[0.983-0.99] Labor costs of weapons and armor

Attack and defense don't affect each other in a one-to-one fashion.  And there are also many other factors you are not taking into consideration.

I said about some factors. You said nothing. Just another useless post in forum.

Edit: Sorry for that.

Because it costs very little effort to make a club compared to making a suit of leather armor.  Because a sword used to cost as much as a good farm, but a suit of armor as much as a  few villages.

Because I love it when in game costs make sense. 

For example, a sword should costs a bit of metal, and a lot of labor, a mundane plate mail should cost a lot more metal, and a lot of labor, while a powerful magic amulet should cost a lot of crystal but very little labor.

And if we want to have magical swords/armors that cost relatively little research and do not require heavy armor first, they better cost 3 crystals for every iron of the mundane platemail.

This was the main reason why Japan had no armor and Europe had lots of armor. The access to iron was very important. I completely agree with Tuidjy assessment. Like Batman movies "Because the government didn't think a soldiers life was worth $300,000." Think of the equivalent gun that shoots through that armor... what maybe $3,000.

I especially like that a Forge can masterwork that armor and give it +2 defense. Such a cool idea.

They masterwork my pioneers... faces? too...

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

Imho balance in game is more important than realism. Game should be fun. Game is more fun when there are many ways to play. Disbalance leads to limited number of viable strategies.

Cheaper armour would NOT lead to better balance, on the contrary I never train troops without armour because troops without armour are pointless.

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

Absolutely.  When armor easily keeps pace with weapons, not only is it unrealistic, but it leads to slow bash fests which remove the joy of pulling tactical successes.

And speaking for myself, a huge break from realism and common sense kills my fun as surely as any balance issues.  Seeing someone stand and let his armor take the impact of five sledges... sucks.

Now it is more efficient to build many units without armor than a few armored units. So cheaper armor leads to better balance.

Only true at the very, very early stages on the game, i.e. before chainmail comes along.  In my experience, the most effective units are the ones that have one of the three defensive abilities maximised: initiative, dodge or armor.

Which one is best depends on what you are facing, with dodge being the most effective overall, UNLESS your opponent has accuracy boosters, in which case dodgers become 100% useless. Initiative cannot be used defensively by the AI at all, so in my experience at least, the AI does best with heavily armored swordsmen.

Which is why I design my troops with spears

In all honesty I think that once you even get leather armor you're usually better off taking armored units than unarmored. The increase in survivability against early weapons is significant enough that I'm willing to pay the increased production costs, whether in gildar with rushed training or time with normal production, except in the case that I just want some meatshields to keep my sovereign/champions company - then there is an advantage to faster production, since it lets my sovereign/champions go out to play with the monsters faster (assuming I'm waiting for meatshields, anyway).

[0.99] Leather armor nerfed. So leather armor is completely useless now. Who will pay 4 labor cost (12 production) for 1 defence?

I probably would pay labor for defense, 1 defense no, but if you stack defense up to a 6-7 pieces your troops survivability doubles, which also means they live to see twice the level, that said the only thing worrying me ever on troops are wages, they usually keep me from training troops since higher wages = higher taxes = slower research... which in return gives less fancy research buildings, less fancy food/gildar producing buildings, which in turn means lower research and higher taxes.... And all I need this research for is to get up to the magical armour so I can have troops surviving the random ogre attack

I plan to fiddle with this in a mod after release anyways, cause obviously I am a much better designer than derek.... (Ok last part was a joke, but I would just love to play around with the numbers and see what happens myself)

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

No its doesnt cost a good farm for a sword or a few villages for armor, seriously, how could that even be? Like seriously think about that. Forget links or references lets just think.

Churn out just one sword a week and how long before you OWN half of England. Hmm 52 good farms a year, plus whatever your apprentices makes for you, less metal of course, how long could a lucky smith work 30-40 years. So say you retire with atleast 1500 good farms to your name (Note: without those farms making any sort of profit at all which of course blows the number up hugely). 

Oh and this is of course not taking into account the farms your smith father left to you (and his father etc). SO your family probably started out owning half of england before your were born! 

Perhaps it was the mine owner who had 52 farms a year? No cant be that because metal on a farm would not be worth it, because it would cost more then the farm did.

And the Japanese did have armor.

Can we please not Total War forum this up with irrelevant historical stuff (which is usually wrong, or atleast requires a huge nerd argument about). The actual real life effect of a sword or an archer or the cost of a sheild is so not relevant to a fantasy TBS game.

To the point, you need to know what one 1 defense does. I dont, but I do know its not the same as 1 attack reduction. 

IF you take real game context into account its not 1 defense its a full suit of 4 or 5 as can only have a set number of men on the feild at any one battle.

So you can have 5 nakeds v 5 full leathers. Full Stop. Doesnt matter if you have 50 naked, you only get 5 in the battle at the start of the game. Thats why its not just production cost.

Now for even better context you can have nakeds or full leathers to fight some heros? Neither is good which will last longer?

Which is why slaves arent that great past the start of the game. There seemingly too low price is quickly evened out by the price of equipment and the battle limit

I will explain this in a short manner, just so you will know (In my opinion, it should be viewable somewhere ingame, like the hierga-nom-nom).

If you have 1 unit (like a hero) with 10 attack, that attacks anything with 0 armour (doesn't matter how big the target stack is, just look at its armour) You will do a maximum of 10 damage (your attack value) and a minimum of 5 damage (half your maximum damage)

If the same 1 unit with 10 attack attacks a unit with 10 armour, you will have a maximum of 5 damage, and a minimum of 2 damage
If you have just as much armour as the attacker have "Attack" value, you will effectively half the damage, if you have double the armour, you will only take 25% damage. I don't remember the exact math behind it though.

If you have a stack of 5 units with 50 attack combined, that means each unit have 10 attack (Which is multiplied by 5, they're number, you can see the exact numbers in the details window), each of those 5 units will roll a seperate attack against the 10 defense, so each unit will have they're damage halved. (dealing 2-5*5 damage in the end).

Hope its atleast slightly clearer now.

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

I just love it.  Forget historical records, lets just think.  You'd have made a great philosopher "Forget opening the mouth and counting the teeth, lets just think".

You have no clue about medieval times, do you? Your smith goes to the supermarket, gets ingots of the right metals needed for the steel alloy, heats them in his induction furnace, monitoring his array of termocouples to insure proper temperature as he adds each additive...

And he churns out quality swords at the rate of one per week which he then sells for farms...

Or maybe forging a sword is an inexact process in which temperature is judged by color, and additives are guessed at by adding 'secret' ingredients, and smithing itself requires an expensive setup which has FUCKING nothing in common with a farrier's forge, maybe heat treat is guess work, and sharpening requires expensive, easily worn equipment that need multiple people to operate, maybe a master smith and his dozens of support people produce a number of swords, on which most are too brittle or too bendy...

And then, maybe he sells it for gold coins... or maybe no, he actually just works for someone who can actually afford a longsword, and who owns the fucking swordsmith's equipment, and who holds the allegiance of the smith and all the apprentices and those who carry the wood, charcoal, and coal (all needed at different times) and those who grind, and polish, and work the leather, and why the fuck am I telling you this when you do not want to learn from 'references' and just want to think?

No, you philosopher!  It cost the man commissioning the sword the same as it would have cost him to add a farm to his holdings for his liegemen to work.  And no one but really rich people could afford the full armor, and that meant heavily landed gentry.

And the story repeats itself in every culture I know about, with two exceptions I can think of, both of which used different technologies, and produced swords inferior in very important ways.

Whatever. It's one thing to say "realism does not matter to me", it's another to spout about 52 farms per year, conjured by your amazing powers of reasoning...

 --------

Oh you're the same ignoramus who accused me of being racist against my own ethnicity, and who talked about how "Europeans adapted to Mongol archery".  I am mildly amused by armchair historians who know just a little.  I despise people who refuse to even learn the little that's easily available and not even considered controversial in academia.

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I know I am late to the debate but I don't agree with your initial premise.  I think the building costs for weapons are armors are very balanced.  Don't see why they need further tweaking. 

Also I disagree with your assessment that leather is useless.  It's about spot on now in balance with attack and defence.  I for one, put it on all my units except for when I build mages. 

Also agree with Leroy105, it's not just 1 but a full suit of 6 possible pieces adding together.  When you combined it with shields and auto defend bonuses, defence got insanely high.

Although I am not explaining why, since Tuidjy did a great job here.  Reply 19 is spot on. 

Damit, that includes me >_<

Sincerely
~ Kongdej