Ars Gratia Artis - Complete Battle Overhaul, v2.7.2 - Patch 7 ready (updated 15/11/13)

[Selea]

Update 1.15:

- Created specific cohesion rules for Barbarian factions for a better representation of their fighting style. Now you will really feel the difference from them and civilized/disciplined units/factions.
- Increased speed of Barbarian units. In this mod Barbarians are the factions that rely on pure body mechanics to try to win, without any form of battle strategy.
- Removed all remnants of Shield Wall/Screen from Barbarian units.
- Added Killing Spree to Thracian Nobles.
- Further tweaking of all special abilities for better balance.
- Corrected issue with torches not being able to properly bring down gates (for some this could have been an enhancement but the BAI relies majorly on those).

That's it. For today I'm done. Tomorrow I hope I will be able to finish all the special abilities changes and finally create a released version of the mod. After this I will work on tweaking all things so everything is perfectly balanced then hopefully I will start working on unit balance (if I will ever be able to do it because it's a lot of work; however also without it this mod is already much more balanced than many others).

EDIT:

Little update (v1.16). Before taking some rest I made a little update in which I removed Quick Reload from all artillery. In units yes, but in Ballista and Scorpions? I don't like it.

[Selea]

Update 2.0:

The released version is finally here! It has been an huge work but I'm really proud of the result, I hope you will be too.

Please provide feedback. I will now focus on tweaking all the changes to the most and correcting all the bugs (hoping they will be not many). After this I will see if I will do the total unit rebalance or not. Luckily with the changes in the mod the units are much more balanced than before without having to tailor every unit individually.

Have a nice day.

Selea.

[Master Necromancer]

Ok after 20 or so custom battles with various faction combination (yet to try in campaign) I have this to say:

Problems:

1. Shock Cavalry: They are to close together, so much so that some units like Ptolomenic (probably spelled that wrong) Cavalry of Egypt are having movement animation problems because of it, and shock cavalry in diamond formation that are moving at a normal pace look like they are in slow motion..

2. When I am the defender AI tends to run towards me from the start: With new fatigue values this makes the AI army already half-tired when they get to me, you can see the problem here.

3. Overall morale still to low:Would be nice if you raised everyones morale so that the difference would be more noticeable, also units tend to waiver after 30% of the unit dies.

Suggestions:

1. Generals special abilities: Would be nice to buff them a bit and raise the cool down times on them (lets say 3x more) so that they play a more tactical role.

2. Please give chariots a dismount ability! ​

[Selea]

Ok after 20 or so custom battles with various faction combination (yet to try in campaign) I have this to say:
1. Shock Cavalry: They are to close together, so much so that some units like Ptolomenic (probably spelled that wrong) Cavalry of Egypt are having movement animation problems because of it, and shock cavalry in diamond formation that are moving at a normal pace look like they are in slow motion.

Ok, I will look at the animation problem and increase the distance a little. However diamond formation speed is intentional because the bonuses are huge. It is done to discourage simply keeping always the formation instead of using it just before you want to fight a strong cavalry/infantry unit.

2. When I am the defender AI tends to run towards me from the start: With new fatigue values this makes the AI army already half-tired when they get to me, you can see the problem here.

The stupid AI. The problem is that if you balance fatigue for the AI then it becomes almost pointless as it was in vanilla... It would be much better if CA would just stop having men running at you all the time. Anyway I will see if I can lower the penalties for running so that the AI will suicide less.

3. Overall morale still to low:Would be nice if you raised everyones morale so that the difference would be more noticeable, also units tend to waiver after 30% of the unit dies.

Ok, thanks. I will tune morale further.

1. Generals special abilities: Would be nice to buff them a bit and raise the cool down times on them (lets say 3x more) so that they play a more tactical role.

I already thought something similar but I wanted first to finish tweaking the "normal" special abilities before starting tweaking the General ones. I see that others think as I do about the issue.

2. Please give chariots a dismount ability! ​

I will see what I can do
I never tried to do something as this so I don't know how it is done. I will look into it and if it possible I will do it.

Thank you for your feedback, it is much appreciated.

[Master Necromancer]

Ok, I will look at the animation problem and increase the distance a little. However diamond formation speed is intentional because the bonuses are huge. It is done to discourage simply keeping always the formation instead of using it just before you want to fight a strong cavalry/infantry unit.

The problem is that diamond formation "walking" is comically slow, and because of the tightness is even slower.

The stupid AI. The problem is that if you balance fatigue for the AI then it becomes almost pointless as it was in vanilla... It would be much better if CA would just stop having men running at you all the time. Anyway I will see if I can lower the penalties for running so that the AI will suicide less.

I hope you will find a way to make the AI walk a certain distance and than charge.

Ok, thanks. I will tune morale further.

I already thought something similar but I wanted first to finish tweaking the "normal" special abilities before starting tweaking the General ones. I see that others think as I do about the issue.

I will see what I can do
I never tried to do something as this so I don't know how it is done. I will look into it and if it possible I will do it.

Thank you for your feedback, it is much appreciated.

Cool.

But I must say the mod is awesome it gives more of a personality to the factions and the AI uses them as it should without a flaw (Except for the running).

[Selea]

The problem is that diamond formation "walking" is comically slow, and because of the tightness is even slower.

Now it should be better. I decreased a little the penalty and the formation is larger, so it shouldn't go "slow-mo" also if it will still moderately slower than normal speed.
I actually wanted to change the formation a little (to not be so vertical) but I haven't found a way yet.

[Selea]

I tailored even more.

I tweaked a little walk speed of heavy/very heavy cavalry and changed the speed penalty in a run/charge speed penalty instead.
But the real problem is the formation so the only way to have cavalry not seem to go at a snail pace when walking under diamond is to alter the formation so it is more large than it is. I will see if I can modify it also because I don't like it the way it is.

[Aethyr]

Just fired up my benched campaign. It was becoming quite tedious, I was using another mod, but while the battles were definitely slower the slug fests seemed to drag on and on even with devastating flank and rear charges, and in my unfortunate plight to rid the map of Libya Carthage and Nova Carthage, the hoplite's were way too stubborn for my liking.

Enter Ars Gratia Artis.

My forces are assaulting yet another city. The enemy has dug in and are have a formidable size force blocking the best path through the city, some decisive action must take place, a slug fest will be far too costly for my forces even if we manage to win.

After the javelins fly and men fall dying, the lines meet and fight to a stalemate, a slow grind as soldiers fight back and forth. Softening their left, my right, with javelins allows my legionnaires to punch a hole in their line, this will be the beginning of their downfall. The first unit penetrates their line and forms up in defense of the Libyan reserves, another unit of legionaires enters the gap and quickly flanks the hoplites currently engaged with my next unit. An evenly matched battle quickly turns to route. Over and over.
Now, in the previous mod I played, these flank charges barely did a thing, and I was forced to watch the slow grinding fights where for some reason the men with spears seemed to ALWAYS have the upper hand. Not here, It was not an overwhelming skill of a particular type of unit, nor overwhelming numbers of my army. I felt the mobility of my forces being able to surgically take apart my foe the key to my success.

Thoroughly enjoying the mod, though I must add, I have modified Selea's mod with Ahiga's FAW Oldschool Javelins mod as I prefer to use my Legions as i did in Rome 1.

Keep up the good work, look forward to seeing the future of this mod, especially with the balancing of units that is to come.

If you haven't tried this mod yet, definitely give it a go!

[Master Necromancer]

Just fired up my benched campaign. It was becoming quite tedious, I was using another mod, but while the battles were definitely slower the slug fests seemed to drag on and on even with devastating flank and rear charges, and in my unfortunate plight to rid the map of Libya Carthage and Nova Carthage, the hoplite's were way too stubborn for my liking.

Enter Ars Gratia Artis.

My forces are assaulting yet another city. The enemy has dug in and are have a formidable size force blocking the best path through the city, some decisive action must take place, a slug fest will be far too costly for my forces even if we manage to win.

After the javelins fly and men fall dying, the lines meet and fight to a stalemate, a slow grind as soldiers fight back and forth. Softening their left, my right, with javelins allows my legionnaires to punch a hole in their line, this will be the beginning of their downfall. The first unit penetrates their line and forms up in defense of the Libyan reserves, another unit of legionaires enters the gap and quickly flanks the hoplites currently engaged with my next unit. An evenly matched battle quickly turns to route. Over and over.
Now, in the previous mod I played, these flank charges barely did a thing, and I was forced to watch the slow grinding fights where for some reason the men with spears seemed to ALWAYS have the upper hand. Not here, It was not an overwhelming skill of a particular type of unit, nor overwhelming numbers of my army. I felt the mobility of my forces being able to surgically take apart my foe the key to my success.

Thoroughly enjoying the mod, though I must add, I have modified Selea's mod with Ahiga's FAW Oldschool Javelins mod as I prefer to use my Legions as i did in Rome 1.

Keep up the good work, look forward to seeing the future of this mod, especially with the balancing of units that is to come.

If you haven't tried this mod yet, definitely give it a go!

Seconded. And can't wait for those diamond formation changes.

[jfood]

Nice mod, really preferable to most of the other 'battle mods' out there. Personally, I think they way you've set morale is fine and units seem to break when appropriate. It's really nice having flanking and rear shock cavalry charges actually work, as opposed to smashing into a spear levy already engaged and getting mushed, like with some other mods.

All and all, nice balance. There's a little bit of muckery with units rotating in formation and exposing a flank in battle... but I think that's a vanilla game issue.

I do miss my flaming javelins though. They're just so great for killing elephants.

[Selea]

@Aethyr:

Thank you very much for your kind words. It gives me reason to continue working on this mod, even if it is a lot of work.

@Master Necromancer:

I'm becoming mad on trying to alter that damn Diamond formation to be larger. It seem I cannot find where the formations are stored to try to change them.

For what it concerns the effects I changed the bonuses on Diamond formation to be focused on anti-cavalry and IMO it works even better in this way because it balances quite nicely against Flying Wedge used by Melee Cav that it is instead an anti-infantry formation with a penalty on speed. With the changes you must beware when you use the various formations because they expose the units weakness along increasing the specific benefits (for example Diamond increases even more the capability of anti-cav of shock cavalry but given the penalty vs. infantry if you are caught in a infantry fight while you are on it you will be on trouble, especially if for some bad case you are facing spears/pikes; in that case you will get destroyed very fast if you don't do something).

@jfood:

Yes, that's a problem with the way formations work. If you give more cohesion there's this huge problem with flank exposition by units. It happens also with patch 3 without any mods (because CA already improved a little cohesion, also if not yet fully) so the developers are aware of the issue (even because in the forums every day there's somebody that talks about it) so let's hope they will resolve it in the next patch.

As for flaming javelins, they were good at killing elephants, yes, but they were also unrealistic given to everybody. I thought about giving them only to certain selected factions because flaming javelins actually existed in that period, it is only that I have to do a little of a research on to whom is more appropriate to give them (or even decide it with gameplay in mind).

[Eagle114th]

Hello Selea,

I am so glad to see your mod actually start expanding! I was hoping to see that after using your improved armor and cavalry mods! I am so excited to see how your mod will keep growing. I have some idea for you for your future plan of your mod after you re-balanced factions units:

1) Add new units to your mod - There are different mods that adds new units to specific factions, you could consider adding them to your mods (With different modder's permissions), especially with your new formula of combat experiences in RTW II.

2) Update any units with new colors - Many of units are lacking of colors and patterns on their equipment/armor/shields. And as mentioned above, with author permissions of new textures/colors for each factions, you could apply them into your expanding mod.

3) Improved fleet - Rebalance and fix ships to give them more realistic experiences. Have each ships having their mass/speed/turning abilities being reformatted like you did with weapons/armour/cavalry.

[Selea]

Hello Selea,
1) Add new units to your mod - There are different mods that adds new units to specific factions, you could consider adding them to your mods (With different modder's permissions), especially with your new formula of combat experiences in RTW II.

IMO that's the last thing that needs to be done. It's true, more units are a good thing but the urge to add new units to many battle mods out there is what, in the end, turn them so unbalanced. Before you know exactly what you can replace/add and in which way you just risk of doing even more of a mess on balance than before.

I want to first focus on vanilla units so that all factions are balanced (in strengths/weaknesses) one with another (apart some cases where some factions must be a little weaker) THEN when this is done I can safely add/replace units because I know perfectly at that point the stats to give.

Many of the unit packs out there are completely unbalanced and they make the game balance more of a mess than it already is. They are good to look at and fun to play with but with this mod I want to focus primarily on a balanced experience.

2) Update any units with new colors - Many of units are lacking of colors and patterns on their equipment/armor/shields. And as mentioned above, with author permissions of new textures/colors for each factions, you could apply them into your expanding mod.

Ok, thanks, I will see to add new colors/textures to units with the permission of other mods' authors in the future.

3) Improved fleet - Rebalance and fix ships to give them more realistic experiences. Have each ships having their mass/speed/turning abilities being reformatted like you did with weapons/armour/cavalry.

This is a thing I already planned to do. I kept it back because personally I'm not a lover of naval battles so I focused before on land units, but naturally this point is a very important aspect of a battle mod so I will certainly work on it.

[Socktu]

Testing out the mod currently, of course Radious, Silven and other prominent combat mods are very well made and pieced together, but I'm starting to grow on this one more. Especially the fine tuning and cohesion of units, particularly the disciplined manners of trained, professional troops and the more ruthless and uncouth warriors of the barbarian tribes. Of course, this mod is just newborn and so is the game, so I expect it to grow into something tenfold better than it already is. Thanks, Selea enjoying the ride all the way at the moment and having fun playing Arveni with this mod.

Can't wait till you really pack on the bulk to this mod and lastly the frosting/flavors.

[Master Necromancer]

@Master Necromancer:

I'm becoming mad on trying to alter that damn Diamond formation to be larger. It seem I cannot find where the formations are stored to try to change them.

For what it concerns the effects I changed the bonuses on Diamond formation to be focused on anti-cavalry and IMO it works even better in this way because it balances quite nicely against Flying Wedge used by Melee Cav that it is instead an anti-infantry formation with a penalty on speed. With the changes you must beware when you use the various formations because they expose the units weakness along increasing the specific benefits (for example Diamond increases even more the capability of anti-cav of shock cavalry but given the penalty vs. infantry if you are caught in a infantry fight while you are on it you will be on trouble, especially if for some bad case you are facing spears/pikes; in that case you will get destroyed very fast if you don't do something).

That sounds pretty ing awesome actually.

Gonna start a new campaign today and see how it all works out.

[est Dudus]

Best MOD!!!!! You have saved the game my friend!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Selea]

Best MOD!!!!! You have saved the game my friend!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

LOL.

The game is there, it is just that certain design decisions of CA are a bit.... how to call them... odd. I don't know why they decided to so drastically change certain things that worked perfectly and were balanced (more or less) in the previous games.

Anyway, tomorrow I will add also some visual candy to the mod (coming from some of the best re-textures mods out there) and then I will start to tailor a little naval battles.

[Sir_Pee_Alot]

This is what im going to give a try mate. keep on going!

[Sir_Pee_Alot]

Double post.. but i wil give some feedback soon

[Master Necromancer]

I have installed the "Play all factions mod" and some cavalry units have the shield wall ability, that is just wrong and completely illogical. Could you remove that from the cavalry?