Balance Discussion - Hack and Pierce

[guerringuerrin]

13 minutes ago, Thalatta said:

I thought people were always complaining that archers were OP.

Nah, they kinda suck atm. Except for some champion ones.

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

I feel like archers are close to being good. A few minor buffs here and there. We can look at a24 for ways to make them OP again lol.

[Deicide4u]

CS archers are indeed pretty bad. Archer civs are having a really bad time before they get access to better ranged units. Champion archers are good, but expensive.

To use archers effectively, you need to create and maintain distance with the enemy. This can be taxing on APM and ultimately useless, as infantry archers are slow.

Edited April 2 by Deicide4u

[Perzival12]

8 minutes ago, Deicide4u said:

CS archers are indeed pretty bad. Archer civs are having a really bad time before they get access to better ranged units. Champion archers are good, but expensive.

To use archers effectively, you need to create and maintain distance with the enemy. This can be taxing on APM and ultimately useless, as infantry archers are slow.

We need more maps with canyons and choke points, so it’s easier to find places to position archers and rain arrows into the enemy. Also, since archers don’t wear any armor, and are carrying only a bow and quiver, they should maybe move slightly faster than other CS.

[Deicide4u]

16 minutes ago, Perzival12 said:

since archers don’t wear any armor

You haven't played with these bad boys, I see.

[Thalatta]

2 hours ago, guerringuerrin said:

So I guess my "proposal" would be that A shortbow could have higher dexterity and a faster attack speed (with less damage, based on what I now understand), while a longbow could be slower but have greater range and deal more damage.

 

I misread this, since before you said more damage and shorter range.

You can't separate things like that. Some Asiatic recurved composite bows were way shorter than longbows, yet had longer maximum range (although what matters is effective range, but they didn't differ much on that). It's about the materials and complexity. They were indeed harder to build, but were necessary when going on horseback.

Anyway, a fast ranged weapon with short range and less damage could be a repeating crossbow (the famous chu-ko-nu), supposedly invented at the time of the game, in the Warring States period, with the Han being involved.

A slow ranged weapon with more range and damage would be the gastraphetes, but the game gives it a range of just 45m, which seems wrong to me. Then there's the Chinese crossbow, which maybe in the late Warring States period outranged their bows*, even when for the Han the game has the range for the Infantry Crossbowman as 45m, and for the Archer as 60m. I think this is wrong if we consider effective range (bolts lose less kinetic energy in flight than arrows). I haven't checked about other crossbows around that time, which weren't many, and probably weren't superior to the Chinese.

Another interesting disadvantage of the crossbows not usually talked about is that ammunition was reused by the enemy, although you can't use arrows on crossbows (too much power) and bolts on bows (too short), but some cultures had a guide to use baby-arrows on bows that would allow them to also reuse bolts from the enemy.

 

*Source: https://dn720004.ca.archive.org/0/items/science-and-civilisation-in-china-volume-5-chemistry-and-chemical-technology-par_20210927_1445/Science and Civilisation in China Volume 5%2C Chemistry and Chemical Technology Part 6%2C Military Technology Missiles and Sieges by Joseph Needham%2C Robin D. S. Yates (z-lib.org)_text.pdf, page 137. In other parts it's mentioned that the bows of the Huns and the Xiongnu couldn't outmatch the Chinese crossbows, although I haven't read enough to check if this means outrange (I'd guess effective range).

Edited April 2 by Thalatta

[Thalatta]

1 hour ago, Emacz said:

Where would Kush and Maury fit in this? We have Maury as the fursthest range at moment in CWA

No clue, never read about their archers :P. Would need to find sources...
 

1 hour ago, Perzival12 said:

since archers don’t wear any armor, and are carrying only a bow and quiver, they should maybe move slightly faster than other CS.

They should. That's why I also gave them a large dodge defence.

[DesertRose]

2 hours ago, guerringuerrin said:

Well, no. A javelin throws javelins; a shortbow unit uses a bow and arrows.

I mean gameplay-wise. An archer with less range but more damage would be very similar to a javelineer.

As there is already Archer, Javelineer, Slinger and Crossbowman I don't think another ranged unit is helpful before these four units are distinct.

 

[Deicide4u]

22 minutes ago, DesertRose said:

An archer with less range but more damage

Otherwise known as "Slinger".

[Thalatta]

40 minutes ago, Emacz said:

I agree they should move faster, we have played around with that, but it does get hard balance wise.   I mean all range is faster than melee in base game right? when it comes to cs?  The question is should an archer be faster than an xbow, jav etc... would all ranged, ie xbows, slingers and javs have no armor as well?  I know some archers, cretans specifically had small shields, same with some javelineers, know as peltasts, are they then slower than an archer with more range less armor? 

Movement speed: slinger > javelineer ~ archer > crossbow, given their equipment and armor, which would be ordered the other way around (Chinese crossbowmen would use large shields, at least sometimes).

 

14 minutes ago, Deicide4u said:

Otherwise known as "Slinger".

As mentioned, depends. Certainly not for the Rhodians (historically I mean).

Edited April 2 by Thalatta

[Thalatta]

3 minutes ago, Emacz said:

since lead slingers ie Rhodians and Elite Balieric have longer range than archer, will be hard to balance/counter.

As mentioned, slingers are indeed good offensively (the Inca would split swords and kill horses of the Spaniards), but weak defensively, take a lot of time to train, and not being benefited by many techs (quite the opposite regarding training time, should get worse).

[ThePoshBarbarian]

Honestly reading through these posts, I would recommend if any of you have total war rome 2, to check out the Divide et Impera mod. Granted TW is a in a completely different ballpark in terms of genre, but the DeI devs have managed to make every unit type unique across the various cultures, sub-cultures, and factions. Take for example some of the celtic and gallic factions, they managed to balance 5 different playable factions (scordisci, boii, nervii, galatia, and arverni) to each have different strengths and weaknesses in terms of roster balance.

 

Managed to steal kindly borrow this chart from the DeI devs. Their reasoning for it was they wanted all the playable celtic/gallic factions to be equal in terms of overall strength, but each are specific in what they're strong/weak in, all represented in the 1-5 relative scale scoring, with 1 being the weakest, and 5 being the strongest in terms of unit strength. For example, the Scordisci have some of the strongest hoplite/phalanx/shieldwall units (weird TW specific term, just refers to units that have access to a phalanx like formation), mostly reasoned because they were in contact (and probably conflict) with the illyrians, dacians/getae, thracians, and greeks. In contrast, the boii, who live in/close to the germanic peoples, do not, but they have far better archers.

 

Granted all of this is purely stat balancing, but that encompasses stuff like weapon stats, shield and/or armour stats, entity stats (aka the actual soldier stats like movement speed, melee attack chance, melee block chance, etc) and other things.

[Thalatta]

@Emacz was asking me about slinger's shields, this is my answer, which could be interesting for some:

Most people who could carry some sort of shield did, even animal hides, but it's a matter of how much stats would change. Besides, units were never as uniform as in a game, one just simplifies the most common ideas on them.

Strabo (writing at the time of the game) says: "Although naturally disposed to peace, they bear the reputation of being most excellent slingers, which art they have been proficient in since the time that the Phoenicians possessed the islands. It is said that these were the first who introduced amongst the men [of the Baleares] the custom of wearing tunics with wide borders. They were accustomed to go into battle naked, having a shield covered with goat-skin in their hand, and a javelin hardened by fire at the point, very rarely with an iron tip, and wearing round the head three slings of black rush, hair, or sinew. The long sling they use for hitting at far distances, the short one for near marks, and the middle one for those between. From childhood they were so thoroughly practised in the use of slings, that bread was never distributed to the children till they had won it by the sling."

Slingers could use a shield, having one hand mostly free, but that's useful when skirmishing close to the enemy, which is a role already taken by the javelineers (although one does more crush damage, the other pierce). In a simplified game, you want the slingers to do something else: slinging from the longest range. You can always just move the slinger closer for shorter range, but because of that would you want to add some shields in the animations to be that historically accurate? And also the javelin as a secondary weapon? Maybe, but stats shouln't change that much, and you also want to make units as differentiated as possible, not to confuse the player.

It's also a matter of looking at the whole equipment:

-Slingers: could have carried small shields, but couldn't use much armor (because of how the weapon is operated), slings are the easiest to carry, and munitions you can get easily (less so for lead).

-Javelineers: most probably carried small shields, given their shorter range, but they also needed to be mobile because of that, so didn't carry much armor.

-Archers: some apparently carried small shields, but coud use more armor, so makes sense to make them a bit slower. Not all javelineers were the same, not all archers were the same, each had what they could afford.

-Crossbowmen: not necessarily all used large shields in all situations, but you either simplify and choose some representative units, or will have a plethora of options, most of which won't be convenient to even train.

[Adeimantos]

What if we added an upgrade for each range unit that only a few civs would have that gives the unit, a shield, +2 pierce armor and +1 hack armor?

[DesertRose]

Regarding range units, my idea was

• Archer
  All-purpose ranged unit
• Slinger
  Especially strong against ranged units (pebbles are very strong against non-armored or only lightly armored targets)
• Javelineers
  Especially strong against cavalry units

The gameplay goal is that Javelineers behind a meatshield / walls is somewhat as dangerous to cavalry as Spearmen, and the same for Slingers against ranged units compared to melee cavalry. Thus breaking up the core triangle cavalry > ranged > infantry > cavalry, and allowing to create Civs that have armies that approach threats differently.

And yeah, techs that buff a specific unit type to either make it excel at its intended role even more or lessen its weaknesses and is only available to one of a few Civs is another possible idea to make the gameplay approach of each Civ more unique.

[DesertRose]

5 hours ago, Emacz said:

you can easily do this by giving "bonus" like spear have against cav.

Yeah, that's one way.

I want to achieve it without bonus damage though, only with the use of damage types and resistances, though.

[Thalatta]

1 hour ago, DesertRose said:

I want to achieve it without bonus damage though, only with the use of damage types and resistances, though.

Added slingers and javelineers to my (very preliminar) proof of concept with no bonuses (tweaked a couple of numbers from before). Following what I said before (Javelineers: high pierce attack, low crush defense, high dodging, Slingers: high crush attack, low defenses, added very high dodging), I get what you want: archers are more all-around (deal decent damage and have average resistance), slingers are strong against ranged units (and very weak, as I wanted), and javelineers are quite strong against cavalry (from a distance). Maybe there's something not quite right becase I didn't verify everything, it's a matter of fine-tuning.