[MOD] yquinox_MOD v 1.07 (rebalanced game)

I also really like this mod, the changes are really interresting and for the most part I find the way unit work really good as it encourage the player to combine different kind of unit to have a strong army.
The first fight seems to be still dominated by pikes but it soon evolve to a fight of pikemen supported by musketeer, in late game pike are still really usefull to push back any kind of cavalry men, I think it's the first time in cossacks where I make my cavalry avoid confrontation with pike, I really like that.

For melee infantry :​

In my opinion light infantry and roundshier are the two infantry that need to be reworked at the moment. The light infantry even fully upgraded can't even compare to a non upgraded regular pikemen, in number they win because of some weird bug that make the pikemen stop to attack while submerged, . As for the roundshier it's a bit less bad in battle they hold a bit longer and fight back better but will collapse fast anyways against pike contrary to the light infantry they can withstand better ennemy fire but on the otherside they take longer to form. Both units are worthless when it come to fight any kind of cavalry but that's not their use either, both nation having pike more suited to any situation I can't see any use to them, I suppose the best would be to give them better armor against pike attack.
Pike at the moment have the advantage in any melee confrontation against other infantry and in stand ground they won't lose to any cavalry. In stand ground position it's important to remember that line give +12/+6 (attack/defense) in full square +9/+9 and then hollow square +6/+12. I didn't try all kind of encounter possible but hollow square allow 50 pikemen to beat in stand ground 40 mighty winged hussar which so far are the best cavalry in game.

For ranged infantry :​

I really like how musketeer and grenadier work at the moment, I think you forgot to change the creation time for the austrian XVII musketeer which take 18,5 s. to create, that's more than the spanish one to which you gave 11 s. to form. I didn't try yet with musketeers getting the acadamy uprgrade which may change a lot their use I also have yet to use pandur, highlander, chasseur, serdiuk and the prussian musketeer.

For melee cavalry :​

Sa far I found that the best cavalry of the game was the winged hussar (well behind the hetman but I don't count him) by a large margin despite having less health, he got decent armor and a high pike attack, at the moment they are so strong that there is no use while playing polish to make any other kind of melee cavalry, they will crush anything except pikemen in hollow square stand ground (well maybe prussian musketeer also). Cavalry having pike attack perform better than other in all situation since all unit get less defence against this perticuliar attack, mamelouk are second best, then you have spakh or register cossacks and then don cossacks the last perform well but will be beaten by heavier cavalry. The winged hussar and mamelouk in particular may need a decrease in their attack since pike attack have a strong advantage.
The best heavy cavalry is the russian vityaz, followed by cuirassier and then rider, the swedish rider being the worst. So far they are the only melee cavalry with the winged hussar to be able to fight pikemen with some success they are truly a front line cavalry able to confront the ennemy under heavy fire. Russian may not need to use their XVIII century cavalry as both the vityaz and Don cossack are better.
Fast cavalry are truly weak against any melee unit especially anything with pike damage and are only suited to flanking ranged unit or raiding, the order of strenght go like this, hussar and prussian hussar, sitch cossack and then croat (and then merc. cossacks). Croat are really weak and are limited to harassing unit without melee attack, I think he may need a bit more striking power because he can have trouble attacking XVII musketeer on they get defense upgrades (I didn't even try against the spanish musketeer !). The polish light rider is more or less at the level of a prussian hussar but boast of his incredible fast formation time 4,5 s.

I have no opinion for ranged cavalry as I didn't test them. The AI had bad result using XVII dragoon against me but that's the AI.

I will try further in the next day, thank you for the mod !

 

I tried the mod further today and in particular I tested the different ranged units that I left out last time, I recommend putting the game in english otherwise the change in the university keep the description of vanilla game (price show up right).
I found one little problem, in the editor I only had 4 defense upgrade for the croat (which is now a lot better !)

XVIIth c. musketeers : early game the austrian and spanish armored musketeer are good if you need to go up against other shooters their armor is just that good against bullet thatthey take only half damage and with one upgrade or in formation they can take down the regular musketeer by shooting only two time, they also fight better in my opinion in hollow square. In end game though the battle favor the regular musketeer as they gain enough fire power to take down the spanish or austrian musketeer with them, the ratio being of 3 against 2 with the formation time. Spanish and austrian musketeers are also the only XVII musketeer to be able to withstand late game the fire of fully upgraded XVIIIth c. shooters except prussian musketeers and king's musketeer.
Other special XVIIth c. musketeers such as the strelet and polish musketeer and janissary are also better than the regular musketeer with their higher hitpoint and attack while being formed more or less as fast. I don't know why but unupgraded strelet fire as fast as other musketeer and often get the first shoot but when fully upgraded they seem to fire slower than other fully upgraded musketeers, maybe they don't fully gain faster rate of fire. (I di'nt test much the serdiuk from what I can say he is on par with the chasseur, pandur and highlander)

XVIIIth c. foot infantry : The best is without doubt the prussian musketeer when it come to firing power and still strong in hand to hand battle. He is followed in order of strenght by the french chasseur, highlander and the pandur but those units take 10s. to recruit against 8s. for the prussian whichis stronger all around (better life, fire power and melee abilitie) in the bright side there are cheaper to upgrade. Regular musketeer are still really good when it come to ranged battle while keeping the ability to fight in and to hand, being formed in 5s. they outnumber in a fight chasseur, highlander and the pandur giving them the edge in ranged battle but they cost a lot to upgrade. Their defense upgrade give them pike protection, fully upgraded they are better than the XVIIth. pikemen and most cavalry, they will beat cavalry with pike damage but have to fear cuirassier charge. All those unit gain shooting attack through private training.

Grenadiers are without a doubt the strongest hand to hand fighter there is but get lower than average shooting power. As such they are good in low number mixed with musketeers, if you need to guard the flank against cavalry or get in a hand to hand battle by moving toward the ennemy between two salvo. For reference they can win against three muskteers (two prussian) in melee and don't have to fear any cavalry in equal number. They gain melee attack through private training and also pike defense by training, they have higher stats in melee than the musketeer in both attack and defense. Interesting thing, musketeer and grenadier need to finish reloading before fighting back in melee, if the ennemy is too close it can be better to order the unit to hold the fire.

The XVIIIth century pikemen are a really good unit if you get to upgrade them, They have pike based attack making them more efficient in melee, their defense is average and they are weak to fire but as their are fast forming they come in huge number. They can close the distance in 1~2 salvo and once in melee they will win most of the time. The most efficient infantry against them is the grenadier. Since they have no armor they have trouble against dragoon using hit and run tactic and also tatar which are particulary strong against them.

Concerning cavalry first I want to go back in my statment form last time. Cavalry dealing pike damage are good against XVIIth c. units and other cavalry but deal horribly against XVIIIth c. infantry once they get their pike defense through private upgrade. Winged hussar which are the best cavalry with a lance will lose against XVIIIth c. musketeers in standing ground especially hollow square whereas cuirassier will win. Grenadier in standing ground just defeat everything in melee.
Now for dragoon, they are a good unit if you want to use hit and run tactic and once well upgraded they are able to deal huge damage even to heavy cavalry. XVIIth c. dragoon work well with pikemen to protect them against rider they can't take down their ability to harass ennemy infantry and provide cover fire make them in my opinion the best choice of cavalry for this century, they are also made twice as fast as the rider (20s. and only 10s. with the upgrade). XVIIIth c. dragoon for the moment are pretty bad they cost a lot to upgrade, to only acheive a bit better than the previous dragoon but they also take twice as long to make and so will lose outnumbered 2 to 1. Only the french can make use of their special dragoon that is recruited in 14 and is as good as other dragoon from the same age. So it need to be equilibrated, either by increasing the time for XVIIth c. dragoon or making the second build in almost the same time.
King's musketeer are recruited in 40s. or 20s. and still have 100 in attack (best in game), needless to say that they are really strong especially early, later they will suffer from their shorter firing range. Their biggest drawback is still their cost in gold upkeek.
Tatar are still a really strong unit, they are quite slow to form in comparison to spakh and they did become less good in raiding but still perform well. They have trouble taking down armored unit but are the worst ennemy of shooter which can only fire slowly under a rain of arrow.

 

I tried several thing more precisely, this time I concentrated my efforts on the roundshier, the spanish and austrian musketeer in game, the highlander, chasseur and pandur and to finish what is more usefull in game especially once the XVIIIth c. reached.

The roundshier appear to be a surprisingly good unit since the last time I tested him, able to perform well in many situation and better than even some pikemen. He got the best infantry armor again shooter, his upgrades are cheaper than the pikemen and once fully upgrade he is better than a polish or ottoman pikemen. On that case it important to remember that he has less reach than pikemen they won't necessarily win when up against formation of equal number. If the roundshier have the upper number he will slaughter the pikemen unable to attack when they get swarmed, this happen less when the pikemen are numerous. They are also good against cavalry until those get all their defense upgrade.
The roundshier are also the best unit to field against an algerian or turkish army that use light infantry men. Light infantry is dangerous to early pikemen army, due to their huge number they swam the pikemen and make them unable to attack. This doesn't happen against roundshier that will slaughter them.

The spanish and austrian musketeer while being the strongest XVII musketeer are also the hardest one to field. They still take to much time to form in my opinion to have an use in game, their stats could make them a great early and mid game unit but 3 pikemen are better than 1 of those. They can only shine in the situation the ennemy army as equal number to yours, but that don't happen much since fielding them come at the expense of training pikemen. On that point austria is better off due to the roundshier building faster. In fact I think only russia and turkey can really afford to form strelet and janissary from their barrack. The cost of upgrading both unit are high and you might prefer to focus on one.

Highlander, chasseur and pandur, last time I only looked at their attack and life. Because of this I didn't see an important thing, the range. Chasseur got a bit better range than the other (the serdiuk also has it) They are the less costly unit to upgrade and as such are better to train than the XVIIIth c. musketeer. I tested a lot and thought for a long time that the chasseur got a slower rate of fire. But then saw that the % of reloading upgrade wasn't the same, if you mess the order your unit will get a worse rate of fire (that explain my result with the strelet the other time).
I tried to see what was better to do against them with musketeer and grenadier, both unit can't compete against those three high powered musket in shooting. I tried just shooting, to shoot once and then charge in melee or directly go for melee. Trying to go for melee only work if the ennemy hasn't got yet both upgrade for reloading, shooting and charging got better result but won't work if the ennemy already has the upgrade for reloading. As such it's better to stick to just fire at each other most of the time.

Once you get the XVIIIth century the best unit (apart from special unit) to field is in my opinion is either the grenadier or the pikemen. The musketeer is simply to costly to upgrade and is only a bit better than the previous musketeer in shooting power. The pikemen is really good and come in huge number once upgrade he will dominate the melee field but he is weak against fire and as such need another unit to cover him, cuirassier are good at this, they are the most efficient in line. Grenadier are also a good choice but cost more to upgrade (you need the upgrade from the university and blacksmith as well) and more versatile. Musketeer while good on the paper just cost to much to upgrade (100.000 gold is really to much).
As for cavalry it depend what you want, I particulary like to use the cuirassier good in melee and hard to shoot down. Hussar are costly to upgrade and need to avoid melee more, they are limited to raiding and attacking shooters for quite some time. The XVIIth c. dragoon is for harassing a melee army.

I tried Ukraine, playing and against, the serdiuk is pretty easy to upgrade, he has less attack than other high powered musketeer but the firing range of a chasseur. You can go for either the sich cossacks or the registered for cavalry, both perform well the sich cossacks cost more to upgrade though. The AI is quite good with them and pushed back every western nation in my game.
Austria look like one of the best nation in your mod. The roundshier is simply the best early unit against turkey and algeria and the pandur will make for a strong support once, as for cavalry they have the croat which is now decent in raiding and countering shooters.
Poland as trouble until it get is cavalry up, a group a winged hussar is quite fearsome indeed (the AI doesn't seem to fully upgrade them though) and can change the tide of the battle but once the ennemy in the XVIIIth c. they may have to switch. light rider can work in number but they won't do any good until they are upgraded quite a bit. In a fight between AI they will in general have to stick to defense.
Algeria and Turkey only make light infantry as melee infantry . Their melee cavalry is good especially for Algeria (Turkey never train tatar with the AI) but they seems to never upgrade them well.
For england I saw you removed their +1 attack to cuirassier.

By the way officier are able to sometimes kill two or three pikemen in one hit, is that normal ?