Megapack balancing rants (was: Improvements for Romans)

[tomreyn]

There's two things which I think would be nice to improve about the Romans faction, yet. (I'm not commenting on balancing factions since I'm hardly qualified for it.)

1. Units can stand in the walls of the main building, which doesn't look so nice.
2. Romans' archer models do have a bow, but no arrows. This doesn't look so nice to me, either.

The images below demonstrate these issues.

(click to show/hide)

1. Units can stand in the walls of the main building.

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[img]http://freeit.org/glest/screens/screen24.png[/img]
[img]http://freeit.org/glest/screens/screen31.png[/img]
2. Romans' archer models do not actually have any arrows.

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[img]http://freeit.org/glest/screens/screen34.png[/img]
[img]http://freeit.org/glest/screens/screen35.png[/img]

[will]

Additionally, the longbow is completely out of place in "romans".  There are no shortage of genuinely romanesque or fantasy units that would fit infinitely better imo

[ElimiNator]

Look at the tech archer:   (No arrow)

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[img]http://img190.imageshack.us/img190/9740/archerr.jpg[/img]
Also I think the longbow man is a good idea, do you have a better idea?

[will]

Simply remove longbowman, romans have fire archer and that's enough, they are too powerful as it is.

The romans have the best siege weapons and turtle and so on.

Legionaire and centurain, do they have that yet?   (From memory)

The longbow is a distinctive weapon that was invented about at least 600 yrs after the romans went feral in britain.  Its as roman as a musket.

[John.d.h]

They don't still have a halberdier, do they?

[titi]

The roman faction has some very massive buildings made of stone, but you need no or just a bit stone to build them. Maybe this can be improved too. But be careful, I think this will influence the balancing quite heavily!

[tomreyn]

Oops, found one more issue: some of the models seem to have no team color. At least for longbowman this holds true, but I think for some other units, too.

[ElimiNator]

Oops, found one more issue: some of the models seem to have no team color. At least for longbowman this holds true, but I think for some other units, too.

I fixed the longbow man an a wile back (I added team colour)
OK, Ill make some of the buildings cost more stone.

[ultifd]

Oops, found one more issue: some of the models seem to have no team color. At least for longbowman this holds true, but I think for some other units, too.

I fixed the longbow man an a wile back (I added team colour)
OK, Ill make some of the buildings cost more stone.

*Checks* True. I think tomreyn and I was just looking at my own longbowmen...mostly.

[olaus]

hi,

i played the romans 3-4 times and they're far too strong. this will kill the balance for human vs human games, they will all start with irc-negotiations if romans are allowed or not.

the reason is the cheap longbowmen + battering ram and most roman units have advantages over their comparable units which just sum up to a big advantage. lets just look at the starting units:

roman guard tower vs. tech defense tower
+1500hp
+armor is stone vs wood
+2 sight
+15 damage
+10 attack speed
(costs the same)

roman slave vs tech worker
+25 harvest speed wood
+5 load wood
+50 hp
(costs the same)

roman forum vs. tech castle
+2000 hp
+5 food
+1000 gold storage
+1200 wood storage
+900 stone storage
+150 food storage
+1 sight range
(costs the same)

roman cow vs tech cow
+cost 100 vs. 95 gold but brings 15 vs. 10 food
+can be built in forum, save time & resources for a farm
- has less hitpoints but that doesn't really matter

the romans can also start earlier with the production of combat units:

roman training camp vs tech barracks
+cheaper to built (150g + 100w vs. 100g + 50w + 150s)
+ faster to built because just 4500hp

so the romans start every game with an advantage and it continues to the longbowmen. that should really be strongly adjusted.

bye
olaus

p.s. units stats are there:

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http://rupp.de/glest/mg_factions_340b/romans_beta_overview.html

[ultifd]

I'll have my own list later but the cow does need more HP. It does matter...

[Omega]

I agree with you on most of those points, Olaus, though, I should mention that the HP doesn't affect build times, but the build speed of the units constructing the building and the time value of the building itself that matters. So if a building with 10,000 HP has the same speed as a building with 1,000 HP, they'll get completed at the same time. The first building might be built in increasments of 100 HP, while the second only increases by 10 HP. Thus, I'd consider the training camp balanced. 50 total resources (and it needs more gold and wood, which are generally also in higher demand for military units) is a fair trade off for less HP.

[olaus]

I agree with you on most of those points, Olaus, though, I should mention that the HP doesn't affect build times, but the build speed of the units constructing the building and the time value of the building itself that matters.

thanks, i totally missed that. just included it in convert_faction_xml2html.pl

So if a building with 10,000 HP has the same speed as a building with 1,000 HP, they'll get completed at the same time. The first building might be built in increasments of 100 HP, while the second only increases by 10 HP. Thus, I'd consider the training camp balanced. 50 total resources (and it needs more gold and wood, which are generally also in higher demand for military units) is a fair trade off for less HP.

yep, especially as the romans don't need a lot of stone. huh, the guard tower and the black smith are armor-type stone but there's no stone needed to build them.

it's also strange that nearly all units have armor-type metal, also the wartime technician, the archer and the longbowmen. the battering ram has leather even its mainly out of wood (maybe this means the folks driving it). anyway, making it wooden would make it even more unbalanced because wood is the 2nd best armor-type.

[ElimiNator]

it's also strange that nearly all units have armor-type metal, also the wartime technician, the archer and the longbowmen. the battering ram has leather even its mainly out of wood (maybe this means the folks driving it). anyway, making it wooden would make it even more unbalanced because wood is the 2nd best armor-type.

Catapults (Which have impact attack) Can take out wood and stone easily.

[ultifd]

What's your explanation for most/all of the units having a metal type of armor then? IMO this faction is still a bit more balanced for its old vbros pack than the megapack...  

[ElimiNator]

They have metal because all of them have armour on, we played it and it seems fair. Titi can change it if he wants.

[olaus]

anyway, making it wooden would make it even more unbalanced because wood is the 2nd best armor-type.

Catapults (Which have impact attack) Can take out wood and stone easily.

here's a complete list of all megapack-units with an impact-attack:

magic : golem/power golem
magic : behemoth
romans beta : catapult
tech : catapult

those 4 units do 1.5 times the damage vs. wood & stone.

all other units do 0.75 times the damage vs. wood and 0.5 vs. stone. 4 factions don't have a unit with impact-attack.

ergo: stone is the best armor type, wood the 2nd best.

[ultifd]

It's only fair when you only use rushing tactics...though  almost every faction is using that tactic.
Well at least raise the cow's HP for the release.

[ElimiNator]

I did 

[Pizza90]

Is it me or the archers need a little more attack?? I used to play them before (it's one of my favourite mod) and the archers were stronger in my opinion. And where are the walls?? The mechanic can't build them anymore, for me it was a nice feature!

[ElimiNator]

Is it me or the archers need a little more attack?? I used to play them before (it's one of my favourite mod) and the archers were stronger in my opinion. And where are the walls?? The mechanic can't build them anymore, for me it was a nice feature!

Talk to Titi he said for me to remove them.

[Pizza90]

oh! In the forum i saw that AI had problems building walls in a correct way so maybe they got removed for this however i'd like to see them back 

[ultifd]

IMO the archers are OK. The main point of having them is to upgrade them to Fire Archers anyways...

[olaus]

i played the romans several times since the changes for 3.4.0 and have some proposals:

* the general isn't woth the 500gold, he should either be cheaper or do more damage (perfect would of course be an ability to strengthen other units nearby but that's technically not possible afaik). tech get's nearly 2 battle machines for that money and one of them is stronger than a general.

battering ram:
* the battering rams land-attack should get damage-type "impact" because historically they've been used only against buildings and impact is the only type of damage that does more damage vs. stone and wood.
* change the armor-type to wood because that's more reasonable (makes the unit stronger)
* reduce the damage to air units a bit (an archer on an elephant makes sense, i've never heard of battering rams with archers on top). on the other hand the battering is one of the 3 units (archer & fire archer) which are movable and can attack air units.

the romans don't have any air units. that's historically correct but maybe something mythical would be ok. otherwise it's hard to finnish off the last flying units of an enemy. in a tournament or ladder game it might be impossible to officially win.

to be different from other factions, maybe create a small air-unit (f.e. raven produced by the temple) which can be built early and cheap but has no attack, for scouting only. plus an expensive unit which needs lots of upgrades with a good attack (maybe the roman eagle, modify the indians thunderbird)

the gladiotor school is kind of useless right now (i never build it), because the gladiotor and axe man aren't that much better or special compared to a swordsman and guard. anyway those are 4 different units which are very similar in most aspects (and not much use in a late game because they can't attack air units). still gladiotors are cool, maybe talk to softcoder or titi to port some of the special abilities from GAE to MG. maybe the guard skill.

hmmm, the patrol skill of GAE would also be something which would fit the organised romans very well.

[ElimiNator]

* the general isn't woth the 500gold, he should either be cheaper or do more damage (perfect would of course be an ability to strengthen other units nearby but that's technically not possible afaik). tech get's nearly 2 battle machines for that money and one of them is stronger than a general.

I think the general is quite good, he is better then a turtle formation. Maybe Ill down the cost a bit?

battering ram:
* the battering rams land-attack should get damage-type "impact" because historically they've been used only against buildings and impact is the only type of damage that does more damage vs. stone and wood.
* change the armor-type to wood because that's more reasonable (makes the unit stronger)
* reduce the damage to air units a bit (an archer on an elephant makes sense, i've never heard of battering rams with archers on top). on the other hand the battering is one of the 3 units (archer & fire archer) which are movable and can attack air units.

Yes it should be wood (I thought it was?) And Ill check the air attack.

the romans don't have any air units. that's historically correct but maybe something mythical would be ok. otherwise it's hard to finnish off the last flying units of an enemy. in a tournament or ladder game it might be impossible to officially win.

to be different from other factions, maybe create a small air-unit (f.e. raven produced by the temple) which can be built early and cheap but has no attack, for scouting only. plus an expensive unit which needs lots of upgrades with a good attack (maybe the roman eagle, modify the indians thunderbird)

There use to be a golden eagle in Romans but Titi said for me to remove it...

the gladiotor school is kind of useless right now (i never build it), because the gladiotor and axe man aren't that much better or special compared to a swordsman and guard. anyway those are 4 different units which are very similar in most aspects (and not much use in a late game because they can't attack air units). still gladiotors are cool, maybe talk to softcoder or titi to port some of the special abilities from GAE to MG. maybe the guard skill.

hmmm, the patrol skill of GAE would also be something which would fit the organised romans very well.

Yes we want to add guard and patrol to MG, but when they are added the spearmen and swordmen would use them seeing that they were trained better the gladiators. Maybe Ill up/change the gladiators a bit.