Simple ancient battle concept idea and questions

TorpedoA

I dont know if this idea already exists in any mod out there but lets start to talk about this simple concept which i am trying to balance out for my ancient times mod (148 BC).

We all are familiar with air battles as part of a WW2 scenario in which aircraft can battle out the air superiority before the normal (ground) battle takes place. Even fantasy mods will eventually use the air battle feature to have air battles with griffons, dragons or similar creatures that are able to fly.

Furthermore there are features like AA and firstStrike to get some more depth in battles.
But for this concept i will only talk about the 2 core battle situations:
air battle and normal battle

As you know, there were no aircraft in ancient times, therefore why use air battle then right?

Well here is my simple idea and thoughts about why i like the air battle feature alot and how i use it in a non-modern, non-aircraft scenario.

I just use air battle now to simulate a ranged combat and skirmish battle.
No aircraft. But arrows, javelins etc on horse or on foot, or even by chariots.

So its simply just air battles for skirmish/ranged and normal battle for melee so to speak.
For now, i have air battles at 1 round
and normal battles at 2 rounds to give the opportunity for reatreat or stalemate there.

The good thing is that all units can participate in air battles even without beeing isAir !

Lets do some basic unit examples to get the idea.
Basic units could be like this (historical correctness not so important):

bowmen (e.g. cretan archers)
light javelin infantry (e.g. roman velites or greek peltasts)
heavy javelin infantry (e.g. roman legionaries or greek thorakitai)
light spearmen (e.g. greek ekromdoi (lit. outrunners)
heavy spearmen (e.g. greek hoplites or roman triari)
horsearchers (e.g. greek hippotoxotai or roman equites sagittarii)
light javelin horsemen (e.g. greek prodromoi, or any light horsemen from barbarian tribes etc.)
medium horsemen (e.g. roman equites or gaul nobles etc)
heavy horsemen (e.g. cataphracts from various empires)
war chariots ( used from britain to the seleucid empire)
war elephants (seleucids etc)

Now we only have to put combat values to those units.
First we have to evalutate/imagine how strong or weak they are in skirmish/ranged (air battle) and second how strong or weak they are in melee (normal battle).

Lets take bowmen:

They would be the weak in melee certainly.
But they would be strong in ranged combat.
So i just put them like this:

<attachment name="unitAttachment" attachTo="Toxotai" javaClass="games.strategy.triplea.attachments.UnitAttachment" type="unitType">
<option name="attack" value="1"/>
<option name="defense" value="1"/>
<option name="movement" value="1"/>
<option name="airAttack" value="2"/>
<option name="airDefense" value="3"/>
<option name="transportCost" value="1"/>
<option name="canAirBattle" value="true"/>
</attachment>

Next heavy spearmen:

They tend to focus on melee formations. No skirmish unit with javelins. So they are weak, even helpless in skirmishes but strong in melee, especially if we will give him a support attachment against enemy horses e.g. furthermore he will have 2HPs.

<attachment name="unitAttachment" attachTo="Hoplitai" javaClass="games.strategy.triplea.attachments.UnitAttachment" type="unitType">
<option name="attack" value="3"/>
<option name="defense" value="4"/>
<option name="movement" value="1"/>
<option name="airAttack" value="0"/>
<option name="airDefense" value="0"/>
<option name="transportCost" value="1"/>
<option name="canAirBattle" value="true"/>
<option name="hitPoints" value="2"/>
</attachment>

A war chariot:

They are quite mobile and are made to skirmish but tend to not be usefull in a shieldwall formation or a prolonged melee fight. Nevertheless we could make it barely acceptable in melee only if another unit on foot will give a support attachment as charioteer.
Also he serves well as a scramble unit like other horse unites.

<attachment name="unitAttachment" attachTo="Harmata" javaClass="games.strategy.triplea.attachments.UnitAttachment" type="unitType">
<option name="attack" value="2"/>
<option name="defense" value="1"/>
<option name="movement" value="2"/>
<option name="airAttack" value="3"/>
<option name="airDefense" value="2"/>
<option name="transportCost" value="3"/>
<option name="canAirBattle" value="true"/>
<option name="hitPoints" value="2"/>
<option name="canBlitz" value="true"/>
<option name="canEvade" value="true"/>
<option name="isAirBase" value="true"/>
<option name="canScramble" value="true"/>
<option name="maxScrambleDistance" value="1"/>
</attachment>

But...
To not get lost by describing all my units which most i already coneptionally have finished, i would rather have some questions concerning the purchase cost and the AI.

Because:
If i put e.g. a bowmen to high air (ranged) battle values (2/3) or (3/4) but low normal (melee) battle values (1/1) and a heavy spearmen the opposite, to low (0/0) and high (3/4) (2HP) and the fact that the AI doesnt recognize air attack and air defense values at purchase, this is a big problem for me to give the right balanced cost values.

Because again, as the AI only takes the normal combat values into account, it might be problematic if it thinks that a cheap archer at 1/1 and 1 movement is the unit for mass, even though it has a high air attack/defense which has a siginificant impact in combat because its before normal battle takes place.

Bear in mind that i put air battles at 1 round and normal battles at 2, and i dont really want to have more rounds. Thats 3 round in total, which is really what i like.

In short:
Concept: All units are air battle participants.
Strong melee units (normal battle) are rather weak in skirmish (air battle) and the other way around.

Enough bowmen or javelin will give no chance for the spearmen to even come into melee, because he is dead already in the skirmish round (air battle, 1 round)
But when the spearmen survives that, it will be devastating for the ranged units (normal battle, 2 rounds).

This is for me a sign that it could be a real problem to balance out.

Thanks for reading, and eventually commenting.

TorpedoA

To give an extrem example only to point out:

Assume the following 2 specialists:
(airAtt/Def) = ranged/skirmish
(Att/Def) = melee

Elite Archer (6/6) and (1/1)
Heavy Melee (0/0) and (6/6) and 2HPs

1 air battle (skirmish) round
then
2 normal battle (melee) rounds

AI only sees the following values to conclude which ones to purchase (besides movement and allied support attachments etc afaik)

Elite Archers (1/1)
Heavy Melee (6/6)

If i now put a regular cost, means the higher the combat value the higher the cost. Doesnt matter how much.
At least more expensive right?
e.g.

Elite Archers at 3 PUs
Heavy Melee at 20 PUs (2HP)

Obviously those costs dont represent the real power of those units. There is a huge difference in the first battle round (air) but the AI wont recognize this at purchase.

How to come close to a balanced cost structure in this example?

If i have 1 air battle round and 2 normal battle rounds, one could say, that normal combat values are 2 times more valuable than air combat values because there are 2 times more rounds. But the first round is more important then the following ones.

Another thing is that there is no support attachments for air battles. But for normal ones i will use some. e.g. general units giving support etc.

I hope you can understand my problem now. Because math is not my strength.

To get another point of view:

How to prevent a unit to become a good cheap purchase for the AI, even if it has low combat values which should be cheap by default i think.

Such Archer should be a rather rare sight and not the basic infantry backbone kinda unit, without increasing cost and combat values.

Possible that i have to rethink alot of my values.

TheDog

@torpedoa
What are the combat values for say heavy horsemen?

How many dice sides are you using?
Do Commanders feature, if so do they add to Combat?
Do you have Terrain effects, if so what range are those effects?

You can use TUV on the Archer units to help with the unit imbalance, but it does not solve your problem.

Schulz

I wouldn't favour of adding a default rule if ai doesn't understand. But air attack and defense features can be added as optional rule.

TorpedoA

@TheDog
I use dice 6
Commanders add support +1 for 10-20 units
No terrain effects

I use max combat value at 4 for normal battle, then with 2 different/stacking support attachments, some units can reach 6 for combat, like Legionaries e.g. to represent the strongest units.

Here the list which i think about atm. I extended it again because i have a great variety of units.
(air values = ranged) (normal values = melee)

shortbowmen (2/3) (1/1)
longbowmen (3/4) (1/1)
light javelin infantry (2/2) (2/2)
medium javelin infantry (1/1) (3/3) -> 2 HPs
heavy javelin infantry (1/1) (4/4) -> 2HPs
light spearmen (0/0) (2/3)
heavy spearmen (0/0) (3/4) -> 2HPs
horsearchers (2/3) (2/1)
light javelin horsemen (3/2) (3/2)
medium javelin horsemen (2/1) (3/2) -> 2HPs
heavy horsemen (0/0) (4/3) -> 2HPs
war chariots (4/3) (2/1) -> 2HPs
war elephants (1/1) (4/3) -> 2HPs

All horses and chariots are 2 movement and can scramble. Elephants only move 1.

Eventually you can just take the list and change what you think would be proper values. And of course your rough cost values. Dont need to be super precise.

As you can see, i put horses, chariots and elephants as offensive powers, and bowmen and spearmen the defensive ones overall and there are a great number of 2HP units, because i have healer units.

Thanks for your thoughts