Balance Mod

[ScottWAR]

This is a mod that makes very few changes in order to make the game more balanced.

The changes in it-----

-Fighters have land attack reduced to 20%
-Attack subs have surface attack increased to 350%
-Destroyers have underwater attack increased to 180%
-ASW Helicopters have their underwater attack increased to 160%
-Transports have their HP reduced to 120 at leve1/170 at level 2/220 at level 3.

Using the max damage a unit can do these changes accomplish the following. An attack sub can kill a transport in one attack. A destroyer can kill an attack sub in one hit. An attack sub can ALMOST kill a destroyer in one hit. An ASW heli can kill a sub in one hit. And most important,....fighters arent as effective against ground forces.

Unzip the file and place the entire folder (titled Basic Balanced) into the GameTypes folder. Which is located in the World Supremacy folder.


I have played with the mod just enough to know that the changes give the desired results........however, I have not had time to judge how the AI handles the changes. In the test games I played the AI actually seemed to be doing just fine. Regardless,......any comments, criticisms, suggestions,...etc are welcome and encouraged.

[Uncle_Joe]

Thanks for the mod! It looks like a lot of your observations mirror my own.

One of the things I've noticed is how poor of a buy Infantry is. Not only do they die in seconds, they are slow on the Strategic map, slow on the tactical map, and have such a short range that it's rare that they ever get a shot.

Now the real kicker is their price tag. $2 doesnt seem like much, but the $1 upkeep is the killer! That is a 50% upkeep cost! Most other units have about a 25% upkeep cost. So basically you have a slow, weak unit that costs way too much to keep around in the mass numbers necessary to make them at all useful.

What I did for the demo was simply double their HPs. This gives them staying power at least. If you want to err on the conservative side, maybe only increase their HPs by 50%, but honestly I think they can use all the help they can get.

Thanks!

[ScottWAR]

I plan on making an 'advanced' version where I am basically going to redo all the stats.

[ScottWAR]

Uploading a new version (V1.1). The only change is to fighters and stealth fighters........I am reducing their air attack modifier back to 100%. The problem with fighters wasnt that they wernt able to kill other planes,...it was that they were lethal against ground units AND air units.

With the 150% modifier 1 fighter was able to kill 3 or 4 fighters in one shot,.......abviously this is way too high. With the change to 100%, they can kill two fighters in one shot IF they get a REALLY good damage roll.

[Uncle_Joe]

Good call. I'd also look into reducing the damage from bombers. They do ridiculous damage in the stock game. I cut them in half and they are STILL a good buy so I think in 'stock', they are disgustingly overpowered. Sure, you can trash them with Fighters, but with that much base damage the bombers are not BAD vs fighter in return AND if there are no fighters or you kill the fighters, the bombers annihilate everything far far to quickly IMO.

[ScottWAR]

Yes I have noticed that. Another thing is that carriers can only carry fighters and stealth fighters,...no bombers. I am thinking the fighter is modeled after the new strike fighter, and therefore is definately capable againt air and ground targets. Since I doubt the AI would put bombers on a carrier even if I changed the carrier to be able to handle carrying bombers,..... I think I am going to adjust the fighter back to being able to do both air and land damage,...but scale back both from the stock game.

Probably set it so 1 fighter can destroy 2 fighters on average in one shot (100% air modifier) and so 1 fighter can destroy one tank in one shot(65% land modifier). I think I will scale bombers back to about 75% land damage, so they can kill 3 tanks IF they roll maximum damage. That way they are still a decent buy even with fighters being able to do ground damage.

I will probably post these changes as V1.2 later today.

[ScottWAR]

Here is version 1.2

Changes from stock game-
Fighters- air modifier to 100%, land modifier to 65%
Bombers- land modifier 75%
ASW Heli- undersea modifier to 160%
Attack Sub- underseas modifier to 350%
Destroyer- undersea to 180%
Sea Transport- Hp to 120/170/220
Radar Stations- Level 2 changed sight to 4, level 3 sight to 5
Surveillance Aircraft- Same as radar stations.

[ScottWAR]

Had to fix an error. Forgot to change the game name in the settings file so the game was showing up as 'standard' in the game type menu. V1.21 fixes that.

[ScottWAR]

I think this will be the final version, barring any imbalances that come to light with more playing.

This version (V1.3) adds two changes.
- Stealth Fighters And Bombers are no longer obtained by researching stealth. Instead Stealth Fighter I and Stealth Bomber I are avialable when Air Units 4 is researched. Stealth Fighter II and Stealth Bomber II are available when Air Units 5 is researched, and Stealth Fighter III and Stelath Bomber III are available when Air Units 6 is researched.
-Antiaircraft Truck I and Air Defense I are available at the beginning of the game instead of having to be researched first.

[Uncle_Joe]

Lets see, what else have I done in my mod? (and I've shameless used yours as a base! ).

I guess here are the high-points:

1) Gave APCs +1 Attack and better damage (about double...they are actually worth using now.

2) Increased infantry HPs by 50% at all techs. I went with double for a while, but with APCs being more useful and with other units being tweaked, they are probably fine with 50% more.

3) Cut bomber damage by half. This is across the board, not just using the multipliers. I also cut their range to 3. And they are STILL an extremely powerful unit. In 'stock', they were beyond broken lol.

4) Upped Fighter cost to 25/6. I also scaled their land attack to 40% and reduced their range to 3. Again they are still one of better and more verstatile units out there.

5) Doubled the effect of the Fortified Positions. Each point of defense over the attack value in the combat formula is a 5% decrease in damage so I made the Fortified positions basically reduce damage by 10%, not 5% (give or take).

6) Gave AWACS a +2 Attack value for units. This appears to be working OK, but I can't 100% verify that it has the effect.

7) Cut the cost of tech research in half. The AI loves to spend money on tech and at least this gives it a chance to survive and build units rather than wasting it all on tech every turn.

8) Increased the Initiative and damage of Mobile Arty a bit. We found that these things really just weren't worth having. They acted too infrequently, were extremely fragile and even when they attacked, their damage wasnt all that great.

9) I removed the x2 money per province and just made the provinces worth between 8 and 15 instead. It removes a little bit of the money, but I dont mind that with the other changes and it makes more sense that a territory with 11 is worth...well, 11! I also made cities give a 50% bonus (to keep it consistent) and I reduced their cost to 40. The thought here is that in a good (14 or 15) territory, the pay off is about 6 turns. I'm considering having cities grant a 2-point defense bonus as well (cities should be harder to take after all ).

I *think* that's it.