Lategame War Rebalance (v3) (requires ENW and Logistic Skirmishers)

[azum4roll]

Just my pet mod of trying to balance lategame warfare and fix some obscure bugs that's not yet fixed in the latest beta. ENW and Logistic Skirmishers are required.

(RED = change already implemented by ENW)

Land Unit changes:
Pracinha 55 -> 58
Infantry 60 -> 62
Mercenary 62 -> 66
Mechanized Infantry 75 -> 80
Guerilla Air Defense 5 -> 8 (lined up with Infantry)
The upgrade from Rifleman to Infantry is much less impactful than the previous upgrades, so I raised Infantry (and related UUs) CS a bit. Mech Infantry is buffed to hopefully make it work as the cheap alternative to Modern Armour/GDR without them being destroyed by Tanks.

Bazooka 50/65 -> 60/80, 3 range
Now they're still slow, but have the same range as Artillery while serving a different purpose from them (hitting land units).

Light Tank 50/38 -> 50/39
Helicopter Gunship 69/53 -> 74/57
Raised these two's CS to align with the gunpowder unit buff.

Naval Unit changes:
Naval units are completely rebalanced (and the main point of this mod). I try to make a combat triangle out of the three naval lines, with Ranged > Melee > Submarine > Ranged.

Melee ships are used for recon, anti-submarine and anti-air. They now get anti-submarine promotions by default (Destroyer gets I, the more advanced ones get II), and the see submarine promotion is moved to tier 2. Advanced Destroyers can always see submarines.

The anti-submarine promotions are modified to 33% and 66% respectively, on both attack and defense.
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Ironclad 55 -> 50, cost 800 / 650
Destroyer 70 -> 60, cost 1350 / 850
Modern Destroyer 80 -> 72, cost 1750 / 1000
Missile Destroyer 90 -> 86, cost 2500 / 1250
Advanced Destroyer 100 -> 95, cost 3000 / 1400
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Getting rid of the Corvette to Ironclad jump. Ships should be vulnerable to same era siege fire. This is used as the basis of other naval unit CS.

Ranged ships are used for killing other ships, sieging cities and bombarding coastal land units. Dreadnought+ gets a new promotion that grants them a +50% bonus when attacking melee ships. They're weak to submarines and planes.
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Cruiser 50/50, air defense 5, cost 850 / 650
Dreadnought 60/58, air defense 15, cost 1400 / 850
Battleship 85/66, air defense 20, cost 1800 / 1000
Missile Cruiser 105/80, air defense 25, no longer intercepts, cost 2600 / 1250
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Don't be scared by the high CS - that number is only used against melee ships. They defend against all other attacks with the lower RCS.

Submarines act as the skirmishers of the sea, sniping ranged ships and weakened melee ships, and pillaging resources while avoiding to be seen. Melee ships are their natural counters, but they still get high enough strength to win the matchup if ganging up on a lone one.
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Submarine 40/70, 5 moves, cost 1400 / 850
Attack Submarine 54/85, cost 1800 / 1000
Nuclear Submarine 70/105, cost 2600 / 1250
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Ranged ships can't do much on them - but beware of melee ones! They get an innate +75% attack bonus, but I've fixed it and Wolfpack to not work against cities.

Carrier 70/30
Supercarrier 120/60
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Low RCS to hopefully reduce AI's tendency to attack with their carriers. Just don't let ranged ships and especially submarines get near them!

CS Chart for lategame units:

Compatibility:

• More Unique Components for VP
• JFD's Civilizations - Japan (Meiji) for Vox Populi
• JFD's Civilizations - Japan (Tojo) for Vox Populi

Bugfixes:

• Impi upgrades to Fusilier instead of Lancer via Ancient Ruins
  
• Turtle Ship unit class now Caravel instead of the half-undefined Turtle Ship class
• Chariot Archer class upgrades to Skirmisher instead of Horse Archer in Civilopedia EUI panel (just a text bug)

Misc:

• Ship of the Line gains Splash Damage I and II and loses Indomitable.
  
• The Altitude Training promotion (from Mt. Kilimanjaro) loses the double movement on hills (now +10% CS on hills only).
  
• AI always picks the best choice on city production, tech and policy, regardless of difficulty.
• AI only starts with 1 Warrior now, regardless of difficulty (same as humans).

 

[Asterix Rage]

Naval units are completely rebalanced (and the main point of this mod). I try to make a combat triangle out of the three naval lines, with Ranged > Melee > Submarine > Ranged.

They now get anti-submarine promotions by default (Destroyer gets I, the more advanced ones get II), and the see submarine promotion is moved to tier 2. Advanced Destroyers can always see submarines.

@azum4roll
May I suggest you to release ENW 1.6.17 with all the changes above?

 

[azum4roll]

May I suggest you to release ENW 1.6.17 with all the changes above?

I thought you wanted ENW to stay closer to base VP? These are rather massive changes

 

[Asterix Rage]

I thought you wanted ENW to stay closer to base VP?

Less and less I must admit.

My main focus at the beginning was to maintain ENW compatible with VP always in progress + aesthetic improvement.
Throught the time, many changes have been made to ENHANCE the gameplay about the naval part of VP and a few of your ideas are already in 1.6.16
That's why we love ENW.

Let's go further this time. Users feedbacks will tell us if it goes too far...

EDIT:
Also, I'm currently too busy with RL and other mods to do it actually.

 

[azum4roll]

Hey @Stalker0 can you play a game with these mods and tell us what you think? You kinda play this 30x faster than me...

 

[Stalker0]

Hey @Stalker0 can you play a game with these mods and tell us what you think? You kinda play this 30x faster than me...

I've been summoned! So I'm looking over your changes, and honestly I am not sure I agree with a lot of them at first glance.

1) Infantry / Mech Infantry: I think their CS is fine, they do the job of holding territory, guarding citadels, amphibious assaults pretty well. They aren't tanks, but I still have uses for them.
2) Guerillas are honestly one of the most powerful units in the game. Their flanking bonus is insane...they do not need CS increases.
3) Bazooka....the range I agree with, the CS damage looks a bit much, but this unit seems worthy of a test.
4) Light Tanks: Not far enough, these unit die like flies, they need some major CS improvements or some kind of just static defense buff (I think they should just get tanks armored plating promotion).
5) Gunship: This looks interesting, probably still not enough of a buff but test worthy.


To your naval changes, I need to understand what you are really trying to accomplish. What about the base naval game are you trying to rectify with these changes?

 

[Asterix Rage]

They now get anti-submarine promotions by default (Destroyer gets I, the more advanced ones get II), and the see submarine promotion is moved to tier 2. Advanced Destroyers can always see submarines.

200% agree with that.

Getting rid of the Corvette to Ironclad jump. Ships should be vulnerable to same era siege fire. This is used as the basis of other naval unit CS.

Yes, the current gap between Corvette and Ironclad is weird.

Ranged ships are used for killing other ships, sieging cities and bombarding coastal land units. Dreadnought+ gets a new promotion that grants them a +50% bonus when attacking melee ships. They're weak to submarines and planes.

It desserves a try. Well promoted naval melee Units are so powerfull that naval range Units are useless. IMO

 

[azum4roll]

I've been summoned! So I'm looking over your changes, and honestly I am not sure I agree with a lot of them at first glance.

1) Infantry / Mech Infantry: I think their CS is fine, they do the job of holding territory, guarding citadels, amphibious assaults pretty well. They aren't tanks, but I still have uses for them.
2) Guerillas are honestly one of the most powerful units in the game. Their flanking bonus is insane...they do not need CS increases.
3) Bazooka....the range I agree with, the CS damage looks a bit much, but this unit seems worthy of a test.
4) Light Tanks: Not far enough, these unit die like flies, they need some major CS improvements or some kind of just static defense buff (I think they should just get tanks armored plating promotion).
5) Gunship: This looks interesting, probably still not enough of a buff but test worthy.


To your naval changes, I need to understand what you are really trying to accomplish. What about the base naval game are you trying to rectify with these changes?

1/2) Even while fortifying, Mech Infantry is still much worse than a moving Modern Armor. Yes they're cheaper, but production cost matters much less than a tile space when the whole map is filled with units late game (especially on Deity). 3 movement is not enough for them to swap in and out, so they need enough staying power to be worth building over armored units. Infantry/Guerilla/Ski Infantry/Pracinha are adjusted slightly to smoothen the CS growth. Maaaaaybe Guerilla doesn't need the buff and can have the same CS as Infantry?
3) Bazooka has to compete with Rocket Artillery, which has had an easier time getting promotions due to having Indirect Fire and 3 range early. Usually all of my siege units have Logistics or Range, but only a couple of my ranged units have them (and they have to waste a level on Indirect Fire).
4/5) Reminder that they have +40% ranged defense and can attack twice. They aren't supposed to be hit by anything melee, if you're using them correctly.

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Base VP naval melee units do everything late game other than hitting land units, and they have a final upgrade that completely outpowers Battleships. They basically have no counters other than more melee ships. With a combat triangle for naval at least you now have to bring all 3 types of units and make the correct attacks if you want to win wars.

Next stage I'll look at Vanguard/Naval Siege and lower those percentages. Blitz needs to be changed too - the ability to move away after attacking cities is too good. But not sure what I can do with that using just SQL.

 

[Stalker0]

Base VP naval melee units do everything late game other than hitting land units, and they have a final upgrade that completely outpowers Battleships. They basically have no counters other than more melee ships. With a combat triangle for naval at least you now have to bring all 3 types of units and make the correct attacks if you want to win wars.

I'll disagree on that one. Its true that the ratio of melee/ranged is much higher on melee than it is for ground combat, but ranged units are still quite import. The trick is this, HP conservation is a much bigger deal in naval combat than in ground due to limited healing options and higher tier medic promotions. So yes you can build a ton of melee ships, but your melee ships get ground down with every attack. I find it much more efficient to soften up enemy melee ships with ranged, then do a killing blow with a melee ship. Against ranged, I then use melee ships to kill. So ranged and melee both counter each other, its more dependent on formations.

Next stage I'll look at Vanguard/Naval Siege and lower those percentages. Blitz needs to be changed too - the ability to move away after attacking cities is too good. But not sure what I can do with that using just SQL.

I don't consider naval siege overly strong, though vanguard is pretty good...and the combo of the two is when its really nasty. But ultimately blitz is the strongest anti-city promotion, the ability to attack twice, and then move away and let another ship attack (aka 3 ship attacks per sea tile)...is much stronger than vanguard.

Even while fortifying, Mech Infantry is still much worse than a moving Modern Armor. Yes they're cheaper, but production cost matters much less than a tile space when the whole map is filled with units late game (especially on Deity). 3 movement is not enough for them to swap in and out, so they need enough staying power to be worth building over armored units.

I guess I'm fine with the strategic resource unit being a good bit stronger than the unit that doesn't cost a resource. Ultimately I don't build mech inf because I want to, but because currently resources limit me to building them, which I feel is appropriately balanced. That said, a 5 CS upgrade for the unit is not going to break the bank on anything so its likely worth testing.

 

[azum4roll]

I don't consider naval siege overly strong, though vanguard is pretty good...and the combo of the two is when its really nasty. But ultimately blitz is the strongest anti-city promotion, the ability to attack twice, and then move away and let another ship attack (aka 3 ship attacks per sea tile)...is much stronger than vanguard.

I've tried both Vanguard+Naval Siege+Dauntless and Blitz. It's obviously best to have both against the same city, but if you can only pick between attacking with one Vanguard ship and attacking with 3 Blitz ships, the Vanguard ship does more damage. Blitz needs a nerf so that the unit loses all movement points after using both attacks (same as Logistics, if the unit doesn't have the Move After Attacking promotion as well), but I don't know how to change it. @pineappledan, any ideas?

I'll disagree on that one. Its true that the ratio of melee/ranged is much higher on melee than it is for ground combat, but ranged units are still quite import. The trick is this, HP conservation is a much bigger deal in naval combat than in ground due to limited healing options and higher tier medic promotions. So yes you can build a ton of melee ships, but your melee ships get ground down with every attack. I find it much more efficient to soften up enemy melee ships with ranged, then do a killing blow with a melee ship. Against ranged, I then use melee ships to kill. So ranged and melee both counter each other, its more dependent on formations.

Melee ships counter air and submarines as well, are tankier against land ranged attacks, and take cities better.

 

[Stalker0]

Melee ships counter air and submarines as well, are tankier against land ranged attacks, and take cities better.

Skirmisher type units chew up melee units that have attacked a city and cannot pull away, as well as the various siege and ranged units that should accompany a prepared city (and the AI has gotten quite good at that, at least on immortal and deity).

In my experience, most of the time I have to leave my melee units next to the city but not attack with them, because any damage makes them too vulnerable to get sniped. While melee ships are tankier, that tankiness does not match the significant increase in firepower an enemy can throw at you when you are adjacent a city. So its generally a scenario where I swap out my near dead melee ships every round with fresh ones, while actually doing the damage with my ranged ships. Also if you don't have ranged ships with your fleet....then the enemy can throw ranged units at you with impunity, your navy will not last against that.

On islands that is less of a concern, but at the same time unless my melee ships have blitz, I can only have so many melee ships attack at once, while I can have significantly more ranged ships fire.


My experience playing with navy is that yes a melee only naval force is strong and durable, but its ability to project force is limited without a good mix of ranged ships. Ultimately I don't agree with the notion that ranged ships need a better niche than they currently have.

 

[Stalker0]

Alright I'm starting a new one, and I decided that even though I don't agree with some of the changes here, since you all are working so hard I would at least give it a shot! So I'm planning a portugal game and I will give this a look.

 

[Stalker0]

So I just had a really good war game with Portugal as both Rome and I were full autocracy going at it for most of the game, so I got to try out a lot of the changes here. Please note this is also my first time using ENW, and my first time using logistics skirmishers in a while (though I have used that mechanic before). I'm going to do my best to separate the feedback for the various mods.

Infantry: I think the slight bump is fine, didn't notice any issues, they are still a good staple unit and the slight change didn't change that or make them too good.

Mech Inf: Ultimately its a good change, the mech inf felt a little bit more competitive but still are mainly a defensive unit, which is I fine niche for them. The unit works well.

Bazooka: The 3 range makes all the difference, one of the things I found was they are a decent counter to AA guns and mobile sams now (assuming the range promotion). I think you still have a good trade off between Bazookas (for raw single target damage) vs Splash Rocket Artillery for more general damage against the horde. At first I thought the damage might be a bit too high but I think its warranted for the phase in the game.

Light Tank: So with both the stat and logistics change, the big thing is that the light tank is a bit more durable. It still has a big weakness to air craft, but no longer the crippling weakness if you catch it in rough terrain. I found the unit decent, it still lacks luster compared to a lot of its contempories but with it being an aluminum unit when so many things require oil, the unit was decent enough to see use, and is no longer so flimsy that it gets sniped willy nilly.

Helicopter Gunship: I tried a few mobility II helicopters, and the 8 move was very nice, especially across a narrow water range that I fought Rome over. That said, there damage is still a bit too low I think, I found they had decent use against paratroopers and such but even against standard inf (not even mech inf) there damage drops strongly. They are also still very vulnerable to aircraft, even a heavy bomber can do 50ish damage to one. With the bazooka now giving you more extended reach options, I think the helicopter could still use some love.

Submarines: So a few notes here. The base sub is overtuned imo, with wolfpack III (aka the standard promotion for the unit) I was both decimating dreadnoughts AND doing very good damage to Modern Destroyers (let alone basic destroyers).

I also noticed a few bugs with the unit:

1) The sub attack bonus and wolfpack are not only ignoring cities (which is intended) but it also ignores the damage bonus on embarked and hovering units. This means the unit is actually pretty bad at cleaning up embarked units (which historically was the submarines primary mission in many cases).

2) The sub also seems to be getting weird bonus to defense, which may against have something to do with wolfpack's interaction to the change. Ranged units do practically no damage to it, as its getting a massive bonus to defense

My guess is this is due to the changes on wolfpack and the base attack not affecting cities (which by the way with that change subs do like 5 damage to cities). I think the better solution would be to simply increase the -75% city attack penalty to -90% or -100%.

Dreadnoughts: So in general I feel this mod has shifted the power of naval back in the ranged court. While its true that subs are a strong counter to dreadnoughts the dreadnought is now the workhorse. Its the combination of its melee ship damage, but more its move after attack, which gives it incredible mobility and flexibility. Once you hit a critical number of these things they rip other fleet combinations to pieces.

In fact just checking, is the ability to move after attack actually a bug? Because I don't think any other ranged ship has that capability.

Destroyer: I think the ship got a nerf but I don't mind it, I think the destroyer was overperforming before anyway.


One other bug I found but may be with ENW so I'll report it in both places. The Rocket Missle is not getting its +50% against cities.

 

[azum4roll]

Dreadnoughts definitely don't get move after attack. It's probably some incompatibility with the old ENW.

Not sure about sub defense, gotta test that in IGE when I have time.

I also don't have any idea how to keep the attack bonus against embarks. They shouldn't be good against hovering units though.

New ENW shifted subs and melee ships one tech tier to the right, so you might get a different experience with it.

Thanks for testing the mod!

 

[dostillevi]

Saw a note above on light tanks and thought - what if they got increased CS for defense on turns they moved?

 

[Stalker0]

Finally got to a good late game war to try some more of this modmod. This was with a clean version of ENW so it removed some of the buggy issues I had before.

• Dreadnoughts do about a straight up 40 damage to ironclads, which is actually less than I expected with its incredible 50% bonus.
• Generally my previous assessment holds that the dreadnought pack is the default naval formation. I am not seeing the AI build strong squads of subs and destroyers are not good counters to dreadnoughts. So I find a pack of dreads with a few escort destroyers has been the best way to go.
• I still find light tanks too vulnerable to aircraft to see a lot of use on the battlefield, the AI loves to build them and I just kill them by the bucket load. I still think some more defense is needed, or at least up its air defense so planes take a little more punishment which sniping them.
• The city attack bonus is so low it might as well not exist. Even with wolfpack 3 I'm barely doing any damage. I would ease up a bit on the city attack penalty, or just remove city attack entirely.

 

[Stalker0]

I also noticed this potential bug. It seems that the sub is getting some weird defense bonuses

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

 

[azum4roll]

I'm planning on nerfing Dreadnought's CS down to 60 since both submarines and planes aren't widely available yet in the world.

Light Tanks and Helicopters are going to get the Tank line's default promotion to help with defense.

Submarines aren't supposed to hurt cities, so the city attack is purely for exp if they have nothing else to do. Same with the Carriers' ranged attack, really.

Modern Destroyers need their 5 moves back.

Guerilla will be nerfed down to 62 since you can upgrade Rifleman to it now.

I'll need some inputs from modders about the Submarine issue. Bonus vs Domain apparently works on both Attack and Defense, which is unintended. Anything I can do to make Submarines only get attack bonuses against naval units only? (Preferably without changing the city penalty to something like -150%)@pineappledan @Asterix Rage

 

[pineappledan]

I thought subs couldn't attack cities? Did you disable that?

I've been advocating for a changeup to Subs for a long time. I would remove their access to Logistics and beef up the wolfpack tree, or make a different line for them
You could give them a big bonus vs land domain. That way, land units firing at subs from the shore do very little damage, and Subs could devastate embarked units.

That's what I would do, at least

 

[Asterix Rage]

Anything I can do to make Submarines only get attack bonuses against naval units only?

DOMAIN_SEA modifier doesn't make it.
UnitClassType, Attack would do like it does with PROMOTION_HEAVY_FIRE and all Naval units listed!
The real issue is that I get headache now