Nargott
Good afternoon! Please wait, a release is being prepared for January (and the old links are outdated and require individual access; I haven't re-uploaded the mod).
Regarding cavalry bonuses, here are the changes I'd like to highlight.
For Knights in WGE, the speed is 6. The average actual range is about 4 tiles.
The original range has a meager 5% damage bonus per tile; in this case, with the maximum range, it would receive a damage increase from 1.2 to 1.3 (+8%).
With a 10% bonus, it would increase from 1.4 to 1.6 (+14%).
With a 20% bonus, it would increase from 1.8 to 2.2 (+22%).
With a 50% bonus, it would increase from 3 to 4 (+33%).
With a 100% bonus, it would increase from 5 to 7 (+40%).
Using the full 6-tile range should be significantly rewarded by the game, so that the player is encouraged to do so. Therefore, the uninteresting 5-10% options are immediately discarded. The 20% option is not bad, but for demon jumpers (approximately doubled damage from a jump, doubled damage from a counterattack).
For Knights, something more substantial is needed, as this is a key ability for the entire branch. That is, the 50% and 100% options remain. The main difference between them is the amount of counterattack damage that Knights inflict from a standstill. With a 100% cavalry bonus, the counterattack of Knights is weak, only 20% of the average range (much weaker than even archers). And with a 50% cavalry bonus, the counterattack is already 33% (on par with archers, considering that the archer is weaker in terms of damage and also has a 50% penalty).
Therefore, in the end, I settled on a +50% cavalry bonus (previously, +100% was always used). This is still one of the strongest abilities in the game and remains a hallmark of WGE, but now with a more adequate counterattack for Knights.
Although the original game skimped on a decent cavalry range, the armor penetration (lizardmen ability) is implemented immediately at a decent level, 20% armor penetration for each tile traveled. In WGE, this ability is further enhanced due to higher stat values. On average, it results in a bonus of +4 to +20 attack for 1-5 tiles of range, against 20 armor (approximately triple damage at maximum range).
In order for agility to be as interesting as armor penetration, its bonus should be comparable, hence +3 defense per tile (with a maximum speed of 6 and a full range, you can get +18 defense), which is much more powerful than in the original (imagine if you could get similar +36 defense there, just by moving dancers). At maximum speed 6, the difference between the average range (4) and the full range (6) is as much as +6 defense, or +50% to survivability, which looks like a very noticeable reward.
In WGE, the task is to maximize the potential of creatures, so the abilities are so strong. For comparison, in MMH5.5, cavalry bonuses are, on the contrary, reduced because a completely different task is being solved there - to weaken too strong combat units in a long game (several months), and interesting abilities, unfortunately, are sacrificed. Each project has its own priorities; I, for example, would rather abandon long games in favor of the ability to use cool, juicy abilities in a fast game (including duels).
In general, every time a particular ability is configured, you need to ask yourself: "Is the ability strong enough? Wouldn't it be better to strengthen it, and to what extent?"
In the previous version of WGE, agility was planned to be only +2 defense per tile (which is still much stronger than in the original, due to 10% stats). However, by asking this key question, I finally came to the decision to increase agility to +3 (while the unit is moving, it receives 2-3 times less damage than when standing still).
In the case of the cavalry range, a 100% bonus was an overkill due to too weak counterattacks (also, the base damage of Knights was too low), but a 50% bonus is still a very strong compromise solution.
