Balancing unit costs.

[Hanny]

Im intrested in the formula for unit costs, can someone link me to a thread that expalins the relationship/balancing of costs to purchase a unit, im assuming its a value derived from primary atributes of att/def/mental/fatigue/missle numbers and assorted other values, and number of hp`s in the unit.

Why do i find it of intrest?, well if like me you want the units to resemble more the historical unit sizes, then changing the unit start strength means knowing the cost per man in the unit, which then gives you the cost of the unit, ive done a rough version and it comes up with some suprising imbalance values between cost of units, so i gues ive misssed something important

For instance, focus on playing at huge, means using velite at 30 in the unit stats to give a 120 final strength unit in game, at a representaion of 10:1, you have the legions velites. Do the same for all units, and you get a better historical look and feel to the Army, a stack gives you a Consular army of Gen with 30, 4 velite 120, 4 hast, 4 princ 2 Triari 120, 2 allied and one roman cav 30.

But to do this is easy, thats just text edit, but to get the right cost per man in the unit is the tricky part, so has anyone already done it?.

[Hanny]

Tentative first pass at a unifome cost per unit, number of issues, ie hps is not actual men for instance.

step one
hp`s of men in unit, including officers, EL, siege wpns crew.
Attribute`s of seafaring/hide/frighten/command/run amok/cantabrian/command each add 5% to base A hit points.
Formation class. add 10% to base A for Phalnx/test/wedge ability

this is the value of the men in then unit (A).

step two
attack profile. attack factor+attack bonus factor if charging+missile amount. Increae by 5% per ability of AP,BP SP,Pike PREC, Launch, Blade, piercing, pretty much everthing that gives a bonus.

This is the attack profile (B), speed of attacks is left out atm because i dont know the best way to factor it in.

step 3.
Defense profile
Armour+shld+skill

Plus 5% per Testudo/phalanx/wedge/shield wall

This is the defense profile (C)

step 4.
Mental, less %5 if untidy, +5% diciplened or impet.

This mental value is (D)

B+C+D times A = unit value at the level of representation, it will be different on whatever setting your using, so a number of different sets of export_descr_unit will be required, to giv ethe desired number of men in the unit, (personally i go for huge and design all units to end up at the required numerical strength at that point and never bother with other settings) for those who prefer differnt visual represenation, ie the single base cost of the units at present, is misrepresenting any other increase or decrease in unit size other than the one it was designed for, skewing the game considerably, for example:

stat_cost 0, 70, 30, 30, 40, 220, is the value of the german peltast, but you get more or less men depending on the unit scale you use, but the changed cost is not being reflected in this change of the level of representation, hence thye need for mutiple export_descr_unit files.

So an example of what i get so far, side note, include officers for the maj or diciplened units, but not on the scale of the Roman command and control which ought to be the top dog.


type roman hastati
dictionary roman_hastati ; Hastati
category infantry
class light
voice_type Light_1
soldier roman_hastati, 29, 0, 0.45
officer roman_early_centurion
officer roman_early_centurion
officer roman_early_standard
mount_effect horse -18, chariot -25, camel -18, elephant -50
attributes sea_faring, hide_forest, can_sap, hardy
formation 1, 2, 0.7, 1.5, 10, square, shield_wall
stat_health 1, 0
stat_pri 11, 2, pilum, 35, 2, thrown, blade, piercing, spear, 0 ,1
stat_pri_attr prec, thrown ap
stat_sec 5, 2, no, 0, 0, melee, blade, piercing, sword, 0 ,0.8
stat_sec_attr area, light_spear, spear_bonus_10, ap
stat_pri_armour 8, 8, 7, leather
stat_sec_armour 0, 1, flesh
stat_heat 3
stat_ground 0, 0, 0, 0
stat_mental 14, disciplined, trained
stat_charge_dist 40
stat_fire_delay 0
stat_food 60, 300
stat_cost 0, 440, 95, 50, 70, 440
ownership roman

So at huge setting to represent a Legions 1200 Hast at 10:1 ratio.

A) is 116 for men in unit, plus 6 for officers, i think they count as 2 hp each, if thats wrong someone tell me so.
A=122

B)11+2+2 +20%
B=18

C)8+8+7+5%
C=25.3

D)14=10%
D=15.5



(B)18+(c)25.3+(D)15.5=58.8, move back a decimal place to get 5.58, times number of (A) and you get 664 to purchase, and mainataince cost is arbitarily picked at 20% of purchase cost, making it 133.

Now since another part of the process is to give more unit density to the game, darth mod does wonder when it has more units, we dont want to reduce the number of units by making them to expensive to build and maintain, and the important point to remeber is the relative cost per man is whats giving us the balance we are after in the unit cost, the national economy to pay and ipkeep the level of unit density, is another problem all togther.

Edit, just rembered that you have a second weapon system, which should be added in at step two, but you got the general thrust of the concept already i hope?.

Any thoughts?.

[Hanny]

[QUOTE=Hanny]

Edit, just rembered that you have a second weapon system, which should be added in at step two, but you got the general thrust of the concept already i hope?.

[QUOTE]

Kinda sorted out how to use the kill %, by splitting primary and sec weapons into two variables, and the kill chance is known at any time for each, and as is the frontage of a unit when in close order, the spreadsheet gives you the noramlized chance of kills per x number of meters, thus giving an expected kill rate between any two sets of stats you enter, ie phalanx attack profil v legio defensive profil, or whatever unit you want to comapre, it shows you the number of expected kills.

This last value, ie one of kill chance, will then be added as another cost to the per man cost.

[Eird-Way]

Two points:

- Darth has said that there is a tricky balance between unit stats and cost that gets the AI to build relatively balanced armies. I would be in favor of a system of clear correlation, but AI behavior is of priority. Any system you come up with needs to approximate Darth's prices for the current unit sizes, or it will throw off the AI behavior.
- The units must be balanced with respect to the faction as a whole, not individually. A faction might have an overpriced spear unit, for example, which it needs to build anyway in order to fill that role. It might also have an underpriced horse archer to compensate. This was marvellously done in Cossacks (with Baddog's Mod1), in which a unit might have completely unreasonable cost or build time relative to its combat abilities, which make perfect sense in light of the unit roster as a whole for that faction. The Polish, for example, have access to a "medium" cavalry unit which is overpriced, but builds very quickly. A bad unit, but that appears in droves because of its availability. But it of course cannot win a battle all by itself.

People have often tried to apply tabletop logic to RTW, but you have to keep two things in mind: The AI is a fickle mistress, and we cannot apply our own arbitrary rules to keep it in line (for example, it would be wonderful to apply Warhammer rules and say "Only four heavy cavalry choices per stack for this nation".) These factors will always ruin any attempt at an explicitly correlative system of prices. So, even if you do no more than find Darth's cost-per-man and multiply by your new unit sizes, it still may throw everything into confusion.

That being said, I have often fantasized about reworking RTW into an explicitly abstract game with a 10:1 ratio. The implementation of fatigue and cavalry in the RTW engine, however, makes this very difficult, and I believe Darth has achieved the optimal representation of a 1:1 scale combat, even if it is a mere shadow of history.

If, however, you want to make a earnest effort (and it seems you may), you will find plenty of support. There was some discussion a LONG time ago about making realistic unit sizes with a 10:1 scale, either in vanilla or RTR, but I don't think it ever came to fruition.

P.S. Some such as Darth may be able to give you advice on the AI's behavior with respect to unit balancement, but I suspect that his excellent result comes as much from trial and error as it does from a fuller understanding of the AI's criteria. You may be volunteering for a herculean labor.

[Hanny]

Velite haveing area effect for their javs with ap, but ap is seperated by a coma from thrown and appears to me to be as two cases of thrown without actually haveing the desired effect of thrown ap,and ought not to function as intended.

why are their javs the same as pila?. Increasing velite missile value is not as good as increasing pila value, lose this ability and increase the lethailty of pila instead. Pila kill ratios appear to me to be at the low end compared to hand to hand kills, typical frontla volley doing a handfull of kills, now if it did a scores, that would be be more likly. 1200 pila thrown should return 15-20% as kills, not undr 1% as is usual. needs to be tested in depth to get the right balnce


same in :

type barb peltast celt
dictionary barb_peltast_celt_2 ; Skirmisher Warband
category infantry
class missile
voice_type Light_1
soldier barb_peltast_celt, 20, 0, 0.3
mount_effect elephant +15, chariot +15
attributes sea_faring, hide_improved_forest, hide_long_grass, very_hardy, can_sap, can_swim, warcry
formation 1.6, 2, 3.2, 4, 3, square, shield_wall
stat_health 1, 0
stat_pri 9, 4, javelin, 55, 9, thrown, archery, piercing, spear, 0 ,15
stat_pri_attr thrown, ap



Princeps have area on blade sec weapon system not on pila primary attack as you might expect and again may not be working as intended.

Hastati are hardy, but Princeps are not, i assume the concept is that the young have greater endurance, but endurance is an attribute not of youth but the mid years, so it ought to be the Princips, but i can understand the argument for haveing it with the Hastati, same with velites being V hardy. i understand thne rational being used, but wonder if the H and VH atributes would not be better used to simulate Hast/Princ values, if used that way they last longer in combat before tireing, giving them the edge over oponents. You can go either way, one gives more umph to velites and hastati, the other to Hast/princ, its a personal preference thing rather than one being right and the other not.

[Hanny]

type east generals cavalry early

stat_pri 12, 4, javelin, 55, 6, thrown, archery, piercing, spear, 0 ,1
stat_pri_attr thrown, ap



type numidian cavalry

stat_pri 10, 3, javelin, 55, 9, thrown, archery, piercing, spear, 0 ,1
stat_pri_attr thrown, ap

dictionary east_peltast ; Peltasts
stat_pri 8, 2, javelin, 55, 9, thrown, archery, piercing, spear, 0 ,15
stat_pri_attr thrown, ap

type carthaginian peltast

stat_pri 8, 4, javelin, 55, 9, thrown, archery, piercing, spear, 0 ,15
stat_pri_attr thrown, ap
stat_sec 5, 2, no, 0, 0, melee, simple, piercing,

comma prevents thrown ap from correctly acting as intended, unless the ap is for the simple weapon in the pletast and the spear in the Numidian?, but thats unlikly, im reasobly sure that these are errors in attribute of thrown ap not being applied.



type numidian javelinmen
stat_pri 8, 2, javelin, 55, 9, thrown, archery, piercing, spear, 0 ,15
stat_pri_attr thrown, ap


but if that was the intention, then other units have an ap but no side arm, so something is not consistant, hence my conclusion they are typos.





heres it working as intended, both blade and pila haveing ap, and no redundent second attribute of throw.

type spanish scutarii

stat_pri 13, 4, pilum, 35, 2, thrown, blade, piercing, spear, 0 ,1
stat_pri_attr prec, thrown ap, ap





type carthaginian elephant forest1

attributes sea_faring, frighten_foot, frighten_mounted, power_charge, can_swim
formation 7, 9, 13,13, 1, square
stat_health 1, 15
stat_pri 0, 0, no, 0, 0, no, no, no, none, 0 ,1
stat_pri_attr no
stat_sec 3, 20, no, 0, 0, melee, other, blunt, none, 0 ,0.5
stat_sec_attr area, ap, launching, spear, spear_bonus_12, bp

this is the crewless El just a rider, who has no combat value, what is the bp? and why no run amok listed?.

[Hanny]

Two points:

- Darth has said that there is a tricky balance between unit stats and cost that gets the AI to build relatively balanced armies. I would be in favor of a system of clear correlation, but AI behavior is of priority. Any system you come up with needs to approximate Darth's prices for the current unit sizes, or it will throw off the AI behavior.
- The units must be balanced with respect to the faction as a whole, not individually. A faction might have an overpriced spear unit, for example, which it needs to build anyway in order to fill that role. It might also have an underpriced horse archer to compensate. This was marvellously done in Cossacks (with Baddog's Mod1), in which a unit might have completely unreasonable cost or build time relative to its combat abilities, which make perfect sense in light of the unit roster as a whole for that faction. The Polish, for example, have access to a "medium" cavalry unit which is overpriced, but builds very quickly. A bad unit, but that appears in droves because of its availability. But it of course cannot win a battle all by itself.

People have often tried to apply tabletop logic to RTW, but you have to keep two things in mind: The AI is a fickle mistress, and we cannot apply our own arbitrary rules to keep it in line (for example, it would be wonderful to apply Warhammer rules and say "Only four heavy cavalry choices per stack for this nation".) These factors will always ruin any attempt at an explicitly correlative system of prices. So, even if you do no more than find Darth's cost-per-man and multiply by your new unit sizes, it still may throw everything into confusion.

That being said, I have often fantasized about reworking RTW into an explicitly abstract game with a 10:1 ratio. The implementation of fatigue and cavalry in the RTW engine, however, makes this very difficult, and I believe Darth has achieved the optimal representation of a 1:1 scale combat, even if it is a mere shadow of history.

If, however, you want to make a earnest effort (and it seems you may), you will find plenty of support. There was some discussion a LONG time ago about making realistic unit sizes with a 10:1 scale, either in vanilla or RTR, but I don't think it ever came to fruition.

P.S. Some such as Darth may be able to give you advice on the AI's behavior with respect to unit balancement, but I suspect that his excellent result comes as much from trial and error as it does from a fuller understanding of the AI's criteria. You may be volunteering for a herculean labor.

Intresting post, and i agree with what you say, ai behavoir is something im taking into acount, in fact i want to capitalise of wht it wants to build and what buildings allow them etc. since im in the process of putting together the unit database, i can tell you exactly the relationship between man for man in points cost, broken down into att/def/morale and how each that is done so far. so i can see at a glance who is worth what on a man to man comparison, once i know where everyone is in relation to each other, using Darths units as a base to start from, i can then adjust to my own satisfaction and know the actual changes in relation to all others, no more guess work, and a know points value change due to changes in stats and abilitys donne for theunit.

the most promising attribute to use is the hardy/very hardy, since at present its used very sparingly for combat units and mainly for light troops.

I understand that very well, as the run around all day and get tired easily, but for instance, as a Roman player if you sit your velite in front of your Hastati, they outfight many close order units who charge them because of that very ability.

That ability is not a linear reducing of combat effectivness through gradual increase in exhustion, but a step by step reduction, so the longer you stay in each step,(which is what hardy and v hardy allow you to do) the more damage you inflict, as oposed to those who drop down the steps quicker, so an increase of hardy for combat based units is a promising area to add to .

Ill give you an example of where im going. All units who are primarily close combat ones will be either hardy, vhardy or not, but the use of hardy/v hardy will increase, primarily for regulars who are used to 20 klick marches in full kit.

Roman at start have sling as the velits, changes around to 211 bc to jav and shield velites, so slings the at start unit and the velite arrives later on in the buildings allowed unit scheme.

Your screen is now cut up badly in combat when as a player you use them to protect the legion, and the ai uses them as a flock of missile attackers, but as a player you take out the charge effect by use as a scrfeen, allow the pila from hast, who then engage.

slingers:hardy
hast
Princ: Hardy
Triari:Hardy

Later, your velites are as almost as good as close order combat troops, so your screen becomes long lasting.

Getting the 10:1 ratio is easy, making it mean something in terms of costs is the hard part, its a lot of data entry, but when complet, will provide a usfull anayltical tool.

[Eird-Way]

Before you go any further, I strongly suggest that you add to a single post, putting a dividing mark between updates, instead of making consecutive posts. Some poor souls invest a lot of self-esteem in their "post count", and your behavior will be judged as horribly immoral by much of the forumming world.

I do not entirely understand your inquiry into the syntax of the "ap" attribute. Have you checked the unit card description in-game to see the results before and after your changes?

Be very careful about judging unit abilities with regards to what seems realistic. As you have said, it is usually possible to convince yourself of several mutually exclusive versions. Instead, view each unit type platonically, in terms of its unique purpose on the battlefield.

On the matter of comparing hastati and principes, how fully do you understand the effects of fatigue? I have always thought that, at each level of exhaustion, the unit attacks less often. Have you observed other effects, aside from the growing penalty to morale? If I am correct about this, that stamina is primarily tied to attack (and of course movement) speed, then I recommend this balancement rationale for hastati and principes: Not only are the hastati younger, but they are wearing less armor. As light infantry, their purpose is maneuverability. Principes, with superior armor, attack, defense, and morale, are intended to better resist casualties. I think Darth may have also given principes very slightly more mass.

Have you closely checked the overall offensive potential of a hardy unit with inferior attack skill compared with a less-hardy unit with superior attack skill? Do you think stamina counts for more in the long run? What about short engagements? If less stamina is truly crippling, less-hardy principes might be given an even greater attack skill, increasing their "shock" effect.

With regards to this area, if you become very familiar with the interplay of stamina and attack, it might be quite interesting to increase the fighting-style contrast between Romans and barbarians. I.e. give barbarians vastly superior attack capabilities, but let them all tire quickly. This would make dynamic, quite realistic gameplay.

Regardless of realism, I think it is best that hastati and principes serve distinct purposes on the battlefield, that principes are not simply "better hastati" (although that is certainly a historically defensible interpretation).

And, the area-effect attack is an intentional addition of Darth's for unique Roman behavior, to represent their unusual style of fighting.

What experience have you had in further reducing the rate at which casualties are inflicted? Every time I have attempted this, the infantry/missile/cavalry dynamic has always been greatly jeopardized, as well as the obvious issue of stamina we have been discussing. I think the increased use of hardiness is a good solution.

EDIT: Concerning your reply in the other thread, I understand what Darth has done, and I prefer it that way, generally. From what I have observed, I think the inferior stamina of principes reduces their offensive potential and maneuverability, but not their staying power. As I said, I may be wrong, and I will be happy to read your findings.

[Hanny]

I do not entirely understand you inquiry into the syntax of the "ap" attribute. Have you checked the unit card description in-game to see the results before and after your changes

It appears that there are two sets of line of thought in the file, one uses the thrown ap, and another thrown, ap, and that they apply to the same weapon system but for different units, and there is no uniform implementation of the atribute that i can see, but whover did it must have done so for a reason, i just dont understand the reason. You get a thrown ap, ap for a spainish pila, but thrown ap for a roman. The ap attribute is asigned a 1 kill on hit, when applied to the thrown attribute of missile catogory, so listing some units as thrown ap, ap makes no sense to me as its a redundent addition to the formula as your applying a combatbbonus to the missile catogory that uses a differnt formula that will not recognise ap as being anything else than 1 or 15 if archery. When applied to close combat, ap increases the % chance to kill, how much it does so is an unknown, of the top of my head, but it just halfs the armour value of thye target. Area effect applies only to the missile catogory and removes casualties anywhere in the unit, and its kill rate is 15, so archery has two attributes, thrown with a 1 kill rate and missile with a 15 and erea effect, close combat has a range of % to kill depending on unit, and a series of bonuses that increase the chances of a hit in the first place.

I have yet to change anything except the number of men in a unit to achieve the 10:1 organistaion at huge representation level, and find the cost per man so as to change the costs uniformly over all units. Untill i better grasp what exists already and why, i am loath to fiddle, but with a uniform cost worked out per man, any changes in stats are now automaticly adjusted into the unit cost and remain relative to all other units, and i can sort by attributes of att/def etc and get the spreadsheet to look how i want the chages to be, and then apply them to the unit desc file file in mass. I intend to lose peasents and arty units and increase the men in unit size of the same unit, ie towns produce unit sizes that reflect there actual population size, early settlemets produce a phalanx at size 256 (12 in game terms), 512 (24/5 in game terms), and as they grow produce the same unit but a larger version in terms of manpower, 1024 (51/52 in game terms), at levels 1 3 5 of the town size. Barbarians may get just two versions. But ill have to see how many uniti take this idea to far.


Just fiddeled with haveing Roman Hast with .65 kill chance, Princ with .8, one has greek pattern swords, while the other has gladius, and re introducing the town watch as Allied Alae that with .65 and lower skill than Hast and have Romans only built in level 3 barracks, so in the unified Rome scn, only Rome turns them out and the other cities Allied

Be very careful about judging unit abilities with regards to what seems realistic. As you have said, it is usually possible to convince yourself of several mutually exclusive versions. Instead, view each unit type platonically, in terms of its unique purpose on the battlefield.?.

Yes, realistic/realism is a matter if viewpoint, what ever the stats are of a uber unit are, if its costed in relation to other units, then this uber unit unrealistic effect in game is balanced by its cost. An example of the first unit in the file.
barb_peltast_gaul 10 4 9 23 0 9 4 13 10 46 184 100

the data show the cost per 100 men to be 184, every units cost is a product of its stats, im less concerned at present, over an unrealsitc units stats, which is sujective opinion after all, than i am that the cost of those stats is uniformly applied.

Veltes im my costing come to 235, Hast 245, Pric 255 per 120 man unit, acording to the data set ive sent your via pm, which is a basic data set of att+charge bonus and def (shield +skill +armour) + mental costed per man and most data entered but without formulas to anaylize because i chop and change it all the time to do differnt things, but for a simple chance to hit, and kill it will come to:


huge scale setting. chance to hit a gaul, Chance to kill after a hit. Total. per 16 metres fronatage. chance of death back from the from gaul. Total.
So my cost runs
Velite 235 for 120 men 69% 60% 41% 10 men 10 chances @ 50% to hit, 60% to kill 30%
Hast 245 ditto 38% 80% 30% 16 10 43% 60% 26%
Princ 255 ditto 38% 80% 30% 16 10 40% 60% 24%

Dark edition runs
270 120
440 120
550 120

Its worth pointing out that a barracks +1 to light weapon changes the above to 77% 46% to hit, making it a 46% 37% total chance to hit and kill, so by adding a simple 1 to a unit has quite a large effect, depending on the units to hit and kill %.

Imo, the Velite is over gifted with stats, but as long as the points are payed for that it matters not.Anyway,the combat should pan out to 3 velites dropping to 4 gauls, or 2.6 Hast to 4.8 or 2.4 princ to 4.8 gauls, untill fatigue enters into play.

On the matter of comparing hastati and principes, how fully do you understand the effects of fatigue? I have always thought that, at each level of exhaustion, the unit attacks less often. Have you observed other effects, aside from the growing penalty to morale? If I am correct about this, that stamina is primarily tied to attack (and of course movement) speed, then I recommend this balancement rationale for hastati and principes: Not only are the hastati younger, but they are wearing less armor. As light infantry, their purpose is maneuverability. Principes, with superior armor, attack, defense, and morale, are intended to better resist casualties. I think Darth may have also given principes very slightly more mass.

I dont fully understand a thing, yet, ive just started to look at files and see what they do and what is possible to change. Fatigue effect on the units is purelly guess work from a maths standpoint, i guess i could look at a battle replay to see the rate of losses before and after steps of fatigue are reached and comapre, but i was hoping to avoid doing that kind of trial and error.

I agree with you on the fatigue, i just recognised the maths formula that they have used to have tipping points rather than a linear progresion, those tipping points are very important, the hasti get there later because they acumalte less by haveing less armour as you say. I think that if you were looking to simulate Livyian legions with emphasis of hastati morphing into Polybian with emphasis on Princips before turning into a cohort based system, you could easly please everyone by haveing the units haveing slightly different stats at different times. Its simply one of those no right or wrong ways to simulate it, meerly personal preference and the level of micro detail you want to have.

However Hast/princ are not seperate units, per se except in the game system, they are simply part of the manipular system, which ties all compenent parts into one larger formation that was actually not very tacticly responsive, but in the game system they are more so. Armies fight the wars the way they are trained to fight, which is why the often fight the next war with the last wars tactics, untill they learn better. When we peel of units and go galavnting off with them, its not a representation of how the Roman army functioned at the tactical level, which lock stepped all units into a rigid posistion and required this for the manipular system to work as intended, for the rank relief to work, allowing the seperation of hast and priceps for use in manner that is not how they operated is a game feature that you cant change, especially since the engine seems to be for small unit sized battles while im pushing the envelope and thinking of consular armies fighting major engements. I looked at the horde formation that you can edit, you can make it show a checker formation, so that the legion is represented by a manipular look in the unit, so the legion then becomes two units (left and right alae) of 1200 each of hast and princips, giving the legion the look of the manipular formation, and prevents the legion from being tactical reposnsive outside its operating capabiltys. Of course you loose the horde formation for the barbarian, and for a reason i dont yet know, the column use of the cherboard formation does not work right. Ive added the horde tga to your pm box if you provide a email for me to forward it so you can see how it works, past it to in data/formation after saveing your original horde tga, then open up custom battle and pick german berserker v someone else and see the berserkers in 10 blocks of 12 (if you have the unit size to 120, other wise less) spaced out as a manipular formation. Since berserkers and peasents are the only units using horde, and i woule make better use of the peasent unit slots, by making them and onager types into more usfull units, and replace shield wall with horde, with this visual formation showing the legion in checkerboard, and representing it at 240 legion size of 120 half legion size allows me to consider another option, that of large regular units and ba bas with small units, generally the oposite of what the game is now. Now i could have allied legios, roman legios, represented by 1 or two units of close order infantry and 1 of light infantry and i of cav, depending on how tacticly responsive i want the romans to be represented. Or i might go with 3 phases of devolpment of the legion, available at 1, 3 or 5 level barracks, each one increasing not morale but the introduction and trainig of new weapon, ie start with inferior greek sword and adopt gladius, pila improves design improves with adoption of hollow region that allows it to bend the shaft on impact by design rather than chance and so weight down the shield.


Why is the gladius so poorly valued?, it has about the lowest sword value in the game.

Have you closely checked the overall offensive potential of a hardy unit with inferior attack skill compared with a less-hardy unit with superior attack skill? Do you think stamina counts for more in the long run? What about short engagements? If less stamina is truly crippling, less-hardy principes might be given an even greater attack skill, increasing their "shock" effect.

Stamina is extremly important, more so when the unit sizes are vastly different, a big unit in combat loosses it regardless of the number of men it has in contact and thus able to have a chance of a kill, while a smaller unit with all men in contact losses it at the same relative rate, which is in part why i want the range of big unit sizes, 240 down to 24, most barbarians cant get the manpower advantage it has to the point of contact and bring them to bear, before the stamina issue resolves the combat, rather than moral cracking, i have a feeling that morale is set to high.

i think the to hit and killchance % might also bear looking at, ( there is not a lot of variation at present between units ) number of men is dependednt on formation frontage and density, that gives you how many chances of a hit, then your chance of a kill is whichever weapon system you have, .5 is base it appears, a crew served man has this, and everyone else is over or under that, .73 or .2 and so on. There is a good argument that the Romans start with inferior greek style swords and adopt the galdius during the time frame, rather than start with it, you could simulate that by haveing inferior sec weapon stats for Hast who simply have yet to learn the skills or have an inferior sword type, while Priceps have aquired the skill and the superior weapon. That way you have hardy Hast who last longer, but are less effiecent while they do so, compared to un hardy princeps who have a kill % due to superior weapon system and skills to uses it. That kind of representation is good to go with me. I might go another way, but it certainly works and fits the profile, i might go for the legios being represented by two units side by side consisting of hast/princ combined, rather than two units front and back with seperate units of each, i might go for allied legios with greek swords, and roman legions with or without galdius and so different stats and effectivness, a a progresion of Roman legios at each barracks with different stats but same graphics.

With regards to this area, if you become very familiar with the interplay of stamina and attack, it might be quite interesting to increase the fighting-style contrast between Romans and barbarians. I.e. give barbarians vastly superior attack capabilities, but let them all tire quickly. This would make dynamic, quite realistic gameplay.

The ai is not good at taking into acount fatigue, in fact i dont think it concerns itself with it at all, at some point i will edit the preferences file and see what happens with fatgue turned of. its entirely possible that you get a better game out of the ai by having fatigue turned off.

But if it is used, then yes the unit file does not make enough use of V hardy and hardy, you could make hardy the norm, with only a few not haveing it, and v hardy for skirmishers/cav and picked elites, that would certainly help the ai.

Regardless of realism, I think it is best that hastati and principes serve distinct purposes on the battlefield, that principes are not simply "better hastati" (although that is certainly a historically defensible interpretation).

Well i would disgree due to the parts of a legion being lock steeped in to a rigid formation that stops working when one part is not where it ought to be, but sinmce we are talking about how best to implement the different attributes to those constituant parts of the legion, to reflect personal preference of realsim it does not really matter much. many ways could be adopted and rationalised, and all could be equally vallid. An issue i have is the ability to be tactical responsive with units of hast/princ as individual units outside the scheme into which they fit as part of the whole.

What experience have you had in further reducing the rate at which casualties are inflicted? Every time I have attempted this, the infantry/missile/cavalry dynamic has always been greatly jeopardized, as well as the obvious issue of stamina we have been discussing. I think the increased use of hardiness is a good solution.

None so far and a good question, i have only been looking at the files for a week or so, but i have totaly changed the proprtion of units strengths and fundametaly altered the relationship, but this was intentional, and i dont know how well its going to work out just yet, but i wanted fragile small unit sizes, which will be extremly vulnrable to the effect of missile attack, as well as large formations, often 10 times that of the cav.

[Hanny]

EDIT: Concerning your reply in the other thread, I understand what Darth has done, and I prefer it that way, generally. From what I have observed, I think the inferior stamina of principes reduces their offensive potential and maneuverability, but not their staying power. As I said, I may be wrong, and I will be happy to read your findings.

The velite, with the highest attack charateristcs, higher than Hast/princ/, giving it a 29% to kill chance,and the Hast and Prin kill at the same rate as each other btw 28%, but Hast staying hardy, means they will out kill Princ in the long term combats. Thats against the average armour value in the game.

[DARTH VADER]

Very good posting...will look to it more thoroughly later and reply to these very good comments.
But pls Hanny do not double-triple-quadriple-... post...just edit.
I see you have a good thought here to produce some constructive feedback

[Hanny]

Very good posting...will look to it more thoroughly later and reply to these very good comments.
But pls Hanny do not double-triple-quadriple-... post...just edit.
I see you have a good thought here to produce some constructive feedback

My bad, i was just posting as i worked through the file, will update shortly, edit the post to include any units whose stats i dont understand, for you to check over, if it makes sense to you all well and good.

Does anyone disagree that missile to hit chance is a product of attack value, over target armour/shield/shill, moddified by half armour for ap, then the next step is the chance to kill, which in thrown is 1 and archery 15, so its not a % to kill like in close combat prime/sec weapons, but a table, one with area effect and one without?, anyway, what % chance to kill does that give the two?. Any educated guesses?.

[DARTH VADER]

OK here it goes...will try to get specific and will not reply to all above mentioned statements since they are too many to handle right now:
1)The idea of the creation of a mathematical formula that gives realistic AI building choices was a past dream of me since I am a mathematician and I would consider it a fair challenge.
2)There are a lot of things to take care and you have to have experience of the game mechanics to actually feel the internal hard coded AI routines so as to produce a good result.
3)So this will not include a linear additive formula as you have tried to implement here (A+B+C+....) but rather a more complex and live system including ratios, logarithms, powers etc. This will surely provide a more accurate and dynamic formula. But how to do this?

First of all you have to see in the game the actual power of each stat so as to translate for it a value.
The fatality rates are really important and have to be seen not lineary (For example 0.5 is not half of 1 but really less...so you can give a constant ahead of it for example 0.37 * 0.5 etc.)
You see you think that romans are having weird stats..you are right...they are not linear but I have sensed a really dynamic system for them.
Their gladius have low attacks but high fatality rates, They get more pushing ability with light spear attribute (And I carefully balance by subtracting the anti-mount spear bonuses leaving only the push and defence bonuses). Their mass (you completelly neglect it) is very important factor and first implemented in DarthMod series as a serious gameplay factor.

The hardy effects are giving more stamina to units and therefore given to light troops because they are really naked comparing to the powerfully armoured romans who could rule everything if they did not have some handicaps.

The basics of balance is to give certain handicaps to units and press the player to make the best of them while protecting them from their disadvantages.
The AI also does this.
If you give hardy bonuses to armoured units, AI will ran with them more oftenly and the visualization will not be correct (To see heavy troops run like feathers).
A lot to write...the 15 fatality factor in front of foot missiles was put in order to help the AI defence for AI foot missiles in patch 1.5/1.6 which is bugged and sometimes it does not fire. I suspect it does some good but have not proven it so I left it. It does not affect for sure the lethality of the projectile weapon so only used fully for melee.

I could write so much but I cannot at the moment...
also you state that you have modded the horde tga file to look manipular. This is interesting and I would like it to see some screenshots.

In summary...the stats formula is a good prospect which I do not have time to look into it although I sense I could find a very good solution for it if I worked in it.
The stats are really more dynamic in value comparing to their numeric value. So some things you are thinking are not working , they work perfectly in the game.

I used a mix of dynamic thought, history, and maths to produce the balance but not a formula bcs I think then the stats would be similar to CA who from lack of time were pressed to avoid doing this by hand and thus producing a nightmare in balance since the human sense and feel if used correctly...is unequalled by any procedure.

[Hanny]

Thank you for your thoughts.

Yes your correct, my current costing is not simply attack value, but is also derived from the chances of killing in charge, and in contact, and your armour chances of staying alive while doing so, as part of the per man cost. For instance the Flax kill cost to purchase the weapon system is high because its a big number, and its effect is high making its use expensive in terms of other kill ratios, hence both parts are needed to cost it.


Primary weapon has a chance to hit and to kill, as does a second weapon system, the chances at each stage are different but overall produce a chance to kill. My point is the galdius wielding legions are killing less than the velites with an inferior weapon, becaus it has high attack values in the first place. Since your chances to kill, and avoid being killed are part of the formula for the relative cost of the unit, all i am saying is that the cost is based on the stats, not the play balance, which is why it sticks out like a sore thumb, the units cost bear little reflection to capabilitys that are derived from stats, but are balnce driven. I prefer to balnce in other ereas since i want armies of small number capable of deafeating large ones.

Since a tech level weapon system, ie a Blade Gladius or simple sword, its effect should logicly be uniform, the skill of the user is know in the unit stats, but the Gladius is not unifrormly applied at to hit and kill chances for all users. Game balance for doing so,as the reason skews the combat model, surely it would be better to balnce somwhere else rather than at this point.


The horde TGA is simply block filled black, ie remove the green markers, the formation starts in the centre, fills out looking for the green markers to posistion men, so run a manipular formation horizintally across the horde tga, with a blocks of green dots, or i can email the one i have done already it to you. It has a pathing issue for movement i dont undestand, in that the unit moves to the centre in column, moves forward and then expands out out again.
--------edit---------
Have you tried changing unit speeds on the battlefied?, to limit effects of fatigue
--------edit---------
Effect of mass, is a non event, on combat, for it to have an influence the unit with greater mass must move the lower mass unit so as to allow more men in contact, watch elephants(48 vs 24) fight in custom battles to see the process of pushing apart the formation, allowing doublleling up against a target by the numericaly larger formation with greater mass, to allow the frontage a model formation tells it it must have, to fight against another, allows that greater mass units can push apart or into others to allow more in contact and hence in the combat, since infantry .7 frontage greater mass units pushing into 1 or 1.6 less mass units brings almost no extra men into contact, the mass incresae meerly alows them to occupy space, but certainly no bounus for men in contact and thus increae in combat effectivness by allowing more men to be in contact. Mass has no effect on combat, so costing it as an effect on the combat element of a units cost is unwise. Should mass be part of the units overall cost?, perhaps, but so small a part as to be almost not worth the effort, the space it wins is to all and intents and purposes unsuable on the battlefield by other units as the engegement outcome is determined before the space won due to push back can be utilsed. However should combats in general take longer to resolve, then mass would push formations around and play an increased part in shapeing the outcome of the engement not meerly the location of the outcome on the battlefield. Large formation being pushed back by smaller more mass formations that are not eliminated by casualties at the present rate, would win ground for others to use, so the interplay of unit sizes becomes more important, a Roman unit/third the numerical size of a Celt would push it back during combat resolution, the celt would have many ranks and absorb the loss and yield ground, the Roman from his 4 ranks removes his losses from unengaged rear ranks, and moves forward to occupy/win space, but if the ratio of attack/defence was altered, ie average foot or mounted attack value was not what is is but was lower, or defence was higher, thus making casualties less frequent, then mass would shape the location of the outcome, because other units would use the space freed up to deploy and influence outomes elshwere, in that 3 large units charge in and the Roman push back the centre one, hold in place on the two flanks, which frees up space in the centre after a short time for a second line unit to wheel and come in on the inner flank of the two pinned in place attacking units.

This is an example of you saying the thing works, and is not broken, im not saying its broken, just explaining what it is, and why it may not do what you expect of it. The shield wall ability is a case in point, where the man per metre ratio is increased, more men per metre more men in combat, this was the Greek method of combat escalation for descion, the standard close order combat man required x feet of space to work in, the Greeks designed a methodology that gave more men per metre by weapon design, ie LTS and pike, hoplite shields allowed them to overlap, Roman ones did not, hence a Roman Scutum was 36 inches wide, the width of a sword pommel was 3 inches, the tightest frontage a Roman could adopt was 40 inches per man, shieleds almost touching, they cant overlap because of their convex shape, and just enough room to stab between the two shields, he could not even adopt the shield wall bonus formation, due to the equipment differences between those who could and wanted the use such a formation and those who did not,even had he been trained to do so, which he was not. When a pike man with a 24 inch wide shiled locks into attack formation his shiled overlapped his neighbors and each man occupied the minimum space a human body could do so, to maximise men at the point of combat, whci was how they thought you won a combat.



So by giving Romans the Greek men at the point of contatact advantage, you destroy the combat models attempt to reflect reality by reason of game balance, this of course is poor design philosophy, bad history and a waste of the game engine. The aim is to portray the different systems of warfare, of the many nations, not give them all each others abilitys. It also decrease unit pyshical space on the battlefield, making movement from one location to another longer because of this and thus increasing fatigue, the very thing that concrns us, because if a unit occupied more space, the unocupied battlefield area is decreased not increased, also by having the unlimited men on battlefield prference option turned to True, you fill up the battlefield with multiple stacks that also fill up the battlefield and when oposed by multpiple stacks make long aprocach movement unecesary.

Nothing wrong with the combat model, its just being under used, the model itself should not be the focus of game balance, in fact it should provide the imbalnces that require balancing. Part of the reason there is little numerical difference between armies is this drive for balance being focused at the wrong place, and CA did this at the very start for the online battle where armies need to be even and balanced, but campaigns refelcted history, by its very nature is not balanced, but thats getting lost by application of balance issues in the combat model. The cost per man is based on his chances of staying alive against an average inf and against an average mounted attack, his chances of killing against the average defence value, thats his combat value, to which other cost are added, ie stats value, plus the effect of those stats on the games average units strats.

If your doing a LOTR mod, and Gandalf is fighting 9 Nazgul, he gets creamed, you dont solve it by making them take him on on single combat one at a time, you let the old fart get outflanked, and then surrounded and cut down by the one he cant watch while he worries about the 6 he can watch....

Rome did not beat the Greeks by being better Greeks, it did so by being a better Roman, and that did not mean adopting closed order combat order that its equipoment was not designed to be used to acomadate.


More on the thrown thing, the 1 or 15 value appears to be a sound associated with the weapon sound and not part of the combat, acording to the docs description. If so, it means to hit is pila value against defense value and then all missiles have a differet but unspecified chance to kill which is not listed in the unit info, but back tracking from cas it inflicts, each volley is about 7% of kills by nember thrown, acording to the studies by Sabin (Combar mechanics of the 2nd Punic war) Sander Van Dorst etc, thats close but lower than their combat models.



Examples 2 custom battle Roman between Hastati and Princeps, stood on defense, 4 ranks deep, with Hast. Princeps advanc to contact in a more packed formation with greater depth , 2 rounds of pila before they close and 1 back, 13-19 given and 6-10 return fire, each time the priceps advance onto the casultys to claim the ground, attempt to expand their frontage but lose men fatser of the flank than expamnsion allows any increase in width, the Hast replace the casualties by back filling from unegaed ranks and keep the fronatage the same, bothtimes the Hast out kill the Pricipes, 53:24 and 77:19, mass allows the Principe to move onto ground won by casualty removal but gives no increase in men at the point of contact, who die quicker than the ability to exapnd on the flanks or push into the enemy formation allows. Conclusion, Mass gives no practial advantage in terms of casulaty infliction but does allow ground to be taken possesion off.

Second examples, formation only two ranks deep to test if mass breaks morale by fratcuring formation, and causing routs tests, none seen. same as before, but push back was of greater distance and one case of flank envelopment by Princ, who still went down to defeat, 119:113, 114:89 and have lost all four examples and show no pratcial combat benifit from mass.

Conclusion, mass can be made to play a part of the outcome of combat but not the combat resolution interplay of the units involved. The only mass effect that plays a part in combat resolution is waves of units striking in quick succesion, ie two waves of cav, which kill and remove a section of a unit causeing a morale check that routs the unit, but the mass abilty does not equate to this effect and instead produces meerly a pushing of units and winning of ground.

Secondly, the Hast and Princep combat ought to return a win for Princep, but does not, this is due to the 2:1 volly pila exchange prior to combat, bringing less men to the combat, and its only 10 men at best, is enough to prevent the higher stats from producing the expected outcome on a level playing field of equal numbers. Romans worried a great deal about the best method of emplyment of pila, Caeser and Pompey resolved the debate in their time during the Civil war, Caeser attacked after one volly delivered at the run, Pompey stood and delvered two, but still went down to defeat. Pompey probably thought the balance was off and wanted/expected a higher to hit %.


Profile of existing Roman Army

First number is primary weapon chance to kill, followed by sec weapon chance to kill, by chance to hit with each, against the games average defense value of 23, followed by the units chance of staying alive against the games average foot and mounted attack value.


roman_velite 0.6 0.6 30 48 23 14 9 90% 47%
roman_hastati 0.8 0.8 35 57 23 23 14 115% 61%
roman_principes 0.8 0.8 35 57 23 23 14 125% 66%
roman_triarii 0.72 0.8 35 43 23 16 14 135% 71%


If however the Romans stats were the same as other units with the same technolgy weapons, gladius and pila, like the Spanish Scutari, then it becomes one of the top combat stats wise and cost wise, but if half or more of the Roman Army was Allied Legios who had less armour and .6 swords etc, which can be forced by allowing only Rome to produce Roman Legions, and by all other regions Allied Legio or other assorted Auxilia. You get a more rep[resentaive Roman army profile, with legions not balnced by down grading of their technology or skills in use of technology, but balanced by an inability to field mass numbers of them.


Fatigue issues, the climate desc doc tells you the regions heat effect, the unit desc doc modifys that base number, so to reduce the effect of fatigue on movement, reduce the climate regions effect of heat, and reduce the units multiplier of that base number to suit your preference in any combimnation that fits your scheme of rate of casualties, ie RTR Paltinum kill rate is roughly half that of Darths while Darths missile kill rate is far higher in proportion in his own mod, and almost twice that of RTR for some units.

[DARTH VADER]

Primary weapon has a chance to hit and to kill, as does a second weapon system, the chances at each stage are different but overall produce a chance to kill. My point is the galdius wielding legions are killing less than the velites with an inferior weapon, becaus it has high attack values in the first place. Since your chances to kill, and avoid being killed are part of the formula for the relative cost of the unit, all i am saying is that the cost is based on the stats, not the play balance, which is why it sticks out like a sore thumb, the units cost bear little reflection to capabilitys that are derived from stats, but are balnce driven. I prefer to balnce in other ereas since i want armies of small number capable of deafeating large ones.

There is a catch in this. You see Roman gladius has armour piercing ability and blade attribute. Together with the large fatality number, it makes it a very effective weapon against opponents who use decent armour and up for their protection. But for units that barely use armour , their ap is no good so they get a handicap against them. That is, enemies with light armour are very evasive for romans to use their plain stabbing strategy. The gladius was very effective against any armour. But for light evasive opponents, their tactics of shield pushing and stabbing were not that effective since the skirmishers did not stand too much for a close fight thus uneasy to pin them in place for short sword stab. They win eventually but not so clearly and have to remain in cohesion or else they get isolated by skirmishers and surrounded (DarthMod only).

The horde TGA is simply block filled black, ie remove the green markers, the formation starts in the centre, fills out looking for the green markers to posistion men, so run a manipular formation horizintally across the horde tga, with a blocks of green dots, or i can email the one i have done already it to you. It has a pathing issue for movement i dont undestand, in that the unit moves to the centre in column, moves forward and then expands out out again.

I know of that. If you have tested it and works you can send me by e-mail to test it myself.

Have you tried changing unit speeds on the battlefied?, to limit effects of fatigue

No because the compensation of realistic movement is enough for me and most DarthMod players. It would help for sure.

Effect of mass, is a non event, on combat, for it to have an influence the unit with greater mass must move the lower mass unit so as to allow more men in contact, watch elephants(48 vs 24) fight in custom battles to see the process of pushing apart the formation, allowing doublleling up against a target by the numericaly larger formation with greater mass, to allow the frontage a model formation tells it it must have, to fight against another, allows that greater mass units can push apart or into others to allow more in contact and hence in the combat, since infantry .7 frontage greater mass units pushing into 1 or 1.6 less mass units brings almost no extra men into contact, the mass incresae meerly alows them to occupy space, but certainly no bounus for men in contact and thus increae in combat effectivness by allowing more men to be in contact. Mass has no effect on combat, so costing it as an effect on the combat element of a units cost is unwise. Should mass be part of the units overall cost?, perhaps, but so small a part as to be almost not worth the effort, the space it wins is to all and intents and purposes unsuable on the battlefield by other units as the engegement outcome is determined before the space won due to push back can be utilsed. However should combats in general take longer to resolve, then mass would push formations around and play an increased part in shapeing the outcome of the engement not meerly the location of the outcome on the battlefield. Large formation being pushed back by smaller more mass formations that are not eliminated by casualties at the present rate, would win ground for others to use, so the interplay of unit sizes becomes more important, a Roman unit/third the numerical size of a Celt would push it back during combat resolution, the celt would have many ranks and absorb the loss and yield ground, the Roman from his 4 ranks removes his losses from unengaged rear ranks, and moves forward to occupy/win space, but if the ratio of attack/defence was altered, ie average foot or mounted attack value was not what is is but was lower, or defence was higher, thus making casualties less frequent, then mass would shape the location of the outcome, because other units would use the space freed up to deploy and influence outomes elshwere, in that 3 large units charge in and the Roman push back the centre one, hold in place on the two flanks, which frees up space in the centre after a short time for a second line unit to wheel and come in on the inner flank of the two pinned in place attacking units.

I agree to some extent that mass is affecting generally the battle outcome and not 1vs1 confrontations. But:
-Light mass gives to skirmishers a very strange benefit of unit extension and thus producing isolation effect to lower man power units that melee with them.
-Heavy mass makes heavy units have bonus in staying power because when they get charged they do not lose cohesion while light units literally are toren apart.
-Heavy mass produces penetration effect in favour to them when they charge.
-Heavy infantry mass makes cavalry to being unable to disrupt their cohesion in melee and for example romans can maintain their box shape when fighting multiple enemies.

Surely invaluable points to balance with numbers.

This is an example of you saying the thing works, and is not broken, im not saying its broken, just explaining what it is, and why it may not do what you expect of it. The shield wall ability is a case in point, where the man per metre ratio is increased, more men per metre more men in combat, this was the Greek method of combat escalation for descion, the standard close order combat man required x feet of space to work in, the Greeks designed a methodology that gave more men per metre by weapon design, ie LTS and pike, hoplite shields allowed them to overlap, Roman ones did not, hence a Roman Scutum was 36 inches wide, the width of a sword pommel was 3 inches, the tightest frontage a Roman could adopt was 40 inches per man, shieleds almost touching, they cant overlap because of their convex shape, and just enough room to stab between the two shields, he could not even adopt the shield wall bonus formation, due to the equipment differences between those who could and wanted the use such a formation and those who did not,even had he been trained to do so, which he was not. When a pike man with a 24 inch wide shiled locks into attack formation his shiled overlapped his neighbors and each man occupied the minimum space a human body could do so, to maximise men at the point of combat, whci was how they thought you won a combat.

It was first Greece which adapted the coherent phalanx tactic which enabled the tight overlapping shield method.(Have implemented in DarthMod)
It was Rome who came to adapt this effective strategy and evolute it combining with the hydrization of other successful tactics into a mobile coherent and flexible formation.
Romans did many drills to be able to change stance in the middle of battle according to threats. If they had to hold their ground, they used phalanx tactics, combining and protecting each other with their large shields.(They also invented the testudo formation for hard core protection).
When they had to attack, they expanded just enough to be able to wield their swords and ALWAYS stayed in formation ordered by their centurion behind.
They never lost cohesion or fought like in most hollywood movies (In gladiator of Racel Crow, if they have fought in the first battle against germanic armies as it was seen, to lose instantly cohesion and fight in 1vs1 melee...they would not form an empire)
Romans almost always fought against superior numbers and only clever and coherent than brave and heroic tactics would make them win.

So by giving Romans the Greek men at the point of contatact advantage, you destroy the combat models attempt to reflect reality by reason of game balance, this of course is poor design philosophy, bad history and a waste of the game engine. The aim is to portray the different systems of warfare, of the many nations, not give them all each others abilitys. It also decrease unit pyshical space on the battlefield, making movement from one location to another longer because of this and thus increasing fatigue, the very thing that concrns us, because if a unit occupied more space, the unocupied battlefield area is decreased not increased, also by having the unlimited men on battlefield prference option turned to True, you fill up the battlefield with multiple stacks that also fill up the battlefield and when oposed by multpiple stacks make long aprocach movement unecesary.

By the above answer I reply to the "you destroy the combat models attempt to reflect reality by reason of game balance, this of course is poor design philosophy, bad history and a waste of the game engine".
In fact I use for the AI a very flexible formation with the first maniples to be able to expand, the second line maniples to be extra coherent and the back to have free role.
The AI uses here the true roman tactic than the greek more straightforward. And also I do not understand why you say that all units use the same overlapping method which they do not. (Romans use it in mixed method, greek_cities fully, and Macedon only the center phalanx)

Conclusion, mass can be made to play a part of the outcome of combat but not the combat resolution interplay of the units involved. The only mass effect that plays a part in combat resolution is waves of units striking in quick succesion, ie two waves of cav, which kill and remove a section of a unit causeing a morale check that routs the unit, but the mass abilty does not equate to this effect and instead produces meerly a pushing of units and winning of ground.

Following your examples and my statement above we partially agree.

Profile of existing Roman Army

First number is primary weapon chance to kill, followed by sec weapon chance to kill, by chance to hit with each, against the games average defense value of 23, followed by the units chance of staying alive against the games average foot and mounted attack value.


roman_velite 0.6 0.6 30 48 23 14 9 90% 47%
roman_hastati 0.8 0.8 35 57 23 23 14 115% 61%
roman_principes 0.8 0.8 35 57 23 23 14 125% 66%
roman_triarii 0.72 0.8 35 43 23 16 14 135% 71%

Not understood the bold statement above.
But as it seems it is trully well balanced in your number system.

If however the Romans stats were the same as other units with the same technolgy weapons, gladius and pila, like the Spanish Scutari, then it becomes one of the top combat stats wise and cost wise, but if half or more of the Roman Army was Allied Legios who had less armour and .6 swords etc, which can be forced by allowing only Rome to produce Roman Legions, and by all other regions Allied Legio or other assorted Auxilia. You get a more rep[resentaive Roman army profile, with legions not balnced by down grading of their technology or skills in use of technology, but balanced by an inability to field mass numbers of them.

Not quite understood what you want to say here, but my stats gave Romans the exact elegant superiority it was historically proven.
Roman stats are unique, flexible (1 cohort can fight back effectively even cavalry, or multiple enemies, can maintain cohesion and win in prolonged combat most heavy opponents.) For the republican early armies this is not so clear and this is why they have not won so much ground while in this combat model(Historically). Under Marius reforms, roman army is unbeatable on even terms.

Fatigue issues, the climate desc doc tells you the regions heat effect, the unit desc doc modifys that base number, so to reduce the effect of fatigue on movement, reduce the climate regions effect of heat, and reduce the units multiplier of that base number to suit your preference in any combimnation that fits your scheme of rate of casualties, ie RTR Paltinum kill rate is roughly half that of Darths while Darths missile kill rate is far higher in proportion in his own mod, and almost twice that of RTR for some units.

I do not agree for climate region multiplier modding you suggest. This is carefully tested all this time that is working very well to give the necessary handicaps when invading the unfamiliar homeland of enemy.
As for kill rates etc.
The DarthMod battle system is by far one of the most successful (Some claim it is the most successful) to be compared with others.
The kill rates are just fine to provide a realistic violent feel in the battle which last just as it should be.
Many mods lower kill rates that make battlefield look like poor cinemascope old hollywood movies, with men swinging their weapons with no kills and passively resting in the ground.

[Hanny]

There is a catch in this. You see Roman gladius has armour piercing ability and blade attribute. Together with the large fatality number, it makes it a very effective weapon against opponents who use decent armour and up for their protection. But for units that barely use armour , their ap is no good so they get a handicap against them. That is, enemies with light armour are very evasive for romans to use their plain stabbing strategy. The gladius was very effective against any armour. But for light evasive opponents, their tactics of shield pushing and stabbing were not that effective since the skirmishers did not stand too much for a close fight thus uneasy to pin them in place for short sword stab. They win eventually but not so clearly and have to remain in cohesion or else they get isolated by skirmishers and surrounded (DarthMod only).

True, but are we not then looking not at cause but effect?. What i am concerned with is causuality, being consistant, which is the product of the stats.Not effect against different combat styles beyond of applieing those stats against the games average defence value of armour/shield/skill. Norm,alization, as im sure you know, is where you asign a value to effects outside of the norm, since its imparctical to know the attack v defence of all combinations, i use the games average defense to compar eto the specific unist attack, and see how far it is outside the norm and apply a bous or reduction to the cost.

I know of that. If you have tested it and works you can send me by e-mail to test it myself.

Well it works, but has horrible movement characteristics, i *hink* the green dots include marker points for formation moving, by only haveing the centre one in my edited version, the formation defaults to a column to move to where you wnat it to go to, which depening on the unit size can be a real killer atribute. Otoh, if its a large unit, say 240 men representing the entire legio and you leave it static, the maniples are a double line of which the ai removes the rear ranks when casualties are applied, fires from then maniples in range, so i will perceere with this as it holds some promise. Ill find a host and post it when done for you, and will bring a copy of what i have so far for you to look at and play around with. At the least, leaving it as a horde, of small groups rather than a large circle is certainly better.

No because the compensation of realistic movement is enough for me and most DarthMod players. It would help for sure..

Ok, i changed 5% either way to see what effect it had on the look o0f movement, looked at RT and SPQR to see what ration they applied, i think the cutrrent value is a good fit visually, but could benifit from fatigue changes.

I agree to some extent that mass is affecting generally the battle outcome and not 1vs1 confrontations. But:
-Light mass gives to skirmishers a very strange benefit of unit extension and thus producing isolation effect to lower man power units that melee with them.
-Heavy mass makes heavy units have bonus in staying power because when they get charged they do not lose cohesion while light units literally are toren apart.
-Heavy mass produces penetration effect in favour to them when they charge.
-Heavy infantry mass makes cavalry to being unable to disrupt their cohesion in melee and for example romans can maintain their box shape when fighting multiple enemies.

Surely invaluable points to balance with numbers.

Iunderstand mass only to apply to infantry, has theat aspect of the engine changed to include cav?, SPQR does an excellent job of representing this, your current representation could move more towards that, or not, it all depends if the work envolved seems comensurate with the benifit.

How to asign a value?, again i tend to view this as an effect not a cause, but it could be added in by adding a value relative to the units mass, those who are within 20% of the game average Infantry UNit the norm, those outside gaining a greater speed of ground won would accure a cost multiplier, and those with a lower than the norm a reduction.

It was first Greece which adapted the coherent phalanx tactic which enabled the tight overlapping shield method.(Have implemented in DarthMod)
It was Rome who came to adapt this effective strategy and evolute it combining with the hydrization of other successful tactics into a mobile coherent and flexible formation.
Romans did many drills to be able to change stance in the middle of battle according to threats. If they had to hold their ground, they used phalanx tactics, combining and protecting each other with their large shields.(They also invented the testudo formation for hard core protection).
When they had to attack, they expanded just enough to be able to wield their swords and ALWAYS stayed in formation ordered by their centurion behind.
They never lost cohesion or fought like in most hollywood movies (In gladiator of Racel Crow, if they have fought in the first battle against germanic armies as it was seen, to lose instantly cohesion and fight in 1vs1 melee...they would not form an empire)
Romans almost always fought against superior numbers and only clever and coherent than brave and heroic tactics would make them win.

Itsthe ralative numbers of Romans v barbarians that first brought my attention to looking at cost per man, i did not see a great enough disparity, which is a result of CA driving the costs per unit to a norm.

Romans adopted the testudo from others, it was not a Roman invention, celkts used it befor Romans standardized it as a mil formation, which ment cropping the shield top and bottom to perform the testudo, the shield design prior to that prevented a testudo from being formed, also since we know the Centurion wore his helmet decoration sin combat, we know he was not in the testudo but at its rear directing it.

I agree that team work is how regulars fight in close combat and that filmsshowing individuals fighting was not the Roman method, but was for others.

By the above answer I reply to the "you destroy the combat models attempt to reflect reality by reason of game balance, this of course is poor design philosophy, bad history and a waste of the game engine".
In fact I use for the AI a very flexible formation with the first maniples to be able to expand, the second line maniples to be extra coherent and the back to have free role.
The AI uses here the true roman tactic than the greek more straightforward. And also I do not understand why you say that all units use the same overlapping method which they do not. (Romans use it in mixed method, greek_cities fully, and Macedon only the center phalanx)

Nope its a simple matter of men in contact, and the spac they occupy, compare your unit spacings to those of RTR, and you will see that you are uniformly decreasing man per metre space for the Romans, compared to greeks who maxed out this feature, bu standing at 45% to the front to wield the pike so as minimise the mans shoulder width space and increase the number of men per metre, added to the length of spears allowing more spear point per metre, a Roman who throws his pila is now a swordsman, he requires space to use cut and less for thrust, and cannot decrease the man per metre to the extent of the greeks, in fact Roman manual;s tell us the space they need for normal and open order and for repelling cavalry, they dont reduce the man per metre, but add rear ranks forward to decrease unit depth, not frontage.

Following your examples and my statement above we partially agree.

But is it something worth the effort?, i persoanlly like the feel of a longer enegement in which less casualtiesa are incurred prior to the rout, but it would require more than just an increase in armour/skill/shield values. So for me its ayes, but certainly not for all.

Not understood the bold statement above.
But as it seems it is trully well balanced in your number system..

As well as paying for the cost of a weapon system, ie a mans attack value, there is another modifier to a cost per man, the hit/kill against the average defense of of all units in the game, if you have an attack of 16 and the average of inf and cav defense is 16 then you are the norm, but if you have an attack of 8 you are well below and get a reduction, since low attack is usually asigned to skirmish units not designed or expected to fight in combat it reduces unit cost making them for pooer comabt performence and equipment. Otoh, because they have missile capability there cost is increased based on the expected chances of hit/kills due to stats of attack and munition, this of course is all to do with the importance or lack off, missile fire as a dertimning factor in comabt. Should missile fire cripple or inconvieniance?, well thats all to do with how many missile equiped men in the army, how much munitions they have. and so on, and ive yet to put a profile togther, but a quick look at it shows missile fire to be very high, which is why i have reduced missile fire units strength.

Not quite understood what you want to say here, but my stats gave Romans the exact elegant superiority it was historically proven.
Roman stats are unique, flexible (1 cohort can fight back effectively even cavalry, or multiple enemies, can maintain cohesion and win in prolonged combat most heavy opponents.) For the republican early armies this is not so clear and this is why they have not won so much ground while in this combat model(Historically). Under Marius reforms, roman army is unbeatable on even terms...

Unique but less than spanish scutari who have the same weapon technology, what i am saying is the technolgy is the same but not being reflected in the game stats, a Roman was not worse at throwing apila than others, many are a 11,6 against the Roman 11,2 iirc, i dont hav ethe spreadsheet with me today but will give some comparisons tommorrow for you.

I do not agree for climate region multiplier modding you suggest. This is carefully tested all this time that is working very well to give the necessary handicaps when invading the unfamiliar homeland of enemy....

Not seeing your stats do this at all, no
use of negatives for nations in hot climates to reduce fatigue effects for them due to aclimitazation, infact you increase fatigues effect for everyone regardless of climate by assigning a 5 in the unit file and a 1 in the climate file, if you lost the 1 in the clmate range, you reduce fatigues effects considrably, and since i was responding to how to reduce fatigue, thats certainly one part of how to do it, another would to reduce the distcances units start there charge at, some barbarians do so at a huge distance, and high mental and/or berserkmeans they are tired at contact as a result. Of course this feature is a good one, but could be fine tuned a little.

As for kill rates etc.
The DarthMod battle system is by far one of the most successful (Some claim it is the most successful) to be compared with others.
The kill rates are just fine to provide a realistic violent feel in the battle which last just as it should be.
Many mods lower kill rates that make battlefield look like poor cinemascope old hollywood movies, with men swinging their weapons with no kills and passively resting in the ground.

No one with any understanding of combat models and or ancient comabt losses would agree that your kill rates are anything close to any form of reality.

Try here for how the US academics use imulation to formulate combat models, using data sets from antiquity to the present, of know losses.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Numbers-Pred...e=UTF8&s=books

That said, here is my problem, i woule prefer a simulation rather than a game, and to most that simulation would,not be a fun game, so i walk a different road than most.


I should take the oputunity my Lord Vader ( star wars theme comes in, in background) to thank you for the excellent results you have achieved so far with your mod, i plan to use it as a base to work from to prioritize it for my own personal satisifaction, of course that may be incompatable with your own plans to take over the Empire....( faint hum of star wars theme fades out) but hopefully we can point up areas that intrest us both as we manipulate it for our own needs.

Ps do you also follow the US Battlestar galactics series?, just had season two relseased in the UK and its a joy to watch.

[Eird-Way]

I ask that you acknowledge your divergence in personal values and continue for the benefit of the community at large. If your love of simulation finds fruition, you will be welcomed with open arms by Europa Barbarorum, which it seems has a very poor battle system, although I wouldn't displace my Darthmod long enough to find out. Modders in general need a better methodology than the ubiquitous, "give a little, take a little" system which I am sure is in use at the present. Darth's model is unanimously regarded as supreme because only he has made rational and sustained inquiry.

You have reminded me of what is, for me, the true rub in all this matter : the rout itself. Obviously, routs are much too devastating in the game. A persistent player who keeps some light cavalry in reserve can consistently annihilate enemy armies. My problem is that prolonging combat resolution has, in my experience, led to even more devastating routs. I have made some inquiries into the balancement and animation communities, and it seems that there is absolutely no way to modify any attribute of a routing man (perhaps you will find that I am wrong -- I hope so!). No way to make him scatter further, run faster, or survive better. As I said, I have not tried extensive stamina increases, mostly because they are not subject to Caligula's batch feature (you have this program, I hope?), but it seems that any prolonging of the battle will have to be limited still by the increased endurance times.

I've mentioned this before, but it bears mentioning again : Darth's combat model is generally regarded as the best all-around representation of a literal 1:1 scale for enjoyment by the majority of the gaming community. A not inconsiderable fraction of the community, however, is interested in an openly abstract 10:1 representation along with a much slower battle.