LetswaveaBook mercenaries mod.

[LetswaveaBook]

I created a mod a while ago to test some ideas about game balancing and I would like to put some results here. The original description is

On 29/05/2021 at 10:43 AM, LetswaveaBook said:

I added some things to the mod to support aggression. Features of the mod:

•wood gather rate reduced by 0.10, food gather rate reduced by 0.10 (This means women/cavalry get ¨cheaper¨ and citizen soldiers stay at about the same ¨cost¨, which should encourage people to make more women/cavalry and that would favor aggression).

•speed upgrade for cavalry is reduced in cost to 200f,100m. This might be useful for cavalry rushes. From an economic viewpoint it means that 10% speed is about +10% gather rates at long distances. The 100m is left over after doing the p1 wood/food techs. So the speed upgrade tech seems to be worth it if you have around 15 cavalry.

•I like the concept of age of empires 2, where you getting to the next phase means a significant step in military power. Therefore I added +10%attack/health to all soldiers once p2 is reached.

•Mercenaires need 48seconds to train in p1 for infantry and 64 for cavalry. In p2 these times get reduced to 2 seconds and 2.66.

• Infantry mercenaries cost 35 food and 45 metal and cavalry mercenaires cost 60 metal and 60 food.

•Expertise in war costs 250 metal and need 20 seconds to research. It now triples the train time (This means that you can train mercenaries very fast, until you decide you want to scarify train rate for military power).

• civ specific changes about mercenaries(Athens: +10% metal gather rate in p2, Carthage: can build an Iberian embassy and mercenaries in p1&expertise in war, Kush: can build an Blemmye camp and mercenaries in p1, Macedon: Suited for cavalry rushed and can train mercenary cavalry in p1, Ptolemies: Fantastic eco and Ptolemy 1, Seleucids: start now with an extra mercenary swordsmen and military colony is as fast at producing mercenaries 2 times and researching expertise in war).

•Misc: archers have 2.5 spread and Persian axe cavalry in p1. I also reduced the metal cost of p2/p3 eco and blacksmith techs to make them more accessible and to provide more metal to the players.

I did test the mod in 1v1s and it seems that for Carthage and Kush, you can get about 20 mercenaries out before minute 10. From my tests, I tend to conclude that these changes allow you to get sufficient numbers of mercenaries to deal a really good blow as at this point the opponent seems to have 40-50 citizen soldier scatter around his base. What I tested was a strategy where you only produce 1 barracks and aim click p2 when you have 80 to 110 units. Once you are in p2, you can produce a lot of mercenaries very fast. Then you research expertise in war, which gives coupled with the +10% attack/health bonus some very strong units. I suppose it really allows for a deadly early p2 attack when you opponent is late to p2.

 

I also played game with Yekaterina and Valihrant to test if it is viable while not OP.

The game I would like to mention against Yekaterina went according to plan. I was playing Seleucids against Ptolemies and at minute 10:30 I had allready a military colony at her door and 25 advanced mercenary archers were getting their first kills. On the flip side, she collected 16815 resources while I had 14000 at that point. The game ended in p2 with a successful mercenary rush.

The game I would like to mention against Valihrant went different, where I played as Carthage and he as Sparta. I made some mistakes in execution. If you rush, you are putting yourself behind in workers for the opportunity to do damage. the rush did not do significant damage. With superior number Valihrant was able to beat me in p3. Valihrant showed two concerns about the mod. The first one is that the rusher falls behind to much in population, which the recording disproved. The rusher falls behind, but not overly. The second concern was that quick mercenaries might be used not to rush but at a later stage as a quick reïnforcement for panic defence and thus increasing the capability to turtle. This second concern was not being tested. The replay leads me to think that if the strategy for a p2 rush is well executed, it can be a proper strategy, while Valirhant showed that the defender is able to resist.

Again thanks to Yekaterina and Valihrant for trying to test this mod. I also linked the game with Valirhant and if there is any desire for it, I can do a commentary on the game on my youtube channel to show how viable the strategy is under the conditions of the mod.

2021-06-08_0002.zip

Edited June 8, 2021 by LetswaveaBook
I have to say that in both discussed matches there is some skill gap and that we should take that in consideration, because a certain 2k+ rated player would be able to make any strategy look invincable...