New Units - Balancing 101
Posted: Sat Sep 12, 2020 11:52 am
Balancing 101:
Assuming unit already has overall idea and rough description:
- decide on unit role
- find category or hybrid of some categories, that fits the role
- decide cost
- find unit with similar category, preferably with the same cost or at least similar and take it's stats (beware mercenaries/summons/buildable by worker - they scale differently with cost)
- if previous step doesn't have matches with the same cost, try to find two units with lower and higher cost and do regression, for simpleness may be linear (but try to round down the stats, as in reality stats/cost graph should be curved - higher cost should give somewhat better stats/cost value)
- if similar unit has completely different cost try to find similar cost units with close categories or at least roles for reference and try to increase base unit stats to be similar to same-cost reference
- decide on speciality (apart of category, so cultural specialities or some unique for the unit, based on description - e.g. more powerful attack, sacrificing hp and armor or better bonuses, sacrificing power or mental resistance, sacrificing a little of various stats), do not forget specialities, which are already decided for any groups unit belongs to (specialty has to be balanced!!!)
- apply specialities
- compare stats to any game limits and correct accordingly (e.g. in AoS regular melee units should never have more than 14-15 power and 16 with full bonuses, archers should never have more than 10, unless special powerful weaknesses, like e.g. elephants, siege machines, buildings)
- compare to units, which will be main enemies - those this unit have bonuses against and those, that have bonuses against this unit and against most regularly used units. Any one-shotting capability, reducing damage to meagre values gives huge advantage/disadvantage, so stats should be modified to take it into account or avoid such situations
- compare cost effectiveness to other units used in similar situations - too much creates unfair advantage, too less asks for increasing speciality effectiveness
- compare availability of units - tech requirements, where it's trained
- compare bonuses from additional sources - buffs, blacksmith, special cultural research
Pure stats balancing tips:
- Main stats in order of importance: actions, speed, pierce armor, melee armor, power, hp
- Speed is best to be left alone
- armor should be in most cases weighted around 1.5-2 times more than power
- power should be in most cases weighted around 2 times more than hp
- armor is more useful the more hp unit has
- armor is most useful to the point of reducing most popular units damage to 1, then loses some usefuleness
- power is strictly related to bonuses and actions
- power is much more useful around the point where after applying bonuses it goes over armor value of defensive units
- mental resistance is much more useful if 100% or more
Assuming unit already has overall idea and rough description:
- decide on unit role
- find category or hybrid of some categories, that fits the role
- decide cost
- find unit with similar category, preferably with the same cost or at least similar and take it's stats (beware mercenaries/summons/buildable by worker - they scale differently with cost)
- if previous step doesn't have matches with the same cost, try to find two units with lower and higher cost and do regression, for simpleness may be linear (but try to round down the stats, as in reality stats/cost graph should be curved - higher cost should give somewhat better stats/cost value)
- if similar unit has completely different cost try to find similar cost units with close categories or at least roles for reference and try to increase base unit stats to be similar to same-cost reference
- decide on speciality (apart of category, so cultural specialities or some unique for the unit, based on description - e.g. more powerful attack, sacrificing hp and armor or better bonuses, sacrificing power or mental resistance, sacrificing a little of various stats), do not forget specialities, which are already decided for any groups unit belongs to (specialty has to be balanced!!!)
- apply specialities
- compare stats to any game limits and correct accordingly (e.g. in AoS regular melee units should never have more than 14-15 power and 16 with full bonuses, archers should never have more than 10, unless special powerful weaknesses, like e.g. elephants, siege machines, buildings)
- compare to units, which will be main enemies - those this unit have bonuses against and those, that have bonuses against this unit and against most regularly used units. Any one-shotting capability, reducing damage to meagre values gives huge advantage/disadvantage, so stats should be modified to take it into account or avoid such situations
- compare cost effectiveness to other units used in similar situations - too much creates unfair advantage, too less asks for increasing speciality effectiveness
- compare availability of units - tech requirements, where it's trained
- compare bonuses from additional sources - buffs, blacksmith, special cultural research
Pure stats balancing tips:
- Main stats in order of importance: actions, speed, pierce armor, melee armor, power, hp
- Speed is best to be left alone
- armor should be in most cases weighted around 1.5-2 times more than power
- power should be in most cases weighted around 2 times more than hp
- armor is more useful the more hp unit has
- armor is most useful to the point of reducing most popular units damage to 1, then loses some usefuleness
- power is strictly related to bonuses and actions
- power is much more useful around the point where after applying bonuses it goes over armor value of defensive units
- mental resistance is much more useful if 100% or more
(he might be the one typing this message, loves a good dose of OP that guy does! 
)