Unofficial Default Era Rebalancing

[db0]

Alright, based on ideas on this, this and this thread, I started creating my own era which is a rebalancing/redesign of the default one.

First of all, this rebalance will build upon some clear guidelines that factions and units within those factions must follow. Here's what I have though up so far.

First of all...

Damage Types
---

Each type of damage has a specific reason in mind. It exists to fulfill a specific purpose.

Blade: Good damage but easily reduced by armor.
Pierce: Medium damage, especially effective against Medium armor.
Impact: Medium damage, especially effective against Heavy armor.

# (I realise this system means that a crossbow does less against to heavy armor but I had to make a compromise. Reading up on wikipedia, it seems most piercing weapons were less effective at damaging plate mail and thus they preferred to use Maces or heavy Axes (like halberds). Unless I named the damage types depending on how well they bypassed armor, I can't make heavy axes and Crossbows realistic. I could go the other way around, that is, give piercing weapons better armor piercing value and lower damage, but maces were designed exactly for this reason.)

Fire: The basic form of purest energy and also the most easy to conjure. Armor usually protects little against this type of attack and each race has its own level of defense against it.

Spirit: Striking directly at the being of the target, this type of damage ignores every type of armor but it is usually not very strong. Also dependent on race.

Finally I'm thinking of a third damage type: Void, that would be the absence of Energy or Spirit. I'm not sure what kind of effects it should have but perhaps it should be the one creating cold (which actually is just absence of heat) and death magic (absence of life). Void would be countered only by magical wards so most mages would have resistance to it.

Resistance
---

Each unit's sum of resistances are defined by a merge of its race and armor. Because fire attack can be somewhat protected by armor, the resistance to fire attacks is the sum of armor and race resistance.
(I'd like this to be done through a variable but attempts at doing it through WML didn't work)

Unarmored (Robes, Bare skin etc):
Blade: -20%
Pierce: 0%
IMpact: 0%
Fire: -10%

Tough Hide (Trolls, Ogres)
Blade: 10%
Pierce: 0%
Impact: 10%
Fire: +0%

Bark Hide (Woses)
Blade: 10%
Pierce: 50%
Impact: 40%
Fire: -30%

Light Armor (Leather Armor, Shoulderplater-bracers-greaves):
Blade: 0%
Pierce: 0%
Impact: 10%
Fire: +10%

Medium Armor (Chain Mail, Scales, Breastplate):
Blade: 30%
Pierce: 10%
Impact: 20%
Fire: +15%

Heavy Armor (Full Plate):
Blade: 50%
Pierce: 30%
Impact: 10%
Fire: +20%

Ultra Heavy Armor (Dwarven Armor)
Blade: 60%
Pierce: 35%
Impact: 20%
Fire: +30%

Bones (Skeletons only)
Blade: 30%
Pierce: 60%
Impact: -20%
Fire: +30%

Immaterial (Spirits and Ghosts)
Blade: 50%
Pierce: 50%
Impact: 50%
Fire: -20%

Humans, Orcs & Goblins
Fire: 0%
Spirit: 0%

Trolls
Fire: -10%
Spirit: 0%

Elves
Fire: 0%
Spirit: 10%

Undead
Fire: 0%
Spirit: -30%

Dwarves
Fire: 20%
Spirit: 20%

Drakes
Fire: 30%
Spirit: 0%

Saurians
Fire: -10%
Spirit: 0%

Naga & Merman
Fire: -10%
Spirit: 10%

(ATM, the Race resistances are mostly thematic so I'd like ideas on how to appoint them balance-wise)

Hit Points
---

Hit points are based on the race of the unit as well. Each race has a default HP for each level that can be modified a bit upwards or downwards, depending on the unit's description.

Human: 30
Elf: 28
Orc: 32
Dwarf: 35
Goblin: 22
Troll: 42
Drake: 39
Saurian: 25
Mermen: 31
Wose: 52
Naga: 33
Skeletons: 30
Spirits: 20

(Level 2 and 3 units should have basic HP as well but I haven't got around to that yet)

Good Physique (Fighters): +3 HP
Weak Physique (Mages,Rogues): -3 HP

Another variable that affect resistances and HP are mounts. As a general rule, mounts grant extra HP and resistance to Impact damage but are especially supceptible to piercing damage.

Big Mount (War Horse): +12HP, +20 I, -50 P
Medium Mount (Horse,Pony): +9HP, +15I, -40P
Small Mount (Wolf): +6HP, +10I, -30P

(I'd like these to be through variables as well)

Defense
---

As before, this depends on what this race's native terrain is. Remains mostly the same but reworked a bit for balance reasons.

Another thing that affects defense, are shield. Shields do not generally absorb part of the damage (unless they happen to break) but rather are used to deflect incoming blows altogether.

Small Shield: +5% to all defenses
Big Shield: +10% to all defenses

(I'm thinking that if these prove too big, to make them +3%/+6%)

Of course, units using two handed weapons should deal better damage to balance out.

Faction
---
Each faction has a main focus in the battlefield. The thing that defines most of its strategies. This is it
Northeners (renamed to 'Northern Hordes"): Offense
Loyalists: Teamwork
Rebels: Attrition
Knalgan Alliance: Defense
Undead (renamed to "The Blessed"): Sustained Offensive
Drakes (renamed to "Dragon's Children"): Maneuvering

And here's the definition of each strategy
Offense: Being better on the offense than most others (Hitting Easily (Markmanship, Magic), Many Attacks (more chance to inflict some damage), Charge.)
Teamwork:Units enhancing and helping each other (Leadership, Healing, Swarm Tactics)
Attrition: Ways to inflict damage without sustaining much yourself (Poison, Slow, Ranged attacks on melee units, some kind of new hit-and-run ability)
Defense: Being better on the offense than most others (High Resistance and Defense, Few big attacks)
Sustained Offensive: Ways to replenish your force while pressing forward (Regeneration, Drain, Pestilence, Healing (?))
Maneuverability: Having more choices of targets and able to outflank your enemy (High Movement, Skirmish, Flying)

Cost and Experience
---
The final idea would be to make the initial cost and experiece for advancement dependent, in some way, on the strength of the unit. My first idea is to make each race have a "shopping list" of abilities that every unit of that race can use and create a balanced unit in relation to the others.
Example:

Code: Select all

Northern Hordes
---
HP: 1 XP per HP
Melee Attack: 5 XP per attack
Melee Damage: 1 XP per melee damage
Ranged Attack: 7 XP per attack
Ranged Damage: 1.2 XP per ranged damage
Light Armor: 5 XP
Medium Armor: 10 XP
Heavy Armor: 20 XP
...

etc.
Each race would have its own costs (for examples, the armor will be at lower cost for dwarves)
I'm not using this atm, but it is a thought for later.

Right now, I have the first draft of the Northern Hordes ready. You may check it out by playing the Era or check out the included spreadsheet.
The units follow the guidelines above as best as I could, but balance is probably still shaky. Reviews welcome.



Because, this is a pretty complex undertaking, I'd appreciate any one who would like to contibute.

EDIT: Fixed the damage of the Orcs becuase I remembered charge incorrectly.

[JW]

Sounds interesting. I'm glad to see you actually working on this now. I'm not sure how I feel about the specifics (I don't think I like the damage type setup), but I'll lok it over a little more later and let you know.

[db0]

For those of you that downloaded it already: I updated the file because I didn't remember that charge doubles the damage you receive as well and I had balanced the orcs accordingly.

[Noyga]

Nice work, this is a quite different era, by the way i don't like your damage type setup i find a bit bland, especially fire resistances.
I think metalic heavy armors should agravate the damages.
Also i think Mermens and Nagas shouldn't have the same resistances :
- Mermens : something similar to human/elves
- Naga : closer to the Saurians

[db0]

Nice work, this is a quite different era, by the way i don't like your damage type setup i find a bit bland, especially fire resistances.
I think metalic heavy armors should agravate the damages.

I'd be grateful if you elaborated on that.
I thought that having each type of damage be the counter to something else would give a greater tactical challenge.
Why do you think fire is bland and, of course, I'll be glad to hear your ideas
As for the metallic armors aggravating fire damage, that would be true only if the fire damage was continuous and for enough time to heat the armor. If it was just a blast, then the armor should deflect it. That was my reasoning at least.

Also i think Mermens and Nagas shouldn't have the same resistances :
- Mermens : something similar to human/elves
- Naga : closer to the Saurians

Hmmm, I have no problem with that.

[Noyga]

Nice work, this is a quite different era, by the way i don't like your damage type setup i find a bit bland, especially fire resistances.
I think metalic heavy armors should agravate the damages.

I'd be grateful if you elaborated on that.
I thought that having each type of damage be the counter to something else would give a greater tactical challenge.
Why do you think fire is bland and, of course, I'll be glad to hear your ideas

Well having a different best damage for every armor class is the interesting part of your setup.
Btw, for every damage type, your armor hierarchy is always the same, that's what i find rather boring. While it makes sense for physical damages, it could be different for fire.

As for the metallic armors aggravating fire damage, that would be true only if the fire damage was continuous and for enough time to heat the armor. If it was just a blast, then the armor should deflect it. That was my reasoning at least.

I imagine fire breath as a continuous attack, so it would heat the armor.
For mage's fireballs and fire missile it is true it is just a blast, but a powerful one, probably enough to heat the armor as well.

[Disto]

I've got a good idea, why don't you go through and change every single .cfg file for all the official units and then you can even change the damage types and all.

[Thrawn]

naga's should have less HP than humans, IMO, though I suppose if you go by HOMM that would be wrong--snake-humans are in my mind weaker than full humans durability-wise

[Noyga]

I've got a good idea, why don't you go through and change every single .cfg file for all the official units and then you can even change the damage types and all.

That's more or less what he is doing...

[Cuyo Quiz]

That only takes like half the afternoon to do anyway.

[db0]

That only takes like half the afternoon to do anyway.

Yeah, the hard part was, and still is, the balance of the factions and coming up with units fitting the focus.

[db0]

Btw, for every damage type, your armor hierarchy is always the same, that's what i find rather boring.
While it makes sense for physical damages, it could be different for fire.

I'm sorry. I didn't understand what you mean here.
Each armor has a counter damage but each armor's setup is not the same with the others.

I imagine fire breath as a continuous attack, so it would heat the armor.
For mage's fireballs and fire missile it is true it is just a blast, but a powerful one, probably enough to heat the armor as well.

The problem is, that if I make heavy armor vulnerable to fire, then it makes units using it very powerful, forcing me to reduce fire's damage to counter that. That is something I do not really like.
Fire damage is needed because wizards must have something to cast but I'm thinking it more like the "Blade" type of magic damages.

Btw, do you like the Void damage type idea? Any thoughts on how it could be different than the others?

More tommorow because I'm tired

[Noyga]

Btw, for every damage type, your armor hierarchy is always the same, that's what i find rather boring.
While it makes sense for physical damages, it could be different for fire.

I'm sorry. I didn't understand what you mean here.
Each armor has a counter damage but each armor's setup is not the same with the others.

Well for each damage type you have :
No Armor < Light Armor < Medium Armor < Heavy Armor
There is no damage type where the best armor isn't heavy armor.

I imagine fire breath as a continuous attack, so it would heat the armor.
For mage's fireballs and fire missile it is true it is just a blast, but a powerful one, probably enough to heat the armor as well.

The problem is, that if I make heavy armor vulnerable to fire, then it makes units using it very powerful, forcing me to reduce fire's damage to counter that. That is something I do not really like.

If you balance the resistances of all the armors, it shouldn't be a problem

Btw, do you like the Void damage type idea? Any thoughts on how it could be different than the others?

Void damages is something that do not naturally mean something to me...

[db0]

I'm sorry. I didn't understand what you mean here.
Each armor has a counter damage but each armor's setup is not the same with the others.

Well for each damage type you have :
No Armor < Light Armor < Medium Armor < Heavy Armor
There is no damage type where the best armor isn't heavy armor.

That is not universally true
Concerning Blade and fire, you are correct, but for the others...
Piercing
No Armor = Light Armor < Medium Armor < Heavy Armor
Impact
No Armor < Light Armor = Heavy Armor < Medium Armor

Yes, Heavy armor is very good, but it is supposed to be the best after all. Not many units will have it. The most common will be light and medium (which, when combined with the Mounts, will make piercing damage the most useful overall I fear)
I am planning to have piercing attacks do less damage than the relative blade or impact, just because they will be so darn useful.
The damage output will be Blade > Impact > Pierce.
A level 1 blade attack could be 5x4, an impact could be 6x3 while a pierce could be 8x2.

If you balance the resistances of all the armors, it shouldn't be a problem

Can you give me an example of your thought?

Btw, do you like the Void damage type idea? Any thoughts on how it could be different than the others?

Void damages is something that do not naturally mean something to me...

Void is kind of like the negative/empty damage. Although it is not strictly "evil", many evil faction prefer to use that, such as death magic for undead .
So you could have an attack like:
Cold Blast 9x3 - Magic - Void Damage.

However although I like the idea of this type, I don't want to include it just because it's cool. I want it to be different than the other types.

[Noyga]

Can you give me an example of your thought?

Well it works like that on current default, aromredfoot has negative resistances versus fire and cold and i don't find it unbalanced.

Void is kind of like the negative/empty damage. Although it is not strictly "evil", many evil faction prefer to use that, such as death magic for undead .
So you could have an attack like:
Cold Blast 9x3 - Magic - Void Damage.

However although I like the idea of this type, I don't want to include it just because it's cool. I want it to be different than the other types.

Well i fail to imagine what is negative/empty damages...
Btw this seems to be used for curse attacks. Could 'curse' be a better name (because it's easier to see what it is) for this type of damages ?