Debate over movement points

[Ferdiad]

I like to mod whatever the movemant rate is in these mods so that you can traverse 3/4 of italy or something like that in one turn.

[anonimo272]

so far so good
tought the 2 problems resume
takshaka dies and iberians invade france, i really cant explain this
also if it's to go foward with this i suggest a more difficult economy or more expensive units, as it seems the pace of the campaign is getting a bit more fast

[paulus]

It would be interesting to check the historical evidence there. Armies (with possible ferry assistance) could move from Babylon to the vicinity of Antioch in about 2 months, which is about 1000km. I think 1000km would probably be a very good internal, highway, well-provisioned march rate for an ancient army. 800km may be closer to average over 3 months for most armies while marching on roads in their own territory, or if they needed to make a distance in hostile territory but with favorable terrain.

[Lord Baal]

Of course, no other way to achieve such speed. In the end is a matter of how game play is affected. Let's see how it goes for anonimo.

[Emperor Hantscher]

Also, historically, I don't think an army made it too far into enemy territory without being harassed by skirmishers. Which no doubt slow their advance. Also a travelling army would hear constant rumors that a large enemy army is nearby and they would have to slowly scout their advance to avoid ambush or change plans to pursue them.

This is a turn based game, so during our turn we initiate all contact. So if movement points are to high we could go from Siberia to Spain in a turn because they AI can't chase us or block our path. In real world conditions that army would be dead before reaching Eastern Europe.

[anonimo272]

Also, historically, I don't think an army made it too far into enemy territory without being harassed by skirmishers.

only the player can travel so far like 1000kms into enemy territory that i can already tell, but you need to do that manually you cant just choose a destination on the middle of the enemy you will simply get the message path blockaded sooner or later, and the AI cant do that unless the faction they are attacking doesn't have troops anywhere on the map
on that level i am not worried

i think i will download an autoclicker or something and past turn 30 or 40 (so i take 3 or 4 screens those on the beginning are more important) let it work then take a screen whenever i get back to the computer

also note that by the info i see here i will make two kind of tests the firts with the random extreme number i put (2000) then i will put a number wich represents better the 1000km in 3 months

[Ballpoint202]

This should be a gameplay decision not a historical one.

Just answering a question.

[Ballpoint202]

I think I have found and posted info about this before, but what the heck, I'm doing the research again. It would seem that the Romans at it's peak could get around 30 km per day while forcing a march, which translate to 4800 km per month, or 14500 km per trimester. Now keep in mind that's the Romans, at it's peak and while forcing a march, which I think would be hard to keep for 3 months in a row. A regular army would move much slower as back in the day most of them didn't have supply trains and/or the logistics the Romans had, and went on mostly foraging, sacking or buying the provisions on the road.

Let's round up the average for both Romans and not romans at 15 km per day, since we can't give specific factions specific velocities (however traits can be given to commanders to modify speed and those traits do can be given depending the faction they are, but let's discuss that latter). With the new number we get something around 7250 km per trimester. This slower rhythm would be equal to walking about 3 hours per day on average human walking speed (5 km/h), or around 7 hours at less than that, it may not seem much but given you where carrying heavy things like weapons and other tools of the trade it seems fair, so let's leave it like that for a moment.

And how much is that? Well: The driving distance from Rome to Paris, France is around 1,437 km, like wise the road to Berlin in Germany from Rome would be a little under 1000 km. This isn't shaping to our expectations of realism isn't? What about Italy itself? Well by a happy coincidence Italy has around 7600 km of coast, which is a bit more than our average number, also from the tip of the "boot" to the most northern border it has a distance of around 1200 km.

All of this means that an army on foot could complete a "patrol" around the coast of Italy or go from the tip to the alps and back around 6 times every three months. That would be a nightmare to put in EBII, imagine the horror of Germanic barbarians making all the way down to Italy, or Hispanics attacking the Persians in a single turn... that's just a big no.

However all this are hypothetical calculations and shaky ones at best. I'm doing this under a few minutes searching over historical forums and a few e-books. Also I'm not taking into account things like the winter in the northern regions that would put short of a complete hold to any campaign or marching during the fierce most winters. I'm also not taking into account the battles, the obligatory stops to forage, resupply, reorganize, wait for further orders and so much other things that could slow down a marching army, also we are assuming a meager march of just 3-7 hours, which could be way longer if pressed to.

As for naval travel, I could gather an average of 200 kms per day on favorable conditions against 70 km under unfavorable conditions, I'm guessing that's when you are sailing with the wind or against the wind respectively and/or good or bad weather. A total average of 130 km per day would give us 11700 km each trimester, or the distance to travel from Lisbon to New York and back again in three months, or given the 38.000 km of coast Europe has, it could allow to travel less than a third of that length.

More on things about travel times on ancient shipshere.

30 km/day equals 900 km per month (30*30), or 2700 km per quarter year (900*3).

So 15 km/day is 450 per month and 1350 per quarter year.

[Lord Baal]

You are absolutely right! Why I made such huge mistake is beyond me! I multiplied by 160 instead of 90. Why? I don't really know. Hahahah! Thanks for pointing it out! I will edit out the post to correct it.

[anonimo272]

ok tests for extreme distances completed
tomorrow i will make for estimates calculated here
i will try to make 1350km for land and 12000km for sea
when i have all tests and sizeable samples i will post everything, i just hope theres no limit for pictures in a post

[Total_Wallyer]

i am not debating for slighty, i am trying to debate to hugely and historical tought not for the mod, just for a recomendation to those who have good cpus

What is tought and why do you keep saying it?

Anyway, I've found movement far too slow in EB2, I tried moving some horse archers from Xiyu to Baktria and it took me forever, don't try and tell me it would take men on horseback over a year to make that journey. I'll be editing the movement points now.

[mateojovani]

There was a submod for EB1 called "Jyrisis meaga unit pack" (i think) that increased movement points. You could travel nearly from rome to touluse (south-west france) in one turn and the gameplay seemed great, I (playing as rome) could better support my expanding empire in northern gaul as well as send armies in macedon in a faster pace gameplay.

[Emperor of The Great Unknown]

Problem with increased movement points is the AI can get stuck in like a small mountain pass or on a rebel army, and once it gets stuck the AI gets all out of whack. This generally happens if the movement points are much greater than the line of sight. Also turn times increase and blitzing becomes incredibly easy. I better solution to increased movements would be to increase the TPY to something like 6 or 12. however other things like construction times and unit costs would need to be balanced.

Also probably the most astonishing over land march was Caesar's 27 day march from Italy to Spain to meet Pompey's forces.

[Ballpoint202]

A big issue playing as Rome is this: Roman leaders only have 8 turns with Imperium (I believe), and they only get it by ending the Winter turn in Rome. With the game's movement rates, it would be next to impossible to get a leader with Imperium to, let us say, Spain and still have more than a couple of turns left for fighting.

I've tripled all movement rates in my game, and I think it's much better.

[anonimo272]

total _wallyer
i think i can read and speak (at least i think) english 5 years now and since then i use tought
today with your post i searched the internet i found nothing on the application i gave to it, i did used it to express opposition, like when we use "but"
nobody corrected me till now, i believe with was because people here are incredibily polite and they tought (on this one i nailed it, right ?) it was just a typo or something
so thank you

anyway (total_wall and ballpoint) please do that, and please take a screen every 10 turns of your campaign, more samples can only be good

emperor you are right the AI sometimes get stuck but is temporary, on my tests sometimes they do for 3 or 4 turns, and the faction who is stuck usually takes more 20 or 30 seconds thats 1/3 or 1/2 of my turn times after those 3 or 4 turns the AI usually solve it's pathfinding problem and the turn times get back to normal (i am counting my turn times for tests too)
blitzing wont be easier it will be infact the same, theres 2 sides of that coin, one the player reaches further and the second the AI gets further, now that said yes you can blitz faster

i will test now with the new AI

[ASPGolan]

I think the main mod should also increase the movement points. They are ridiculously low. I would play the historically accurate version or do the tweaks myself.

Basically I agree with the calculations above, I would mod it a bit different and pick a more subjective unit of travelling, because an army marches on it's stomach and can't maintain 15km per day indefinitely, not even WW2 era armies weren't able to maintain such a speed of advancement for long periods. In friendly territory, the slowest army in the game should be able to cross Italy, south-north, if it has decent roads, in a single turn (they are now 3 months). But it would be nice if in hostile territory this speed would dramatically decrease. In fact they should be slower the farther away you get from friendly territory. Not to mention that it would be nice if this mod added supply lines (as Stainless Steel did).


However, I don't understand why someone suggested that movement points depend on CPU power. Can someone clarify or confirm that this is the case?

[Bento]

... and since then i use tought
today with your post i searched the internet i found nothing on the application i gave to it, i did used it to express opposition, like when we use "but"

I believe the word you mean is "though"

...
people here are incredibily polite and they tought (on this one i nailed it, right ?)

Close You're just missing an "h" - eg. thought

I hope you find these corrections helpful.

[anonimo272]

movement points dont depend on cpu power
a small problem with increasing them is that it requires more cpu power and thats why you will get slower turns
currently on a test (overall more than 170turns in 4 campaigns) i had a 5 minute lag with a faction, i shut down the game

bento thanks i appreciate

[ASPGolan]

movement points dont depend on cpu power
a small problem with increasing them is that it requires more cpu power and thats why you will get slower turns
currently on a test (overall more than 170turns in 4 campaigns) i had a 5 minute lag with a faction, i shut down the game

bento thanks i appreciate

how big of an impact might it have? it's probably just a simple directional graph algorithm (this name is a translation, I don't know how it is called in English, can't find the term, oops...) needed to resolve in order to move one single unit to it's destination. these algorithms get more difficult to solve with the number of nodes, or what?

anyway, the end turn is a bit problematic as it is. weird, medieval2 was a breeze, DM was ok on this very same machine.

[anonimo272]

ASP dont know, i am just messing with the AI movement points not how it does it pathfinding

the turn times for me are fine both ways, with the original EB2 movement and with more (normal EB2-30s, adicional movement points-60s), but i experienced once medieval 2 freezing (5min on a faction)
i will try another campaign since in 4 campaingn's it's the first time it happened (but it happened twice when i loaded the save)
i changed the starting_action_points by default value for all characters and pathfinding calculations to match (500) the generals and named characters
dont know if i change this number i can avoid the problem
but for now i will do another test campaign i hope the lag doesn't appear again