Stat testing volunteers

[tone]

Faridus and I are working on completely redoing the unit stats.
What we've got at the moment are some stats for a few units for 4 culturally different factions

1) Romans
2) Arverni
3) Macedon
4) Parthia

Before we make changes to all the units based on these, it'd be good to have some feedback from some testers doing some custom battles using a limited range of units / factions.

Could we have some volunteers please?

[Douchebag]

sign me up. ill post back here in a couple hours.

[tone]

Important instructions:
Create another copy of your RS2 beta and install these files only in there. It'll probably break your existing beta and make any campaign you're playing on unplayable.

Here's a partially done EDU which should be good enough for people to try things out a bit. Units that have been done are below - only use these units in custom battles and please let me know how it feels..


ROMANS
Premarian
Roman / Allied velites
Roman / Allied polybian cohorts
Roman / allied triarii
Roman / Allied equites
Italian medium cavalry
Cenomani light cavalry
Aedui cavalry
Roman early general

Post-marian
Syrian archers
Cretan archers
Antesignani
All auxiliary Cohorts
All cavalry Alae
Legio V Macedonica
Legio V Macedonica 1st cohort
Praetorian cavalry
Late general

ARVERNI
Barb slinger
Barb peltast
Celtic longshield skirmisher
Celtic light swordsmen
Volcae axemen
Naked fanatics
Arverni elite skirmisher
Arverni heavy spearmen
Arverni heavy swordsmen
Arverni champions
Celtic light cavalry
Arverni noble cavalry
Arverni chieftain

MACEDON
Greek slinger
Greek archer
Greek akontistai
Greek heavy peltast
Thraikan psiloi / peltast
Thureophoroi
Macedonian thorakitai
Agrianian infantry
Thraikan pezoi (not sure how the balance on these will be - at the moment it's guesswork)
Thraikan chosen pezoi (ditto)
Basilikoi peltast
Macedonian hypaspist
Levy phalangites
Pezoi bottias
Katoikoi phalangites
Allied phalangites
Amphipolitan phalangites
Agema phalangites
Greek tarentine cavlary
Greek aspidophoroi
Thureophoroi hippeis
Paiones hippeis
Thraikan hippeis
Lonchophoroi
Thessalian hippeis
Macedonian royal cavalry
Macedonian general's cavalry

PARTHIA
Takabara
Sparabara
Median spearmen
Hyrkanian foot skirmishers
Persian archers
Hyrkanian cavalry
Dahae horse archers
Persian noble cavalry
Parthian noble cavlary
Dahae nobles
Parthian cataphracts
Parthian general's bodyguard


Unzip this and copy the text files to your new RS2/data folder. Ignore the excel spreadsheet.

Good armies to try would be:

Romans:
Armoured general
Praetorian cavalry + 1 Ala or 2x cavalry Ala
2 aux cohorts
2 archer auxilia
2-3 antesignani
1 1st cohort Legio V Macedonica
9 standard cohorts Legio V Macedonica

Arverni
Arverni general
2 Arverni noble cavalry
1 Celtic light cavalry
2 barb slingers
2 Arverni elite skirmishers
2 Volcae axemen
5 Arverni champions
5 Arverni heavy swordsmen

Parthians
Parthian general
5 Parthian noble cav
5 Parthian cataphracts
4 Persian nobles
1 Takabara
2 Sparabara
2 Hyrkanian horsemen

Macedonians
General
2 Thessalian hippeis
1 Macedonian royal cavalry (hetairoi)
2 basilikoi peltastai
2 hypaspists
8 Agema phalangites
2 Macedonian Thorakitai
2 Thraikan pezoi

or similar. Try playing on something like the Terrae Siracae custom location, which is pretty flat.

Attached Files:
descr_projectile_new.zip (1.33 MB, 2 views)

[Douchebag]

I dont see any EDU download links

[tone]

The link in my post above (don't be fooled by its title - you need to have the descr_projectile_new.txt, export_descr_unit.txt and descr_mount.txt files)

[tone]

Just a word of note.

You should find that cavalry behave very differently from in RS1.5 or our existing stats. In order to get the full benefit from them you need to do proper charges like in RTR. They need to be further away from the target than the charge distance (generally about 30-40m) and you should only ever single click on the target you want them to attack. If they're further away and you want them to gallop there rather than walk the first bit of distance, single click then hit "R" to make them run. If they lower their spears you know they've charged properly and will get the full bonus. There's a big difference...without the charge they'll make little impact.

[Douchebag]

for the descr_projectile_new file, it said i dont have permission to access the page.

[tone]

sorry i posted this on the dev forum first so that's why.
Here it is again.

[Tesla]

I'll try the parthians out

[tone]

Worth trying playing as them and against them.

Don't forget only to use the units that I've listed there.

[Tesla]

Had a quick battle with the Parthians and it turned out quite well.
I had made screenshots of what the armies consisted of, however I can't seem to find them in the Tgas folder anyway here's the result

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I wasn't sure I would win this one since usually it's Phalanx -> Cavalry (most of the time) and I gave the seleucids some good units.

I will play some more in the weekend, the low numbers in the Cataphracts is mainly because I left them too long in hand-to-hand combat. Using my other cav to swing around

[tone]

Interesting......but...
You need to use only armies that I specified - Rome, Arverni, Macedon or Parthia using the units listed above - for both sides.
Those are the only units that have been adjusted so far, the rest will be completely unbalanced using this stat system.


How did you find things, just out of interest?

If you want to play against a phalanx army it'll have to be Macedon at the moment.

[Tesla]

Ok np. I thought I'd test them against the seleucids because that will be the major faction you will be playing against But I will play against those others now.

I think that the Heavy Cavalry is good, the Sparaba and Takabara are quite strong(intended?) they held their own against a stronger Seleucid phalanx. The charge is excellent I believe, but that's maybe because I played against the Seleucids. (which aren't done yet as you just said)

[tone]

OK. Thanks.

Basically the stats are so different it's difficult to compare performance between old and new. Interesting to ssee how the sparabara and takabara do against phalangites with new stats.

The plan really is that nothing routs just on contact and most infantry can hold their own for at least a period of time.

We may need to wind down the charge on the heavy cavalry units very slightly but let's see.

Interested to hear your thoughts about missile units too.

[Tesla]

Ok so I've fought with and against the Parthians. And they are quite powerfull using this army.

Here are some results of the battles. The battles were on Hard, and Illyrian Flats (the flat desert map)

Parthian army:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Macedon army:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

This was with the Parthians:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

This was with Macedon:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The Horse archers take out whole units, though they've by then emptied almost all of their ammo,
and if the unit isn't dead by then, the Cataphract's come in.

Playing against Parthia was a challange (for me) if someone else could also do a few battles just to see if there is some similarity.

[Tesla]

Yes it is with the new files you uploaded

Parthian army:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I will use some more 'elite' units then and try to distribute the cost evenly

[tone]

Although worth realising that most of the Parthian units will be getting a significant desert bonus on sand (+1 or +2 attack) which the Macedonians won't get.

I'd suggest fighting on grassland so there aren't such big differences.

But yeah, I've tried both these on grass and horse archers may be a bit overpowered and we may need to tone down archery attack values.

[Tesla]

Oh well I didn't know they got bonusses. But I will try a few other maps then aswell

[tone]

I'm looking at reducing the arrow attack for eastern units certainly (probably archers overall), also increasing the attack strength for pike units.

[Tesla]

Oke played a few battles again. Macedon vs Parthia and Rome vs Arverni

The results for this battle are very much the same as the previous one (macedon-parthia) Map: Grassy Hills

Macedon

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Parthia

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I think that we've established that the Horse archers are a bit too powerfull. (Which Tone has already said that he's reballancing their stats)

These are the armies that I fought with as Rome and the Arverni
Roman army

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Arverni army

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Rome

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

This wasn't a tough battle, the Legio V Macedonia is quite powerfull (as is evident in the details). The Cavarly from the Arverni could maybe use a bit more attack or charge. They didn't do all too much in the battle (they were killed quite quickly by the Preatorian Cavalry)



Arverni

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The Cretan archers (of Rome) have a very long range (intended?) and they withstood an attack from the Arverni Noble Cavalry (I had to pull my Cavalry out as the 2 archer units would have otherwise killed them)


Also I find that their Cavalry (Preatorian Cav.) is quite.... durable/tough. They broke through my lines 2-3 times using their Cavalry. (The line wasn't at full strength at that time but it also wouldn't have broken if it wasn't for their Cavalry)