KaM Remake gameplay balance

[Siegfried]

I agree with all suggested changes except for making +1hp. As said - 5hp is already too much.

That's exactly how I feel, too. But it's rather the axeman/swordfighter, that already is overpowered in close combat. Giving them extra advantage screws the close combat balance even more. Don't do this.

Archers are and will always be overpowered, alone for the reason that two units can and will attack at the same time: the soldier who keeps you fixed in close combat + the archer attacking from distance. That's one of the key points of this game. You won't win without an army that is ~ 50/50 ground troops/archers. All the single player missions are build by this principle. This is the key element of this game. Don't change that.

Make them miss more often, that's okay. Make the lifepoint regenerate faster, that will disadvantage only the archers (because they can't regenerate as they die), that's okay. But don't change the basic principle.

Don't mess with the lifepoint balance, because axemen are already stronger than lance carriers. Make the lifepoint regeneration faster and this advantage will even increase. I think, this is the point where you could make tests.

Footmen are good at stormattacks, thats their "knack", so maybe we should exploit that and make storm attacks a little better, so that they were an effective tactic. Maybe make them a little faster, a little more controllable or a little more organized (less scattery) ? Militia being most scattered and axe/swordmen being more organized?

I agree with all those points. All of them make the storm attack quite useless. At the current state, it feels like the reaction to hitting the button is even lower than in the already slowly reacting original. Is this a bug?
But the main point is that every soldier starts to run in the direction it is looking. So if the button now delays for a millisecond and a soldier turns, he will run into the worng direction. This happens so often.

By the way, I noticed something with the random shooting of archers, that felt quite strange. Sometimes, some archers from the sides of your formation start to attack an enemy that already attacks that formation from the other side. In the original, all archers had a minimum distance of 4 squares to attack. So if you managed to reach the archer formation (with a storm attack maybe) your units were safe from getting attacked by archers - and the archers were doomed.

In the current state, the units are doomed because they still get attacked from archers, mostly even by the side which even increases the firepower of the archers.

My proposal is: make all archers of a formation stop attacking if the formation is under attack. Like it was in TPR.

[sado1]

Archers are and will always be overpowered, alone for the reason that two units can and will attack at the same time: the soldier who keeps you fixed in close combat + the archer attacking from distance. That's one of the key points of this game. You won't win without an army that is ~ 50/50 ground troops/archers. All the single player missions are build by this principle. This is the key element of this game. Don't change that.

Make them miss more often, that's okay. Make the lifepoint regenerate faster, that will disadvantage only the archers (because they can't regenerate as they die), that's okay. But don't change the basic principle.

Don't mess with the lifepoint balance, because axemen are already stronger than lance carriers. Make the lifepoint regeneration faster and this advantage will even increase. I think, this is the point where you could make tests.

The problem is, now lance carriers (or pikemen) are the strongest unit in the game now. Why? Because they are the easiest unit to be spammed except Militia, and they still have an armor so they are not as bad as Militia is. Axemen/swordsmen take additional time to be created (need a shield) but making a shield means you waste one leather armor you could make in this time. (And at the same time you lose one plank, but it's not that much of a disadvantage for me) All infantry units will lose anyway against archers, so why bother to make 1 axemen with 4 hp, when you can make 2 lance carriers in this time which will have 6hp on a whole (OK I know that 1axemen doesn't equal exactly 2 lancemen, but you can make significantly more lancemen than axemen). Lancemen/pikemen already have one advantage: being great against horsemen, why give them advantage against axemen/swordsmen? So, I agree that shielded units need +1hp, because of that. I'm not even mentioning horsemen, that's another story... personally I believe +1hp won't hurt, as lance/pikemen will still be much stronger against them, but it needs to be tested.

[Bo_]

Sigfried just wondering, who are you ingame?



I mean:

Archers are and will always be overpowered, alone for the reason that two units can and will attack at the same time: the soldier who keeps you fixed in close combat + the archer attacking from distance. That's one of the key points of this game. You won't win without an army that is ~ 50/50 ground troops/archers. All the single player missions are build by this principle. This is the key element of this game. Don't change that.

We're not talking about the original TSK, it's about the remake.
Archers are rather weak, the only way for them to do heavy damage is by surounding the enemy units whit archers,
but with a position where they're just all behind your melee they're just crap.
But well by doing that you put them in a vulnerable position..
Archers are not OP, honestly.

[Siegfried]

Sigfried just wondering, who are you ingame?

Siegfried

[Jeronimo]

I myself tested the units with +1 HP, so I can talk from the point of having actually tested it...
I liked the "new balance". I'm not lying. It feels more comfortable for trying new tactics.

Imagine in the long run... iron will deplet, lancers can be massed (require less wood/time to be produced than Axeman).
Surprinsingly, in the test Pikemen quite resisted the waves of Swordmen, but with a backup of some Archers.

You should try it yourself, give a try to unit-shield.dat (without the "-shield" overwrite unit.dat in Data/defines).
After watching with your own eyes, you can say if it's worthy or not. I'm in FAVOUR.

[Krom]

I noticed something with the random shooting of archers, that felt quite strange. Sometimes, some archers from the sides of your formation start to attack an enemy that already attacks that formation from the other side. In the original, all archers had a minimum distance of 4 squares to attack. So if you managed to reach the archer formation (with a storm attack maybe) your units were safe from getting attacked by archers - and the archers were doomed.

In TSK/TPR archers were "controlled" by flag carrier to reduce CPU load, but in KaM Remake each archer is updated individually and can respond to enemy presence. Which is quite natural, if you see your squad is under attack, but the enemies are farther than minimum shooting range - you shoot at them )

[Bo_]

I did some tests too, I think +1 hp for axefighter and swordfighter works great, realy. It feels balanced.
Then we have knights and scouts.
I did tests:
10 knights vs 10 lances.
Results:
1 time: 9 knights left
2 time: 10 knights left
3 time: &à knights left

10 knights vs 10 barbarians
Results:
1 time: 8 knights left
2 time: 7 knights left
3 time: 8 knights left

10 knights vs 10 pikemen
Results:
1 time: 3 pikemen left
2 time: 1 pikemen left
3 time: 4 pikemen left

Well knowing that knights are the most expensive units. (4 corn, 3 iron ore, 1 chest, 6 coal ore)
Compared to lance. (1 chest, 2 timer, 2 corn)
So knowing that 20 lances can defeat 10 knights it feels fair, if you compare the costs.

So now knights are very strong, but in equal amounts.
I'll do some other tests where I'll compare soldiers for the same costs.
So it's not because 10 knights defeat 10 lances that it's as easy to produce 10 knights as 10 lances.

[Siegfried]

The numbers prove that +1lp for shields breaks the balance. The ground troops are based on the rock-paper-scissors principle (scout beats axeman, axeman beats lance carrier, lance carrier beats scout - the same for the iron troops; eased for iron/wooden mixture). This is history if you look at the numbers. 10 knights vs 10 lance carriers with little to nil losses. That's terrible! Also 10 pikemen only barely survive 10 knights is imbalanced. Pikemen are the meant counter, don't forget that.

Before, you had to carefully avoid the lances because they severly damaged your knights, now you can just send them in. They won't taken serious damage. +1lp makes knights to superweapons.

[The Dark Lord]

Isn't there an easier solution? I haven't done any tests so I can't discuss balance yet, but what about this: if you multiplay EVERYTHING with 10, so instead of 5 --> 50 life points, you would get more or less the same results, right (you multiply attack power with 10 too, etc.)? If units have 50 life points instead of 5, 1 life point won't be much difference. In other words, it would be much easier to make changes. You could easily add 5 life points to make them a little stronger. That would be a 10% increase rather than 20%. I don't know how deep these values have been written within the code, but if it's possible wouldn't this be a solution?

[Jeronimo]

The numbers prove that +1lp for shields breaks the balance. The ground troops are based on the rock-paper-scissors principle (scout beats axeman, axeman beats lance carrier, lance carrier beats scout - the same for the iron troops; eased for iron/wooden mixture). This is history if you look at the numbers. 10 knights vs 10 lance carriers with little to nil losses. That's terrible! Also 10 pikemen only barely survive 10 knights is imbalanced. Pikemen are the meant counter, don't forget that.

Before, you had to carefully avoid the lances because they severly damaged your knights, now you can just send them in. They won't taken serious damage. +1lp makes knights to superweapons.

When playing multiplayer matches, you will see perhaps 10 knights being controlled by 1 player, but 30-40 lance carriers in the other side. The 10-10 comparison doesnt show much really, 10 knights would beat 10 lancers even if knights had 4 hit points.

"rock-paper-scissors" works same, but this empty formula neglects all economic base that you need per unit.
What rules in multiplayer is "quantity->quality", being Lancers+Xbows the best strategy.

Again... maybe some players still found nice making Knights, but Axemen/Swordman/Scout were useless.
Now all types have a decent Role to play in battlefield. Lancers continue being the meat shield for Xbows, dont forget.

Knights is the most powerful/expensive unit in game, to kill 10 knights, you will need 15-20 Lancers which is cheap.
And dont forget the backup fireup with Xbow, surely someone will have some.

Why don't you play a game with the +1hp change? I talked with Bo in the lobby, and he (despites what his 10vs10 tests show) finds the changes appealing. You will surely see new combinations now... something that veterans know that works fine.
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@Siegfried: Today we played many battles (fighting maps), and we agreed this is much better.

[Bence791]

Hm, seems to be a quite bad idea to give the shielded units +1 hp. I’ve made some tests to compare. Exactly Mounted vs. Anti-Horse. You can see their kills under them. First, I sent in 10 pikemen against 10 knights.

With +1 hp / original:

Horizontally facing each other
(Knights-Pikemen)
5-10 / 4-10

With a formation of 5 rows (10 men)
(Knights-Pikemen)
10-8 / 3-10


Then, 10 lance carriers against 10 scouts.

With +1 hp / original:

Horizontally facing each other
(Scouts-Lance carriers)
5-10 / 3-10

With a formation of 5 rows
(Scouts-Lance carriers)
10-4 / 3-10


Test results were always the same for me. But do you think that it is balanced? That 10 Knights can kill 10 Pikemen with "only" 8 casualties? It seems ridiculous for me… Pikemen are to slay cavalry, with that 4 horseshoe under their picture, what should symbolize their strenght against horses, and that they can kill every mounted units easily. How can a knight challenge a pikeman? This new "+1 hp to shielded units" thing would make Knights unbeatable. They were killed by pikemen before, and sometimes warriors could challenge them too.


About the Storm attack.

This was implemented in the original KaM TSK/TPR, to give infantry the ability to "rush" the enemy at 2x speed, with less chance of being hit by stones/arrows. Why don't you improve the % of "avoiding" arrows/stones? That surely would be a better solution than making Knights unbeatable. Or just give the Axe fighter and Swordsmen the +1 hp.

[Bo_]

The numbers prove that +1lp for shields breaks the balance. The ground troops are based on the rock-paper-scissors principle (scout beats axeman, axeman beats lance carrier, lance carrier beats scout - the same for the iron troops; eased for iron/wooden mixture). This is history if you look at the numbers. 10 knights vs 10 lance carriers with little to nil losses. That's terrible! Also 10 pikemen only barely survive 10 knights is imbalanced. Pikemen are the meant counter, don't forget that.

Before, you had to carefully avoid the lances because they severly damaged your knights, now you can just send them in. They won't taken serious damage. +1lp makes knights to superweapons.

No stop talking about something where you know nothing about..
1 lance still beats 1 scout and 1 pike still beats 1 knight..

You will never have knights in very big amount, they are way too expensive for that.
No good player will use his knights to charge in combat, that's the worst you can do.
So this means knights are a tactical unit, they are perfect for small operations.
So for flanking enemy archers, to prevent enemy soldiers to get close to your archers, to do some damage in the enemy economy, etc..
Knights are the elite of your army, but this can't work on their speed only, now you just need to place 4 lances next to your archers and your knights can do nothing.
With this change knights will be important to train, without making other soldiers worthless, like lance did with knights now.
Now players are doing Lances + xbow only, now at least every unit is worht training.


=> Short: 1 shield +1 lp doesn't break balance, but RESTORES balance.

[Siegfried]

No stop talking about something where you know nothing about..

Don't make a personal war out of this, please! Thank you.

I wonder what you would answer Bence791, who also came to a different conclusion than you?

[sado1]

I wonder what you would answer Bence791, who also came to a different conclusion than you?

I guess Bo's answer would be similar - you will never have knights in a big amount. And I'll add to that: knights/scouts, as the quickest units, will rarely have (x)bowmen support (at least at start of the fight), while pikemen are likely to come with archer support, which I guess will make them smash horsemen. Combined with the fact that there will likely be more pikemen than horsemen (horsemen cost is much bigger), I'm not frightened at all at what I see in Bence's results.

But if we want (pike/lance)men to always win with same amount of horses no matter what, they could get +1 attack point against horses. (I can already hear someone saying that's too much of a change)

[Jeronimo]

I wonder what you would answer Bence791, who also came to a different conclusion than you?

I guess Bo's answer would be similar - you will never have knights in a big amount. And I'll add to that: knights/scouts, as the quickest units, will rarely have (x)bowmen support (at least at start of the fight), while pikemen are likely to come with archer support, which I guess will make them smash horsemen. Combined with the fact that there will likely be more pikemen than horsemen (horsemen cost is much bigger), I'm not frightened at all at what I see in Bence's results.

But if we want (pike/lance)men to always win with same amount of horses no matter what, they could get +1 attack point against horses. (I can already hear someone saying that's too much of a change)

Indeed... with the condition changes (requiring food earlier), you could max have 1 Stable... and no more than 10 horses for 60 PT, still your food production will base on breads/wines mainly, and no leather production (since now exchange rates at market make buying skins very incovenient).
Do you still want to mass Knights? Come to Jeronimo with them.
I'll ask you 5 minutes later: Where are your Knights now my darling?

And please no more changes... extra bonus aren't needed, I tested myself and lances performance is still good.
The tests 10 vs 10 are far from the ECONOMIC REALITY. After killing first wave of knights, you rarely see them again.