How to add additional terrain effects for units! Useful for Combat modifications!

[Andonai]

What this tutorial will show you?
- How to add different effects to various ground types affecting various stats of your units during a battle.

Why?
- In the moment, terrain is effecting only the speed of a unit, even if the terrain tooltip during battles is telling you something different.
Wouldn´t it be nice if Archers standing in a forest would suffer an accuracy penalty? And charging in a dense forest shouldn´t be as effective as on flat ground like grass etc.

Tables we are working with:
DB->ground_type_to_stat_effects_tables->ground_type_to_stat_effects
and
DB->ui_unit_stats_tables->ui_unit_stats

Tools you need:
PFM 3.03 (I don´t explain how to use it, daniu description does that by far better)

Let´s get started:
1. open the data_rome2.pack with PFM
2. navigate to DB ==> expand DB ==> look for ground_type_to_stat_effects_tables ==> expand it ==> ground_type_to_stat_effects


Explanation:
affected_stat ==> well it´s the unit_stat that will be changed
ground_type ==> it the terrain that triggers the stat change
multiplier ==> defines if a stat recieves a bonus or a malus

As you can see, the only thing terrain or ground types are currently effecting are the unit speed and thats the reason there is only a unit_ground_type_movement_modifiers_tables in the DB
The difference between these two tables:
ground_type_to_stat_effects defines the stat changed without making any difference between the different unit types available, so the effect you set here is set for ALL UNITS!

unit_ground_type_movement_modifiers_tables defines the effect of terrain for different unit types, so you can finetune the universal stat effect from ground_type_to_stat_effects but it´s limited to movement speed.
For all other effects we would need unit_ground_type_(enter a stat)_modifiers_tables. Don´t know if it´s possible to add new ones.

3. Extract the table with PFM
4. Create a new mod PFM (name it, choose a folder/directory etc.)
5. Add the extracted table with PFM to your new mod

To add new stat_effect you must know the names of the different stat_effects for units that are available
You can find these here:
data_rome2.pack-> DB-> ui_unit_stats_tables-> ui_unit_stats


All available unit_stats

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

scalar_bracing
scalar_entity_acceleration_modifier
scalar_entity_charge_speed_modifier
scalar_entity_deceleration_modifier
scalar_spotting_range
stat_accuracy
stat_ammo
stat_armour
stat_bonus_vs_cavalry
stat_bonus_vs_elephants
stat_bonus_vs_infantry
stat_charge_bonus
stat_first_strike
stat_health
stat_melee_attack
stat_melee_damage_ap
stat_melee_damage_base
stat_melee_defence
stat_missile_damage
stat_morale
stat_reloading
stat_shield_armour
stat_shield_defence
stat_ship_health
stat_ship_move_speed
stat_speed
stat_weapon_damage
stat_weapon_range

In our example we will add a new stat for the terrain type forest and the effect should be, that all units that have a bonus_vs_cavalry (spear units mostly) should be more effective fighting Cavalry in wood.

6. Add a new row and do the following entries:

affected_stat ==> stat_bonus_vs_cavalry
ground_type ==> forest
multiplier ==> 1,3

Now all units with a bonus_vs_cavalry will receive an additional bonus if they fight cavalry in a forest, thats it. By the way, bonus_vs_cavalry is a bonus applied to a weapon and not a unit, and the base bonus_vs_cavalry can be set under db==> melee_weapons_tables ==> melee_weapons

7. Add whatever you like, save and copy the new mod in your data folder activate it with the modmanager if you saved it as mod.pack type.


8 Enjoy your changes!
The nice thing, you will see all terrain type effects during a battle, point your mouse over a forest and wait a sec till the tooltip expands and you see that your changes are active.

As always, feel free to use the example mod in your own, play around with it and crediting me would be nice.

Download example mod:
http://www.2shared.com/file/KZbkgs_G..._terrain_.html

[sinople]

Thank you

[Southern Hunter]

Great work. Very useful for improving the combat mechanics.

Pity we can't differentiate between troop types to give effects.

I wonder if you can have negative multipliers? (thus turning a positive effect into a negative one on a different terrain)

[Andonai]

Great work. Very useful for improving the combat mechanics.

Pity we can't differentiate between troop types to give effects.

I wonder if you can have negative multipliers? (thus turning a positive effect into a negative one on a different terrain)

As long as CA doensn´t add other ground_type_to_stat_effects tables or we are able to implement our own, we can´t differentiate between the troop types. It´s sad, because this would really enhance combat mechanics.
Negative multipliers are not needed for negative effects, just use a multiplier < 1, and the unit will recieve a negative effect.

[redxavier]

Tangentially related, but what is stat_first_strike?

Also, is there any indication that new ground types can be created? I'm thinking that stat_weapon_range should be modified for units that are on hills or elevated. I imagine this could require an editing of the battlemaps, depending on how the game recognises the ground types. I just can't believe anyone would go through the trouble of differentiating scrubs and road, and not also do the same for height elevations.

[Magnar]

Sorry to burst your bubble here, but a large number of the stat changes here are not possible. You can add them to the table and launch the game but there are actually no effects to many of the stats in game

[Hetairos]

Sorry to burst your bubble here, but a large number of the stat changes here are not possible. You can add them to the table and launch the game but there are actually no effects to many of the stats in game

Firstly, my appreciation to the post it is a great effort.

Now, I know even more stats, links, dependencies and tables that do not really work (e.g. most stuff that is linked to campaign movement). Is this deliberately ignored by CA, a bug that might get fixed once the Assembly Kit is out of Beta or just some things that can't be changed because of hardcoded stuff?

I am sorry for being a newbie in this topic. I am just curious if those things can be fixed by CA so we can use them.