CAC v.0.6 Gameplay feedback and mod discussion

[Elianus]

IMO pikemen are too deadly. The speed of the battles is relatively slow but these guys cause casualties faster than in vanilla. I am all for making them almost impossible to beat from the front but right now they only way to beat them is with missile troops(which also seem to cause way too much damage way too quickly). You can't use a unit to attack their rear because by the time you do it, the unit that attacked them from the front has already been cut to pieces.
Edit: Also, I think that you should increase the number of men in elite units. Making them expensive and having caps is the way to go and certainly more realistic.
Edit 2: I noticed that the evocatii have the same armour values as the simple cohorts. Given that several men in the unit are equipped with segmentata, would it not be better to give them..let's say..75 armour?

[Iutland]

IMO pikemen are too deadly. The speed of the battles is relatively slow but these guys cause casualties faster than in vanilla. I am all for making them almost impossible to beat from the front but right now they only way to beat them is with missile troops(which also seem to cause way too much damage way too quickly). You can't use a unit to attack their rear because by the time you do it, the unit that attacked them from the front has already been cut to pieces.
Edit: Also, I think that you should increase the number of men in elite units. Making them expensive and having caps is the way to go and certainly more realistic.
Edit 2: I noticed that the evocatii have the same armour values as the simple cohorts. Given that several men in the unit are equipped with segmentata, would it not be better to give them..let's say..75 armour?

Thanks for your quality feedback Elianus :-)

I have already lowered the Pike unit stats so they are less deadly and it is currently being evaluated. I also need to modify other aspect of pike units as well before next release.

Regarding unit size, I will discuss this with my team mate.

For the next release I have added more melee weapon stats, shield stats and armour stats a couple of weeks ago because I did the same observation as you. Therefore a unit with mixed armour will now have an armour stat that is lower than the best armour and higher than "worst" armour. I think it corresponds to what you describe ;-)

Cheers
Iutland

[Blade Of the East]

Are you guys planning on adding new building chains? I'd love to be able to build walls in all my cities. Also, I don't know if you could add this or not, but one thing that disappointed me about the vanilla was that, with only 5 building spaces, cities feel tiny. In my Rome campaign, the great city of Rome had a measly 5 buildings in it. Would it be possible to add more spaces?

[heinacgg]

the mod I find quite good. but you do not.

[Iutland]

Are you guys planning on adding new building chains? I'd love to be able to build walls in all my cities. Also, I don't know if you could add this or not, but one thing that disappointed me about the vanilla was that, with only 5 building spaces, cities feel tiny. In my Rome campaign, the great city of Rome had a measly 5 buildings in it. Would it be possible to add more spaces?

Good point :-)

We haven't discussed this in our mod team and right now I don't know if it possible to do, but will investigate.

[Mournblade77]

Hi Iutland, I've noticed that European factions can create satrapies in your mod, in my opinion this feature should be removed in the next release of the mod. Historically it is erroneous, I believe that Eastern factions should create satrapies and European client states. Anyway, I am really enjoying the mod at the moment. Can you give us an ETA for the next version? Hopefully it will be compatible with HATG and Beasts of War as well!

[versengeteriks]

First off. Liking the mod so far. Very impressed.

Im running update 12. Have not noticed any probs or issues due to that as yet.

Playing as Iceni, And im comparing it with battles using DEI. I found both a little slow in battles to start but I personally prefer CAC at present. Nothing game breaking to report.

Have fought a couple of battles against Moridunon. Mainly to test how they play out. combined my starting forces and besieged their town. Both sides fought very well but I lost the battle narrowly. Fell back and the remainder of my army was chased and destroyed. Both battles ended pretty much as I would have imagined their outcomes in the real world. Leaving the Moridunon force with 3 very understrength units after my defeat.

Have since sent more forces to do battle. The Moridunon force now comprises those 3 understrength farmers. Plus a force of around 13 slingers.
I guess that is all they have facility to build right now. Is this as intended or or do they need a tweak to their building preferences?

I on the other hand have managed to upgrade my recruitment options to include javelin skirmishers , spear levies and basic sword troops.

Although the AI is fielding a massed slinger force it manages to use them in a very professional manner. withdraw, isolate a target, surround and assault, I was quite impressed.

Overall I haven't played enough to make any other comment about the campaign. But a couple of question and suggestions on the combat.

Are the unit walk/run speeds based on the weight of the equipment carried? Based on farmers moving a lot more slowly than slingers even though farmers are only carrying a stick based weapon and no armour.

Withdrawal. So far I have not seen any TW game with an option or ability for a unit to make a fighting withdrawal whilst in combat. You can only tell you troops to move to a new location. at which point they suffer from being attacked piecemeal. Is It possible to add an ability that allows units to care fully move backwards without causing them to auto lose the current combat? Just a realism request.

Campaign, The AI doesn't seem in any hurry to make forays towards my provinces. Even when at war the AI just seems to stockpile troops. I'm wondering if there's a particular trigger its waiting for E.g a force ratio or creation of a particular troop type. Maybe I haven't given it appropriate time yet, Since ive only really run the same tests for around 75 turns each time.

Thanks so far.
trix

[skysyk]

Great mod, testing every faction right now, a few questions:

* How frequent are updates?
* will there be a steam-workshop-edition ?
* Can i do paypal or anything to support you ? ^^

[Iutland]

Great mod, testing every faction right now, a few questions:

* How frequent are updates?
* will there be a steam-workshop-edition ?
* Can i do paypal or anything to support you ? ^^

Thank you skysyk.

Updates are planned for every other month and next update to 0.6 Alpha#2 is imminent. I will post a preview within the next couple of days.

We have not planned to use Steam workshop and may utilize a website of our own for the mod.

We could use support but I think the whole mod community purpose is to be non-profit. I think it should be paypal as a mean of donation instead; let me check it out.

Thanks :-)
Iutland

[Manningham]

The work you've done is amazing! I've just spent two hours reading previews and familiarizing myself with your vision for the mod.. I love your attention to detail in fleshing out the countless minors. Really looking forward to trying this out after it comes a little further

I like and respect that your mod is based in history, but have you considered allowing more advanced military/societal development for factions (especially minors) who did not historically achieve or have the opportunity to achieve those levels of development? Since Rome II is a sandbox, it would be neat to see minors which manage to survive and thrive achieve developments you might expect from large, historic powers like Rome.

For example, allowing a large and successful Arverni faction to reform the ambacti into a fully professional force. Or perhaps, allowing them to adopt foreign military gear/tactics into their unit roster dependent on contact with those foreign powers (eg: cataphract-style horse armour for cavalry, unlockable through trade resources only found in the east, or unlockable by improving a building chain which is dependent on the presence of an eastern cultural presence in a region).

These examples are clearly a-historical developments, but since Rome II is about changing history it would be fun to see large factions, player or AI, achieving societal/military developments in concert with their success in the campaign (or limiting their success in the campaign by failing to achieve requisite military/societal developments!)

In any case, thanks so much for your hard work.. can't wait to try .6

[Iutland]

The work you've done is amazing! I've just spent two hours reading previews and familiarizing myself with your vision for the mod.. I love your attention to detail in fleshing out the countless minors. Really looking forward to trying this out after it comes a little further

I like and respect that your mod is based in history, but have you considered allowing more advanced military/societal development for factions (especially minors) who did not historically achieve or have the opportunity to achieve those levels of development? Since Rome II is a sandbox, it would be neat to see minors which manage to survive and thrive achieve developments you might expect from large, historic powers like Rome.

For example, allowing a large and successful Arverni faction to reform the ambacti into a fully professional force. Or perhaps, allowing them to adopt foreign military gear/tactics into their unit roster dependent on contact with those foreign powers (eg: cataphract-style horse armour for cavalry, unlockable through trade resources only found in the east, or unlockable by improving a building chain which is dependent on the presence of an eastern cultural presence in a region).

These examples are clearly a-historical developments, but since Rome II is about changing history it would be fun to see large factions, player or AI, achieving societal/military developments in concert with their success in the campaign (or limiting their success in the campaign by failing to achieve requisite military/societal developments!)

In any case, thanks so much for your hard work.. can't wait to try .6

Thank you for your feedback Manningham. The comments/ideas you present are very interesting and some of the modifications we do already actually touches fileds like influences from other cultures, although perhaps not to the same extent as you describe. Anyways it is something we will consider and need to discuss even further. Thanks for your input!+Rep

The good news is that you don't need to wait any longer since CAC v0.6 is just released with the following changes/additions:

Campaign changes:
Iberian Peninsula, Italics and Illyrians, Arabian Kingdoms, African Kingdoms, Celtic Tribes and Daco-Thracian Faction Groups activated (added) for main Campaign play.

Approximately 55 new factions playable in the Main Campaign and are distributed among the different faction Groups.

Syrakousai (Syracuse) Unit roster completed

Athenai (Athens) Unit roster completed.

Lakedaimon (Sparta) Unit roster completed including unit reforms.

Massalia Unit roster completed.

Makedonia Unit roster completed.

Apeiros (Epirus) Unit roster completed.

Ptolemaike Basileia (Ptolemaic) Unit roster completed including unit reforms.

Kyrenaike Pentapolis (Cyrenaica) Unit roster completed.

Numidian (Masaesyli) Unit roster completed.

Gaetuli Unit roster completed.

Libyan Unit roster(s) completed.

Illyrian Unit roster(s) completed.

Startpos Area of Recruitment (AoR) implemented for modified factions.

Startpos editing/modding implemented for modified factions including starting units and General units.

Great number of minor changes to Main Campaign startpos, including diplomacy settings.

Dranghiane and Sagartia swapped regions. Arachosia got additional reions and renamed Maurya Samraj to represent the Western most part of the Maurya Empire. For now it is only a placeholder for later modification.

Garrison forces generally overhauled and a siege attack should be much more challenging now when attacking modified factions. Mobs should not be present anymore as Garrison troops.

Corruption effect expanded, as a parameter, whenever cities and factions develop.

Campaign difficulty settings and CAI settings updated, which should eliminate unwanted effects in the last version (including the CAI task management causing it to leave a city undefended).

Forced march should not trigger an ambush automatically.

Naval units can no longer replenish while at sea. Return to port instead.

Hidden income bonus removed for minor factions.

All new factions have added faction traits and some existing vanilla factions have modified traits.

Major important and rich cities like Alexandria are more developed from the campaign outset than other poorer cities/regions.

Richer factions have higher starting funds and declining cities/factions like Sparta has less.

Campaign map range increased/modified for cavalry units and agents compared to 0.5.

Only Eastern factions can have Satrapies, while others have Client states (bug fix).

Champions cannot delay construction.

CAI army composition percentages modified.

Roman Cornelian and Marian reforms back at their proper positions in the tech tree after the patch11 mess-up.

Many other minor changes and fixes in the campaign play settings.

CAC is adapted to make it fully compatible with Caesar in Gaul and Hannibal at the Gates DLCs. The DLCs are only slightly modified for now but all CAC specific unit rosters are adapted to the DLCs.

Battle changes:
Projectile stats tweaked based on feedback in the forum. Slingers now have longer range to make them more valuable while Archers are more deadly but with shorter range compared to slingers.

Melee weapon stats tweaked and with more diverse stats than before.

Shield stats tweaked and with more diverse stats than before.

Body armour stats tweaked and with more diverse stats than before. Units with more than one type of body armour now have an armour value that is less than the value of the best type of armour in the unit.

This should make the stats between the units more authentic and diverse compared to CAC 0.5.

Unit Stats UI (Battle and Campaign play) shows new entries such as shield armour and protection. Some of the existing entries are removed from the UI.

Pikemen significantly less deadly compared with CAC 0.5 (no more antique tanks on the battlefield) but still very deadly head-on. Pikes are also shown while the Pike units are stationary are walking.

Gates will burn a little bit sooner after torch attack compared with CAC 0.5, just to give the AI a chance.

Transport ships and smaller ships are more vulnerable to ramming from larger naval vessels and should actually sink after being rammed by a Hepteres size ship. AI transport ships use boarding tactics to counter this.

Many more minor changes to the battle settings including fixes of reported and not reported bugs.

[skysyk]

Playing it for a few hours now, some things i noticed:

-Con: Successor AI-Recruitment needs some treatment. I took some notes in the last 6 hours and on Average Successor-AI like the Seleucids and other Pike-orientated Armies rarely recruit Pike Units, in 37 encountered Armies the highest amount of Pikes has been 3 pike units. I know from other mods that they had to tweak Recruitment AI, because the AI values Spear and Axe Units higher because of whatever ^^ AND if they do recruit them, the AI does not lower the Pikes....
+Pro: Hoplite Units so far are the best balanced in any hosted-mod i played so far. Don't know what you did, but they are very, very well balanced. Hard to kill from front, beaten by Pikes, but not so fast, and die fast when flanked.
+Pro: I don't know if it is your work, or better Vanilla-AI, Campaign AI is very aggressive and actually manages to fight overseas (Seleucids taking Cyprus, Carthage fighting on Sicily). Never seen that in DEI or Radious, so thumbs up!
/Suggestion: As there is some AOR-Recruiting happening (Karian and Judaic Units for Ptolemaic Egypt for example) a simple list or map would be useful. ^^

[JObadiah]

So I gave 0.6 a test-whirl as Carthage and I noticed that the three "new" vanilla merc units (the Iberian noble fighters, Numidian noble cavalry, and Italian swordsmen), while their stats aren't completely absurd in the context of your balancing scheme (I don't know if you touched them at all) they seem a little relatively OP, and mosts strikingly their upkeep costs are vanilla and utterly out of sync with every other mercenary unit I can recruit. They're from the free dlc I believe that accompanied HATG. There may be other such units recruitable for other factions that you may want to look at.

I love what you did with the merc costs btw, and your rosters are awesome - possibly the most devotedly and strictly historical I've seen in any mod (and it's not often you see socii velites and socii equites). Kill rates in battle, in general, are a tad high for my tastes, but units seem to move fast enough relative to kill rates that tactical maneuvers are viable. Also I appreciate the fact that units don't recover stamina while walking; this makes strategic positioning/maneuvering very important.

[Iutland]

Playing it for a few hours now, some things i noticed:

-Con: Successor AI-Recruitment needs some treatment. I took some notes in the last 6 hours and on Average Successor-AI like the Seleucids and other Pike-orientated Armies rarely recruit Pike Units, in 37 encountered Armies the highest amount of Pikes has been 3 pike units. I know from other mods that they had to tweak Recruitment AI, because the AI values Spear and Axe Units higher because of whatever ^^ AND if they do recruit them, the AI does not lower the Pikes....
+Pro: Hoplite Units so far are the best balanced in any hosted-mod i played so far. Don't know what you did, but they are very, very well balanced. Hard to kill from front, beaten by Pikes, but not so fast, and die fast when flanked.
+Pro: I don't know if it is your work, or better Vanilla-AI, Campaign AI is very aggressive and actually manages to fight overseas (Seleucids taking Cyprus, Carthage fighting on Sicily). Never seen that in DEI or Radious, so thumbs up!
/Suggestion: As there is some AOR-Recruiting happening (Karian and Judaic Units for Ptolemaic Egypt for example) a simple list or map would be useful. ^^

Thank you for your comments skysyk. A little feedback:
Pikemen: does it mean they don't deploy in Pike Phalanx at any time during a battle?
Hoplites: I don't know either ;-) Just kidding; it is the result of hours of testing and changes.
Campaign AI is purely CAC and based on learnings from LME and RSM.
I know we owe you all an AoR overview because it is very complex. In the first place it will probably be a list and when finalized perhaps as an interactive map.

Cheers :-)
Iutland

[skysyk]

Pikemen: does it mean they don't deploy in Pike Phalanx at any time during a battle?

One out of Ten times they deplay in my opinion. Sometimes even when i charge an static-enemy line, they just kind of stand there.

[sanjayraj85]

man i love this mod been playing for around 6 hrs as rome and loved it.can u give a map of AOR in future

[sanjayraj85]

town center upgrading from level 2-level 3 reduces no of soldiers garrisoned.i fell little bit odd as size increases so should garrison troops.looking for reply
PS:TESTED ONLY FOR ROME

[Iutland]

town center upgrading from level 2-level 3 reduces no of soldiers garrisoned.i fell little bit odd as size increases so should garrison troops.looking for reply
PS:TESTED ONLY FOR ROME

The mod generally replaces mobs from garrison troops; if it changes the number of garrison troops compared with vanilla it is just a side effect.

[Asura]

In search for a mod focusing on history and challenge, this one delivers! It promises much and considering being alpha/early stage, one can only imaging the impact of the "finished" mod... Someone called it the heir to EB and yes, it's in that category.

My first suggestion, after trying 3-4 campaigns, is about the number per unit. With the setting to ultra the maximum of some units are only 160. It is also the same number for like hastati and its early "barbarian" enemies. My suggestion is to differ the number per unit considering culture and press the top to about 240 (like it was in the first RTW).

[Iutland]

I have made a Lite CAC Unit Guide that lists the units that have Recruitment constraints such as AoR and Technology reforms. You can find the PDF file here. Note that the information is based on the design documentation so it may differ from the actual implementation.