[Feedback] Suggestions, Critiques & Requests

[Selea]

I think Legionaries and Legionary Cohorts should get a unit cap of 9 per army since there were 10 cohorts per legion.

Already done. They have caps that make a stack have 9 Cohorts and 1 First Cohorts.

The problem is that in the engine there's not an army cap for campaign mode. The only cap you can give is total, i.e. for example for a cap of 5 you can give a total cap of 75 (5 * 15, 15 being the maximum number of stacks available).

So for Romans the cap is 135 for Cohorts and 15 for First Cohorts, in total 150 that is 10 per stack in a balanced faction. Still the user can decide to have a stack almost full of First Cohorts if he so decides, given this.

Sadly there's nothing to do about that. If I could give caps per army as in MP I would have done that instead. There are some things being done by CA that I really cannot understand. I don't understand what's the point of giving a proper cap per army in MP but not give the same option for campaign mode.

[Durador]

Suggestion / request

Mobs:
I really don't like how the mobs look like its still vanilla (same cloths with shiny new swords (also in the fight animations you can see they fight like they have shields)).
if they are the last resort of men fighting for there homes sure they are poorly trained. But they can look a bit more like normal citizens recruited from every layer of the social ladder in that city.

I think a mob must look like this:

Some of them can be ex soldiers/sons of ex soldiers taking up there old shields and weapons to fight for there homes but are weak because they are old, have battle scares. And the sons don't have training.
The rich people would flee before a siege (and most rich men are already fighting in the army).
Then you have Traders, farmers, slaves some with money some have less to nothing. The mob can look like a reflection of those men, some look more like traders or soldiers others more like farmers and slaves. Traders can buy weapons, farmers have weapons from there work, slaves can get weapons from there masters.
I think also the city can provide some gear old swords, spears, old shields, farm weapons like axes and pitchforks.

You could look at the gladiator units for inspiration, melee unit and spear unit. variation of men in the unit. only the gear doesn't fit for a mob.

[nicolae]

roster roman melee attack low for roster all ?

[nicolae]

soci melee power attack more for romans ? English very low!

[FlashHeart07]

Just tried out the new version of the mod.. Still freaking awesome.. Just a tiny thing. My hoplites and other pike infantry seems to be "dancing" alot and not attacking.. Tried double clicking to re-confirm their attack orders. Tried to press stop and then re attack. Still does a whole lot of dancing on the spot which can be quite frustrating when the ai is kicking your ass.
Still I gotta say that this mod greatly improves gameplay. The ai is actually intelligent on siges. they pack spear men in the streets of cities and when I try to flank, they have reinforcements hidden ready to counter me. Resulted in a massive slaughter of my cav.

[Selea]

Just tried out the new version of the mod.. Still freaking awesome.. Just a tiny thing. My hoplites and other pike infantry seems to be "dancing" alot and not attacking.. Tried double clicking to re-confirm their attack orders.

Hoplite Phalanx and Pike Phalanx have different animation behavior than Shield Wall or Fulcum, so the "stop" trick doesn't work for them.

Sadly the bugs that sometimes happens when using those animations behavior (both being the pike_phalanx_formation animation) are hard-coded and only CA can resolve them. Believe me, I know perfectly about them and I posted about this already four times in the TW Forums with no avail till now.

I really hope that the expansions apart a new campaign to play will also bring some fixes out, because certain things are completely broken as of now and one of those is the state of the formations (and naturally siege AI).

[Ettore953]

Last change of put on 50% panic effect changed mod balance and feeling in normal mod, beside to not be realistic and historic. I saw many hard battles in which winning army is destroyed . Why? Low moral amrmies now are much more good and run when their force is on 50% good armies run when they are under 30% so effect is: loosing bad army is defeated but has 70% of unit in repair situation, winning better army has 60% of units destroyed. Lol: this is not realistic and totally out balance.

[FlashHeart07]

My bad Selea. Didn't know you had already posted about this.
Hopefully CA will correct this bug.

[Shigawire]

I'm not able to test the mod yet, so I can't speak to the battle system very much. But I do have some suggestions as to historicity and such:

1.Some Punic naming suggestions (I've worked with Punic for EB, and together with Kikosemmek provided the same for Splenyi)
"Kart-Hadasht" (Romans called it "Carthago Nova" in Iberia) can be renamed to "Mastia" - it wasn't named "Kart-Hadasht" until 229 BCE
"Carthage" can be renamed to "Kart-Hadasht"
The region of Tripolitania was called Syrthim in Punic; it means the region of the two Syrtis gulfs.

2.You can safely remove Onagers entirely, as they weren't around until at least 300-400 CE.

3.Making Siege Warfare more historically accurate:
-Greeks and Carthaginians should be able to create artillery and siege towers from the beginning (272 BCE) without having to research it.
-Romans should have to research siege artillery and siege towers. Romans first used siege towers in 210 BCE. First Roman construction of artillery was after Vitruvius.
-Celts and nomadic tribes should be at a greater disadvantage in terms of researching this tech.
-All of this means you have to give each faction different advantages & disadvantages to set things in balance. For instance the Romans were probably the best in the world at the "escalade" assault (ladders), and were probably the most effective diggers and constructors of wooden and earthen siege works. Also, the Romans should have the best siege equipment when they have reached the zenith of their tech tree. Though the Romans did join the siege warfare game rather late, the Romans nonetheless perfected the Greek torsion engines far beyond euthytonon / palintonon frame designs, culminating in the cheiroballista in ±100 CE.
So the Romans starts out at a disadvantage in terms of siege engineering, but they catch up slowly, but surely, and eventually get the best late game tech tree.
Greeks had the disadvantage of having infantry being primarily trained in the Phalanx formation - not necessarily so good at capturing walls.

4.If the goal is to make each battle decisive, and to make the frequency and number of battles more realistic, then I suggest you seriously nerf the "Max Army" limit. I have no idea what Divide et Impera has done with this factor, as it's not mentioned anywhere. But most modifications I've seen so far have sometimes doubled the max army limit. If we study the history of the Punic War, we will notice that the total number of mobilized armies moving as one were never much more than 2 or 3 at most. I contend that both Carthage and Rome should start with a max army limit of 2. The minor kingdoms, such as those surrounding Carthage, should have a max army limit of 1. Seleukeia should probably have more than 2.. but in each case one has to use some common sense as well as some trial & error.

[Soontir]

Army cap is set on 15 like in vanilla. Currently only cap for lowest imperium stages was tweaked. Idk if imperium points are granted only for owning teritory or if it's linear progression, but minors still can steamroll larger states. Further limiting early armies numbers to 1 per region for first three owned might help a bit as well as increased upkeep without significant CAI cheating in this aspect. But this also might lead to music chairs as they won't have anything to protect their homeland. Currently CAI likes to strenghten starting army to full stack, send it out for conquest one only then starting creating another one, so capital is left basicly defecless for few turns anyway.
Also please increase edict numbers per imperium level. Only one new thing that works fine in this game and got limited to 1/3 owned provinces. Or if possible add "+1 edict" trait to higher lvl administrative buildings like chieftain lodge or satrapy palace.

[Black9]

I'm not able to test the mod yet, so I can't speak to the battle system very much. But I do have some suggestions as to historicity and such:

1.Some Punic naming suggestions (I've worked with Punic for EB, and together with Kikosemmek provided the same for Splenyi)
"Kart-Hadasht" (Romans called it "Carthago Nova" in Iberia) can be renamed to "Mastia" - it wasn't named "Kart-Hadasht" until 229 BCE
"Carthage" can be renamed to "Kart-Hadasht"
The region of Tripolitania was called Syrthim in Punic; it means the region of the two Syrtis gulfs.

2.You can safely remove Onagers entirely, as they weren't around until at least 300-400 CE.

3.Making Siege Warfare more historically accurate:
-Greeks and Carthaginians should be able to create artillery and siege towers from the beginning (272 BCE) without having to research it.
-Romans should have to research siege artillery and siege towers. Romans first used siege towers in 210 BCE. First Roman construction of artillery was after Vitruvius.
-Celts and nomadic tribes should be at a greater disadvantage in terms of researching this tech.
-All of this means you have to give each faction different advantages & disadvantages to set things in balance. For instance the Romans were probably the best in the world at the "escalade" assault (ladders), and were probably the most effective diggers and constructors of wooden and earthen siege works. Also, the Romans should have the best siege equipment when they have reached the zenith of their tech tree. Though the Romans did join the siege warfare game rather late, the Romans nonetheless perfected the Greek torsion engines far beyond euthytonon / palintonon frame designs, culminating in the cheiroballista in ±100 CE.
So the Romans starts out at a disadvantage in terms of siege engineering, but they catch up slowly, but surely, and eventually get the best late game tech tree.
Greeks had the disadvantage of having infantry being primarily trained in the Phalanx formation - not necessarily so good at capturing walls.

4.If the goal is to make each battle decisive, and to make the frequency and number of battles more realistic, then I suggest you seriously nerf the "Max Army" limit. I have no idea what Divide et Impera has done with this factor, as it's not mentioned anywhere. But most modifications I've seen so far have sometimes doubled the max army limit. If we study the history of the Punic War, we will notice that the total number of mobilized armies moving as one were never much more than 2 or 3 at most. I contend that both Carthage and Rome should start with a max army limit of 2. The minor kingdoms, such as those surrounding Carthage, should have a max army limit of 1. Seleukeia should probably have more than 2.. but in each case one has to use some common sense as well as some trial & error.

Good feedback and ideas. I think lowering the amount of armies would be fine, except that garrisons would have to be buffed to compensate for leaving many more areas of your empire defenseless. STIM did it and people seemed to like it. I think he made the quality of garrisons better and made them have an extra 3 units each.

[Shigawire]

Good feedback and ideas. I think lowering the amount of armies would be fine, except that garrisons would have to be buffed to compensate for leaving many more areas of your empire defenseless. STIM did it and people seemed to like it. I think he made the quality of garrisons better and made them have an extra 3 units each.

Yes, good point. In addition to reducing army limits, I think buffing the garrisons will be crucial to make that work. Assault siege AI may still be broken, but once it's fixed, I'm sure that it'll be a challenge to defend settlements with only the garrison.

[Selea]

I'm not able to test the mod yet, so I can't speak to the battle system very much. But I do have some suggestions as to historicity and such:

1.Some Punic naming suggestions (I've worked with Punic for EB, and together with Kikosemmek provided the same for Splenyi)
"Kart-Hadasht" (Romans called it "Carthago Nova" in Iberia) can be renamed to "Mastia" - it wasn't named "Kart-Hadasht" until 229 BCE
"Carthage" can be renamed to "Kart-Hadasht"
The region of Tripolitania was called Syrthim in Punic; it means the region of the two Syrtis gulfs.

2.You can safely remove Onagers entirely, as they weren't around until at least 300-400 CE.

3.Making Siege Warfare more historically accurate:
-Greeks and Carthaginians should be able to create artillery and siege towers from the beginning (272 BCE) without having to research it.
-Romans should have to research siege artillery and siege towers. Romans first used siege towers in 210 BCE. First Roman construction of artillery was after Vitruvius.
-Celts and nomadic tribes should be at a greater disadvantage in terms of researching this tech.
-All of this means you have to give each faction different advantages & disadvantages to set things in balance. For instance the Romans were probably the best in the world at the "escalade" assault (ladders), and were probably the most effective diggers and constructors of wooden and earthen siege works. Also, the Romans should have the best siege equipment when they have reached the zenith of their tech tree. Though the Romans did join the siege warfare game rather late, the Romans nonetheless perfected the Greek torsion engines far beyond euthytonon / palintonon frame designs, culminating in the cheiroballista in ±100 CE.
So the Romans starts out at a disadvantage in terms of siege engineering, but they catch up slowly, but surely, and eventually get the best late game tech tree.
Greeks had the disadvantage of having infantry being primarily trained in the Phalanx formation - not necessarily so good at capturing walls.

4.If the goal is to make each battle decisive, and to make the frequency and number of battles more realistic, then I suggest you seriously nerf the "Max Army" limit. I have no idea what Divide et Impera has done with this factor, as it's not mentioned anywhere. But most modifications I've seen so far have sometimes doubled the max army limit. If we study the history of the Punic War, we will notice that the total number of mobilized armies moving as one were never much more than 2 or 3 at most. I contend that both Carthage and Rome should start with a max army limit of 2. The minor kingdoms, such as those surrounding Carthage, should have a max army limit of 1. Seleukeia should probably have more than 2.. but in each case one has to use some common sense as well as some trial & error.

Thank you very much for your post, it is REALLY appreciated.

I will sure add all these modifications in next version.

Btw next update will be a large one and will include all the new units for the Hellenic factions.

[Cidalsleepwalker]

Awesome. Really excited to see these suggestions implemented!

[stsatan]

1/ Historically, the thureophoroi (thureos spears) were used as skirmishing troops that could pull back and form a phalanx if the situation demands, and indeed, is not an "imitating legion". Could the DeI depict this, by changing the beheviour, so that they could throw javelins properly like peltasts instead of "precursor javelin"?

There is several reasons for this one: History aside, currently, I don't find them useful at all, as their javelin is quite unwieldy, we need them to charge home in order to use it. They are light troops, darn it, and using them that way will kill them pretty soon. Not to mention, the precursor javelin have quite limited range, which adds to this unit demise should they confront, says, Principles.

2/ Currently, I find some units are quite redundant, and some changes would be appreciated:

a. Thureos hoplite: worse stats than regular hoplite, need tier 3 barracks to recruit. Then how could they be an improvement? Why should they be there in the first place? I suggest upping their attack ability and speed, not much, but enough to make them a better alternative than classical hoplite, having spearwall ability instead of hoplite phalanx (so that once they have charge and wreaking some havocs, they could reform, regroup and upping their defense). It also reflecting the nature of the thureos warfare, perhaps with Celtic influences: more fluid, more versatile, more violent, more shield bash.

b. Parthian archer: 160 men instead of 200, lower damage than even Light Persian Archer. Increasing them both up to par with said Light Persian archer would be nice, as they cost 20 gold more.

c. Euzonoi: How the heck could they be an improvement to peltast with no armor and lower damage? I suggest it should be the other way around: a man less encumbered by armor shall have more throwing power and nimbleness. And carrying more javelins.

d. The Velite as they are lack the melee capacity that Polybios attributed to them, which make them superior to many other skirmishers: they would eager join battles with enemy skirmishers, and have an edge on that due to sturdy shield, good sword, helmet and Roman martial fervour and training. I suggest upping the attack skills by 3 and defense skill by 1.

e. As far as I see it, Cappadocian cavalry, Median cavalry, Noble blood cavalry and Azat Knights are simply clones with different stats. They have no differenting appearances, nor functions. I suggest that, Cappadocian and Median should be changed to a some kind of armoured skirmishers, like a toughter Taratinoi cavalry, with Achaemenid-era feel and style of fighting. Noble blood cavalry and Azat, of course, could remains mounted spearmen, but with some changes in armour. If you are interested, I could post later the modding I did with the appearances of these units, maybe you could outdo me if you choose to .


BTW, I find that the current DeI projectile damage is quite balanced, bravo! Maybe some more spread value would be good also, to reflect to nature of ranged warfare in set piece battle: they are for attacking formation, not individual, and as such, would be much more effective agains heavy infantry than light infantry.


In my experience, most casualties in DeI are done by 2 things: projectiles and chasing routed units. Even very elite swordman like Royal Peltast or silver shield swordmen only generate about 40-50 kills in regular melee situation, but could do much more if they sandwitches the enemy and catch them routing. Which is good, historically.

Cheers and bravo, DeI team!

[ergie]

I have a request, but its in your hands of course:
Can you split the incoming units packs from the core mod? As separate downloads.
Keep up the good work. Thanks for this mod

Enviado desde mi GT-P3110 mediante Tapatalk

[chadwicknight]

The mod is awesome!

I would like the victory points in siege battles to be removed though.

Cheers!

[HenrikN]

I have an idea that could maybe be a work-around to the problem with killing off routing units, but don't know if it's possible to implement.. The high armor/defense/hp of the defending unit vs the low attack skill/damage of the attacking unit makes for good and long melee battles, but makes chasing down routing units less than good.. The problem comes from not being able to decrease a routing unit's stats, right?

How about increasing the pursuing unit's stats instead? Would it be possible to make a new toggle ability (or modify an existing one) only useable by the player, and call it "Run them down!" or something, which would increase the melee attack skill and damage to something really high, like 80 or so? You would ONLY be allowed to use it while chasing down routers, otherwise it's obviously cheating, and the AI wouldn't be able to use it to kill off your routing units, but maybe that's a small price to pay, as I'm sure the AI doesn't get as frustrated as the player when we try to kill off the routers..

The big question is if it's possible to make a special ability only useable by the player and not the AI, as the AI would be using this incredibly powerful ability all the time, and not just in pursuits..

[Caius Martius Coriolanus]

I have an idea on how to make Baktria a more unique faction to play as. Although I'm obviously unsure of what you plan to add to the Baktrian roster, they currently play exactly like every other hellenistic faction. Phalangites are fun, but they get old really quickly. Baktria was my favorite faction to play as in EB, and I loved the versatility that you could bring to their play style. To get to my point, I adopted a hunter/killer strategy with my armies that ended up working out incredibly well. Not only did I build classic hellenistic phalanx armies, I also took the eastern route and created cataphract/horse archer armies. The Seleucids always spam you with army stacks, mnay of which are often stronger than those that you can build yourself. So, I used my steppe-style armies to harass and whittle them down, and would then hit with my traditional hellenistic forces. In EB, steppe-style armies were devastating once their experience was increased. While there is no historical evidence of the Baktrian Greeks ever creating such a force, we do know that they very strong in cavalry. Currently, Baktria is limited to only 2 hellenic cataphracts per army. I think those should be increased to 5 so as to put them on more equal footing with the Parthians, Massagetae, and the other nomadic factions around them. The Baktrians fought a lot of wars with these steppe peoples, so it only makes sense that they would have adopted their tactics.

[loukylouk]

Do you guys have something similar to TheDUB'S historical army composition running in DEI?