Aeimnestus Ancient Naval Warfare & Realistic Combat mod (Current version 1.5)
One of the highlights in Rome 2 for me was the inclusion of naval battles. Not entirely unsurprisingly the way naval battles play out in Rome 2 is not very historical.
First of all a little history lesson:
Up until the first part of the first millennium BC, naval ships in the Mediterranean where relatively small and their structural integrity was as such that ramming wasn't really a viable option. Ships relied on missiles (javelins, slings etc.) and boarding, basically they were fighting platforms. When the bireme was developed by the Phoenicians around the 8th century BC naval combat changed drastically, as the ram was introduced as the main naval weapon. The development of the trireme by the greeks perfected that development. Now one should note ramming wasn't just an affair of ships headlong ramming into each other like jousting knights. Fleets would employ various tactics to attempt to outmaneuver the enemy fleet, and allow for ramming enemy ships astern or from the sides. Ramming was highly dependent on the skill of the oarsmen on the ships, and maintaining enough skilled oarsmen to crew an armada of triremes was a costly affair (to put this into numbers, Athens, which was one of the few city states that could maintain a well trained fleet, had roughly 200 triremes during the fifth century BC. Each trireme required 170 rowers. That results in the astonishing number of 34.000 well trained rowers needed for their navy.) Cities like Sparta (and later Rome) who did not have the naval traditions to support so many well trained rowers, tried to compensate for this by focusing more on boarding and headlong ramming (the Spartans reinforced the prows of their triremes at the end of the Peloponnesian war so they could ram Athenian ships headlong with good effect, and placed more hoplites on them. In essence turning the naval battles more into land battles, something the inexperienced Roman navy would emulate two centuries later vs the experienced Carthaginian navy during the first punic war.) This trend would continue as bigger and bigger ships were constructed by the wealthy successor kingdoms and the rising Roman Republic. Eventually, naval combat would come full circle and depend once again on missiles and boarding, like it did a millennium before.
So, while playing the game I made the following observations:
1. Ships are too cumbersome. Biremes and triremes were exceptionally agile. A trireme could maintain a cruising speed of roughly 8 knots (the replica they made could do 6 knots maintained with an untrained crew of amateurs), and a ramming speed of at least 12 knots. Bigger ships maintained roughly the same speed characteristics as the smaller ones. A quinquereme was almost as fast as a trireme even though it had more mass and water displacement. Obviously bigger ships turning speed and acceleration were less however, making ships bigger than a quinquereme not very suitable for ramming except situationally.
2. Boarding is far too easy in the game. This is shown especially when using an army in transport ships with whom you can overwhelm true navies. There is a reason the Romans (or Syracusans - disputed) had to invent the corvus.
3. Smaller ships carry way too many soldiers. Non-Roman triremes only had around 20 hoplites per ship while the Romans would pack around 50-70 marines on their triremes.
4. Ramming isn't effective enough. There is a far too big emphasis on "big ships disintegrating smaller ones". A trireme at full speed ramming another trireme from abeam would have been a guaranteed sink historically. Ingame it takes sometimes 3 or 4 rams before a ship sinks. Historically the bigger ships weren't really effective rammers, and relied more on missiles and boarding.
So I've started working on a complete rebalance of all the ships in Rome 2.
Goal:
A more historical representation of ancient naval battles.
Current version 1.5
Version 1.5 changelog:
Naval changes:
- Implemented the naval (or to be more exact, boarding) changes for all the Hellenistic and eastern kingdoms.
- Increased the effectiveness of ranged units in naval battles somewhat.
Missile weapon changes:
- Tweaked the ammo count of every missile unit in the game to more realistic values. Slingers and arrows do less damage than in vanilla, but can sustain firing roughly 30% longer.
- Tweaked the bow types of certain units to be more historical.
- My earlier javelin ammo-count changes were by error not fully implemented. All infantry javelin units now have 7 javelins, based on the amount a velite would carry according to plutarch.
- Slightly increased the damage of javelins compared to version 1.4
- Increased the difference in effectiveness between elite ranged units like Rhodian Slingers and peasant type ranged units like Helot Slingers.
Melee unit changes:
- Increased the stats of Spartan Hoplites so they are now slightly superior to normal Hoplites instead of slightly inferior.
- Increased the effectiveness of the testudo substantially, however units engaged in melee while in testudo formation are only 50% (defensive testudo) or 70% (attacking testudo) effective in their attacks in combat until the formation is disabled.
Campaign changes:
- Added the Training Field building chain as an option for minor settlements.
Version 1.4 changes:
Land changes:
Missile changes:
- Implemented further changes to missiles, reducing their effectiveness versus armoured units.
- Increased effectiveness of the testudo.
Combat changes:
- Further reduced melee hit chance to slow down units breaking due to casualties sustained.
Naval changes:
- Implemented the 1.3 naval changes for Sparta, Epirus and Athens. Next in line are the Macedonians and the successor states scheduled for 1.5, followed by the eastern kingdoms in 1.6, and finally the barbarians in 1.7
- New ship for Epirus's roster, the septireme (7) with a contingent of hellenistic royal guard.
Version 1.3 changes:
Land Changes:
Special ability changes:
- Removed all "fantasy" special abilities from the game.
Appearance changes:
- Changed the height of every unit in the game to be more realistic to one another.
Missile changes:
- Reworked slingers and archers to be less deadly. Their main value is their added morale shock to units under fire, though over time ranged units will still rack up kills.
- Slingers do more damage than archers, but have lost armour penetration. Archers have retained some armour penetration, allowing them to eventually wear down armoured units, though they are not at all effective at it. Both archers and slingers have had their ammo count increased. Javelins are the most destructive ranged weapon when they hit, but have less ammo (7, down from 10, based on the historical accounts of velites carrying 7 javelins), far less range and are less accurate.
- Ranged mounted/naval units have more ammo than their foot-versions, but less accuracy.
Melee changes:
- Slightly reduced killrate even further.
Morale changes:
- Base morale is higher, units fighting and winning combat gain a sizable morale boost.
- Units under fire, suffering from being attacked in the rear, and/or fighting and loosing combat suffer a more significant reduction in morale.- Overall, units will break less quickly when things go as intended, but will break faster than in earlier versions of this mod when things go wrong.
Battle camera changes:
- Fixed the camera zooming in so far that the player can see a layer of water below the ground.
Naval changes:
Roster changes:
- Removed all ships with onagers from the game. The only artillery ships that can be used are Ballistae Quinqueremes.
- Completely reworked the Carthaginian and Roman fleets. They still have access to the same ships as in the vanilla game, but with more realistic crews: Roman quinqueremes with hastati/principes and later on legionaries/legionary cohorts, Carthaginian tower quinqueremes with phoenician archers, etc.
- This does result in a less diverse naval roster. Although there is still the same choice of ships, the amount of different crews is reduced. In time I will add more diversity.
New units:
- New unit for Carthage: "Phoenician Marines". While Carthage employed mostly mercenaries for its land armies, their navy consisted of citizens. Phoenician Marines are medium infantry carrying a round shield, short sword, and javelins, well trained for marine landings and boarding actions.
- New unit for Carthage: "Phoenician Heavy Marines". Consisting of the wealthier Carthaginian citizens, armed in the fashion of hoplites and stationed on the larger and more valuable Carthaginian ships. No true historical account, but for variety's sake and not unlikely.
- New unit for Carthage: "Phoenician Archers". Citizens trained as archers and employed in the navy. Based on accounts from the war between Carthage and Syracuse, where Carthaginian crews are described as shooting arrows at the greeks.
- For now, you will only see these new units as crews on your ships in naval battles.
Naval combat changes:
- Ship stats reworked: reduced the turn rate for some ships to be more realistic.
- Larger ships have had their hull points increased significantly, making them very resistant to ramming from smaller ships.
- Note: Ships being unable to move and unresponsive to orders after getting rammed is bug/mechanic within the game that I cannot change
Naval boarding completely reworked:
- Boarding is far riskier. Killing the enemy crew takes much, much longer now, and thus leaves the boarding ship vulnerable to ramming or allies/enemies joining in the boarding for an extended duration.
- Larger ships carry more soldiers, smaller ships carry less. No longer can you overtake a Carthaginian septireme with a single Roman trireme. The number of soldiers on the ships is based on historical examples where available. Romans have a large advantage in boarding because they pack on average 10-20% more soldiers on their ships than the other nations.
Note: Initiating boarding itself is still as ridiculously easy as before, this is not something I can change.Note2: The boarding changes have only been implemented for the Roman and Carthaginian navies for this release.
Known issues:
- Some ships with melee-orientated crews are listed under the "missile" category in custom battles and vice versa.
- Roman and Carthaginian ships have a massive advantage (in boarding only) vs ships from the other nations.
Version 1.2 changelog:
Missile changes:
- Further tweaked missile stats for more realistic ranged combat. Slings, arrows and javelins were nerfed too much in my original version. Now they have regained some killing power though they still are nowhere near as deadly as in the vanilla game.
Version 1.0 changelog:
Naval Changes:
- All ships have realistic speeds and turning radius, painstakingly tested by taking the ingame quinquereme as a measurement tape, as we know the length of those was around 45 meters.
- The historical speeds are slightly lower than those in the vanilla game but turn radius and acceleration for smaller ships is significantly higher. For example, the Trireme now has a turning circle of around 65 meters without loosing (much) speed, just like the reconstructed trireme Olympias managed. Overall the naval battles are more dynamic, with smaller ships being able to outmaneuver bigger ones. Ships breaking through the line and getting into the rear of a fleet can do some serious damage.
- All ships have had their mass updated to their historical mass, in most cases that means they are now heavier.
- Ramming is now significantly more effective.
- Transport ships have been greatly reduced in potency. They are still potentially dangerous, but slower and much more vulnerable to ramming.
- Boarding has been reduced in effectiveness. Attacking an enemy ship results in a temporary penalty for the attacker, and this combined with the general killing power changes described later means boarding takes a fair bit longer, leaving boarding ships open for ramming longer.
- Ship-based onagers have been significantly reduced in power. Ballistae have remained unchanged.
Land changes:
- Updated all units to have realistic speeds by painstakingly recording units marching a set distance, and adjusting their speed until their km/h was inline with true human capabilities.
- Exhaustion slightly tweaked. Walking tires units but very slowly (in the vanilla game, units actually rest while walking...) running and charging tires units more than in vanilla.
- Updated all projectile weapons (bows/arrows/javelins) to have their historical effective range. For bows this lies between 135 and 170 meters (depending on which bow) Slingers have roughly the same (well, slightly more) range as archers, unless they use lead bullets in which case they significantly increase their range. The range of slingers lies between 150 and 200 meters. For javelins its around 60 meters, and roman pila 30.
- Bow, javelin and slinger damage and accuracy has been tweaked.
- Morale has been tweaked. Units will not route quite so fast, and will hold a line much longer than in vanilla. However your units will still route when things truly go wrong.
- Melee casualties have been reduced. No longer will half your unit be wiped out after two seconds of combat. Your soldiers will still die, but it is no longer the slaughter from vanilla.
Misc:
- Changed the battle camera to allow further zooming in and out.
Enjoy!
To install: unrar and put the file in your Rome2/data folder. Launch with the mod manager.
Note as of version 1.3 I no longer provide a ship-changes only version of my mod. The mod has become too complex, and there are simply too many interconnecting changes.
Download version 1.5 here: http://www.fileswap.com/dl/pS00Bvgyae/
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Originally Posted by TheSunEmperor
