DogSoldier's Combatus Maximus Mod - Patch 7 Compatible! Automatically Updated Through Steam! ( 15/11/13)

[baton1990]

Hellow DogSoldier, thanks for mod, it is quite nice , I wish you finish it well. In my opinion units need more low morale, it seems not realistic when unit fight till last soldier, but once more... it just my opinion. Thank you. Sorry for my bad english.

[DogSoldierSPQR]

Yes solve part of the problem, thank you.
Honestly I don't like so much they slow down suddently when they charge but for now is not bad until CA solves the many battle cohesion bugs.
In vanilla too fights became messy especially during big battles and animations often are out of sync. We need more cohesion and better synchronization. I notice in vanilla too many times I see soldiers jump back litterally fly away then come back, they make strange moves.
CA must really solve these problems.

Actually I play this game only thanks to the modders, withouth any mods this game Is not enjoyable for me.
AI sucks, battles sucks, campaign sucks, so at least CA must fix the damned animations.

Yeah, it's a trade-off I can't say I like much. However, when these units do actually get into the correction formations when fighting, their efficiency goes up a lot. I have a few more tricks that need to be implemented and tested but I am not sure what action to take here, to be honest. Should I keep it the way it is or just reduce the running speed so it matches?
Like I said though, I have a few more things to test to completely rule them out. I have faith but not sure how much at this current stage. I do think we are limited at our current stage until CA can sort it out a little more. I have faith that CA can do it, it's just that I'm not sure I can find a temporary fix that can hold us out until then. As usual though, I will keep looking and testing.

It's reassuring to me that these problems happen in vanilla too. That tells me that it's not just my mod messing things up. Personally, I would love my charge speeds mixed with Vanilla's cohesion but some serious luck must be found to get that combo together nicely.

Hellow DogSoldier, thanks for mod, it is quite nice , I wish you finish it well. In my opinion units need more low morale, it seems not realistic when unit fight till last soldier, but once more... it just my opinion. Thank you. Sorry for my bad english.

Hi, mate. Your opinion, just like anyone else's, is always appreciated
What other mods are you using at the same time as mine? One thing you must remember is that there are "moral shocks" in my mod. They occur if you do a nice rear charge or flank from the left or right. Straight up combat from the front will always take forever and units will only route if they go very low in number then. If you want to trigger a route, you must surround a unit or be prepared to fight it until it has low numbers.
There should not be any soldiers fighting until death. The only units who fight until death are the highest elite units of a faction and my designated "Berserker" units. However, you must remember that a few missile units have mistakenly been given very high morale points by accident and I have yet to take it away from them. They're harmless in melee so it don't matter haha

[krebbel84]

So i tested several pike formations against 1 troop of peltasts(javelins). After all the ammunition was spent, levies had 7 casualties, pikemen had 3 and foot companions none. I think thats a good balancing, thinking that the pike phalanx had good missile defence but not as good as a testudo.

[DogSoldierSPQR]

So i tested several pike formations against 1 troop of peltasts(javelins). After all the ammunition was spent, levies had 7 casualties, pikemen had 3 and foot companions none. I think thats a good balancing, thinking that the pike phalanx had good missile defence but not as good as a testudo.

Thanks for testing it out for me. I appreciate it. I'm glad you like it. Personally, I do think that's a good balance for it as well. We don't want them being a complete pain from the front so it's only right that a few do die from the front as they don't exactly have the biggest shields either. Anything else you think needs some balancing in your opinion?

[Vinushka]

Wow, dude. I don't know what you did, but this first custom battle I did was the first time playing this game that I actually felt like I was controlling Romans in battle. I approached what was 2 Peltasts and 2 Macedonian archer units to test the Attacking Testudo durability. To my surprise I stood there for like a good minute and didn't suffer a single casualty in the three frontline units. My only issue with that is that while yeah they should be fairly impervious to most arrows in testudo, the Peltasts should've been racking up some kills and at a decent pace. I'm solely basing that on the fact those javelins getting lodged in their shields, or piercing the shield and their arm would've pretty much taken guys out of the fight regardless of distance. Either their shield arm would be wrecked, or their shield would be pinned down to the floor until they dislodged the javelin (Which nobody is gonna' wait for you to do mid battle.)

I was surprised even further when the missile enemies realized they weren't harming me, and actually started getting closer to me in small increments and then flat out charging me. It's like they said "This isn't working! CHARGE!" Rofl. The frontline Testudo actually held the formation on attack command with one click. Something I don't see often with most battle mods. What was even better was they collided with the enemy, and didn't squeeze in between them and get stuck there, they actually hit into them, then formed back up in a block with only the front ranks assaulting. I saw some random guys on the sides fighting off sneaky enemies but 90% of the fighting stayed infront of the first ranks. That was very important to me and worked like a charm. What was really cool was that when I would move a unit around the back of a macedonian unit already fighting one of my units, I'd have an actual block sandwich rather than a giant cluster ball. That was amazing. I'd literally watch my Praetorian Guard on one side and my Legionary unit on the other in perfect rectangles (Shield Walls) just squishing the Macedonian unit from both sides as if putting them through a gauntlet of death, but not invading their personal space, and killing off guys little by little. It felt more organized than anything I'd ever seen in this game yet. Furthermore, I believe because there was less space invading and clipping, my framerate seemed to be higher in combat, along with my GPU core usage. (Probably yet another massive flaw in the engine of this game,) but one you seem to do a good job of avoiding.

As for what truly blew my mind...and this is my first time ever noticing this, was when I saw 3 Roman soldiers ganging up on a single enemy soldier. It literally made me go into a frenzy like "GANGBANG HIS ASS!!!" I'd see two romans swinging blades at this one Macedonian Shield Bearer literally half a second behind one another like they were working together to combo him, and the Macedonian is parrying with his shield while stepping back after each hit, trying to get the hell away from them. It would happen in multiple fronts with 2-3 Romans attacking one Macedonian and the little mini fights looked so seamless. I don't know how you did that, but it's not something I've ever seen with any other battle mod or bundle of mods and I've used a lot of them if not all the major ones. That literally made me love this mod above all right that instant. It felt like Shogun 2 combat but much quicker and for the first time I thought. I wonder if maybe changes you made to killrates are so perfectly low that it allows for that. Maybe others have too quick a killrate, or altered the wrong stats to slow it down? Or is this some ninja change in Patch 4 Live that only seems to show through with your mod rather than the others? Either way it was incredible.

My only concerns were that I saw the hyper speed shuffling that's been happening since Patch 4 still, but I know that's not your fault. That just happens to anyone who has their units keep formations in their battle mods after Patch 4. It wasn't as rampant as I've seen it in other formation mods though and seemed to only happen when I moved my camera away from a fight to another sector, and then looked back at the previous one. The second thing was that I kinda worry that because you slowed down the charge momentum to keep the formations, units like Elephants and Chariots won't rightfully send dudes flying and kill them. The cavalry charges didn't seem to kill much with my General's Bodyguard unit except for archers, hence why I bring it up. However, they held their own in combat and only lost a single man throughout the entire battle, even when charging Macedonian Shield Bearers in the back and were able to disengage and charge many times. I would just notice one or two horses get stuck inside the ranks of the Shield Bearers sometimes when I was spamming them to retreat (probably unavoidable due to horse size vs unit spacing.) I suppose it doesn't matter if they don't send guys flying to their deaths so long as they run people over and kill them where they stand. My last concern is that Romans are going to be even more disgustingly OP compared to like Barbarians and Greeks due to these changes, but I'll do some campaign testing to see if that's the case. Overall, I'm extremely impressed and I'm definitely keeping track of your work from now on. This is the only battle mod that does it for me since Patch 4 so I'm gonna' play the hell out of it until the next major patch at the very least. Awesome work.

[Vinushka]

Crap. Forgot to mention I was using The 1.6 Experimental Mod Manager version when I tested it out. The only other mods I was using are purely texture or color based. Sidenote: Why the hell isn't there a edit post option on this forum? Lol

[DogSoldierSPQR]

Wow, dude. I don't know what you did, but this first custom battle I did was the first time playing this game that I actually felt like I was controlling Romans in battle. I approached what was 2 Peltasts and 2 Macedonian archer units to test the Attacking Testudo durability. To my surprise I stood there for like a good minute and didn't suffer a single casualty in the three frontline units. My only issue with that is that while yeah they should be fairly impervious to most arrows in testudo, the Peltasts should've been racking up some kills and at a decent pace. I'm solely basing that on the fact those javelins getting lodged in their shields, or piercing the shield and their arm would've pretty much taken guys out of the fight regardless of distance. Either their shield arm would be wrecked, or their shield would be pinned down to the floor until they dislodged the javelin (Which nobody is gonna' wait for you to do mid battle.)

I was surprised even further when the missile enemies realized they weren't harming me, and actually started getting closer to me in small increments and then flat out charging me. It's like they said "This isn't working! CHARGE!" Rofl. The frontline Testudo actually held the formation on attack command with one click. Something I don't see often with most battle mods. What was even better was they collided with the enemy, and didn't squeeze in between them and get stuck there, they actually hit into them, then formed back up in a block with only the front ranks assaulting. I saw some random guys on the sides fighting off sneaky enemies but 90% of the fighting stayed infront of the first ranks. That was very important to me and worked like a charm. What was really cool was that when I would move a unit around the back of a macedonian unit already fighting one of my units, I'd have an actual block sandwich rather than a giant cluster ball. That was amazing. I'd literally watch my Praetorian Guard on one side and my Legionary unit on the other in perfect rectangles (Shield Walls) just squishing the Macedonian unit from both sides as if putting them through a gauntlet of death, but not invading their personal space, and killing off guys little by little. It felt more organized than anything I'd ever seen in this game yet. Furthermore, I believe because there was less space invading and clipping, my framerate seemed to be higher in combat, along with my GPU core usage. (Probably yet another massive flaw in the engine of this game,) but one you seem to do a good job of avoiding.

As for what truly blew my mind...and this is my first time ever noticing this, was when I saw 3 Roman soldiers ganging up on a single enemy soldier. It literally made me go into a frenzy like "GANGBANG HIS ASS!!!" I'd see two romans swinging blades at this one Macedonian Shield Bearer literally half a second behind one another like they were working together to combo him, and the Macedonian is parrying with his shield while stepping back after each hit, trying to get the hell away from them. It would happen in multiple fronts with 2-3 Romans attacking one Macedonian and the little mini fights looked so seamless. I don't know how you did that, but it's not something I've ever seen with any other battle mod or bundle of mods and I've used a lot of them if not all the major ones. That literally made me love this mod above all right that instant. It felt like Shogun 2 combat but much quicker and for the first time I thought. I wonder if maybe changes you made to killrates are so perfectly low that it allows for that. Maybe others have too quick a killrate, or altered the wrong stats to slow it down? Or is this some ninja change in Patch 4 Live that only seems to show through with your mod rather than the others? Either way it was incredible.

My only concerns were that I saw the hyper speed shuffling that's been happening since Patch 4 still, but I know that's not your fault. That just happens to anyone who has their units keep formations in their battle mods after Patch 4. It wasn't as rampant as I've seen it in other formation mods though and seemed to only happen when I moved my camera away from a fight to another sector, and then looked back at the previous one. The second thing was that I kinda worry that because you slowed down the charge momentum to keep the formations, units like Elephants and Chariots won't rightfully send dudes flying and kill them. The cavalry charges didn't seem to kill much with my General's Bodyguard unit except for archers, hence why I bring it up. However, they held their own in combat and only lost a single man throughout the entire battle, even when charging Macedonian Shield Bearers in the back and were able to disengage and charge many times. I would just notice one or two horses get stuck inside the ranks of the Shield Bearers sometimes when I was spamming them to retreat (probably unavoidable due to horse size vs unit spacing.) I suppose it doesn't matter if they don't send guys flying to their deaths so long as they run people over and kill them where they stand. My last concern is that Romans are going to be even more disgustingly OP compared to like Barbarians and Greeks due to these changes, but I'll do some campaign testing to see if that's the case. Overall, I'm extremely impressed and I'm definitely keeping track of your work from now on. This is the only battle mod that does it for me since Patch 4 so I'm gonna' play the hell out of it until the next major patch at the very least. Awesome work.

Yeah, in my mod I really put an emphasis on missile warfare. I tried to get the perfect match but that was a journey all by itself. It's very hard to find a nice balance so I've left it where it is right now. There's no way to properly get those few kills that those javelins would inflict without them getting carried away and start chopping the unit in half. To be honest, it was either let the missiles destroy the unit or let the Testudo and shield give badass protection. However, missile fire very close will do some damage and you'll suffer a few casualties to replicate the velocity they do travel at.

Haha I can relate to that bit. In all of my tests, the missile units have always charged me when they never got the desired result and somehow thought they could achieve it with their butter-knives haha. They just crashed into my shield wall and got demolished. The formations in my mod have been given lots of stats which allows them to be very formidable from the front. I think the main feature has to be the "bracing". I amped it up like mad and now units will absorb charges perfectly from the front if they are in any formation and will actually inflict some starting casualties on the chargers. I hated how formations were ripped apart by charges so really worked on this bit, but you need a formation like Shield Wall, defensive Testudo or shield screen to be really effective against charges. Yeah, from the previous discussions above, you could see that I really put an emphasis on getting enemies to fight in formation straight out of a charge. It works a lot but you see regular problems which are on CA's end. Soldiers themselves sometimes don't even know how to get back into formation so it don't work all the time but I've tried my best to get soldiers to come back out and into formation as they should. It helps give them those formation attack bonuses which they need against a lot of unorganised enemies.

Haha Yeah, we can see more of that when formation attack starts working properly. When units don't blob up and every stays coordinated, you can see cut off enemies being surrounded by the defenders and it does look funny haha Also, more of this happens because I've drastically reduced the kill speed so soldiers get to do a lot more things and you see things like this occurring much more often. Things like this and down to the game's coding and how the soldiers themselves act under situations like this but my mod brings this out because I'm amped up the stats, made the combat longer, things are more organised etc. My mod literally gives the soldiers the time they need to even get into these situations without just getting slaughtered instantly like vanilla. Yeah, all units were given much more higher hit-points which means they take longer to die, effectively giving you more tactical time and also just more time in general to just watch everything play out and you can observe many animations in the process too. Nah, nah, the longer combat time is solely on my end. I tweaked the stats and made sure everyone lives longer than usual to get these epic battles.

That shuffling needs to be gone now haha It's spoiling shizzle for me and I can't focus when I see it. It really takes away from the experience. I see your point on this part. Yeah, I had to turn things down so that soldiers fight in formation and sadly there are consequences for doing so, like less visually-appealing charges but for now, it's got to be this way. I am working on another version right now and a kind person has pointed me in a specific direction and I'm trying to get something. I'm seeing some good results with faster charges but still unreliable at times. I'm weighing up whether I should release this is as an experiment or do more further testing. It's the same old shuffling destroying things as usual.

There are still a few balances to be done with cavalry and such. It's hard to completely make them balanced but I'm working on them. Those kind of charges are long-term in my eyes. It would be impossible to quickly balance them but tweaks are always made. One could say Romans are overpowered in a way, but it's due to melee skill, it's more down to their armour. It takes longer to crack. I've lost entire Roman units from flank attacks which are a significant feature in my mods. The effects of charges on flanks are currently lower than usual at this point in time but hopefully I can make some magic work on my end and give you a better version real soon. Hopefully creative assembly fixes this shuffling problem which is spoiling everything.

I'm really glad you liked my mod, mate. It means a lot and you should definitely stay tuned for more important updates. Cheers, pal.

1.6 Experimental noted. Should never be any conflicts with texture based mods. Only combat related stuff. Glad you're enjoying this, mate.

[Vinushka]

Yeah, I'm definitely enjoying it. Just now I was trying to go into the morale tables though and possibly raise the penalties for like 80, 90 casualties to the unit so that they'll route around when they get down to 30-35 or so soldiers per unit if they're losing decisively (I generally play on Large Unit size so 30-35 is about 25% of my full 120 per unit. Even 20-25 would be cool with me though if they routed at that moment while getting crushed or surrounded. There's so many different casualty entries for Morale though that it's kind of confusing. It also seemed to change the outcome of the battle when i changed the morale tables a little to match Radious' battle mod. For instance, I'd watch the replay of the battle I described to you, and a few guys actually died to archers while approaching in Attacking Testudo at max range. Also the missile units didn't charge me. They were like F that, we're staying back here and killing you guys. So my battle was totally different and out of whack. It ended up looking really sloppy on my end.

After that, I'm not even gonna' try to mess with your original settings. I'll just use it as is. I can definitely believe the javelin damage is tricky to get if a mere slight alteration of morale based on casualties can cause an entire battle to play out differently. I especially noticed looking around at the missile tables that there's like 8 different kinds of javelins from like pilum, wood, iron to a whole bunch of other kinds. Only two of them have 15 AP though -- the pilum and something called "Prec." If they do more dmg up close though like you describe, that's perfectly cool with me. I remember a lot of Shogun 2 and Empire mods doing that for the riflemen and it worked out awesome despite how damn slow some of them would aim and fire.

I'm curious though, do you use any kind of like custom unit packs like Radious' Units with this mod? I was thinking about trying his AI mod + Economy/Research mod with your battle mod and his unit packs. I don't see any conflicts on the Pack Manager so I figure it okay. The unit damage and armor values seem to be inline with the default units too.

[DogSoldierSPQR]

Second Experimental Version Added, guys! Check it out.

Yeah, I'm definitely enjoying it. Just now I was trying to go into the morale tables though and possibly raise the penalties for like 80, 90 casualties to the unit so that they'll route around when they get down to 30-35 or so soldiers per unit if they're losing decisively (I generally play on Large Unit size so 30-35 is about 25% of my full 120 per unit. Even 20-25 would be cool with me though if they routed at that moment while getting crushed or surrounded. There's so many different casualty entries for Morale though that it's kind of confusing. It also seemed to change the outcome of the battle when i changed the morale tables a little to match Radious' battle mod. For instance, I'd watch the replay of the battle I described to you, and a few guys actually died to archers while approaching in Attacking Testudo at max range. Also the missile units didn't charge me. They were like F that, we're staying back here and killing you guys. So my battle was totally different and out of whack. It ended up looking really sloppy on my end.

After that, I'm not even gonna' try to mess with your original settings. I'll just use it as is. I can definitely believe the javelin damage is tricky to get if a mere slight alteration of morale based on casualties can cause an entire battle to play out differently. I especially noticed looking around at the missile tables that there's like 8 different kinds of javelins from like pilum, wood, iron to a whole bunch of other kinds. Only two of them have 15 AP though -- the pilum and something called "Prec." If they do more dmg up close though like you describe, that's perfectly cool with me. I remember a lot of Shogun 2 and Empire mods doing that for the riflemen and it worked out awesome despite how damn slow some of them would aim and fire.

I'm curious though, do you use any kind of like custom unit packs like Radious' Units with this mod? I was thinking about trying his AI mod + Economy/Research mod with your battle mod and his unit packs. I don't see any conflicts on the Pack Manager so I figure it okay. The unit damage and armor values seem to be inline with the default units too.

I'm glad you're enjoying my mod, mate. I really like knowing that these hours are well spent.

Trust me, these numbers can get confusing and are very daunting when you first look at them. You really have to sit there and look at them and just cast your mind back to your memories of playing vanilla to get an idea as to what these numbers do. However, you must remember that in a way, some bigger that others, that most of these numbers are linked. When it comes to making a mod, you must have a picture in your head as to how you want your mod to play out and everything must be tweaked accordingly. Any random numbers being inserted will give you some weird results if they are not aimed at something specific. The way to get the best results is to just make one little tweak and then instantly save and play the game, load up a custom battle and see what's what. If you make a massive tweak, like any number larger than 10 or 15, you won't be able to understand the change. In certain fields, changing the number by just a few points has a massive effect while anything that goes above 10 slowly have their effect phase out. Best to start small, mate.

Yeah, the Javelin bit is different. Those two javelins you see are the infantry javelins which the Romans and any other infantry have. They have different stats because they are used differently and they are, in a way, meant to be dangerous, so their stats have been increased. You might think their javelins look OP to the rest but they're really not. As skirmisher javelins come in larger quantities, their damage is applied with the more javelins they fire, whereas the infantry need to pack some good power with as fewer javelins as possible. Especially since CA have now only made the front rank throw their stuff. These fields took a few days of constant testing to get right. One digit above and below and you won't know what kind of result you'll get.

I have plans to make my own unit packs in the very distant future when I can afford some equipment, but not currently. I'm just replacing equipment on certain soldiers and giving them my own look with the kit that CA has given the soldiers etc. I don't use anybody else's mod as I have to be careful about what goes into mine as quite a bit of trouble would kick off if anyone found someone else's stuff in mine. For anyone's content I did use, I always put a note and credits way up higher in the OP to let everyone know and I ask for permission beforehand.

[FabioCorr]

Hi Dog thanks for the new combat experimental mod I'll try soon. "ring around a rosie" XD.
Tested the new experimental combat, is a little better they still doing a lot of mess but better then before.


Dog can you disable the special abilities?
They are only unrealistic and after use an ability the unit get tired.
Often AI units are tired for this reason.



Just a question, is possible to modified AI formations?
In rome1 years ago I have done a mod myself about this. Basically I changed the max units AI can have in a line.
Now you see 8 and more units in a single line, I've forced AI to have formation with max 5 units in the first line.
a 5-5-5 formation, much more reservers behind.
Now this help AI much to win fights becouse become more compact and use more reserves. It's really simple and effective but I don't know if in rome2 is possible to change these stats anymore

[DogSoldierSPQR]

Hi Dog thanks for the new combat experimental mod I'll try soon. "ring around a rosie" XD.
Tested the new experimental combat, is a little better they still doing a lot of mess but better then before.


Dog can you disable the special abilities?
They are only unrealistic and after use an ability the unit get tired.
Often AI units are tired for this reason.



Just a question, is possible to modified AI formations?
In rome1 years ago I have done a mod myself about this. Basically I changed the max units AI can have in a line.
Now you see 8 and more units in a single line, I've forced AI to have formation with max 5 units in the first line.
a 5-5-5 formation, much more reservers behind.
Now this help AI much to win fights becouse become more compact and use more reserves. It's really simple and effective but I don't know if in rome2 is possible to change these stats anymore

Thanks for testing it out. As long as they are doing better than last time, it's an improvement and I can think I last with it the way it is until CA fix it. I'll always look into newer ways but not sure how much I can really do now without a fix of some kind by CA.

Special Abilities? I was under the impression that I already did that. It's definitely been removed from the second experimental version. What special abilities are you seeing? I may have missed some from a different field but I've taken out all the ones I can see. No more headhunting etc.

I have looked at this formation field myself but I really am not sure. I saw a field which had a list of formations but not anything about changing the formations into custom ones etc. Maybe somebody may have some information about this but I personally do not know. I'll have a look but I really am not sure about this one.

[FabioCorr]

Yes man sorry my fault. I have tried your experimental mods, I 've done some tests then I realize I don't remember to put the mod again in the data folder I thought there was something wrong in the new experimental version and I was playng with vanilla combat. So that's why I saw special abilities again.

Dog can you do something about the AI units always run? They never walk.
It's a vanilla problem.
In rome1 they walk and they run only for charge or flanking, in rome2 I never see a single AI unit marching. Even if they have to run for 10.000 miles they still running.

[Vinushka]

I tested the new Experimental Second version and didn't like it. It seems the battles go by a lot quicker now. It also seems like there's problems with the unit spacing compared to the first experimental one I tried because I'm seeing Arverni units engulf my romans the instant we charge each other. Like their men wrap around both sides of my unit and it's just disastrous. It's even worse if they catch me in Testudo and then the guys start bouncing all over the place at lightning speed because I guess they're trying to fight while being mashed together by a bunch of crazy Celts.

I wouldn't sweat it though until at least Patch 5 comes out. Maybe they'll fix the cohesion/spacing/spazz mode units with that.

[DogSoldierSPQR]

I can't do nothing about the AI's preference on movement speeds. We do not actually have direct access to the game's AI at it raw basic form. That is all on CA's end.

The reason the battles go by quicker is because I've decreased the hit points on the units themselves. It just means they take fewer hits before they die. It's just to test it out and see what you guys think.

The reason the Arverni wrap around units is because they're barbarian units and they have been programmed to do that. If you're line hasn't be extended long enough, which formations don't do so well, then you'll see your guys get wrapped around by barbarians. However, if you charge with a long straight line, you should see equal man to man fighting without no envelopments.

[FabioCorr]

Thank you for reduce the damage of scorpion tower too. In vanilla is ridiculously overpowered and accurate also has infinite ammo. A scorpion tower can destroy an entire army in 1 minute, this is not only unrealistic but it completly destroy gameplay and fun.
I think maybe you should also reduce a little the accuracy for more realism.
I don't think is realistic a scorpion have the accuracy of a modern sniper rifle.
But anyway it's already much better then vanilla. Now the scorpion tower kills 1 man or 2 not 10 with one shot and has less kill rate so thank you very much.

After some tests, I can say for sure the better version for now is the slower charge becouse is like the original version only with reduced charge speed, in the second experimental version you reduce hit points so they die faster.
Also there is much more cohesion during battle with the slow charge version.
I don't care if they slow down during charge if the result is better.

Actually you solve a vanilla cohesion bug. Becouse even in vanilla when 2 units charge each other, some men go everywhere without maintain formation, with this slow charge they remain more compact after the charge impact.
So this is a vanilla bug. With your original version we see this messy cohesion effect much more noticeable becouse they have a more powerfull charge then vanilla, but this cohesion problem is in vanilla not a mod bug.

So definitely I use the first experimental version slower charge.
Thank you again.

[pingpong444]

Hello Dogsoldier I want to tell you that your mod give me the best combat experience in Rome2 but can you increase ammunition for missile units so they can be more useful and in custom battle Hillmen defence is still 0 that make them get killed alot.

[DogSoldierSPQR]

Hello Dogsoldier I want to tell you that your mod give me the best combat experience in Rome2 but can you increase ammunition for missile units so they can be more useful and in custom battle Hillmen defence is still 0 that make them get killed alot.

Thanks, mate. I'm glad you like my mod.

Do not worry one bit. When 1.7 lands, there will be multiple variants that will cater to every kind of taste. If there isn't, a simple request will have my on my way to create one for you
Like in previous versions, there will be a missile version which has more ammunition.

[pingpong444]

Wow that's awesome.Can't wait to see your work on the new faction(seleucid?) releasing to day.

[DogSoldierSPQR]

Wow that's awesome.Can't wait to see your work on the new faction(seleucid?) releasing to day.

If Creative Assembly have released fields that are specific to the Seleucids, more units etc. I'll have to edit the mod again and re-do with the new features etc.
At this point in time, it is pretty difficult to make a mod because any changes you make have to be re-done whenever there is a patch so I'm trying to do as little as possible otherwise the workload would be too much for me. Right now, I don't even know if this latest version is compatible with Patch 5. I'll know shortly.

NOTICE: If your game crashes with patch 5 and you have this mod, it's because it's most likely not compatible. You'll have to wait for an updated version from me. I hate these lol

But yeah, for every full version of my mod, there will be variants. If there ain't, it's because the full version hasn't been released yet, mate.

[FabioCorr]

Hi DogSoldier I just want say with patch5 they finally seem to fix ranged troops. Now from a front attack shields work and offer a good defence, from rear you lose much more men. And testudo finally works. Slingers are less lethal but still overpowered compared to javelins and arrows. This is annoying. But now is much better, they come back with rome1 features.

Same test in vanilla patch4: cohort vs arrows, cohort vs javelins, cohort vs slingers
Result :cohort always rout.

Vanilla patch5 frontal attack nobody died vs arrows and javelins, slingers insted kill 30 men but still much better then patch4. With testudo on they kill about 15 men.

From a frontal attack rise up shields is enough if you want defence better the sides now testudo is a good choise. So I think these are great improvements. But this slingers are a nightmare, still overpowered.

Attacking the cohort sides and rear result in more casualties.

Hope this information can help you with the new version of your mod.

Bye and thanks.