Rall-Pal's SP Balancing[Video]

[Tahu]

I get that they were the epitome of warfare at their time, but they were utterly destroyed if they charged into pikemen. This game doesn't register their weakness at all.

 

[bakters]

Where were they "utterly destroyed"?  At which battle?

Heavy cavalry had no "red spot" which you could hit for massive damage.  No glaring weaknesses.  It was used effectively till Napoleonic era.

 

[Redleg]

Where were they "utterly destroyed"?  At which battle?

Heavy cavalry had no "red spot" which you could hit for massive damage.  No glaring weaknesses.  It was used effectively till Napoleonic era.

Crecy, Agincourt, Bannockburn to name a few.

 

[bakters]

At Agincourt they attacked on foot.  At Crecy, they were not even lead, they attacked their own units first, just terrible.  Then they attacked Men At Arms, dismounted cavalry in a fortified position.

And they went through!  The charge succeeded.  Despite everything.

I don't know what happened at Banockburn.  I could give you that one, but mostly because I didn't read on it much, I suspect.

Edit: I read a bit on Banockburn.  No, I don't give you this one.  One more example of poorly lead army with superior units and numbers losing against well led, well motivated enemy.  In Warband I can win with infantry/archers against big Khergit army too, but give me Khergits and I can wipe out five times my numbers easily.

I think that your examples were a bit unfortunate.  Yes, people often see them as a triumph of superior armament, but actually they were the triumph of superior leadership who could make effective use of cheap and available resources and miraculously win.

Better examples are Hussite wars or Swiss pikemen, who really could give knights a run for their money.  But here they won with either morale (Hussites) or training.  Equally well motivated and trained cavalry could deal with pikemen in the open field with relative ease, and for wagon trains of Hussites there was artillery.  But those were actually a hard nut to crack.  Very effective, yet somehow limited in their use to defense only.

And here comes the problem.  It's extremely hard to "utterly destroy" cavalry.  Extremely.  If they lose, they just run away and disperse.  Crushing defeats just do not happen for cavalry armies.  Infantry, on the other hand...  Yes, they can all die within half an hour.

 

[Redleg]

At Agincourt they attacked on foot.  At Crecy, they were not even lead, they attacked their own units first, just terrible.  Then they attacked Men At Arms, dismounted cavalry in a fortified position.

And they went through!  The charge succeeded.  Despite everything.

I don't know what happened at Banockburn.  I could give you that one, but mostly because I didn't read on it much, I suspect.

Edit: I read a bit on Banockburn.  No, I don't give you this one.  One more example of poorly lead army with superior units and numbers losing against well led, well motivated enemy.  In Warband I can win with infantry/archers against big Khergit army too, but give me Khergits and I can wipe out five times my numbers easily.

I think that your examples were a bit unfortunate.  Yes, people often see them as a triumph of superior armament, but actually they were the triumph of superior leadership who could make effective use of cheap and available resources and miraculously win.

Better examples are Hussite wars or Swiss pikemen, who really could give knights a run for their money.  But here they won with either morale (Hussites) or training.  Equally well motivated and trained cavalry could deal with pikemen in the open field with relative ease, and for wagon trains of Hussites there was artillery.  But those were actually a hard nut to crack.  Very effective, yet somehow limited in their use to defense only.

And here comes the problem.  It's extremely hard to "utterly destroy" cavalry.  Extremely.  If they lose, they just run away and disperse.  Crushing defeats just do not happen for cavalry armies.  Infantry, on the other hand...  Yes, they can all die within half an hour.

My reading of Agincourt is that the French attacked with heavy cavalry to start the melee portion.  Their attack failed to break the English line.  Many knights and horses were lost in the attack.  The only notable French cavalry success of the day was to attack the English wagon trains and slaughter some of the guards.  Note that the French had a large numerical advantage over the English.

At Crecy, the Genoese crossbowmen initiated the exchange of missiles, but were ineffective, and when they were driven back by the English and Welsh longbows, were attacked by the enraged French.  The French cavalry proceeded to a frontal attack of the English position and were savaged by the longbows and the waiting un-mounted men-at-arms.  Again, there was significant loss of knights and horses.  Note again that the French had a large numerical advantage over the English.

It is true that as long as the horse and man survive, they can leave the battle without being "crushed" but when their charge leads to mass casualties in horse and men, the cavalry is no longer a combat multiplier in the battle.  At Poitiers, which followed Crecy, the French decided to dis-mount most of its cavalry to attack on foot.  They lost again.

 

[bakters]

Significant loss does not mean utter destruction.  Numerical advantage was the reason they proceeded with the attack at all.  Otherwise they wouldn't, because English held strong, easily defended positions.

I did it in Warband too.  I dismounted everybody and we camped at the mountain peak, while the AI kept sending people at us.  Should we conclude that cavalry in WB is weak against infantry?  Or maybe that superior leadership is OP?

Edit: One final comment, because we are already hijacking this thread.  Rallix is an amateur historian, so he might give us a bit more leeway than usual, but we should not abuse it.  Anyway, the thing I want to say is that we should not concentrate on the actual result of a battle, and more on how armies approached each other.  For example, if English army is running the whole time, and they take the battle only when having no other option that means that they considered the French army to be stronger.  Then we might look at how much pay various units earned.  If for one Man At Arms you could hire several longbowmen, even mounted, that must reflect actual combat effectiveness of those units, at least roughly.  Similarly, crossbowmen were paid more than longbowmen, almost as much as light cavalry.  Regardless of the actual outcome at Crecy, we must assume that crossbomen were usually more valuable unit.

 

[Redleg]

Significant loss does not mean utter destruction.  Numerical advantage was the reason they proceeded with the attack at all.  Otherwise they wouldn't, because English held strong, easily defended positions.

I did it in Warband too.  I dismounted everybody and we camped at the mountain peak, while the AI kept sending people at us.  Should we conclude that cavalry in WB is weak against infantry?  Or maybe that superior leadership is OP?

Edit: One final comment, because we are already hijacking this thread.  Rallix is an amateur historian, so he might give us a bit more leeway than usual, but we should not abuse it.  Anyway, the thing I want to say is that we should not concentrate on the actual result of a battle, and more on how armies approached each other.  For example, if English army is running the whole time, and they take the battle only when having no other option that means that they considered the French army to be stronger.  Then we might look at how much pay various units earned.  If for one Man At Arms you could hire several longbowmen, even mounted, that must reflect actual combat effectiveness of those units, at least roughly.  Similarly, crossbowmen were paid more than longbowmen, almost as much as light cavalry.  Regardless of the actual outcome at Crecy, we must assume that crossbomen were usually more valuable unit.

Agreed that we don't hijack thread. 
I appreciate Rallix's attempts to improve the troops trees and provide some balance.  It's a difficult thing to do while maintaining cultural distinctions among the faction troops.

 

[RalliX]

A main problem with the status quo is that despite the changes I might make to the troops, the command AI of the bots doesn't change, and I would have to learn actual coding to do something about that.
I could try to cannibalize attempts by other modders, but I think I'll leave that to the players individually.

A big thing about this modification is modularity. I want people to be able to take their native, and then modify it as they please with my contribution being one part of that.

Right now I'm converting the modification to the module system, so it will have a source that can be more readily mixed with other mods. Once I've finished that I'll be able to do cool stuff like change the troops used in the custom battles, change equipment set ups of MP troops, allowing me to separate between MP weapons and SP weapons.

Stats are slightly different, I didn't straight up copy the numbers, so there will be some differences. I'll try to keep it as consistent as I can while improving over last build. Helmets have their stats simplified into distinct tiers of 5 points, for example. Makes it easier to balance prices and compare items quickly(and easier for me to assign numbers fast).

As for the historical discussion as it relates to how I balance the troops, I am not necessarily going to make things work exactly as maybe I think would be most realistic. My objective here is to give the player the option to play with whichever troops he chooses and have them excel in the way he would expect them to, and also have them fail when misused.

I think pikemen for example were used because they were in fact deadly enough to halt cavalry and keep a firing line secure.
But their proper use depends on their positioning. If you have them in anything but the thick formation, they will be vulnerable to a mass charge of cavalry of comparable numbers. If you've got them defending in rough terrain for cavalry or steep inclines, all the better.

But an elite cavalry force charging poorly formed and positioned pikemen should succeed easily.
Essentially I want things to favour the best commander. I don't want one unit to beat another like rock paper scissors.
Using only Swadian cav in all situations is a viable option in native. I intend to change that.

 

[Redleg]

Just checking to see if you have made any more refinements to this.

 

[RalliX]

Just checking to see if you have made any more refinements to this.

Not really a question of refining it. While I am refining(it just happens as a product of working on it, I see some numbers I feel are not as good as they could be, and I change them), the main thing I am doing is rebuilding in the module system.
This will give me more ability to make important and necessary changes both in MP and SP.

Overall, I'm just over 50% finished atm. I finished the items a few days ago, and I'm currently working on the SP troops. Swads, Vaegirs, and Khergits are largely done, only with finishing and testing to be done on them after I finish the other factions.

 

[Redleg]

I have troop modding question for you.  I have been modding the module_troops for some time now and haven't had problems with modding the existing troops stats or equipment.  Where I run into problems is sometimes when creating a new troop, for example, a Swadian spearthrower level 19 with powerthrow 3 and throwing 130 but when I look at the new troop in the game, he has a powerthrow of 0 and throwing of 100.  I know the game randomizes certain attributes that aren't pre-specified but I assumed anything specified in the module_troops would show up in the game itself.  Do you have any insight into this?

 

[RalliX]

I have troop modding question for you.  I have been modding the module_troops for some time now and haven't had problems with modding the existing troops stats or equipment.  Where I run into problems is sometimes when creating a new troop, for example, a Swadian spearthrower level 19 with powerthrow 3 and throwing 130 but when I look at the new troop in the game, he has a powerthrow of 0 and throwing of 100.  I know the game randomizes certain attributes that aren't pre-specified but I assumed anything specified in the module_troops would show up in the game itself.  Do you have any insight into this?

Well you're modifying module_troops, which means you are using the modsys to modify your troops.
I honestly don't know what the problem would be. Either you're putting things in wrong, or the game does something I don't know about. Go through the flags and numbers again to be sure.

 

[Antonis]

@Redleg: Hi, did you check if the troops are categorized as infantry or ranged(in the module file)? Also, if the previous troop was ranged and/or has similar skills(e.g. Powerthrow 1 or 2, Throwing from 50-100). Probably, as Rallix said, must be a flag missed or wrong.

@Rallix: Love the changes and the idea. Realism is always good, diversity too. Also, if I can make these suggestions:
I may haven't understand well(sorry if that's the case), but you could add new models to the items, apart from rebalancing the stats. There are some awesome and very realistic, not at all fantasy OSP stuff around. Also, a bit of new music. Al Mansur has posted a while ago a list of real medieval song and when on Native, they enhance the immersion by a great deal.

Finally, if you want any help with the module system, some retextures of items, some 2d art, presentation or anything, I could help. It's always good when someone mods the Native, gives me ideas for my personal Native, as well. 

 

[Redleg]

Antonis,
I later tried again and didn't have any problems.  Must have just been something strange with my module_troops.

 

[Antonis]

Eh, probably. Glad you solved it, though.