Current balance of normal units

[Catwalk]

But when they get smashed by almost everything, they don't effectively set a baseline for anything. Note that Cavalry and Bowmen are somewhat useful while Swordsmen are bad and Spearmen are useless. Having bad units is also bad for the AI, as it's tricked into thinking they're useful whereas we know better. Or does it know to ignore the bad units?

[zitro1987]

My problem is that swordsmen are pretty useless and we're now losing the option to recruit spearmen in some races.

Spearmen are NOT useless. They're incredibly cheap and cost only 1/2 food to maintain - good for filling garrisons, scouting, blocking AI, sacrificing a bunch while casting spells, etc.

Swordsmen on the other hand cost 30, have gold maintenance, and generally can't fight anything well (dark elves, trolls, and maybe a couple others are decent), unlike bowmen or other early units. Which is why I suggest +1 figure or bring down their cost/maintenance.

[Catwalk]

I think that's probably a source of a lot of this.

You need halberdiers to compete with summons. You've taught the AI that humans will provably use summons. Therefore they go straight to halberdiers, making spear/swords/bow/cavalry mostly obsolete.

Which I think is why most of us find those units not relevant.

But you can't change that with out weakening summons. Which you can't do if the human can quickly get halberdiers. So those 4 units are likely just going to stay mostly obsolete except in rare cases.

(You also can't really strengthen any if those 4 units, without encroaching on halberdiers. So they must stay weak, despite catwalks suggestion to increase them.)

So the AI doesn't use the early units, and the human doesn't use the early units. They're supposed to stay weak so noone uses them and we can focus on Halberdiers and summons? There is no problem with encroaching on Halberdiers. There's no law saying Halberdiers have to be the first good unit you get access to (other than racial units).

[Nelphine]

Except if we encroach on halberdiers, then no one makes halberdiers because of the cost (recall my problem with orc swordsmen being far too expensive) both with them, and with fighter guilds. So you're forced to either accept that halberdiers become useless (and you have to teach the AI that, thus defeating everything seravy has already done), or you have to significantly reduce the cost of halberdiers/fighters guild, which then has a further effect on the requirements for common summons 

Its an arms race between summons and city troops. You have to be very careful with any changes, even if no changes means having a few mostly useless units in the game.

SOMETHING had to be the worst few units. They set the baseline. There have to be bad units, because the worst units will always be underutilized. Summons have to be a certain strength comparitive to their cost (not just casting cost, but also upkeep, and cist of picks at the start). There has to be a city unit to match that in a reasonable amount of time.

Yes its possible we could rebalance everything better - but it would be a lot of work, for little benefit, and it would take a lot of convincing to show its not better than now.

[Catwalk]

No, encroaching doesn't mean rendering them useless. There isn't a magical point where on one side you only build halberdiers and on the other side you never build halberdiers. It's a scale.

[Catwalk]

Suggestion:

Spearmen at 1/4 and 2 hearts, costing 20.
Swordsmen at 3/3 and 2 hearts, costing 40.

What do you predict will happen as a consequence?

If Seravy has already taught the AI to race to Halberdiers and ignore most everything else, doesn't that simply highlight this problem in an extreme way? It's sad that he's spent time on this already, but I don't see that justifying continuing with a bad solution.

[Nelphine]

It isn't a scale you build what is most efficient. Or more accurately, you have to teach the AI to assume you will.

1/4, 2 hearts? I missed too much of the previous conversatiin, what is the 1/4 standing for?

[Catwalk]

1 sword, 4 shields, 2 hearts.

Yes, it is a scale because buildings are involved. If you needed a smithy for both swordsmen and halberdiers, it'd be a magical point indeed where it's difficult to make both units relevant unless you made them highly distinctive. But because the building requirements are different, there isn't this magical point. Was this (lack of balance) chosen originally because it was difficult to teach the AI when to switch to better units?

[Seravy]

Well, actually, I'm not 100% sure cavalry are worse against summons than halberdiers. It might be worth a try to let the AI randomly pick between stables and fighter's guild instead of forcing the latter?
Albeit, if they don't go for the fighter's guild, the chance to reach fantastic stables and armorer's guild is much much lower. Also there are races with no cavalry. Argggh.
Still, we might find a way to let them produce more cavalry somehow. Maybe based on race, or realm or something.
...or not. The AI is bad at using cavalry. It's a first strike unit. With 5 moves. So it'll almost never actually get to strike first. So we probably need to keep this limited to specific races.

As is, the AI's "forced building" for various races is :

Barbarians : Fighter's Guild. Can't do better here.
Gnolls : Stables. Wolf Riders early are a big deal, can't do better than that.
Beastmen : Fighter's Guild. They require it for their "cavalry" the Centaurs, so perfect.
Dark Elf : Fighter's Guild. This might not be so good - Dark Elf cavalry is actually a decent AI unit because it's ranged and fast, while halberdiers are not that great. FG helps reaching the actually good nightbaldes and nightmares faster though. Depends on how we change the race I guess...
Draconian : Fighter's Guild. Draconian halberdiers offer good strategic strength so this might be a good choice. The only other option I see here is producing Saints but a Myrran wizard is not likely to meet the human early to take advantage of their durability in normal combats.
Dwarf : University. Steam Cannons are the best self-defense.
Halfling : Fighter's Guild. Slingers are good and have ok strategic strength. Only other option would be the magicians but that is too expensive and bad for strategic.
High Elf : Fighter's Guild. Not that good but a step towards the amazing elven lords and pegasai and elven cavalry is  not AI friendly.
High Men : Fighter's Guild. Pikemen are that that great but there isn't much else here. If we add the new unit, whichever it is, we might want to make the AI go for that one instead.
Klackon : Fighter's Guild. They don't have anything else than Halberdiers to go for.
Lizardmen : Fighter's Guild. Javelineers need it as well, so perfect.
Nomad : Fighter's Guild. This might be bad. Horsebowmen are amazing units while pikemen are not that great and easy to kill using ranged units. They do have the better strategic strength though and the missile capability from horsebows is easy to counter.
Orcs : Fighter's Guild. Good as is.
Troll : Fighter's Guild. No other good options here.

[Catwalk]

Alright, it makes sense to me that you've chosen to simplify the unit balance for AI reasons. Still, with all the progress you've made on this front I'm guessing it's possible to improve on this now.

Does the AI ever produce bowmen?