Reprise: Romans

[tomreyn]

I know, I know, this is not a famous topic. But I feel is it neccessary to bring it up again:

It seems that many MegaGlest 3.5.2 players have the feeling that Romans are still too strong. As a result, on most games where good / long-term players play, Romans are considered  to be disallowed, since its too easy to win with them and it spoils the fun. This is not something Titi or I suggested or encouraged but something other regular players came up with by themselves.

Romans are a nice faction - I like their looks and their tech tree all alike, and I'm happy that Titi added them to the Megapack. However, I'm afraid to make them acceptable on multi-player games, it will be neccessary to somehow weaken them further. The most problematic things I can think of are:
* fire archers (they should not be both strong in their own attacks and robust against attacks by others)
* temple upgrades too quickly - sure it takes a long time to build the temple which is good,  but the upgrades are too quick in my opinion

The most simple unit, the soldier with shield and pike/spear, is also slightly too robust in my opinion.

Please let's have a constructive discussion, i.e. please think about how Romans are balanced to the other Megapack factions during the various stages of the game first of all. And only then, make suggestions for what exactly must be changed and explain why. If you think that Romans are good as they are in 3.5.2, then please say so, too!

[Pizza90]

I agree with you, romans are a little too strong, especially fire archers which can make you winning the game easily just make 10 or 15 of them and you won, i have two suggestions for them:
- make them slower to be produced and more expensive
- give them less life points (like -200)

Which one is better for you guys??

Btw is there any way to see walls and doors again in the roman faction? (i know ai had problems building it any improvement?)

[uuu]

... The most problematic things I can think of are:
* fire archers (they should not be both strong in their own attacks and robust against attacks by others)...

Firearchers are main problem - they are simply overpowered: lower attack, lower armour, or lower HP, or combination of these.

Proof - simple: I can beat two cpu megas, cannot do that with any other faction.

[ultifd]

I don't know, I remember we had a large debate on IRC and in the end nothing really changed to make it more balanced. Although, all we really need to do is lower down some of the stats. I think we tested Romans enough...

[uuu]

... all we really need to do is lower down some of the stats. ...

To be more specific, exactly two things are wrong for megapack techtree:
1. <attack-strenght value="200"/>
2. <armor value="14"/>    +   10 (bless of minerva upgrade)
This gives us 1000HP 24armor archer with 200 (!) attack strength, which makes it no-no for multiplayer gaming.

It's really nothing hard about it, no need for long debates there... e.g. lower attack strength to 150, or lower HP to 700. I wouldn't recommend removing upgrade (or removing fire archer from it) bless of minerva, because players are accustomed to that already.

As easy as that.

Btw. I created skirmish scenario Roman firearchers vs Indian firearchers, but I couldn't figure out how to enable upgrade bless of minerva right from start.

[Omega]

Btw. I created skirmish scenario Roman firearchers vs Indian firearchers, but I couldn't figure out how to enable upgrade bless of minerva right from start.

Rather offtopic, but you can use giveUpgradeCommand(unitID, 'upgrade_name'); to give the unit with that upgrade command the command to START the upgrade, but the ability to give the completed upgrade right off the bat does not (yet) exist in MegaGlest. GAE has it under the function name of giveUpgrade(factionIndex, 'upgrade_name');

[Mr War]

Maybe I'll find time to load Romans and another magictech faction into the balancing tool and see what it shows. The tool isn't perfect or holistic, but if there's a big imbalance in terms of attack/defense strength it'll be clear. 

When I play imperial bs Romans, I find their infantry massively stronger than imperials tanks. Imperial isn't the best balanced side either, but the difference in attack/defense is massive.

[uuu]

Mr War: thnx
tomreyn: who can actually change that - who mantains megapack? titi? I mean what is conclusion of all this? that it would be fine to do, but noone can actually edit one line in one *.xml file?

[tomreyn]

Technically, everyone who has commit permissions to the subversion repository could make changes once it's clear what should be done. However, the Romans faction is developed by Eliminator, who should be asked to give his ok for any changes, and since it's part of Megapack, Titi also needs to agree to any changes. But we've been through this loop at least two times before, so I don't think this discussion we're having is entirely theoretical.

For now, however, we need to work out that there is a general consensus that Romans are not yet balanced as well as they could be, i.e. that something has to be changed, and, for the next step, what exactly needs to be changed. I think that at this point it is clear that there is a certain demand that Romans need to be changed again, but more peoples' opinions would help there. So far we have 5 people in favor of some change which would weaken Romans and none against it. Regarding what exactly to change, some suggestions have been made, and so far these suggestions don't seem to be necessarily conflicting. It would be good to work towards a common statement on which settings should be changed to what.

[Mr War]

Romans loaded into Balancing Tool. Yet to add Tech for comparison.

Battering ram and catapult are really strong, although former lacks range. Axe Man, ballista, general, guard and turtle are also really strong.

The battering ram's advantage is largely because it's almost indestructible. Even a general can only reduce a battering ram by 6% per second of attack, and will only 5 seconds if the battering ram fights back. So 1:1 between the strongest attacking piece, the general, and a battering ram would last 5 seconds and result in death of general and battering ram with 70% HP.

(image ignores range and other factors, just raw attack/defense in mutual engagement)

It'll be more interesting and useful when another faction is loaded, but that takes time.

[Mr War]

Loaded Tech in, and applied all upgrades.

The orange shows where Romans are stronger, the blue where Tech is. Although there is a fair amount of blue, if you look at the percentages, and at the distribution, it is clear that Romans possess several 'super units' which eclipse Tech's.


a) Battering ram much too dominant
It can beat everything, it has complete dominance. Compare the percentage advantages it holds over foes to those of tech's airship and battle machine. e.g. an airship will take about 5 seconds to kill a Roman swordsman; A battering ram will take less than 1 second to kill a Tech swordsman.

 
b) General and turtle also very strong
They can beat everything except airships and battle machines. I think turtles work great as the 'super unit' rather than battering rams. But as-is just too many super-units on the playing field

c) many strong ranged weapons
Although it's not very obvious from the above diagram, when we consider range, the roman Archers/ranged infantry is a lot more powerful than Tech equivalent. Tech has Archer, and technician (although latter is very weak), and the battle machine's secondary armament (which AI won't use against ground targets).

But Romans have:
Archer (slightly stronger but 10% shorter-ranged than Tech archer)
Fire archer (very strong)
Ballista (even stronger)
Plus Gladiator and Battering Ram have anti-air ranged weapons

I also built a view that can be used for comparing two units across all main variables. When you load it with two units which should be tactical equivilents, you can see which is stronger.


Suggestions:
1. reduce battering ram's ability against anything other than buildings etc. Why can it even engage air units? It's a cool unit, but it's a specialist weapon - it was not strong against infantry.
2. why does Roman slave have more HP than Tech worker? Make equal
3. Rationalize ranged units.
> Remove catapult from Roman side or limit number to 1 or 2. Ballista replaces it in tactical employment
> Remove basic archer. Downgrade Fire Archer to be more like basic archer
...or....
> Swap archer for fire archer as above, and make ballista replacement for eagle tower (as per air-ballista in Tech)

Non-balancing suggestions
4) Rename General as Centurion
5) Rename swordsman as legionnaire
6) Remake guard tower model to be square not round - truer to history.
7) Roman fort instead of the camp?

[Omega]

Thanks for the great comparison Mr War, it makes it more obvious as to where the balance issues are.

Suggestions:
1. reduce battering ram's ability against anything other than buildings etc. Why can it even engage air units? It's a cool unit, but it's a specialist weapon - it was not strong against infantry.
2. why does Roman slave have more HP than Tech worker? Make equal
3. Rationalize ranged units.
> Remove catapult from Roman side or limit number to 1 or 2. Ballista replaces it in tactical employment
> Remove basic archer. Downgrade Fire Archer to be more like basic archer
...or....
> Swap archer for fire archer as above, and make ballista replacement for eagle tower (as per air-ballista in Tech)

Strong agreement for number one and two. For number 3, I'd say remove the catapult and basic archer, and make the fire archer have stats like the basic archer; keeping the ballista as it is.

And of course, I agree with all your renaming suggestions, they are more unique and accurate.

Non-balancing suggestions
4) Rename General as Centurion
5) Rename swordsman as legionnaire
6) Remake guard tower model to be square not round - truer to history.
7) Roman fort instead of the camp?

[tomreyn]

Thanks for yor additional feedback, and for the awesome graphs (even though they cannot show every factor - units movement speed and complexity due to unit size is not covered, for example).

Titi seems to be avout to look into making some changes - and I'm looking forward to those.

[titi]

I just changed the firearcher and its upgrade "bless of minerva" yet. Is it a bit more balanced now?

[uuu]

a) Battering ram much too dominant
It can beat everything
...
b) General and turtle also very strong
They can beat everything
...

I mean no offense to Mr War's graphs and diagrams, but that is completely wrong: if you use only theory, go much deeper in analysis - it does not matter, if unit can beat anything, how it performs in real (not one-to-one) battle is what matters. And of course, you must include price in the comparisons!

I have played MegaGlest a lot (yeah, probably too much), so I can say that.

Battering ram and turtle formation has no need for lowering anything. They are expensive, clumsy, and easy targets for enemy catapults and archers. Good if you want to get stuck and lose battle.
General isn't worth the price. Again, good yummy food for catapults (one strong pricey unit they can aim at).

Note that it is not hard to beat Roman CPU (even ultra, mega), because it doesn't produce so many firearchers. Other units aren't so powerful.

Otherwise some nice suggestions (e.g. rename swordsman as legionnaire) and some wrong (why does Roman slave have more HP than Tech worker? Make equal. ---> if all factions are equal, there is no fun whatsoever).

My strong point is: Romans can be strong faction (after all, their empire had strong army), but with these firearchers, it is simply too much.

[uuu]

I just changed the firearcher and its upgrade "bless of minerva" yet. Is it a bit more balanced now?

You lowered armor by 25% (2 + 4 bless of minerva), and attack strength by 25% (50). (also lowered variability, but doesn't matter that much).

Much better, thanks a lot, titi!   

titi is the man! 

With MG 3.5.3 as stable, we stop ban on Romans in multiplayer match. 

[softcoder]

Elim also updated some models (multiple animations etc) and made the general have a max unit count of 5 and now the general uses the new attack boost (units around him get an attack boost) making the general a more important unit indirectly but capped at 5.