Version 3.11 Hotfix

[Silven]

-----Version 3.11 Hotfix-----

There was an oversight on my part for the release of 3.1.
I used the wrong tables and the battle map modifications that were put in place were values I was testing half-way through building 3.1.

This hotfix will correct this oversight. If you were using 3.1, when you upgrade to 3.11 you'll notice units no longer break at half health when the battle could still clearly go either way, javelin kill rates were greatly reduced, and sling kill rates slightly increased. The overall kill rates during melee will also be slightly slower.

Sorry about that! Doh!!

[rgreat]

I think kill rates are bit too low now.

[Silven]

I think kill rates are bit too low now.

What units were fighting and what was the situation? (i.e. fighting face-to-face, flanked, rear attack, etc.)

[rgreat]

Triaries vs another spear unit for example.

Generally when 2 fighting unit are exhausted things really became really apathetic.
Like nothing happens for minutes.

[rgreat]

And with low kill rate and high fatigue units became exhausted quite fast, and tend to fight in that state till the end of the battle.

P.S. I'm not sure, but seems to me that Rome spear units tire faster then other Rome melee units. Is that so?

[Silven]

And with low kill rate and high fatigue units became exhausted quite fast, and tend to fight in that state till the end of the battle.

P.S. I'm not sure, but seems to me that Rome spear units tire faster then other Rome melee units. Is that so?

No, all units tire at the same rate (save for cavalry who take longer to tire from running).

But I'll look into possibly extending how long each state of fatigue lasts, so it takes longer to get to exhausted.
Although, the rate at which 2 exhausted units kill each other shouldn't be too terribly longer than if they were fresh, since this mod adds a new effect to being exhausted, which is lower melee defense in addition to the lower melee attack that comes in vanilla. So they end up hitting less, but also defending less. The purpose is to make exhausted units significantly weaker in the face of fresh units, and equally shiity against other exhausted units.

But again, extending the length of each state of fatigue is something I've been rolling around in my head anyway, so I'll look into it.

[rgreat]

Maybe it will help to increase penalty to defense while reduce penalty to attack?

Most units have defense values larger then attack one, so with similar penalty to both attack suffers more.

[JObadiah]

On one hand I actually very much like the idea of two units, 1v1, growing exhausted long before they destroy each other. This rewards the tactic of cycling in fresh reserves if you're confined to a frontal slugfest and flanking isn't feasible. On the other hand, the BAI... does not handle this well.

[rgreat]

Yeah, cycling reserves works, but when 2 exhausted units fight head on it feels a bit unrealistic.

[JObadiah]

Yeah, cycling reserves works, but when 2 exhausted units fight head on it feels a bit unrealistic.

Agreed that units should lose defensive capacity much faster than attack capacity from fatigue. Having an exhausted unit in melee should be a hugely threatening situation.

[Zeonix]

Agreed that units should lose defensive capacity much faster than attack capacity from fatigue. Having an exhausted unit in melee should be a hugely threatening situation.

It should actually be the other way around. As you tire, your offensive capabilities diminish leaving you only the capability to hold up a shield to block blows without really being able to retaliate. If you're too tired to hold up a shield, you're definitely too tired to thrust a spear or swing a sword outside of a hail mary attempt to neutralize a threat. It always requires more energy to assault than to defend, to include large scale offensive operations where you generally want something like a 5:1 ratio of attackers to defenders.

[JObadiah]

It should actually be the other way around. As you tire, your offensive capabilities diminish leaving you only the capability to hold up a shield to block blows without really being able to retaliate. If you're too tired to hold up a shield, you're definitely too tired to thrust a spear or swing a sword outside of a hail mary attempt to neutralize a threat. It always requires more energy to assault than to defend, to include large scale offensive operations where you generally want something like a 5:1 ratio of attackers to defenders.

From a realism standpoint this is partly true on a micro level, but effective defense relies on more than just hiding behind a shield (you have to be able to threaten your attacker, and coordinate with your allies). Obviously it works differently if you have fortifications to hide behind. From a gameplay standpoint, we need to take account of the fact that units in STIM are already balanced with higher defense than attack and global hit rates are set low.

[Silven]

Zeonix and JObadiah, you're both right.

Zeonix is actually right in the sense that as someone becomes physically more exhausted, the more likely they are forgo wasting energy on attacking and focus more on simply blocking incoming attacks.

But JObadiah hit the nail on the head regarding gameplay.

The Golden Rule of the mod applies here, gameplay takes priority over realism. So I've slightly reduced the attack penalties applied at exhausted and very_tired, and added a new defense penalty to the tired threshold that wasn't present before. So now the defense penalties will be more gradual and apply sooner, and the attack penalties at the highest thresholds won't be as heavy. This should smooth out and standardize the penalties more across the board, and more importantly, I've made the amount of time needed to transition from threshold to threshold take longer, since battles can take longer now. Full details will be in the next changelog, and these changes will take effect in the next update. Which should release either today or tomorrow!

[rgreat]

Thanks. Will be checking for update.