Warriors of Faith - Ancient Empires Combat Overhaul Preview

[Sheridan]

Ladies and gentlemen, here's a new project of ours: Warriors of Faith. This project will take a different spin on the battles than what you've seen before, with great emphasis on creating a yet more atmospheric, diverse and above all appealing battlefield. The modification offers battles of similar style to what you may expect from the upcoming mod Ancient Empires, which is under development. It will be updated and made compatible with patches as they are rolled out.

Warriors of Faith

Extended Version (WOFE) - Slower battle pace, naval overhaul and more, changes listed on page 2.


Mod Features:

• Single hitpoint for troops
• Tidy, easy to read from unit statistics
• Special troop arrangements and organization for hundreds of units
• Different battle pacing from vanilla
• New combat dynamics
• Closer deployment zones

With well over a hundred new unit arrangements, a lot of diversity can be seen for each faction, mirroring their emphasis on structure and discipline, but also the geographical area in which troops are levied from. Rather than being arranged exclusively in eight ranks, infantry units now vary from four to eight ranks in depth, and moreover cavalry between four and five. This is to further reflect the combat role a unit may have depending on its equiptment and training.




Big thanks to Total War Zone for covering our mod

[Arthalion]

We dont see anything on screenshots, perhaps more zoom?

[Smiling Hetairoi]

Screenshots are pretty horrible. Can't see a thing.

[The Wandering Storyteller]

Looks good - but whats it about?

Any changes to units?

[Sheridan]

It may be because you're looking for a different thing.

The screenshots show new unit arrangements (known as spacings), how the troops are organized. If you compare them, you'll notice how they are very different and also different from vanilla. This is something the mod puts great emphasis on, diversifying cultures and units within cultures greatly to give them all a different look on the battlefield. We do take inspiration from previous games on this, but also new ideas. Anyway, there'll be more coming later today on various changes.

[Arthalion]

ho, ok sorry ^^

[Petellius]

Looks good - but whats it about?

Any changes to units?

- All units will have 1 hp meaning all missiles and combat mechanics are immediately effective and all unit stats have been changed to fit with this. Combat will start off fast but gradually slow down as units get tired and battles should last around 12-18 minutes if done correctly. If a fresh unit charges a tired unit the combat will be quite quick and the casualties of the tired unit will rack up quite quick, especially if attacked from behind.

- At the minute I have created dynamic cavalry charges where the cav with pull up in front of braced heavy units and charge right through (and sometimes over) light and less organised infantry usually routing them. Missiles will effective yet will not be able to destroy an entire unit by themselves.

- Morale will be more dynamic and will fluctuate often in combat and so it may be quite often that units retreat and then return as long as they are over 40% of their original unit force.

- Ship combat will be slower and all ships will have the ability to put out fires, fix themselves up to repair damage and restore ammo at a reduced speed (slingers will also be able to get ammo from the ground but wont be able to move/ will move slower).

[Aethyr]

Keeping my eyes on this one.

[Sheridan]

Here's an early image on the UI stat changes,



The intention is to keep damages but display them differently. The interface will be particularly cleaned up for artillery and similar units, who tend to have it pretty cluttered with icons and stats.

[Sheridan]

Another progress update - most of the UI changes are done and we've also added near 50 new templates for how units are organized. All vanilla spacings will be replaced, and the total number of new arrangements is estimated to grow up to around 100+. This will quite set factions apart on the battlefield. Most infantry units will be organized five to six men deep by default, compared to vanilla's typical figure of eight. As you might expect, this will extend the battle lines somewhat. Cavalry will be arranged four ranks deep, with few exceptions.

The picture in the post above displays the weapon type, which has now been polished up, see the spoiler below.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Another pretty interesting change is cavalry and how they interact with spearmen. Spearmen will be treated as a defensive measure against cavalry, prone to lighter casualties to the horsemens' charges compared to other infantry units. A lot of horses will simply refuse charging into solid blocks of spearmen from the front. This defensive capability is clarified as a bullet point for all spearmen. It's worth noting that they're still very vulnerable from the flanks and rear, like any other unit.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Petellius]

Just to note, some disciplined infantry also stop cavalry dead in their tracks, but low morale/undisciplined units will get run over as if they didn't exist. I will show a video of this soon.

[Sheridan]

We're rapidly making progress with the mod and it is expected to be finished around tomorrow, complete with startpos unit size changes. Beyond that, it's going to include a lot of detailed changes with the interface as mentioned before. There will also be certain minor campaign changes, such as a slightly reduced zone of control for armies and navies. Here is a side by side comparison of the statistics screen with and without the mod.





As you can see, it's a less cluttered structure with a number of key changes to what's being displayed as bullet points. The idea is to convey the essential information that the unit statistics provide in a more accessible way. Don't worry though, the combat balance provided by CA is largely unchanged. Statistics have been divided by a common denominator - for the most part. Since it's so close to release, a complete list of changes is now available.

---

Campaign:

• Reduced zone of control for armies and navies
• Changed army and character skill tree bonuses

Battles:

• In depth reworked combat
• Fatigue system changes; units will tire slower but the effects thereof will be significant
• Increased unit sizes for spearmen respectively decreased unit sizes for crossbowmen
• All vanilla troop arrangements replaced with nearly 100 new spacings
• Consistent missile damages due to single hitpoints for troops
• Mutual casualties upon charge impact (most notable with cavalry against infantry)
• Spearmen now largely deflect cavalry charges, giving them a defensive upper hand - also listed as a bullet point, see image
• Changed interface components and structure
• Removed whistling and heavy shots for most factions
• Changed camera to have lower max height
• Increased barricade hitpoints
• Complete with startpos editing

Those are the changes done so far but it's not all too unlikely that there'll be more coming until the release tomorrow. Hope you enjoyed reading.

Best regards, the Antiqua Imperium team.

[Chris P. Bacon]

Sounds sweet, but please put range in the UI

[Sheridan]

Sounds sweet, but please put range in the UI

It's still listed as a bullet points for units with superior or exceptional range. We could put it in, but not knowing the specific range kind of makes it more interesting and authentic in my opinion. I could fix a custom version for you though, if you want.

[Sheridan]

The mod is now released and a download link is available in the original post. Hope you'll all enjoy it!

Should there be any requests, we're more than willing to consider these. Feel free to suggest anything you might have on your mind.

[Velikii Kniaz]

Thanks! You have tabular values? I want to understand a difference with other mods. I try this in my campaign. Later i will share my impressions.

[Draewn]

You'll want to do a balance pass on campaign modifiers as soon as feasible - in my test game I had a general lacking in Cunning, thus leading to his elite bodyguard having a Melee Defense of -2. A bit... drastic, in the re-scaled numbers.

[Velikii Kniaz]

This mod doesn't work correctly or work is very strange. Enemy troops is immortals - they renew casualties in realtime.

I play for ERE, and i can't kill anyone in horde of westgoths. I try many times - one result. Thanks.

[Sheridan]

You'll want to do a balance pass on campaign modifiers as soon as feasible - in my test game I had a general lacking in Cunning, thus leading to his elite bodyguard having a Melee Defense of -2. A bit... drastic, in the re-scaled numbers.

Oh, thanks for letting me know. That's a little bit over the top, it should rather be a defense of 0 until the general has reached a certain level of cunning. Will see to it with an update today.

Edit: Attribute effects have now been fixed and a new version is up in the OP. It was actually -20 defense, so drastic may be an understatement.

@Velikii Kniaz

Most of the mod is made up of database tables, yeah, with a few exceptions. I'm pretty sure troops cannot renew casualties in real time; there are game mechanics prohbiting that as far as I'm aware. If you have screenshots of it however it may be worth investigating. On the ERE campaign, is the battle balance not to your liking or is it rather that the hordes are a little oversized and pillage the countryside unchallenged? A fairly large ERE army should be able to deal with both of theirs, under the right conditions. :p

[Petellius]

Warriors of Faith Extended

This is my addition to Sheridan's original work on Warriors of Faith and is almost the exact battle mechanics that will be used in the Antiqua Imperium overhaul that sets Attila in republican Roman Era. The main difference is speed as combat is much slower and designed to last around 10-15 minutes on a large battle. Here is a list of the additions/changes:

- Reduced accuracy of missiles, particularly siege engines.
- Reduced combat speed
- Reduced losses for both victors and those defeated
- Intelligent and dynamic cavalry charges
- Complex fatigue system
- Reduced fatigue effects
- Increased hit points for naval combat as well as slower ships and less powerful ramming.
- Slightly changed fire mechanics
- Overhauled morale

Overhauled morale and fatigue system

The morale has been increased a little, with units tending to flee once their unit drops below half strength. With the fatigue system morale now slowly lowers over time as well as the added negatives of being tired, very tired and exhausted. In this way that annoying flank maneuver that the enemy did may well become a reason to run later on when the men are tired and starting to collapse. Furthermore the longer combat goes on the less effective the men become at attacking, defending, hitting first, blocking missiles, bracing against cavalry charges and they are also less likely to catch units that run from them. To this end cavalry or light units are needed to chase down routing units effectively.


Dynamic Cavalry Charges

No longer will those levy spearmen be able to just shrug off cavalry charges with ease. Now, training, shield size, spacing and morale will effect a units ability to stop cavalry dead in their tracks. This is as any unit that is low in morale and not disciplined enough to hold against a cavalry charge will almost start running before the cavalry even hits them. On the other hand, all disciplined units in a tight formation (not just spears) will frighten the cavalry as they will refuse to charge into a massed block of shields and pointy weapons, leaving them at the mercy of the infantry counter charge. Spears are still more effective against cavalry.

If you have any questions feel free to ask and I will answer.

Philip is just checking the pack now and it should be up in the OP soon.

thanks,
Petellius and the AI team