Some 1st impressions after switching from old 2.4 to 2.6

[volleyfire]

Settlement Loyalty trait from having Very High taxes most likely

LOL, I see. I was using high tax to curb population growth, some old trick I used in vanilla RTW. Btw, anyone knows how to change AUC back to BC/AD?

[romanius24]

AUC is really confusing.I stopped caring about what year i am in completely in this mod.
All my knowledge of Ancient history is in BC/AD so its not very easy to anticipate things like a Cimbrian Invasion or check the year and think about how different things were in real life compared to my game.

There are many mods that have kept the BC/AD and still fixed that crash.

[ur-Lord Tedric]

Hey Tedric. A couple of questions for u:
1. Why don't you retrain your experienced units? It's just your playstyle (to be more realistic)? Would retraining better preserve unit experience?
2. Would General's high personal kills in a battle give him a higher chance to rank up (getting stars)?
3. My generals sitting in cities as governors are losing loyalty fast. What is causing it?

Thanks

I would indeed say that (1) is down to playstyle and the fact that I tend to reduce risk (which, admittedly, can slow me down I know) by always deploying reserves - and that's how I manage my legions. Whilst I know that my 'armies' really represent 2-4 legions, I still happily embrace the '1 legion' concept when it comes to the named and numbered. What that means is that I deploy my legions (plus their support) in one-and-a-half stacks (~30 units); with a 'spare'/reserve rate of 1:2 (so I even have to have a spare '1st cohort' simply because of the way units work in RTW - obviously if I could merge 'ordinary' cohorts into the 1st, that would have been ideal). So, I reinforce from the spares after almost every battle and then build a replacement from 'home base' and send to the reserve's camp location. This way my 'army' always stays at full strength (unless things get very dicey) and it's another reason I pretty much never lose a fight, even when the AI deploys more than one army.

(2) - a General must fight (risk himself) in the first one or two battles in order to show he will take risks with his men, but practicably to kick off the promotion system (Stars). Personal kills in battle, however, increase his experience, not his rank. Rank increase subsequently comes more from the overall battle results.

Now if you're getting (3), then I suspect you are leaving the settlements on VH taxes and ignoring the warnings and not checking their traits. No one likes VH taxes and the populace take this out on the Governor!

[dvk901]

AUC is really confusing.I stopped caring about what year i am in completely in this mod.
All my knowledge of Ancient history is in BC/AD so its not very easy to anticipate things like a Cimbrian Invasion or check the year and think about how different things were in real life compared to my game.

There are many mods that have kept the BC/AD and still fixed that crash.

I'm sorry...there are NO mods that have fixed this without using the AUC dating system. Sure, if you started in 280BC and used 4 turns per year, it would be unlikely you'd ever reach 67-69BC and start experiencing the crashes. But there is no way to get around those crashes period. The revolt is hardcoded in the exe, so the only way to start in 217BC, and use 2 turns per year, is to change the dating system so that the game 'thinks' the revolt is in the past....which is what the AUC system does. The start date of 536 AUC....in terms of how RTW sees it, is actually 536AD....so the game thinks that it's 500+ years in the future. Therefore, the revolt and subsequent crashes can never happen.

It's all simple math anyway.....Rome was founded in 753BC. RS2 starts 536 years after the founding of the city of Rome. 536 taken from 753 = 217BC. Very simple.

Regarding the Campanian Cavalry: We discussed this during the development of RS2.6 and decided that it was inappropriate to have this unit recruitable after the Capuan rebellion....since Capua was conquered, and all its citizens either killed or sold into slavery. So the Capuan campaign is the only one where the unit can be recruited.

Regarding 'elite units': You have to realize that an elite unit is not a 'superman' equivalent for its faction or culture. They get a slight stat boost over a similar unit, but not a giant one.....otherwise, it's too easy to just recruit all elites and crush everything. Seems people find ways to make it too easy and crush everything anyway. Yeah, they cost more, but a lot of units are simply there for immersion and history...they are there to portray as accurately as possible the warriors that cultures used. You can recruit all levies and militia and slinger armies and then post how easy it is to win all battles......but you are recruiting non-historical armies that no General in his right mind would've ever used unless he absolutely had to.

Our idea was to recruit balanced and at least semi-historical armies and try to win campaigns as a real General would have in this era. We tweaked and adjusted things so that the AI does this fairly well....but it's up to the player to do likewise....or not.
People can play as they wish, of course....but really, slinger armies?

[Alavaria]

Who the heck uses slinger armies, that's like making an army of Companion Cavalry.

Following the great example of Phillip of Macedon, you need a sturdy pike line and strong + mobile flank defending infantry, then you can flank with your arm of decision. Which happens to be slingers.

Besides, as the description of that one Syracuse horse says, horse aren't very great in settlement battles.


You know, originally I didn't really like the roman way of doing it, but in my new campaign, I will use legions of sword-armed infantry with large shields and javelins. Recruitment is even taken from the poor, without need for property restrictions either, not bad huh...



Sadly, the Syracusean legions are equipped more like hastatii than principes, too bad for them. Oh and they can't seem to find heavy javelins so they will have to make do with crappier ones....

[ur-Lord Tedric]

................

Sadly, the Syracusean legions are equipped more like hastatii than principes, too bad for them. .......

I've seen similar allusions to the idea that hastati and principes are somehow different troop types (most commonly that hastati are somehow 'lighter') - but this simply isn't true (Polybius Bk VI). Hastati and Principes are exactly the same troop type (commonly called 'heavy infantry'). The differentiation is simply by age (the youngest 40% of the 3,000 men per legion forming the battle line are hastati).

The fact that some of either type had the simple centre-chest covering armour plate is a property-tax delineation of those assessed as having least and nothing more.

[High Fist]

ur-Lord Tedric - setting all things Roman straight since 2011.

I'd still argue that ranged units are too powerful when firing at the backs of enemies. As we can see from many of Alav's recent pics, all ya gotta do is pin them down and send one or two unit of slingers around, pew-pew-pew, field of dead bad guys. Satisfying to see (really) but really gamey.

My guess as to what may remedy that is maybe increasing the armour stat while lowering the shield stat(?). That way slingers may score a few kills from the front and will kill much less from the back... Though still a fair amount. Any thoughts on that?

While I'm also throwing out wishes and things I'd also like to say that cavalry should be much less effective at melee combat. There were these heavy cavalry who held the gates of Athens against my Polybians for way, way too long. They'd also have less devastating charges (cause they didn't IRL). But to compensate for that they'd have a trait that scares enemy infantry or something.

Yes, in summary with cavaly: Less charge attack, less defense skill, (roughly) same base attack value, scare enemy infantry. Also ramp up the cost of horsies.

If anyone doubt the effectiveness of the scare enemy infantry trait, play as Belgae, take a chariot and line of infantry, pin the enemy infantry down, run the chariots around the enemy line and then send them from one end of the fight to the other, never engaging. Watch the enemy break, and laugh.

[Alavaria]

I'd still argue that ranged units are too powerful when firing at the backs of enemies. As we can see from many of Alav's recent pics, all ya gotta do is pin them down and send one or two unit of slingers around, pew-pew-pew, field of dead bad guys. Satisfying to see (really) but really gamey.

Yeah, the Spartans thought so too when the Athenians and co had a ton of peltasts hitting their phalanx with javelins and such.

If you try, it's hard to just get a horse unit into the rear of someone and charge in perfect formation while they are moving. Thankfully, Phillip of Macedon thought of a way to hold people in place so he could get them in the back. No wonder the Macedonians decided he was a god.

My guess as to what may remedy that is maybe increasing the armour stat while lowering the shield stat(?). That way slingers may score a few kills from the front and will kill much less from the back... Though still a fair amount. Any thoughts on that?

What ratio of shield -> armor were you thinking of?

Part of the issue is from the back, the only thing that counts is Armor. And slingers are armor piercing, so only half that armor counts.

Besides slingers, the only other ranged armor piercing attacks are heavy javelins (pila, soliferrum), 2 shots each AND pre-charge. Meanwhile the slingers get 40 shots, no strings attached.

EDIT: The Wolf Warrior has 4 javelins which are just "javelin" but AP. The Celtiberian Caetrati apparently carries 6 soliferrum!! (They have 240 size units, but still won't match the slingers with 160 and 40 shots)

It's also amusing to read the description of the hippotoxitai, saying they couldn't kill without closing to javelin range, though you can see their arrow attacks are just as effective as javelins are, at longer range, and they obviously have more ammo ...

While I'm also throwing out wishes and things I'd also like to say that cavalry should be much less effective at melee combat. There were these heavy cavalry who held the gates of Athens against my Polybians for way, way too long.

Yeah, Polybians being swordsmen, that would be annoying... though indeed, even spearmen will have problems with heavy cav. They also walk through pikemen.



Speaking of pikes, something that endlessly amuses me is how durable they are when faced with (non-Armor Piercing) missiles. Javelins, arrows... you can rely on these guys to take all the arrows, which would otherwise be able to wipe out half your army. Levy Pikemen here, 7+2 armor and 10 shield, but with the power of Phalanx Formation...

[ur-Lord Tedric]

High Fist,

Thank you indeed

Actually, most of the stats are fine - but only if the player themselves limit themselves a little bit. RSII is for those that love the genre anyway - hopefully they will not have the multiple slinger units (one per stack is realistic), nor even that many light/ranged infantry at all (a couple of velites/antesignanii, perhaps one or two archers). Provided players choose to limit themselves to more realistic armies (local rules), then they might just have a more enjoyable time.

Horses - we have to treat cavalry the same way, for increasing their costs causes the AI not to recruit. Again, it's down to the player.

I couldn't agree more about reducing cavalry stats overall, however, although I'm not sure about the 'scare' ability - it's over emphasized. If there was a way to increase the morale penalty of cavalry to the rear, however.......

[High Fist]

That's the general gist of what I'm trying to say about cav.

Indeed, I only use 2 slingers/archers, 2 velites, 2 horses (excluding general) in my armies. However I often end up relying on my slingers chewing through the back lines of my enemies. I'd like getting ranged units around the enemy to be less... effective? Necessary?

[Alavaria]

The way the game is set up, it seems the safest option is ranged to the back (though usually the side works as well). As you see more and more elite units, they gain a little armor (say from 10->16), but their defense stat goes way up.

Killing elite heavy infantry in melee is the worst. And fighting Romans, I notice they have defensive stats like my Syracuse Royal Hoplites, that's how hard they are to kill...


It's certainly possible to make good use of horse charges (particularly with ones that frighten foot), but meh... if you are using a faction from the east, they have horse archers which are also capable in melee, then you just ride all your horse around the pinned enemy and then shoot them in the back. MUCH easier (thanks Scythians!) since horse are fast, meaning you can get them in place quickly and the AI can't really catch them.

Imagine what would happen if the Romans foolishly attacked Parthia ...

[dvk901]

Historically speaking....it was a not an easy go for the Romans. Although they eventually overwhelmed the Parthians with their typical Roman determination, it cost a lot of gold and men, and changed the Roman military as a result.

[Alavaria]

Historically speaking....it was a not an easy go for the Romans. Although they eventually overwhelmed the Parthians with their typical Roman determination, it cost a lot of gold and men, and changed the Roman military as a result.

Exactly. Thanks for putting it so succinctly.

Luckily the Romans of RS2 only need to take over so many settlements, and they can't be caught halfway because the Parthians can't move during the Roman turn.

[volleyfire]

I also saw heavy cata in late Rome's order of battle. Wouldn't that make Rome a match to Partian foes in late game.

[Alavaria]

Killing horse-type factions isn't really a big deal, you just take the fight to settlements, where their AI and pathfinding will let you kill them with whatever spearmen you can spam at them.

Either they die in the settlement, or they lose it... if they lose all the settlements they're gone.


That said, Parthia being all the way in the east makes them more like a "final boss", you'll have all the resources of a fairly sprawling empire to use to crush them with.

[romanius24]

Is Parthia becoming a strong faction a common thing?In my campaigns so far they either dont expand or almost get conquered.

[neofrage]

It's certainly possible to make good use of horse charges (particularly with ones that frighten foot), but meh... if you are using a faction from the east, they have horse archers which are also capable in melee, then you just ride all your horse around the pinned enemy and then shoot them in the back. MUCH easier (thanks Scythians!) since horse are fast, meaning you can get them in place quickly and the AI can't really catch them.

Imagine what would happen if the Romans foolishly attacked Parthia ...

I have just finished Sarmatian 0-turn 2.6 campaign H/H.. and Sarmatians have nearly only cavalry I was using Horse archers mainly... But when i started fighting with romans, it was impossible to do any bigger damage to legion units with horse archers Horse archers prooved very useful for me in fighting with Scythians, Dacians, Greeks, Pontus, Seleucids, Pergamons... Especially deadly they were against Cimbrians. But to fight Romans i have to switch into my armoured cavalry to pin down that tanky legions I dont think it is possible to defeat Romans 1v1 with horse archers, maybe with 2v1 or 3v1 stacks, but the loses of men are too heavy and i dont think it is really effective way of fighting, armoured cavalry - Roxolani Nobles - "sarmatian cataphracts" costs much more, but the loses are much less

[ur-Lord Tedric]

............... But to fight Romans i have to switch into my armoured cavalry to pin down that tanky legions I dont think it is possible to defeat Romans 1v1 with horse archers, maybe with 2v1 or 3v1 stacks, but the loses of men are too heavy and i dont think it is really effective way of fighting, armoured cavalry - Roxolani Nobles - "sarmatian cataphracts" costs much more, but the loses are much less

The 'best' way to try and beat 'good infantry' armies with HA (a bit like it can be with 'light but fierce' Germans et al) is to try and replicate 'reality' as much as possible. However, to do this requires a lot more battles per turn. What you have to try and do is replicate 'guerilla' or 'hit and run' tactics, with perhaps half-stack armies. Each battle you would try and cause as much damage as possible with skirmishing fire only; tire them out and break up formations as much as possible; only hit them with reserve 'shock' troops when absolutely sensible to do so; and 'retire' when out of ammo.

Then hit the same enemy army multiple times per turn - until such time as you wipe them out (cf the Battle(s) near Carrhae). This does involve a lot of effort mind you.

[neofrage]

well, its still like 3 full stacks of HA vs 1 legion, doesnt matter if I will attack with all stacks in one time, or divide them into small groups and attack 6-8 times.... still it will take much time and much more manpower and why i would try to kill heavy infantry with arrows, if i can have some fun with lances and swords (romans can even fly sometimes )

[ur-Lord Tedric]

well, its still like 3 full stacks of HA vs 1 legion, doesnt matter if I will attack with all stacks in one time, or divide them into small groups and attack 6-8 times.... still it will take much time and much more manpower and why i would try to kill heavy infantry with arrows, if i can have some fun with lances and swords (romans can even fly sometimes )...

Ahh, yes I see. Of course, if you want to 'cheat' and use wholly unrealistic armies; let alone utilise the fact that cavalry is still far too effective, especially in the charge, then yes, you can do it that way.

A Parthian army should normally be much more a 10:1 ratio in HA to Cataphracts - and the AI does that pretty well. I thought your question was serious......