Hi everyone,
Got back to playing RTW. Was a huge fan of RTR, now decided to try EB.
Excellent mod, however many people find the classic hoplite fighting style weird (too loose formation - more like ordinary spearmen)
I have tested "short_pike" approach to hoplites and didnt like it. From my experience it makes two units with this ability clash and push on till they literally face each other. so as they wield spears if two one rank units fight they cannot kill each other because their spear can only hit the third row enemy. Was quite funny to watch though.
I just tested and found excellent solution (maybe you already aware of that but worth mentioning just in case). in the following line:
soldier roman_infantry_triariiearly, 40, 0, 1.22, 0.2
last number represents units radius - i.e. defines the distance between soldiers in the unit when actively engaged in combat. Default value is 0.4 (if missing!), which makes spearmen spread around the field. I tested the setting 0.2 on triarii unit and these guys looked pretty much like classical hoplites! they stayed together and fought
like a solid block, and when divided and surrounded they actually fought back to back. I was impressed by this simply tweak. Again, the only setting i CHANGED IS UNIT RADIUS - no other stats modified so unit balance developed by EB team is maintained.
SO calling to all modders with spare time on their hands - if you could apply this change to all the classical hoplites in the EDU (and units fought as hoplites), it would be great. Unfortunately I dont have time for that.
Another idea - the tightness of formation could represent how trained the soldiers are, so levy hoplites would be about 0.33, down to 0.22 or something for pro soldiers (triarii, spartans etc.).
Cheers