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Advanced Battles & Combat Depth Essentials Project [VANILLA]

I. INTRODUCTION:

This project is a WIP bifocal attempt that aims to rebalance combat via a tweak of both unit stats to make each unit a functional combatant in its own right as well as combat mechanics in general (like how long battles last - specifically, making them last longer than they do in vanilla), and most importantly a complete overhaul of the tactics of the vanilla CK2 game and eventually code it into a modification module.

The tactics system is quite flexible in and detailed enough that it allows a rock-paper-scissors system that makes units more nuanced in the field. The problem with vanilla tactics though is that they aren't nuanced enough to allow a wide variety of possibilities depending on army composition.

The project aims to change that by adding a large amount of different tactics that are applicable for different situations, each which has a strength or weakness relative to other tactics, to more closely represent the chaotic flow of the battlefield. To illustrate, vanilla has around 26 generic tactics - this project is estimated to have more than 100 generic tactics whose availability is dependent on traits, terrain, unit composition, and attributes like martial, intrigue, and learning. The latter two of course would only apply to special tactics (mostly ambush/subversion-type for the former, and unique/innovative tactics for the latter)

II. UNIT REBALANCE:

I decided first to play some TW games for a while to sort of reimagine how different troop types would function in battle and how to rebalance their stats. Then, I needed to confirm just how combat damage works, and came to the following thought process:

First, troop deaths are determined by [Total Attack Points Received / Total Defence Points Available]*[Troop Kill Factor]. These determine how many troops you lose per day. vanilla has it set at 0.015, and I decided to set it a 2/3, ie. 0.01 (well, technically it's been freely floating whenever I randomly tweaked it, but I thought I'd use this value as the standard now).

Second, morale loss is determined by [Troop Morale Points Lost + Morale Loss Factor]. As each soldier has a base morale point, each troop death reduces the total morale points pool (hence morale drops faster) as well as incurs a morale loss factor too (even more morale loss). This made morale a sort of "HP" system that determined just how long a battle would last. Since it has been agreed upon previously that Lux Invicta battles are all about small scale drawn out conflicts, I've decided to both increase the base morale of all troops as well as reducing the morale loss factor to 3 (vanilla had it pegged at 6).

As such, below is the matrix I've decided on so far:

Light Infantry
cost = 1
morale = 3
attack = 4/3/3
defence = 3/3/4
notes: I've tweaked LI a bit so that they function more as all-around-skirmishers rather than simply junk troops. They're still the least valuable troop per person, but at least they're less trash now.

Heavy Infantry
cost = 2
morale = 5
attack = 1/8/2
defence = 6/4/3
notes: A slight few tweaks from vanilla, heavy infantry are twice as expensive as light infantry, but are slightly stronger in skirmish/melee as well as a bit more defence. These units are offensively-oriented, and thus have a minimal melee defence boost to reflect their high risk, high-reward combat.

Pikemen
cost = 2
morale = 5
attack = 0.1/6.9/1
defence = 6/8/2
notes: Pikemen-type troops had a bit of rebalance to them, having equal morale with heavy infantry now but still defensively-oreinted. Their melee attack is relatively slighly weaker than heavy infantry, but they have twice the defensive capabilities in melee of heavy infantry (a vanilla ratio anyway) in exchange for weaker performance in pursuit. Also, the decimal-value skirmish is mostly a vanilla safeguard I retained to keep them marginally useful in siege assaults (which apparently use skirmish values).

Light Cavalry
cost = 2.5
morale = 4
attack = 5/4.5/12
defence = 6/4/6
notes: Light Cavalry had been rebalanced by a fair amount. They have strengthened a significantly strengthened skirmish offensive and boosted pursuit value and thus more valuable as a combat unit.

Heavy Cavalry
cost = 5
morale = 8
attack = 0.5/10/9
defence = 6/7/5
notes: Heavy Cavalry underwent a fair amount of rebalance as well. I've reduced their base morale relative to vanilla, as well as slightly boosting their skirmish/pursuit offensive in exchange for reducing their skirmish/melee defences.

Archers
cost = 1
morale = 3
attack = 8/3/2
defence = 1/3/3
notes: Archers also were rebalanced by much as well. Aside from having the same base morale of light infantry (3), they now have a stronger skirmish value (twice of light infantry) and a bit more melee in exchange for reduced skirmish defences. This essentially makes them a glass-cannon variant of light infantry then, but significantly more stronger than the vanilla version.

To be able to obtain a useful comparison, I'm using a concept called "relative worth" which factors in morale, which I treat as a sort of "HP" bar instead of ignoring it all together as coanda did. I did this by adding in all the offensive/defensive "pips" of a unit, then multiplying it by its morale, then dividing by the greatest common factor, which gives the ratio which determines their maintenance factor:
1 light infantry, archer = 2 heavy infantry, pikeman = 2.5 light cavalry = 5 heavy cavalry.
Horse Archers, Camels, Elephants, and other vanilla special troops are not yet part of the balance yet, and I'll be making them up as I go ahead with making the special troops matrix and find relevant cultures that would use them (and tweaking accordingly). But a tentative strength ratio I have is 1 LI = 3 HA = 3 Cm, 10 El. But of course, that'll change as I get a more in-depth look into them.

III. TACTICS OVERHAUL:

And here comes the bulk of the mod (and ironically the part with the shorter introduction). Generally, as has been noted previously by PAnZuRiEL with his previous two mods (the gist of which is noted in the OP of Concerning Military Matters), vanilla tactics have a lot of weaknesses that can be addressed. They mainly boil down to two critical matters that they fail to make use of well enough: terrain, and unit composition.

That said, this is probably where our two projects diverge in focus. PAnZuRiEL's desired emphasis is on terrain, which certainly is a critical component in battles. I however would like to focus primarily on unit composition first (as this project is designed to take advantage of unique army compositions after all). As such, all of my tactics take the various potential compositions of armies as their main rubric - that is, an army that has a high ratio of cavalry is significantly more likely to use cavalry-based tactics in both skirmish and melee just as much as a pike-and-bow defence retinue is more likely to use archery-oriented tactics in the offence, and perhaps even ambushes with the appropriate terrain if the leader is skilled enough.

IV. STATUS:

As you may have noticed, this project is not only a massive WIP in terms of actual coding, but in the design aspect as well...

Still, there are four general phases I'd like to work on this:
I coding in most skirmish tactics - 100%
II coding in most melee tactics - 0%
III fleshing out these tactics - 0%
III porting cultural tactics - 0%

yeah, a WIP indeed....

The "primary" thread for this mod btw is in the modding section - any long posts are best done there instead:
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?782040

X. TL;DR:

I'm trying to recreate combat from scratch (well, not really, exactly, anyway) in a way that'll hopefully make troop-composition matter, and feedback is of course beneficial for both of us - I'm always on the lookout for ideas to incorporate.