attack, defence or both?

[Lusted]

So how did you know what values to add for the projectiles vs units? Trial and error, or through advice from Jason?

Trial and error, plus there were some values added in patch 1.2 that were commented out.

still, spears are way too good against cavalry right now. just because a unit wields a spear doesn't mean it should slaughter every opposing horseman. like i said, the pikeman are balanced right- weak against infantry, deadly against cav. they are the cavalry specialists (in the later game), not spears, and should be the only ground unit type able to withstand a full speed charge of heavily armored knights.

I want high end spears to be able to withstand heavy cav, but lose so many ment through charge that they'll lose in melee. Like i said it needs refinement.

[DrJambo]

Did jason ever say why those values were commented out?

Regards pikemen and spear wall halberds, I noticed you'd given them a boost to their charge value. Do they actually benefit from a charge when in spear wall? For me, as they engage they always seem raise their weapons and be fairly ineffectual at the start of battle.