The Hardcore Fantasy Battle campaign - An Expansion for Beginning of the End Times

[Nahlon]

I'm really looking forward to this submod
Do you also fix siege engines, especially the ballistas/spear throwers? Imo they are not a real danger to the enemy; firstly they don't cause lots of casualities and secondly they stop shooting if they are pulled back behind your troops...
As I'm not a modder I don't know if this "problem" can be solved without overpowering the ballistas.

[Pietrak]

Just curious, will the Halberdiers retain the spear-wall formation? It is very un-tabletop, as in tabletop Warhammer the Empire Spearmen are the purely defensive unit.

[Reiksfart]

Just curious, will the Halberdiers retain the spear-wall formation? It is very un-tabletop, as in tabletop Warhammer the Empire Spearmen are the purely defensive unit.

Matter of having to or their formation would break apart and spread about walking backwards when combat starts, which is something I've been eliminating for many units without the use of guard mode or phalanx. No way to fix that issue with halberdiers without using phalanx, but it isn't so bad since I have increased their movement speed.

I'm really looking forward to this submod
Do you also fix siege engines, especially the ballistas/spear throwers? Imo they are not a real danger to the enemy; firstly they don't cause lots of casualities and secondly they stop shooting if they are pulled back behind your troops...
As I'm not a modder I don't know if this "problem" can be solved without overpowering the ballistas.

I have yet to finish coding ballistas and their projectiles, but rest assured I will try hard to make them worth using. If only I could get my hands on the original unpacked CoW animation folder I would speed up their animations to help in that department. Too slow firing in my opinion.

[Nahlon]

Nice to hear Yes, they are to slow, especially the loading animation could be shortened (turning the loading-wheel as an example)
But I see your problem that without the animationfolder this is... difficult to improve.
In an old version of CoW (I think it was 1.3) I myself tried to improve the ballistas a bit by editing the projectiles; I gave them similar stats like the empire rockets had (removed somehow the fire-effect)and tweaked them furthermore. This leaded to the effect that if the spear hit, it impaled dozens of bodies, even if they were heavy armoured chaos knights. The ballista became to a "all or nothing" weapon^^
Anyway, I don't remember exactly the changes I did (It's been before some time^^) and I don't think that's the way spearthrowers should work...
Thanks for your work, I'm really looking forward to the submod.

[paradamed]

Hi Reiksfart, I have tons of questions. Will the special units have a reasonable price and be very rare or will they also have a high price? I think the beastmen armies will be much more interesting to fight against. So they will be renamed beasts of chaos, right? Any chances that the chaos war mammoth will be in the next release? Considering you already have created an extensive new roster and if you add the work of the previous versions there is a ton of new stuff will you still be adding much more for the next version? What about asking Kahvipannu to include Valkia and his other textures altogether in your release? Your submod will be compatible with the new voicemod, right?

[Reiksfart]

I have a system to determine costs and upkeep based on a units points value and whether it is a core unit, special unit, rare unit or character unit (wizards, warpriests, dark elf assassins etc). Until I have a playable test campaign I won't know if it needs tweaking. Have a similar system to determine how rare a unit will be, i.e how long to recruit and how much time until a unit reappears in the recruitment roster. But, for factions such as dwarfs, dark and high elves I've added further rules to increase time by varying amounts depending on the unit. Again, I need a test campaign to know if I've made the right choices. Don't want the AI being chewed up because they can't recruit as fast, and dwarfs especially arn't that great and rely on gunpowder and artillery, which AI vs AI doesn't take into account very well for auto resolve.

Yes, Beasts of Chaos is the new name for the Beastman faction, taken from the name of the army book. I also renamed the night goblins to Crooked Moon Night Goblins, since they are being led by Skarsnik. Yes, beastmen will be a lot more interesting to fight against and a bigger challenge.

I want to finish the Mammoth, I just need the urge to do it. I've been leaving the larger more difficult tasks while I work on others.

I'm not sure how much more I will be adding for the initial release. Won't be long before I will have to say that is enough and just focus on making it all work and get the campaign coded. Still working on EDU, and still making improvements to the coding system.

Kahvipannu already agreed about me including his work. I'll just add it all to my download since the size is already much larger than I thought because of the new Kislev album, loading screens and all the models and textures.

Galloper's voicemod will be required. I spent a couple of hours yesterday updating my EDU with his changes. I won't be releasing any other version.

[Valiant Champion]

As you intend to remove phalanx from halberdiers perhaps you can give them schiltrom now? If I am not mistaken isn't schiltrom a special ability for empire halberdiers in mark of chaos that was never given them? It was in the instruction book with mark of chaos that halberds were supposed to have the schiltrom ability but was never realized in release of game. Also in warhammer mark of chaos movie you see the halberds and handgunners hedgehog up.

Just a suggestion.

If I am not mistaken the last time I did it, they would hold their halberds at a 45 degree angle when in schiltrom so that the formation would have the hedghog appearance.

[Reiksfart]

The problem with special formation abilities is the A.I do not use them and it changes the balance of combat in the players favour. Not sure about schiltrom changing stats, but phalanx and shield wall do, which gives the player an unfair advantage (in the case of shield wall).

So they are all gone to keep the balance of combat as it was coded. Units such as empire swordsmen which had shield wall and being amongst the best trained empire state troops have a very tight natural formation to compensate, without the unfair advantage of shield wall.



I didn't remove phalanx because of balance issues, I had them perfectly balanced, but thinking on what paradamed said about tabletop halberdiers made me think of a solution. The halberd animation without phalanx is a big mess with men stepping backwards spreading the formation rather than pushing forward using the mass of the halberd unit as an advantage. So I changed the animations for every halberd unit in the mod, which then needed a lot of balancing and testing with radius and height for them to perform properly.

I'm using tabletop as the reference rather than mark of chaos, but appreciate your input. Those abilities are easy to add in if anyone wanted to play this submod with them, but I won't be including them.

[tito]

Do you plan to had some shaman bestman and other units ?

[Reiksfart]

I plan to, but not a priority at the moment. Working on coding and testing again instead of models, although did add in Chaos dwarf devastators (2 handed weapons) earlier today.

There was a beastman submod which I think had bray shamans, but the link no longer works. If anyone downloaded that and still has it, I'd appreciate you making that available again.

[Marcus Tullius Cicero]

Along with everyone else, I look forward to trying your submod

Quick question regarding the Razorgor herds, they seem particularly large; what was your reasoning for that? (I am not familiar with the latest edition of tabletop)

[Reiksfart]

They are too large. It was a choice between boar sized or elephant sized since I can't scale the boar animation to about 1.5 size. I do plan on going back to make improvements which will likely involve a re-size down to boar level and more of a balding spiky appearance like some of the miniatures I've seen. Then I can add in Razorgor chariots, which obviously can't do with them using the elephant anim.

[Reiksfart]

But there is something new, perhaps due to the new height setting you are using... The battles are taking some really unexpected turns of events now, are more unpredictable. I.e, my line of Skeletons/Zombies crashed against an Imperial line of Spearmen/Swordsmen, all was pretty messed up. After some time, 1 unit of Spearmen lost 90% of its men and routed, while other units of Spearmen (who were fighting against very similar units!) suffered regular losses and held the line. The battles are totally not repeatable and I love it.

Just had to post this little comment about playtesting from Pietrak. This is going to be so different to anything else for medieval 2, with a challenge level unsurpassed by any other mod or submod.

I honestly couldn't have asked for a better tester than Pietrak, his feedback is invaluable. It hasn't all been positive either, but what matters is it has been very constructive. The mod's battles really are taking shape to be something special.


Reply to Paradamed about halberds. Yes, very necessary. Phalanx is broken for one, with the unit facing the wrong way when overwhelmed. Plus halberds are not spears, there is a reason they have an axe head, so they can be used as either a pokey weapon or a crushing/slicing weapon. New animations work very well while keeping the formation solid and not spreading backwards without the use of phalanx or guard mode holding them in place.

[Pietrak]

Well thank you!

[Valiant Champion]

Just had to post this little comment about playtesting from Pietrak. This is going to be so different to anything else for medieval 2, with a challenge level unsurpassed by any other mod or submod.

I honestly couldn't have asked for a better tester than Pietrak, his feedback is invaluable. It hasn't all been positive either, but what matters is it has been very constructive. The mod's battles really are taking shape to be something special.


Reply to Paradamed about halberds. Yes, very necessary. Phalanx is broken for one, with the unit facing the wrong way when overwhelmed. Plus halberds are not spears, there is a reason they have an axe head, so they can be used as either a pokey weapon or a crushing/slicing weapon. New animations work very well while keeping the formation solid and not spreading backwards without the use of phalanx or guard mode holding them in place.

the 1.8 rank standoff works as well on halberds in sperwall as it does in helping pikemen in sperwall not to turn around as often.

[Reiksfart]

I hadn't thought of trying the same stats for halberdiers, so it's lucky that wasn't the only reason I felt a change was needed. Halberdiers are much more versatile without phalanx, used better by the A.I, and for me look much better in combat not only poking with them, but swinging side to side and slamming them down on their opponents.

[paradamed]

But wont they get a little overpowered?

[Pietrak]

In my opinion not - currently. They are vulnerable if mishandled and by no means they are overpowered.

[Nahlon]

Will this submod also be compatible with Gigantus' Cow Version?

[Reiksfart]

But wont they get a little overpowered?

Was the opposite originally. When I changed their animations and removed phalanx they were useless. Needed a lot of testing to find the right values for height and radius.

Will this submod also be compatible with Gigantus' Cow Version?

It will only be compatible with it, that is what I'm using. Vanilla CoW with English voices would work too, but no one should be using that anymore with the new Galloper version released.