I challenge the unit balance in this game

[DeaTh-ShiNoBi]

When I first took a look at the unit stats in this game, I felt uneasy. It didn't look very balanced to me, but I was fairly new at the game, so I couldn't have been sure how much the units were supposed to be worth. After all, it's not like each unit has its own cost. It's just not how the game works. Nonetheless, all versions of cavalry looked very overpowered, and heavy infantry looked a bit underpowered. Those were my first impressions.

To those who don't know, the unit stats can be found in defines.lua, but I'll post them anyway:

SK = Skirmish phase
ML = Melee phase
PR = Pursue phase

Light Infantry
Morale: 3
SK Attack: 1
SK Defense: 3
ML Attack: 3
ML Defense: 3
PR Attack: 3
PR Defense: 3

Archers
Morale: 1 (comment: probably should be 2)
SK Attack: 5
SK Defense: 3
ML Attack: 1
ML Defense: 2
PR Attack: 2
PR Defense: 3

Heavy Infantry
Morale: 5 (comment: probably should be higher)
SK Attack: .25
SK Defense: 5 (comment: way too low imo)
ML Attack: 6
ML Defense: 4
PR Attack: 2
PR Defense: 2

Pikemen
Morale: 6
SK Attack: .1
SK Defense: 5
ML Attack: 5
ML Defense: 8
PR Attack: .2
PR Defense: 2

Light Cavalry
Morale: 4 (comment: too high; they're light cavalry)
SK Attack: 1
SK Defense: 5 (comment: this one made my eyes pop out. How would lightly armored cavalry [read: big target] defend against arrows as well as heavy infantry?)
ML Attack: 3
ML Defense: 3
PR Attack: 10
PR Defense: 8

Horse Archers
Morale: 5 (comment: way too high. Horse archers were never incredibly disciplined troops. It actually used to be 7, I believe, which is pretty funny)
SK Attack: 4
SK Defense: 4 (comment: should be lower)
ML Attack: 3
ML Defense: 4 (comment: should be no higher than light cavalry; horse archers are light cavalry with bows)
PR Attack: 7 (comment: I don't see why it's lower than light cavalry)
PR Defense: 7 (comment: same as above)

Heavy Cavalry
Morale: 10
SK Attack: .5
SK Defense: 8 (comment: should be lower than heavy infantry)
ML Attack: 10
ML Defense: 8
PR Attack: 8 (comment: it should be much lower than light cavalry and horse archers)
PR Defense: 5



To satisfy my curiosity and need for exploration, I created a simple program to compare the values of the units, using the following formula:

Unit Value = Morale * (SK Value * (SK Attack + SK Defense) + ML Value * (ML Attack + ML Defense) + .4 * PR Value * (PR Attack + PR Defense)

I credit Sunspear from this thread for the formula:
I slightly improved the formula, but it's pretty similar. As for the "phase values" (SK Value, etc.), those are approximations of the average length of the phases, except the pursue phase which is always .25. Unfortunately, I don't have anything better than an approximation for the skirmish phase and melee phase, and nobody on these forums seemed to have any information either. I used Sunspear's approximation as well, 5 days of skirmish for 1 day of melee. It should at least be close enough for our purposes, but the formula SHOULD be taken with a grain of salt, for this reason. At any rate, SK Value = .8 and ML Value = .2. Oh yes, and I almost forgot. I multliplied the pursue phase by .4 (40%) because I felt that the pursue phase is less important than the other two phases. After all, the other two phases decide whether you get on the good end or the bad end of the pursue phase. Now for the unit values (ratio is simply unit value divided by the value of light infantry, for a better comparison):

Edit: I made a mistake initially. I said I was going to do 5:1 Skirmish:Melee ratio, but I accidentally made the values .8 and .2 (which is 4:1). I corrected it, but rather than delete the 4:1 values, I left them there for comparison. They're labeled correctly.

Light Infantry
4:1 (Skirmish:Melee)
Unit Value: 15.9
Ratio: 1
5:1
Unit Value: 18.3
Ratio: 1

Archers
4:1
Unit Value: 7.2
Ratio: .477984
5:1
Unit Value: 9.2
Ratio: .50273224

Heavy Infantry
4:1
Unit Value: 33.0
Ratio: 2.07547
5:1
Unit Value: 38.25
Ratio: 2.090139344

Pikemen
4:1
Unit Value: 40.32
Ratio: 2.535849
5:1
Unit Value: 46.44
Ratio: 2.5377

Light Cavalry
4:1
Unit Value: 56.0
Ratio: 3.522
5:1
Unit Value: 60.8
Ratio 3.224

Horse Archers
4:1
Unit Value: 63.5
Ratio: 3.99371
5:1
Unit Value: 71.5
Ratio: 3.9071

Heavy Cavalry
4:1
Unit Value: 144.0
Ratio: 9.0566
5:1
Unit Value: 161.0
Ratio: 8.7978142

Archers get a low value due to their low morale. I was considering adjusting the formula to have morale make slightly less impact, but then I'd be getting into a guessing game, so I decided not to. Feel free to take my formula and adjust the numbers how you please, but nothing else looks surprising to me. I believe that Pikemen and Heavy Infantry were intended to be roughly equal, but we can see that Pikemen clearly overpower Heavy Infantry. Light Cavalry, I'm sure, are far more powerful than intended. I doubt that they were intended to be better in combat than Heavy Infantry, much less 70% better. Horse Archers are probably more powerful than intended, and Heavy Cavalry are definitely more powerful than intended, as I doubt that they were supposed to be 4 and a half times as strong as Heavy Infantry. Give these findings a thought.

 

[Vasious]

Not to fault you formulae
You feel light Cavalry is too powerful compared to Heavy Infantry.

But consider the roles
In the Skimish phase they do little damage to each other
Once melee is Joined the Heavy Infantry's attack is twice the defence of the Light Cavalry.
Given that it will be the light Cavalry that breaks and doesnt get to use its PR attack on the heavy infantry.

Personally in the Imagined non Numbered realm, I alway picture those that afford horses affording good armour too hence the High SK Defence of the Cavalry

 

[DeaTh-ShiNoBi]

Historically, light cavalry did exist. Many people fought on top of a horse with little armor. The point of it being "light" cavalry, is that they have light armor, and the horse can move much faster than heavy cavalry. If they wore armor that matched heavy infantry, they would no longer be classified as light cavalry.

Not to fault you formulae
You feel light Cavalry is too powerful compared to Heavy Infantry.

But consider the roles
In the Skimish phase they do little damage to each other
Once melee is Joined the Heavy Infantry's attack is twice the defence of the Light Cavalry.
Given that it will be the light Cavalry that breaks and doesnt get to use its PR attack on the heavy infantry.

These values are meant to compare the impact of the units on the battlefield, not exactly who would win in a 1v1. If you matched up 1 Heavy Cavalry against 4 Heavy Infantry, I doubt the cavalry would win, but its value in a battle is still roughly (more than) 4 times higher.

I have no doubt that a Heavy Infantry would indeed beat a Light Cavalry in a 1v1 because in a 1v1, the only phase that would matter is the melee phase, where Heavy Infantry have a clear advantage. It just doesn't matter much.

 

[Casiru]

Your completely ignoring tactics and cultural bonus's. Shieldwall and the Mongol's 'retreat and ambush' tactics are both very strong. Crouched lance charge tactic singlehandedly makes the frank/german culture retinue ridiculously overpowered. With a decent leader the moment the phase goes melee they will swap to that tactic and do 4.2x damage causing them to annihilate most armies.

I don't really think unit balance is that important in this game or they wouldn't have given a bonus to cultural retinues that basically makes every other retinue worthless. The game is more about the characters, the armies are just flavor so some count cant go conquer Scotland or something equally silly. I do think archers have too many disadvantages though, charge on undefended flank means you have to pad every English army with other units and then they tend to fall to pieces on their own anyway because of the low morale.

Just for fun I turned the mongol cultural into a skirmish-melee phase changer and attached it to a culture with HC retinues. Just that simple reversal caused a small kingdom to beat the Fatmids on their own with less than 1/5 of the forces.

 

[wdremington]

I think the Light cavalry are intended to represent early medieval cavalry such as jinetes, hobelars and even the turcopoles of the Crusades.

The cavalry were more lightly armored than knights and mounted sergeants--but more specifically their horses were not armored at all whereas (as period progressed) heavy cavalry saw horses clad in mail and later in plate. Jinetes and hobelars tended to wear helmets and mail hauberks so while "light" cavalry they were still wearing pretty good armor compared to almost all infantry until late in the period.

Perhaps the high defense value for light cavalry against skirmish reflects not just their armor and shield but also their mobility? Medieval archers fired in volleys and were best against lightly armored fixed or slow-moving formations.

That being said, combat is so abstracted in CK that I don't really get too bothered about 'imbalance'. If you are winning the real game (the game of thrones) and building a strong realm then you'll have good generals and more allies and more troops than your opponents and will tend to win most of your battles.

This is a great game, but I don't think it is--or is intended to be--a great military simulation.

 

[Minodrin]

Meh, with your values heavy cavalry is still underpowered. I mean, they are knights. They are heavily armored, they have trained all their lives for combat, and they are expensive.

 

[nyah]

Nonetheless, all versions of cavalry looked very overpowered, and heavy infantry looked a bit underpowered.

There was a thread a while back demonstrating why not to use light cavalry at all, and how using any LC at all could turn a winning battle into a losing one. I'll have a look.

edit... here's the thread

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...-make-you-lose-fights&highlight=light+cavalry

 

[Heyomif]

If you are going to make the heavy cavalry even stronger then you will make the disadvantage of cultures who can not have them as retinues or cultural buildings even stronger. It's already too unbalanced. Besides, they seem fine to me. Sometimes a seemingly large amount die, but if you have a poor leader who charges into stakes or is unable to catch up to light skirmishers that could happen. If you have a good leader however, they will be worth a 100 ordinary soldiers.

 

[DeaTh-ShiNoBi]

Your completely ignoring tactics and cultural bonus's. Shieldwall and the Mongol's 'retreat and ambush' tactics are both very strong. Crouched lance charge tactic singlehandedly makes the frank/german culture retinue ridiculously overpowered. With a decent leader the moment the phase goes melee they will swap to that tactic and do 4.2x damage causing them to annihilate most armies.

You're correct. I am completely ignoring tactics and cultural bonuses. I don't have to consider them. They're very random, and there is bonuses for every unit. There's also technology and availability to consider, but I didn't want to model those either. I modeled the efficacy of units without other factors because because I wanted the units at their base value, and that is the most easily applicable value to apply to all situations.

My findings have very little in game value; for instance, knowing that heavy infantry are slightly underpowered doesn't exactly make it intelligent to avoid heavy infantry (they're everywhere). I'm not trying to change anyone's playstyle, and I don't even care about the balance that much (I'll play the game anyway). This was just a project I did for fun, and shared the results.

 

[DeaTh-ShiNoBi]

I think the Light cavalry are intended to represent early medieval cavalry such as jinetes, hobelars and even the turcopoles of the Crusades.

The cavalry were more lightly armored than knights and mounted sergeants--but more specifically their horses were not armored at all whereas (as period progressed) heavy cavalry saw horses clad in mail and later in plate. Jinetes and hobelars tended to wear helmets and mail hauberks so while "light" cavalry they were still wearing pretty good armor compared to almost all infantry until late in the period.

Perhaps the high defense value for light cavalry against skirmish reflects not just their armor and shield but also their mobility? Medieval archers fired in volleys and were best against lightly armored fixed or slow-moving formations.

Likely true. Still, it doesn't change the fact that they could still die from arrows, while troops wearing heavy armor are very unlikely to. The truth is, arrows have very poor penetration. A bow, or even a crossbow, will never pierce any sort of higher caliber armor. Armored troops would really only die from an arrow if they were hit in an unarmored area (their eye, for instance).

This is a great game, but I don't think it is--or is intended to be--a great military simulation.

I'm aware.

 

[DeaTh-ShiNoBi]

There was a thread a while back demonstrating why not to use light cavalry at all, and how using any LC at all could turn a winning battle into a losing one. I'll have a look.

edit... here's the thread

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...-make-you-lose-fights&highlight=light+cavalry

That's an interesting thread, and it's also something I've considered myself. Currently I'm playing as Russia with Project Balance. I'm not sure if this is how it works in vanilla, but in Project Balance, the unique Russian building reduces your amount of cavalry, so my armies tend to have about 200 light cavalry per 6000 troops, or so. I've noticed that occasionally my retarded generals (even the 20+ martial ones) will pick "Harass Tactic", effectively stalling their offensive power until they switch tactics, and I have lost battles solely because of this. It's actually quite annoying; I was tempted to make a thread about it.

That said, this thread completely ignores tactics, technology, cultural bonuses, and all other factors, for the sake of having raw numbers for comparison. If you go into more practicality than just the numbers, I agree with you that Light Cavalry can hurt your army. I think tactics should be reworked, but that's an idea for another day and another thread.

 

[dorukdorucu]

The calculations seem good, however imo you should try it WITHOUT the pursue phase, since it makes light cavalry seem too strong, while in reality they are pretty much worthles.

 

[DeaTh-ShiNoBi]

I did reduce the value of the pursue phase to 40%, but I do agree it should probably be lower (or absent). Perhaps I'll run the calculations again without the pursue phase.

Also note that they're worthless due to the above reasoning: they fuck your tactics up. Their stats are actually really solid.