Data Visualization of Troops

[Porterhoused]

I threw together a rating system and visualization of easily acquirable troops in Perisno to help with figuring out what was actually good. 

Here is a link I would be interested to know what you think is right/wrong with the ratings etc.  You will have to fix the url(due to new account) or someone with link posting permissions can repost it so it is clickable(remove space between https: and //).

https: //public.tableau.com/profile/myname3835#!/vizhome/MB_5/Sheet1

The left axis is rating, and there are a bunch of filters to use, hover over the marks to get unit details.

 

[Sleeeves]

How did you assess the rating for each troop type?

 

[Porterhoused]

For Melee:
Its complex, but basically the ability to withstand 130 piercing damage strike combined with how much dps you do to a target with 70 armor rating.  I wanted the rating to be how effective the units were at killing above average opponents, since anything can wipe the floor with fodder.

For ranged:
It is primarily ranged dps vs 70 AR target, with a small amount of defense and melee.  Unfortunately I do not know how ranged armor piercing works so this was left out.

Each unit gets a rating for range and melee and the max of the 2 is the units final rating. 

There is no differentiation in mounted vs foot.  You could assume they are the dismounted ratings in some way.

I wish I could figure out a way to test 100v100 troop fights.

 

[cheesehat]

I don't think 100 vs 100 fights are the best way to test, I'm pretty sure that 100 cav would beat 100 archers 99% of the time, etc.

Also cav in siege battles are just infantry, etc

But it looks like household guard are the best and redwood MERCENARY archers are the worst, I can't say I disagree with that assessment

 

[Porterhoused]

I don't think 100 vs 100 fights are the best way to test, I'm pretty sure that 100 cav would beat 100 archers 99% of the time, etc.

Also cav in siege battles are just infantry, etc

But it looks like household guard are the best and redwood MERCENARY archers are the worst, I can't say I disagree with that assessment

I would be more interested in like-typed troops dueling than throwing cav vs infantry/archers.  I tried to base everything off 100 down but certain troops are just ridiculous outliers.

 

[Talinoth]

I didn't realise Highelf Wardens* were so close in power to Crimson Rangers. That's VERY interesting, good to know. That means they're even stronger than I gave them credit for.

I knew they were a bit stronger than Rangers, but not THAT much stronger. That power stat means they have better ranged performance on foot than even the Elintoran Knight - and the thing with the Elintoran Highelf Wardens* is that as long as you can acquire the noble recruits, they're very fast to train compared to Elintoran Knights or Elintoran Crimson Rangers.

Also, the Highelf Wardens* give you a boost to your medic stats which means if you have enough of them you can give yourself a 40hp heal every minute or so. Also, you can get Surgery 10+4 so that there's a (base 25% chance + (14x4=56)) = 81% chance that your troops will only get knocked unconscious in a fight instead of being killed. That's pretty great because Elven armies are hard to train compared to other factions and losses cost you a lot more money.

* Edited because I was dumb and Sentinels are just the tier 1 noble troop.

 

[Porterhoused]

I didn't realise Highelf Sentinels were so close in power to Crimson Rangers. That's VERY interesting, good to know. That means they're even stronger than I gave them credit for.

I knew they were a bit stronger than Rangers, but not THAT much stronger. That power stat means they have better ranged performance on foot than even the Elintoran Knight - and the thing with the Elintoran Highelf Sentinels is that as long as you can acquire the noble recruits, they're very fast to train compared to Elintoran Knights or Elintoran Crimson Rangers.

Also, the Highelf Sentinels give you a boost to your medic stats which means if you have enough of them you can give yourself a 40hp heal every minute or so. Also, you can get Surgery 10+4 so that there's a (base 25% chance + (14x4=56)) = 81% chance that your troops will only get knocked unconscious in a fight instead of being killed. That's pretty great because Elven armies are hard to train compared to other factions and losses cost you a lot more money.

I know you mean High Elf Wardens, but just want to throw it out there.  I was happy to see it because leveling the top tier elves is beyond a pain.  So much so I actually rated the tier below which I normally wouldn't do.

Another interesting thing I found from this, the best pure infantry troop to amass the easiest for garrison purposes has been captain of the guard from massive slave buys.  The best part is you can level them along the cavalry line and it won't slow your army down, or just sit in town training them after taking a city.

I did not know about the 25% base chance...it makes sense now when I think about it, I have been trying to kill off 500 Geldarin Dukes for ages even with massive casualties.

 

[Lazy Buttons]

Well, it's useful, but hardly represents the true killing power of katanas some units.

In particular, Kaikoth Iron Guardsmen / Mountain Keeper are absolute beasts in sieges.They even outperform the overrated Falcon troops (granted, may be anecdotal evidence)

And what weapons/armor did you use to rate household guards and hired mercs?
Furthermore, what/who did you test them against?

I'll agree that High Elf Wardens are always a great addition to your army, they're like deadlier versions of Perisno Priestesses.. who take no prisoners. My favorite composition is Household Guards (sheer killing power and versatility), Geldar Dukes (morale boost, incredible shock cavalry), Geldar Forest (great horse archers, +pathfinding boost), and Highelf Wardens (medical skills). If you can spare the space, then some Rangers/Sunrise Riders/Knights are nice for a boost to foraging and that extra staying power.


ADD:

I think the big thing is, these numbers only represent 1v1 killing power, which is also not the most important thing in mass combat in sieges, on 200+ battlesize. They also don't make up for certain stupid quirks of the AI.
A lot of the time their high damage output will be excessive (overkill)
Other times, their high armor won't be of much use (random headshots / one-shots with heavy weapons like morningstars and crossbows)

 

[Sleeeves]

For Melee:
Its complex, but basically the ability to withstand 130 piercing damage strike combined with how much dps you do to a target with 70 armor rating.  I wanted the rating to be how effective the units were at killing above average opponents, since anything can wipe the floor with fodder.

For ranged:
It is primarily ranged dps vs 70 AR target, with a small amount of defense and melee.  Unfortunately I do not know how ranged armor piercing works so this was left out.

Each unit gets a rating for range and melee and the max of the 2 is the units final rating. 

There is no differentiation in mounted vs foot.  You could assume they are the dismounted ratings in some way.

I wish I could figure out a way to test 100v100 troop fights.

Seems a reasonable methodology to rate troops, especially for siege effectiveness.  It probably underrates the effectiveness of mounted troops in field battles.  And the situational flexibility of Hired Mercenary and Household troops gives them added value over other troop types as well.

The logistics of doing 100v100 fights for a matrix of troops like this would be daunting, and no guarantee that the results would be more reliable.

 

[Lazy Buttons]

You could just stick to 50x50 battles. That's good enough. 100x100 doesn't really change anything in terms of troop effectiveness.

As for how to achieve it.. I have no idea.
Without access to module system, I don't know if it's possible to spawn parties of troops you need for testing.
Cheat menu only has a few pre-set parties available for spawning.

 

[Porterhoused]

Well, it's useful, but hardly represents the true killing power of katanas some units.

In particular, Kaikoth Iron Guardsmen / Mountain Keeper are absolute beasts in sieges.They even outperform the overrated Falcon troops (granted, may be anecdotal evidence)

And what weapons/armor did you use to rate household guards and hired mercs?
Furthermore, what/who did you test them against?

I'll agree that High Elf Wardens are always a great addition to your army, they're like deadlier versions of Perisno Priestesses.. who take no prisoners. My favorite composition is Household Guards (sheer killing power and versatility), Geldar Dukes (morale boost, incredible shock cavalry), Geldar Forest (great horse archers, +pathfinding boost), and Highelf Wardens (medical skills). If you can spare the space, then some Rangers/Sunrise Riders/Knights are nice for a boost to foraging and that extra staying power.


ADD:

I think the big thing is, these numbers only represent 1v1 killing power, which is also not the most important thing in mass combat in sieges, on 200+ battlesize. They also don't make up for certain stupid quirks of the AI.
A lot of the time their high damage output will be excessive (overkill)
Other times, their high armor won't be of much use (random headshots / one-shots with heavy weapons like morningstars and crossbows)

The dwarven infantry are rated as some of the best infantry in the game, but they really don't compare stat wise with falcon troops, so I don't see how this could be possible unless the smaller dwarven model is worth an immense amount of value.  They are worse stat-wise across the entire spectrum, but they are still great infantry.

Killing power and survivability aren't just 1v1, its the ability to dish and take damage, which in effect is pretty much the only things units are for.  I don't think random one shots and quirks are really quantifiable in any way, or that big of a difference maker compared to raw unit power.

In reality player troops and to some extent falcon troops are almost god mode, and should be ignored unless you feel like turning on easy mode.  I have stopped using them as it really makes the game too easy.  As far as their equipment, I used top tier gear but can't remember exactly what, just assume if you kit them out with top end stuff they are monsters.

As far as testing, haven't figured out a way to do it really.

 

[Porterhoused]

Seems a reasonable methodology to rate troops, especially for siege effectiveness.  It probably underrates the effectiveness of mounted troops in field battles.  And the situational flexibility of Hired Mercenary and Household troops gives them added value over other troop types as well.

The logistics of doing 100v100 fights for a matrix of troops like this would be daunting, and no guarantee that the results would be more reliable.

I agree that it more than likely underrates cavalry vs similar rated troops in field battles.  Even within types ratings there are some units that will do better/worse vs other types.  Shields/spears etc.

I've come to believe the hired/household shouldn't be in the mod at the power level they have.  It's a pretty freakin cool idea though.  If they brought down the power level of the hireds and could maybe cap the number of household I think it would fit nicely.

 

[Talinoth]

No real need to nerf Household Guards.

If I were to take an army of 600 of them with me it would cost me 6 million aurums. That's an amount of money that would make even me cry. The cost is a great limiter for them - they're incredibly versatile and powerful, but you can't field them in stupid numbers because it would utterly bankrupt you.
And while their stats are high, they're not the best in the game either. 400 in weapon proficiencies is a high ballpark but there are plenty of recruitable troops running around with 500+ proficiencies

Of course, 20-50 with Darkforest Ranger Bows and Highelf Swords is still a crime against humanity and makes even Falcon garrisons think twice about the real merits of their continued existence on the mortal plane, but that's still a 200,000-500,000 aurum investment. That hurts, still not a drop in the bucket by any means. You really have to protect them closely.

Plus they need your powerful spare equipment that you haven't already given to yourself or your companions. Luckily you only need one Darkforest Ranger Bow or armour piece to equip all of them with that item, but sourcing good gear can sometimes be a pain in the ass.

So Household Guards can't really conquer the map by themselves.

-

I've been finding it much better to constantly pick enormous fights with armies of relatively easily trained and disposable Perisno Great Knights and Perisno Ranger Knights. They're quite strong even if they're not ultra elite, and they're cheap to train.

I don't feel bad about picking 600v1500 fights and having horrific casualties like 110 killed, 439 wounded if I can recover from my losses in under a week.

 

[Imperator Draconis]

No real need to nerf Household Guards.

If I were to take an army of 600 of them with me it would cost me 6 million aurums. That's an amount of money that would make even me cry. The cost is a great limiter for them - they're incredibly versatile and powerful, but you can't field them in stupid numbers because it would utterly bankrupt you.
And while their stats are high, they're not the best in the game either. 400 in weapon proficiencies is a high ballpark but there are plenty of recruitable troops running around with 500+ proficiencies

Of course, 20-50 with Darkforest Ranger Bows and Highelf Swords is still a crime against humanity and makes even Falcon garrisons think twice about the real merits of their continued existence on the mortal plane, but that's still a 200,000-500,000 aurum investment. That hurts, still not a drop in the bucket by any means. You really have to protect them closely.

Plus they need your powerful spare equipment that you haven't already given to yourself or your companions. Luckily you only need one Darkforest Ranger Bow or armour piece to equip all of them with that item, but sourcing good gear can sometimes be a pain in the ass.

So Household Guards can't really conquer the map by themselves.

-

I've been finding it much better to constantly pick enormous fights with armies of relatively easily trained and disposable Perisno Great Knights and Perisno Ranger Knights. They're quite strong even if they're not ultra elite, and they're cheap to train.

I don't feel bad about picking 600v1500 fights and having horrific casualties like 110 killed, 439 wounded if I can recover from my losses in under a week.

If you're a real glutton for punishment, try having an army solely consisting of Bakhal Champions. 

 

[Porterhoused]

No real need to nerf Household Guards.

If I were to take an army of 600 of them with me it would cost me 6 million aurums. That's an amount of money that would make even me cry. The cost is a great limiter for them - they're incredibly versatile and powerful, but you can't field them in stupid numbers because it would utterly bankrupt you.
And while their stats are high, they're not the best in the game either. 400 in weapon proficiencies is a high ballpark but there are plenty of recruitable troops running around with 500+ proficiencies

Of course, 20-50 with Darkforest Ranger Bows and Highelf Swords is still a crime against humanity and makes even Falcon garrisons think twice about the real merits of their continued existence on the mortal plane, but that's still a 200,000-500,000 aurum investment. That hurts, still not a drop in the bucket by any means. You really have to protect them closely.

Plus they need your powerful spare equipment that you haven't already given to yourself or your companions. Luckily you only need one Darkforest Ranger Bow or armour piece to equip all of them with that item, but sourcing good gear can sometimes be a pain in the ass.

So Household Guards can't really conquer the map by themselves.

-

I've been finding it much better to constantly pick enormous fights with armies of relatively easily trained and disposable Perisno Great Knights and Perisno Ranger Knights. They're quite strong even if they're not ultra elite, and they're cheap to train.

I don't feel bad about picking 600v1500 fights and having horrific casualties like 110 killed, 439 wounded if I can recover from my losses in under a week.

The upkeep on them isn't that bad so it is just the upfront cost, and lets face it, once you get past the beginning making money is not as much of a problem as running around to collect it all is.  So once you have a castle/town you are highly likely to be filthy rich.  6 million would be insignificant in my current play through, granted I have been taking it pretty slow.

In almost any fight you voluntarily take, if they have blunt weapons you will make more from prisoners than you could possibly lose in value of guards.  It would take damn near 3000 AI troops in field battle to take out 500 households, and I only think they would win because of the swarm factor.  It is pretty fun though to plow head on into 10+ marshaled lords with just a stack of them though.

 

[Lazy Buttons]

Household Guards work as intended. They certainly don't need to be nerfed.

Yes, indeed, you can outfit them in absolutely best armor, and give them best-in-slot weapons.
And of course, wearing Silvered Perisno Runed Noble / Paladin Armor, armor and those fancy Paladin/Perisno helmets, wielding Skyfalls, Holy Maces / Gothic Maces, and Darkforest Bows... Riding Perisno Plated Chargers/Demon Plated Chargers... Yeah, they're going to be absolute monsters in a fight.
Of course, all that top-tier gear takes time and effort to acquire, and shouldn't it feel rewarding, anyway?

I don't see an issue here.
If you give the same gear to any other high-tier noble units, they'll show same, or better results.
It's to be expected. Gear makes the unit just as much as stats and proficiencies. Actually, even more so. Testing shows that a +5 increase in stats, even if combined with +50 in proficiencies, is still usually not enough to close the gap with someone who has a weapon dealing 4 more damage.

But I think that's up to the player. If you want to make the game arguably too easy by fielding 500-600 of them, sure. Go ahead.
The highest I've ever gone was 300, and even that was overkill.
You can also avoid outfitting them with top tier junk, and make them look cool, sharing a specific theme instead. This takes care of their OP-ness as well - they'll still perform well, but won't win battles for you.
Sure, you can give your hired mercs extremely good elven / fountain guard armors really early on in their development, and the infantry line gets access to beastly weapons like the Holy Mace or two-handed morningstars, or highelf swords.. it's up to the player how difficult they want to make their game, you know?

There are still good reasons to pick other units over them: morale bonuses, medicine bonuses, pathfinding bonuses, cost effectiveness...
They're good for what they are. Instant fully trained badass warriors. As for how expensive they are? I dunno.
I almost conquered Perisno in my current playthrough, only Drahara and Bakhal Giants are left.
I still haven't broken the 6 million cash mark, however - probably because I pay over 100k in wages every week.
Keep in mind that not everyone wants to equip all their hired mercs and household guards with blunt weapons. I hate how those Long Gothic Maces look for instance, I prefer morningstars, holy maces, or swords - they just look cooler and more knightly.

 

[Porterhoused]

Household Guards work as intended. They certainly don't need to be nerfed.

Yes, indeed, you can outfit them in absolutely best armor, and give them best-in-slot weapons.
And of course, wearing Silvered Perisno Runed Noble / Paladin Armor, armor and those fancy Paladin/Perisno helmets, wielding Skyfalls, Holy Maces / Gothic Maces, and Darkforest Bows... Riding Perisno Plated Chargers/Demon Plated Chargers... Yeah, they're going to be absolute monsters in a fight.
Of course, all that top-tier gear takes time and effort to acquire, and shouldn't it feel rewarding, anyway?

I don't see an issue here.
If you give the same gear to any other high-tier noble units, they'll show same, or better results.
It's to be expected. Gear makes the unit just as much as stats and proficiencies. Actually, even more so. Testing shows that a +5 increase in stats, even if combined with +50 in proficiencies, is still usually not enough to close the gap with someone who has a weapon dealing 4 more damage.

But I think that's up to the player. If you want to make the game arguably too easy by fielding 500-600 of them, sure. Go ahead.
The highest I've ever gone was 300, and even that was overkill.
You can also avoid outfitting them with top tier junk, and make them look cool, sharing a specific theme instead. This takes care of their OP-ness as well - they'll still perform well, but won't win battles for you.
Sure, you can give your hired mercs extremely good elven / fountain guard armors really early on in their development, and the infantry line gets access to beastly weapons like the Holy Mace or two-handed morningstars, or highelf swords.. it's up to the player how difficult they want to make their game, you know?

There are still good reasons to pick other units over them: morale bonuses, medicine bonuses, pathfinding bonuses, cost effectiveness...
They're good for what they are. Instant fully trained badass warriors. As for how expensive they are? I dunno.
I almost conquered Perisno in my current playthrough, only Drahara and Bakhal Giants are left.
I still haven't broken the 6 million cash mark, however - probably because I pay over 100k in wages every week.
Keep in mind that not everyone wants to equip all their hired mercs and household guards with blunt weapons. I hate how those Long Gothic Maces look for instance, I prefer morningstars, holy maces, or swords - they just look cooler and more knightly.

I think I am more annoyed that to make the end game a little challenging I need to not use one of the coolest features.  Maybe I will kill my inner min maxer, downkit them, and die a little inside when I buy them.

 

[Lazy Buttons]

Challenge is different for every player.

Obviously if you give your troops the best gear, they will steamroll anyone with worse gear.

But the problem you describe isn't just limited to Perisno. It's just a Warband thing in general. The game just doesn't handle 'endgame' very well. Once you reach a certain critical mass of stockpiled elite troops, a certain amount of cash, own a certain number of fiefs and have a certain number of allied vassals, winning and conquering the whole map becomes a certainty, and all that's left is just the 'mop-up' phase. Which can get very tedious, but never exactly too hard.

The only difference is how easy it is to reach that critical point endgame state.

For example, mods like Prophesy of Pendor greatly extend the 'building up your strength' phase, by giving the player various huge time-sinks that take insane amounts of in-game time to complete, like the absurdly long wait times to train and upgrade your custom KHO, stupidly long time to build fief improvements, a deliberately crazy-hard early game, etc, etc.
Pendor also has a way of distracting the player from the 'main' type of Warband gameplay (conquering the map) with numerous unique spawns and events that give Qualis gems, which give incredibly appealing (albeit ultimately minor and unimportant) boosts to the character.
It also greatly limits the ways to generate insane amounts of income and/or get lots of troops quickly: ransom brokers are always traveling between cities, troops with blunt weapons are either rare and hard to obtain, or too low level to be effective, enterprises have much smaller weekly payouts, there's no land-buying system (which is more lucrative than even prisoner trade), no ways to easily acquire hundreds of troops on a moment's notice (freelancer guild, mercenary guild, slave brokers, household guards)

But eventually you end up in the same spot - you have your personal army of custom / elite / household troops that can take on any challenge, and conquering the whole map becomes an assured outcome. The only difference is how long it takes you to get to that point.

 

[Leonion]

I've come to believe the hired/household shouldn't be in the mod at the power level they have.  It's a pretty freakin cool idea though.  If they brought down the power level of the hireds and could maybe cap the number of household I think it would fit nicely.

Only you can make custom troops OP.
Only you decide what to equip them with.

The main purpose of Ingvar's mercs system is working as a comfortable in-game tool for creating your own faction (as opposite to much less comfortable Morghs' Editor).
Whether to make this faction OP and unimmersive, whether to just give your soldiers the best gear and make them look like parrots because this gear doesn't match, or whether to turn them into a cool themed faction like some people did in this thread is up to you only.

 

[Tuidjy]

You could just stick to 50x50 battles. That's good enough. 100x100 doesn't really change anything in terms of troop effectiveness.

As for how to achieve it.. I have no idea.
Without access to module system, I don't know if it's possible to spawn parties of troops you need for testing.
Cheat menu only has a few pre-set parties available for spawning.

I can help you there.  I recently arranged a few 100 vs 100 matchups to test the effectiveness of some weapons... although I still ponder the wisdom of actually posting the data.

Just edit the save game file, right when you are close to a hostile party with a single troop type.  Make their numbers 100, set the troop type to whatever you want to test, then set the troop type of one of your troops to the other one.  Make sure you put them in a separate group, then use battlefield command to arrange a fair fight.  A bit harder to do with enemy cavalry, and sometimes even infantry insists on tracking other troops that the ones I want... I ended up finding a nice hilly, snowy field in Drakken land for best results.