Editing Unit Abilities

[Dionysius the Mighty]

Hi guys, just had a couple of thoughts about some changes to unit abilities and was wondering if any of you knew whether they were feasible.

Firstly, I thought about removing the Run button from some infantry. Would this then have the effect that they would never charge? My idea was that infantry would be forced to move around the field at a marching pace, but I've noticed even if you single click on an enemy unit for melee, the unit marches towards them, then charges once in range. I think removing the ability for infantry to run could also help the AI, as it does seem to like to send its forces on cross country races, leading to exhausted units attacking my lines. Of course, I don't even know if it's possible to remove this option. Obviously some artillery cannot run, while others can, which leads me to suspect there must be a way.

The other thing I was wondering about was creating a new ability as kind of a negative policing bonus. The idea is that Dragoons, Militia and Provincial Cavalry units would provide policing bonuses when garrisoned, but Line Infantry and other military units would actually be detrimental to public order if garrisoned in a city. This is probably fairly pie in the sky stuff, but I was just wondering if anyone had ever tried anything like this.

[p.jakub88]

Hi guys, just had a couple of thoughts about some changes to unit abilities and was wondering if any of you knew whether they were feasible.

Firstly, I thought about removing the Run button from some infantry. Would this then have the effect that they would never charge? My idea was that infantry would be forced to move around the field at a marching pace, but I've noticed even if you single click on an enemy unit for melee, the unit marches towards them, then charges once in range. I think removing the ability for infantry to run could also help the AI, as it does seem to like to send its forces on cross country races, leading to exhausted units attacking my lines. Of course, I don't even know if it's possible to remove this option. Obviously some artillery cannot run, while others can, which leads me to suspect there must be a way.

The other thing I was wondering about was creating a new ability as kind of a negative policing bonus. The idea is that Dragoons, Militia and Provincial Cavalry units would provide policing bonuses when garrisoned, but Line Infantry and other military units would actually be detrimental to public order if garrisoned in a city. This is probably fairly pie in the sky stuff, but I was just wondering if anyone had ever tried anything like this.

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Every unit ability is stored in units_stats_land ( land units ).

I changed the morale of the land units (kv_morale table ), and now AI never run into my position --> mostly they are marching in good order and formation, so they are never tired when entering the combat.

Ability to run could be maybe disabled inside patch.pack ( or patch5.pack if you have ETW 1.6 ).

Open proper db table and edit it.

I don't know how to create a new ability for existing unit ( it is linked to other db tables as well ).

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[Kaunitz]

Garrison Bonus:

In unit_stats_land_tables, there is a column "Garrison Police Bonus" which can be set either to false or true. But, even if there was some table that allowed us to determine the exact bonus (e.g. setting it to a negative value in this case), a problem persists: you can not differentiate between dragoons and other troops. So no, I don't think that it is possible, but maybe (hopefully!) there are some more experienced modders around to prove me wrong! Although I don't care about campaigns, I guess it would be an interesting thing, given that the soldiers of that time, still bare of any barracks, would be billeted on the local population.

Running:

I don't know if you can disable it. There is a column in unit_stats_land which is labeled "Is slow moving", but I don't know what it does. Anybody knows how it works? Most artillery got this "ability" to "true", which sounds promising? So this could possibly be the solution.

Apart from that, a unit usually commences to run when it charges an enemy unit. This is how it works: At the distance (to the enemy unit) set in "charge_distance_commence_run", the charging units starts to use its run-speed. Then, at the distance set in "charge_distance_adopt charge pose", the unit starts to use its charge-speed. You could, for example, set both distances (both are found in battle_entities_table) very low.

You could also reduce the running speed ("run1" in battle_entities), but I don't think that it makes the AI less likely to run. However, to counter at least the bad effects of too much running, reducing the fatigue accumulated by running would be an option (kv_fatigue_tables: "running", "running_cavalry", "running_cavalry_light"). Also, if you reduce the running-speed, you have to remember that units won't speed up when they're routing. I could go mad about the fact that there is no seperate speed for routing!

I hope I didn't confuse you too much. You probably wanted an answer like "yes" or "no". *g*

[taw]

You might be able to do this garrison thing with hardcore lua approach, but it won't be easy.
Population happiness is one of the least modable parts of the game.

Kaunitz: This would be based on region traits, and triggers that check at end of turn
which units are in which city to adjust them. Complicated but there's already at least
one mod doing that.

For running, it's actually pretty easy - speed / acceleration / turing speed of walk / run / charge,
depending on unit type, fatigue, etc. are all plainly available in known db tables.
You can make units run at same speed as walking almost trivially.
That's easier than removing running for ai's and user interface sake.

[Dionysius the Mighty]

Looks like it's not really possible then, never mind. Thanks for the help guys!