Introducing the Official community mod for Alpha 26

[chrstgtr]

2 hours ago, binobo said:

The problem is that they are too tank like. They need either/or a health reduction or changes to armor. Personally I think an overall cav health reduction would be great but since that is rather controversial, I think both units should receive a -1 hack resistance reduction and a -2 pierce resistance reduction from their current states

Agree in the main. But this failed on a vote. (Also, a -2 to hack and a -1 to pierce is probably better for you state is the goal--making them more vulnerable when fighting straight up). 

I feel like we could get broad support for a melee champ cav nerf, which I think @real_tabasco_sauce is going to put forward in the next round. 

2 hours ago, binobo said:

I think a fun technology would be to reduce the swordsman training time to 7 seconds but increase cavalry training time by 25%.

Sounds interesting. I think these inf vs cav tradeoff techs have potential. 

2 hours ago, binobo said:

Or it could just be  a technology that trains all infantry to 8 seconds.

Really, this is just a buff to champ inf, which I think should happen.

----

Relatedly, this is all inspired from a game you spectated with me, right?

Edited December 21, 2022 by chrstgtr

[real_tabasco_sauce]

yeah champ melee cav certainly could use an hp reduction. The consular bodyguards get even more armor than champion spearcav when compared to their citizen soldier counterparts, so some armor adjustment might also be necessary to be honest.

One thing that should be mentioned about spearcav is they do less damage than infantry spearmen (much less for champ spearcav and about the same for citizen soldiers). It's as if their attack repeat time was increased from 1.0 sec to 1.25 sec without the appropriate damage adjustment.

I think 0.26.4 is the last iteration of the community mod before the a27 feature freeze, but these are certainly items I will work on for the community mod during a27, assuming one will be maintained.

I am planning on:

• Melee champ cav nerf (armor + hp), maybe a tiny bit more for consular bodyguards.
• Spearcav damage buff (to correct the aformentioned inconsistency)
• Broad melee damage increase, armor decrease (help resolve meatshield meta)
• Han ministers 1 pop, higher percentage effectiveness.
• warship classes: light warship(could become a scout ship via upgrade), medium warship, heavy/siege warship, transport ship, and special ship (fireship + future additions to this class).
  • separate need to garrison boats from boat effectiveness.
  • might even try to give boats unit AI instead building AI so that they are controlled like units rather than siege towers.
• Revised unit specific upgrades.

[chrstgtr]

2 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

• Melee champ cav nerf (armor + hp), maybe a tiny bit more for consular bodyguards.

Agree in main. 

 

2 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

• Spearcav damage buff (to correct the aformentioned inconsistency)

Makes sense--good call out. Worried about its impact on champ spear cav, though. But the other nerf above should address that. 
 

2 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

• Han ministers 1 pop, higher percentage effectiveness

Agree. 

2 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

• Revised unit specific upgrades.

I'm still planning to look and give you feedback from last time. 

2 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

• Broad melee damage increase, armor decrease (help resolve meatshield meta)

We tried to talk about this before in the lobby but didn't get the chance. What are you intending to do? How is it different, if at all, from the linked discussion?

 

[real_tabasco_sauce]

28 minutes ago, chrstgtr said:

We tried to talk about this before in the lobby but didn't get the chance. What are you intending to do? How is it different, if at all, from the linked discussion?

The discussion may have involved this idea, I am not sure. Basically, a small armor nerf would be applied to all melee units, with a more substantial increase in their damage. This will designed as a net buff to infantry units, while decreasing their survivability somewhat.

The idea is that melee units should be less of a meat shield and more impactful in the outcome of fights. For instance, If my 40 spearmen are upgraded compared to my enemies spearmen, my spearmen should beat their spearmen more quickly and move on to attack the enemy ranged units.

Currently however, the survival of my spearmen versus the enemy's spearmen is determined by the health/armor of my melee units and the damage of the enemy ranged units. The damage the melee units do to each other is not very important.

Take a look against melee units:

(5 hack and 5 pierce are equal, so pierce and hack damage may be combined)

pikemen: 2.5 dps

spearmen: 5.5 dps

swords: 7.33 dps

archers: 6.7 dps

slingers: 9.2 dps (ignoring crush)

crossbowmen: 9.3 dps

skirmishers: 12.8 dps

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This change would mean melee units kill ranged units somewhat faster, although they will also die to ranged units faster as well. (maybe players will find themselves needing hack armor from the forge)

Importantly, however, it makes melee units and their relative strength to enemy melee units more impactful in the outcome of battles.

Edited December 21, 2022 by real_tabasco_sauce

[chrstgtr]

2 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

Importantly, however, it makes melee units and their relative strength to enemy melee units more impactful in the outcome of battles.

Your logic/goal is starting to make more sense--you want melee fights to be a true fight as opposed to a sideshow. That seems like a valid goal. (Note, my solution of making melee units faster so they can just get to enemy range units didn't address this, so I think you might be onto something). 

2 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

Currently however, the survival of my spearmen versus the enemy's spearmen is determined by the health/armor of my melee units and the damage of the enemy ranged units. The damage the melee units do to each other is not very important.

This sounds like you can achieve it with just a hack armor decrease, right? 

Why would you need to increase attack? If you decrease melee's hack armor then that will make melee's attacks more powerful against other melee, which seems like your goal. Increasing melee's attack will also make melee more impactful against range, but melee is already very strong against range when they actually engage. 

Why do you want to decrease melee's pierce armor? That will make range even stronger vs. melee (i.e., it could eliminate the need for a meat shield because range would be more able to fight with melee head-on). 

[binobo]

16 hours ago, chrstgtr said:

Agree in the main. But this failed on a vote. (Also, a -2 to hack and a -1 to pierce is probably better for you state is the goal--making them more vulnerable when fighting straight up). 

I feel like we could get broad support for a melee champ cav nerf, which I think @real_tabasco_sauce is going to put forward in the next round. 

Sounds interesting. I think these inf vs cav tradeoff techs have potential. 

Really, this is just a buff to champ inf, which I think should happen.

----

Relatedly, this is all inspired from a game you spectated with me, right?

Partially yes but I love to play Romans and the consulars are bad for the gameplay. It’s almost as bad as the a24 fire Cav. I just love playing the civ because it’s slightly better than average but it’s not considered a meta Civ like the Iberians, Ptols, Gauls or britons. 
 

On the note of making champs more viable, especially infantry, there are many options.

The previously mentioned training buffs to all champion infantry across the board would make them more viable. Possibly a 16-18 second champ. 
Another approach is making blacksmith upgrades more expensive and/or smaller increases in damage and protection like 10% as opposed to the 15-15-20%  . This would encourage players to possibly get champs in P3

[real_tabasco_sauce]

1 hour ago, chrstgtr said:

but melee is already very strong against range when they actually engage. 

This, as it turns out, has more to do with their armor than their damage (and the fact that so few players get hack armor).

Usually when ranged units start to get hit by melee there is plenty of time to just start running away.

1 hour ago, chrstgtr said:

Why do you want to decrease melee's pierce armor? That will make range even stronger vs. melee (i.e., it could eliminate the need for a meat shield because range would be more able to fight with melee head-on). 

The idea here would be to increase damage substantially, and decrease armor to like either 4 or 3 hack and pierce (for swords/spears). For one reason, one wouldn't want melee units to be much more susceptible to hack versus pierce, as this would basically make swords much better than they already are.

The primary reason is that we don't want 5 to 10 swordsmen to be able to beat almost 40 skirmishers for example. They should be highly damaging to ranged units but still killable.

The whole idea of reducing armor a little is to alleviate the meat shield meta. If my ranged units can find decent damage now versus enemy melee units (which are also more valuable to kill due to their higher damage), maybe I will let them target melee instead of always sniping.

[chrstgtr]

You're starting to lose me. Some of this is inconsistent. I'm with you for a hack armor decrease (and a possible speed buff), but I don't understand the pierce armor decrease. And an attack damage increase seems like extra noise on top of armor changes, which will do the same thing in a more targeted manner. 

54 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

This, as it turns out, has more to do with their armor than their damage (and the fact that so few players get hack armor).

The same is true of players not getting melee attack, though, and the same thing happens when players do get upgrades. Melee units are just strong versus range units when the units actually engage. Getting them to engage has always been a problem. 

55 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

Usually when ranged units start to get hit by melee there is plenty of time to just start running away.

I'm not sure this is true. Running away still means you will lose a lot of units. 

But even if this is true, increasing attack damage won't change this--units will still run away.

If this is true, isn't the fix then to also add melee speed buff (in addition to whatever else happens)?

59 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

For one reason, one wouldn't want melee units to be much more susceptible to hack versus pierce, as this would basically make swords much better than they already are.

So, currently, is melee is fine versus range or not? This is inconsistent with the above. 

1 hour ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

They should be highly damaging to ranged units but still killable

Isn't this the case now? If this wasn't true then why would there be any need for a change? Players could walk past meat shields now, but don't because it is too damaging. 

1 hour ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

If my ranged units can find decent damage now versus enemy melee units (which are also more valuable to kill due to their higher damage), maybe I will let them target melee instead of always sniping.

This already exists. Sniping is a response to "over-killing," where more units target an enemy than necessary to kill it. Over-killing will continue to exist with your proposal. Without micro, your proposal will make over-killing more common because units will have less armor. 

--------

I'm having trouble understanding why you think think pierce armor should change. It's difficult to follow what you are actually trying to respond to with respect to melee versus range. At once, you seem to be saying that melee is too weak versus range but also too strong versus range and then proposing to change everything. By changing multiple variables in opposite directions it makes the outcomes unpredictable. Either melee should be stronger versus range or it should be weaker versus range, but you seem to be saying it should be both stronger and weaker and the actual net outcome of proposed changes will be unknown. 

I'm also having difficult understanding by attack damage should increase. Decreasing armor effectively increases attack damage effectiveness, but can be more targeted (i.e., you can make attacks more effective versus melee or versus range). I don't understand why you want to change attack damage's effectiveness versus melee (via a decrease in hack armor), versus range (via a decrease in pierce armor), and versus both melee/range (via an increase melee attack). Why not just change the armor (of hack or pierce--which will let you more efficiently target effectiveness)? 

[real_tabasco_sauce]

@chrstgtr I think you are overthinking it. Melee units serve as a "meat shield" because they are all tanky with 5 hack and 5 pierce armor. The idea is decrease armor a little, increase damage. 

It isn't really about ranged vs melee balance. Melee units nicely beat range units currently, and they would also after this change, but in a different way (damage vs survivability). The reason I discuss ranged units is because this change would give melee units more impact on the battlefield compared to ranged units.

1 hour ago, chrstgtr said:

increasing attack damage won't change this--units will still run away.

only after many more have been killed.

1 hour ago, chrstgtr said:

I don't understand why you want to change attack damage's effectiveness versus melee (via a decrease in hack armor), versus range (via a decrease in pierce armor), and versus both melee/range (via an increase melee attack). Why not just change the armor (of hack or pierce--which will let you more efficiently target effectiveness)? 

1 hour ago, chrstgtr said:

Either melee should be stronger versus range or it should be weaker versus range, but you seem to be saying it should be both stronger and weaker and the actual net outcome of proposed changes will be unknown. 

its not about melee vs ranged, it's about melee in general. The idea is shift melee's strength away from tankiness and towards higher damage. The net "effectiveness" as you say, should be roughly zero.

1 hour ago, chrstgtr said:

Sniping is a response to "over-killing,"

A little bit, but arguably sniping is more important for killing the enemy dps units (always ranged units) behind the meat shield. Since I know the enemy slingers for example are dealing 95% of the damage of their army, I will be sure to snipe them past the pikemen even using skirmishers. Once the slingers are gone, the pikemen can't do anything.

[chrstgtr]

15 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

Melee units serve as a "meat shield" because they are all tanky with 5 hack and 5 pierce armor. The idea is decrease armor a little, increase damage. 

17 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

its not about melee vs ranged, it's about melee in general. The idea is shift melee's strength away from tankiness and towards higher damage. The net "effectiveness" as you say, should be roughly zero.

I don't understand what your goal is. Is it to change melee's relative strength versus range, versus melee, or versus melee and range? If you just want melee to do be a glass cannon without changing the overall balance relative to other melee or range then you should just decrease health and leave armor unchanged. Messing with armor changes melee's strength relative to other unit classes and uses two variables to do what one cold do. 

Also, note that if you are going to make melee die faster then that will inevitably shift more strength to cav (unless there is a correspond change there--which already failed by vote). 

[real_tabasco_sauce]

4 minutes ago, chrstgtr said:

If you just want melee to do be a glass cannon without changing

glass cannon is certainly the wrong word. Currently melee's strength (even swordsmen to be honest) is primarily how tanky they are. This inevitably gives rise to the meatshield meta and the sniping required to beat it. In short, the current stats melee infantry have make them unimpactful on the battlefield, when compared to ranged units. This is because they contribute little damage to fights. 

7 minutes ago, chrstgtr said:

what your goal is.

The goal is resolving the issue of the meat shield meta.

I propose to do this by most importantly increasing melee damage to be closer to ranged classes' damage per second.

The decrease in armor is to avoid all melee quickly becoming OP, and it would be a small decrease 4 hack 4 pierce instead of 5 perhaps.

[chrstgtr]

5 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

The goal is resolving the issue of the meat shield meta.

I propose to do this by most importantly increasing melee damage to be closer to ranged classes' damage per second.

The decrease in armor is to avoid all melee quickly becoming OP, and it would be a small decrease 4 hack 4 pierce instead of 5 perhaps.

So is the goal to keep melee's balance relative to other melee and keep melee's balance relative to range by decreasing survivability and increasing attack by corresponding amount? And to do this you propose to decrease pierce and hack armor by the same amount? I'm just trying to figure out your goals and why you are messing with armor instead of health. 

Edit:typo

Edited December 22, 2022 by chrstgtr

[real_tabasco_sauce]

1 minute ago, chrstgtr said:

So is the goal to keep melee's balance relative to other melee and keep melee's balance relative to range by decreasing survivability and increasing attack by corresponding amount? And to do this you propose to decrease pierce and hack armor by the same amount? I'm just trying to figure out your goals and why you are messing with armor instead of health. 

exactly.

I would probably do this for melee inf in the community mod, and see where things are at for cavalry.

[chrstgtr]

30 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

exactly.

I would probably do this for melee inf in the community mod, and see where things are at for cavalry.

Ok that makes more sense. Thanks for bearing with me.

I think it's a valid goal and one that makes sense for the community mod. 

I, however, see three main pitfalls right now. For the first one, I think you can make a slight adjustment to get rid of it before testing. For the second and third issues, I think you just have to test it. 

1. It should be a health nerf instead of an armor nerf. Otherwise units that rely on crush for damage, such as slingers, clubs, axes, and cata, will get relatively weaker (esp. clubs and axes, which are already so rarely used). Also, while changing armor for spear/sword is easy (because they have the same armor) it is hard for pike (because they have different pierce/hack armor values relative to their armor counterpart and relative to other melee units). Health is also just easier to deal with because it will make even changes across the board (instead of doing calculations for pike armor changes and possible crush armor changes). 
2. This will impact melee units' strength relative to defensive buildings because they will not be able to stand under buildings as long. I don't feel great about this, but I'm on board for testing it. You can't really adjust for this because any adjustment will also impact range units' survivability under defensive buildings. 
3. This will impact impact infantry's strength relative to cav. Right now, spear should be the counter to cav (query on whether that is actually true...). Making spear die faster will exacerbate any imbalances that exist for inf relative to cav. It also will outright make melee cav stronger relative to melee inf. This could be dealt with by adjusting cav health, but we've already seen proposals on that fail. Whatever you do to melee infantry I think has to be done to melee cav too because otherwise melee inf will get too big of a nerf relative to melee cav. Even if you do that, I think there might be some problems because of already existing imbalances. I don't feel great about this, but it's just something that has to be tested.

What values are you thinking? I would want to keep the decreases in line with the increases so we can test if change actually adjusts the meta in a desirable way. Something like a 10% decrease to survivability and a 10% increase in attack? Maybe a 20%-20%? I wouldn't go as far as making melee dps equal to range dps because that would require like a 50% reduction in survivability, which would make them die really fast. 

Unlike everything included in previous community mods, I have no idea whether this will succeed. This is exactly the type of thing that I think should be tested in the mod, though. 

Edited December 22, 2022 by chrstgtr

[Outis]

I will take a bold step and ask why not modify armor values?

I find it strange that both melee and ranged infantry have equal hack and pierce armor values. This is not the same for melee cavalry and gives some distinction to sword and spear cavalry. Why not experiment a bit for infantry?

Armor rates can be modified in such a way as to break the melee meatshield and ranged dps paradigm and provide some differentiation to unit roles at the same time.

For example, sword infantry may be weaker towards ranged units than spear infantry, i.e. lower pierce armor than hack. Spear infantry may be weaker towards sword infantry i.e. lower hack armor than pierce.

There are historical exceptions. Roman sword infantry is not vulnerable to ranged units and Greek hoplites are not vulnerable to melee. These may be addressed by bonuses added with formation and/or unique technologies proposed earlier. In other words even more variety.

Another example, i expect javelin infantry to have some pierce armor than other ranged infantry, they carry shields after all and have a free hand to use them since javelins are used with one hand. Slings and bows require 2 hands. Javelinmen need the extra pierce armor as they need to close in further than slingers and archers, and are easy targets for other ranged units.

I know all of this is very difficult to balance, especially since hack damage is not the same as melee attack and pierce damage is not the same as ranged attack, but the game has so much potential and the community mod is an excellent opportunity to experiment. Most important is, it gives the chance to try many changes incrementally. This way, the extensive changes can be balanced over multiple iterations of the community mod within one alpha release or even multiple alphas.

 

Edited December 22, 2022 by Outis

[ChronA]

7 hours ago, chrstgtr said:

Something like a 10% decrease to survivability and a 10% increase in attack?

From experience: a 1 to1 HP to DPS tradeoff is not going to work out how you want. The most important decider for how much damage a melee unit can do vs a range unit is not actually its DPS, but how much time it spends in attack range, which is determined by speed and effective HP. Consider that -10% HP on a unit that spends 80% of a battle walking to the enemy and 20% attacking is not a 10% reduction to damage dealt. It's -50%, as the unit is now only gets to spend 10% of its nominal lifetime on target.

If you really want to test this, first you should try just doubling Melee infantry DPS. See how much that changes up the dynamics. If it is too much, then you can scale it back or look at some compensatory nerfs, but I think you will be shocked just how little difference it makes. 

Edit: and if the goal is to have gameplay that actually reflects ancient warfare--with 70+% of the fighting strength composed of heavy (melee) infantry--I think you will need to go much, much further with the melee inf buffs. I'd imagine somewhere in the neighborhood 2X DPS and 4X HP would do it.

Edited December 22, 2022 by ChronA

[real_tabasco_sauce]

8 hours ago, chrstgtr said:

What values are you thinking? I would want to keep the decreases in line with the increases so we can test if change actually adjusts the meta in a desirable way. Something like a 10% decrease to survivability and a 10% increase in attack? Maybe a 20%-20%?

I was actually thinking something more asymmetric would be ideal. On the order of 10 % less survivable and 25% to 30% increase in attack. The attack is really more important.

You are right that the crush units become less effective in comparison, but if you remember, I already have a crush rebalance branch that would be ideal for this.

8 hours ago, chrstgtr said:

This will impact melee units' strength relative to defensive buildings because they will not be able to stand under buildings as long. I don't feel great about this, but I'm on board for testing it. You can't really adjust for this because any adjustment will also impact range units' survivability under defensive buildings. 

yeah this is a concern for sure. To be honest, I would rather building arrows be targeted rather than random, but this is a different topic.

You are right, we would have to increase melee cavalry damage to follow suit. In this case, I am fine with higher melee cav damage. Spear cavalry need it anyway, and I agree some armor/hp changes might be necessary as well. However, remember that these cav will be in close quarters with much more damaging melee infantry, especially spearmen and pikemen that have a cav counter.

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

9 hours ago, chrstgtr said:

Something like a 10% decrease to survivability and a 10% increase in attack? Maybe a 20%-20%

I was thinking more like 15% 30% the same way you ordered it. I would not mind a net buff for melee units to be honest.

 

[alre]

I strongly agree on increasing damage for melee infantry, and even more strongly I oppose to decreasing melee infantry pierce armor (nor hack armor, but I don't feel as strongly for that).

18 hours ago, chrstgtr said:

melee is already very strong against range when they actually engage. 

this is false. a spearman deals 3 times less damage than a javlineer, which is completely nuts if you think about it: how is a spear driven towards you three times less dangerous than a javelin? Anyways, if you factor armor as well, and you put a spearman right next to a javelineer, the spearman will only barely win thanks to the oddity of melee units having more health points. if you have a spearmen charge at a javelineer, the range advantage will hand over victory to the javelineer. this is not considering the speed advantage he also gets.

4 hours ago, ChronA said:

From experience: a 1 to1 HP to DPS tradeoff is not going to work out how you want. The most important decider for how much damage a melee unit can do vs a range unit is not actually its DPS, but how much time it spends in attack range, which is determined by speed and effective HP. Consider that -10% HP on a unit that spends 80% of a battle walking to the enemy and 20% attacking is not a 10% reduction to damage dealt. It's -50%, as the unit is now only gets to spend 10% of its nominal lifetime on target.

If you really want to test this, first you should try just doubling Melee infantry DPS. See how much that changes up the dynamics. If it is too much, then you can scale it back or look at some compensatory nerfs, but I think you will be shocked just how little difference it makes. 

completely agree.

by the way, I don't see why melee units shoudn't be tanky. that's realistic.

[Stan`]

1 hour ago, alre said:

by the way, I don't see why melee units shoudn't be tanky. that's realistic.

Is it though It's not the late medieval times, they were used as meat shields.

[chrstgtr]

4 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

You are right that the crush units become less effective in comparison, but if you remember, I already have a crush rebalance branch that would be ideal for this.

But why? You can do crush that adjusts still. Doing it by armor here makes a problem where one doesn't exist.

4 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

However, remember that these cav will be in close quarters with much more damaging melee infantry, especially spearmen and pikemen that have a cav counter.

Yeah, I'm more concerned about range units taking them out first, though. 

4 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

I was actually thinking something more asymmetric would be ideal. On the order of 10 % less survivable and 25% to 30% increase in attack. The attack is really more important.

I thought you said you wanted to keep melee/range balance? How does this keep it? 

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

1 hour ago, chrstgtr said:

I thought you said you wanted to keep melee/range balance? How does this keep it? 

Survivability also affects the damage output because they need to take damage while walking to a target. You need at least some disparity in % attack buff and %survivability nerf in order to even out the overall capability of the unit.

[chrstgtr]

5 hours ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

Survivability also affects the damage output because they need to take damage while walking to a target. You need at least some disparity in % attack buff and %survivability nerf in order to even out the overall capability of the unit.

I can see how that might be the case. But I can also see how the opposite would be true too. Have you run any tests? 

Edited December 23, 2022 by chrstgtr

[alre]

13 hours ago, Stan` said:

Is it though It's not the late medieval times, they were used as meat shields.

when and where exactly they were used as meat shields?

Edited December 23, 2022 by alre

[Stan`]

1 minute ago, alre said:

when and where exactly they were used as meat shields?

In most battles people who could not afford armor would not have been particularly "tanky"