(NEW)Players Guide to the C2C Combat Mod - Size Matters game option VERSION 2.0

I agree with the starting out with only Solo Grouped units, even if that means having very weak units from start. The most powerful unit early on anyway is the guardsman you get in your city. The other units, and those buildable for a long time, have no chance against it.
Also have it that way because it's also very easy (and i disabled money from disbanding due to that) to split maximum and disband for a good chunk of early money. Might be abusing but it's hard not to... *cringe*

Cheers

stoferb said:

I'll clarify. With the first idea I don't mean that force-merging or force-splitting an enemy should should pose no danger to yourself but that perhaps there would be a special button for it as it is with bombardment so you can choose to utilize it or not. And when the unit use it it will attack as usual and risk to die as usual, but it will have a better chance of redrawing from the battle and possibly achieving it's intended forced split/merge. And it sort of will have a better chance of survival aswell as it only needs to damage the unit atleast 1/3 instead of killing it.

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So basically introducing a different type of attack mission... hmm... that might be possible.

Rwn said:

You're right, having a group was the reason. To avoid confusion, is it possible that when you're in this situation, the merge button becomes grayed out (maybe with an information tooltip) instead of disappearing?

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I don't know how. I think it's easier done with python mission buttons - not sure if it CAN be done with dll ones but it's worth looking into.

Rwn said:

From my (short) experience with this option, there are quite a lot of wimpy animals with less than 0.1 strength that even a fully splitted clubman is able to fight... Though there are stronger animals, there are not many animals "in the middle", i.e. that are strong enough to kill that 0.44 strength unit but not a 0.66 or a 1.00 one.

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Are you playing with a Prehistoric start or an Ancient one? I don't tend to get Clubmen until the majority of the continent is explored even without Size Matters.

Animals will soon have some variation in the group sizes that they spawn at so it may cut down on the amount of completely wimpy ones. And I've been meaning to review all animal strengths as many seem under powered to me, even for the core game.

stoferb said:

To dive in to the other discussion. I did split my early scout and eventually I did split them again when they had gone a bit further apart. Thing is, you want those huts early anyway unless you are fairly certain nobody else will get them, and in early game, because you don't know how close you are to other civs, maximum number of scouts is a pretty solid move compared to waiting forever for better units. The one thing that did keep me from not splitting explorating units early on too much is that you pay extra upkeep for number of units with the civics you have in the early game so it's expensive. I had to grow my economy a bit before I could afford splitting them again.

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By Scouts in this evaluation I presume you mean Stonethrowers or are YOU also starting on an Ancient start rather than Prehistoric? Interesting to note that there was at least a counterbalance in the upkeep costs.

Rwn said:

]The issue is not only goodie huts, but also natural wonders, good city locations, resources when they appear later one and more generally knowing all the continent before any enemy is in a position to "block" you.

That's why I think having at most a single military unit at the begining (or two smaller ones) would be more than sufficient - you can build them if you really need more afterall. But that's not a big deal...

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Again it's sounding like you're not starting on a Prehistoric start where there are some better balances in place for Size Matters early exploration.

Also too... the AI will be taught to split to explore at first too so it can help to make up for what is now an immediate player exploit, balancing out those goodie huts and natural wonder discoveries.

BlueGenie said:

I agree with the starting out with only Solo Grouped units, even if that means having very weak units from start. The most powerful unit early on anyway is the guardsman you get in your city. The other units, and those buildable for a long time, have no chance against it.
Also have it that way because it's also very easy (and i disabled money from disbanding due to that) to split maximum and disband for a good chunk of early money. Might be abusing but it's hard not to... *cringe*

Cheers

Click to expand...

Solo would be next to impossible based on the progression of size scheme from the beginning units onward but I could POSSIBLY reduce Stone Throwers and Brutes down one (and up another Quality level since I REALLY want them to not lose any base strength on default sizes) and get the next unit upgrades to progress up to the base of Battalion a bit more smoothly. This is not the easiest re-evaluation but it could be done. It will exacerbate some other problems I'm having though, particularly with early transport units being a little too cargo large. So I'll have to figure out how to tackle that better first.

So that would take them down from Company to Squad, and from there they could be split twice - once to Party and another to Solo (of course at solo they'd be a bit stronger than they currently would be if reduced that far.)

That said, I've considered this move before - Squad as the basic Combatant size in the Early Prehistoric may make sense. The problem I have here is that doing this breaks into needing to adjust a LOT of units as Cultural units begin to become a part of the new gradient into a standard of Battalion. So yeah, perhaps eventually I'll get around to this.

Thunderbrd said:

Are you playing with a Prehistoric start or an Ancient one? I don't tend to get Clubmen until the majority of the continent is explored even without Size Matters.

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In a Prehistoric start I start with a Band(Settler), a Stone Thrower, and a Clubman, even if I can not build the Clubman until a lot later. I suppose it might be a leftover from an attempt to make early rushes more difficult but didn't the Tribal Guard unit in the first city solve that one?

Thunderbrd said:

Also too... the AI will be taught to split to explore at first too so it can help to make up for what is now an immediate player exploit, balancing out those goodie huts and natural wonder discoveries.

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I like early exploration to take a little longer. It's not just about getting everything first, it's about taking a while to explore, slowly expanding the known world.

Is it possible to have the starting units (for both humans and AI) start with the promo that makes them Solo? If so could an option be added that enables this for those that want no splitting on the first units for various reasons while having the ability to split/merge with later units?

Cheers

Thunderbrd said:

Are you playing with a Prehistoric start or an Ancient one? I don't tend to get Clubmen until the majority of the continent is explored even without Size Matters.

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Prehistoric. Like BlueGenie I start with a Band of Homo Sapiens (which gives a free Tribal Guardian when settled), a 1 strength Rock Thrower and a 3 2 strength Clubman.

The best strategy currently (unless you want to wait for wanderers) would probably be to keep the clubman to face average to good monsters and Neanderthalians while splitting the rock thrower (too weak to face bears and Neanderthalians anyway) into 9 units for fast exploration.

Keeping the Clubman would be enough: you then have to make a strategical choice between either keep it at 3 2 str to face strong animals/barbarians, or split it in three (or even in nine if you don't lower it down to Squad) to explore fast.

That said, I've considered this move before - Squad as the basic Combatant size in the Early Prehistoric may make sense. The problem I have here is that doing this breaks into needing to adjust a LOT of units as Cultural units begin to become a part of the new gradient into a standard of Battalion. So yeah, perhaps eventually I'll get around to this.

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Overall I'd be inclined to support Squad in Prehistoric units, but if that requires lots of work, the final gain may not be the worth the time... If the task is mostly repetitive (such as editing xml mostly the same way for all the prehistorical units), I'd be glad to help, though.

I never get a Clubman when I start a game so it must be a difficulty setting issue. And one that shouldn't be happening even on easier settings (except maybe Settler) because as pointed out you can't even train them yet. (I don't even know why we allow ourselves to show the Tribal Guardian with a club since we don't know how to use clubs yet at the beginning...)

I play at Monarch or Emperor level depending on whether teamed or on my own. At this point I get a Stonethrower to work with.

Anyhow my point is I can see how it'd be entirely unbalanced to have a Clubman unit out the gate because yes HE could split down to solos and probably be fairly survivable enough still.

Is it possible to have the starting units (for both humans and AI) start with the promo that makes them Solo? If so could an option be added that enables this for those that want no splitting on the first units for various reasons while having the ability to split/merge with later units?

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If you do that you're just giving a VERY weak and impossible to survive unit but it could be done. Might be better to give you no units outside of the tribe when you start.

Overall I'd be inclined to support Squad in Prehistoric units, but if that requires lots of work, the final gain may not be the worth the time... If the task is mostly repetitive (such as editing xml mostly the same way for all the prehistorical units), I'd be glad to help, though.

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Well... if you consider the Stone Thrower and Brute to be Squad Group Size (and with every loss of a group size rank you added one to the Combat Quality Rank), and then walked through all upgrades from there allowing only a jump up of 1 size category until you were gradually back to the default of Battalion Group Size and then look for all units that start new upgrade paths or stand alone on the upgrade tree that are tech-unlocked while the 'going group size' is still adjusted down and enforce the same adjustments on them (and just chart this out before getting into the XML adjustments on the unit) then we'd have a place to start working the xml from that I could at least audit to make sure we're accurate.

Thunderbrd said:

I never get a Clubman when I start a game so it must be a difficulty setting issue. And one that shouldn't be happening even on easier settings (except maybe Settler) because as pointed out you can't even train them yet. (I don't even know why we allow ourselves to show the Tribal Guardian with a club since we don't know how to use clubs yet at the beginning...)

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Hmm, now I think about it, I think I confused clubman and brute (can't check right now), the other unit was probably a 2 str brute, really sorry about the confusion. It is indeed a clubman (with 2 str).
I'm sure I started with both a stonethrower and a brute/clubman on Monarch setting in my last game.

Well... if you consider the Stone Thrower and Brute to be Squad Group Size (and with every loss of a group size rank you added one to the Combat Quality Rank), and then walked through all upgrades from there allowing only a jump up of 1 size category until you were gradually back to the default of Battalion Group Size and then look for all units that start new upgrade paths or stand alone on the upgrade tree that are tech-unlocked while the 'going group size' is still adjusted down and enforce the same adjustments on them (and just chart this out before getting into the XML adjustments on the unit) then we'd have a place to start working the xml from that I could at least audit to make sure we're accurate.

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That sounds interesting. I'll try to do that.

Do you plan at some point in the future to directly alter the size/CQ of a unit when building it? (i.e. allow to build either a solo or bataillon of brutes in a city, either with little or lots of training/selection...)

Rwn said:

Hmm, now I think about it, I think I confused clubman and brute (can't check right now), the other unit was probably a 2 str brute, really sorry about the confusion. It is indeed a clubman (with 2 str).
I'm sure I started with both a stonethrower and a brute/clubman on Monarch setting in my last game.

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Yeah, we gotta fix that!
Maybe I start higher than Monarch... I hardly know anymore.

Rwn said:

That sounds interesting. I'll try to do that.

Do you plan at some point in the future to directly alter the size/CQ of a unit when building it? (i.e. allow to build either a solo or bataillon of brutes in a city, either with little or lots of training/selection...)

Click to expand...

I had considered it but that was before I'd considered how I would enable splitting and merging - at this point I think it would be better not to unless I did some really amazing programming trick I'd rather not try to perform for now.

So it's interesting... I looked at the xml and code and it appears, at the moment, that difficulty setting won't give any additional starting units. When it does, those starting units should be only as good as what the starting tech level allows. It does look like Civilization settings may have the ability to define a starting unit that comes in regardless of the tech level so my great suspicion is that we have some civs that are set to start you with a clubman. Those should be found and repaired. I'll be working on that at some point soon here.

Small bug :



The astrological sign bonus should give 1 str, but it only gives 0.01

Also, potential exploit: if you want to upgrade several units, it's much cheaper to merge them then upgrade, then split them. You'll pay only a bit more than the cost to upgrade one unit.

Rwn said:

Small bug :



The astrological sign bonus should give 1 str, but it only gives 0.01

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Thanks for spotting this. Easily repaired but I didn't realize we had the tag in use yet so I hadn't known I could test the math to make sure it was accurate.

Rwn said:

Also, potential exploit: if you want to upgrade several units, it's much cheaper to merge them then upgrade, then split them. You'll pay only a bit more than the cost to upgrade one unit.

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True... something I can patch up now with the new method.

Thunderbrd said:

Well... if you consider the Stone Thrower and Brute to be Squad Group Size (and with every loss of a group size rank you added one to the Combat Quality Rank), and then walked through all upgrades from there allowing only a jump up of 1 size category until you were gradually back to the default of Battalion Group Size and then look for all units that start new upgrade paths or stand alone on the upgrade tree that are tech-unlocked while the 'going group size' is still adjusted down and enforce the same adjustments on them (and just chart this out before getting into the XML adjustments on the unit) then we'd have a place to start working the xml from that I could at least audit to make sure we're accurate.

Click to expand...

OK, so, after charting all the units (*), we have the following for prehistoric era.

3 Battalion units: Band, Tribe and Nomad Camp (what is that?). Only noncombattant units there, so changing group volume should have nearly no impact.

38 Company units, including two non-combattant unit, the Gatherer and Rapa-nui Worker.
The list is below, with Quality/Volume/Size values, as well as Base Str (iCombat) and Final Str (the value displayed in-game).


To put them all into Squad would mean either further increasing Quality by one, or increasing base Strength by 50%, or even further increasing base Strength by 50% (125% total). Unless I'm mistaking, the main issue with these last two options, except the work required to change each iCombat value, is that iCombat must be an integer.

Thus, these options are simulated in the table below:
- Base Str1 is the base strength increased by 50%, rounded to the next integer; Final Str1 is the resulting final strength that should be weighted against the (original) Final Str. The value is not always the same due to the rounding issue.
- Base Str2 is the base strength adjusted so that Combat quality can be set to 5 (i.e. increased by 50% if Quality was 5, by 125% if Quality was 6). Likewise, the change is due to rounding issues.


In Ancient era, we have 7 Battalion units including 1 non-combattant :

Same as above, if you want to put them into Company and keep a Quality of 5 by raising base strength, here's the result:



Overall I find the Str impact relatively minor, but it might be confusing to have many units with decimal Str (currently it's only the case for a few special units such as the Scout).


(*) Except subdued animals and some heroes from Sargon and StrategyOnly - too much work to look into each file individually and not really relevant anyway. I hope I did not miss any other. Is there are "unified" file of all units/buildings anywhere?

Also :

Thunderbrd said:

You may continue to join units until the maximum group category is obtained. Ultimately this means Countless group size BUT there is a limit based on the era at the moment that starts with Battalion in Prehistoric and gains a +1 to the limit with each era achieved. This may eventually be developed out further to make more specified limitations based on the unit combats perhaps.

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In my current game, I've reached Ancient Era, but I'm unable to merge my Stone Macemen more than once, i.e. I'm still limited to Battalion.

@Rwn:
Without quoting your first post there, I'll just start a clean post as there's a number of things to set straight.

We would not need to mess with Animals, Workers, Settlers or any other non-combatant.

Mounted has a different base Group Size that is generally already -1 Group Volume Rank from the standard equivalent foot soldier unit. It usually has a +1 Size Rank to compensate.

Point is we're not looking to reduce all units to a static Squad level. Rather, we'd be looking to reduce the first 2 units, the Stone Thrower and the Brute, down to squad and up their quality by one to compensate. (The farther back in time you go the more savage we were...) THEN we would trace all of their upgrades from there.

(Actually - I just checked the charts and apparently he already IS a squad... so I guess we'd be taking him down to a Party level and moving forward from that)

So from the Brute we see his next upgrade is the Clubman - the Clubman is a Company group so we'd be making a jump of 2 group sizes and a loss of 2 combat qualities to go from the brute to the clubman so we'd want to adjust the clubman so that we're only jumping 1 group size and losing 1 combat quality so the clubman gets reduced to Squad and gains a combat quality over it's current setting.

If the brute can be upgraded to any other units in parrallel to the clubman then we'd need to give them the same treatment.

If a unit is technologically unlocked on the same X position on the tech tree as the clubman then we'd want to give that unit the same treatment AS IF the brute were able to upgrade to that unit. (Bearing in mind that if we're talking about a mounted unit we're not going to end up with the exact same group size but rather just a -1 group size and +1 quality adjustment from whatever it's already currently setup with.)

We would want to also then consider the upgrades from Stone Thrower the same way.

And we'd then look at all the units that were just modified to the proper 'layer 2' settings and then analyze the next layer the same way, looking to allow another group size +1 and quality -1 so that we're generating a ramp up effect through time of military unit sizes.

I also would not mess with explorer units in all this... the wanderer starts off the chain and he's already a solo.

In the end, the combat strengths should not modify at all. That's the whole point of being able to work with 3 Size Matters category variables.

The units that did get adjusted from the base were unit upgrade chains I did feel deserved a drop in power due to their imbalanced uses in the game as they were. Hunters, Scouts, Canines, Criminals, Healers, etc... should not be taking on full military units as equals. So anywhere the strength of the base unit varies from the mod core (non-option game) it was done with intent.

So point being that the current offset amount that units are showing themselves to have separated themselves from the central (5) balance rank in all 3 categories has been thoroughly considered and if we're going to be dropping the Group Size and increasing the Quality size to represent more drastically the growing population and it's effect on the basic sizes of armies through these ages then it must still consider the current offsets as they are set and maintain the integrity of those such that we're not adjusting base strengths on the units.

Make sense? I know it's kinda complex...

Why is it that you WANT units to have a balanced size-combat Quality? For me, Combat Quality is a measure on how well a unit is trained. It just doesn't make much sense to have a Quality +2 rank for very early units, just to balance out their smaller size. This seems so artificial. If only weak combat units are around, it wouldn't change much if you leave them at a standard Quality Rank - or even one below. Yes, this cuts their power A LOT, but it's the same for all units except animals, so this should be ok. And Animals need to be stronger anyways in the early phase, so this seems like a good solution.

I don't think you're wrong at all... I just like the current balance structure of the strengths in the early game as it is setup now. Yes, some animals could use some strengthening but I'm quite happy with the unit strengths as they end up balanced out at the moment.

I also think that it does make a lot of sense to allow combat quality to increase on earlier units. Early man would've had to have been tough as nails - savage as all hell simply to have a chance of survival. He would've been roughly ten times stronger and more enduring than any modern specimen. He had to be - he might've been clever but he wasn't anything near what we would eventually become in terms of our mental acumen. Without the mental strength, he needed physical strength. And his crude lifestyle would've been severely physically demanding so he'd have been well conditioned by his day to day lifestyle.

Training isn't everything to be considered in Combat Quality - it's far more an all around level of mental and physical preparedness to fight. You can train the heck out of some people and they'll still be afraid on the battlefield (unless you make the training just as dangerous as actual battle.) A tiger is lethal... he knows he's lethal and he's not afraid to back up the claim his stripes and teeth make for him. He didn't need training to get there - he's a product of his wild environment and the way he's angled to survive and thrive within it... much as early man may have been having evolved from a carnivorous ape.

Thunderbrd said:

Make sense? I know it's kinda complex...

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OK, I had to read your post several times, but I think I understand what you mean (I originally thought you meant to scale down all units to squad in Prehistorical and only allow a +1 in size for their upgrades in the next era). Still, I'm not sure I understand why can't the upgrade be +2/-2? Is it a technical, gameplay or realism issue?


Regarding the Combat Quality (CQ) adjustment, I tend to agree with Faustmouse that it feels artificial - not that the CQ is higher than 5 (as you said, one might consider that early units were more "savage"), but that it precisely offsets the Volume (V) or Size (S) score. For example, why should the Horseman get a CQ of 5 while other units in the same period have a CQ of 6, just because it gets a Size of 6 to compensate?

One solution could be to raise/decrease the base strength accordingly (i.e. a 6-CQ, 4-Volume, 6-Size Horseman would get a 0.66 factor to his base strength to reach the same pre-SizeMatters strength), but if that's impractical, another solution could be to change the base cost by -66% (for each level decrease) or +200% (for each level increase). This way, as you can split in 3 or merge 3 units, the total cost to have the same unit remains the same, but CQ/V/S values can be freely chosen, without the constraint that CQ+V+S should be equal to 15 (or 14 for units you want to scale down) to maintain the game balance.

As I'm not sure the last point is very clear, here are a few examples (illustrative and not based on actual units, but you get the idea):

"Normal" game (pre-SizeMatters)
- Unit1 has a str of 2 and costs 18
- Unit2 has a str of 3 and costs 36

Current SizeMatters
- You decide that Unit1 should be a Squad (V=3) and have a Medium size (S=5). To maintain the same balance and keep it at 2 str, you chose to give it a Combat Quality of 7. Cost remains at 18.
- You decide that Unit2 should be a Company (V=4) and have a Medium size (S=5). To maintain the same balance and keep it at 3 str, you chose to give it a Combat Quality of 6. Cost remains at 36.

The issue is that the balance between S+V on one side and CQ on the other is quite obvious and feels artificial.

SizeMatters with adjustable cost
-You decide that Unit1 should be a Squad (V=3) and have a Medium size (S=5). Regardless of these values, you estimate that it should have a CQ of 6. Keeping the same iCombat, the resulting strength would be 1.33 instead of 2. To make up for that, cost is decreased by 66% to 6. If one wants to get the same 2 str unit as before, one should then build 3 of them and merge them, resulting in a 2 str unit costing 18
- You decide that Unit2 should be a Company (V=4) and have a Medium size (S=5). Regardless of these values, you estimate that it should have a CQ of 7. Keeping the same iCombat, the resulting strength would be 4.5; cost is tripled to 108 (so that, after splitting, you get 3 units identical to pre-SizeMatters at the same total cost).

The end result is the same, but CQ can be freely chosen.

It is good that arty will finally be able hit to the "first" unit too. Surely you will add this upgrade into the game even when Sm is not selected right ?

Rwn said:

OK, I had to read your post several times, but I think I understand what you mean (I originally thought you meant to scale down all units to squad in Prehistorical and only allow a +1 in size for their upgrades in the next era). Still, I'm not sure I understand why can't the upgrade be +2/-2? Is it a technical, gameplay or realism issue?

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It's a 'grudualism' that keeps one upgrade from making such a drastic difference in cargo volume among other things.

Rwn said:

Regarding the Combat Quality (CQ) adjustment, I tend to agree with Faustmouse that it feels artificial - not that the CQ is higher than 5 (as you said, one might consider that early units were more "savage"), but that it precisely offsets the Volume (V) or Size (S) score. For example, why should the Horseman get a CQ of 5 while other units in the same period have a CQ of 6, just because it gets a Size of 6 to compensate?

Click to expand...

It's absolutely intended to be artificial so as to allow a player who's used to the game without the option on to more easily blend into the new playing environment of Size Matters. Additionally, there IS some explanation for that last question: Riders are a little softer as they are not quite as well conditioned by the hard road of walking/running everywhere. They tend to be a little less combat ready because of the boost of added (possibly false) confidence that being on the back of a horse grants them... a sense of superiority by being over the throng of battle makes them feel a little less vulnerable in a dangerous way. And they must pay a little more attention to riding at times than the battle which can be to their detriment.

In general I really don't want the can of worms to be opened up so wide as to introduce vastly differing unit strengths from the core with the exception of a very few unit lines that I've always felt were so overpowered for their roles that they were able to fulfill the roles of theirs AND other units to the point that they pretty much made those other units unnecessary. So this, perhaps, is my way of enabling a rebalancing of the game in the way I feel it needs to be. But for the most part the game is fairly decently balanced in terms of unit strengths as it is and I do not wish to invite the slew of debates over each unit that takes on adjusted core strengths from this system. I can only defend the few I've allowed.

Rwn said:

One solution could be to raise/decrease the base strength accordingly (i.e. a 6-CQ, 4-Volume, 6-Size Horseman would get a 0.66 factor to his base strength to reach the same pre-SizeMatters strength), but if that's impractical, another solution could be to change the base cost by -66% (for each level decrease) or +200% (for each level increase). This way, as you can split in 3 or merge 3 units, the total cost to have the same unit remains the same, but CQ/V/S values can be freely chosen, without the constraint that CQ+V+S should be equal to 15 (or 14 for units you want to scale down) to maintain the game balance.

Click to expand...

The amount of new data we'd need to include in the game to have replacement assets for each unit type (which would enable us to have differing base strengths from the game core) would be enough to warrant a totally separate mod rather than anything under the C2C banner... We'd have to basically copy the entire unit file and rewrite new definitions for this system - it'd be possible but NOT optimal. Otherwise, the unit strengths are at base derived from the same source as the mod without the Size Matters option thus adjusting those affect the core and I'm not going to use this option to justify invading the core balance factors as they've been setup.

The base cost goes the same way.

Rwn said:

As I'm not sure the last point is very clear, here are a few examples (illustrative and not based on actual units, but you get the idea):

"Normal" game (pre-SizeMatters)
- Unit1 has a str of 2 and costs 18
- Unit2 has a str of 3 and costs 36

Current SizeMatters
- You decide that Unit1 should be a Squad (V=3) and have a Medium size (S=5). To maintain the same balance and keep it at 2 str, you chose to give it a Combat Quality of 7. Cost remains at 18.
- You decide that Unit2 should be a Company (V=4) and have a Medium size (S=5). To maintain the same balance and keep it at 3 str, you chose to give it a Combat Quality of 6. Cost remains at 36.

The issue is that the balance between S+V on one side and CQ on the other is quite obvious and feels artificial.

SizeMatters with adjustable cost
-You decide that Unit1 should be a Squad (V=3) and have a Medium size (S=5). Regardless of these values, you estimate that it should have a CQ of 6. Keeping the same iCombat, the resulting strength would be 1.33 instead of 2. To make up for that, cost is decreased by 66% to 6. If one wants to get the same 2 str unit as before, one should then build 3 of them and merge them, resulting in a 2 str unit costing 18
- You decide that Unit2 should be a Company (V=4) and have a Medium size (S=5). Regardless of these values, you estimate that it should have a CQ of 7. Keeping the same iCombat, the resulting strength would be 4.5; cost is tripled to 108 (so that, after splitting, you get 3 units identical to pre-SizeMatters at the same total cost).

The end result is the same, but CQ can be freely chosen.

Click to expand...

If you're suggesting that the production cost be modified 'pre-build' it would be difficult but COULD be done along the same lines as how the Strength value on the unit type itself has been adjusted for the display. Again though... imagine the can of balance worms this really opens up...

Reisk@ said:

It is good that arty will finally be able hit to the "first" unit too. Surely you will add this upgrade into the game even when Sm is not selected right ?

Click to expand...

It already is yes. It's undergoing further development to evaluate unit upgrades being able to improve upon their base values derived from their combat classes and I intend to cutoff units that cannot attack from the ability to ranged bombard but the first stage of development is already in place on the SVN.

I completely agree with you that changing unit (final) strength would raise many balance issues - but that's not what I'm suggesting, quite the opposite in fact.

We have a base strength (iCombat) in the unit definition in the xml files. Then, this value is multiplied by 1,5^(CQ+V+S-15) to give the final strength - this is the strength that the player see and that should be identical with or without SizeMatters to keep balance (except for the few units you decided to alter).

In terms of gameplay, however, CQ, V and S are not equivalent. Let's say we have a unit with a iCombat value of 2, with average CQ/V/S (5/5/5), giving a final strength of 2.
Let's consider three seemingly equivalent alterations that maintain the final strength:
1 - Giving it 6/4/5 in CQ/V/S
2 - Giving it 4/6/5 in CQ/V/S

A unit with the first change will in fact likely be better than one with the second change: having a higher CQ won't really have any disadvantage (even possibly some better promotions available), while higher V will have all the disadvantages you mentioned (higher upkeep, lower xp gain, etc.) and, perhaps more importantly, will limit how many merges you can do and thus the highest unit strenght you can attend. If the era Volume limit is 6, the first unit can be merged 9 times to reach a 225% higher strenght unit, while the second unit cannot be merged, which is a significant potential penalty.
Likewise, changing S value is not really equivalent to changing CQ or V.

My point is, you should be able to chose CQ/V/S independently depending on what you want to achieve for the unit. However, this might lead to different final strength values - this is why I suggested either to change iCombat so that the same final strength is achieved, or to change cost so that players may reach the same final strength at the same original cost by merging/splitting units should they wish to. However, now I think about it, it's nearly the same as directly increasing/decreasing base Volume...

In any case, I perfectly understand if you find the impact of this change not worth changing many unit definitions, but at least I wanted to be sure I made myself understandable


That said, there's one related important balance issue that has appeared to me while pondering about all this. If (base) Volume is not the same across the various units, it's possible that upgrading units will ultimately result in a less useful unit.

Let's take the following example:
Unit1 is a 3 str unit with CQ/V/S of 7/3/5. Further in the tech tree, you have Unit2 with 4 str and CQ/V/S of 6/4/5. The second unit appears better at first sight (not considering or upgrade costs). However, due to the exponential effect of str, a very important parameter in the warfare is the maximum str a unit can reach. If the Volume limit is 4 in this era, the second unit cannot be merged, while the first will. This means that (even though it might come at a higher cost), you are able to get a 4.5 str Unit1 by merging 3, while the second one is stuck at 4. Even if the Volume limit increases to 5, you can still merge 9 Unit1 to reach 6.75 str, while merging 3 Unit2 will only create a 6 str unit.

This means that you should be careful that upgrading a unit will not lead to a unit with in fact less fighting capabilities. In terms of gameplay, this means that any upgrade for which a -1 in CQ/+1 in V is required should result in a unit whose base strength (iCombat) is at least 50% higher than the non-upgraded version. If you agree with this view, I can extract the list of such upgrades and assess whether their meet the criteria or not.


(the discussion has stranded quite a bit from the original "splitted clubman" issue, but the more I look into this mod, the more I get its underlying implications Don't get me wrong, I like it a lot!)