Battle System (2hp)

[DimeBagHo]

The new battle system:

(1) Most units get 2 hit points.
(2) Some elite units get 3 hit points and a smaller unit size.
(3) Lethality values are increased to near vanilla levels.
(4) Missile accuracy is restored (to vanilla values).
(5) Charge distances for cavalry are reduced.

I figure the 2hp system has been going long enough for people to know whether they like it or not. Feel free to comment on what you think is better or worse under the new system.

[Anakarsis]

I vote affirmative

I think that it still needs some adjustments but overall is a great idea.

THe major problems come from the few effect of missiles now, specially javelins.

[Sebulba]

Nice idea DomeBagHo


Quote:
(1) Most units get 2 hit points. -
- yep
(2) Some elite units get 3 hit points and a smaller unit size.
- -maybe you can reduce Spartan Royal to 50 men

(3) Lethality values are increased to near vanilla levels.
ok
(4) Missile accuracy is restored (to vanilla values).
-i like you ones
(5) Charge distances for cavalry are reduced.
ok

[Double X]

DimeBagHo, maybe you can ask Redfox for the General Bodyguards - Spartan Royal Guard. If not, maybe lessen SRG to 30 men. I remember you saying that real population to RTW population is about 10-1 and that is only for the recruitable male soldiers. So since 300 royal guard divided by 10 is 30, it seems to be plausible.

[Barend]

It took me some time to get along with the new system, but now I quite like it.
The only thing that bothers me is that apparently my archers aren't that effective anymore, the same goes for normal missile units (the precursor ones are not a concern anymore, I explained that already).

It certainly makes battles more hard work, and therefore mre fun to play

Keep up the good work !

[RedFox]

Acctually, RTW terrain ratio is about 20:1, so I guess that applies to units too. I don't really like the way missile units behave against 2hp units. Makes cavalry too overpowered and more immune to missile units, which is wrong.

[Zarax]

Agreed on that, it also makes the old berseker-style units much less special imho.

[Suppanut]

I vote no. I think its weaken archer too much. Archer should kill and weaken enemy most in first and second shot but now highest kill is on the last shot in quiver, without any solution for it. I test on lethality of range attack and seem it can't be more than 1. And if we give more damage to archer, its give higher kill but visually affect is on the later shots, not the early ones. By double its current damage would give them nearly equal total kills in battlefield but only for the late shots that made them do it.

[Carnead]

I like the new battle system. It seems to me being balanced.
But I haven't fought against Rome yet.

According to my own experience it's hardest to fight against Rome. So I don't know how my Hellenic armies will get out of this challenge.

Apropos, it's a great mod. Thanks!

[Roman Warlord]

I completly disagree with you guys, since when has any archers been able to stop/damage a cav charge?

Only examples I can think of are HA (which should still do though take longer, quiver increase sizes will be needed) and the Longbow but even then stakes and inf were needed.

I see it more my soilders are tough and it takes more than one wound to kill them.

I prefer much more the way infantry acts. Think the phalanx is too strong from the front now though.

[RedFox]

An arrow to the gut isn't really shrugged off by being tough you know. Humans are amazingly frail things. Even so much as being killed by tiny wounds inflicted by little lead projectiles.

So honestly, a horse galloping 40km/h or faster will certainly fall into a heap if it's suddenly hit by an arrow, or if the rider is critically hit, it ends in a similar way.
The 2hp system pretty much makes critical hits useless as it takes more than one killing blow to get rid of a horse. The fact why horses were superior to simple missile units was because they could easily run out of range. A cavalryman is naturally very vulnreable to missiles, since the area to be hit also includes the horse, who can easily collapse when being hit from shock. The speed of the horse doesn't matter if it's in range under a hail of hundreds of arrows. The key to cavalry against archers is to stay out of range and hit when not suspected, otherwise they will suffer heavy losses (loosing a valuable horse doesn't even compare to a few peasant archers).

So yeah, this is pretty much the reason why I do not like this system. I tried it on Diadochi half a year ago and I was very disappointed with the effects of missiles on cavalry, which is the main reason I do not support this system. Makes skirmishers useless and redundant on the battlefield.

[Dog Fart]

I like tweaking the skirmishers down a bit. Infantry and heavy cavalry are the main weapon on the battle field now. As it was historicaly. Before the 2hp system, I kinda felt like the Extended Greek Mod turned into the Extended Skirmisher Mod.

[Kara Kolyo]

I agree with Redfox. There are other ways to reduce the impact of misslie units in this mod and i think that before the 2 hp system it was relativelly well balanced. Or atleast was easier for people to make their adjustments.

[aznflea]

oh thats no good. isnt there a way to increase the damage a unit does to a another? like a couple of javvies seem to kill an elephant even tho the hp is around 10/ so im assuming 1 javy tales off 3 or so hp from an elephant.

thats assuming 1 jav hit 1 elephant each,

[DimeBagHo]

As you have all probably noticed I'm pretty down on ranged units. I think they should be useful, but an army that relies too heavily on them should get crushed by an army based around heavy infantry. That is pretty much the way things worked from Alexander's invasion of Asia, until the late Roman Empire.

I also disagree strongly with the claim that ranged units should be more effective against attacking cavalry. Many battles of the period showed that heavy infantry could defeat massed archery just by advancing quickly. A quick advance meant that fewer volleys could be fired, and it was much harder to time the volleys to land on the advancing line.

The greater speed of cavalry makes both of these problems more acute. If you have cavalry advancing rapidly to attack massed archers then only the first rank or two of the archers, who have a direct line of sight, will be able to fire effectively at all, and they might get off one or two volleys before the cavalry closes with them.

I can think of several historical battles where missile infantry were used effectively against missile cavalry. In or near the game period, I can't think of even one where missile infantry stopped a direct attack by cavalry.

[Vercingetorix_Defeated]

Hmm...bit confused here. I downloaded the mod less than a month ago, but I've looked through the EDU extensively and the units all have 1 HP, except of course for the really elite ones like the Spartan bodyguard.

Apparently my version is 5.8.14.

In my version, archers were almost completely useless. This took me somewhat by surprise, as skirmishers were very effective and I used them quite a few times to defend bridges and the like. Skirmishers were almost TOO effective, I was thinking of dialing down the range of Roman light auxilia and other skirmisher units because they could throw accurately at enemies across a river at least 150 feet away,they aren't all Olympic caliber javelin throwers to throw projectiles that far that accurately.

Also, I found that it was MUCH more effective with legionary units like principes to set them to fire at will, where they would kill half the enemy unit in a couple volleys, then have them run into close combat where they would take 5 minutes of fighting to kill as many of the same enemy that they would kill in 5 seconds by throwing pilum. That didn't seem right.

I once used over 800 Roman archers to fire at a group of 22 unarmored Gallic spearmen, just to see how bad archers really were.

They killed about 10 of the Gauls in maybe 20 volleys. They ended up running out of ammunition before killing all 22. (800 archers with 30 arrows each couldn't kill 20 Gauls who weren't even wearing shirts. Realistic?) It was pretty hilarious, and since then I've disbanded all of my Roman archers and never recruited another one, as they were obviously ineffective.

[DimeBagHo]

Under the old system (up to version 5.8.15) missiles had reduced accuracy. Javelins were only a little less accurate than in vanilla. Arrows were quite a lot less accurate. One effect of that was that massed archers were not as effective against single targets. A lot of their arrows would land around the target unit. Against a large army they were still quite effective though because the arrows that missed the target unit would hit other units around them.

Under the new system (version 5.8.16 and later) missile units have the same accuracy as in vanilla RTW, but units have two hitpoints so it takes two hits to score a kill.

[Vercingetorix_Defeated]

Ah, I see. I guess the accuracy statistics are probably in the EDU, never noticed them there. I'll have to take a look.

On the main download page, there doesn't seem to be an option for 5.8.15....it is just 5.8.19 and then much older versions. Are there still links out there for recent versions without the 2 HP mod?

[Kara Kolyo]

Vercingetorix - the accuracy settings are in another file - check the readme for details - Dime has done excelent job explaining how to change these settings.

[RedFox]

DimeBagHo: Missile were effective, just not accurate and they cost money. DTW archers have reasonable kill ratios, but very limited ammunition. IMO, that is the best balance. If you are dumb enough to send your cavalry under a hail of missiles, then you should loose them, not brush it off as nothing serious.

Indeed Archers shouldn't play that huge role, but they do play as much to weaken enemy's elite units. If you give archers around 15 arrows (how many can they carry anyways?) and reasonable kill ratios that also affect elite units, you have balanced skirmishers, since they run out of ammo before they can make a noticeable difference, but weaken the enemy where you need to.

The 2hp way is just too unrealistic and IMO is a complete downside for the next XGM versions.
It is your mod afterall, so ruin it as much as you like I'm just trying to help realise how wrong it is.