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I dunno, mate. maybe it's just cuz I'm a hands-on learner, but I've played KKND and this still sounds both overcomplicated and oversimplified at the same time... there are so many more factors that define a unit's strengths or weaknesses there was one concept you brought up that's particularly comprehensible to me though 😛 how I tried to balance the Summers' Solstice campaign was through units' roles, or functions as you put it, as opposed to on an individual basis. so even if we've got some new stuff here or there, they fall into certain categories and their strengths and weaknesses are representative of the category they belong to like Shock Raiders, for instance. fast, high damage, low durability. excels over open terrain, swarming targets. bad in head-on frontal assault. very similar to Quads, Raiders, Flame Tanks, other stuff like that even that example accounts for movement speed, effective weapon range, and other stuff like that too though. not just health and damage a lot of theory falls apart in practice, I've found. you know what they say: in theory, there's no difference between theory and practice. in practice, there most certainly is a difference 😆

The post from Posted August 4, 2013 contains a mistake in the calculations. While it was used for a board game. It doesn't work that way. I never corrected that one. A few extra modifications on these, and you can use most of them for RTS as well. I see some on the internet. Assuming that they differ due to different game mechanics in their RTS. Most common used formula's in my department Main balance formula: Stats = a * ( Body + Weapon ) + b * ( 2* sqrt( Body * Weapon ) ) / ( a+b ) Initial H/D ratio. You simply pick a number that indicates how many turns or seconds a basic ammount of damage is needed for destroying a basic ammount of health: = HDratio Normally: Cost = Stats = Size Used for stacking cover mechanics. The SumSize gives different proportions to units that take cover inside things: SumSize = Body + Weapon Used for hiding cover mechanics. The Size of a design can also decide on the combat density of an army. Smaller means a higher density: %Cost = %Stats / sqrt( %Size ) Basicly, if the size is only 25% of what it is supposed to be. The costs will double. I left the %Stats in there, it is always 100% stats, so you can replace it with a 1. Please note that the Armor mechanic works completely different in every RTS game. In some, its subtraction. In others, it is part of a RPS system. Here it is part of a "RPS system" and receives a weight percentage: Body = %Armor * Health * %BodyAttributes * ( Speed + HDratio ) / HDratio Map design can be of influence on movement and projectile movement. Most modifications are withing the Attributes. But there is always a fixed factor between the Body and Weapon calculation: = Rf Personally, I always use 1.5 here. But the average number in RTS is actually sqrt( 2 ). %Damage is the mirror of %Armor: Weapon = %Damage * Damage * %WeaponAttributes * ( Rf * Range + HDratio ) HDratio Some designs can move AND attack at the same time: Weapon = %Damage * Damage * %WeaponAttributes * ( Speed + Rf * Range + HDratio ) HDratio Instead of simple Damage, you can also add in a SalvoFactor or DPS number in the Weapon formula above. However, the SalvoFactor is a sum of the moments that damage is dealt. And each moment has its own weight: SalvoFactor = Sum of all DamageMoments DamageMoment = (( HDratio / ( HDratio + 1 ) ) ^Moment ) / HDratio Salvo's can contain smaller salvo's. With each smaller salvo having its own moment weight. A simple example; if you pick a HDratio of 5 seconds. And the weapon shoots every second. With the first moment at exactly 1 second. The second moment at exactly 2 seconds, etc. The SalvoFactor will be 1. If you however start at 0 seconds immediately, your SalvoFactor will be 1.2. And to balance this, the damage should be 5/6th. A HDratio of 5 is actually very short. The fun starts when you consider a higher cooldown. So you fire every 5 seconds after the first one being on 0 seconds? The SalvoFactor here will be 0.33438. In a sense, this design may deal roughly 3 times more damage in order to be balanced again. In my boardgame, splash damage works different than in RTS games. In RTS games, there are several ways. But the main rule is that it is a yes/no mechanic, depending on the targets choices. This means that an explosion causing splash damage, will get an 50% extra weight for each additional possible target. In most RTS, smaller units can receive more damage this way. In rarer occasions, there is a maximum ammount of targets that actually get hit in the explosion. This is based on the fact that certain units absorb the damage, like in real life. This factor is often put in the %WeaponAttributes: %WeaponAttributes = 1 + 0.5 * NumberOfPossibleTargets If the game allows lower damage value's, further away from the centre of the explosion: %WeaponAttributes = 1 + 0.5 * %Exploson * NumberOfPossibleTargets + 0.5 * %Exploson2 * NumberOfPossibleTargets2 + ...

It is not the core. It is the giftpackage that finishes it.  In order to understand it. I explained it with the 2 most basic value's. As practical example. Where I got this idea from would be KKnD. KKnD is the best example. Here you can tell which units act as tanks and which as support. These tanks often move forward too. The AI shoots at the units that are the closest. The player can get an advantage here by aiming for easy soft targets that normally give dps. The units that are tanky, compared to their damage: Survivors have the Anaconda Tank and ATV. But also the Swat, these infantry are relatively cheap, but very durable in small forces combat. The Mutants have the Monster Truck, which just so happens to be 99,9% balanced to the ATV. And the Mastodon is the equivalent of the Anaconda Tank. They excel in their durability. And their infantry version would be the shotgunner. While the game has a lot of assymetry. The functional uses of the units are almost always, the same. My boardgame was another example. But that project slowly died due to creeping. As for other RTS. You can tell the absense of this root factor in C&C td. As for the core for balance. The H/D ratio, is THE key number for the weight factors of the movement speed, attack range, salvo (or dps, but cooldown and charging included). Map design also adds weight to the attack range. Body has the health, movement speed and other body related value's. Weapon has the attack range and salvo. As for the whole game balance. You have a basic formula. Based on the H/D ratio. Then you wrap it up with the root factor. Getting advanced? If you wonder if your H/D ratio changes due to having more or less support combat units. You could recalculate this one. And recalculate the entire list, assuming all units are used equally. A little macro. And you end up with a mathimatically balanced list. Still theory. Playtests will show how much players truly use certain units. Now for the fun part. Upgrade the list with the weight factors on how often the units are build. If they weight more. Their influence on the H/D ratio will weight more as well. Recalculate the entire list again. I believe that C&C3 didn't use the root factor to begin with. But I suspect they did use a matrix balance on multiplayer results. C&C3 also has an important factor...Size, thus the combat density sometimes matters when large armies are used. And another factor that matters with low unit counts. Would be the fodder/tank ratio. 

it sounds a bit too basic to really work out ^^ there are so many other factors to consider in a unit's power. maybe as a starting principle, but certainly not as the core of balance decisions and whatnot do you have some kind of example to showcase the success of this method?  a practical example, not... not more math

Right, I guess in simpler/different terms? When you have the body value's and weapon value's added up. There is an optimal balance at a 50%+50%=100% value. But when you start shifting the percentages. To either meat or support. The overal effectivness of 1 unit will drop. Compared to the most optimal design. You can see this by simply multiplying the value's of the body and weapon. 50 * 50 = 2500 40 * 60 = 2400 30 * 70 = 2100 20 * 80 = 1600 10 * 90 = 900 0 * 100 = 0 The productvalue is what matters in combat. And the lower it gets, the less this unit is effective. If you apply the root factor for calculating the costs. You get: 2* sqrt( body * weapon ) 2* sqrt( 25 * 100 ) = 100 and the producvalue will then be: 25 * 100 = 2500. Which brings it back to the maximum possible effectivness. Of course, we cannot have infinities. Thus we need to add a bit of the normal calculation. 1:1 portions ( body + weapon + 2 * sqrt( body * weapon ) ) /2 With 30%+75%. We get: ( 30 + 75 + 2 * sqrt( 30 * 75 ) ) /2 = 100. And the productvalue is 30 * 75 = 2250. This is now 90%. 1:5 portions ( body + weapon + 10 * sqrt( body * weapon ) ) /6 With 30%+80%. We get: ( 30 + 80 + 10 * sqrt( 30 * 80 ) ) /6 = 100. And the productvalue is 30 * 80 = 2400. This is now 96%. While previously we had 2100 or even 1600, which equals to only 84% or 64%.