Recruitable Unit Rebalance Version 7.51 Released.

[Ironhawk]

Saber Cherry said:
Well... except Ulm now has Sappers, who carry crossbows. At 20g, they are not a good generic missile unit in my opinion, but for example Ironhawk employed them effectively as his main missile unit in the Test game, and their sapping ability came in very handy. Arbalests are certainly much more effective against high-protection units like Knights, HC, and Dragons, though, whether original (14ap) or modded (12ap sn).

I did use some Sappers, yes. They are too expensive to perform in the traditional role. But their effectiveness lies in that they are a walking seige engine AND a decent missle unit. Buy 20 of them and your army just got +100 siege points with no significant loss of firepower - hello!!!

While Arbalests may seem attractive because of thier high damage potential, its really just wasted by thier low ROF. If they get 3 shots off in an entire battle it is a miracle. On top of this, they are actually even worse when used in combination with Ulmish units since they can actually kill a BP or BK unit!! Better to have Sappers or even better (for indys) shortbowmen, who can fire willy-nilly right into your heavy Ulmish troops formations and not hurt any of your own men.

There is a possibility that Arbalests could have some kind of niche role as a heavy-armor killer type missle. But in my experience, I would rather be putting those resources to BP Morningstars or BKs which I know will be effective and combine them with long/short/xbow & battle magic.

[FrankTrollman]

In general, I think you went way overboard on giving out the #flail tag to weapons. I mean, lances?! That's why mounted people carry shields in the first place.

Yeah, rather than making every weapon and its mom kick shields in the jinglies, you should just make weapons generically and actually useful. The Arbalest should be #ratt -2, that's all it really needs to be a powerful incentive to play Ulm.

All of those changes really just made shielded units basically not worth it, and perversely therefore made Greatsword Barbarians overpowered. Since there's no incentive to have an army composed of anything but two handed weapon users, moderately decent THW guys became astoundingly the top of the heap. Standard heavy infantry has no survivability in this mod, so there's no real reason to employ it.

-Frank

[Ironhawk]

While I do agree that lances don't need any help, I dont see it as that big of problem. I mean if someone hits you with a lance as it currently stands... its not going to matter if you have a shield or not, since its going to do like 25+ damage anyway.

What does #ratt -2 do?

What other weapons got ignore-shield?

[FrankTrollman]

"#ratt -2" makes the weapon attack every other turn instead of every three turns.

Cherry has made the following weapons ignore shields:

Arbalests
Boulders
Blow Pipes
Lances

The following weapons have been made armor piercing:

Jaguar Bites
Niefel Axe Explosions
Niefel Swords
Mauls
Boulders
Alicorns

I honestly don't understand why any of this happens. The more you make weapons ignore the defenses of your opponent, the more you encourage people to run around naked with a big sword. In general, armor piercing should be extremely rare - as it's a specialized damge bonus against Ulm (and those losers need all the help they can get).

Remember, AP just means it bypasses half your armor. It doesn't mean it bypasses half your protection. If you want unicorns to be able to threaten dragons, just have them do more damage, do not give them a specialized bonus against Ulm.

-Frank

[Huzurdaddi]

FrankTrollman said:
Remember, AP just means it bypasses half your armor. It doesn't mean it bypasses half your protection. If you want unicorns to be able to threaten dragons, just have them do more damage, do not give them a specialized bonus against Ulm.
-Frank

Whaaa? This does not jive with what the dev's have stated else where wrt. AP. Is this correct?

[Saber Cherry]

FrankTrollman said:

Cherry has made the following weapons ignore shields:

Arbalests
Boulders
Blow Pipes
Lances

These weapons are not often used. Boulders should ignore shields, period. Lances should arguably ignore shields and are NOT the reason shields are used... Shields protect from light projectiles like arrows and slings stones, and melee weapons. Cavalry lances will go right through most shields, as I understand it.

The questionable ones are Blow Pipes and Arbalests. My rationale is that blow pipes are exceptionally accurate and used at very close range on tiny game like songbirds. So, ignoring the shield (and, say, hitting a unit's neck) should not be difficult, but it does not matter anyway as nobody ever uses them. Arbalests ignore shields experimentally to see if that makes them useful and balanced... the rationale being that the projectile has enough energy per unit area to rip through a standard wooden or leather shield. This may or may not be realistic, but I like it, and it was the majority choice in the ranged-weapons poll.

You can hardly claim that those changes make shields noticably weaker, let alone irrelevant! Blow Pipes and Hurlers are never used in the default game. Arbalestiers are very rarely used (you mainly encounter them as province defence). Lances are nice but only used once per battle, by very expensive and hungry units, or by Tien Chi cavalry which is still hungry but less expensive, and belong to a weak nation. Shields are no less vital than before, and Barbarian Swordsmen are still just as vulnerable to arrows, slings, blade wind, and melee units as before those changes.

The following weapons have been made armor piercing:

Jaguar Bites
Niefel Axe Explosions
Niefel Swords
Mauls
Boulders
Alicorns

I honestly don't understand why any of this happens.

Jaguar bites can (and do) crush turtle shells; they have the strongest (in pressure) bite of any animal, I believe. Mauls are designed for crushing stone (and so forth) rather than harming flesh, like normal weapons, and as such should do massive armor damage on rigid armors and easily cause fatal damage through (for example) heavy chain mail, without actually piercing it. Boulders have immense momentum that ignores armor, and a similar effect to mauls. And Alicorns are magical, armor-melting organic rods of spiraling death that are quoted in the definitive book "The Last Unicorn" as being used to kill Dragons. This is not possible with a non-AP Alicorn, as dragons have thick armor.

Again, these are pretty rare weapons, except for the Maul, which had no reason for existance. Mauls have a quite low attack now, and are essentially a great weapon for cracking Ulmish armor and Hoplites; reducing Living Statues and Gargoyle to dust; defrocking Monoliths and Sphynxes; mobbing protection-30 SC's; and possibly nothing else. So now they have some great specialty uses instead of no uses at all.

It's possible Niefels are overpowered (and if so, I'll change something) but I did raise the price, and they're a lot cooler now .

The more you make weapons ignore the defenses of your opponent, the more you encourage people to run around naked with a big sword. In general, armor piercing should be extremely rare - as it's a specialized damge bonus against Ulm (and those losers need all the help they can get).

I do want to encourage people to run around naked. Unmodded Dominions makes naked or low-armor units generally worthless, and mid-armor units quite bad. 2-handed weapons are usually a terrible idea, giving a small damage or length increase at the expense of 2 defense and 3 protection; the Greatsword is the main exception (though many people like the Flail and Pike). However, I accomplished this encouragement through stat and pricing changes, not through the shield-piercing and armor-piercing changes, since those only affect rare weapons. Except the Maul, which was not rare (only useless) but now has been given a niche.

Remember, AP just means it bypasses half your armor. It doesn't mean it bypasses half your protection. If you want unicorns to be able to threaten dragons, just have them do more damage, do not give them a specialized bonus against Ulm.

AP halves all protection, not just armor protection. There is never a distinction between protection sources after the final value has been calculated. Unicorn horns are very special in that they melt through the offending obstacle, like a lightsaber. I don't want Alicorns slaying a Queen of Elemental Air in two hits, but I certainly do want them to damage a Dragon in accordance with history and physics.

[Ironhawk]

FrankTrollman said:
"#ratt -2" makes the weapon attack every other turn instead of every three turns.

Cherry has made the following weapons ignore shields:

Arbalests
Boulders
Blow Pipes
Lances

The following weapons have been made armor piercing:

Jaguar Bites
Niefel Axe Explosions
Niefel Swords
Mauls
Boulders
Alicorns

...

-Frank

If you make the arbalest fire every other turn, then it will trump the crossbow. Perhaps this is what you are going for? But it was seem kind of lame to me to see hordes of Ulmish arbalestiers. Ulm is all about infantry and cavalry.

IMO, the way to make the arbalest a good niche weapon is to bump its precision and range way up. Like Range 40-45 and prec +4 or 5. I know that is not historically accurate but it will make the arbalest a good niche unit. You can't use them to fight enemy troops... they just dont have the volume. But if your enemy brings Knights or like a Dragon or something? They will get torn up. And in turn I think this will go a long way towards making Ulm viable in a real, longer term game.

As for the other ignore-shield and AP weapon changes: They dont seem like that big a deal to me. You could make arguments that Lances, niefels, and jaguars didnt need any help but I'm not losing any sleep over those changes.

[Oversway]

IMO, the way to make the arbalest a good niche weapon is to bump its precision and range way up. Like Range 40-45 and prec +4 or 5. I know that is not historically accurate but it will make the arbalest a good niche unit. You can't use them to fight enemy troops... they just dont have the volume. But if your enemy brings Knights or like a Dragon or something? They will get torn up. And in turn I think this will go a long way towards making Ulm viable in a real, longer term game.

I like this idea.

[Nerfix]

Just wanted to say that I'm enjoying your mod greatly Saber!

I was wondering about replacing the normal tentacles on R'lyehian Void boogies with magical "Eldritch Tentacles".

[Beorne]

Is this mod currently used by anyone? I want to start a game with this mod I like very much (from the description) and I'm curious to know if this version is well balanced and playtested.
Thank you.