HCS - Supported Sub Mods and Fan Projects

[Bainezy]

best to wait and ask someone who has experience in changing and adding files in rtw to make a fully function able one but twas worth testing it to see if it would work anyway someone is bound to fix it anyway at some point

+ rep anyway for trying

[AndariusHaliusScipio]

best to wait and ask someone who has experience in changing and adding files in rtw to make a fully function able one but twas worth testing it to see if it would work anyway someone is bound to fix it anyway at some point

+ rep anyway for trying

I compared the morale thing with Europa Barbarorum, and found that, AFTER my changes, the average Hoplite had morale of 8 in this mod, Normal and Trained. The EB Hoplite (basic one) had morale of 12, Disciplined and Highly Trained.


Haegemonia Hoplite: 12 attack, 7/5/20 defense metal, 60 numbers
Europa Barbarorum Hoplite: 14 attack, 11/8/4 defense leather, 40 numbers



So... I dunno what to do. I dunno if I should go back and increase the morale again, or if the defense should be raised, or if there's some other file with a kill-rate that should be eased.

[Bainezy]

I compared the morale thing with Europa Barbarorum, and found that, AFTER my changes, the average Hoplite had morale of 8 in this mod, Normal and Trained. The EB Hoplite (basic one) had morale of 12, Disciplined and Highly Trained.


Haegemonia Hoplite: 12 attack, 7/5/20 defense metal, 60 numbers
Europa Barbarorum Hoplite: 14 attack, 11/8/4 defense leather, 40 numbers



So... I dunno what to do. I dunno if I should go back and increase the morale again, or if the defense should be raised, or if there's some other file with a kill-rate that should be eased.

i have no idea i know the moral defo needs to be changed but im not sure if the other problem is either the kill-rate or the defence of the units and each of the other units that are not hoplites have the same problem all units in the mod just die and rout way to fast so the battle last as long as what a previous post said around 5 mins so you dont only need to compare and figure out what to change about the hoplites you have to figure out what to change in all the units in the hcs mod beta like the skirmishers and cavalry etc , and one unit of hoplite's defence or moral and what not will be different than most of the others same go's with other types of units so it may not sound hard to an experienced modder for rtw but if you only have experience in changing files on m2tw and you still are trying to figure it out for rtw means that you are a top man who is trying to make this Hcs mod beta better for others so if you do sort this thing out or if some one else does your help and work would have been much appreciated !!!!

[Constantius]

yes, good luck! i have so far: increased morale to all units(depending on training and type of unit) I have increased recruitment costs and maintainance, but also time it takes to recruit. for Spartans in partcular I have increased greatly moral but it takes 12 turns to recriut a true Spartan Homonoi . I have added stone walls to key cities-xcept Sparta. removed money script and working on other bits and pieces. I will hand over my historic events list when Im finnished so Devs can add them to a patch

[Woestelingh]

Wow that's a lot of things there! Awesome!

But increasing Spartan elite troops to 12 turns, wouldn't that make them useless to recruit? Better have 12 units of 2nd tier-troops than 1 unit of Homoioi I would think...

And prolly this will mean the AI won't recruit any of them either, which will mean spamming of non-spartan armies, so no real spartans for us to kill :-(

[Constantius]

family members are Spartans and there wasn't an endless supply,plus unlike most Polis calling Hoplite class to arms-SPartans had to go through agoge

[Woestelingh]

Yeh, but it isn't all about historical accuracy, but also a ltitle bit about gameplay wouldn't 2 (at very most 3) turns be most balanced?

[Constantius]

perhaps, but to me historical is the way! and besides I have increased all recruitment times a standard hoplite is 3 turns . Elites 4 turns Theban sacred band I'v got on par with Spatiates ! if you send out an army and get beat, it should cause a real big problem

[Woestelingh]

and besides I have increased all recruitment times

Ah that makes more sense then

[Constantius]

I will try a few more campaigns and let you try, if you want. I'm not a modder just an historian, so I am tweaking the files I know, I have also slowed Hoplite running speed. I think next I will mess with shield points- if I am not mistaken that increases, obviously- shield strength in front and to the right??

[Bainezy]

wow that is awesome hope it works flawlessly which it most likely will still anything is better than this an ott victory because of the moral

[Bainezy]

yes, good luck! i have so far: increased morale to all units(depending on training and type of unit) I have increased recruitment costs and maintainance, but also time it takes to recruit. for Spartans in partcular I have increased greatly moral but it takes 12 turns to recriut a true Spartan Homonoi . I have added stone walls to key cities-xcept Sparta. removed money script and working on other bits and pieces. I will hand over my historic events list when Im finnished so Devs can add them to a patch

+ rep !

[Woestelingh]

I will try a few more campaigns and let you try, if you want.

Yes, I just wanted to ask you about that (the files, I meant)
Cuz I gave up playing kinda quickly, and all the tweaking was too much for my limited time, but if this proves a better base I'll probably give it a new chance then

[Constantius]

I would carry playing it is a fantastic mod, just needs a bit of attention! It is after all a beta, and a better beta than some finnished mods

[justme]

I compared the morale thing with Europa Barbarorum, and found that, AFTER my changes, the average Hoplite had morale of 8 in this mod, Normal and Trained. The EB Hoplite (basic one) had morale of 12, Disciplined and Highly Trained.


Haegemonia Hoplite: 12 attack, 7/5/20 defense metal, 60 numbers
Europa Barbarorum Hoplite: 14 attack, 11/8/4 defense leather, 40 numbers



So... I dunno what to do. I dunno if I should go back and increase the morale again, or if the defense should be raised, or if there's some other file with a kill-rate that should be eased.

just dropping by to offer my two bits in the discussion
I haven't played too much with all the parameters in the EDU, but in the process of building a personal project I dabbled a bit in this "sport", basically copying and adjusting the values from EB. Let me tell you what little I know...

A) morale that's anything less than 10 is ridiculous and to be avoided... it causes your men to break and flee after suffering just a handful of losses - it probably fits well peasant units like the ones in vanilla RTW, but certainly not pro or semi-pro class units
B) morale greater that 15/16 should be reserved for the true elites - at the range of about 20-22 the unit will go on fighting to the last (so I wouldn't use these numbers for anything less than Spartan homoioi veterans). The absolute maximum of morale (the value past which I noticed no further difference) is about 25 - but I would steer clear of such numbers (they are too god-like). A good range for the average hoplites would therefore be between 13 and 15.
C) Weapon lethality in the EDU is coded through stat_pri (and stat_sec) records; the second value in the record corresponds to the extra bonus when charging (per weapon) - this measures the impact the charge has on the opposing unit. Make sure to nerf this! - it can make a world of difference and if too high, it may cause low morale/low mental units to break on contact Seeing as this mod covers an era when ultra-heavy assault cav was still not in fashion, I would keep this value to less than 6-8 (higher numbers abound in EB from what I remember, but in the 5th c. B.C. there weren't that many cataphract companions around )
D) The first value in the stat_pri record measures the damage inflicted by the weapon in sustained battle (or missile damage). Keep this low too (EBs values for spears are quite satisfactory, or slightly increased). If you go too high, the melee will be over too fast (which wasn't the case in hoplite battle). Swords, especially the kopis can go *slightly* higher (eg +1 to spear)
E) Don't touch the hit points! Leave at 1 for all - setting at 2 makes things quite unrealistic
F) Avoid armor piercing for melee weapons, but ap makes (from what I remember) a good combo with missile weapons (javs or arrows), especially if you keep the damage factor of the missiles low.
G) Use the spear attribute for spears, combined with the lower spear bonus (2 I think)
H) As most hoplites use the argive shield in this mod and are similarly armored, almost all hoplites will have the same (or mostly the same) armor and shield attribute values - you can play around with the defense skill to reflect the relative status of each unit. Be careful not to go overboard and cause units to become invincible - the total armor value (for my tastes) shouldn't exceed 30-32 for the heaviest units, absolute max at 34 (eg spartan hippeis). This may need a bit of tweaking however, depending on the values you choose for the weapons.
I) Most all hoplites should benefit from the disciplined and trained attributes, but high_trained should be only the elites. Only the worse hoplites should have normal mental attribute (you could use this to nerf the Ionians a bit though). Impetuous should only be used for "barbarian" units (and not all of them). Low moral is a bit dangerous to use - I only ever used it on very light troops and they may still need a bit of tweaking (with their morale values) so that they won't break on first contact.
J) About the costs of recruiting units, their upkeep and the cost to upgrade them, this can be tricky to get right, as it depends heavily on your economy model (how much cash is available and from what sources)... As a general rule, I tend to make it costly to recruit, costly to maintain, but (relatively) cheap to upgrade units (because I make the unit-upgrading buildings cost much and take a long time to build).
K) Times to recruit units are generally influenced (for me) by status - so elites take longer and levies take shorter times to recruit.


So, a few specific suggestions for the Heg mod:

1) Don't be afraid to make cheap, low morale levies 0-turn recruitable for a low/moderate amount of money
2) Hoplites in most city states of the era were levied in times of need, so a city hoplite levy could - in principle - also be 0-turn recruitable for a moderate/high amount of money
3) Elite units and cavalry were generally scarce in the era and therefore should take more time to and more money to levy, but they should pay off with their increased morale, kill-ratio, higher-defense, etc. I suggest however never to go more that 2-3 turns for even the best.
4) What this mod really needs (from my experience) is to limit the amount of stacks that each city (not each faction!) can generate... and this can be a bit tricky, but it may pay off with extra historic accuracy as well as a more thoughtful/challenging campaign.

As only citizens and free men were allowed to fight in the phalanx, it would be quite realistic to view a settlement's population as just the amount of free born male citizens available for military service in that particular city. So a town with say 3000 population can field in total 2600 hoplites (3000-400 that form the population barrier). Now if we were to redefine the sizes at which a settlement advances* (from town to large town, to minor city, to city, to large city, to huge city) and set the thresholds accordingly (eg Athens as a huge metropolis could field in RL about 10000 hoplites at the time of Marathon), we could then also adjust the population growth rates (by manipulating the land fertility values in the descr_regions.txt and the bonuses from the various buildings), so that population would really matter in the game - and as a consequence, the percentage of the population under arms.
In this model, you would only allow the recruitment of hoplites, marines, cavalry and naval units in the city, while delegating all the light (ie non hoplite, non citizen) units to the mercenary pool for each region (I'm not sure, but I think you can have quite a lot of mercenary pools, so perhaps one per region might be possible, thus also enabling AOR units)

5) Kill the money script - it seems to be buggy


*these thresholds are defined in an xml file somewhere in the data folder - if I have some time, I may try to mod it myself.
the xml exists only in mtw2, so that won't work

[AndariusHaliusScipio]

I'm going to go through the EDU again and deal with the morale and everything you said



Actually, could you show me an example of how I would/should go about doing that? I have no real frame of reference for non-Hoplite units and charge bonuses and the like. My only solution for the moment would be essentially copy-pasta'ing the stats from EB

[Bainezy]

just dropping by to offer my two bits in the discussion
I haven't played too much with all the parameters in the EDU, but in the process of building a personal project I dabbled a bit in this "sport", basically copying and adjusting the values from EB. Let me tell you what little I know...

A) morale that's anything less than 10 is ridiculous and to be avoided... it causes your men to break and flee after suffering just a handful of losses - it probably fits well peasant units like the ones in vanilla RTW, but certainly not pro or semi-pro class units
B) morale greater that 15/16 should be reserved for the true elites - at the range of about 20-22 the unit will go on fighting to the last (so I wouldn't use these numbers for anything less than Spartan homoioi veterans). The absolute maximum of morale (the value past which I noticed no further difference) is about 25 - but I would steer clear of such numbers (they are too god-like). A good range for the average hoplites would therefore be between 13 and 15.
C) Weapon lethality in the EDU is coded through stat_pri (and stat_sec) records; the second value in the record corresponds to the extra bonus when charging (per weapon) - this measures the impact the charge has on the opposing unit. Make sure to nerf this! - it can make a world of difference and if too high, it may cause low morale/low mental units to break on contact Seeing as this mod covers an era when ultra-heavy assault cav was still not in fashion, I would keep this value to less than 6-8 (higher numbers abound in EB from what I remember, but in the 5th c. B.C. there weren't that many cataphract companions around )
D) The first value in the stat_pri record measures the damage inflicted by the weapon in sustained battle (or missile damage). Keep this low too (EBs values for spears are quite satisfactory, or slightly increased). If you go too high, the melee will be over too fast (which wasn't the case in hoplite battle). Swords, especially the kopis can go *slightly* higher (eg +1 to spear)
E) Don't touch the hit points! Leave at 1 for all - setting at 2 makes things quite unrealistic
F) Avoid armor piercing for melee weapons, but ap makes (from what I remember) a good combo with missile weapons (javs or arrows), especially if you keep the damage factor of the missiles low.
G) Use the spear attribute for spears, combined with the lower spear bonus (2 I think)
H) As most hoplites use the argive shield in this mod and are similarly armored, almost all hoplites will have the same (or mostly the same) armor and shield attribute values - you can play around with the defense skill to reflect the relative status of each unit. Be careful not to go overboard and cause units to become invincible - the total armor value (for my tastes) shouldn't exceed 30-32 for the heaviest units, absolute max at 34 (eg spartan hippeis). This may need a bit of tweaking however, depending on the values you choose for the weapons.
I) Most all hoplites should benefit from the disciplined and trained attributes, but high_trained should be only the elites. Only the worse hoplites should have normal mental attribute (you could use this to nerf the Ionians a bit though). Impetuous should only be used for "barbarian" units (and not all of them). Low moral is a bit dangerous to use - I only ever used it on very light troops and they may still need a bit of tweaking (with their morale values) so that they won't break on first contact.
J) About the costs of recruiting units, their upkeep and the cost to upgrade them, this can be tricky to get right, as it depends heavily on your economy model (how much cash is available and from what sources)... As a general rule, I tend to make it costly to recruit, costly to maintain, but (relatively) cheap to upgrade units (because I make the unit-upgrading buildings cost much and take a long time to build).
K) Times to recruit units are generally influenced (for me) by status - so elites take longer and levies take shorter times to recruit.


So, a few specific suggestions for the Heg mod:

1) Don't be afraid to make cheap, low morale levies 0-turn recruitable for a low/moderate amount of money
2) Hoplites in most city states of the era were levied in times of need, so a city hoplite levy could - in principle - also be 0-turn recruitable for a moderate/high amount of money
3) Elite units and cavalry were generally scarce in the era and therefore should take more time to and more money to levy, but they should pay off with their increased morale, kill-ratio, higher-defense, etc. I suggest however never to go more that 2-3 turns for even the best.
4) What this mod really needs (from my experience) is to limit the amount of stacks that each city (not each faction!) can generate... and this can be a bit tricky, but it may pay off with extra historic accuracy as well as a more thoughtful/challenging campaign.

As only citizens and free men were allowed to fight in the phalanx, it would be quite realistic to view a settlement's population as just the amount of free born male citizens available for military service in that particular city. So a town with say 3000 population can field in total 2600 hoplites (3000-400 that form the population barrier). Now if we were to redefine the sizes at which a settlement advances* (from town to large town, to minor city, to city, to large city, to huge city) and set the thresholds accordingly (eg Athens as a huge metropolis could field in RL about 10000 hoplites at the time of Marathon), we could then also adjust the population growth rates (by manipulating the land fertility values in the descr_regions.txt and the bonuses from the various buildings), so that population would really matter in the game - and as a consequence, the percentage of the population under arms.
In this model, you would only allow the recruitment of hoplites, marines, cavalry and naval units in the city, while delegating all the light (ie non hoplite, non citizen) units to the mercenary pool for each region (I'm not sure, but I think you can have quite a lot of mercenary pools, so perhaps one per region might be possible, thus also enabling AOR units)

5) Kill the money script - it seems to be buggy


*these thresholds are defined in an xml file somewhere in the data folder - if I have some time, I may try to mod it myself.
the xml exists only in mtw2, so that won't work

that is simply an awesome response

[AndariusHaliusScipio]

That doesn't really help... I need examples... Light infantry, Dog handlers, Medium, Heavy, Missile cavalrey, light cavalry, heavy cavalry, boats

[Bainezy]

good lucky with it AndariusHaliusScipio hope it go's well

[justme]

I'm going to go through the EDU again and deal with the morale and everything you said



Actually, could you show me an example of how I would/should go about doing that? I have no real frame of reference for non-Hoplite units and charge bonuses and the like. My only solution for the moment would be essentially copy-pasta'ing the stats from EB

from my "personal" project...

This one is exactly what it says - a simple levy hoplite, unarmored (only wearing their tunic, giving them a 3 for base armor), an argive shield and a helmet, carrying a spear (no secondary weapon). These are supposed to be a late-hellenistic unit, rather low-quality hoplites, not really meant to hold a line (again units fighting Roman-style)

type greek militia spearmen
dictionary greek_militia_spearmen ; greek militia
category infantry
class spearmen
voice_type Medium_1
soldier greek_militia_spearmen, 40, 0, 1.1
attributes sea_faring, can_sap
formation 1, 1, 2, 2, 4, square, shield_wall
stat_health 1, 0
stat_pri 12, 6, no, 0, 0, melee, blade, piercing, spear, 10 ,0.13
stat_pri_attr light_spear
stat_sec 0, 0, no, 0, 0, no, no, no, none, 25 ,1
stat_sec_attr no
stat_pri_armour 3, 5, 6, flesh
stat_sec_armour 0, 0, flesh
stat_heat 2
stat_ground 0, 0, -2, -2
stat_mental 10, normal, trained
stat_charge_dist 30
stat_fire_delay 0
stat_food 60, 300
stat_cost 1, 1200, 133, 400, 400, 1200
ownership slave, empire_east, empire_east_rebels


This one is a levy archer - pretty much the average/ok quality; also unarmored (tunic only), without a shield, good range, pretty decent (I didn't give him the ap arrows, I kept those for a bit more elite archers)

type greek militia archers
dictionary greek_militia_archers ; greek militia
category infantry
class missile
voice_type Light_1
soldier greek_militia_archers, 20, 0, 1.0
attributes sea_faring
formation 1.2, 1.2, 2.4, 2.4, 4, square
stat_health 1, 0
stat_pri 5, 0, arrow, 168, 60, missile, archery, piercing, none, 54 ,1
stat_pri_attr no
stat_sec 7, 2, no, 0, 0, melee, simple, piercing, sword, 0 ,0.10
stat_sec_attr no
stat_pri_armour 3, 6, 0, flesh
stat_sec_armour 0, 0, flesh
stat_heat 1
stat_ground 0, 0, -2, -2
stat_mental 10, normal, trained
stat_charge_dist 30
stat_fire_delay 0
stat_food 60, 300
stat_cost 1, 900, 100, 300, 300, 900
ownership slave, eastern, greek, carthaginian, roman


These are plain peltasts - also decent; unarmored (tunic only), only a small pelte shield, helmet, javelins and a plain sword (also no ap for javelins)

type greek militia peltasts
dictionary greek_militia_peltasts ; greek militia
category infantry
class light
voice_type Medium_1
soldier greek_militia_peltasts, 30, 0, 1.0
attributes sea_faring, can_sap, can_swim, hide_forest
formation 1.2, 1.2, 2.4, 2.4, 4, square
stat_health 1, 0
stat_pri 6, 2, javelin, 65, 5, thrown, blade, piercing, spear, 20 ,1
stat_pri_attr thrown
stat_sec 7, 4, no, 0, 0, melee, blade, piercing, sword, 0 ,0.10
stat_sec_attr no
stat_pri_armour 3, 5, 4, flesh
stat_sec_armour 0, 0, flesh
stat_heat 4
stat_ground 0, 0, -2, -2
stat_mental 9, normal, trained
stat_charge_dist 30
stat_fire_delay 0
stat_food 60, 300
stat_cost 1, 800, 82, 250, 250, 800
ownership slave, eastern, greek, carthaginian, roman


Start with those and play a bit around with the numbers as mentioned above - it worked in my game, but the numbers will certainly need testing with hegemonia (that's the bad thing about number-crunching in RTW - they're not one size-fit-all )