Balance testing release r4297

[sado1]

I also agree with Matt, the game will be really strange (and slower) if (x)bows behave like you said, Lewin. Wouldn't it be possible to detect "stop move" made with a mouse? If someone rightclicks to the same position his (x)bows are currently in, game will not notice the click.

[Lewin]

But often you want to use halt (or move to the same tile, it's the same thing) to get them to choose different targets or make one guy who is out of line reposition himself. So if we ignore that the halt feature is removed.

[Jeronimo]

The "halt trick" is not a big problem or issue to solve IMO due to few things.

1) Archers shooting with high fire rate, are not attractive for using this trick, so this is just reduced for Rogues/Xbows (slow fire rate).
2) If you consider the low FPS and lags, I think it will cause you to lose some shoots more than giving you extra fire.
3) If the squad receives 1 lose, or is bad positioned (not tight rectangle), then the trick cannot be done... halting will reaccomodate them.
4) For reason above, it only works with small groups (aprox. 20 units) and even so... it's easy to "break".

Using this is almost a waste of time in battlefield, in fact it's more seen against towers (double-attacking), than vs soldiers.
I think like if you have nothing, really nothing else to move, then you just do this trick, with no significant "time-benefit".
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I wouldn't worry about it, it leaves some "micro-trick" for players to discover.
Is not dangerous if you are realistic about its current impact.
Units with shields, melee that persues, those are new nightmare.

One more comment... I think that persisting on changing this somehow, may bring more problems than solutions.

[The Dark Lord]

1) Archers shooting with high fire rate, are not attractive for using this trick, so this is just reduced for Rogues/Xbows (slow fire rate).

Depends on the number, if I had 10 archers I wouldn't bother, if I had 100 I sure would. My main concerns are about people who abuse it to make crossbows fire faster.

2) If you consider the low FPS and lags, I think it will cause you to lose some shoots more than giving you extra fire.

No, it's very easy to do.

3) If the squad receives 1 lose, or is bad positioned (not tight rectangle), then the trick cannot be done... halting will reaccomodate them.

That is not true, the ones that can still fire will do so.

Using this is almost a waste of time in battlefield, in fact it's more seen against towers (double-attacking), than vs soldiers.
I think like if you have nothing, really nothing else to move, then you just do this trick, with no significant "time-benefit".
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I wouldn't worry about it, it leaves some "micro-trick" for players to discover.
Is not dangerous if you are realistic about its current impact.

Please explain to me how crossbowmen that fire twice as fast are not dangerous and have no significant effect?

I would also like to refer to this topic in which I described a test: http://knightsandmerchants.net/forum/vi ... =23&t=1137

[Jeronimo]

With the "significant effect", I refer mostly that at the heat of battle, using troops you will rather macro melee with xbows constantly moving them a bit forward or back. Remember how many times can you really use your time in coordinating well that halt-trick.

I have seen some of these "moments for micro", but mainly in tight spaces/bridges and no more than 5-10 seconds.
Then again formation breaks easily, and pressing halts makes squad to reaccomdate.

Xbowmen using this trick are dangerous in version 4.179 because of the spam + lancers.
But Dark Lord... shields and persuing features in new balance will make this unit even less important.

I see many players have started to train Axemen, Swordmen and Knights... the halt-trick, which requires 100% attention and just works with small groups becomes insignificant (at least from my tactical perspective).

[sado1]

But often you want to use halt (or move to the same tile, it's the same thing) to get them to choose different targets or make one guy who is out of line reposition himself. So if we ignore that the halt feature is removed.

So let halt work only for those that are not in order, maybe? If an unit is staying in a proper place, the halt command should not affect him and he shouldn't shoot faster. If an unit is out of line, he should come back then shoot.

[Lewin]

But often you want to use halt (or move to the same tile, it's the same thing) to get them to choose different targets or make one guy who is out of line reposition himself. So if we ignore that the halt feature is removed.

So let halt work only for those that are not in order, maybe? If an unit is staying in a proper place, the halt command should not affect him and he shouldn't shoot faster. If an unit is out of line, he should come back then shoot.

But I sometimes use the halt command to make my archers select a different target, e.g. if the enemy is trying to make your archers shoot 1 knight dancing around in front of his archers, if you halt your archers they will choose new random targets (hopefully including his archers as well as the lone knight). I think that's a useful feature.

@TDL: I think that latest EXE we sent you for testing tower defence has the halting exploit fix, so you can see how it feels for yourself (and maybe suggest an alternative method if you don't like it). Keep in mind there are still some known issues with soldier behaviour in that version so don't worry if you notice some oddities.

@Jeronimo: I don't think it justifies ignoring an exploit just because it's often hard to use in the heat of battle (time consuming). The fact is that it is still an exploit that can be used in many situations, even if not in big battles. If you practised I think you could end up with firing twice as many arrows, which is a massive bonus (like having twice as many archers but in a smaller area)

[sado1]

But often you want to use halt (or move to the same tile, it's the same thing) to get them to choose different targets or make one guy who is out of line reposition himself. So if we ignore that the halt feature is removed.

So let halt work only for those that are not in order, maybe? If an unit is staying in a proper place, the halt command should not affect him and he shouldn't shoot faster. If an unit is out of line, he should come back then shoot.

But I sometimes use the halt command to make my archers select a different target, e.g. if the enemy is trying to make your archers shoot 1 knight dancing around in front of his archers, if you halt your archers they will choose new random targets (hopefully including his archers as well as the lone knight). I think that's a useful feature.

If my understanding is right, your proposed fix for the exploit, will already make this feature useless. But I guess I'm wrong and archers don't use another random target each time they shoot an arrow? Anyway, I'm too tired of thinking of new ways for a fix since you always have some feature you'd like to preserve

[The Dark Lord]

Well I have tested it a little and yes, the exploit is fixed, but it is quite annoying not to be able to move your units immediately. Why not make units able to move but not fire? Just a short pause in the animation between standing still and aiming? This way you can still move your units around but the exploit is fixed.

[dicsoupcan]

yes indeed, like they finish reloading when they have moved to their new place.

[pawel95]

For me the balancing between axefightes and lancers is also good now.

However one thing to market balancing: 1 bread => 1 corn?
I think it doesnt make sense. When you make corn, with one corn you can make about 2 breads(1corn=1flour=2breads).

So with the actual setting, you sell your bread more expensive, as it is real
So this should be changed maybe, because with this combiantion you have just a endlessly production of corn (for free)




pawel95

[Jeronimo]

pawel95... I thought that could be an exploit, but after trying it I concluded:

1 farm + 1 mill + 1 bakery -> 2 breads (2 corn)
1 farm + 1 farm + 1 farm -> 3 corn

Basically you don't gain any bread since it's all going into market, and you have 3 buildings producing 2 corn, while you could just have 3 farms instead... even if requires a little more space due to fields, it's still more convenient.
Remember that running an "infinite trading" requires a lot of serfs which often ends in bottlejams.
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Dark Lord, does the same fixed exploit apply to attacking towers quickly? Because is not halting but double-attacking.
As sado wrote, may look that "fixing" actually sacrifies another useful feature, re-targeting quickly.

[Lewin]

If my understanding is right, your proposed fix for the exploit, will already make this feature useless. But I guess I'm wrong and archers don't use another random target each time they shoot an arrow? Anyway, I'm too tired of thinking of new ways for a fix since you always have some feature you'd like to preserve

Individual archers will keep shooting the same target as long as it is in range and still alive. They do not choose a random target with each arrow.
Sorry I like to try and find the best solution possible. I don't want to remove features just to fix an exploit if we can avoid it.

Well I have tested it a little and yes, the exploit is fixed, but it is quite annoying not to be able to move your units immediately. Why not make units able to move but not fire? Just a short pause in the animation between standing still and aiming? This way you can still move your units around but the exploit is fixed.

That means when you move your bowmen and they step onto the destination tile they will pause then as well (so if you step your archers up towards the enemy they would stand there for ~1 second after moving before starting to fire). We'd need to make the pause only happen if they were ordered to halt or move to the same position, which might feel kind of inconsistent and strange (and doesn't fit in the code nicely). I'd also prefer the pause to be the time it would have taken them to reload, so you are not punished for halting your archers while they are firing, it just does not gain you any advantage (except choosing new targets which is sometimes useful)

The only problem here is that archers are no longer responsive to move orders, they'll finish reloading before taking the new move order. So how about this:
The archer may only interrupt his reloading if the new order is to move to a different tile. For ANY other order (move to same tile, halt, attack house, etc.) the archer must finish his reloading before taking the new order.
It's probably not going to fit nicely into the code, I think it'll have to be a "special case" if we do it like this.

yes indeed, like they finish reloading when they have moved to their new place.

I think that would be kind of odd, if you move your archers away from a fight half way across the map and then they reload. There's no visual indicator to the player that the archer is not loaded. I agree that it's the most "realistic" and "complete" solution but I think it's over complicated and a bit confusing.

Dark Lord, does the same fixed exploit apply to attacking towers quickly? Because is not halting but double-attacking.
As sado wrote, may look that "fixing" actually sacrifies another useful feature, re-targeting quickly.

It applies to any new action. The archer must finish reloading before he can do ANYTHING at all.

pawel95... I thought that could be an exploit, but after trying it I concluded:

1 farm + 1 mill + 1 bakery -> 2 breads (2 corn)
1 farm + 1 farm + 1 farm -> 3 corn

Basically you don't gain any bread since it's all going into market, and you have 3 buildings producing 2 corn, while you could just have 3 farms instead... even if requires a little more space due to fields, it's still more convenient.
Remember that running an "infinite trading" requires a lot of serfs which often ends in bottlejams.

That's how we'd like it to be with the market, it's easier to make it the "proper way". And it's not really infinite trading, the merchants are just paying you to process their corn into bread (you are adding value to the product so you get to keep some of the corn as payment)

While we're talking about the market, has anybody found the lower trade loss useful? Any strategies involving the market emerged yet?

[Bo_]

I've found a market-strategy, I don't think it's unbalanced, it's more of a risc you take.
At the start you build an early market, then you trade all your bread for corn.
This allows you to start your bread/leather/pony production even before grain has finished growing,
So the advantages: Very early pigs, ponies or bread production, but the disadvantages are that's it's rather expensive.
It will cost you a lot of resources, since at the start you never have too much wood.
It's also very dangerous because it can cause you huge starvations if you don't rush for food production,
you'll need many serfs to bing all the bread to the market, wich can cause your gold production to be slowed down for a moment
and as last even if it didn't cause you any of the problems I mentioned before, the win rate isn't that big.

So for me this is great because it adds some variation to the build, without making it op compared to a normal build, or replacing any other building.
If you think this is an exploit please test it before removing it.

[The Dark Lord]

That means when you move your bowmen and they step onto the destination tile they will pause then as well (so if you step your archers up towards the enemy they would stand there for ~1 second after moving before starting to fire

Yes indeed. My plan was like this: Remake remembers when the archer has fired an arrow and knows when he is allowed to aim to fire again (= time of the reloading animation). As long as this time hasn't passed the archer would stand idle if you gave him attack/halt orders in the mean time, but he could still walk.

The archer may only interrupt his reloading if the new order is to move to a different tile. For ANY other order (move to same tile, halt, attack house, etc.) the archer must finish his reloading before taking the new order.

That seems acceptable. However, crossbowmen take a long time to reload their crossbows; maybe it can be exploited if you just move one tile to the left or right just after they fired. This way you can fire again and you will dodge hostile arrows because you move. On the other hand: it might be very inconvenient because not every crossbowman has finished firing at the same moment, so if you want to move them some can get 'stuck' because others are in the way and then your formation will be broken. It would be an improvement nevertheless.

@Bo I love that, I hope it works for you. As long as not everyone uses it and it is not stronger than normal builds I have not much against market tactics.