Alpha 18 Balancing Branch

[Karamel]

I tried to play a few more games leaving my "WTF-skirmishers" thought away and changed my mind about most of the changes. It's like I played the wrong way, expecting things that weren't working at all.

Skirmisher damage seems super-high at a glance but finally they aren't overpowered (damage-wise) due to their armorlessness. They also do well against swordsmen, it seems to be more ranged > melee > cavalery > ranged with some subtilities than sticking to the previous counter scheme (no matter how it is implemented).

This is not a balance tweak, more a gameplay one. Once this is noticed it plays a lot better. This changes also bring a lot more of micro, it may be the AI not automatically choosing targets well enough and the disabling of auto hit'n run.

I used to ctrl+click with a bunch of troops for them to fight in the middle with ranged units supporting the melee (and that was fine enough for me to do something else on the while). Now it is necessary to micro your ranged units for hit'n run and use the melee to gain some time and catch damage (acting as a wall against melee units and hard meat for ranged). Cavalery can be used to hit'n run ranged units or females (both unarmored) but seems to act bad in the middle of a battle.

All that said, this is a good basis for a new gameplay. There are still a few tweaks to do but the general design is there. Even if I'm used to the one from alpha 17 and prefer it (with more emphasis on macro), but who am I to disagree?

I don't think I'll continue to study the design documents and try to make a soft-counter version. I'd like to continue but if it is for setting a personal mod I would have better things to do (I could not even use it for my LAN as it won't be introducing/playing 0 AD but a modified minor version).

[auron2401]

Slingers need a nerf.

Seriously need a nerf. (video to follow)

spear cav need a buff, (can't 1v1 any ranged cav of any type)

Edited February 27, 2015 by auron2401

[niektb]

Slingers need a nerf.

Seriously need a nerf. (video to follow)

spear cav need a buff, (can't 1v1 any ranged cav of any type)

+1

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

LOL Too many opinion.

[auron2401]

LOL, Such pointless existence!
if you are just going to be rude, sir, The door is that way. *points vaguely*

So the game me and niektb Was riddled with Sync errors (how do I find those, BTW? Linux) So I distrust the results i found with them. Plus the fight took place on two sides of a barracks. (i won by spawning 20 swordsmen upon his slingers, but lost all my other troops with hardly any enemy corpses. T.T)

Thus the video would just prove what we already know. (Formation Pathfinding.. T.T, one of these days bro)
But looking at the stats.... i must test this further.

I maintain Spear horsemen need a buff, holy darn.

Edit: The OOS we experienced

Edited March 3, 2015 by auron2401

[niektb]

Do you already have the video, auron?

[auron2401]

Romans seem to have not been properly balanced?
13.5 infantry Skirmisher walk speed? 20 damage?
9.5 Infantry sword walk speed?

compared to carthage (my go-to civ)

who's infantry range are only 8.5 walk speed, 7 damage

and infantry spear is 8 walk speed.

So archers are abominably weak and slow across the board. okay. But they have long range guys! *sigh*

I dislike this greatly.
and swordsmen are just down-right better than spear-men across the board. Where is the sense in this?

Edited February 27, 2015 by auron2401

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

LOL, Such pointless existence!

Who are you? lol. My point is, there are many conflicting opinion on this board (and a lot of suggestion are downright bad). Hopefully designer can parse and make a balanced game once all the features are done.

[Lion.Kanzen]

Cleopatra fires like a gun machine, very quickly , pikement can't handle with Rams like Assyrian siege ram. Archers are fine to me

[iNcog]

Who are you? lol. My point is, there are many conflicting opinion on this board (and a lot of suggestion are downright bad). Hopefully designer can parse and make a balanced game once all the features are done.

Do you know what the Socratic method is? The idea is that conflicting ideas and views should be presented to each other, with the eventual goal of promoting critical thinking. This is very important when having a discussion, you can't ignore what the other side has to say because then your own ideas won't move forward. Conflicting opinions are a good thing, it's what you want when you want to discuss a subject and give all parties a better understanding of the situation.

If you think suggestions are bad, then you have to, at very least, give arguments as to why that's the case. Conflicting opinions should be discussed, not scoffed at. An idea which is the fruit of a good discussion is always much better than the idea of a single individual.

As to the balance situation, I have mixed feelings. I think that the consensus is that spear cavalry are indeed not so great at the moment, so I'll just leave that and discuss ranged units versus melee units.

I made a scenario in the editor where I pit 18 spear infantry units against 18 skirmishers. Interestingly enough, when I a-move the spear infantry into the skirmishers, the spear infantry win with roughly 8 or so units left. I tested this more than once. However, when I go the other side and micro the 18 skirmishers, the skirmishers can win with 15 or so (probably more if I micro more carefully) units left. This is done with hit and run but also spreading the skirmishers. So this is a good thing. I think that it's good design to have melee units win against ranged units in a melee fight. This means that positioning is what wins fight, not just the unit you chose to make. Very, very good.

However, I feel that skirmishers (and probably most ranged units) are still too strong compared to their melee counterparts. I think that the general idea is that armies should have melee infantry as their backbone, not ranged units. As it currently is, I feel that ranged units aren't really support units (units which can turn the tide of a fight, but can't win them by themselves), they're truly the meat of an army.

This is illustrated by the fact that 18 spear infantry units will beat 18 skirmishers with around 8 spear infantry units left over, however 36 spear infantry will lose to 36 skirmishers with 4 or so skirmishers left over. This is normal, the bigger armies get, the more the advantage goes to ranged units since they can fight easily; melee units have to move around. This lessens the importance of position, which in my opinion isn't really the way to go.

As things stand currently, ranged units are simply quite strong and they're the units you really want to make. Melee units are the support units, since they protect ranged units against melee cavalry. This kind of interaction is one akin to that of Age of Empires 3, however the time period is quite differently. Historically speaking, I believe that tough melee units were the ones which won wars; ranged units were given a support role.

As for swordsmen being too strong, interestingly enough 18 mauryan swordsmen lose consistently to 18 skirmishers. I'll need to do my tests with other units, obviously, but so far the point stands. I truly believe that ranged units should be given less HP or something, to give them a support emphasis rather than a standing army emphasis. Not to mention that skirmishers are faster than melee units as well.

[iNcog]

Sorry for double post but at least this allows to keep different ideas separate. I notice that a lot of units still have hybrid damage. I thought the idea, going forward, was that melee units would deal only hack damage, ranged units only pierce damage and siege units only crush damage.

I think it would simplify things greatly to use this configuration.

[auron2401]

Pikemen seem extremely underpowered. No really, EXTREMELY under powered, i understand what their purpose is now (to be a wall of neverdying tanks) But they can't even do that very well. Not only can they not hold their own, they can't hold their own with tremendous numerical advantage versus something like.. Hoplites for example. And anyway, if you don't want to engage pikemen, because they're so darn slow, you can just go around them.

Also, if you're going to have javelin infantry be extremely fast, They're going to be extremely efficient Resource gatherers.
factions that don't have them (carthage, anyone?) will be extremely underfed. Maybe making women faster (if you want to keep the speed) Would help fix that? They generally should be / are what keeps your economy going anyway, having them do it better won't hurt nobody. Infact it might help me judge the balance of the infantry better.

[Lion.Kanzen]

Pikemen seem extremely underpowered. No really, EXTREMELY under powered...

Also, if you're going to have javelin infantry be extremely fast....

pikeman against units like Rams are very weak 10 pikeman or 15 can destroy easily a single ram. I was lost a CC. -.-u

Javelin is missing with Mauryans too.

Edited March 1, 2015 by Lion.Kanzen

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

There should be "shuttle speed" that is same for all infantry as they carry resource back to drop base. Wheelbarrow can improve this speed.

[iNcog]

yeah pikes are slow iirc

[tau]

@iNcog:

are you talking about a17 or svn when you say that ranged are superior vs melee? I would agree with you to some extent for both cases, still it is important for further discussion.

[iNcog]

@iNcog:

are you talking about a17 or svn when you say that ranged are superior vs melee? I would agree with you to some extent for both cases, still it is important for further discussion.

svn since that's the version i used in the scenario editor

what are your thoughts? i've only done a few tests and haven't been exhaustive much

[Pithawk]

Can anyone beat Tango_'s cavalry javelin rush with anything else than more cavalry javelin?

(A18 SVN)

He beats me every time with it lol, leading me to believe that javelin cav are OP in the early game.

Now, I think rushing is an important strategy that should definitely be viable. However, if the only response to a rush is - to do a better rush with the same units...I think this will make for boring 'expert games' since there can be no variation of strategy.

Melee get micro'd every time.

Skirmishers seem to get wrecked by javelinist cav in A18 SVN.

Not sure about spear cav? But they can probably be micro'd as well?

[auron2401]

Spear cav doesn't micro very well, because it takes several seconds to attack. (which i find is weird) Thus half of your troops die before the second attack is off.

[Tango_]

Can anyone beat Tango_'s cavalry javelin rush with anything else than more cavalry javelin?

(A18 SVN)

He beats me every time with it lol, leading me to believe that javelin cav are OP in the early game.

Now, I think rushing is an important strategy that should definitely be viable. However, if the only response to a rush is - to do a better rush with the same units...I think this will make for boring 'expert games' since there can be no variation of strategy.

Melee get micro'd every time.

Skirmishers seem to get wrecked by javelinist cav in A18 SVN.

Not sure about spear cav? But they can probably be micro'd as well?

Skirmisher cavalry were Op on a16, really OP. We have known an Alpha mainly based on skirmisher cavalry using.

On A18/SVN, skirmisher aren't OP imho. Indeed, first, skirmisher cavalry have the advantage when you fight the infantry army of your opponent, if you nearly have the same number of units. On the contrary, if you have more infantry (range especially) units than the skirmirsher cavalry rusher, you have the advantage

Furthermore, compare to a16, a18/SVN propose you some defense support building (outpost/wooden towers) which can really help to deal with your opponent rush (not only based on skirmisher cavalry).

By the way, skirmisher cavalry have to be very dangerous in early game, because it's the range cavalry, so it involves speed and any melee fight.

Nerfing skirmisher cavalry too much, because they're dangerous in early game, isn't the solution in my opinion, cause later in the game, they'll necessarly be disadvantaged (or even useless?).

A18/SVN offers you all you need to counter a skirmisher cavalry rush in the best conditions.

Edited March 3, 2015 by Tango_

[tau]

@iNcog:

Generally, i try to restrain myself from stats discussions and wait for the balancing plan to be available. While it is not yet, everyone argues based on his own assumptions about intended roles of units, and this is mostly in vain.

But since i have mentioned ranged vs melee thing already, my thoughts are the following:

• Generally, i agree that melee now got the support role, which may be the result of longer ranges for ranged and melee made not effective vs buildings
• Long ranges are in theory balanced by less damage and less health. This is a complex change, i think that only after the release and many MP games we will see if this is balanced in practice. Still 72m archer range looks scary to me
• With wider vision ranges, it is upsetting when melee run to auto-attack, making themselves vulnerable, and you just dont notice this
• Would be nice if melee were more effective against wooden buildings (smth in between a17 and current svn stats). Since there is no capturing feature yet, damage used to be a good 'metaphor' for it and bring some dynamic.

@Pithawk (some random thoughts on skirm cav)

From the unit balance perspective:

• As of now, skirm inf indeed has weaker stats than skirm cav in svn and is likely to lose vs them. (I personally have no strong opinion on if this should be kept or not.) Archer and slinger inf has at least the advantage of range.
• If you don't want to give a symmetric answer, you also might want to use newly available wooden towers.
• Cav indeed has to be microed to keep the range/speed advantage. So before stats adjustments, later game should also be taken into account, when there is less microing possibilities and cav is more likely to die from spears/pikes.

From the strategy perspective:

• You are not necessarily supposed to kill all rusher's cav to turn the situation in your favour.
• If to change cav stats looking only at what Tango does, we may end up in a17 situation where rush barely exists. This is like to complain that wesono expands too fast.

To sum up, i think that some adjustment to skirm cav/skirm inf balance can be considered, but with caution.

[niektb]

What I noticed is that a Slinger Rush is extremely effective. By quickly upgrading the Phase 1 stone gather tech and much units on stone you can get a slinger army out quite quick.

Now that is not necessarily a problem (since you can do the same with other units) but against Auron2401 I managed with a group of ~30 slingers to wreck his economy completely (while he had about ~70 skirmish inf + ~20 swordsmen though I had the surprise on my side) and even get a group of slingers out of the battle before my army was destroyed.

Auron, I'm still waiting for your moviecapture to prove it

Edited March 3, 2015 by niektb

[Tango_]

What I noticed is that a Slinger Rush is extremely effective. By quickly upgrading the Phase 1 stone gather tech and much units on stone you can get a slinger army out quite quick.

Yey dude, slingers are really strong .

-> 10 skirm cav vs 10 slingers = skirm cav 6 - slingers 0

-> 15 skirm cav vs 15 slingers = skirm cav 5 - slingers 0

@Pithawk, slingers may be a solution for you

[wolflance]

There should be "shuttle speed" that is same for all infantry as they carry resource back to drop base. Wheelbarrow can improve this speed.

Was wondering why Wheelbarrow upgrade are in...aren't that thing invented in 100 a.d.? (That's Empire Besieged timeframe righ?)

Edited March 3, 2015 by wolflance

[auron2401]

Well... the wheel was already widely available...
So... we can say.... we're taking some artistic license?