Unit Balance Mod

[Dracleath]

A long time ago just after civ4 came out I made the Medieval Weapons Mod to try to make the technologies medieval units were availible with more historically accurate. As a part of doing this and after playing several games of single and multiplayer I realized that there was also a need for a general balance pass with the default units in the game.

Recently I've had a couple of people private message me about some of the ideas in that mod regarding unit balancing, etc.

So in an effort to promote discussion I updated my old mod to work with the 1.61 patch and trimmed it down to just the unit changes themselves, so as to maximize compatibility with other mods and be as modular as possible.

This mod attempts to do 3 things:

1. Balance the originial standard units, so that things like axemen overpowering everything, swordsmen being useless, grenadiers obsoleting pikemen and muskateers only shortly after they appear, etc are less of a problem.

2. Examine the general flow of tech requirements so that units come at times that make sense and are historically accurate, and the tech tree genrally flows better. Examples are making the cannon appear earlier, and removing the machinery requirement from macemen. Offensive medieval units are generally more dependent on metal casting and feudalism, while defensive units are on tech paths accessible to civs not focusing on so much of a military (sort of the opposite from how it is in the original.

3. Retune UUs so that none are overpowering but all are powerful, and so that they make more sense historically.


Here are the changes:


Axeman: Base strength to 4 - bonus vs melee increased to 85% ( same attack value vs melee units, lower strength vs cavalry and archers)

Chariot: +25% vs. melee, +5 cost (acts as a counter to axemen, still roundly beaten by spearmen and generally inferior to horse archers. Gives a combat role to a unit that previously was just a throwaway pillager)

Archer: Bonus to city defense to 66% (slight bump to encourage people to defend with archers instead of just axemen and spearmen and encourage use of swordsmen in capturing cities)

Macemen: available at feudalism, require metal casting instead of machinery bonus reduced to 25% vs melee (general logic tweak, offensive units should come with military techs and defensive ones with civil techs if possible to encourage choice between military and civil techs. Bonus vs melee reduced slightly as part of pikeman tweak.)

Knights - Now require civil service, horseback riding, feudalism, metal casting. (came too late in the base game with guilds, logic tweak to techs required)

Longbowmen - Now availible with civil service. +25% vs Mounted units (Again, defensive units with civil techs. Mounted bonus is to keep the earlier knights in line a bit, balancing them out so they aren't super city takers)

Pikemen - Now available with guilds. Require metal casting. Strength changed to 8, price increased to 70, bonus vs cavalry reduced to 75%. (a bit of a boost, pikes historically were more general purpose troops and less specialized anti-cav. Still beat knights, lose to macemen.)

Cannon - now availble with gunpowder, metal casting and engineering. Strength reduced to 8. (Cannons were WAY too late in the tech tree.)

Grenadier - req. Replacable parts (these were supposed to be a rifleman counter but were dominating the battlefield, comes a bit later to give musketmen, knights, and pikes more of a chance)


Unique Unit Changes:

Jaguar: Old axeman (5 str, lower bonus vs melee), Woodsman 1, can be built with Stone or marble in addition to copper or iron (These guys are now what the old axeman was, a strong general purpose unit. No longer resourceless so they can now be balanced appropriately, but less resource dependent than normal swordsmen or axemen)

War Chariot: +25% vs melee, +5 cost, no longer upgrades to horse archer (same changes as general chariot, now superior to HA in some situations so no reason to force people to upgrade)

Camel archer: replaces Horse Archer, no resource, 25% combat withdrawal, +10% vs mounted units (Was too late in the tech tree, switched positions with Keshik)

Immortal: Replaces Horse Archer, +25% vs archers 10% combat withdrawal (Original unit was a fantasy unit, now represents parthian horsemen. Better at city taking than normal HA's but still counterable by spears, I think this is balanced)

Praetorian: base strength 6, +25% vs melee, +10% vs cities (I split the original praetorian in two. This is the general combat side. Now just a normal swordsman as far as cost and strength, but good in melee, and so less counterable by axemen)

Quecha: replaces swordsman. base strength 6, +25% vs archers, Stone or Marble acceptable in addition to Iron (the other side of the old praetorian. Also a bit less resource intensive than standard swordsmen)

Keshik: Replaces knight with 1 first strike and ignores terrain (again, swapped with camel archer)

Redcoat - strength reduced to 14 (slightly toned down compared to vanilla)

Cossack - strength reduced to 16 (slightly toned down compared to vanilla)

 

[Rabbit, White]

Very interesting changes and many sound very logical. Just one comment: You bumped Archers' city defense bonus to 66% to encourage people to use more archers and less axemen, but it seems to me that with the nerf to axemen that' already accomplished, no?

I hope there will be plenty of feedback here on balance, 'cause I'd like to include this in my mod just don't have the time to properly test it.

 

[Dracleath]

Thanks for the interest.

With the archer change I was mainly thinking "why would anyone use a pair of archers for city defense as opposed to a spearman and axemen?"

Even moving the axeman to strength 4 the archer still only has a .5 base strength advantage over the axeman before promotions against non-melee opponents, as it'll be defending at effectively about 4.5 strength, and the axeman is vastly better against melee troops. The same is true of the spearman against horse units. Bumping the archer up to 66% makes the archer defend cities at effectively about strength 5. I felt this provided enough of an incentive to make archers more viable as a general purpose unit.

As the AI tends to like archers this helps them out a bit as well. I haven't really noticed cities being that much harder to take, so I thought it was a reasonable solution to making archers a bit more desirable.

I'm very interested though in everyone's input on balance and testing results, I've run through 4 games with these settings and they seem to be at least closer to what I was looking for than the original settings, but it's impossible to test everything completely thoroughly with one person.

 

[The Great Apple]

Thanks for the interest.

With the archer change I was mainly thinking "why would anyone use a pair of archers for city defense as opposed to a spearman and axemen?"

Resource shortages? City is on a hill?

 

[LunarMongoose]

In addition to Great Apple's points, arguably the most important thing is that archers have access to the very powerful City Garrison line of promotions, whereas melee units do not.

 

[Dracleath]

Good points, but I still think they're just a bit weak in vanilla. I certainly haven't noticed that I've been having trouble taking cities against AI stacks of archers with it set at 66%. Quite the opposite in fact, swordsmen or even strength 5 UUs such as war chariots or jaguar warriors tend to do fairly well unless they have walls up or are on a hill.

 

[Impaler[WrG]]

Now were getting into issues of overall offence vs defence balance in the game. I think that improving artilery is what needs to be fixed, expensive suicidal artillery is just terrible and gives the defender an undue advantage.

 

[Dracleath]

Artillery is an interesting question. One possibility for making it more realistic would be to greatly increase the chance of retreat. This way the artillery would be somewhat more realistic in that you wouldn't have suicide artillery yet artillery would still only be usable once per siege and would require resting and cycling over long sieges.

The problem with this would be that artillery would greatly be increased in power and there would need to be some kind of downside probably, whether in reduced strength, increased cost, etc.

It is an interesting idea though. Say you had a catapult with a 90% chance of retreating combat (consider some chance of defeat from counterbombardment, etc. You start the siege by bombarding down defenses. You then attack with the catapult next turn, doing the same collateral damage as you normally would, but keeping the catapult but in a state damaged to the point where it would need repairs to continue the siege (representing use of ammunition that would need to be replaced, equipment wear and tear, etc). It would be more realistic certainly. What do you all think an appropriate downside to this would be? As it is now catapults are strong enough to occasionally actually kill an uninjured archer, same with cannons vs musketeers, it would probably be much too powerful to have siege weaken units to near death and still be alive most of the time.

Would maybe 75% of the current strength be balanced here? 50%? Maybe I need to go find the combat results calculator and play with it a bit.

 

[Jeckel]

It always seemed to me that if you attack with you artillery there should be a good chance that they should die. Artillery is not ment to be used as an offense attack unit, its ment to be used to lower city defenses and shoule need to be protected by acual units. I would suggest lowering the strength of artillery, but leaving the withdrawal chance the same, they are city bombarders, not attack or defense units.

 

[Rabbit, White]

It always seemed to me that if you attack with you artillery there should be a good chance that they should die. Artillery is not ment to be used as an offense attack unit, its ment to be used to lower city defenses and shoule need to be protected by acual units. I would suggest lowering the strength of artillery, but leaving the withdrawal chance the same, they are city bombarders, not attack or defense units.

But the point of Dracleath's suggestion is that artillery's attack will represent bombardment (as opposed to doing python/SDK mods), and since in bombardement they don't come in direct contact with the enemy, the high chance of withdrawal will hopefully mean that most of the time they stay alive.

As for the counter downside, well first of all I'm not really sure there is a need for one. I mean I feel that artillery in the game (in all its forms) is underpowered. In 80% of the cases I use it to suicide attack stacks of units, it rarely gets used for actual city bombardment because ships do it much safer. Also, you mentioned how catapult can kill archer and cannon musketman, maybe it's just the way I play but by the time catapult and cannon are available, archers and musketman are pretty much obsolete and are only used as cannon fodder (pun not intended ).

Anyway, back to the downside, I can't tell you exactly the numbers but I would not only look at reducing the strength a bit but also maybe reducing collateral damage or number of units that can be hurt by collateral damage.

 

[Gherald]

Longbows with bonus vs. mounted does not make much sense from a realism point of view. Crossbows were far more effective against knights!

Other changes look nice... I assume keshiks don't require iron?

 

[Calavente]

Cross bows were not effective against knights, they were effective against armor.. it is true that knights had armor...ok. but a charge of knight actually dispersed infantery, even with X-bow...
You can also see that at the battle of Agincourt, during the Hundred Years' War, attacker with knights + crossbow (France) were less effective than defender with knights + longbow (England). Maybe that's what the OP is refering to by putting +25% vs mounted units to longbow...

 

[Dracleath]

My reason for putting them at +25% vs mounted were for gameplay reasons (earlier knights necessitates a stronger counter, crossbowmen already have a bonus vs melee so they'd be overpowered with a bonus vs both.)


Historically though longbows did perfom well against knights in the hundred years war as mentioned.

Also, logically, longbows would be better against cavalry and crossbows vs infantry. Longbows were less powerful, but much faster firing than crossbows. Against cavalry to disable the rider you need to either penetrate the armor, hit and kill the horse (which may or may not be armored itself), or hit the rider with enough power to disorient him and make him fall off the horse. Cavalry in general (not specifically knights per se but as a whole) is going to be more mobile, necessitating a fast rate of fire if you want to get more than one shot in before they charge home, either disrupting you or engaging another unit thus making aiming difficult.

Against decent infantry (ie not what you'd think of in early medieval european infantry but later pikemen once things were more organized) you have a slow target for the most part (especially vs armored infantry) and pretty much the only way you'll get a kill is by penetrating the armor. So therefore you'd want something powerful but rate of fire wouldn't be as important.

 

[Gherald]

Almost all of longbows' effectiveness was in volleys from a distance. They were EXTREMELY vulnerable to heavy cavalry charges.

 

[tlucky4life]

sweet know I can put in white rabbits arabian cavalry as a knight been looking for an excuse to bump the camel archer.

 

[Jaca]

I agree about the Axeman being such a strong unit and Swordsman -- coming a tech later and requiring a new resource -- being pretty bleak compared to him. Even if you have iron, you would be building more Axes then Swords.

With regards to the lack of a siege weapon to break down early walled city defences, may I propose a -5% city defence reduction as being part of the City Raider I promotion, and -10% as part of the City Raider II (after an attack and not available for Warrior, that would be too easy...)? My intention was that it may cost you some units early during the city attack, but at least you would start breaking down the defences after consecutive attacks and it wouldn't be hopeless.

Jaca

 

[icewall]

Cross bows were not effective against knights, they were effective against armor.. it is true that knights had armor...ok. but a charge of knight actually dispersed infantery, even with X-bow...
You can also see that at the battle of Agincourt, during the Hundred Years' War, attacker with knights + crossbow (France) were less effective than defender with knights + longbow (England). Maybe that's what the OP is refering to by putting +25% vs mounted units to longbow...

Agincourt was far less about the troops involved and far more about the terrain and exceedingly poor leadership on the part of the French.

The English had well rested defenders on a wooded hilltop. The French had to advance through a narrow choke point between a raised burm and a river. The Genoese mercenary crossbowmen were forced to the front without their pavises (large shields) that were still back on the baggage trains. The French proceeded to kill their own troops when the crossbowmen were forced to withdraw. The French knights charged in almost a linear fashion up the muddy hill, and it became a turkey shoot for the English defenders.

The result of the battle would undoubtedly been vastly different had the French simply waited long enough to mount an organized attack.

And yes, I think lbows have no good reason to have bonus vs knights. In fact, knights should counter longbows.

 

[icewall]

Whoops, the battle that we are both referring to was Crecy, not Agincourt.

 

[Gherald]

Longbows should have, like, a 25% bonus vs. crossbows instead of knights.

 

[icewall]

I don't think so, actually, I think the crossbow should be a fair counter to the longbow because of the pavise, but only by a slim margin.

The functional differences of the units are as follows -

Rate of fire - Longbows had a big advantage here, roughly double (or more) the ROF. Additionally, at medium range, a good bowman could loose two arrows that would arrive at the target at the same time at different angles (direct shot + arcing shot).

per shot Damage & armor penetration - Crossbow, especially one's with cranquin or a windlass had significant armor penetration and damage. More sophisticated cocking mechanisms reduced the ROF though. A crossbow can be pre-cocked though, thus the first strike capability in Civ is justified.

Range - Very slight advantage on the longbows part (excepting heavy arbelasts). Consensus is generally that beyond 80 yards or more a bow of any kind cannot guarantee a hit, despite the fact that the projectile can travel farther.

Accuracy - Slight advantage again with the crossbow, a crossbow can be 'aimed' like one would a gun. Bows are fired by dead reckoning, not a huge difference though with a skilled user. The speed of the projectile vs the target also has to be considered.

Mobility - Generally a bowman would be relatively lightly encumbered and poorly armored compared to crossbowman. Slight advantage to the bow in mobility, but he could not use a shield either.

Cost - Three separate, very different parts here. The crossbow was a far more expensive contraption than the bow, no contest there.

The other important expense is the person though, a physically ordinary person can learn to use a crossbow in battle in a week or so. A combat grade longbow requires immense strength and huge amount of training.

The other thing is the ammo cost, arrows for the longbow really are quite a significant expense when you look at the rate of fire and damage per shot. That really why firearms eventually caught on, despite poor range; a musket was durable, simple and had low ammo weight and cost.

In civ terms the longbowman is an almost perfect candidate for a UU rather than a regular unit because the technology itself is simple but you really needed a culture of archery to draw on for the personnel.