Coastal battles and ultra unit sizes transports problem

[BullGod]

Hi,
This has become somewhat problematic for me, and probably for some other people too, because as things are now, fleets trying to assault towns are bugged terribly.
The problem is, that with increased unit sizes 240,300 man unit is forced to use a transport ship that can't fit all those soldiers. As a result those that don't fit there are placed somewhere else on the map, and I usually find them squeezed in one spot, under the sand on the beach or sometimes below water. I'm not sure if they move there. Some units disembark and stand there on the shore, unable to move, others move, but start to return to the shore after a while, Tactical overwiev shows those units are stretched from the shore to where the rest of them managed to get. It probably causes CPU lag that I'm experiencing sometimes during those battles.
I've noticed that in main_units table there is a column "max_men_per_ship" and DeI sets it to 700 for all transportable units, therefore forcing every unit on one ship.

I've changed that number to 200, which should work for all transports (it's the max value in vanilla table too). Now all units that don't fit one transport use two.

I haven't had opportunity to test this too much, so I'm not sure how AI copes with that. Seems to work fine, I was able to disembark my troops without problems. I have a sneaky suspicion though, that DeI team might have worked on that solution before and there is a reason why they don't use it.
One problem that might present itself and comes to my mind is the limited amount of landing spots for ships. It is a problem in vanilla when too many naval stacks converge in one battle - some of them can't find landing space and if you're defending against AI without a battle timer, then it's a lost cause. Now your fleets use much more of these, so problem might apperar sooner.

Anyway, here's the problem and my solution. If someone knows something, or is willing to test this, here's a submod, that changes those values. It's for patch version 8. I'm not sure what, if anything, changed in this table with patch 9, as I have not downloaded beta yet. So it might work with patch 9 beta, or it might not.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/b8...ransports.pack

[Selea]

I had all transports use 2 instead of 1 ship at beginning (by giving max half unit size for ship) because that would have been the best solution (and it seemed to work perfectly) only that...

The AI cannot land properly since it doesn't find enough room to do so on larger battles, so it's even worse than not all units disembarking. Ships will simply never land, so if you are attacking you will lose on time and if you are defending the only thing you have to do is to wait for the time to end to win.

For this I put the max units to 700, to be sure that absolutely no more than 1 ship is used because using more than 1 ship breaks things even more than they are broken now.

The only real solution is to redo the ships' models in the game so they become larger enough to have all men onboard. Only that also this must be done in a way that they aren't so large that the same problem of two ships return.

[Dooz]

So what's the max unit size we can use without having this happen, Large or do we have to go Medium or less?

[BullGod]

I was afraid of exactly that. I will test this though, maybe recent patches improved this somewhat...

So what's the max unit size we can use without having this happen, Large or do we have to go Medium or less?

I think medium is equal to vanilla ultra.

[krunsh]

I think medium is equal to vanilla ultra.

Are you sure? I do not think I have seen this issue since I moved to Large. Medium is so small it changes the whole battle mechanic

[BullGod]

Are you sure? I do not think I have seen this issue since I moved to Large. Medium is so small it changes the whole battle mechanic

Not 100% sure Maybe it's Large. 240 men unit should have 160 men on large setting, right (120 on medium)? So maybe it's ok. And I agree that playing on smaller settings just isn't enough anymore

I just noticed that 2 transport units have problems landing the 2nd ship when under AI controll. All units more or less land, but the 2nd transport is waiting behind the first, so it can't find (doesn't even look for) a space to land.
It's a bummer.

[krunsh]

Is this issue also what causes problems with boarding? I experienced that issue for the first time last night (But read about it before) where only 2-3 men jump on the other ship and then it takes literally forever for the fight to end.

I hope the naval overhaul brings good changes, the state it is in, its hard to enjoy... having to click again and again for ramming just makes no sense and is inconsistent with the usual Rome 2 mechanics.

How many fleets I have lost due to clumsy ramming contests against the AI.

[wrcromartie]

Damn I was hoping you guys found something.

Is it possible to just "hollow out" the existing ship models & build in a little staircase for the additional dudes to come out of the hold inside the deck?

[BullGod]

Damn I was hoping you guys found something.

I've removed "solution" from the thread title

[LawL_LawL]

The problem with having multiple transports per unit is that makes landing operations even harder. As it stands the number of possible ship landing spots is very limited, bumping up the number of transport craft just makes it impossible to do meaningful disembarkation.

[Balbor]

I with they had made ships a lot more realistic, with transport ships who is rowing? surly part of the unit would be assigned to row, meaning a large part of a unit need not be present at the battle.

[BullGod]

I with they had made ships a lot more realistic, with transport ships who is rowing? surly part of the unit would be assigned to row, meaning a large part of a unit need not be present at the battle.

Usually there were proffesional oarsmen hired. Sometimes slaves, but these needed people to watch over them. Anyway, even if we would assume that in some special circumstances soldiers being transported also did rowing (which isn't that easy to do and requires practice, so it's hard to imagine a bunch of people who never did this, rowing perfectly all of a sudden), there is nothing preventing them from disembarking with the others to fight on land.

[wrcromartie]

Or you could assume they have slaves rowing...

[BullGod]

After observing thigns a little I've determined that 256 men units (phalanx) don't have problems with disembarking big transports they're on, while 300 men units do. I haven't had time to test other sizes between those values, to determine what maximum amount could be, but I've changed all 300men units to 250 and haven't had any issues since.
Maybe this would be some kind of solution?
Also, If you guys think some units should be more numerous, then you can always think of using more Hitpointish entity for them, to simulate more men (like first cohort f.ex).
Just an idea.

[krunsh]

After observing thigns a little I've determined that 256 men units (phalanx) don't have problems with disembarking big transports they're on, while 300 men units do. I haven't had time to test other sizes between those values, to determine what maximum amount could be, but I've changed all 300men units to 250 and haven't had any issues since.
Maybe this would be some kind of solution?
Also, If you guys think some units should be more numerous, then you can always think of using more Hitpointish entity for them, to simulate more men (like first cohort f.ex).
Just an idea.

So, using DeI and not wanting to go and manually alter the number of men per units. What unit size should I set my options so that the biggest units do not exceed the maximum for ships?

[Dresden]

Not a bad idea Bullgod, at least a temporary way to resolve this problem.

[BullGod]

Sadly, I just realized there's still this happening:

even with 240men units on transports. They seem to disembark properly (I would even say that their numbers are correct), atlhough sometimes when you try to attack them on land, your units start to walk towards some point between their position and this place on the map.

[Litharion]

Sadly, I just realized there's still this happening:

even with 240men units on transports. They seem to disembark properly (I would even say that their numbers are correct), atlhough sometimes when you try to attack them on land, your units start to walk towards some point between their position and this place on the map.

I think it is about 220 units per transport ship max. I counted them a while ago but forgot the exact number. 2 ships per unit is very hard to do even for human player because transport ships constantly get stuck, because of the "connection band" between the two ships.

[rick1063]

That guy is a one man army, how many spears is he bringing to the battle!

[krunsh]

I have been auto-resolving naval sieges even when it means I am losing.. Since the AI love them so much and it becomes too easy if you play them out and they die due to transports not working.

There wouldn't be a way for unit size to be reduced when in transports (Basically, having the same unit card loading up a marine version of the same infantry in naval battles.)? We could say some men cannot be fielded due to occupying other positions on the ship... A poor excuse to be honest, but better than all the bugs.

I'm sure it may not be that simple though.

PS: Is it possible to reduce the chances of attempting landing into cities in AI behavior?