Friends and Romans,
I am currently making a combat mod for Warhammer, based on the concepts of Rome II's Divide Et Impera and Attila's Ancient Empires mods. I feel these two mods have simply the best combat simulation of any mods, allowing not only more time for tactical scope and ploys, but also time to simply sit and enjoy watching the combatants slug it out once the main battle lines have closed. Afterall, we spend hundreds/thousands building a powerful PC, only to sit and watch the battles from afar in what many feel like is a ridiculous click fest.
I have gone through the pack files for the Attila Ancient Empires mod, and tried to take the concepts over to Warhammer. So far, it seems to be working ok! A 1 on 1 combat between two well armoured regiments can take 20/30 minutes, which is exactly the way I want it, as this will (hopefully!) allow for the real need to manage your line breakers carefully, while giving the player more time to play with all the crazy toys Warhammer brings. I've been playing Warhammer tabletop for about 20 years, so I really want to make this mod work, as the game is technically a dream come true for me, but no matter how much I want to like it, it really is just unplayable
A bit about the mod so far:
1 HP SYSTEM
The main purpose of the 1HP system is to slow down combat to levels the player can appreciate more, and to make stats more meaningful. Currently, the vanilla stats in Warhammer (and Attila actually) are so large and varied, as to mean absolutely nothing at a glance. Reducing all these stats to around 20/30 maximum, means players can more quickly evaluate the capabilities of a unit. Anyone who's played Ancient Empires will probably tell you that seeing your unit's health bar as just the number of warriors remaining is much better than having a HP bar of 3000 for x amount of warriors!
1 Base Damage, NO AP DAMAGE
Taking another leaf from Ancient Empires, all base damage is currently 1, all AP damage is 0. I like the concept of AP damage, but sadly it just doesn't seem to do anything but speed up battles, so it's gone! Lords and Heroes still manage to take out merry swathes of infantry in combat, which is great.
Morale reworked
The morale system follows the Ancient Empires pack file closely. Units no longer break after 1 or 2 minutes of combat, and stop running away and rallying so far out with so few numbers left as to be absolutely pointless.
Current Issues
It's not all Sunshine and rainbows though! Here are some issues I've found so far, some of which are simply the product of having not worked on that aspect yet:
1.
Not enough distinction between unit purposes as of yet. This will hopefully come as the mod develops and I can re-devote time to this specific task. It is in very early stages at the moment and I'm currently more concerned with getting the base mechanics right.
2.
Units of multiple monsters like trolls, treekin, minotaurs, rip through infantry like hot butter! This is my main task at the minute, and I have managed to slow them down by modifying the splash attacks and target acquisition cooldown timer. Hopefully, a little more work and I'll have this right. Atleast the monsters are dying in return though, and as they usually have a lower Morale than most, they don't stick around forever.
3.
Lords and Heroes are somewhat immortal at the moment. I plan to play with their defence, armour and health stats to fix this.
4.
Cavalry aren't having the impact they should. I haven't worked on this area yet.
The Future of the Mod
I wonder sometimes if it is really possible to do this in the Warhammer setting, with all the crazy monsters and whatnot about, but I keep reminding myself "hey there are Elephants in Divide et Impera and Ancient Empires, and they made them work, why not trolls and dragons?" It is a shame that Lords and Heroes do not come with bodyguard, as I think that would make balancing them a whole lot easier in the long run. Perhaps by the time this mod nears completion, someone will have found a way to do it!
I would like to eventually work on creating unit abilities and formations like spear and shield walls, to give some of the units a more clear defined purpose and edge in an advantageous situation.
It will take me a long time to complete this mod, it's the first one I've ever made, and is a bit ambitious. I'm also studying Engineering, whilst working in a bar and as a musician, so my time is really limited. I'd love to dedicate more time to this but, c'est la vie! I'd like to extend the mod to the community, if anyone is interested in helping create it, or even just playtesting it for a laugh I can put the pack files up for anyone to help themselves to. I'd be very happy to be a part of making this game much better for us all I will continue to work on it.
Wadey