Even if this were a bug this isnt that important if you red the topic about the bug on dragoon. Cuirassier got really high hp indeed but did you know that when you upgrad a unit with higher hp, more the upgrad will be higher too.

[This message has been edited by ChowMein (edited 01-28-2006 @ 05:41 PM).]

I think you missed the point... The wrong set of stats are upgraded for them, granting them more stat gains from their techs.

No wonder they are invincible.

That's an interesting thing to make a note of. So they essentially get a 10% bonus to their attack and hit point upgrades above what Colonial units get.

One of the things I've suggested for balance in the past was not allowing Fortress Age units to automatically receive veteran upgrades in Fortress, but requiring that to be purchased separately, just as for Colonial units.

I think this actually nails what the real problem with cuirassiers is. It may also be a problem with some other units, like lancers -- unless those work differently again.

I thought this was happening but I never got around to checking it.

Age 3 goons pwn Age 3 cuirs. Age 4 Portugal goons should pwn Age 4 cuirs, but they don't.

Just a few things after thinking about this some more; it's not 7% in absolute terms; it's (1.2*1.4)/1.6, or 5% better than another civ's Royal Guard upgrade, and 8.5% better than another civ's Imperial Royal Guard upgrade. Of course, since those additional bonuses apply to both hit points and damage, you might say they're cumulative (they last a little longer, and do more damage than they 'should' all the time they last plus the time they last longer) -- 1.05*1.05, and 1.085*1.085, for 10.25% better for Royal Guard, and 17.7225% for Imperial.

Now, what is really interesting here is this:

With the Imperial upgrade, they should have (500/1.2)*2.1, or 875 hp.

With the Royal Guard upgrade they should have -- and here's a wonderful little coincidence (or is it???) -- (500/1.2)*1.6, or 666 hp.

ALL units should be based in a "colonial with no veteran upgrade", it would make Jinetes better and cuirassier worse.

What more we want?

No wonder they are overpower!!!!!

How is possible to comit this noob bugs

I think you misinterpret the data.

We had to add a weakened version of the Skirmisher and Dragoon because it's possible through the HC (or as Dutch) to get those units earlier.

You can't compare an Age3 Cuirassier to an Age2 Skirmisher. They won't be balanced. You also should never see Age3 Cuirassiers in Age2. This is also true of every other Age3 unit with an RG upgrade, like the Lancer and Halberdier.

If we had handled the Cuirassier like the Skirmisher, we would have lopped some hitpoints and attack off of them and then added a secret Veteran tech that adds 20%. We might not have lopped off 20% of the hitpoints and attack though. It all depends on what they would have needed to be balanced. So you can't assume that the 7% you come up with is unfair. You basically come to the same conclusion when you say that it isn't a factor for the Halberdier. The real issue is whether the Cuirassier (in any Age) is imbalanced or not.

You also can't assume that a Veteran, Guard or Royal Guard tech affects the balance of all units equally even if the percentages are the same. Ranged units, for example, get much more benefit over a % attack upgrade than hand units do, since ranged units don't always take much damage when they enter battle and often get a volley off before they suffer any damage.

So... do all none-prior-to-fort units work this way?

Yea, maybe look at the lancers and see if they get this bonus.

Quote:

Going through the proto.xml file...

<Unit id ='248' name ='Cuirassier'>
<DBID>54</DBID>
<DisplayNameID>22981</DisplayNameID>
<EditorNameID>24999</EditorNameID>
<PopulationCount>3</PopulationCount>

<ObstructionRadiusX>0.7900</ObstructionRadiusX>

<ObstructionRadiusZ>0.7900</ObstructionRadiusZ>

<FormationCategory>Mobile</FormationCategory>
<MaxVelocity>6.2500</MaxVelocity>
<MaxRunVelocity>8.2500</MaxRunVelocity>
<MovementType>land</MovementType>
<TurnRate>18.0000</TurnRate>

<AnimFile>units\cavalry\cuirassier\cuirassier_horse.xml</AnimFile>
<ImpactType>Flesh</ImpactType>
<PhysicsInfo>cav</PhysicsInfo>
<Icon>units\cavalry\cuirassier\cuirassier_icon_64x64&l t;/Icon>
<PortraitIcon>units\cavalry\cuirassier\cuirassier_port rait</PortraitIcon>
<RolloverTextID>22980</RolloverTextID>
<ShortRolloverTextID>25625</ShortRolloverTextID>
<InitialHitpoints>500.0000</InitialHitpoints>
<MaxHitpoints>500.0000</MaxHitpoints>
<LOS>15.0000</LOS>
<UnitAIType>HandCombative</UnitAIType>
<TrainPoints>40.0000</TrainPoints>
<Bounty>30.0000</Bounty>
<BuildBounty>30.0000</BuildBounty>
<Cost resourcetype ='Food'>150.0000</Cost>
<Cost resourcetype ='Gold'>150.0000</Cost>
<AllowedAge>2</AllowedAge>
<Armor type ='Ranged' value ='0.2000'></Armor>
<UnitType>LogicalTypeHealed</UnitType>
<UnitType>LogicalTypeValidSharpshoot</UnitType>
<UnitType>LogicalTypeNeededForVictory</UnitType>
<UnitType>LogicalTypeHandUnitsAutoAttack</UnitType& gt;
<UnitType>LogicalTypeLandMilitary</UnitType>
<UnitType>LogicalTypeScout</UnitType>
<UnitType>LogicalTypeValidSPCUnitsDeadCondition</Un itType>
<UnitType>LogicalTypeGarrisonInShips</UnitType>
<UnitType>LogicalTypeRangedUnitsAutoAttack</UnitTyp e>
<UnitType>LogicalTypeVillagersAttack</UnitType>
<UnitType>LogicalTypeHandUnitsAttack</UnitType>
<UnitType>LogicalTypeRangedUnitsAttack</UnitType> ;
<UnitType>LogicalTypeMinimapFilterMilitary</UnitTyp e>
<UnitType>AbstractCavalryInfantry</UnitType>
<UnitType>CountsTowardMilitaryScore</UnitType>
<UnitType>AbstractHandCavalry</UnitType>
<UnitType>ConvertsHerds</UnitType>
<UnitType>Unit</UnitType>
<UnitType>Military</UnitType>
<UnitType>UnitClass</UnitType>
<UnitType>AbstractCavalry</UnitType>
<UnitType>HasBountyValue</UnitType>
<UnitType>AbstractHeavyCavalry</UnitType>
<Flag>CollidesWithProjectiles</Flag>
<Flag>ApplyHandicapTraining</Flag>
<Flag>CorpseDecays</Flag>
<Flag>ShowGarrisonButton</Flag>
<Flag>DontRotateObstruction</Flag>
<Flag>ObscuredByUnits</Flag>
<Flag>ConstrainOrientation</Flag>
<Flag>OrientUnitWithGround</Flag>
<Flag>Tracked</Flag>
<Command page ='10' column ='1'>Stop</Command>
<Command page ='10' column ='0'>Garrison</Command>
<Command page ='10' column ='2'>Delete</Command>
<Tactics>handCavalry.tactics</Tactics>
<ProtoAction>
<Name>BuildingAttack</Name>
<Damage>30.000000</Damage>
<DamageType>Siege</DamageType>
<ROF>3.000000</ROF>
<DamageCap>120.000000</DamageCap>
<DamageArea>2.000000</DamageArea>
<DamageFlags>Enemy</DamageFlags>
</ProtoAction>
<ProtoAction>
<Name>DefendHandAttack</Name>
<Damage>30.000000</Damage>
<DamageType>Hand</DamageType>
<ROF>1.500000</ROF>
<DamageCap>60.000000</DamageCap>
</ProtoAction>
<ProtoAction>
<Name>GuardianAttack</Name>
<Damage>30.000000</Damage>
<DamageType>Hand</DamageType>
<ROF>1.500000</ROF>
<DamageCap>60.000000</DamageCap>
</ProtoAction>
<ProtoAction>
<Name>MeleeHandAttack</Name>
<Damage>30.000000</Damage>
<DamageType>Hand</DamageType>
<ROF>1.500000</ROF>
<DamageCap>60.000000</DamageCap>
<DamageArea>2.000000</DamageArea>
<DamageFlags>Enemy</DamageFlags>
</ProtoAction>
<ProtoAction>
<Name>TrampleHandAttack</Name>
<Damage>20.000000</Damage>
<DamageType>Hand</DamageType>
<ROF>2.000000</ROF>
<DamageCap>80.000000</DamageCap>
<DamageArea>2.000000</DamageArea>
<DamageFlags>Enemy</DamageFlags>
</ProtoAction>
</Unit>

Oh i see....Correct me if I'm wrong: Age 2 is the third age. Age 0 is discovery, 1 is colonial, 2 is fortress, 3 is industrial, 4 is imperial.

Looking at lancers now...
Allowed age 2 (fortress).
They have guard and imperial upgrades only. Therefore they should get the same bonus system.

But Dragoons says they're allowed in age 2 as well! What's going on? So ES put in a shadow tech to automatically upgrade dragoons at age 3.

Quote:

Wouldn't it have been better to be consistant and let dragoons have age 3 base stats? You could have two shadow ones, one to make it sub-vet stats if you get it before the 3rd age and one to make it vet stats when you hit age 3.

Early dragoons.

you should worry less about how they did their coding to make the numbers come out the way they did and just consider the fact that the numbers are the way they are suppose to be.

Quote:

Yes I saw that card in the techtree.xml file...I know that you can get dragoons in colonial with that card. This means that base stats are only sub-veteran stats. Look at it this way. Say the base stats were veteran stats. Then, there would be two shadow techs. One would reduce the stats to the sub-vet stats, but the base stats would be veteran stats. Then, the other would be like it is now - raising the stats to vet stats. Why does a (usually) defaultly veteran unit have sub-veteran base stats? Because ES didn't feel like typing a bit more. The "bug" isn't a real bug. It's a result of the unwillingness of ES to type in a shadow tech to make cuirassiers not quite so strong.

Quote:

The thing is, how they did their coding is why the numbers are how they are, whether that's how they should be or not. The complaint isn't about the strength of the units, but rather on the inconsistancy of the coding. Why should some units have age 3 base stats and others have age 2 base stats?

[This message has been edited by Hamster1800 (edited 01-30-2006 @ 08:34 PM).]

I don't think the consistancy of the coding so that we could read it is a big issue as long as it works, which it does.

Except for the fact that it's arbitrarily unfair.

it isn't arbitrary. units that first appear in the fortress age were meant to be dominant in the latter part of the game. the expensize upgrades are SUPPOSE to affect them more. it works just like it says, it goes from the base HP that cuirrassiers can have, which is their veteran HP.

Quote:

let me get this straight... your not complaining that cuirrassiers are OP... your complaining that the coding isn't as straightforward as you would like it. well, if it means anything to you ES didn't intend for you to go looking at the proto files to figure out how to play the game. they put in the proto files the numbers that made the game work the way they wanted it to work. just because you don't like it doesn't mean something is wrong with the design. that's like saying that my bubblesort is wrong because my inside loop is a while loop even though my code functions exactly the sme as if it were a for loop.

[This message has been edited by tster123 (edited 01-30-2006 @ 09:58 PM).]

" Except for the fact that it's arbitrarily unfair."

It being hard to read for us makes it unfair? That's what I was talking about.

If you're talking about how the actual system works, see above post.

Quote:

So, essentially, what your point here boils down to is that units you can gain from the Fortress Age onwards should be increasingly dominant later in the game.

Quote:

Not really. In my experience, I've never had much issues handling cuirassiers, even a lot of them, in Fortress. That cuirassiers upgrade differently than other units just might be a factor in how they are balanced at different stages of the game. There's a combination of factors at work as well -- at the point where they're easiest to mass, they also upgrade better than other units, making for a sort of cumulative effect.

That they're supposed to be powerful in Fortress is fine. That their upgrades work so they become even more powerful later in the game when they are easier to get isn't fine.

As for the point about the halberdier -- they're hardly comparable in terms of general utility to the cuirassier. Halberdiers are very slow, making them far easier to counter even if they grow relatively stronger. Halberdiers, to the best of my knowledge, also don't feature a powerful splash attack that can overlap.

Quote:

That much is entirely true. In AoM, I rather liked that the upgrade rules gave units relatively more hit points than attack over time, making it so massed ranged units grew weaker, relatively speaking. However, in AoE3, there's no general rule like that. Hussars or cossacks, for instance, follow the same rules as standard colonial age units. If the point is that melee units should enjoy some sort of upgrading advantage over ranged units, then it would seem curious and somewhat unfair to apply that only to some unique units available only to certain civs. On the other hand, if you assume that hussars and cossacks are balanced later in the game, then the different upgrading system for cuirassiers very likely makes them too good by comparison.

Furthermore, even if massed dragoons presented such a menace to the cuirassiers that they required better upgrades to remain effective, what about the melee or semi-melee counterunits like Pikemen or Musketeers? The Spanish Tercios especially get the shaft here, and musketeers more in general.

I also strongly doubt that it's entirely applicable here in any case. AoE3 has some other added rules that favor melee units, like different attack modes for melee, which weakens a lot of ranged units once they're caught up to. That is a nice dynamic. Given this, it wouldn't make that much of a difference for the cuirassiers' ability to counter the units they're supposed to counter if they upgraded the same as everyone else. They're already super effective at that, and would likely remain so, even with somewhat reduced hit points (still enough that not a lot would be nailed on closing in), damage, and trample damage. It would probably make a difference with regards to their ability to run through what's supposed to counter them to get to what they're supposed to counter later in the game, though.

Quote:

I fail to see how paying 1000 wood and 1000 gold to upgrade a guerreiro or redcoat musketeer is any more expensive than that for upgrading a cuirassier.

In fact, it's cheaper to upgrade cuirassiers, since you don't have to spend 200 wood and 200 gold to get the veteran upgrade in the first place.

Quote:

Which incidentally is a higher base level than for other units. It's like a 20% boost to their upgrades later in the game -- for free.

Quote:

The way they *wanted* the game to work, and the way the game works aren't necessarily the same things, dude. I don't think ES *wanted* for going fast mercenaries to become the dominant strategy of the game -- otherwise, they'd not be making statements to the effect that they'd fix it in an upcoming patch. There's a difference between what the designer wants to achieve in theory, and what they get in practice. In the Ask Sandy thread on Agecommunity, Sandyman has stated that it's a design goal for Ottomans to use more cav than they do. Clearly, the game as initially released failed to accomplish this goal, so they'll need to fix that. Similarly, it might not be a design goal that cuirassiers are so utterly dominant a unit that it makes no sense for the French to not make anything else (except maybe some skirmishers for backup, in order to take out whatever counterunits are even remotely effective). I think there's a reason that the French have a broader unit selection than cuirassiers and skirmishers past Fortress.

So to assume that the way things are is the way they were *intended* to be isn't accurate. ES aren't gods, and they don't always know the precise outcome of any given balance decision. They also sometimes make something called 'bugs' in the game.

Quote:

No, that's not what I'm saying. First, it's not my complaint, I'm just agreeing with the original poster and am backing it up. Second, I have no experience with or against cuirrassiers, I'm just using the information that I have seen on these forums which generally is that they are OP. Last, I'm not complaining that the coding isn't straightforward, but rather that it's too straightforward. Instead of making a shadow tech for cuirs, ES decided to short cut the problem and make age 3 stats the base stats for cuirs. We do not know whether ES meant to have it this way. They are definitely now aware that it works that way due to this thread. So, if ES did want it this way, then nothing will change. The original poster simply thought that because it said the same percentage for each upgrade, it was supposed to increase the HP and attack at the same rate for each unit.

Quote:

No, it's not. In that case the code functions exactly the same. If they were to change it so that the base stats of every unit were sub-veteran, then it would function differently than how it does right now.

[This message has been edited by Hamster1800 (edited 01-31-2006 @ 06:06 AM).]

Quote:

Intriguingly, it appears War Wagons are also subject to the same upgrade rule as Cuirassiers are.

... and in the upcoming patch, War Wagons will have a range of 22 courtesy of Ranged Cavalry Caracole?

Quote:

Yes. The rule is pretty simple. Any unit that can only be built (by all civs) starting in Fortress uses veteran as the base.

(edit) Just to clarify the "by all civs" comment: I mean that if any civ is able to build a unit in Colonial (Dutch/French skirms, Port Dragoons, etc), the unit will not use the veteran base for any civ, even those who can't build it until Fortress.

[This message has been edited by MNBob (edited 01-31-2006 @ 10:21 AM).]

I appreciate you guys trying to find bugs by picking through the data files, but to make a long story short, the Cuirassier data are set up as intended.

If the Cuirassier is too powerful (and I'm not saying I think that's the case), then we'll worry about what to do with them. But it's not a data bug we overlooked in this case.

I'm not saying the data are perfect -- we have made some mistakes such as Caracole affecting Dragoon range incorrectly. But this business about the Cuirassier base stats vis-a-vis the Dragoon is as we intended it.

Sandy has commented on this too on our forums.