Hey all, I have an issue with balancing. I'm making this cheesy little war game for my friends and I to play, where you more or less train and build an army consisting of Infantry, Ranged and Mounted units. You can build X amount of units depending on how much iron and lumber you have, but thats more or less irrellevant for this topic. Each player gets a "tech level" up to a maximum of level 5 per unit category. Rather then explain that, I'll give an example. Level 4 Infantry may give you Blade Masters, where as level 1 Infantry will give you Militia. Or Level 1 Ranged will be Slingmen but Level 5 will be Expert Longbow Archers. ANYWAYS, the issue arises when I try to pit these units against eachother in war. Heres how war works: You pick how many units you want to send in and then it takes your army vs. your opponents army and attempts to "simulate" Medieval war. Here is how I'm currently doing it: Each unit has a % to hit based on their tech level. So a level 5 unit will hit more often then a level 1. I have a loop that loops 4 times. Each loop represents a "stage" in medieval combat. 1st Loop - Ranged Fires 2nd Loop - Ranged Fires & Mounted Attack 3rd Loop - Everyone attacks. 4th Loop - Everyone attacks. This "simulates" medieval war. The archers fire first, then the mounted catch up and attack and finally the infantry get to attack next. The problem that arises is balance. Ranged units simply own everything. And because they kill almost everything on the first "shooting", then less stuff comes to attack them and the ranged can go on killing eachother. Now I've tried fiddiling with the % to hit, so a level 5 will have a 1 : 15 chance of hitting. However, then ranged at tech level 1 will only have like a 1 : 75 chance. Which is just a waste of time. And I don't want people NOT building ranged units until tech level 5, because that seems almost silly. And I don't wnat people ONLY building ranged units once they get into the higher tech levels. Any ideas on what I could do to fix this issue? Should I change my loop(s)? Change the % to hit? Should I just let archers own? Any other fresh ideas? Edited by - GroZZleR on February 12, 2002 4:25:06 PM

Better things cost more.

well, i can''t help you with your game, but i can tell you that this occured in real life too.
in the dark ages warfare was mainly managed by knights and some infantry (usually the knights'' personal servants)... then somewhere along the line (in the 1200-1400s? i suck at history) somebody realized that you could shoot down the near-invincible knights long before they got close enough to chop you up. so, a troop of longbowmen (just normal guys who practiced archery) became more powerful than a bunch of knights (50 english longbowsmen could fire almost 500 arrows into the enemy ranks per minute, not very accurately (as the distances were pretty far), but deadly nonetheless), and warfare changed forever. not too long after, being a "knight" no longer menat you were a noble who excelled at warfare, but rather simply that the monarch at the time liked you. what a shame, huh?
anyways, you could make the archers do less damage than the infantry and calvary. it isn''t realistic (as an arrow in your shoulder before they discovered antibiotics was just as deadly as having your arms cut off), but it will help balance your game a bit.
also, perhaps you can have the archers have limited ammunition, so after ten shots they have to wait for a while before firing again.

--- krez (krezisback@aol.com)

Decrease the chance lonbowmen will hit cavalry. Shortbowmen have more chance to hit cavalry, but are less effective against infantry than longbowmen. This makes both types of archers useful. Might even consider allowing the player to build lower tech units if they so desired.

ShadeStorm, the Day_Glo Fish

I agree with Krez.
Once archers got on the scene they really did own the
battlefield.
They didn''t have to be accurate, have you ever seen a battle
in a movie?
I can''t say about anything else(depends on the movie), but
they''re bunched up pretty nice.
With the enemy close together and the archers firing
en masse it wasn''t really important to aim.
Archers are of course very weak at short range, in real
life sometimes not having armor, only a one-handed sword
or long knife.
Remember Braveheart, shields do work, but some people will
still get hit. Then there''s terrain, again, a la
Braveheart(cavalry flanked the English armry, destroying
the archers to prevent more shots-remember they''re weak up
close, and then rode toward the infantry clash, surrounding
the English infantry).

For the third and fourth phase, archers should not be allowed to attack, because they would be shooting at their own troops. Of course, a particularly ruthless general should be given the option of making the archers fire again, but in that case, the archers should damage all the forces present.

Also, if you want the archers not to rule the battlefield as much, have the first phase of their attacks damage the opposition''s archers:

Phase 1: Ranged only:
Defending Ranged -> Attacking Ranged
Attacking Ranged -> Defending Ranged
Defenting Ranged -> Attacking Cavalry
Attacking Ranged -> Defending Cavalry

Phase 2: Cavalry + Ranged:
Attacking Cavalry -> Defending Cavalry
Defending Cavalry -> Attacking Cavalry
Attacking Cavalry -> Defending Ranged
Defending Ranged -> Attacking Infantry
Defengind Ranged -> Attacking Ranged
Attacking Ranged -> Defending Infantry

{BREAK}

I leave the rest up to you, but I think that these first two phases will reflect the likely outcomes nicely

Don''t reduce the ranged damage potential too much, they are a formidable force. I think what you should do is make a special exception for ranged attacks wherein the chance to hit is defined by how many of them there are, and the damage is defined by the tech level. Then for the rest of the groups, do the reverse (Chance to hit <=> Tech, Damage <=> Numbers)

George D. Filiotis
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