I've posted much of this across a variety of different threads, and since people were asking what specifically I did I thought I'd post the files here, along with what I saw as the major problems with the rework and how I fixed them. To say that retinues needed something fixed is obvious. Under pre 2.2 rules, once you got to small empire size (say, Britannia) you could crush *everything* in sight with 15k Skirmishers. They drastically reduced the levies (by half to 2/3rds) but left retinues alone, which left them completely overpowered. So while I agree that they needed to do something, I felt that the change went to far. So here are my issues, and the changes I made:
1) Retinues too expensive / slow to reinforce compared to normal troops
Even beyond the initial cost, retinues post 2.2 are ungodly expensive when reinforcing, and take far longer than your personal levies to reinforce. As a result, I found I was leaving my retinues in my capital and fighting my wars solely with personal and vassal levies, the opposite of how I would expect them to be used. I am ok with them being expensive to purchase (to provide balance), but something that is too expensive to use is pointless.
The Fix:
In the defines file, reinforcement costs were halved (down to 1.5 from 3) and reinforcement speed was quadrupled (reinforcement rate 0.1 instead of 0.025).
2) Retinues weaker than levy troops
One of the more questionable aspects is that retinue units got a huge nerf. Whereas previously Skirmish Archers got a 60% offense bonus, post 2.2 they only received a 20% offense, 10% defense bonus (same with English Longbows). That means that if you're English or Welsh, by the time that you have a second cultural building built in your demense, those troops from that barony would actually be more powerful than your retinue. And you get gobs of them with a simple Militia Training Ground or Archery Range.
The Fix:
In the Retinue Subunits file, retinues regained the bonuses that they had previously (for the most part). So Skirmishers get +60% Offense to the Archers, Knights get +60% Offense bonus to Heavy Cavalry, etc. It brings back the idea of your forces being elite units as opposed to just generic troops. Note: Not all units went back to the original. If they looked as good or better in 2.2, I left them as-is.
3) No reason to use Cultural Retinues
For myself, pre 2.2 I always just played with Skirmishers under the standard levy system. As noted above, 15k could crush everything in sight when used correctly, and so there was no reason to play with Housecarls as Norse, or Knights as France.
The Fix:
All cultural retinues got a +20% morale bonus. If these are your elite troops, at the *very* least they should be harder to kill. This is in addition to any bonuses that they had previously (so Scottish Pike get a total of +40% to morale). This also adds to the fact that even though retinues aren't large in numbers, they should be more powerful than your normal levies. And yes, occasionally my 1000 person Old Frankish Heavy Infantry retinue saved my ass as Charlemagne by being nigh unkillable.
4) Light troops are OP compared to heavy troops
Even before 2.2 Skirmish troops were the most powerful retinue, and the update made them even *more* powerful. It counts (for retinue points) Archers as being worth 1 retinue point, Light Infantry as 0.7 points, Heavy Infantry as 3 points, Camels as 3 points, Horse Archers as 4 points, and Knights as 6 points. What's more is that Light Infantry got a HUGE buff, from 1/3 (attack/defense in Skirmish) to 2/3 (so it doubled their attack value in Skirmish). Same with Light Cavalry (1.5 attack in Skirmish to 2.5 attack in Skirmish, although this might have been buffed earlier?). It means that there's practically zero reason to choose anything but light troops for your retinue.
The Fix:
This was a bit trickier, since the "cost" in retinue points is derived solely from the maintenance costs of the unit. So an Archer costs 1, whereas a Heavy Infantry costs 3. As a result, HI is 3x as expensive in retinue points, leaving retinues with them to be expensive comparatively. So maintenance costs were adjusted based on how valued I think of the units. I see a HI unit as being twice as valuable as an Archer, so the values were adjusted accordingly.
Light Infantry: 1 (increased from 0.7)
Archers: 1.2 (increased from 1)
Pikemen: 2 (what it is now)
Heavy Infantry: 2.2 (reduced from 3)
Light Cavalry: 3 (what they are now. they got a huge buff in 2.2, from 1.5 attack to 2.5 in Skirmish phase!)
Knights: 6 (what it is now. Should this be reduced? They're pretty powerful but have limited experience with them)
Horse Archers: 3.5 (reduced from 4. I'm guessing slightly stronger than the buffed Light Cavalry?)
War Elephants: 20 (same? NO clue on these guys)
Camels: 3 (what it is now)
I'm tempted to reduce knights to 5.5, but I only played briefly as Charlemagne yesterday so I don't have a ton of experience with them. This changes the stock retinues cost to:
Shock - 200 HI / 50 Archers, 500 points (down from 650 points)
Skirmish - 200 Archers / 50 HI, 350 points (exact same)
Light Skirmish - 400 LI / 150 Archers, 580 (up from 430)
Defense - 250 Pikemen, 50 Archers, 560 (up from 510)
Cavalry - 50 HC / 200 LC, 900 (same)
And any cultural retinues would obviously follow the same formula. It's not meant to make retinues specifically cheaper, but to balance out the fact that light troops were overpowered compared to heavy troops. In the example above, remember that Light Cavalry were buffed, which explains why they're still quite a bit more expensive than the rest.
5) Retinues shouldn't scale with title level
I'm including this even though I don't have an answer to it. I don't think that a Kingdom should be penalized compared to the large Empires on the map. When the Abbasids already outnumber me 42k to 9,500, they don't need an additional crutch of being able to get more retinue points per holding than I do. I'd like to get it back to the original 6 points per holding, but I have no idea on how the math works. Changing the bonus to zero left me with zero points, and changing it to 1 left me with 13,000 points. So any help in this area would be appreciated.
Conclusion
Basically what I tried to do is balance it by removing the painful aspects like slow reinforcement and ungodly high replenishing costs. They're still stupidly expensive to purchase, and their numbers are going to limit them to roughly 10-20% of your overall troop limit in the early to mid game for a modest-size kingdom. When you're blobbing as an empire and have 1000+ holdings they're going to be a far higher percent of your total army, but by that point you've won the game anyway.
For strength I tried to make up for the lack of numbers with them being special, more powerful, and especially hardy troops. They might only be 10% of your army by numbers, but they make up for it by being as tough as 20-30%.
And for me, retinues are fun again. I still want to get up to 6 points per holding across the board, but overall it feels a *lot* better. My kingdom of Aghanistan has 105 holdings, MO 3, 1500 Shock retinues and 9500 total levies. It means that retinues are roughly 15% of my total force, but they're ones that I want to ensure are in *every* battle that I fight.
Here are my defines.lua file, and retinue subunits file. They're both in the Steamapps > Common > Crusader Kings II > Common folder (retinue subunits is an additional folder). Remember to back up your current one before copying over, and it'll probably go away with any patch update.
Defines File
Retinue Subunits File
Let me know what you guys think!
edit 26/10/2014: Updated for 2.2.0.2, with the following changes made:
Pikemen/Heavy Infantry brought back up to 5 in Skirmish Defense (from 3). There was no reason for them to get nerfed in the first place, as they're some of the least-used retinues in the game. Yes, this affects all units, but it doesn't seem to play much differently.
Heavy Cavalry reduced to 4.5 maintenance (retinue points cost). 6 just seemed far too high for me, but this is one of the areas that I'm looking for comments?
Iberian cultural retinues reduced in number from 400 to 250. At 400 LC units per retinue, the cost was 1200, one of the highest in the game. Fewer units per retinue means greater flexibility, and brings them more in line with units like the Norse HI (200 units, total only 480 retinue points). Still expensive, but not 1200 retinue points expensive.
edit 29/10/2014: Both files updated for 2.2.0.3, no other changes made.
edit 31/10/2014: Defines file updated for 2.2.0.4
1) Retinues too expensive / slow to reinforce compared to normal troops
Even beyond the initial cost, retinues post 2.2 are ungodly expensive when reinforcing, and take far longer than your personal levies to reinforce. As a result, I found I was leaving my retinues in my capital and fighting my wars solely with personal and vassal levies, the opposite of how I would expect them to be used. I am ok with them being expensive to purchase (to provide balance), but something that is too expensive to use is pointless.
The Fix:
In the defines file, reinforcement costs were halved (down to 1.5 from 3) and reinforcement speed was quadrupled (reinforcement rate 0.1 instead of 0.025).
2) Retinues weaker than levy troops
One of the more questionable aspects is that retinue units got a huge nerf. Whereas previously Skirmish Archers got a 60% offense bonus, post 2.2 they only received a 20% offense, 10% defense bonus (same with English Longbows). That means that if you're English or Welsh, by the time that you have a second cultural building built in your demense, those troops from that barony would actually be more powerful than your retinue. And you get gobs of them with a simple Militia Training Ground or Archery Range.
The Fix:
In the Retinue Subunits file, retinues regained the bonuses that they had previously (for the most part). So Skirmishers get +60% Offense to the Archers, Knights get +60% Offense bonus to Heavy Cavalry, etc. It brings back the idea of your forces being elite units as opposed to just generic troops. Note: Not all units went back to the original. If they looked as good or better in 2.2, I left them as-is.
3) No reason to use Cultural Retinues
For myself, pre 2.2 I always just played with Skirmishers under the standard levy system. As noted above, 15k could crush everything in sight when used correctly, and so there was no reason to play with Housecarls as Norse, or Knights as France.
The Fix:
All cultural retinues got a +20% morale bonus. If these are your elite troops, at the *very* least they should be harder to kill. This is in addition to any bonuses that they had previously (so Scottish Pike get a total of +40% to morale). This also adds to the fact that even though retinues aren't large in numbers, they should be more powerful than your normal levies. And yes, occasionally my 1000 person Old Frankish Heavy Infantry retinue saved my ass as Charlemagne by being nigh unkillable.
4) Light troops are OP compared to heavy troops
Even before 2.2 Skirmish troops were the most powerful retinue, and the update made them even *more* powerful. It counts (for retinue points) Archers as being worth 1 retinue point, Light Infantry as 0.7 points, Heavy Infantry as 3 points, Camels as 3 points, Horse Archers as 4 points, and Knights as 6 points. What's more is that Light Infantry got a HUGE buff, from 1/3 (attack/defense in Skirmish) to 2/3 (so it doubled their attack value in Skirmish). Same with Light Cavalry (1.5 attack in Skirmish to 2.5 attack in Skirmish, although this might have been buffed earlier?). It means that there's practically zero reason to choose anything but light troops for your retinue.
The Fix:
This was a bit trickier, since the "cost" in retinue points is derived solely from the maintenance costs of the unit. So an Archer costs 1, whereas a Heavy Infantry costs 3. As a result, HI is 3x as expensive in retinue points, leaving retinues with them to be expensive comparatively. So maintenance costs were adjusted based on how valued I think of the units. I see a HI unit as being twice as valuable as an Archer, so the values were adjusted accordingly.
Light Infantry: 1 (increased from 0.7)
Archers: 1.2 (increased from 1)
Pikemen: 2 (what it is now)
Heavy Infantry: 2.2 (reduced from 3)
Light Cavalry: 3 (what they are now. they got a huge buff in 2.2, from 1.5 attack to 2.5 in Skirmish phase!)
Knights: 6 (what it is now. Should this be reduced? They're pretty powerful but have limited experience with them)
Horse Archers: 3.5 (reduced from 4. I'm guessing slightly stronger than the buffed Light Cavalry?)
War Elephants: 20 (same? NO clue on these guys)
Camels: 3 (what it is now)
I'm tempted to reduce knights to 5.5, but I only played briefly as Charlemagne yesterday so I don't have a ton of experience with them. This changes the stock retinues cost to:
Shock - 200 HI / 50 Archers, 500 points (down from 650 points)
Skirmish - 200 Archers / 50 HI, 350 points (exact same)
Light Skirmish - 400 LI / 150 Archers, 580 (up from 430)
Defense - 250 Pikemen, 50 Archers, 560 (up from 510)
Cavalry - 50 HC / 200 LC, 900 (same)
And any cultural retinues would obviously follow the same formula. It's not meant to make retinues specifically cheaper, but to balance out the fact that light troops were overpowered compared to heavy troops. In the example above, remember that Light Cavalry were buffed, which explains why they're still quite a bit more expensive than the rest.
5) Retinues shouldn't scale with title level
I'm including this even though I don't have an answer to it. I don't think that a Kingdom should be penalized compared to the large Empires on the map. When the Abbasids already outnumber me 42k to 9,500, they don't need an additional crutch of being able to get more retinue points per holding than I do. I'd like to get it back to the original 6 points per holding, but I have no idea on how the math works. Changing the bonus to zero left me with zero points, and changing it to 1 left me with 13,000 points. So any help in this area would be appreciated.
Conclusion
Basically what I tried to do is balance it by removing the painful aspects like slow reinforcement and ungodly high replenishing costs. They're still stupidly expensive to purchase, and their numbers are going to limit them to roughly 10-20% of your overall troop limit in the early to mid game for a modest-size kingdom. When you're blobbing as an empire and have 1000+ holdings they're going to be a far higher percent of your total army, but by that point you've won the game anyway.
For strength I tried to make up for the lack of numbers with them being special, more powerful, and especially hardy troops. They might only be 10% of your army by numbers, but they make up for it by being as tough as 20-30%.
And for me, retinues are fun again. I still want to get up to 6 points per holding across the board, but overall it feels a *lot* better. My kingdom of Aghanistan has 105 holdings, MO 3, 1500 Shock retinues and 9500 total levies. It means that retinues are roughly 15% of my total force, but they're ones that I want to ensure are in *every* battle that I fight.
Here are my defines.lua file, and retinue subunits file. They're both in the Steamapps > Common > Crusader Kings II > Common folder (retinue subunits is an additional folder). Remember to back up your current one before copying over, and it'll probably go away with any patch update.
Defines File
Retinue Subunits File
Let me know what you guys think!
edit 26/10/2014: Updated for 2.2.0.2, with the following changes made:
Pikemen/Heavy Infantry brought back up to 5 in Skirmish Defense (from 3). There was no reason for them to get nerfed in the first place, as they're some of the least-used retinues in the game. Yes, this affects all units, but it doesn't seem to play much differently.
Heavy Cavalry reduced to 4.5 maintenance (retinue points cost). 6 just seemed far too high for me, but this is one of the areas that I'm looking for comments?
Iberian cultural retinues reduced in number from 400 to 250. At 400 LC units per retinue, the cost was 1200, one of the highest in the game. Fewer units per retinue means greater flexibility, and brings them more in line with units like the Norse HI (200 units, total only 480 retinue points). Still expensive, but not 1200 retinue points expensive.
edit 29/10/2014: Both files updated for 2.2.0.3, no other changes made.
edit 31/10/2014: Defines file updated for 2.2.0.4
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