Hoplitai Phalanx soldiers marching with spears beneath the ground. EB 1.1

[th0d]

Hello everyone, been playing EB now since 1.0 release and i love it. The blend of gaming and history is awesome!

I've yet to encounter any real bugs in this mod as of yet, but this 'issue' annoys me.
I've just taken these two pics for reference, but it seems this 'issue' plagues alot, if not all,
hoplite phalanxes.



Here two units are at standby, 1 unit of sacred band phalanx soldiers and one liby-phonecian unit. The sacred band unit uses the "fs_spearman" and "fs_swordsman" animations while the liby-phonecian unit uses the "fs_o_f_spearman" animation.

All is well until they start marching...



Now here you can see the Sacred Band unit marching with their spears correctly raised. The liby-phonecians on the other hand marches with their buttspikes in the air and the tip of their spear magically disappearing into the ground. Now, i *think* this is an issue with the "fs_o_f_spearman" animation, since its shared between alot of units, and they all share this issue.

Is this perhaps just a bug that occurs for some unfortunate few? If so, is there a perhaps some easy way of fixing it? Either by modifying the EDU or perhaps in the descr_model_battle file.

Anyways, thank you EB-team for making (IMO) the absolutely best RTW mod out there, keep up the good work!

Edit: Should perhaps say i'm using EB 1.1

[Ludens]

It's indeed a problem with the animation; but the team decided to keep this since it cannot be fixed without changing other things. Aparently there is no way to have the soldier change his grip on the weapon, so you either have spears sticking in the ground or spears rotating ridiculously. Another option is to give the unit the BI phalanx formation, but this changes the way hoplites behave in combat. You can find a mod that does this here here, although it does also change a couple of other things.

[Jingles]

That guy charges you money for his mod dosen't he? I made a mod very similar to his for RS and I didn't charge a penny. Its much easier (and cheaper lol) to edit it yourself. in the EDU, just add 'short_pike' to the front of the hoplite's weapon attributes.

[Ludens]

No, he doesn't, and you can't legally charge money for modifications anyway. I guess you are looking at the hosting service.

[starXdiaMoo]

I think there is another hoplite animation used by mods like XGM, somewhat different than this one. Could the implementation of that animation be the desired solution, I wonder (or better hope)?

[Ludens]

I think there is another hoplite animation used by mods like XGM, somewhat different than this one. Could the implementation of that animation be the desired solution, I wonder (or better hope)?

AFAIK there are two alternatives, both with their own drawbacks. The first is the one used by TWfanatic in the thread I linked to: that one changes hoplite behaviour in combat. The other is to use Signifier1's overhand animation. However, since he cannot solve the fixed-grip problem either, I am guessing his animation involves the spears making a silly 180-degree turn when going from idle to ready. Also, Signifier1 and the EB team have a bit of a history. It's not sure he would allow them to use it. Furthermore, he insists that only Greeks should use this animation. Since several non-Greek EB units also use overhand, this is not an option here.

In other words: it is an issue, but the EB team prefers their current animation over the alternatives.

[th0d]

Thanks for the reply Ludens, atleast now i know the EB-team is aware of it and that it is one annoying bug/issue. I guess it's better they continue their work on EB2 than trying to fix a small (albeit still annoying )issue. Thanks once again.