Multiplayer

[Paedric]

First I'd like to thank you for trying this. That's an idea I've had for quite some time; some mod have really cool units, but serious multiplayer is nearly impossible because of imbalance, wrong costs and things like that. For instance, in RS1.6, some elite phalangites are cheaper then medium phalangites; or the romans are way overpowered.

My first aim is to manage to do some correct multiplayer settings : adequate costs, no über units or on the contrary totally useless unit. I believe this can be achieved rather quickly and easily.

Secondly, this is more hypothetic, and depends on your feedbacks, design something for multiplayer. The first part would make the mod playable in MP, the second would make it done for mp.


The first thing you should do is I think to play the mod a bit, some custom or mp battles, trying what is already present, the units, the feeling.
Also, you will quickly notice that each factions have around 40 units which can be used. I think it would be best to cut down seriously that number, and to keep only the most interesting units.


This is our thread for the job, ask and propose here whatever you want, we're almost free on what can be done.

[Rex Basiliscus]

Does this include only MP battles or also swap campaign?
I think RSII monthly tournaments (MP battles) would be awesome if someone organised them (sth like coolguyz done a few months ago) and after a couple of tournaments a winner would be announced here on the forum or sth like that (it would be cool if someone got dubbed as the best of RSII generals )...

[Paedric]

MP battles.

[MarcusTullius]

Lets keep this thread primarily for roam and |Sith|Galvanized Iron, without clogging it up too much before they get here!

[sithlord447]

some one should set up a hamachi network as it is the most streamlined for organized mp battles

[|Sith|Galvanized Iron]

Thank you for the opportunity Paedric. I'm a bit curious to how free hands you got with multiplayer, I know that unit and upgrade prices can be modified without interfering with campaign data, but unit stats and such are still tied to their campaign counter-parts right?

[Paedric]

Yes ... and no.
They are indeed tied with the campaign, but we'll use a trick which will swap the files when you will want to play a campaign, or a mp.

[|Sith|Galvanized Iron]

Installed the mod and loaded up in "normal campaign" mod. Is that's the one I we are to test MP in?

A few things I noticed directly and is a bit puzzled about:

1) Ugrading the armor or weapon of a unit is the same price as the unit itself! That would make MP testing hard to do as MP players almost always upgrades all their units to gold/gold status in order to be competive.

2) Romans got a million different identical legionaries, but not Hastati or Principes?

[Paedric]

1 Well, we're gonna change that, that's why we're doing it.

2 The hastatii and princeps are regrouped in one unit called polybian cohort.

[|Sith|Galvanized Iron]

1 Well, we're gonna change that, that's why we're doing it.

Well weapon/armor upgrades have a huge impact on the outcome of a battle in vanilla RTW so getting them right would be essential before we will be able to test the balance.

According to the vanilla formula a weapon upgrade is roughly 10% of a units price and armor around 15% (xp scales automatically by unit price so is not important). However, since all units in the mod have higher stats than in vanilla it's reasonable to assume that upgrades will have a smaller impact so 10/15% of unit price is probably too much. Also peaked into the "export_descr_unit" file and noticed close combat lethality was down by 70% so that also favors large masses of unupgraded units since exhaustion is such a huge factor under such circumbstances. Perhaps a flat 4 / 6% for all units is the way to go...

2 The hastatii and princeps are regrouped in one unit called polybian cohort.

I see, makes sense I suppose since they are supposed to represent a cohort.

[Paedric]

What about the units we'll keep, and the ones we will discard?
As you can see, there are a lot of units for each faction, and a good number of them are shared.

[|Sith|Galvanized Iron]

What about the units we'll keep, and the ones we will discard?
As you can see, there are a lot of units for each faction, and a good number of them are shared.

Well considering the rosters that's quite the job to figure out, maybe I wanna keep "Gemina XXX" whilst Roam wanna keep "Fretensis III"... I guess we'll find out what units we pick a lot whilst testing, but those Spartan Cataphracts I saw probably won't be kept for long...


One thing I just noticed while looking through the "export_descr_unit" file was that all units got different lethality, but since that is invisible in-game it makes picking units a guessing game for most players.

[Paedric]

We can make each legion have the same stats, and keep them all I guess.

All units also have different mass, height, spacing. We're not trying to copy RTW though, so yes, player will need to test what's great, and what's not.

[saxdude]

May i suggest saving all the proper roman legions? what i mean is that so the players dont waste time searching for the endless amounts of cohorts and first cohorts, archer, auxilia among other things, we have them saved already (Legio X Gemina, Legio XXI Rapax, etc), that way we promote historical accuracy and avoid nuisances, maybe the same for greeks and civilized factions (proper armies so to say) also, cut down on the number of troops for non roman factions, only proper units of the faction should be allowed with the exception of maybe carthage.

[chaplain118]

I like the idea of keeping all the legions though I also agree on making their stats the same with exception to maybe adding a few extra points of defense to the manica-clad legions to simulate the added protection those legions have.

This way players can duke it out with their favorite legions and adds a new aspect of immersion to the game.

[|Sith|Galvanized Iron]

I like the idea of keeping all the legions though I also agree on making their stats the same with exception to maybe adding a few extra points of defense to the manica-clad legions to simulate the added protection those legions have.

This way players can duke it out with their favorite legions and adds a new aspect of immersion to the game.

Yes good idea, I agree: they could perhaps be divided in 3 levels of armor: chainmail > banded mail > super heavy.


On the subject of Roman armor tho, I find the Romans are very sparsly armored to the point where they can be shot down from the front by archers. In multiplayer terms that means Romans got little defense against archers firing into their flank, which means that in their current state they get massacred by Horse Archer/Cataphract-factions, especially since many Cataphracts appear to have bows.

In vanilla legionaries got 12 armor and they need all that armor to survive against advanced skirmish tactics. So for multiplayer I'd suggest:
Chainmail legionaries: 10 armor.
Lorica Segmentana legionaries: 12 armor.
Super Heavy legionaries: 14 armor.

Better keep same defense level though, so subtracting the added armor from defense skill.

[Paedric]

Should the praetorian legion have better stat than the "normal" ones?

[|Sith|Galvanized Iron]

cut down on the number of troops for non roman factions, only proper units of the faction should be allowed with the exception of maybe carthage.

Indeed, as it is now all factions got the same units. I think factions should have access to their own units and the units of neighbouring territories (as long as those units are not bound to a certain faction)

Should the praetorian legion have better stat than the "normal" ones?

I don't think so, that was one of the disasters in vanilla I think that the parade units where better than the field units. Are there any preatorians besides the Early Praetorians?

EDIT: First Cohorts should probably have +1 meleé attack tho to signify them being "better"...

[Paedric]

Yes late praetorians, but I believe they are not available in custom battle right now.

[|Sith|Galvanized Iron]

Roman roster is a bit overwhelming tho, perhaps purge the named cohorts down to 15 and have a poll to decide which ones to keep? (Since it's mostly a question about aesthetics)