A Tougher Game and 'unthrown pila' fix

[Byg]

Ever in search of a tougher, more interesting game with longer battles, I eventually have settled on the following, which includes my little fix for the 'pila not thrown' issue in patch 1.3. (how did they miss that?) Also, I play using borsooks mod. Here are my additional changes:

To fix the unthrown pila issue for any unit, just

1) remove "prec, " from legions, scutarii and bullwarriors in the export_descr_unit text file , which is in your RTW data folder (back it up first).

2) Then change their charge distance values to the same as their throwing range.

3) Change scutarii to heavy, rather than light infantry or they will tend to skirmish

For humans you will now see a skirmish button for all these units, which you can simply turn off. The AI will generally now throw pila, if it wants to, prior to charging or when standing idle in range of your army. You can quick-test it for yourself by just altering one unit, then trying it in a custom battle.

I play as Germany, having converted their phalanx to a spear unit. This stops me using a phalanx or two to destroy entire armies in seige defence and attack and stops that utterly impregnable battle line they create, which just seems silly. I boosted it's defence stats instead and they are much more vulnerable now.

Reduced all spear bonuses from 8 to 6 to cut down on AI cavalry deaths.

Added 5 morale to all units

Doubled Hit points for all units except phalanxes( this makes it really tough to rout an enemy with a cavalry charge and it now requires a good deal of skill and repeated charges)

Cut peasants out of all civs build queues

Reduced frequency of Brigands - not to make game harder, just because their frequency is irritating.

Archery and slingers X 1.5 attack ( otherwise they are too weak with the doubled HP of all units, but they are still less powerful than before)

All pila and javelin units x 2 attack (this makes up for the doubled HP of all units - ammo being limited as it is)


I also made my own house rules to negate the snowball effect of conquests and to reduce the effect of High star generals for my civ.

For every 2 stars my general gains, his army must be reduced by 1 unit. (Ideally I would just limit generals stars to 3, but not done this yet)

I cannot help one army with another unless the total number of units involved follows the above rule for the highest starred General.

I can only hold 6 cities plus one more for each civ I am at war with or have conquered.

For you first enemy you will need to take and keep all his cities until he is conquered. Then you must put tax on high and leave them to rebel.

If I make peace with a civ, then I must abandon a city if I am already at the limit.

The aim is to slowly move my civ along the map, leaving in its wake nothing but rebel cities.

E.g. currently I have 14 cities: My 6 chosen cities from my conquests and from those I started with, plus I am at war with 4 Roman factions, Thrace, Spain, Dacia and have destroyed Britain and Gaul, so I have city for each of these. I may take one more city to reach my 15 city limit unless I declare war on more enemies.

No sallying unless all units fight outside city walls.

No assassinating enemy generals.

No making financial deals, except for peace for no more than 1000 d

All changes are save game compatible so i can tweak as I go along.

May sound complicated, but isn't. It is very tough, in fact I now some times lose half as many men as the enemy in battles (often used to lose none) and my civ is almost out of family members and have lost a few cities more than once - I may lose this one.

Would love to hear of other people's tougher game mechanisms.