Sinuhet's AI Battle Formations Mod version 7.0
Rome Total War: "Sinuhet's AI Battle Formations Mod" version 7.0
Creation Date: September 24, 2006, Release Date: September 28, 2006
Links to download version 7.0:
download from TWC Download Section
All my formations are now an open-source. Feel free to mod them or use them as you want. (NTO Project)
Description and Using Rome Total War "Sinuhet's AI Battle Formations Mod"
This mod is a modification of the original file "descr_formations_ai.txt", which defines the way the AI creates formations of units in the battles. It was expanded and tweaked for a bit more challenging AI, with more ways of a creation of formations before and in the course of the battles. So don't be afraid of any irreversible damages of your game installation by implementing of this mod - you can simply remove it at any moment only by copy/paste of your original archived file.
This version is only for RTW 1.5 (vanilla and all RTW 1.5 - based mods). Dont use it with lower versions of RTW or with Barbarian Invasion Expansion pack. The usage for the modifications which has changed the factions and their respective units (e.g. RTR 6.0 Platinum Edition) is possible only after respective changes in the "supported_factions" flags.
In this version there are no rectangle formations, so its usage is universal as for the Units Scale in Video options settings.
The main changes in third generation of my AI formations are as follows:
The changes in version 6.0 (compared to the first generation, i.e. up to version 5.0):
1.) The quite new, originally developed system of "Small formations" - by means of it is possible to control the tactical AI behaviour during the all phases of battles in a more detailed manner, than by means of the new formations only. You can define by it the behaviour of small groups of units according to various criteria, including the factions and type and category of units. In fact, this is highly modular and customisable solution. In this point of view, the whole system is open to a lot of other modifications in future, according to your personal tastes. The values defined by me in this file are only one system of the possible ones, which has appeared to me to be optimally functioning with vanilla and SPQR 6.0 modification. However, it can be the matter of personal preferences and various needs of your modifications and your gameplay style and the possibilities are plentiful. Here is only necessary to mention the fact, that this is also very powerful tool, which is able to change totally the whole balance in battles and not all changes are improving the behaviour of the AI - so you must experiment and test the respective new settings of yours.
2.) This version of my mod is the first "descr_formations_ai.txt" file modification at all publicly released till this time, which is using extesively possibilities of the "default_melee_state" flag. For the info on all possible values, I will write the post in the above mentioned subforum. This is the second key change in this version, which is the clear priority. Any other mod or the CA in vanilla has not implemented so much possiblities in the settings of this flag. It is the other way, which allow more appropriate control of the behaviour of each unit during the battles according to developer's wishes.
3.) This version is the first of mine, which is using extensively the settings for various factions via the "supported_factions" flag, origianlly used in the CA file in the BI expansion pack. I must clearly state here, that the first one who used this flag also in RTW 1.5 was Darth Vader in his modifications from this year. So in this direction he has the clear priority.
4.) I have developed also several new "big formations", but the main changes are made in functionality of the whole system. This is also one of the reasons, why I want to prevent the distribution only parts of modified file, because the important is function of things in the right context of the whole.
5.) I have done in this version the beta testing alone - I had have to spent a lot of time with debugging and tweaking the all new things, and the result are rock-stable formations, simple on the first sight but very powerful in battles and highly expandable and controllable as for the future development.
The changes in minor version 6.1:
- tweaked the system of small formations, introduced more levels of the AI priority for formations and improved the behaviour of a light cavalry – it is main unit for the pursuing now and it attacks when the heavy cavalry is in lower numbers, otherwise the main attacking cavalry unit is heavy cavalry (if it is in sufficient numbers)
- changed settings for the phalanx units – they are in defend/guard mode also in attack now to improve holding of the line and to prevent frequent distractions from formations
- for a bit better “cosmetic” effect implemented for all cavalry units the setting for preventing to be in wedge when they are grouped in “big formations”
- tweaked behaviour of heavy cavalry in the formation for 1-7 phalanges with small numbers of regular infantry units for Macedon, Seleucid and Egypt (“Philip of Macedon” formation)
The changes in minor version 6.2:
- the whole system of small formations and settings of the default_melee_state flag for the "regular" infantry (i.e. light and heavy infantry) tweaked to be more aggressive, redone also system for non_phalanx spearmen, together these changes are fixing the reported issues with infantry units "criss-crossing" and "going back and front" of infantry units in front of the enemy (Human Player) line. Infantry has now behaviour very similar to the one from the my AI formations version 5.0
- changed settings for the regular cavalry units – they are more aggressive now and in small formations they have also during defending instead of defend/guard mode the "attacking" feature engage_at_will, this shifted the balance between horse archers and regular cavalry more in favour of the regular ones, the battles with mix of the regular and horse archer cavalry are now more balanced and for the battles with presumably or only regular cavalry are now more epic
- further tweaked behaviour of light cavalry as the main pursuing unit
- Romans have now quite independent system of "their own" formations for infantry, the same is valid partially for Barbarians witch allows to have for them to some extent a bit more aggressive infantry compared to the civilised factions
The changes in minor version 6.3:
- other minor tweaks and mainly fixed (for the respective formations) the annoying marching of the whole AI army to the right corner from the perspective of Human Player
The changes in minor version 6.4:
- redefined spearmen units totally, phalanx units let as they were, but I have defined newly more "aggressive" settings for the non_phalanx spearmen units of respective factions, i.e. shortly said, the system for spearmen is redone with reducing the defend/guard mode for the non_phalanx spearmen, this is on the cost of the “holding line”, however the distraction from line during approaching to the enemy army is relatively small further
- defined 3 new formations for the mixed armies of spearmen (several phalanges + several non_spear in one army), for civilised factions only (Greece, Carthage, …, however not e.g. Germans with phalanges in vanilla)
- redefined some settings in the small formations section, mainly accented the skirmish feature of units and more aggressive behaviour of regular infantry of Barbarians
The changes in minor version 6.5:
- largely redefined settings in small formations, mainly respective ones for missile units (both cavalry and infantry), for cavalry in pursue and for general units, all this is done with aim to fix the issue with only-sometimes-firing-units but in the same time to prevent their "suicidal behaviour" and enable further skirmishing of "specialised skirmisher units", (the system is not further quite optimal always in each situation, but in most times it is functioning properly and an improvement is apparent enough), the fire_at_will, engage_at_will and skirmish modes are now in a bit better mutual balance, and all this is related more naturally to the category and/or type of units and their respective specialisations
- fixed some other minor issues in settings of default_melee_state flags for several "big" formations
The changes in version 7.0:
- these AI formations were developed on the base of 6.5 version for the repmans mod Bare Bone Wars v. 8.0, i.e. they are one part of the new battle system, which is including further changes in EDU.txt file for optimal performance of them. They can be used separately in other mods, however best performance you will get if you will use them with EDU.txt file, which will have the necessary settings implemented as in the EDU of the BBW 8.0 – this file should be taken as a reference one for this purposes. Critical are mainly these things in EDU: width and length of units (to less extent also –indirectly -numbers of soldiers in units for mutually balanced (“homogenous”) performance in Large and Huge Unit setting), morale settings, DarthVaders settings (charge_dist and fire_delay values for respective type of units, with modification of mines – for reference see the thread in Alchemists Chambers in TotalWarCenter web site) and also of course balanced values of attack and defense of units (here is several good proven alternatives – except BBW 8.0 see the SPQR mod, DarthMod EDU.txt files).
- changed settings for skirmishing and/or missile units (both cavalry and infantry) – removed their ability engage_at_will in formations for attack for better usage of their firing abilities before going to the melee type of attack
- introduced new "pure defend" formations for the big formations with larger number of spearmen, something similar to the DarthVaders “swapping system”, however for purpose of different default_melee_state values during defending, approaching and attacking and not for changing the placement of units
- redone the small formation for pursue of regular infantry and other minor changes in small formations section (e.g. after defining the skirmish infantry in EDU for skirmishing javelin infantry units they will act a bit differently in attack of single units than ranged_missile units)
Installation Instructions:
1. Archive original file "descr_formations_ai.txt" from folder <root folder of your RTW or its mod installation>/Data/, (for example C:/Activision/Rome Total War/Data/).
2. Copy and paste the modified file included in the archive file with this readme.
3. If you will want to uninstall this software, simply copy and paste your original archived file "descr_formations_ai.txt".
4. You may feel free to modify this file for your personal use, but be careful because also minor changes and "typos" may cause an unpredictable and instable behaviour of the whole installation of the game.
The Most Important Changes\ Update Log of previous versions:
3/23/2005, ver. 1.00
- original version
3/24/2005, ver. 1.01
- modified ReadMe file, done some fixing on typos and bad English in Description section (thank you Colt45)
3/29/2005, ver. 1.10
- added "Defensive 3x2 rectangle formation"
- modified Roman formation
- the condition of general unit presence erased in many newly created and modified formations
4/10/2005, ver. 1.20
– this version of the mod is implemented for all Units Scales in Video Options
- changed structure of "Defensive 3x2 rectangle formations" – the lines of units on the sides of a rectangle are now more inside the rectangle and so a whole formation appears rather like a square, some other minor changes
7/10/2005, ver. 2.00
- largely redone and created a more complex system of mutually exclusive formations for appropriate numbers of various units and for an appropriate formation usage (attack/defend)
- in the defence added 6 other formations for less than 10 spearmen units: 3x2 or 3x1 reverted-U Shape formations with or without back units, 2x2 square formation)
- some other minor changes of various values of flags (more decreased inter_unit_spacing flags for some lines of spearmen, in some formations changed min_units/max_units, etc.)
- this version is fully implemented to this time again only for Large Units Scale in Video Options
7/14/2005, ver. 2.10
- fixed an issue with cavalry placement in the formations with several lines of infantry and missile infantry units (i.e. the Special Roman formation for factions with precursor weapons and the Pseudo-roman formation for Barbarians and other non-phalanx-spearmen armies)
- for these formations and for the Multi-wave attack phalanx formation implemented a new common algorithm for a placement of missile infantry units
- this version is fully implemented only for Large Units Scale in Video Options
9/13/2005, ver. 3.00
- newly restructured a principle of the algorithm for a creating of the rectangle formations
- implemented a set of quite new formations (attack and defence formation for armies with a lot of missile units, 2 new more historical Romans formations - one for premarian units and one for the postmarian ones, expanded possibilities of 2x2 square formations, new attack formation for phalanges in slope ("Philip of Macedon"), double line attack formation implemented also for the non_phalanx_spear units)
- fully fixed an issue with cavalry placement in the formations with several lines of infantry
- this version is fully implemented only for Large Units Scale in Video Options, but can be used also for the Huge setting
1/11/2006, ver. 5.00
- in this version is the system of defensive rectangle formations removed and there were implemented new triple line formations for phalanges or non_phalanx_spearmen
- fixed an issue with placement of the cavalry units in special missile formations for armies with a lot of missile units originally introduced in version 3.0
- in this version is fully implemented a system of 4 new special formations for Premarian and Postmarian Roman armies (the classical Maniple 3-line-formation and special Roman Single line formation for premarians, and for postmarians the special Checkerboard and Wedge formations)
- introduced a new formation made for presumably cavalry army
- introduced other quite new solutions and improvements for bridge battles formations, and modified siege and march formations
- to decrease attacks of generals there is a guard/defend mode for general units on in this version
- in this version there are no rectangle formations, so its usage is universal as for the Units Scale
- this version is the first AI formations mod developed originally for RTW 1.5 only
Customised Formations
Sinuhet's AI Battle Formations for RTW Barbarian Invasion
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Sinuhet's AI Battle Formations for RTW Barbarian Invasion
Version 1.0 - Creation Date: September 9, 2006, Release Date: September 9, 2006
This modification is not an open source, it is a freeware - you can use freely this whole file as you want for your personal usage only, any other than official releasing in public of this file or any part of it originally developed by me (and it doesnt matter if further unmodified or modified) is possible only after my written permission.
Download links:
download from Filefront
download from www.uploading.com
Description and Using Rome Total War "Sinuhet's AI Battle Formations for BI"
This mod is a modification of the original file "descr_formations_ai.txt", which defines the way the AI creates formations of units in the battles. It was expanded and tweaked for a bit more challenging AI, with more ways of a creation of formations before and in the course of the battles. So don't be afraid of any irreversible damages of your game installation by implementing of this mod - you can simply remove it at any moment only by copy/paste of your original archived file.
This version is only for RTW with Barbarian Invasion Expansion pack (vanilla and mods based on the RTW BI, preferred with patch 1.6). Dont use it with other versions of RTW. The usage for the modifications, which has changed the factions and their respective units, is possible only after respective changes in the "supported_factions" flags.
This version for BI is based on the version 6.5 of my AI formations for RTW 1.5.
As for a more detailed information on the changes compared to the original vanilla “descr_formations_ai.txt", which are introduced in this file modifications developed by me for "plain" RTW, see the respective threads in this subforum.
Installation Instructions:
1. Archive original file "descr_formations_ai.txt" from folder:
<root folder of your RTW or its mod installation>/bi/Data/,
(for example C:/Activision/Rome Total War//bi/Data/).
2. Copy and paste the modified file included in the archive file with this readme.
3. If you will want to uninstall this software, simply copy and paste your original archived file "descr_formations_ai.txt".
4. You may feel free to modify this file for your personal use, but be careful because also minor changes and "typos" may cause an unpredictable and instable behaviour of the whole installation of the game.
The Most Important Changes\ Update Log:
9/9/2006, version 1.0 – the original version
Rome Total War: "Sinuhet's AI Battle Formations", Customised Edition for "RTR Platinum Edition" (RTW 1.5 platform)
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Sinuhet's AI Battle Formations, Customised Edition for "RTR Platinum Edition" (RTW 1.5 platform)
Version 2.0 - Creation Date: September 29, 2006, Release Date: September 30, 2006
This modification is not an open source, it is a freeware - you can use freely this whole file as you want for your personal usage only, any other than official releasing in public of this file or any part of it originally developed by me (and it doesnt matter if further unmodified or modified) is possible only after my written permission.
Download links:
download from FileFront
download from www.uploading.com
Description and Using Rome Total War "Sinuhet's AI Battle Formations Mod"
This mod is a modification of the original file "descr_formations_ai.txt", which defines the way the AI creates formations of units in the battles. It was expanded and tweaked for a bit more challenging AI, with more ways of a creation of formations before and in the course of the battles. So don't be afraid of any irreversible damages of your game installation by implementing of this mod - you can simply remove it at any moment only by copy/paste of your original archived file.
The changes in version 2.0:
- these AI formations were developed on the base of 6.5 version for the repmans mod Bare Bone Wars v. 8.0, i.e. they are one part of the new battle system, which is including further changes in EDU.txt file for optimal performance of them. They can be used separately in other mods, however best performance you will get if you will use them with EDU.txt file, which will have the necessary settings implemented as in the EDU of the BBW 8.0 – this file should be taken as a reference one for this purposes. Critical are mainly these things in EDU: width and length of units (to less extent also –indirectly -numbers of soldiers in units for mutually balanced (“homogenous”) performance in Large and Huge Unit setting), morale settings, DarthVaders settings (charge_dist and fire_delay values for respective type of units, with modification of mines – for reference see the thread in Alchemists Chambers in TotalWarCenter web site) and also of course balanced values of attack and defense of units (here is several good proven alternatives – except BBW 8.0 see the SPQR mod, DarthMod EDU.txt files).
- changed settings for skirmishing and/or missile units (both cavalry and infantry) – removed their ability engage_at_will in formations for attack for better usage of their firing abilities before going to the melee type of attack
- introduced new "pure defend" formations for the big formations with larger number of spearmen, something similar to the DarthVaders “swapping system”, however for purpose of different default_melee_state values during defending, approaching and attacking and not for changing the placement of units
- redone the small formation for pursue of regular infantry and other minor changes in small formations section (e.g. after defining the skirmish infantry in EDU for skirmishing javelin infantry units they will act a bit differently in attack of single units than ranged_missile units)
As for a more detailed information on all changes compared to the original vanilla "descr_formations_ai.txt", which were introduced in this modification see the respective thread in this subforum.
Installation Instructions:
1. Archive original file "descr_formations_ai.txt" from folder <root folder of your RTW or its mod installation>/Data/, (for example C:/Activision/Rome Total War/Data/).
2. Copy and paste the modified file included in the archive file with this readme.
3. If you will want to uninstall this software, simply copy and paste your original archived file "descr_formations_ai.txt".
4. You may feel free to modify this file for your personal use, but be careful because also minor changes and "typos" may cause an unpredictable and instable behaviour of the whole installation of the game.
Rome Total War: "Sinuhet's AI Battle Formations", Customised Edition for "Terrae Expugnandae" (RTW 1.5 platform)
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Sinuhet's AI Battle Formations, Customised Edition for "Terrae Expugnandae" (RTW 1.5 platform)
Version 2.0 - Creation Date: October 5, 2006, Release Date: October 25, 2006
This modification is not an open source, it is a freeware - you can use freely this whole file as you want for your personal usage only, any other than official releasing in public of this file or any part of it originally developed by me (and it doesnt matter if further unmodified or modified) is possible only after my written permission.
Download links:
Filefront link
www.uploading.com
Description and Using Rome Total War "Sinuhet's AI Battle Formations Mod"
This mod is a modification of the original file "descr_formations_ai.txt", which defines the way the AI creates formations of units in the battles. It was expanded and tweaked for a bit more challenging AI, with more ways of a creation of formations before and in the course of the battles. So don't be afraid of any irreversible damages of your game installation by implementing of this mod - you can simply remove it at any moment only by copy/paste of your original archived file.
As for a more detailed information on the changes compared to the original vanilla "descr_formations_ai.txt", which were introduced in the "basic/generic" Sinuhet's AI Battle Formations version 7.0 and previous versions of this file modifications developed by me, see the respective sections in these subforum.
In this version there are no rectangle formations, so its usage is universal as for the Units Scale in Video options settings.
Changes in this "TE Customised Edition" compared to the version 7.0 of generic Sinuhet's AI Battle Formations:
- defined the right settings for supported_factions flag
Installation Instructions:
1. Archive original file "descr_formations_ai.txt" from folder <root folder of your RTW or its mod installation>/Data/, (for example C:/Activision/Rome Total War/Data/).
2. Copy and paste the modified file included in the archive file with this readme.
3. If you will want to uninstall this software, simply copy and paste your original archived file "descr_formations_ai.txt".
4. You may feel free to modify this file for your personal use, but be careful because also minor changes and "typos" may cause an unpredictable and instable behaviour of the whole installation of the game.
Download Links of Previous Versions