[REL] DeI - Preliminary Naval Battle Submod - UPDATED 01 Jan 1014

[Yarkis de Bodemloze]

DeI - Preliminary Naval Battle Submod

UPDATED: Adjusted the mod for DeI v.0.6j. Removed timber resource for level 3 military ports.

I tested some stuff to improve naval battles for my own ongoing campaign and thought that my changes work well enough to release them. See them as a temporary 'fix' for some aspects of ship combat, until the DeI team gets to it. I reduced the speed of ships greatly without touching their turning rates, so it is easier to get ships unstuck. I reduced ramming damage to half the original values, but sadly, the box car behaviour of ships seems to be out of range of modding. I tried many things to influence it (little mass, greater mass, very low charge speed and more), but couldn't influence the bouncing back behaviour after ramming in any way. I also added some crude balance changes by giving javelins their fire damage back, but don't worry, it won't show visually and won't influence land combat.

Summary of changes

- Ships maximum speed and acceleration reduced by 50% (deceleration set to double the acceleration value).
- Ramming damage reduced by 50%.
- Artillery projectiles now slow down ships for a short amount of time to simulate damage to the rowing crew (bolt throwers reduce speed by 25% for 7 sec; heavy artillery by 50% for 7 sec).
- All javelins have a 'hidden' fire damage now (without the graphical effects).
- Fighting towers have a higher rate of fire and shoot fire arrows.
- Slightly enlarged collision boundaries for better movement behaviour (experimental).

INSTALLATION

Download, unpack and copy the file into your ...\Total War Rome 2\data directory. Enable it with the mod manager. The mod must be in the list before the main DeI pack file to work properly, which should be the case by default.

MORE IDEAS

Much more could be done, but that would require redoing ship crews and their weapons, which I leave to the DeI team. Here are some ideas I would like to see persued:

1. More men on ships by reducing their model spaces.
2. Adding a speed reducing effect to all ranged weapons.
3. Give artillery ships boarding crews (the differentation between melee ships and artillery ships is artificial).
4. Precursor weapons before boarding?
5. Add an effect to army conatiners that nerfs combat abilities in sea battles (doable through a basic skill for all armies).

[Aeimnestus]

I too am working on a naval mod, which I plan to make compatible with DeI, as DeI approaches how I like to see Rome II best. I really like the idea of artillery slowing down ships to simulate rowers getting injured!
So far I have found almost no way of influencing naval boarding. The game seems to use a hidden value somewhere to determine the outcome of boarding fights. Even if you reduce say hastati attack and defenses to 1, they still annihilate everything in boarding in seconds. However, increasing hitpoints does affect the survivability of naval troops.

[Yarkis de Bodemloze]

So far I have found almost no way of influencing naval boarding. The game seems to use a hidden value somewhere to determine the outcome of boarding fights. Even if you reduce say hastati attack and defenses to 1, they still annihilate everything in boarding in seconds. However, increasing hitpoints does affect the survivability of naval troops.

Now, that would be odd! I haven't tested that myself.

[Selea]

I too am working on a naval mod, which I plan to make compatible with DeI, as DeI approaches how I like to see Rome II best. I really like the idea of artillery slowing down ships to simulate rowers getting injured!
So far I have found almost no way of influencing naval boarding. The game seems to use a hidden value somewhere to determine the outcome of boarding fights. Even if you reduce say hastati attack and defenses to 1, they still annihilate everything in boarding in seconds. However, increasing hitpoints does affect the survivability of naval troops.

In the table kv_rules there are three lines that give bonuses to attack and defense (+10) and sets the boarding time. That's a neat way to instead give penalties if one wants (just transform the + in - and that's it).

In your case you can give only 1 to attack to Hastati but with the bonus in the table they will get 11 that in DeI is a lot (much more than vanilla).

[Aeimnestus]

In the table kv_rules there are three lines that give bonuses to attack and defense (+10) and sets the boarding time. That's a neat way to instead give penalties if one wants (just transform the + in - and that's it).

In your case you can give only 1 to attack to Hastati but with the bonus in the table they will get 11 that in DeI is a lot (much more than vanilla).

I have tested those values extensively back in September for my naval mod. Changing those numbers to say a reduction of attack and a boost to defense, had no noticeable effect on the outcome of boarding. (And I timed it with a stopwatch!)What I did back then was creating a separate "marine" entry of troops attached to ships, which had 5 times or so the hitpoints of a normal unit. This made boarding actions slower, but it's a lot of manual labor to add all the extra units.

[Épaminondas The "Oblique"]

Thank you for this preliminary work Yarkis. Naval battle is a huge step for DEI and some of the thigs we are testing now are close to your ideas.

BTW we will do a teaser shortly about the way we are heading.

[Selea]

1. More men on ships by reducing their model spaces.
2. Adding a speed reducing effect to all ranged weapons.
3. Give artillery ships boarding crews (the differentation between melee ships and artillery ships is artificial).
4. Precursor weapons before boarding?
5. Add an effect to army conatiners that nerfs combat abilities in sea battles (doable through a basic skill for all armies).

1. It could be done but it would require much work as you would have to create duplicates of land_units with different entities (with the reduced radius). I am already making Roman ships with more men than Greek ones but the radius will remain the same (at last for now). Till 200 men (on the largest ship) there should be no problems.

2. This should be already present in 0.6i; I did it in another way, however, without adding the the missile effects so in theory it should work but in practice I'm not sure.

3. This is easy to do; I will just need to exchange the type of crew in them from missile units to melee ones

4. This is impossible sadly. You cannot switch the precursor status in the "middle".

5. Yes, it would be neat but I don't understand what do you intend with "doable through basic skill for all armies". Can you explain it a little better?

[Yarkis de Bodemloze]

2. This should be already present in 0.6i; I did it in another way, however, without adding the the missile effects so in theory it should work but in practice I'm not sure.

If you are refering to the shockwave effect, I don't think ships are affected. Or did you do something else I missed?

5. Yes, it would be neat but I don't understand what do you intend with "doable through basic skill for all armies". Can you explain it a little better?

Through the army skill tree. Agenst have a level 0 starting skill, armies have not. If you could add one and use context conditions for effects from effect_bonus_value_battle_context_junctions_tables, this could work.

Unrelated to naval combat, but what I think would be neat is to add a upkeep increase for armies in enemy territories to simulate the costs of warfare. Could be done with the same mechanic.

[Selea]

Unrelated to naval combat, but what I think would be neat is to add a upkeep increase for armies in enemy territories to simulate the costs of warfare. Could be done with the same mechanic.

Yes, that would be neat.

Btw, still unrelated: do you know if there are somewhere some tutorials on lua scripting? I need to learn to script but I don't know from where to begin. I know how to program in C++ so it shouldn't be difficult to learn but I need some pointer on the variables, the functions etc.

For example I did look to RRR mod or TTT and I can understand how they did what they did well, the only problem I have is that I don't know if some of the things I plan to do are doable or not because I don't know if there exists the variables or functions to check. For example how to check for fame levels or similar things. I need some tutorial to understand how things works in the lua scripting and what can be done and what cannot.

[Yarkis de Bodemloze]

Scripting in Rome 2 is fairly limited as far as I can tell, but I am not a scripting wizard either. Tutorials for lua are on the web. It's pretty easy, I would say, because I can do some basic stuff myself. If you look through the game scripts you get what functions are available. The most knowledgable in this area is probably T.C.. He wrote rather complex stuff, for example a manpower resource script for Empire. Best to ask him.

[GERMANICUS]

Greetings Yarkis

Thanks for this DEI submod a welcome improvement till the DEI overhauls it.

+ REP

[Ivan_Moscavich]

The artillery ships really need to be able to reinforce in battles. There was a post elsewhere about how to change that by switching them from immobile (like giant ballistae) to normal artillery. It doesn't mess up any part of the ship, but allows them to reinforce as normal artillery would be able to. Small change, but it goes a long way in making naval and combined battles leagues better.

[Yarkis de Bodemloze]

I updated the mod and adjusted it to the changes of DeI 0.6j.

[Ettore953]

I noted a big problem in naval war. Timber is needed for ship more large that 2nd tier , No mediterranean power has easy Timber so Roman have to fight Punic wars with biremes...

[Yarkis de Bodemloze]

I agree. Adding resource requirements to basic building chains like the military recruitment one is problematic. It's ok for supplemental buildings like the training building chain, but not for essential buildings.

[Selea]

I agree. Adding resource requirements to basic building chains like the military recruitment one is problematic. It's ok for supplemental buildings like the training building chain, but not for essential buildings.

I will tell this to Dresden and we will find a solution to the problem.

Thanks for letting us know.

[Yarkis de Bodemloze]

Thanks! A good philosophy regarding resources would be that only secondary buildings require them. They should be a bonus, not a necessity.

[G Rider]

Was this mod ever integrated partially or fully into DEI?