Public Beta Test - 1.2.3f - Battle Stat Overhaul, CAI Overhaul and New Traits System (Updated Dec 18)

[Dresden]

Thanks for the battle reports. Remember to be careful about not using submods. Most of the campaign ones are probably okay but the battle ones I imagine are not.

Eeeeeeeer guys.... should we need to tone down the baby popping of our family tree LOL... I'm not even joking at this point I mean 1 guy can pump out 8 childs? and you have to hope RNGess to make the child died xD

A lot of people reported that we had too low of birth rates and that child mortality was too high, so I altered it a bit. My guess is that is very much RNG.

[bibs]

You're right i should have provided some evidence.

Well yes, i agree that elite infantry should be tough, but if you make it so that elite infantry easily defeat more than their cost in light infantry, you're effectively completely nullifying the need for light infantry. What is the point of a 450 cost spearmen which when you have 3 units of it (1350 cost), all 3 units can be routed by a single 1,000 cost heavy infantry unit?

Shouldn't the purpose of heavy infantry be as shock infantry; have them grouped together and they will be extremely effective at punching through, but when they're isolated they are more easily defeated?

You didn't really need to post screenshots of that, I said I believed that was true About the purpose, the way people use certain units differ from player to player, and it depends from unit to unit. Not all heavy / very heavy units perform the same, so I won't get into that.
I think you are right to some extent, that the cheaper units are not as cost-effective as higher tier units and those peasants deserve a bit more love, but, and there's a big BUT:
The elite units can only be recruited after a LOT of research. For example in my Arverni campaign, I am 220 turns in and only now I can recruit the Argoi swordsmen that you've shown in the screenshots. So don't confuse custom battles with actual campaigns.
The elite units are very much limited by population. You can't have more than 2-3 elite units in an army because there's no class 1 population to sustain that. At least in my campaign. Plus, if you want to replenish 3 hurt units of elite soldiers you might not be able to because there are not enough class 1 population to replenish your troops. Whereas the cheap boys can be recruited on turn 1 and you can have as many as you want. And they are effective to some extent if you manage them properly. But again, I agree they could use a bit more love. Especially those 4-attack 4-defense type of fodder units that can lose even to skirmishers in melee. Let alone figthing Argoi.

[CadetNewb]

Hey guys. I really would like to love and praise this balance but i just cant, a unit of elite Agema pike phalanx gets smashed from the FRONT by marian praetorians. That means every legionary cohort will massacre any average pike phalanx from the front no matter how tight the formation will be. Pikemen do not really hold anyone at distance, praetorians got x2 kills before pikemen shattered. Is it intentional? Or maybe something isnt working right for me?

That really isn't normal behavior at all. I just tested Agema vs Praetorians, and the Agema pikes won very handily. I did this both with double clicking once in a while, and just leaving them there. Agema still won even after giving the Praetorians three silver chevrons of experience. Are you playing on normal battle difficulty? The game is balanced around that, and anything beyond it will just give the AI artificially inflated stats.

[popovic]

Eeeeeeeer guys.... should we need to tone down the baby popping of our family tree LOL... I'm not even joking at this point I mean 1 guy can pump out 8 childs? and you have to hope RNGess to make the child died xD

Yeah, this is a pretty insane thing in my campaign as well. My guy pumped out 8 of them, 1 before he was even married, and then 7 more in a span of 9 years. It is definitely a bit unrealistic.

As for the infant mortality, I think it is fine (even though quite unrealistic atm). There should just be less kids being spawned (I`d say a cut of about 35% would be in place), and it should be balanced.

[Andrew1994]

I might have found a bug.I tried to recruit a new politician and the cost was 16k.is this intended?

Also something i have mentioned in the discord bug section.it has to do with pop1 aor units.lets say appulian heavy infantry, when those regions are conquered by another faction of another culture those units become pop4 so (in my case mp) the player can literally spam armies with units that are not intended to exist at all in that scale.One or 2 units is ok to have but having 10 units of an elite unit and they can replenish anywhere is a bit frustrating if you play mp.( I know DEI is not mp orientated but still i had to report it)

[popovic]

I might have found a bug.I tried to recruit a new politician and the cost was 16k.is this intended?

Also something i have mentioned in the discord bug section.it has to do with pop1 aor units.lets say appulian heavy infantry, when those regions are conquered by another faction of another culture those units become pop4 so (in my case mp) the player can literally spam armies with units that are not intended to exist at all in that scale.

I believe it is an AoR unit, and those are globally capped, usually at 8 units.
Perhaps this one could be capped a little lower?

[quachandy99]

I believe it is an AoR unit, and those are globally capped, usually at 8 units.
Perhaps this one could be capped a little lower?

well If you get a big family like 30 people in our family? The price to get Hire someone else not in the family can be up to 86k
when I saw an increased price of hiring Gen in this patch note my pactrii faction tears keep flowing in the late game with multiple fronts

[geala]

I'm currently playing as Medewi. I had some campaign battles against low tier Ptolemeian armies and they seemed ok. Pikes needed a long time to waste my first tier spearmen, but won in the end with minimal own losses. My swordmen and skirmishers and cavalry in the meantime beat the equivalent enemy units with relative ease and could work into back and flanks of the pikes, so I won.


I saw that African Spearmen (or so, I don't play in English), an AOR or, as the description strangely says, garrison unit, have 60 moral, which is quite a lot for such a low tier unit. I would change it to 45.

I said it in another thread, Medewi tribal warriors (Kulus Bomani) have 60 moral which does not fit. The semi-professional light swordsmen (Bilit'ti Sayif), a lot more expensive, have 40. I exchanged the moral stats and made the swordsmen tier 2 population and even a bit more expensive, to better show that they are a kind of warrior class members.

It is a pity in my opinion that there is no DeI shield version to resemble the very big shields of some African units. My light swordsmen use a kind of thoureos shield while my spearmen have huge leather/wicker shields, but both have shield3 attached. I created shield8, with shield defense 2 and projectile defense 80 and gave it to some big shield units.

(As a personal change, I also upped the projectile defense of the bigger shields from 60 to 70, as I don't see the great performance of shields against projectiles properly simulated (it is from the front and left only, remember). I can understand that the AI is not such good at flanking and the low deflection rate is for balance, but I also don't use archers to wander to the flank or back of AI lines. For me historical accuracy here goes over game mechanics.)

BTW, KAM, could you explain how shield defense actually works?

[Nordling]

Another report which is exactly the oposite from my last one.I continued a campaing with a pal and we fought a battle,me taking charge of an african faction (thez had mostly lightly armored spearmen and manz missile troops,javellins and achers) while he had an aor massalian army(the interesting fact is the appulian heavy infantry which at that time had 80 armour).So i outnumber him 2 to 1.almost encircle him with my units and i charged the appulians and other units in many cases from 2 sides.i couldnt believe that javelins and archers score minimum kills at engaged units.So the battle ended with him recieving mostly 100 casualties.At the end we tested to fire a unit of appulians from behind with slingers.with 6 salvos from behind i say again they scored 4 kills

Yes, the missile damage has been strongly nerfed in this update. I unpacked half peltasts' ammunition frontally into Seleucid royal thorax spearmen, scoring 1 or 2 kills. The missiles are no longer effective vs heavy units. You can still destroy lightly armored units however those heavy boys need to be taken down only up close & personal. I guess it hurts gameplay a bit but I cannot remember any significant information from history when skirmishers dealt major casualties to heavy units. Battle of Carrhae comes to mind however I believe that major victory was achieved more thanks to devastating cataphracts' charges rather than from missiles.

However this one battle comes to my mind:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Lechaeum
(Sorry for wikipedia link)

I would therefore conclude that maybe javelins should have more AP damage? They seem to highly underperform as compared to soldiers' precursors - Ive seen one volley of 300 theurophoroi do 80-100 kills on lightly armoured units from the flank. Peltasts cant say they are able to achieve same feat.

[Ptolemaios Soter]

Yes, the missile damage has been strongly nerfed in this update. I unpacked half peltasts' ammunition frontally into Seleucid royal thorax spearmen, scoring 1 or 2 kills. The missiles are no longer effective vs heavy units. You can still destroy lightly armored units however those heavy boys need to be taken down only up close & personal. I guess it hurts gameplay a bit but I cannot remember any significant information from history when skirmishers dealt major casualties to heavy units. Battle of Carrhae comes to mind however I believe that major victory was achieved more thanks to devastating cataphracts' charges rather than from missiles.

However this one battle comes to my mind:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Lechaeum
(Sorry for wikipedia link)

I would therefore conclude that maybe javelins should have more AP damage? They seem to highly underperform as compared to soldiers' precursors - Ive seen one volley of 300 theurophoroi do 80-100 kills on lightly armoured units from the flank. Peltasts cant say they are able to achieve same feat.

I just recreated the battle of Lechaeum (as best I could). One unit of Athenian regular hoplite general (200) plus one unit of Iphikratous Peltastai (175) against one Spartan General Hippis (300). First of all, who gave those Spartans excellent stamina!?!? Despite the hilly terrain per the battle's description, I couldn't get the Spartans even winded. Still, with a few volleys to the flank and rear at close range and a couple of rear charges, my Pelatists won, killing 167 and taking only 5 casualties. Then I killed the rest after they routed.

In the historical battle, the role of the Athenian hoplites is critical. If the Spartans hadn't been distracted by them, they could have probably hunkered down in formation like the Romans at Carrhae and taken few if any casualties from the projectiles. Although poor battlefield decisions on the Spartans' part probably contributed as well, such as chasing the pelatists in vain over hilly ground.

So, that leaves us with a situation where the only two battles anyone can think of so far where missile troops played a significant role were 1) in which the Parthian heavy cavalry did all the damage while the archers broke morale, and 2) where an in-game recreation had missile units actually outperforming history even with this beta. I know I've said this before and I promise to stop after this, but I really like that missiles are less effective against heavy units. It's more historical and I personally think it makes for better gameplay because it allows the option of using army builds without a relevant missile component. Right now I'm using 1-3 pelatists as Seleucids, and their role is mostly as medium infantry and/or to lure the enemy into compromising situations. I already threw out the suggestion of increasing AP on Eastern composite bows (not that I'm really a huge fan of doing that, since Cataphracts should have heavy enough armor to effectively ignore archers). One other suggestion would be to keep the lower damage potential of missiles, but increase the morale penalty from being under fire. That way if you can get a unit (unlike Spartan Hippis apparently) exhausted running around after your lighter troops, then launch a barrage of arrows or javelins, followed by a cavalry charge, you should be able to break just about anyone, not because you racked up a bunch of kills, but because the enemy routed.

[Dresden]

well If you get a big family like 30 people in our family? The price to get Hire someone else not in the family can be up to 86k
when I saw an increased price of hiring Gen in this patch note my pactrii faction tears keep flowing in the late game with multiple fronts

I increased the base cost of hiring a general from 500 to 1500. I wasn't aware that it increases exponentially after hiring more? Or are you referring to adopting people?

[Jake Armitage]

yep, cost of hiring a general increases exponentially, some months ago i tried to search were this was defined but didn't find it, for intrigues it is moddable, instead.

EDIT:
besides db > agent tables there are these lines into db > campaign_variables
character_recruitment_base_cost
character_recruitment_cost_per_command_star
character_recruitment_max_distance

but never tested how/what they do

[♔Greek Strategos♔]

I increased the base cost of hiring a general from 500 to 1500. I wasn't aware that it increases exponentially after hiring more? Or are you referring to adopting people?

I think it increases exponentially. I haven't checked it lately though.

[popovic]

well If you get a big family like 30 people in our family? The price to get Hire someone else not in the family can be up to 86k
when I saw an increased price of hiring Gen in this patch note my pactrii faction tears keep flowing in the late game with multiple fronts

I was talking about Apulian heavy infantry there.

As for the family issue, it is explained above. Dresden raised the base costs, and since the cost goes up exponentially after a certain number of generals (or even from the start, I`m not 100% sure), the price can skyrocket pretty fast.

[nikossaiz]

I have to say that I was happy with the "experimental battle" version and have almost Rome 1 battle feelings! This beta is still beta so I would like to report some things.
A) I show heavy cavalry in wage formation and full speed doing nothing charging a light infantry from behind ( instead the cavalry formation seemed to melt like butter on the infantries back. Something seemed to change from the experimental pack.
B) pikemen let easiest people getting through pikes but at least now hoplites have a chance to deal some damage to them. I don't know if KAM made changes here.
C) arrows seemed weak enough.
D)irrelevant. My leader having babies without wife means the kid is bastard?
Anyway as I saw from the previous kam experimental battle, we have similar idea about the pace and the battle mechanics , so am sure he will make it the way we will be happy.

[Frosthammer]

How determinants strategist trait? How many are low casualties and high casualties?
Now i playing Odrysian. Currently my primary commander have rank "pawn" (used by others), since i had enough casualties, but they were necessary casualties. I captured Thrace and Pella. So if somebody plays barbarians or civilized (and specifically Rome) he will certainly have bad strategik kommander trait?

[quachandy99]

I increased the base cost of hiring a general from 500 to 1500. I wasn't aware that it increases exponentially after hiring more? Or are you referring to adopting people?

no Dresen I mean HIRING them like a new candidate

I was talking about Apulian heavy infantry there.

As for the family issue, it is explained above. Dresden raised the base costs, and since the cost goes up exponentially after a certain number of generals (or even from the start, I`m not 100% sure), the price can skyrocket pretty fast.

sorry @popvic wrong post xD

[geala]

As in my campaign battles are rare, I tested a bit with single units. What is cristal clear, such tests are anecdotal with results often depending on small changes in the relevant factors.

Anyway, I tested my Medewi light (Bilit'ti Sayif, B) and late "heavy" swordsmen (actually axemen, Sisipiye, S, also general unit) against Polybian Roman units, namely late Hastati (H), late Principes (H), with generals the Scipionic Praetorian and the normal praetorians. Because all are melee with shield. The costs of the Medewi units are a bit less than that of the Romans, but comparable. All units without experience.

I was the defender. My last of such tests were years ago. I did only 3 trials, because ... it is more or less boring. My respect for KAM and similar team guys who develop and test again and again rose beyond measurement again, of course.

B 300 - H 200. B won, I presume because of the greater numbers and the fact that H has not that much armor. Typical end numbers, B 200, H 90.

B 300 - P 200. B lost, too much armor on S. Typical end numbers B 140, S 120 (beware, in my game B has 55 moral instead of vanilla DeI 40, so they fight longer!). As P is almost double the price of B the results are right.

S 200 - P 200. S lost, despite using an ap weapon (axe); typical numbers at end of fight S 70, P 90. A bitter result, as S is my end game melee unit which is not exactly true of late Principes. The pila salvo may play a big role in defeat, as usually 12 to 20 soldiers are dead after it, and the Sisipiye don't have a javelin.

S (general) 200 - Cohors Praetoria Scipionis 200. S won, which was a bit of a surprise for me. It was only one fight, end numbers S 76, CPS 83, isn't that strange?

S (general) 200 - Praetorians, S lost, S 90, Praetorians 100.

By and large all is ok with the fights. I think I have to think about tactics to deal with difficult enemies, the battles will not be won automatically (as with top tier Hellenic armies).


Then I tested some units from my old favorite Hellenic factions, f.e. Antigonidai, against the ugly Romans, mainly to see pike and hoplite phalanx combat. The Hellenes are quite strong, so to say, but I used their top units, so it's good. It's always good when the Romans lose.

For example Agema (256) against Cohors Praetoria (200), in pike phalanx, Agema won with 142 to 78. The initial pila throws killed 16 soldiers. The fight showed the usual pictures as always, the Romans partly walked through the pikes and sword duels occured, partly the Agema used the pikes.

Hypaspistai Somatophylakes (300), in hoplite phalanx, against Cohors Prima (400), victory for the former, 134 to 151. Same as with the pikes, sometimes the hypaspists used the spear, sometimes the sword, in funny change. I think nothing can be done to get rid of this weird TW behaviour.

[marmil86]

I am worried about drastic change in effectiveness of ranged units. The fact that elite archers, being able to snipe out only few armored men from behind, really puts some factions in underdog position undeservedly. While I get the argument that this period is much more about clashes of heavy troops, I feel such radical change, which would lead to whole military class being obsolete, is hardly going to be good thing from the game play perspective.

[ur-Lord Tedric]

Yeah, this is a pretty insane thing in my campaign as well. My guy pumped out 8 of them, 1 before he was even married, and then 7 more in a span of 9 years. It is definitely a bit unrealistic...........

Curiously, on what evidence do you base this?

It was only within the 20th century that infant mortality really began to decline with advances in medicine and health - and up until then early mortality rates could easily reach 50% - which is pretty much what we are seeing.

I increased the base cost of hiring a general from 500 to 1500. I wasn't aware that it increases exponentially after hiring more? Or are you referring to adopting people?

Oh yes - by mid-late game it already tops 100k.... Increases with numbers as well.

I've not been able to beta test the changes yet (can't seem to do anything with 'pack' files - zip would be so much easier) - but am now concerned that tripling the base cost will result in a general inability to be able to recruit almost any characters during the early game - unless one saves up for 12-20 turns....