Real Battle, Buildings, Recruitment (RBBR) for BC 2.3

[David93]

Have to download for about the fourth time
great work +rep

[rusnmat]

You might want to visit the first page again Finished All the units- EDU is completely done & made some tiny adjustments for mercenaries and projectile files. A lots of adjustments to elephants. I am pretty happy with the way everything works right now on the battle mod.
Now I considering making some small adjustments for campaign game playing. Like giving each fort one free upkeep unit slot, but making campaign more difficult by reducing kings purse to human player. Also I want to revisit factions standings, make them somewhat more hostile.. Generally giving free upkeep helps a lot a player, since you can park your expensive units there. That is why I am planning to have only one free upkeep unit to minimise that - The purpose is to man forts. No free upkeep in cities/castles, that's makes things too easy. To minimise money savings from free upkeep units , reducing kings purse is the easiest fix. I will run a few campaigns and see how it works

[ninja51]

Sounds cool

[rusnmat]

Just made small adjustments to elephants stats (lowered their armour by 1, and slightly reduced costs/upkeeps)

[Rex Inanimatus]

Just made small adjustments to elephants stats (lowered their armour by 1, and slightly reduced costs/upkeeps)

Great submod, hard to find which units are most cost effective now! Only the last update is a bit dissapointing whatever happened to Dumbo.... I had hoped for more radical change they don't feel right somehow.

In my humble opinion their units sizes are just too big, too common and too disciplined, their formation should be more mob-like and not acting like Panzer-gruppe with excellent radio connection.

[rusnmat]

Thanks for the feedback. I spent most of the time balancing their stats than appearance. Elephants are more difficult to get right than regular units. Yes, you are right they should be in horde formation and less disciplined, I didn't change formations much just the space distance between them. It's a quick fix, I 'll do it shortly. Also I was thinking that current unit size is too big for the top level elephant troops. I added run amok attribute to all elephants except Bodyguard and top level elephants. Without run_amok attribute elephants are very strong, reducing their unit size will help to better ballance the game. Also it will cost less for a player to maintain one elephant unit, since their costs are high. Nice suggestion.+ rep I will do some corrections shortly.

[Dago Red]

- Many units had their defence skill reduced, armour for top- level units was increased, overall much better and realistic battle game experience.Grossly overpowered units were toned down ( as janissary heavy infantry, vagardian guards and such). They are still very powerfull, but have realistic stats in line with RC and common sence.

Sounds good but many of these top tier units have 2 handed axes as a primary (or secondary) weapon and suffer from that switcheroo bug during charge - making them less effective. The Varangian guard suffer from this all the time. If that cannot be fixed it seems like they should get a small boost in something to compensate.



On related note with high end elite troops, I'd like to see some accounting for being ridiculously over-equipped compared to other troops, even other elite troops. For example, wealthy knights in Outremer carried a wide array of weapons into battle. It's great we can represent a unit with 2 weapons, but they carried even more.

A Knight of Outremer may have a short sword, a large sword-of-war, and a flanged mace of Eastern style tucked in his belt with a shield and a spear or lance if he were mounted. The standard kit for a Knight Hospitallar varied over time, and they would not have carried maces, but they were at times well equipped with various swords long and short and knives -- possibly including a short-hafted glaive like weapon Osprey refers to as a Faussar. And those Templars with the heavy axes, they had all manner of other weapons carried into battle with them, which of course included a sword!

Just as there is an accounting for horse archers' mulitple horses (in calculating the unit strength, probability to hit with arrows, etc) so shold this be given some consideration. Squires and baggage handlers rode in with the knights carrying many extra weapons and supplies on top of the many weapons a knight may have actually had on his person.

[Babygod22]

Sounds good but many of these top tier units have 2 handed axes as a primary (or secondary) weapon and suffer from that switcheroo bug during charge - making them less effective. The Varangian guard suffer from this all the time. If that cannot be fixed it seems like they should get a small boost in something to compensate.

You could just remove their secondary weapons. I tried it and it work. The axe + shield animation is faster than one hand axe animation so it attack value should be less for balance reason.

[wudang_clown]

Why do you think elephants should be less disciplined?

[Dago Red]

You could just remove their secondary weapons. I tried it and it work. The axe + shield animation is faster than one hand axe animation so it attack value should be less for balance reason.

But I'm not interested in removing the multiple weapons at all, I just want them to work. Short of that, I can deal with the occasional weapon switch bug (I'd rather have it work sometimes then not have it at all). And I don't want to decrease attack either. If anything, like I said, certain units should have their attack increased! There must be some accounting for being massively over-armed.

[Babygod22]

You'd have to touch their animations then, which is a whole diffrent subject.

[wudang_clown]

There must be some accounting for being massively over-armed.

It seems far fetched to me.

It's not convincing that an unit has higher attack, because its soldiers have knives behind their belts, knives they never use. And it is even less convincing that an unit has higher attack even if its soldiers do not have additional weaponry at all...

[Dago Red]

It's not that far fetched. In the context of a discussion where horse archers are given a bit more defense against arrows because it seems appropriate to account for the historical methods used by the Turks and Mongols -- having many extra horses to ride into battle, it seems pretty much the same kind of thing. It's just a consideration, perhaps giving a slight attack edge to a unit that we have historical proof which was massively, heavily armed.

We could have separate models and units for all the kinds of weapons a Hospitallar Brother-Knight carried for example, but that's never going to happen with limited unit slots and it's actually less ideal. The most ideal thing is to actually model a Hospitallar Brother-Knight with a large Sword-of-War, a short sword or dagger and a faussar along with a crossbow and spear nearby on his pony or squire -- all of which one may have brought into the same battle! But we can't do that, so we choose one (or maybe 2 weapons). A compromise would be finding a way via the stats to account for these other weapons, which in real life would have made this knight good at challenging several types of foes.

Maybe attack isn't the best stat to factor it into, I don't know, but some accounting for it seems actually rather sensible to me. If I had 2 warriors who were equal, but one had a spare sword on him, I'd prefer that one. Swords broke in battle, they were disarmed, or stuck in things and not easily retrieved. A second weapon was life saving. Now, If I could choose a warrior who not only had more than 2 weapons, but also different kinds for defeating different threats! Well, that's the one I'd choose to win. He may well not, but his chances are better and this is a real factor.

Also quality of arms is important, but I digress...

[Rex Inanimatus]

Why do you think elephants should be less disciplined?

Elephants were mainly used for mentally shock the enemy and their horses. If used to charge the enemy, elephants had to put into a rage. rage and discipline do not cooperate well.

[rusnmat]

It could be confusing by the words we used. By disciplined Rex and myself meant that they should be in less tide formation. That is what I understood from his post. But attribute name for that in EDU is trained/untrained and such
From EDU :"training determines how tidy the unit's formation is. Discipline the response to morale SHOCKS". I haven't changed discipline with elephants unints. All elephants except Bodyguards, and top-tier elephants got can_run_amok attribute, which effects their battle perfomance. Also lower grade elephants units had their morale reduced from previusly very high levels. What I done to formations is to change elephants attributes from highly_trained or trained to untrained.
In addition most of the units formation became horde from a square formation. I see that is the most realistic, since it would be nearly impossible to have 20 or so elephants to be arranged in the perfect square with the same spacing. They are huge animals, it would be impossible for them to maintain that highly_trained or trained formation.

[rusnmat]

I just editted descr_walls file to fix too tall siege towers and ladders for small stone walled settlements issue in BC.
Also updated mercenaries file for correct mercenaries elephants hiring cost. ( their stats and unit size were slightly reduced yesterday)

[wudang_clown]

Thanks for explanations on discipline feature.

It's not that far fetched. In the context of a discussion where horse archers are given a bit more defense against arrows because it seems appropriate to account for the historical methods used by the Turks and Mongols -- having many extra horses to ride into battle, it seems pretty much the same kind of thing. It's just a consideration, perhaps giving a slight attack edge to a unit that we have historical proof which was massively, heavily armed.

Yes, in that context it is not that far fetched.

But it is still far fetched in the context of what the units have actually for their disposal on BC battlefield. I think this is wrong path to include things that are not actually in play. This complicates things too much, and requires huge research - to represent all sides equally and to make a guideline for players why the stats are as they are, if actual situation on the battlefield presents quite different.

Just an opinion of mine.

[Rex Inanimatus]

[mercs] Vishap warriors near armenia have same upkeep as trained troops, and are much more expensive to hire, so I guess you missed this one?

[rusnmat]

I don't see them listed as mercs in mercs file. They should be just a regular Armenian unit. Cost as I can see are in line with their stats.

[Rex Inanimatus]

I don't see them listed as mercs in mercs file. They should be just a regular Armenian unit. Cost as I can see are in line with their stats.

Strange i can recruit them as mercs for the price of 792 dinari upkeep 230 in armenian provinces as seljuks