Pike Re-Balance Workshop

[Schweetness101]

I wouldn't call it unnecessary complexity. The complexity is there to ensure that pikes vs spearmen and pikes vs swords have the same POA differential - it doesn't matter if you holding a 9 ft dory or a 2 ft gladius if you can't close with the pikes. Simply copying the offensive spearmen section over the pikes would results in hoplites performing significantly better in melee against pikes compared to swordsmen.

sorry I wasn't referring to that, I'm talking about removing the references to percent12 and 16 pikes, or the gradient degradation in POA from losses that pikes currently have

[pompeytheflatulent]

Can't you just delete the deep pike bonus and adjust the base POA values of pikes since they are a distinct entity from spears and swordsmen? Or is that what you are planning already.

Edit: Wait a minute, the deep pike POA is the one that activates only on open terrain right? Might be worthwhile to keep parts of it. Alright, just ignore my ramblings and do what you were planning to do.

[Schweetness101]

Can't you just delete the deep pike bonus and adjust the base POA values of pikes since they are a distinct entity from spears and swordsmen? Or is that what you are planning already.

Edit: Wait a minute, the deep pike POA is the one that activates only on open terrain right? Might be worthwhile to keep parts of it. Alright, just ignore my ramblings and do what you were planning to do.

I think it's like if disrupted or disordered then you lose 100 POA, and if fragmented or severely disordered you lose 200 poa

if in non open terrain you lose whole impact, but not melee terrain

if you've taken losses then from any given rank then your max POA is also proportionally degraded, like if you are not disordered or disrupted at all but lost half the back rank then you lose 50 POA, because the 3rd and forth rank are worth 100 poa each)

I think...

[Schweetness101]

one big hold up for me right now is trying to figure out the significance of the variable 'enemy' used like a boolean such as:

if(enemy == -1)

a lot of the code appears to be almost exactly repeated for enemy == -1 and enemy != -1. It seems like it might be accounting for yours or the enemy turn, or for if you or the enemy initiated combat. Does anyone out there know what this is for?

Edit: found this comment in the code:
// If enemy == -1 then this give a general purpose POA for calculating general purpose close combat rating - which does not take into account cohesion state or disorder

but I'm still not sure what that is supposed to mean. Does it mean that if(enemy == -1) then that section is not actually used for the POA but something else?

[rbodleyscott]

one big hold up for me right now is trying to figure out the significance of the variable 'enemy' used like a boolean such as:

if(enemy == -1)

a lot of the code appears to be almost exactly repeated for enemy == -1 and enemy != -1. It seems like it might be accounting for yours or the enemy turn, or for if you or the enemy initiated combat. Does anyone out there know what this is for?

Edit: found this comment in the code:
// If enemy == -1 then this give a general purpose POA for calculating general purpose close combat rating - which does not take into account cohesion state or disorder

but I'm still not sure what that is supposed to mean. Does it mean that if(enemy == -1) then that section is not actually used for the POA but something else?

(enemy == -1) means that no enemy unit is specified. See my PM.

[Paul59]

alright I'll give that a go

looks like in squads.csv there is a BodyArmour column with a number between 50 and 300, and there are both Experience and Elan columns with similar numbers but I'm not sure which accounts for quality or what values to use for what. Hastati/Principes have 100 for armour and 200 for experience and elan so maybe I'll use that because I think they have above average and some armour rating

Yes I will definitely release it! I think I should rewrite the edits to the impact and melee pike sections to be a lot simpler though. Right now there is as lot of old baggage and now unnecessary complexity left over from the 12 and 16 ranks percent stuff. In fact, I think I could just paste in the much simpler offensive spearmen section basically and then just change impact POA to 200 from 100.

You assumptions are a bit astray there.

The Hastati/Principes you are looking at are actually the Superior Armoured variety.

BodyArmour is rated from 0 to 300. The current commonly used values in the game are:

0 Unprotected

25 Lightly Protected

50 Protected

67 Some Armour

75 Some Armour

100 Armoured

150 Well Armoured

300 Fully Armoured

Although you can actually have whatever number you want between 0 to 300, it's the number that is important, not what it is called in the UI.

Unit Quality is the average of Experience and Elan. In the vast majority of units they are same same value though, so it makes it easy to work out the average!

The current commonly used values in the game are:

50 Raw

75 Below Average

100 Average

150 Above Average

200 Superior

300 Elite

Again, you can have whatever number you want between 0 to 300, it's the number that is important not the wording.

[Schweetness101]

Ok I cleaned up the code a bit and now have pikes with

above average quality
some armor: 67 (which is less than the 75 'some armor' of hastati/principes)
200 POA on impact (with no degradation from losses)
100 POA in melee (with no degradation from losses)

Also, and I'm not sure if you want to test this or not, but I'm reducing Pike impact POA to 100 if disrupted and 0 if fragmented, and melee POA to 50 is disrupted and 0 if fragmented.

I did a 10vs10 hastati/principes vs pikes
https://imgur.com/H1xjW9s
there were a few pushbacks but not disruptions on initial charge, which makes sense given no net poa difference:
https://imgur.com/Q39e3DH
and then in melee:
https://imgur.com/q19ZJYQ
very small armor bonus to hastati/principes

over the next few turns two pikes were pushed off, and 2 were fragmented by legions, and one legion disrupted
then after a few more turns the 2 fragmented pikes broke, another pike fragmented and 3 total legions were disrupted.
the better quality seemed to be helping the pikes with cohesion tests, but because of the loss of POA from disruption, the ones that were disrupted early broke early and then opened up flanks.
the legions though started rapidly losing combat power to the larger pike formations and on the flank where they did not get early disruptions they all dissolved

final result here:
https://imgur.com/Ga4m4mb

I could try putting everything in square in the test to avoid the effect of flanks for now

and I was uncertain about the earlier conversation involving reach. Should pikes have some POA negating effect there vs swords and/or hoplites?

[pompeytheflatulent]

Is there a way to make pikes reduce the melee POA of both spearmen and swordsmen to 50, the same way that speamen reduce swordsmen POA? This could allow you to change the quality and armor of the pikes back down to average/protected, thereby further reducing their price. As far as I know above average only adds to POA, and does not help with cohesion tests unlike superior which lets you reroll 1's on CT.

[pompeytheflatulent]

Also I would still prefer to have pike units be larger than 480, in order to be harder to suffer CT from missile fire, and last longer in melee before the -1 CT penalty from 25% casualties kicked in. That's why I'm trying to penny pinch to avoid price inflation from needless increases in quality and armor.

What's the consensus here on the interpretation that pike phalanxes typically arranged 16 ranks deep for the approach march, but filled in to 8 ranks deep to fight? We should probably settle that, before we cause Schweetness to waste too much work on balancing units of the wrong size.

@ RBS: A while ago I saw a chart in this forum on the basic rules of thumb on determining unit pricing, but can't find it now. Would you mind posting that chart again so we could have an idea of the expected price of the unit we are cooking up?

[Schweetness101]

Is there a way to make pikes reduce the melee POA of both spearmen and swordsmen to 50, the same way that speamen reduce swordsmen POA? This could allow you to change the quality and armor of the pikes back down to average/protected, thereby further reducing their price. As far as I know above average only adds to POA, and does not help with cohesion tests unlike superior which lets you reroll 1's on CT.

yes I can do that pretty simply I think, the current logic for swordsmen to have poa reduced is:

Code: Select all

// Foot swordsmen POA mitigated to 50 vs steady foot who have offensive spearmen or defensive spearmen capability or are in protective terrain.
if ((GetAttrib(enemy, "Offensive_Spearmen") > 0) || (GetAttrib(enemy, "Defensive_Spearmen") > 0) || (InProtectiveTerrain(enemy, me, enemy_attacking) == 1))
{
	increment = PercentNotSteady(enemy, me, enemy_attacking) / 2;
	increment += 50;
}

I could do something for getarrib(enemy, pike) too in order to reduce their poa vs pikes, and add something like that for offensive and defensive spearment vs pikes. Should it be in melee only? What exact values for what exact matchups in melee and impact should change?

[pompeytheflatulent]

Melee only, I think. If the base melee POA values of pike vs offensive/defensive spearmen and swordmen was 100 vs 50, it would allow them to hold up to veteran hoplites and veteran legionaries without artificially inflating their quality/armor.

[Schweetness101]

Also I would still prefer to have pike units be larger than 480, in order to be harder to suffer CT from missile fire, and last longer in melee before the -1 CT penalty from 25% casualties kicked in. That's why I'm trying to penny pinch to avoid price inflation from needless increases in quality and armor.

What's the consensus here on the interpretation that pike phalanxes typically arranged 16 ranks deep for the approach march, but filled in to 8 ranks deep to fight? We should probably settle that, before we cause Schweetness to waste too much work on balancing units of the wrong size.

@ RBS: A while ago I saw a chart in this forum on the basic rules of thumb on determining unit pricing, but can't find it now. Would you mind posting that chart again so we could have an idea of the expected price of the unit we are cooking up?

if maniples are 120 men (3 ranks of 40), and the roman hastati/principes units have 480 men in the game, then they are meant to be 4 maniples? And side by side or in a square? should we take them to be in a square and so the hastati/principe unit in game is 80 men across and 6 deep?

And what was the ratio of men to feet of frontage for hastati vs pikes? If an hastati uses 2x as much width per man (i made that number up) then the the pike units are supposed to be 160 men across? And if also 6 deep then 960 men total?

I'm trying to figure out here what the ratio of men in a given pike block to men in a given legion/hastati formation is per unit of battle line width (because in game due to the grid system one unit of hastati is of course as wide as one unit of pikes)

[Schweetness101]

also how in the editor can I start a unit out as disrupted or fragmented?

[Schweetness101]

so I'm testing a rebalance with pikes vs defensive spearmen where the spearmen have their melee poa reduced to 50 from 100 against steady pikes

I also still have the effect in where in melee pikes default to 100 POA, but have 50 if disrupted/disordered, and 0 if fragmented/severely disordered

So what happens is if a steady spearmen is in melee with a steady pike then the pikes have 100 POA and the spears have 50 POA, or net +50 for pikes.

However, if the pikes are disrupted, they are no longer steady, and thus the defensive spearmen return to their full 100 POA, but also the pikes drop down to 50 melee POA from being disrupted, and now the situation reverses with a net +50 for defensive spears. And it would be a net +100 for steady defensive spears if the pikes fragment. Does that seem ok? or should pikes not be losing POA from losses to cohesion and order? or should they only lose it if severely disordered or fragmented?

Another way to put it, how much of an advantage, if any, would a steady, ordered phalanx have against a disordered phalangite?

[Paul59]

also how in the editor can I start a unit out as disrupted or fragmented?

You can't do that in the Editor. It can be done with a script in a scenario .bsf file.

[rbodleyscott]

@ RBS: A while ago I saw a chart in this forum on the basic rules of thumb on determining unit pricing, but can't find it now. Would you mind posting that chart again so we could have an idea of the expected price of the unit we are cooking up?

POINTS VALUES_REVISED.zip

(20.09 KiB) Downloaded 87 times

[Geffalrus]

What's the consensus here on the interpretation that pike phalanxes typically arranged 16 ranks deep for the approach march, but filled in to 8 ranks deep to fight? We should probably settle that, before we cause Schweetness to waste too much work on balancing units of the wrong size.

Not a bad idea. I was thinking that the number of ranks question could wait until we were at the price discussion stage. But I can see the implications for ranged damage cohesion, so sure, we can try and reach more of a consensus now.

To try and quickly reiterate, a uniformly 16 deep army would require twice as many men to stretch across X distance as an army 8 deep or less. Exacerbating this would be the horizontal density of the formation, and the pike phalanx (much like the hoplite phalanx) was reputed to be rather closely packed. The Roman maniple was only 3 soldiers deep while fighting. However, that's just counting the Hastati - the Principes would be a whole line of maniples behind them, followed by the Triarii. So 3 + 3 + 1 or 2 for the Triarii. Meaning that while a depth of 3 may have been used during any one part of the melee, the army itself would be closer to effectively 8 deep. This is close to the Greek Hoplite Phalanx, which would average around 8 deep. Exceptions could occur due to terrain restriction or localized depth tactics (Thebans at Leuctra). But with 3 ranks fighting, but 8 ranks in total counting intended reserves, you have a situation where the Romans and Macedonians could each bring 20,000 infantry, occupy close to the same horizontal distance, and still feel like the 3 rank Hastati were battling a DEEP formation of 8 ranks. It would even give the Romans some advantage in a long battle because they're switching out their Hastati for fresh Principes, while the front ranks of the syntagma do not.

An army uniformly twice as deep across it's whole length would - need - to bring twice as many men to match frontage. And most armies did try to match infantry frontage pretty closely with their opponents (unless specific unique tactics were being tried). It's not like Macedon was swimming in extra soldiers - especially not during the later Hellenistic period. I could also touch again on how the physical orientation of human beings in the pike phalanx, while holding the sarissa, made any depth of rank beyond 5 superfluous. I think there are explanations for why the phalanx would be extra deep at specific circumstances that don't mean that the phalanx - tried - to be 16 ranks deep to fight effectively.

So yeah, I don't think the Macedonians fought 16 ranks deep as a matter of common practice. It could adopt a variety of formations that could involve extra depth, but then so could the Legion - and they're not depicted as deep units. Make no mistake, I do find the current depiction of the 4x4 pike units very - aesthetically - pleasing. But I think 2 rank pike units in game would be more accurate to history. And we can counteract ranged damage problems with a combination of armor, cheaper cost allowing more skirmishers, and a higher unit cap making individual units less precious than they currently are (losing a single pike HURTS). Armored heavy infantry are a pain to take down with ranged units in my experience.

[Schweetness101]

So unitsize should be 480 with 8 models (2 rows) or perhaps 720 with 12 models (3 rows)?

armour should be 75 (some armour) or perhaps the lower 67 (also some armour), or 100 (armoured)?

cost and unit cap I can put in later after balancing the unit properties

any feedback on the way I have it currently where pikes are losing POA in melee and impact from being disordered/fragmented? should that be different, or not happening at all?

and are we good with both swordsmen and defensive/offensive spears having their melee poa reduced to 50 against steady pikes? and should that be only against steady pikes, or against steady or disordered but not fragmented?

thanks

[pompeytheflatulent]

I think everything (armor, POAs) needs to wait until the unit size gets hashed out, since outnumbering your opponent in melee confers a noticeable win % shift.

[Schweetness101]

I think everything (armor, POAs) needs to wait until the unit size gets hashed out, since outnumbering your opponent in melee confers a noticeable win % shift.

so 480? or, to account for the fact that they take up less width per man, then for one pike unit to have the same facing as one legionary unit (which they must given the grid system) then one pike unit should be larger than 480? but maybe just a bit larger to lend some extra staying power and ranged resistance?

if it is greater than 480, but much less than 960, then the options are perhaps 720 and 600? in keeping with the increment standards

edit: it looks like only 'poorly armed slaves' are 600, and 720 is like warband and pictish spearmen and raw spearmen