Reply thread for important topic(See first post)

[DARTH VADER]

DarthMod open beta 8.1 version 2 is ready download...these are my findings!


check the ALCHEMIST thread here.


State your opinions in this thread or in the alchemist section if you are one.... (Fight...from appprentices you must come masters to join...give in to your passion for this game!)

[Eird-Way]

WOW WOW WOW WOW!

My gripe with the game has not been missile support but cavalry utilisation. I have no specific findings regarding missiles yet.

HOWEVER!

You are VERY close to making AI cavalry behave exactly as it should. It has withdrawn and maneuvered beautifully in the battles I have tested, exploiting is superior mass over infantry and causing complete formation havoc.

Most exciting of all, however, is that I am seeing genuine cavalry charges. In one test battle, I set up a defensive wedge with one Hunnic heavy spearmen and four Hunnic swordsmen flanking. My enemies were one Gothic nobles and four Gothic lancers. I issued no orders. At one point, the lancers on my right flank genuinely charged a group of swordsmen, inflicting 100 (yes, ONE HUNDRED) casualties, and then withdrew immediately! I have very high hopes that the next official release will mean an absolutely challenging BI.

- The horses tended to congregate more around my left flank. These maneuvered MUCH too close and sometimes stumbled into my stationary infantry, who could slaughter them at leisure.
- Fewer horses went to my right flank. These wandered around VERY far from the battle and attacked much less often. However, they achieved more genuine charges.
- In all cases, all horses marched MUCH too close to my troops before issuing attack orders. Even those good charges that hit me were just lucky enough to be well aligned and timed, charging from about 20m away. You have given all cavalry very high charge distances, and this looks very, very good in the hands of a skilled player, but is there no way for the AI to inherently understand the necessary charge distances for its own cavalry? Is it possible for cavalry to "attack" from very far away instead of "marching" very near and then attacking?

I explained this to the players in the RTR forum, who were complaining about the rebalancing of all cavalry (in a charge-oriented fashion similar to yours), that cavalry will not get its actual charge bonus (regardless of whether it says "charging") unless it is properly aligned when the charge commences. Once they are within their charge distance, they cannot realign and will simply run up to the enemy and flail away with their 4 attack points. IF, however, the attack command is given, with a single click, OUTSIDE the charge distance, the cavalry will align itself to the enemy as it approaches the charge distance. This is why I made the suggestion about dynamic cavalry formation depth -- wide, shallow formations need lots of time to turn.

Is, then, there any way to make the AI "attack" from MUCH further away, so that the cavalry will have time to realign before charging? As things work now, the difference in charge distances is something that only applies to the player. The AI always starts its charges much, much too close and they only ever work when the cavalry is already perfectly aligned. (which is happening MUCH more with your new fire delay discovery).

In my tests, for example, when three units of cavalry approach me dead-on. They march up very close (always within 50m) and then charge. But only the center unit deals damage, because he is well-aligned. The other two need to turn inward, and so they break rank and are ineffectual. If the attack order is issued from afar, they slowly draw up into a sort of crescent while approaching (the AI never does this, but you can try it yourself).

This is REALLY revolutionary. From now on, no other mod counts as even remotely playable without these innovations. Sorry, guys. Join Darth and rule the galaxy!

[Grand Duke Vytautas]

Awesome Darth just brilliant Finally AI will use its foot missiles on equal terms with human player Does this also mean that foot missiles don't skirmish against HAs (cause they have support near by)? Then HAs won't be god-units anymore (everything has counter measure) as before and thats GOOD
Txs for amazing dedication to RTW Darth

[Pelican Man]

IM getting way too excited... gotta concentrate on work, not strategies just yet....

[DARTH VADER]

@Eird-Way:

Tks Eird way for the very thorough post. In fact you must also have noticed the AI general to be almost impossible to kill. In many test battles my general was killed first and his was geniously from one side to the other giving commands. And that is the true fill and advantage should have the AI which must be a lot of times quicker giving click and point commands than human.

For the close charge ....well I do not believe it is that close generally (50-60 m is a good distance to charge generally). I do not know if I can fix this btw hard coded AI routine but maybe ...why not.
I mean CA has messed also the charge interval as you say....but of course the improvement is so so much better.

Check also the foot missile fix bug (play custom AI defense battles)

Give me your thought about all kind of units ...Phalanxes? Do you notice the 1-line careful approach better now?

Your testing is valuable as you always give me correct and thorough notices.

@Grand Duke Vytautas, Pelican Man

Waiting that you finally dwnld the file also bcs I uploaded to rapidshare also.Give me your feedback

[Pelican Man]

@ Darth

Well, I will probably be playin the game in about 6-8 hours due to the fact that work sucks @ss. lol but, first thing when I get home, I'll probably go for a 4-5 hour session. = ) pending on who I play, Cause im waiting on the pole to see who people pick. Didn't really want either of those, but since I read your beta upgrades, Im actually really excited about those now. It shall be very, very interesting. Anyways, you know i'll give ya feedback. Just probably not until tomorrow at work. lol

THE P-MAN

[paradamed]

Hi Darth. Is there any way your findings can be applied to the Napoleon Total War 2 mod so it will make the AI act better?

[DARTH VADER]

@paramed

My info is stated in the link openly to help other modders apply these settings for their mods.
Especially for NTW2 I would not offer anything because they repeatedly do not recognise my work I have done these years for AI and gameplay by stating that formations are useless and indirectly everyone who states that AI is manipulated through them is retarded..... Even when I have accepted to help them for this before sometime and gave them a first work they ignored it to let it evolve...so sorry I will pass.
It is sad to see modders become worse than developers....eager to modify skins and looks and not modify at all the gameplay and not only that, be convinced of their backwards beliefs.


BTW surely these new settings will help NTW2 mod to have better projectile defense AI . ..if implemented correctly.

[MasterOfNone]

Great work, Darth - and I'm not going to make any claim of knowing anything about this one

I will test it in the FA:TW build tomorrow and report my findings.

[jester7707]

@paramed

My info is stated in the link openly to help other modders apply these settings for their mods.
Especially for NTW2 I would not offer anything because they repeatedly do not recognise my work I have done these years for AI and gameplay by stating that formations are useless and indirectly everyone who states that AI is manipulated through them is retarded..... Even when I have accepted to help them for this before sometime and gave them a first work they ignored it to let it evolve...so sorry I will pass.
It is sad to see modders become worse than developers....eager to modify skins and looks and not modify at all the gameplay and not only that, be convinced of their backwards beliefs.


BTW surely these new settings will help NTW2 mod to have better projectile defense AI . ..if implemented correctly.

Somthing els that I noticed (correct me if I am wrong) I see CA praising NTW2 on thier site (witch is np, its not too bad of a mod to me.) but I never seen them metion a word of your work Darth, witch to me is a whole lot better then any work of the NTW series.

[wipeout140]

Somthing els that I noticed (correct me if I am wrong) I see CA praising NTW2 on thier site (witch is np, its not too bad of a mod to me.) but I never seen them metion a word of your work Darth, witch to me is a whole lot better then any work of the NTW series.

Well when DarthMod 8.0 come out i sent a email to correct CA community e-mail about Darthmod 8.0 and about it is very popular and little of a overview of DarthMod and its many great features.

But Sadly they never even add DarthMod under RTW mods which CA have on totalwar site.

[MasterOfNone]

Still testing

What of prec units that are mounted?

[DARTH VADER]

@jester7707, wipeout140:
I trully believe that NTW2 deserves praise bcs it is a brave and difficult effort to transpose an archaic game to rennaissance era mod.
But as you say in comparison, DarthMod, the mod which changed the gameplay so much and gave ideas to all others, to enhance RTW-BI in its basic form...deserved better treatment.
Ironically I do not post there any more....it is full of amateur newbies. TWcenter is the true TWcommunity and here I find the support I need.And I believe other good mods as well. In fact I very seldomly visit other forums.

@MasterOfNone:
Give them similar to light cavalrymen/javelineers settings. no problem.
The horse AI is not bugged and fires always in case of enemy proximity.

[DARTH VADER]

I am sure you will like them ...I insist on playing my mod (DM_8.0 with patch 8.1 open beta) to understand this in custom battles...I guarantee you have never seen something like it before.
AI is in most cases better than human...finally.

[paradamed]

Hey Darth, I started implementing the modifications you discovered mentioned in the alchemists' thread in the NTW2 mod. I implemented them in the artillery and the general. I noticed the artillery peformance was better. They scored big kills and started attacking earlier. The general seemed to act better. He was not killed in melee combat anymore. He was only killed by enemy fire. I believe the reason was, as you mentioned, he was able to engage and disengage faster and could avoid being killed in melee. Your findings look promising. I will try to modify cavalry and then I will tell my experience. Thanks a lot in advance!

[DARTH VADER]

I am sure it will help.

For musketeers footmen put:

charge: value>= range of weapon and put some surplus by testing
delay:0 (do not give minus unless you want someone to behave like sniper, also you can try to give positive to some but I think it will crap the AI in missile fire in defense.)

[Eird-Way]

Yes, it is very unfortunate about the Lordz's attitude. But then, I have noticed that Napoleonic enthusiasts are always very much biased toward multiplayer gaming. So let them go their way. I mentioned that simple successor tactics would be effective in their game (using a musket like a 100-meter sarissa), but I knew they wouldn't be interested. I very greatly hope that the Ogniem i Mieczem team will be more receptive to help once they reach a release, because I look forward to that infinitely more than anything else. (Like good old "Cossacks: European Wars" in 3d!).

Anyway, never mind all them.

- Missile units, skirmishers in particular, are much better at timing their volleys and deciding when to run away. I had never really suffered from the bug, so I can't comment on it. I also notice that the Romans are much more likely to get their volley off before the enemy closes. They are even MORE effective now!
- Phalanx units are now better at deciding when to lower/raise their pikes. This decreases the "pike waving bug". I have noticed them march in good order almost up to the point of contact before lowering their pikes, almost like a "cheating" player! But staying in march formation as long as possible has increased their overall cohesion. The phalanx still becomes jagged on impact, but I imagine there is no way to fix this. Fewer instances of confused phalanx units (facing wrong way, wandering off). In a custom battle, Thrace v Macedon, I just got genuinely "Alexandered" ! Granted it was on hard, but the battle turned right on its head.
- Which of course brings me back to cavalry, which I still believe are in much more need of attention than the other unit types, especially for BI's sake. (pilaguys, phalanxes, barbarians and skirmishers all work great). I have some specific suggestions.
+ Remove wedge formation entirely. It never penetrates, not even when I use it, and the AI frequently forms wedges facing the wrong direction.
+ Increase all cavalry deployment depths to at least 3 or 4 deep. Scythia has trouble with its opening flank maneuvers because its formations are too wide, and get caught on the edge of my army when trying to go around. I think it would be best to put all these units in approximately square deployments and create a "frontal cavalry assault" block which stretches them out to 2 deep, and charges down the center as infantry do. I tried to do this myself, but got very confused very quickly.
+ Reduce all charge distances below 100m. Unless you can get the AI to initiate a charge from 250m away, the charge distance might as well be "too far" in all cases for the AI.

I am tempted to make a movie in which some cheap berber lancers annihilate a larger force of kataphractoi, just to demonstrate the crisis. It's not hard to achieve, though, with a little practice.

[DARTH VADER]

- Missile units, skirmishers in particular, are much better at timing their volleys and deciding when to run away. I had never really suffered from the bug, so I can't comment on it. I also notice that the Romans are much more likely to get their volley off before the enemy closes. They are even MORE effective now!

I managed to start a campaign with brutii and play a little...I lost so many times. The romans are far better now but the AI is so much improved that I do believe that in most cases it is better than human.(Now I forced AI with the correct role playing of its units and uses them exactly as one should do. For example I faced gaul forester archers which stayed in a distance of approx. 200 m at all the time of the battle and released all of their arrows in my roman army which was full complement (with triarii,hastati,principes, velites, mercenaries, cavalry...I just did not have archers).
The outcome was a fatal loss of my army and general from a naked ferocious gaul army with some elite units and heavy cavalry....).
The CA bug was existent and it is now eradicated but it makes me curious that you have not noticed that before...it was so bad for the AI which it could not use archery in defense and so had obsolete units per battle.

- Phalanx units are now better at deciding when to lower/raise their pikes. This decreases the "pike waving bug". I have noticed them march in good order almost up to the point of contact before lowering their pikes, almost like a "cheating" player! But staying in march formation as long as possible has increased their overall cohesion. The phalanx still becomes jagged on impact, but I imagine there is no way to fix this. Fewer instances of confused phalanx units (facing wrong way, wandering off). In a custom battle, Thrace v Macedon, I just got genuinely "Alexandered" ! Granted it was on hard, but the battle turned right on its head.

It seems the setting for phalanx and melee infantry is now complete.

+ Remove wedge formation entirely. It never penetrates, not even when I use it, and the AI frequently forms wedges facing the wrong direction.

Sorry I do not agree. For Macedonians for example....gives them their exact character and formation view.

+ Increase all cavalry deployment depths to at least 3 or 4 deep. Scythia has trouble with its opening flank maneuvers because its formations are too wide, and get caught on the edge of my army when trying to go around. I think it would be best to put all these units in approximately square deployments and create a "frontal cavalry assault" block which stretches them out to 2 deep, and charges down the center as infantry do. I tried to do this myself, but got very confused very quickly.

This is done in order to reduce casualties from human defender archery counterfire.
Of course this you say happens in formation in swap role....just not all the time.For instance I have a role for thin line cavalry charge...just every formation has unique separate roles.

+ Reduce all charge distances below 100m. Unless you can get the AI to initiate a charge from 250m away, the charge distance might as well be "too far" in all cases for the AI.

No..it is vital! All the gameplay you witness is also based to these charge settings.

I am tempted to make a movie in which some cheap berber lancers annihilate a larger force of kataphractoi, just to demonstrate the crisis. It's not hard to achieve, though, with a little practice.

If you succeed give it to us!

[Alexanderthefantastic]

I haven't noticed any AI differences in my game. I even ran on BI.exe on hard and the AI archers still 'patrolled' the battlefield and never launched a volley.

[DARTH VADER]

With DarthMod 8.1?
or you implemented to other mod?

Anyway I know I cannot do more to prove this...you must play and see for yourself for sure.
I do not come here to state these things by playing one/two battles...

Do not use BI exe bcs my tests are without it.

---edit---

One thing to know for this is also that if you put your men in groups of AI control it seems that defender AI lacks resources and then the bug commences again.