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First please accept my apologies if this kind of question is not welcome. I'm trying to find a suitable place that can help me with a balancing problem.

I have a game that I've made that has a lot of variables that I'm finding it hard to understand how to set basic properties of the units such as the cost, attack power, and life. A unit has the following properties:

Cost ($) Attack Power (e.g. 25) Life (e.g 100) Effectiveness against Infantry (0-10, e.g, Machine Gunner is 10 as its highly effective against killing other infantry). Effectiveness against Vehicles (0-10) Effectiveness against Air (0-10) Effectiveness against Buildings (0-10)

A screenshot to show these properties might help: http://i.imgur.com/cTYOTyU.png

I have 4 types of Infantry units, 4 types of Air units,and 4 types of Vehicles. They each vary slightly in terms of how much "Attack Power" they have or the kinds of things that they target.

I'm trying to balance the "Cost" of a unit, compared with all the other variables it has. I Feel like I have to figure out some kind of weighting against element that ultimately drives how much the unit should cost. For example, for each point of attack power, its an extra \$10, but if I add an effectiveness point, it might an extra $50. The same goes for trying to give these units the "Life" property. If a specific unit has a very high amount of attack power, and a very high amount of life, then surely it's cost must be extremely high to balance buying another cheaper, less powerful unit.

I've come here because it's nagging in my mind that this sounds to me like a mathematical complexity problem. Can anyone suggest any kind of system, or topic in Math that I can go explore to help me understand how to balance these numbers?

Thank you.

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    Check [this site](http://www.bgdf.com/), probably best than here to ask this question. IMO to balance a game you probably need some knowledge of combinatorics, probability and game theory in order of importance. – 2017-02-01
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    Check [this site](http://boardgames.stackexchange.com/) too. – 2017-02-01
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    Or you can just do Cost=(Life×50)+(Attack×10)+...+(Ef.Against Buildings×5)$. Divide by a fixed suitable number if it is too high. – 2017-02-01
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    @MalayTheDynamo I was thinking that as long as there is a formula used for every unit that has the same weights (x50 for life, x10 for attack etc.) then the cost should be 'balanced' so to speak across different types of units, right? – 2017-02-01
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    @Martin Please clarify what you mean by balanced. – 2017-02-01
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    @MalayTheDynamo Now that you've asked that, I can't really explain what I mean. The only way I can best explain it is, I don't want players ever staying away from a particular kind of unit because its inferior compared to another unit type. And I dont want a unit that is always purchased over others because its over-powered compared to everything else. I think this is what I mean by balanced. – 2017-02-01
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    The formula will do that. Weaker units will be cheaper, so easier to buy, while better units will be more costly. Try it on two types yourself. – 2017-02-01
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    @MalayTheDynamo Awesome, I got this: http://i.imgur.com/GwR5tgE.png - Oh gosh, the problems this uncovers now in my mind. Like how the units take turns in the 'combat engine' where you might favour harder hitting attackers against big HP buildings or lighter attacking units against other small HP units. My mind is boggled right now. – 2017-02-01

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