Re: Samurai Warlords patch 0907 - 5 September 2008

by **barocca** on Thu 11 Sep 2008, 12:18

how goes the unit balance?

i am rebuilding the ashi-arch bif at the moment,
it is a lot of work, with 4 composite frames to be edited and overlayed to ensure a good colour change,
some people (at CA) were VERY lazy making the original, lots of colour bleed to be corrected,
once the 4 overlays are finished and overlayed, then i have to run the frames in and out of a bif to correct the last bits of colour bleed,
then make it back into a bif.

the end result will be a pestunic bif, with grey shirt sleeves and leggings (instead of bright orange and white), and with a full primary coloured tunic. (it wont look like a pestunic based unit, thats for sure)
i never did like the bright orange sleeves for pestunic archers...what was that all about anyway??

by **^HUN^** on Thu 11 Sep 2008, 17:54

barocca wrote:how goes the unit balance?

Certain Mongol armies do OK, namely Japanese 'clones', others do less well.

barocca wrote:the end result will be a pestunic bif, with grey shirt sleeves and leggings (instead of bright orange and white), and with a full primary coloured tunic. (it wont look like a pestunic based unit, thats for sure)
i never did like the bright orange sleeves for pestunic archers...what was that all about anyway??

You lost me?

by **^Marcus Cornelius^** on Thu 11 Sep 2008, 19:57

Balance is going better, imo: jap can no more walk on mongols.
Surely mongols are superior in missiles and not overwhelmed in infantry.
It seems that mongol infantry can match jap. But we need more tests in anycase.
I could not test mongol cav vs jap cav in an MP battle.
That is for me my next step.

Marcus

by **barocca** on Fri 12 Sep 2008, 11:24

i am not understanding reference to clones, there is only 1 clone unit, hatamoto/keshig,
all others have differences,
all mongol cav is better than equiv japanese cav, also better survive vs missiles,
mongol foot is less than equiv japanese foot (except xbows),

and as for armies, well, yes, you are going to need some foot, shock, missile and various cav's.
what you bring and what the opponent brings will determine tactical deployment and manouver.
All armies need to concentrate on their strengths.

Japanaese armies need to assault with their foot, support with their guns and bring sufficient anti-cav to defend their flanks,
Mongol armies need to harrass with missiles, stay out of h2h and try to draw the Japanese armies into marching long distances and into getting seperated, and slaughter isolated units before withdrawing out of reach.

MHC are desinged to charge into other Cav, with the added bonus of being heavily shielded against missiles.
MHA's are designed to have a double sting, arrows and AP axes, ideal to harrass, isolate and slaughter.
YGJ (swords) are designed to knock 5 to 10 men from a unit with a javelin toss before hacking in with their swords.
YGP (pole) are AP and designed to charge and charge again, but need to avoid missile units.
KCS (skirms) have a cav def bonus and AP h2h weapons, a usefull flank defence unit and coup de grace.
YGT (tb's) also have AP h2h as well as good morale (their shield has been "lost", that will be fixed next update)

I have sincerely tried to give the Mongol player a whole different set of options with his foot, while man-on-man they may be weaker they have some unique capabilities that can make for an interesting challenge, both to play them to their strengths, and to play against them.

We have also found a role for Japanese Nagi cavalry - as an anti-infantry cav, and while lousy attacking cavalry it is still a strong defender, usefull to pin even the heaviest mongol cav allowing lighter japanese cav time to get to the flank. Sadly while the Nagi cav will stand and fight, it will die.

I think we have a decent balance, we have stepped away from rock/paper/scissors, but have not created any steamroller units.

All we have to do now is make sure the the new units, (katana, kanabo, ashi-archer and so on) do not become steamrollers, Especially the Monk faction (Hoganji) - with them we need to be especially carefull in design.
ht_bow

by **^Glyndwr^** on Fri 12 Sep 2008, 13:41

A clearer undertanding now of the units and what they are intended for with your units descriptions in the above post. Not everyone 'reads' things the same way. Wink

by **^HUN^** on Fri 12 Sep 2008, 16:32

I'm fully aware of the intended use. What I didn't want to see was a Mongol faction that was best used in the same fashion as Japanese, namely shock cav, inf and missiles. Should you decide to use typical Mongol harassment tactics (horse archers) you are putting your army at a disadvantage. Japanese can simply ignore them and target the inf with a rush. The HA are not going to kill enough with arrows to help the Mongol inf and should they charge in they are not around for long, MHA may have a/p, hit them with YC. To try to avoid this, the Mongols have to field not missile, but shock cav.

Clone reference is army, not unit.

by **barocca** on Fri 12 Sep 2008, 17:08

is 2am here and my brain no working N_E_more.
you have all seen me do very unconventional things with conventional units, who would use JHA's as raiders?
I Do.

i am sure we have the balance very close, and the mongols can win with cav tactics,

they need to make the japanese come to them, to rely on their better missiles and cav that can escape to wear down some of the combat power of the jap inf before they reach you, and to keep mongol inf away from harm as long as possible.
then the mongol inf becomes the rock, while the cav become the hammer.

magyar would harrass with his HA's and keep his infantry back, he would make it impossible for a jap to camp, his cav would demonstrate against your flank firing missiles all the time and if you tried to chase them they would simply melt away, if you stayed out too long chasing the HA's then mongolHC would catch you.

i doubt if i have any save games from those days, iirc he would have 4HA's peppering away at you, with heavy cav not far behind. the losses amongst shock troopps (monks and nodachi) would force the japanese player to move.

make the enemey do what you want them to do, and you want the japanese to be on the move, you dont want to assault their line, you want them to assault yours, to disrupt their formations, maybe to expose a flank or two.

let me see some replays so i can judge what is going on??

by **^HUN^** on Fri 12 Sep 2008, 17:58

I'm not going to argue about MagyarKhan, he was an exceptional player and I faced that STW cav army of his many times and I know what you mean. But....the important part is he did this as defender or at least, I never met that army when he was attacker. I did the same successfully as defender. Those tactics are less fruitful when you have to attack because archers/guns are more able to target the incoming HA.
As a defender you can sit there and counter against the larger target of horse and rider. Of course, selling back honour helped a lot too, you can't do that now with HA that cost 700 and 500 so you are eating into the efficiency of the rest of your army.

by **barocca** on Sat 13 Sep 2008, 08:37

it is not always going to be possible to win,
sometimes you have the wrong mix of units and must simply make the best attempt you can.

we are designing this around a koku limit of 9k.koku, 562.5 koku is the avergae per unit

EDIT --> what i am trying to say is :-
IS THERE a japanese army mix that the mongols simply cannot beat?
(*flat map, dry weather, attacker/defender, 9k.koku, no upgrades)

by **^Tomisama^** on Sat 13 Sep 2008, 20:45

Have been checking this forum and seeing no action for a while now. Apperently not logged in Neutral

Have 907 and new maps. Any plans for Sunday?

And how close are we to a final mod?

by **^Marcus Cornelius^** on Sat 13 Sep 2008, 21:02

I am on line now sataurday.
I will be on line tomorow sunday.
If someone want to test and play during week, just contact me on msn.

Marcus

by **^HUN^** on Sat 13 Sep 2008, 22:03

barocca wrote:EDIT --> what i am trying to say is :-
IS THERE a japanese army mix that the mongols simply cannot beat?
(*flat map, dry weather, attacker/defender, 9k.koku, no upgrades)

Again, that depends on the Mongol army, but for a better chance of victory you would choose the missile, inf, shock cav.
But of course, situations in larger battles would be nice to investigate, that's when we would see exactly what can be done.

by **barocca** on Sun 14 Sep 2008, 01:46

I have several new units to finish plus all the review panel / battle/unit icons to make.
(the other mongol troops all need icons, as do the new sams and the upcoming new monks)

I cannot say three weeks, or four weeks - it all depends on how much time it takes,
i have an hour or two maximum each day that i can devote to this,
and SP campaign is REALLY going to have to wait.
(i was supposed to be in surgery this week, but thats been delayed due to finances)

I am spending a lot of time playing lan games to test balance options,
REGARDING WHICH -
is there a jap army mix that there is NO POSSIBLE mongol army mix answer to,
as in not a single possible 9k mongol army mix that can win against it.
I am not asking about 2v2 or 3v3, i am asking about 1v1,

i am NOT asking can every possible mongol army mix beat every possible japan army mix, there are always going to be battles where you have completely the wrong army and simply CANNOTwin that battle.
i DONT CARE about those times, they have happened to me over and again in STW/WEMI/MTW/VI and even ROME,

can japan field a completely unbeatable army in 9k?

if the answer is no, then i can go back to concentrating on finishing units.
ht_bow

by **^Marcus Cornelius^** on Sun 14 Sep 2008, 11:31

We could not test mich. But to me the feeling is that japan cannot field an unbeatable army.
The feeling is that even if jap spam in heavy infantry (which can be the only unbeatable steamroller army for japs) a good combination of missiles, heavy infantry, and light/anicav/heavy cav can make mongols do well in open (not wood) field. We have to test it, hopefully to night ...

Marcus

by **^Glyndwr^** on Mon 15 Sep 2008, 11:32

A quick update....
From last nights 2 v 2 games I think we can safely say that the game is now well balanced.
That last battle, where we were down to a difference of 8 kills (HUNS comment after game) in the final count,
that was very close. Could have gone either way (rain stopped play Wink

)