Re-balancing the horse unit to increase survivability

[Trau]

So, first time the unit attacks it will deal double damage, the second attack will deal normal damage. The unit recieves normal damage in both cases.

Wouldn't this actually make charging units even more powerful? Since they do 150% damage and get 100% back, meaning they have a 50% advantage, where the old system had them doing 200% damage and taking 200% with no advantage.

[peet]

I actually have been working on a mod for a campaign I'm working on ... no, it will be a while yet, so don't ask.

But one of the things I am including are variants of many of the loyalist units. I designed a version of the charge special called "Mounted Charge" which has a few changes.

Firstly, it only works if the opponent is in open terrain - basically grassland, desert, snow, or hills. If there is cover to hide behind then Mounted Charge does nothing. A knight can't charge a castle wall, and if he tries it in the woods he'll get really banged up.

Secondly, it only doubles pierce damage. Weapons that can be "set" to recieve a charge use the horse's momentum against it and it makes sense that their damage would be doubled as well. But a weapon like a dagger or a club won't gain much from being used against a horse unit.

So this ends up being both a Beef & Nerf. "Mounted Charge" doesn't double damage of non-polearms but also doesn't always work. If your enemy has mounted charge you can hide your units in forest or castles and you will be relatively safe.

Here's the WML I came up with. Haven't tested it yet so it may have bugs.

Code: Select all

#define WEAPON_SPECIAL_MOUNTED_CHARGE
    # Canned definition of the Mounted Charge ability 
    # to be included in a[specials] clause.
    # A variant of the Charge special (by Peet).
    [damage]
	[filter_opponent]
            [filter_location]
                terrain=Aa,Ai,Dd,Ds,Gs,Ggf,Gg,Ha,Hd,Hh,Re,Rp,Rr,Wwf,Ss^Bw*,Wo^Bw*,Ww^Bw*
            [/filter_location]
	[/filter_opponent]
        id=mounted_charge
        name= _ "mounted charge"
        description= _ "Mounted Charge:
This attack deals double damage to targets in open terrain. 
It also causes this unit to take double damage from the target's 
counterattack if that unit is armed with piercing weapons."
        multiply=2
        apply_to=both
	[filter_weapon]
	    type=pierce
	[/filter_weapon]
        active_on=offense
    [/damage]
#enddef

Might need to break it into two parts (one for each side) if the filter_weapon tag doesn't work.

Peet

[TrashMan]

So, first time the unit attacks it will deal double damage, the second attack will deal normal damage. The unit recieves normal damage in both cases.

Wouldn't this actually make charging units even more powerful? Since they do 150% damage and get 100% back, meaning they have a 50% advantage, where the old system had them doing 200% damage and taking 200% with no advantage.

Not against high lvl units.
As it is now, a knight, grand knight or lancer can kill eachother is a single strike, since double damage on both attacks is just enough to get over their high HP. So a knight charging another knight wouldn't end up killing the other one even if he connects both times. the total damage the knight can do has fallen enough that it cannot simply outright kill some units, thus they can retaliate...and if they can use ranged attacks, the knight is now in trouble.

alternatively, you can have them take double damage on the first attack when they are charging. the devil is in the details...



@peet - sweet idea

[irrevenant]

But one of the things I am including are variants of many of the loyalist units. I designed a version of the charge special called "Mounted Charge" which has a few changes.

I would suggest changing the name. AFAIK the standard "Charge" weapon special applies only to mounted units anyway, so the name "Mounted Charge" is confusingly ambiguous.

I don't have a good suggestion for an alternative but even "Charge (Peet's version)" would be an improvement IMO.

[peet]

AFAIK the standard "Charge" weapon special applies only to mounted units anyway

In mainline, yes, but in some MP eras this is not the case.

Really there is no reason a foot unit cannot "charge," even if they do not have the momentum of a horse.

I intended this ability for a mod in which it would replace the original charge ability entirely, so there would not be confusion over which units had what.

Peet

[Ken_Oh]

I think the fact that mounted units (i.e. the ones with charge) have -20% damage resistance to pierce (remember to double the final value, too) already represents pretty well the difference between a regular melee weapon and one that you can set to receive charge.

[TheArchitect]

I actually have been working on a mod for a campaign I'm working on ... no, it will be a while yet, so don't ask.

But one of the things I am including are variants of many of the loyalist units. I designed a version of the charge special called "Mounted Charge" which has a few changes.

Firstly, it only works if the opponent is in open terrain - basically grassland, desert, snow, or hills. If there is cover to hide behind then Mounted Charge does nothing. A knight can't charge a castle wall, and if he tries it in the woods he'll get really banged up.

Secondly, it only doubles pierce damage. Weapons that can be "set" to recieve a charge use the horse's momentum against it and it makes sense that their damage would be doubled as well. But a weapon like a dagger or a club won't gain much from being used against a horse unit.

So this ends up being both a Beef & Nerf. "Mounted Charge" doesn't double damage of non-polearms but also doesn't always work. If your enemy has mounted charge you can hide your units in forest or castles and you will be relatively safe.

Pure genius. I can't wait to try it out

[mbabuskov]

I find cavalrymen to be an excellent unit once you couple them with some unit with leadership (which you have in that section by default). They have 6-3 or 7-3 which goes much higher with leadership and during the day.

I mostly play with 6 cavalry (you can recruit that at start) and move them in pack together (after initial grabbing of villages). You can usually use leadership effectively on 3 or 4 units per turn, so this mean 3 of your units would be engaged in combat while other 3 are healing.

I usually have 1 archer per 5 cavalry to help clear out some problematic units (high resistance to blade attacks, etc.)

Unless the map is heavy on mountains or forest this means that you can dominate the middle ground very fast (you would get there first and be able to keep it up with first or even the second wave of enemies). Key to this strategy is to have all the damaged units (say all below 20-22 energy) healing and even retreat to maintain that. I usually only lose 1 or 2 of those initial units in multiplayer games.

Make sure you play: 'keep the villages, save the units' tactics, instead of 'kill as much as you can'. Horses cover a big area so it's easy to reach out more than you should.

After some more turns the enemy can have all their slow units around and you slowly retreat the leader to the castle, and this is the time for horsemen. By this time you should have enough money to buy 5-6 horseman which will arrive at the battlefield very quickly and hand out a devastating blow to the enemy that has started to wear down your cavalry.

I used to stay away from the Loyalists section as it seemed that Longbowman is only useful unit, but horse units can be very good too. You just can't play foot- or ranged- tactics with them, you have to play horse- tactics.

[anakayub]

mbabuskov:

That does only apply itself to only campaigns, no? Making a single unit type initial recruit in a reasonable MP game leads to suicide.


A 102 gold recruit is also not feasible on many MP maps (I can't remember Cynsaun and the map formerly known as Meteor lake).

[peet]

I think the fact that mounted units (i.e. the ones with charge) have -20% damage resistance to pierce (remember to double the final value, too) already represents pretty well the difference between a regular melee weapon and one that you can set to receive charge.

The problem is that it also gives a bonus to archers, which it shouldn't.

Historically, whenever archers were present on a battlefield and not protected by some kind of earthworks, they would get totally wiped out if charged by heavy cavalry. They would get maybe one or two shots off as the horses come in, and then they get run down. With only light armour and weapons they don't stand much of a chance.

If archers were deployed in large bodies on a battlefield, sometimes they would plant a bunch of large stakes in the ground to discourage cavalry. Such fortifications were necessary if archers were to survive in the open.

I know that WINR - Wesnoth is not Real. And certainly there must be balancing issues at stake in mainline that require archery units to get these "freebies" against horse units. I am not challenging that.

But while such a change would not work in mainline MP, there is no reason not to try it out in a campaign. Which is why I choose to work on such modifications.

Peet

[mbabuskov]

mbabuskov:

That does only apply itself to only campaigns, no? Making a single unit type initial recruit in a reasonable MP game leads to suicide.

No, it applies to MP games even better. Altough I agree having a single unit type is usually not a good idea, horsemen are a special case. They have enough HP to sustain any attack, quick enough to retreat to heal and with leadership they can to enough damage to quickly halve the number of attackers (All this in MP games of course).

I know it doesn't sound convincing, but maybe you should try (Or I can create replay of the next MP game I play and send it).

A 102 gold recruit is also not feasible on many MP maps (I can't remember Cynsaun and the map formerly known as Meteor lake).

17 (cavalry) x 5 = 85
15 (bowman) x 1 = 15

So, I actually use a 100 gold recruiting in MP.

[anakayub]

I'm sorry, but a balanced recruit is always better as the cavalry might have it's strengths, but it also has weaknesses (among the more expensive scouts, moderate defense, and pierce vulnerability), and so I'm quite skeptical of your idea.

So yeah, a replay would be good indeed.

[Ken_Oh]

The problem is that it also gives a bonus to archers, which it shouldn't.

Right, which is a flaw with Wesnoth's damage system, brought up many times by many people. I personally think that arrows should be its own damage type, or even blade like Fencers have. But, that's neither here nor there.

Don't get me wrong though. I think challenging the rules like you have is good and I look forward to your content. I'd like to see more user-made content with different base rules than Wesnoth's normal ones.

[mbabuskov]

The problem is that it also gives a bonus to archers, which it shouldn't.

Right, which is a flaw with Wesnoth's damage system, brought up many times by many people.

Maybe the problem is not in the damage type, but terrain modifiers for horse units. IMHO, horses should have higher defense % on grassland than on hills. In Real Life(tm) it's harder to hit a running horse with the arrow than the one that's standing still, trying to move around the hill.

Maybe horse units should have 10% defense bonus when shot at (i.e. using ranged attacks), although this breaks the uniformity of the game, so they would probably have to have some kind of special 'mount' ability or something like that.

[Edward V Riley]

The only thing I can think of that might help would be a dismount option for defense purposes only. I got the idea from real life cavalry tactics, where they would dismount, then force the horse down and use the horse itself as cover. This would be for defense only, and would cost 2 of your movement points to execute and another 2 points to get back on the horse. This couldn't be done in Forest, water, or mountain terrains. It would perhaps increase your defensive percentage by 20%. Problem is that this seems too complicated to implement and seems like a violation of the KISS principle.