Paper, Rock, Scissors

[Aristeas]

Ok...slow day at work...I'm bored.  I thought I'd open a debate :)

Like I stated in my "Factories" thread, I'd rather play an EBFD with out armored units.  Spectral Paladin has graciously offered to do a mod for me according to my idea of what the game should be like and he got me thinking about these two questions.  Who has the best infantry and how might one balance any inequities for a potential mod? 

I have my own opinion, of course.  But I was curious to know your opinions. For me, in order of best to worst would be Harkonnen, Ordos, and Atreides. (bear in mind that I haven't been able to REALLY test my theory in depth and please forgive my not being able to recall the proper names for these units off the top of my head)

The following arguments assume that no armored units are in the game.

Harkonnens...have basic machine gunners, missile launching troopers, and flame throwers.  They don't have the ranged attack that the Atreides sniper provides but the flame throwers are devastating and can be screened by the more expendable machine gunners.  The missile troops, when attacking in numbers, are very effective against buildings and aircraft.  All three Harkonnen infantry types are useful. This is not true of the other two houses.

The Ordos have the chemical trooper, their own missile troops, and the mortar troops.  Chemical troopers appear to be about as deadly as the flame throwers but with less "hit points". Ordos missile troopers, like the Harkonnens, are effective against buildings and aircraft. The weakness of House Ordos lies in the mortar troops.  They can only be set up one by one and are not mobile once they are set up so, in terms of an infantry battle, they'd be fairly useless unless they're already set up in defensive positions.  Even then they're not particularly useful because they can kill their own troops. Chemical troopers are required to move in close to kill which puts them in danger of this friendly fire.  This means that mortar troops can only be used on advancing enemy units at a distance...before chemical troopers are sent in.  This has the unfortunate effect of limiting the defence effectiveness of the chemtroops. 

The Atreides:  Ah the Atreides!  Always my favorite.  They

[GUNWOUNDS]

post this in strategy forum

[Aristeas]

It wasn't intended to be as much about strategy as it was about balancing a mod

[tag]

Once while I was working on a mod I inadvertantly made the Heavy Factory unbuildable.  Since I had only modded the building tree and not the units I had the opportunity to play infantry-only games with Westwood units, and I was able to play it online multiplayer to boot.

In the end the Atreides ruled by a noticible margin.  Snipers, in spite of their refire delay, were far too potent and, as you pointed out, were well enough defended from Chem Trooper attacks by the generic Atreides infantryman.

Harkonnen and Ordos were a little more evenly matched but for the fact that the Ordos Gas turret can outrange anything.  As for Flamethrower Troops, the additional hitpoints granted to them, like Tleilaxu Contaminators, aren't enough to make up for their lack of speed.  While Ordos Mortar infantry are sussceptible to charges, if you can get a group of them together their area-effect damage will make short work of any massed assault, particularly at a "choke point".  The Harkonnen infantryman and the Chem trooper are both like water, in my opinion, but I'm more inclined to favour the Chem Trooper thanks to their speed and the lethality of their weapon.

In the end, I'd take the opposite view of yours and say that the list of houses with best to worst infantry are Atreides, Ordos, and Harkonnen.  Of course, my accidental mod also didn't allow for any air-power so that is a factor I can't take into account.

--Bashar

[GUNWOUNDS]

Ok...slow day at work...I'm bored.

[Aristeas]

Also you can deploy mortars en masse and undeploy them en masse by simply selecting all of them and pressing the "D" Key.  SO your comment about deploying them 1 at a time is pure sillyness.

Well...more like ignorance.  I had no idea you could do that.  Thats what I get for not reading directions :). Can you do that for the Kinjals too? If not how did you go about destroying buildings with the Atreides?

You two, I'm sure, would know better than me.  My entire post was speculation.  I haven't been playing any where near as long as you have Gunwounds, just a few months really and only against the IA.  I'm just now poking my head out from the dream of AI land so I'll certainly take both yours and the Bashar's word at face value.

But my question remains...how would you balance the houses?  Are there modified units to add? If so what are they and which would you add?  Would you take away units from a House and/or add others to even things up a bit? (Incidentally, its always annoyed me that the Fremen don't have crysknives)

Anyway...I'm going back to my drawing board.  Playing Spectral Paladin's mod and just got my Atreides butt kicked by the Harkonnens.  That said, they did have Sardaukar and I didn't turn off superweapons which I usually do.  I do think the Harkonnens have the best superweapon...maybe that was the devs attempt at balance ;)

[GUNWOUNDS]

1.) yes you can mass deploy kindjal as well.

2.) what modified units to balance?

[Beonid]

5.) Hark is balanced out due to all its other vehicle and aircraft features... however... this game is not very balanced at all when restricted to infantry.

[GUNWOUNDS]

Actually you are right about the armor stats spectral... but you are dead WRONG about hark gunners not being able to kill an equal amount of atr gunners.

I did do a test and it seems that :

the hark gunner kills the atr gunner in 3 hits.

the atr gunner kills the hark gunner in 3 hits.

the atr gunner kills the atr gunner in 3 hits.

the hark gunner kills the hark gunner in 3 hits.

This does prove that their armor and firepower (per shot) is identical.

However at a distance with game speed on 1.... i told the hark gunner and the atr gunner to run towards each other and attack each other... the hark gunner won everytime.

[Aristeas]

Ok

[GUNWOUNDS]

hmm well sardukar elites have knives.... can this be done for fremen?

[Aristeas]

I certainly hope so. I thought I saw somewhere else on the site that you can create units.  I might have been dreaming.

[tag]

Fremen units don't have knife animations as do the Sardaukar Elite and Ixian Slave so the only way to remedy that would be to create a new unit based off the Sardaukar or Ix and retexture them with Fremen colours.  This would probably involve new XBF files but since the only major change would be in texture, isn't that difficult for someone who knows what they're doing.  Besides which, giving Fremen crysknives is rather redundant in gameplay terms since their weapons are already geared towards  anti-infantry utilisation.  If they can kill infantry from 10 tiles away, they don't really need to do it from 1 tile distance.

I've looked at the statistics for the Harkonnen and Atreides infantry.  They have, in fact, identical strength (hit points), firepower, -and- refire rate.  I double checked.  The only explanation I can think of at the moment is that there is some slight efficiency increase in the Harkonnen Infantry animations that give it a first-shot advantage; however, combat will rarely take place on a level playing field and any such advantage will be further and further negated the more and more units are involved, such as the en masse assaults we're discussing in this thread.

When the opportunity arises, I'll run some "field tests" of my own to either confirm or deny Gunwounds' theory.

As for your mod, Aristeas, since Ordos and Atreides seem to hold well enough on their own, I'd concentrate on the Harkonnen.  Try increasing the Flamethrower Trooper's strength, maybe doubling it, so that it has a chance in heck against the other Houses' comperative units and work from there.

That is, if you're just trying to balance Westwood's units so that they play well without the benefit of armour.  If you're looking to have a whole new mod developed I'd start with deciding on a flavour for each house and altering the units according to that master design.  i.e. make one house the "Missile House" or the "Strength House" or the "Cheap and Mass Manufactured House" etc.  Furthermore, taking this thread to the Dune Editing forum might also be beneficial.

--Bashar

[Aristeas]

Try increasing the Flamethrower Trooper's strength, maybe doubling it, so that it has a chance in heck against the other Houses' comperative units and work from there.

Good idea, that.

That is, if you're just trying to balance Westwood's units so that they play well without the benefit of armour.

Thats exactly what I'm after.

taking this thread to the Dune Editing forum might also be beneficial.

Can I move this thread or do I have to get a moderator to do it?

It isn't hard at all to make fremen kill infantrymen within touching distance. But in order to make the fremen appear holding knives it would actually require editing the model - and I don't have the skill to do that nicely.

Ah well, its not that important to game play really...as the Bashar pointed out. Its just something I would have liked to have seen as crysknifes are so important in Fremen culture...as you know well.

I 'm a bad player? Probably.

Oh cool! So there are people I can play online with... :D

[GUNWOUNDS]

Have you tried the test with one of the units stationary?

Well units will never be magically spawned next to each other at zero speed (aka stationary).  So having them move towards each other...stop..and then fire is the most realistic test.

Anyways there is actually no way to make them fire at the same time in a stationary fashion..... you would need two people and then have them count down but that would be erroneous as you couldnt verify the two people firing at same time.

I suppose the atreides infantry just take longer to slow down and thus fire half a sec late.  But in some of my tests the hark infantry actually killed the atreides infantry before he got the second shot off.  So something is up with the hark animation i suppose.

In addition to the fellow who stated that this is a neglible advantage in "mass" combat..... i disagree....  if you bring in 30 hark inf vs 30 atr inf theoretically the atreides infantry should all die with all the hark infantry at 1/3 health.  Of course that would be a perfect scenario where all units pick one target... a real scenario would probably have some of the hark infantry die due to some atr gunners double or triple teaming some of the hark units but in the end you should have an overwhelming majority of hark infantry left over.  I will conduct some mass experiments today.  So far i have only been doing 1vs1 experiments.

[Aristeas]

Well Gunwounds...you're absolutely right.  lol, I was playing the AI last night against the other houses and well...lets just say it was a rather humbling experience. (in my defense I must add that I was drunk)  But regardless of any handicaps I might have inflicted upon myself its obvious that the Harkonnens suck badly at infantry.  The only house that House Harkonnen has a shot at beating in an infantry only scenario is House Harkonnen. (which, incidentally, is kinda fun):) Anyway, I'm going to go and do some experimenting.  I'll probably give the Harkonnens Sards to see if it evens things up.  I'm using the "infantry wars" mod that Duke Leto posted on the "Factories" thread.  It only allows regular Sards (and only Fremen snipers if your playing Fremen) so we'll see what happens.

edit: and the Harkonnens do seem to be a little quicker on the draw.  This isn't just with the machine gunners either.  It appears that their flame throwers pull the trigger faster than Ordos chem troopers too.

[GUNWOUNDS]

edit: and the Harkonnens do seem to be a little quicker on the draw.

[spicy]

man i dunno why u hate tanks. its the best thing man ever made lol

anyway i think any ebfd infentry war is not balanced.and the reson is atradies will allwayes win because of snipers i mean  20 sniper can kill any other infentry groups including sards and they will get promoted soon and go back to train new units so its silly pumping gaz at them from miles awy or even try to shhot them with freemen coz the freemen will get killed while u make 100s of new snipers

[GUNWOUNDS]

***NEWSFLASH******

I now have undeniable proof that Hark DOES have better Rate of Fire than Atreides.

[GUNWOUNDS]

moral of the story.... dont ever say i am wrong spectral paladin !

[Picotrain]

Being new to this game, my opinions probably aren't as based in practice or experience as everyone else's, but if I was doing this project, I'd give Ordos a basic gunner like the other two houses and raise the cost of the chemical trooper. $50 is not a reasonable amount to pay for a unit which should excel at destroying the other units on the field. Its drawback in a normal game is that it is ineffective against vehicular units, which are not present in such a mod. Altredies are pretty good as they are, they have snipers, which should balance out the mortar infantry of the ordos. The biggest problem lies in, as has been already stated, keeping Harkonnen on a level playing field with the other two houses. Giving them regular Sad'kars, as someone already discussed, is a good solution. I think basic Fremen should be available to all houses, to allow stealth attacks and so forth, but their strength in this game would be too much to limit them to a specific house.

[Aristeas]

Well...I experimented with giving the Harkonnens basic Sardaukar.  It does even things up a bit.  It might even give the Harkonnens a bit of an edge in that the basic Sards can destroy buildings rather quickly and will kill a lot of snipers IF they get close enough...which isn't easy if the numbers are relatively even. 

With the Ordos, if it wasn't for the mortar troops the Ordos would have no hope against a horde of Sards.

All in all, I'd have to say giving basic Sards to the Harkonnen might be overcompensating a bit. Elite Sards would be a better match I think but the mod I'm using doesn't allow you to make elites.

[tag]

Hmmm... interesting.  Well there is only one difference between the Atreides and Harkonnen weapons: the Atreides machine gun has a muzzle flare animation attached to it.  This -will- require experimentation for if refire time is cumulative with the animation frames rather than concurrent, that effect will apply to all weapons with a flare and modding (good modding, at least) will all of a sudden become more difficult.  ...  Not what I expected from so-called IG.

As for the Chem and Flamethrower Troopers, neither of their weapons have muzzle flare animations so the refire time of the former -should- be 3/4 the time of the latter, according to the printed times listed in the files.  If -that- is different then, again, I can only imagine it's unit-animations that are causing the discrepancy.

In any event, Aristeas, giving a house the Elite Sardaukar rather than the regulars isn't a difficult procedure at all.  I think there's a rules.txt file in the downloads section; look it over and begin by tweaking it to your liking.  If you run into a problem, which isn't likely is all you make are small changes and try not to add new units/weapons/armours right away, you can probably find a solution on the Dune Editing board.

--Bashar

[jeff2429]

That mcv to me doesn't even look half damaged.  It looks close but it isn't.  So the hark has double the rate of fire (already knew this)...  So I guess that is what makes up for the hark infaltry running so slow compared to the atr infaltry.  Maybe atr has double the speed. :P

[Megashrap]

Any way you look at, i'll take hark inf. any day. We also did some inf. vs inf. and well, atr may be faster, but it was mostly just being faster to die. There is no comparison of the two, in terms of wich has better rate of firing.