Ars Gratia Artis - Complete Battle Overhaul, v2.7.2 - Patch 7 ready (updated 15/11/13)

[est Dudus]

Best MOD!!!!! You have saved the game my friend!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Selea]

Best MOD!!!!! You have saved the game my friend!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

LOL.

The game is there, it is just that certain design decisions of CA are a bit.... how to call them... odd. I don't know why they decided to so drastically change certain things that worked perfectly and were balanced (more or less) in the previous games.

Anyway, tomorrow I will add also some visual candy to the mod (coming from some of the best re-textures mods out there) and then I will start to tailor a little naval battles.

[Eagle114th]

Hello Selea,

I am so glad to see your mod actually start expanding! I was hoping to see that after using your improved armor and cavalry mods! I am so excited to see how your mod will keep growing. I have some idea for you for your future plan of your mod after you re-balanced factions units:

1) Add new units to your mod - There are different mods that adds new units to specific factions, you could consider adding them to your mods (With different modder's permissions), especially with your new formula of combat experiences in RTW II.

2) Update any units with new colors - Many of units are lacking of colors and patterns on their equipment/armor/shields. And as mentioned above, with author permissions of new textures/colors for each factions, you could apply them into your expanding mod.

3) Improved fleet - Rebalance and fix ships to give them more realistic experiences. Have each ships having their mass/speed/turning abilities being reformatted like you did with weapons/armour/cavalry.

[Selea]

Hello Selea,
1) Add new units to your mod - There are different mods that adds new units to specific factions, you could consider adding them to your mods (With different modder's permissions), especially with your new formula of combat experiences in RTW II.

IMO that's the last thing that needs to be done. It's true, more units are a good thing but the urge to add new units to many battle mods out there is what, in the end, turn them so unbalanced. Before you know exactly what you can replace/add and in which way you just risk of doing even more of a mess on balance than before.

I want to first focus on vanilla units so that all factions are balanced (in strengths/weaknesses) one with another (apart some cases where some factions must be a little weaker) THEN when this is done I can safely add/replace units because I know perfectly at that point the stats to give.

Many of the unit packs out there are completely unbalanced and they make the game balance more of a mess than it already is. They are good to look at and fun to play with but with this mod I want to focus primarily on a balanced experience.

2) Update any units with new colors - Many of units are lacking of colors and patterns on their equipment/armor/shields. And as mentioned above, with author permissions of new textures/colors for each factions, you could apply them into your expanding mod.

Ok, thanks, I will see to add new colors/textures to units with the permission of other mods' authors in the future.

3) Improved fleet - Rebalance and fix ships to give them more realistic experiences. Have each ships having their mass/speed/turning abilities being reformatted like you did with weapons/armour/cavalry.

This is a thing I already planned to do. I kept it back because personally I'm not a lover of naval battles so I focused before on land units, but naturally this point is a very important aspect of a battle mod so I will certainly work on it.

[Eagle114th]

Selea,

Thank you very much for replying to my posts! And about your answers to my suggestion #1 about adding new units, I agree with you wholeheartedly... In my opinion, you made so wise choices! Imagine the factions being completely balanced in your ways, it will become much easier to add new units where you can simply 'balance', along with already well balanced all faction's units in RTW II.

However, I am so glad to read that you will apply unique colors/patterns to each factions, that will make each factions feel more unique to play with! And about ships, you could contact one of author who made realistic ships mods and get idea how they balanced the ships as inspiration or do you have your own idea of how to re-balance ships in your own formula?

[Volderz]

Hello Selea,

[Volderz]

Hello Selea,testing ur mod and i do find javlin men are realy op, just had a battle and i had 2 of them and they killed each around 300men ... but so far i do like ur mod(its a pain for me to type here in twcenter )

[Selea]

@Eagle114th:

Probably I will take a look at what other mods that balance ships do to form my opinion and then do my own changes.

@Volderz:

I will take a look into it. I wanted to make Javelins more powerful than arrows but maybe I exaggerated. I will make some quick tests and then will balance them further.

Thanks for your feedback.

[Master Necromancer]

I will take a look into it. I wanted to make Javelins more powerful than arrows but maybe I exaggerated. I will make some quick tests and then will balance them further.

Thanks for your feedback.

I would actually recommend making javelins even more powerful but drastically lowering their ammo to 5 or 6, that would make them a tactical unit and a good elephant killer as it should be.

[Socktu]

Testing out the mod currently, of course Radious, Silven and other prominent combat mods are very well made and pieced together, but I'm starting to grow on this one more. Especially the fine tuning and cohesion of units, particularly the disciplined manners of trained, professional troops and the more ruthless and uncouth warriors of the barbarian tribes. Of course, this mod is just newborn and so is the game, so I expect it to grow into something tenfold better than it already is. Thanks, Selea enjoying the ride all the way at the moment and having fun playing Arveni with this mod.

Can't wait till you really pack on the bulk to this mod and lastly the frosting/flavors.

[Sir_Pee_Alot]

This is what im going to give a try mate. keep on going!

[Sir_Pee_Alot]

Double post.. but i wil give some feedback soon

[Master Necromancer]

I have installed the "Play all factions mod" and some cavalry units have the shield wall ability, that is just wrong and completely illogical. Could you remove that from the cavalry?

[Selea]

I have installed the "Play all factions mod" and some cavalry units have the shield wall ability, that is just wrong and completely illogical. Could you remove that from the cavalry?

I will look into it but sincerely I don't know where the hidden (the ones only played by the AI) factions units and parameters are situated.

Using that mod is a two edged sword. If you play with some faction that is supported to be actually played with (as Seleucid) then it's all fine but if you play with others that shouldn't be played with there are all sorts of troubles. This is one of them. I actually don't think that the AI can use Shield Wall with cavalry no matter if using that mod it shows so.

[Socktu]

I agree with Master Necromancer, it'd be logical to have javelins do the most powerful damage ranged wise and have high piercing damage to act as a more tactical unit. Like say two units are engaged, equally matched swordsmen or something and the fight is fierce. However, side 1 calls in their javelin men to the field and hurls most of their load at side 2 dealing a good moderate/heavy blow depending the unit and circumstances/statistics. Also slaying elephants would be nice too, since they're hard to bring down and some javelin men would be a good deterrent.

It makes more sense as well with ammunition being very sparse, since y'know, a human being can't carry a pack mule load of javelins on their own.



Other than that, damn am I enjoying this mod and I'm sure other users are too! Could you give us a little more insight on what you may be doing after you balance the naval combat? I was thinking you could make the AI more smarter in sieges, like I noticed they could've built those mobile wooden shields to press on against a wall, and to prevent scalding oil pots from pouring onto them. Instead I saw men bravely and blindly charge through flesh-stripping amounts of boiling oil to achieve ground beyond my gates. And maybe give some of the AI more strategies in a siege?

Say they're penetrating one side of my walls already and have a good chunk of ground, but are slowly being expelled out from the city/fort/town but they opt to send a division on another gate and press through where my forces aren't diverted or most weak and then flank me? I noticed AI tend to hug only one gate in a siege offense unless it comes from reinforcements but even then they just encompass the city for awhile then go to where the main force is.

[Master Necromancer]

Wow, another update.

Will download post haste, and hope you implement this little javelin idea.

P.S. Really can't believe I haven't reped you yet, here have some. +rep

[BigEl_nobody]

I completely agree with Master Necromancer here in case of the Javelins. Just seems stupid to me when Javelinmen have long drawn out fights where hundreds of Spears fly trough the air and a couple of them able to kill a man???
Their ammunition should be reduced drastically, in Rome 1 they seemed fine to me having 4 -5 charges.

But to balance them properly I would suggest to make Archers and Javelinmen/Peltasts more powerful while reducing their ammunition drastically and create different quality levels for range units in general. And those quality levels should difference themselves in Range, Precision, Reloadtime and melee attack effectiveness for the most part. Projectile Damage should only differ a little bit, since it doesn´t matter that much if you get hit by the arrow of a Persian Elite Archer or a Levy Archer (Of course through better skill you could maybe use a stronger bow or draw the same bow farther, but that would influence Range more than Damage in my opinion).
The final goal in my opinion should be to make range units kind of short and hard battle introduction skirmishers, they should not be supposed to shoot trough a whole battle and killing maybe half a dozen men every charge, but making prolouging precise cuts into battle formations to weaken certain parts of the enemies army formation. I don´t know if that is possible with the moddable options at the moment, but I think it would make the use of ranged units more skillful, more tactical and somewhat more realistic or at least more authentic for the ancient time period.

[Selea]

double post

[Selea]

double post

[Sir_Pee_Alot]

Hi can you also boost the walls HP they fall too fast if you ask me. same for towers and maybe add some realistic units that would be great