Paeninsula Italic Suggestions and Comments

[mcantu]

Hello! I think this is a very good historical mod for BI. I am waiting for the next patch.
A suggestion: I have seen some etruscan units without sprites in battlefield, and so from the air sometimes player only can see the units banners.

this is true for many units. this is why the install instructions say to set Unit Details to very high

[Aper]

Hi all RL is quite demanding this week, I'm keep working but is a long road...

Last version of my mini-system : this is not the Holy Word, so I'm waiting for suggestions and criticism. Note that the values I wrote are not-so-rigid, adjustement are always needed


General Rules

Unit Size : 10 Bodyguards, 20 Cavalry and Missile Infantry, 40 Melee Infantry, 60 Skirmishers (20 for Romans) and Hoplitai

Unit Mass : Hoplitai w SW (Shield-Wall), Skirmishers, Missile Infantry = 1.(Morale) ; Melee Infantry = 1.(2xMorale) ; Hoplitai wo SW = 1.(4xMorale)

Hoplitai'Soldier Radius : 0.4 - 0.(Morale)

Formation : Hoplitai, Pezhetairoi = 0.8, 1.2, 1.6, 2.4, 6 ; Melee Infantry = 1, 1.5, 2, 3, 4 ; Archers = 1.2, 1.8, 2.4, 3.6, 4 ; Skirmishers = 1.4, 2.1, 2.8, 4.2, 4 ; Slingers = 1.6, 2.1, 3.2, 4.2, 4 ; BodyGuard Cavalry = 1.8, 2.7, 3.6, 5.4, 2 ; Cavalry = 2, 3, 4, 6, 4

Chariots : ??? not yet balanced

Secondary HPs : all +1 ; Pezhetairoi -1 ; Peasant/Militia ML -1 ; Elite/Heroic ML +1 ; Cavalry +1 ; Archers, Slingers, Skirmishers +1 ; Roman Melee Infantry +1

Lethality : 0.(2xMorale)

Defence: the global ability to preserve one's life, more than simply parrying, so it's higher than armor and shield : it's easier to kill a "paralyzed" armored opponent than an unarmored, but ready to fight, one, so : Defence Value = Morale Value


MORALE LEVEL (ML) :
1-3 Morale = Peasant
4-6 Morale = Militia
7-9 Morale = Average
10-11 Morale = Superior
12-13 Morale = Elite
14+ Morale = Heroic


-WEAPON : ATTACK, CHARGE / DELAY ; OTHER

- heavy axe: 10,10 /10 ; AP
- sarissa: 5, 5 / 9
- light axe: 9, 9 / 8
- CurvedSword 8, 4 / 6 (Kopis, Falcata, Machaera)
- LongSpear: 4, 4 / 7 ; +4 defence
- LongSword: 7, 7 / 5
- ShortSword: 6, 3 / 3 (Xiphos, Gladium, Celtic?)
- Dagger: 3, 1 / 2
- ShortSpear: 2, 2 / 4 ; +4 defence
- Knife: 1, 0 / 1

The "attack" value is the "power" the weapon release on enemy's body, the "delay" is the "handiness" of the weapon.

Missiles :
reduced range of javelins, doubled attack of AP javs and removed AP, raised attack of slingers to 6 but halved their ammo to 20


The list of different types of armor + (protection value) ; +/- mods to defence value :

- greaves +1
- arm protections +1
- leather or sinew head protections +1
- metal helmet +2
- perizoma +1
- metal breast plate +2 ; -1 def
- leather short cuirass +2 ; -1 def
- bronze triple disc cuirass/bronze squared cuirass +3 ; -1 def
- linotorax +3 ; -1 def
- leather cuirass +3 ; -1 def
- reinforced linotorax +4 ; -2 def
- lamellar cuirass +5 ; -2 def
- short muscular plate cuirass +5 ; -2 def
- iron-mail cuirass +6 ; -3 def
- muscolar plate cuirass +6 ; -3 def

The list of different types of shields + (protection value) ; +/- mods to defence value :

buckler +1 ; +3 def
wooden pelta +2 ; +2 def
bronze pelta/parma +3 ; +2 def
thureos +4 ; +1 def
clipeus/light aspis +4
Celtic long shield/Samnite shield +5 ; -1 def
aspis +6 ; Hellenic aspis +8 (wo SW) ; -2 def
scutum +7 ; Roman scutum +8 ; -2 def


Some of this values are still not tested, very sorry guys but you have to wait a little bit

[DaVinci]

Interesting model, looks good

Against my former thinking i would give all large shields +8 or +9, and not for Romans 1 more

(the edb balance codes will do their thing ... and from there, it is a very good way to make the edu on such a model that you have above).

I'm excited on how it plays out later in combination.

Do you have also a troop number differentiation as per unit type?

Ie. in camp testing, i observed that the chariots are a mess in the settlement battles. I rather recommend to not have them as the general bg's (instead better realise heavy cav), and reduce them in numbers very much. They can't work in settlements, equal if steered by AI or by the human player, in such numbers we have now.

Edit: I'll send now the alternated files to Hister.

[Hister]

Need to go to bed now, will comment tomorrow, thanx for everything...

[Aper]

Interesting model, looks good

Against my former thinking i would give all large shields +8 or +9, and not for Romans 1 more

Do you have also a troop number differentiation as per unit type?

Ie. in camp testing, i observed that the chariots are a mess in the settlement battles. I rather recommend to not have them as the general bg's (instead better realise heavy cav), and reduce them in numbers very much. They can't work in settlements, equal if steered by AI or by the human player, in such numbers we have now.

Edit: I'll send now the alternated files to Hister.

IMO a little +1 to Roman shield is not a bad idea, a little advantage in played battles in necessary...
However I'm giving them 1 sec HPs more than similar warrior of other cultures, as you can see, so they should perform very well in autoresolve

troop number differentiation is the first "general rule", I followed your suggestion and reduced missiles numbers and javs range

Chariots are my greatest headache now, I'll think something...:hmmm:

Ah, please check my previous post again, I've edited

[mcantu]

one thing to note about lowering the javelin/pila range...the distance in the EDU is the distance from an enemy that the throwing animation will start. if it is set too low and the unit is being charged, they wont have time to throw before they are in melee

[DaVinci]

one thing to note about lowering the javelin/pila range...the distance in the EDU is the distance from an enemy that the throwing animation will start. if it is set too low and the unit is being charged, they wont have time to throw before they are in melee

Yes, i think 30 is good for pila and 35 for javs, instead of 25 / 30 what would be more realistic, but for the animation it needs a correction.

Unit Size : 10 Bodyguards, 20 Cavalry and Missile Infantry, 40 Melee Infantry, 60 Skirmishers (20 for Romans) and Hoplitai

Comments:
10 Bodyguards - You can reduce, if senseful, bg's to 6 (lower won't work).
20 Cavalry - melee cav, what's with skirmisher cav/ mounted javs? They should have another number imo., just higher
20 Missile Infantry - which unit type is that? Archers and Slingers, i assume. If yes i would give levy slingers another higher number, because they were actually more numerous (nearly every man learned it for hunting), but they should perform more worse than archers in accuracy, morale and melee imo.
40 Melee Infantry - eventually some very elite troops could get lower numbers (beserkers, triarii andthelike)
60 Skirmishers (20 for Romans) - Light Javeliners only? Okay. 20 for Romans ... Rorarii shouldn't have only 20, i would set 30 or 35 for them, and for the Leves 20, as they actually didn't get a real consideration in legions.
60 Hoplitai - Better go with 50 max, ie. the available elite Hoplitai would be an uber unit with 60, they should have max 45, imo.
... i would set the simple celtic spearmen to 60 as well.

[SigniferOne]

Great job guys!

[Hister]

Sorry guys for being away today - job and other RL business.

Aper, excellent model! This model can be easily used in M2TW PI to when it will be additionally balanced!
- On the unit sizes I agree with DaVinci.
- I agree that Roman scutums get +1 due to their closely packed formation! This is what makes the difference between different faction's units having scutum: Romans and other mountainous and less drilled units like Sabines for example.
- Yes chariots are a mess - lowering their number even more should be a good start!

All in all superb EDU model Aper - you'r the men!

[Aper]

Comments:
10 Bodyguards - You can reduce, if senseful, bg's to 6 (lower won't work).
20 Cavalry - melee cav, what's with skirmisher cav/ mounted javs? They should have another number imo., just higher
20 Missile Infantry - which unit type is that? Archers and Slingers, i assume. If yes i would give levy slingers another higher number, because they were actually more numerous (nearly every man learned it for hunting), but they should perform more worse than archers in accuracy, morale and melee imo.
40 Melee Infantry - eventually some very elite troops could get lower numbers (beserkers, triarii andthelike)
60 Skirmishers (20 for Romans) - Light Javeliners only? Okay. 20 for Romans ... Rorarii shouldn't have only 20, i would set 30 or 35 for them, and for the Leves 20, as they actually didn't get a real consideration in legions.
60 Hoplitai - Better go with 50 max, ie. the available elite Hoplitai would be an uber unit with 60, they should have max 45, imo.
... i would set the simple celtic spearmen to 60 as well.

You are very right saying that Unit Size need more balance, in fact I tried to make things as simple as possible : complexity will come after the results of tests. However I'll apply your suggestion (thanx!) and see what happens. As soon as I'll have a complete and coherent EDU I'll post it so that we all can begin a real hardcore testing session

[Aper]

one thing to note about lowering the javelin/pila range...the distance in the EDU is the distance from an enemy that the throwing animation will start. if it is set too low and the unit is being charged, they wont have time to throw before they are in melee

Actually, reducing the attack delay of javs to 0, 25 range is enough for the Pilum : in all my lots of tests my Ensiferi, in fire at will mode, finished the ammo before the melee against charging hoplitai, releasing the second volley just after the clash.

About this, what do you guys thinks about attack delay for throwing and missile weapons? Should I apply a model like that for melee weapons, or set delay to 0 = the normal time requested by the animation? (IMO the second option is better)

[Hister]

All mods have delay for throwing and missile weapons set at 0...

[DaVinci]

I took a closer look now to your model.

As for the realism, the Gladius should have a better performance (delay value) to any other melee weapon (despite a knife).

- ShortSword: 6, 3 / 3 (Xiphos, Gladium, Celtic?)

The real winner of the legionaire wasn't only its discipline and drill, it was also the kind of the close combat they practiced: (as we know, it was created after the celto-iberic shortsword, but far improved).



Even Signifiers gladius animation reflects this, and it was exactly his intention to reflect the Roman legionaire's skill ...

- after the pila volley's (which was thrown in fact in a range of 20 m), the lines went very close to the enemy, shield close to their body to press the enemyline, and then searching for the moment to pierce with the gladius to the corpus (breast or stomach), if a gap is found in the defence or attack behaviour of the enemy (or alternative of course the same way, if they had to stand their ground in defensive tactics), and all this in the most dense battles. It is also known, that the gladius was as well used to slash to the head of the enemy, and it caused deadly wounds, if any enemy hadn't a good helmet or was slashed into the face (the blade had a very bit more mass and slight more width before the top, it first wasn't a 100% straight blade, but this in later versions due to the more cheaper mass productions).
- The gladius was very sharp, and thus very deadly if the corpus was pierced, of course, especially if the enemy has no real armour, but i think even the most breast armour of that time wasn't a good defence vs. the gladius.
- The blade was sharped on both sides, and the top was quite pointy and sharp. It went like a long metal spear top into the body of an enemy.
- The gladius was short and quite light, exactly for this purpose to act with this sword without a delay, and this in the closest combat situations.

... contrary to the long sword, which was used by the Celts and Germanics, and also contrary to other, also short swords, but then slashing swords, and mainly only one side was sharped.

And imo.:
Even the attack value should be raised slightly in comparision for them.
The def skill value of a legionaire should be quite exceptionel compared to other such melee units.
As well, their light equipment was one of the reasons (besides the compact manipel deployments), that they were very fast on the battlefield ... . Also this should be considered in the combat stats in an unique value, imo..

This concerns the Hastati and the Principes, they were trained in this way to act with the gladius, and this training was actually unique, and in the end one of the superiority of the Roman infantry based legions, that conquered first Italy and then the world.

Edit:

Btw., in my tests as yet with the current edu stats of internal 0.80, a unit of Hastati or Principes stand no chance vs. a Hoplite unit in one to one (only if they are encircled you can win with Hastati and Principes vs. Hoplites atm., and even this with high losses). But, that isn't historical correct, it was rather so, that the Hoplitai style found its master in the legionary combat style.

As for the mod's balance, it should be a real challenge and even a pain to crack an AI Hastati and Principes deployment. Of course, if Romans played, the difficulty should be set on VH/VH, at least if we'll have the historical correct realism stats and overall balancing tweaks that i did recently. A challenge as Roman player will remain no matter how good a Hastati and Principes is, because the AI will send masses of armies to you ... in my testing as Romans, it is very, really very hard to expand, and this on my latest balancing tweaks that i sent Hister, where the Roman faction got certain tweaks to secure that they won't be steamrolled that easily.

[Aper]

:hmmm: Sorry but I don't understand what are you criticizing...
The delay of gladium is very low in my model, only knives and daggers are faster. The attack is quite high; 1-sharped-edge, curved swords have an attack a bit higher because of the greater momentum of their slashing blows, but they are by far slower, so the gladium should win against them. Same for longswords : their attack is higher due to the momentum granted by leght, they are a bit more "handy" than a machaera for example because they can hit with 2 edges instead of 1, but the gladium is not at all inferior, thanks to its speed.

And for the comparison with Xiphos, the Gladium actually IS an italic Xiphos, until the Roman conquest of Spain by Scipio Africanus.

However, according to the Suda, a massive historical encyclopedia of the 10th century written by a Byzantine Greek, Roman Gladium never achieved the quality of the Iberian one.

Regarding the FENCING technique of legionaires, well, I can't imagine any other way to fight with a shortsword and a big shield : probably soldiers of all cultures that fought with that equipment used these tactics.

I already gave to legionaries a +1 to shield, if you think is insufficient maybe I can give them a little bonus to defence too, I dunno...

About speed on the battlefield, I don't understand how they could be faster than their enemies with an often heavier armor and a 10 kg shield....

About their performance on the battlefield, I'm working on it but I have very very little time these days...

About their strenght on the AUTOCALCULATED battles, my model gives them a +1 to sec HPs, that should make them very strong, almost invincible against units of similar stats and numbers.

However, thanks for your comments

[mcantu]

here is something i posted in the internal forum regarding my views on attack/lethality values (ie. giving all weapons of the same type the same lethality score)...

i think that the skill of the soldier comes into play in scoring a hit on his opponent though his armor (armor value) and attempts to block (defense skill). once a hit is made it is the design of the weapon which affects the chance of inflicting enough damage for a kill (lethality) since the RTW engine does not consider hit location.

for example, if a peasant is able to penetrate your defenses and stab you with a gladius, the potential for death is the same as if the wound was from a principes, because the type of weapon doing the damage is the same...

[Aper]

@ mcantu
Here my view on attack/delay/lethality posted in the previous page:

Lethality is now entirely dependent on morale (0.2xMorale) : I got an headache trying to decide if a swordslash in the chest is more or less dangerous than a spearstab in the face, then I realized it's a nonsensical question : a well trained soldier can kill you even with his bare hands ; differences between weapons are portraied by attack charge and delay values.

And sorry to bash very respectable people like you and the EB team, that use the same system, but from a realistic point of view give the same weapon the same lethality regardless who use it is COMPLETE NONSENSICAL. How can you say this? Do you really think that the blow of a child, or an untrained peasant, should have the same effect of the blow of a veteran of a thousand battles??? Try by yourself in whatever martial arts school to be hit by a swordmaster and by a beginner and tell me, and ask them what they think on the matter. And however, actually the design of the weapon affect MUCH more the chance to hit than the chance to kill. Think at two trained warriors (untrained are bad at doing anything so are a poor example). Give to one a knife and to the other a longsword. Can't the one with the knife easily deliver a killing blow to the other if he manage to hit him? But the guy with the longsword should have much more chance to hit his opponent, due to the design of his weapon, and kill him before he can be near enough to use the knife. I don't mean at all to be offensive, but to me what you said is madness. My system is a gross simplification too, but at least a little more realistic IMHO.

I agree training should affect attack and delay, but ALL stats values are very low in original PI EDU, so I only changed the balance without raising them : this makes the system very rigid.
Maybe I can double the stats of both armors and weapons : the relations will not change, but we'll have greater flexibility to portrait properly the differences between units
EDITED

[DaVinci]

Hey Aper, i don't critizise in the negative sense, i commented your model, as you asked for

I think all in all you are on a very good way.

The latter point: morale, training, discipline, drill, ethos, and even the pure craft and also the intelligence of the human who carries a weapon and equipment, makes just always a difference. Therfore i made the excurs to the gladius, ok i mainly went on the gladius itself, but in reality i meant of course also the men behind the gladius. This is imo. decisive also for stats. We had the discussion a few more posts above. #

Actually, i'm sure, the legions couldn't have won the most battles (with famous exceptions of course, mainly if steered by arrogant Roman leaders), if they hadn't just the slight advantage of their unique training and ethos as "militia-soldier" (like a professional warrior or merc, but even much higher morale than a merc). And this is actually the difference to the most other warriors in our timeframe, let's say the other warriors are stronger or at least more wild and more brave humans like ie. Celts or have also a high ethos. The kind of training to act as a disciplined army the Romans had, was imo. unmatched.

Another thing if you make kill-factors (you meant "raise/doubling attack / armour", i would be very careful):

In principle, often there weren't that much kills in the close combat.
The real slaughter indeed started often if the enemy was broken due to whatever reason ... so the morale stats are very important to set them not too high and not too low, if we wanna simulate this.

A unit that fights to dead (five to zero soldiers in an unit, equal which warrior tradition, because of the shock that gives the men if your collegues are all dead on the ground) is very high unrealistic.

The timeframe here is though easier to manage in this regard than later timeframes imo., because in principle there weren't that much real "unique" heroes on the battlefield, except some celtic or germanic crazy super warriors(or Spartans of course).

Oh, and this is important:
A Roman (and Greek) had indeed doubt of a life in the underworld.
A Celt (or Germanic) not, they were sure, there is a life after the life, and the most of them (at least an experienced and real Celtic warrior, not the spear carrying simple levy) would have preferred it even to die on the battlefield than to flee, so there is here and there though a difficulty to set a realism morale and count with the gameplay and engine.

Hey again, i only comment to give input and food for thoughts, not to critizise your models and stats.

[Aper]

@ DaVinci
we have a misunderstanding here, the problem is my poor english : I know you are not negative but I didn't understand your comments because it seems to me that my model was already conform to your thoughts!

About doubling some stats, you are right, but I can have a relistic low killing ratio simply reducing the lethality to "= Morale", instead of the current "2xMorale"

[DaVinci]

I can have a relistic low killing ratio simply reducing the lethality to "= Morale", instead of the current "2xMorale"

Sounds good.

The battle outcome should be very dependent on the battle situations and skills of the AI's general ( ) and the resulting morale after some minutes of the close combat ...

This is quite hard to simulate in Custom Mode only. The real testing goes in the campaign. I'm very excited and can't wait to try a campaign with the next resulting edu

And once more to the Roman legionaire, i just want them not as uber unit, just only that we try to simulate as far as possible the things we mentioned. Really, i would like to feel a slight fear, when i play Samnites or Etruscans or Celts and face the Roman AI ... lol.

[mcantu]

i was trying to say that the way i see the RTW stat system is that the attack score determines if a valid hit was made (through an opponents dodging/parrying and armor). this i see as depending on the units skill, training, etc. now that a valid hit has been made, the lethality score determines what % chance there is that the hit is fatal. i see this based on the weapon type.

to build on the peasent/principes example i gave...if a green soldier and a trained sniper are shooting at a target, the skill of each vs the defenses of the enemy determine whether or not they hit (the atttack score). however, once the bullet strikes, it is the design of the bullet itself which determines if it is a fatal shot (shot placement would be imperative here but RTW doesnt take that into consideration). the bullet doesn't know/care if it was fired by a beginner or a professional.