[Battle Physics] There's some weird mass stuff going on

[QuintusSertorius]

Even aside from cohesion and formation problems, there's a general issue with mass and the physics in the game at present. In EB1, everything was fairly credible; heavy infantry slammed into lighter troops and slowly pushed them aside. Heavy cavalry would almost sweep away skirmishers, and on hitting with a proper charge would penetrate deep into a unit. Skirmishers could not hold heavier infantry, and if in a loose formation would barely affect the passage of cavalry.

In EBII at present, everything gently brushes against each other like they have no momentum or mass; I saw my cavalry halt just short of the impact point, then trot in to the final contact, and most of those behind the lead units switched to their swords before they'd even hit. One man is enough to halt an entire unit and cause an attack to fail as everyone blobbily swarms around the sole impediment. Heavier troops are incapable of pushing lighter ones out of the way.

I don't get a sense that there's any force behind anything in the way I did in EB1. I don't think this is a "bug", but rather some settings in the myriad text files. Does anyone know what I mean?

[Alciphron]

I get what you mean, and there even be a solution!

For example, let's take this unit in the EDU.

This is the default version.

; COMMENTS Gallic General Bodyguard / Unit ID 1 / Start exp: 0 / Refr rate: 0,01728 / Pool cap: 2
type celtic cavalry general bodyguard
dictionary celtic_cavalry_general_bodyguard
category cavalry
class heavy
voice_type General
accent Gallic
banner faction main_cavalry
banner holy crusade
soldier donno_eporedoi_early, 20, 0, 5.36

Go to the soldier line and try 2 more values, so it looks like this:

soldier donno_eporedoi_early, 20, 0, 5.36, 0, 0

the first value added (from left to right) is mass, and the second one is height. Mass makes units push other units more, and height is a value which is meant to be tweaked in order to balance mass.

Try something like this: soldier donno_eporedoi_early, 20, 0, 5.36, 2, 0.25

If you want to affect cavarly you'll have to changes the values of descr_mount.

Play with these values and report your findings!

[Alciphron]

Also, here's a thread for you if you want to read more about the hidden values.

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...pike-and-sword

[Yerevan]

Yes, I 've played a few kingdom mods and I imediately felt something was weird with the battles in EB2.

[Alciphron]

Yes, I 've played a few kingdom mods and I imediately felt something was weird with the battles in EB2.

Yerevan, could you check the EDU of these mods to see if they use they hidden values?

[Yerevan]

Yerevan, could you check the EDU of these mods to see if they use they hidden values?

Oh sorry for the late response, I didn't come here for a while, didn't see your post. I was mentioning IB2, TATW and SS6. I have access to IB2 data, no problem, but what do you mean "hidden value", I'm afraid my EDU knowledge is minimal.

[Wulfburk]

Dont know if this is unit collision, but there is definitelly something that needs to be fixed.

[Choki]

agree.

Alciphron you could make a sub mod, fixing this. It could be great

[WAD81]

I spent ages modifying combat & EDU in Rome and Med2. EB2 combat needs serious work.

There has been various patches for combat mechanics for Med2. Pathfinding & charges for example.
We need better descr_projectile & descr_mounts, too.

IMO, Real Combat system is the best thing that could happen to EB2 right now.

[Alciphron]

agree.

Alciphron you could make a sub mod, fixing this. It could be great

I definetely need more data. I think I'll download call of warhammer and perhaps a couple of other kingdom mods, compare battle behaviour and EDUs.

I spent ages modifying combat & EDU in Rome and Med2. EB2 combat needs serious work.

There has been various patches for combat mechanics for Med2. Pathfinding & charges for example.
We need better descr_projectile & descr_mounts, too.

IMO, Real Combat system is the best thing that could happen to EB2 right now.

WAD if you any insight on file editing that improves combat, it would help a lot if you could share it.

Worst case scenario; EB2 animations and models are part of the problem. I doubt, and I hope it's not the case.

[Klierowski]

I think I'll download call of warhammer and perhaps a couple of other kingdom mods, compare battle behaviour and EDUs.

Heretic ! u shall burn ! how in the name of Sigmar u can't have allready CoW installed ?! it's the masterpiece of the mods for mtw II !

[Alciphron]

Heretic ! u shall burn ! how in the name of Sigmar u can't have allready CoW installed ?! it's the masterpiece of the mods for mtw II !

By Azura, By Azura, By Azura! It's Klierowski! I can't believe it's you! Posting here! In this thread!

Oh sorry for the late response, I didn't come here for a while, didn't see your post. I was mentioning IB2, TATW and SS6. I have access to IB2 data, no problem, but what do you mean "hidden value", I'm afraid my EDU knowledge is minimal.

I'd also like to apologise for my late reply.

If you check the EDU, you can see something like this:

; COMMENTS Thureophoroi / Unit ID 314 / Start exp: 0 / Refr rate: 0,0528 / Pool cap: 5
type hellenistic infantry thureophoroi
dictionary hellenistic_infantry_thureophoroi
category infantry
class spearmen
voice_type General
accent West_Greek
banner faction main_spear
banner holy crusade
soldier Thureophoroi, A, B, C,

A, B and C stand for numbers. The "hidden values" are D and E. some people refer to them as hidden because they are not included in many soldier lines such as the above (thus, they are set at their default value)

What interests us here is C (mass), D (radius, the default of which is 0.4) and E (height, the default of which is 1.7)

^Thanks! I also changed the formation slighlty, to give the unit more cohesion at the start.
If anyone wants their staple javelin unit to work better, just ask here and I'll paste in the changes for you.

About cavalry: soldier mass in EDU does't play an important role imo.
Remember, the soldier sits on a horseback. What IS important is the mass of the horse - which is in descr_mount.

Nice find WAD

And I think you are right about cavarly.

Personally, I have been trying once again to get phalanx to work, with little results. I did manage to find out one thing, though:

They use their spears FAR better in attack than in guard mode. There are very short periods in which they decimate their opponents by swinging their spears back and forth and it looks great; however it rarely happens line-widely and is in general VERY circumstantial.

Additionally, they are unable to stop most units from charging into them. I think it must be the animations/models...

Since the phalanx problem seems to be of inherent nature, here's a post of Alexgold that might be of interest to the EB2 team:

a)internal mechanics solutions:after interpreting the results of all tests done by me and some that VC has done i've come to the conclusion that the best phalanx should have :
1) an animation in which it walks with the pikes lowered (similar to the ones in SS and TATW)
2) special blocks in descr_formations_ai.txt based on VC's idea of adding default_melee_state defend, and also i recomend that pikes have their own blocks so that when meddling with the unit radius/spacing we can adjust the max_unit and min_unit here so that we won't have a tightly packed phalanx with a width of a quarter of the normal width of a infantry unit
3) radius of 0.1 and height of 6.8 if this doesn't work then a radius of 0.2 and a height of 3.4.
4) unit spacing of the same distance of the unit radius so it will be either 0.2 or 0.1 ( i think less wolud also work because the computer doesn't use a distance smaller than the units radius) and a spacing front to back of 1.8 to 2.0
5) for me a number of men of 100 and a number of rows of 4 (what i mean of 100 units turns into a huge unit sclae into 250)
6) small defence and attack as it is, i recomend u erase the defence factor associated to the units defence skill(the second number) leave onlt the armor factor.
7) pike units can either have a secondary or not. i find that if the unit has 100 units and a spacing 0f 1.8 and a radius of 0.1 and a number of 3.5 to 4 rows then it makes sense that the unit can get a secondary, because even though the first row will switch to swords the second row will do all the kiling and not make a mess of itself because it is so tightly packed.

[Yerevan]

If you check the EDU, you can see something like this:

; COMMENTS Thureophoroi / Unit ID 314 / Start exp: 0 / Refr rate: 0,0528 / Pool cap: 5
type hellenistic infantry thureophoroi
dictionary hellenistic_infantry_thureophoroi
category infantry
class spearmen
voice_type General
accent West_Greek
banner faction main_spear
banner holy crusade
soldier Thureophoroi, A, B, C,

A, B and C stand for numbers. The "hidden values" are D and E. some people refer to them as hidden because they are not included in many soldier lines such as the above (thus, they are set at their default value)

What interests us here is C (mass), D (radius, the default of which is 0.4) and E (height, the default of which is 1.7)

In IB2 collision mass usually is either 1 or 0.8 for romanised infantry, it goes up to 1.2 for some barbarian axemen and 4 for pikemen.

For the hidden values, I suppose they are the same as the one you wrote as there are no special default values for radius and height mentioned anywhere in IB2's EDU. Not to my knowledge anyway. But if you want more informations about it maybe best to contact Riothamus or Midnite.

I mentionned this mod because it's set in between medieval and ancient warfare and battles are neat (especially with granto's fast battles). Many units are romanised, they almost fight like ancient legions.

[WAD81]

^that was exactly my thought, 'I hope it's not about animations'...
However, I doubt it. I think it's all about 'numbers' and can be tweaked.

Eg. attribute 'spear' gives the unit strong pushing power (meant for fight against cavalry), which gives the impression of units sliding and pushing enemies unrealistically. 'light_spear' is much better.

Some units have 'spear', some 'light_spear'. Why?? Their spears are equal in size....

In descr_projectile, javelin has the accuracy of 0.2 (if I remeber correctly, before I changed it) vs 0.07 of the solipherum & pilum. Why?? It's a HUGE difference. And makes javelins useless.

Why give 'prec' attribute and only 1 javelin to be thrown for some units? I removed 'prec', gave them the real number of javelins (e.g 4 for thureophoroi), increased ranged to 80 meters, and they work great.

6 armour value for units with half naked guys, 8 armour for helmet, body armour and shins protection in e.g peltastai logades? Just nope.

Etc, etc, etc...

However, one thing I love is the animation for javelin throw. Looks great. It's also much faster than the standard one. Just better in all aspect. It should be given to ALL javelin units.

[Thuycidides]

Why give 'prec' attribute and only 1 javelin to be thrown for some units? I removed 'prec', gave them the real number of javelins (e.g 4 for thureophoroi), increased ranged to 80 meters, and they work great..

That's almost an olympic javelin throw, fwiw.

[QuintusSertorius]

I must admit, I thought the stats were a bit weird, too. I don't know how different the mechanics of M2TW are to RTW, but there at least seemed to be a vague logic to the EB1 stats, based on the unit's equipment (aside from phalanxes with their excessive shield values - combined with too high armour).

[Demon Soul]

Recently in my campaign(H/M) I was defending a city with wooden walls. Attacking army was without general. I was outnumbered. Battle was long. In the almost of end of it I've noticed that my archers unit was able to make phalanx unit rout. They where fighting on walls. It was wierd.

[Shmanky]

Recently in my campaign(H/M) I was defending a city with wooden walls. Attacking army was without general. I was outnumbered. Battle was long. In the almost of end of it I've noticed that my archers unit was able to make phalanx unit rout. They where fighting on walls. It was wierd.

had a siege battle where my guys wouldn't attack the units on the walls .. they would start coming out of the towers and then stop once they got into combat ;[

[Wulfburk]

I can understand the current stats, its not balanced yet and i suppose it wont be until a couple of major patches. i'd rather they release a patch focusing primarily on the reforms, culture and religion mechanics than to balance all those units.

But the unit collision, hoplites breaking formation, units that only charge with the 1st line (this happens like 100%), hard to do charges with cavalry, skirmishers bug, cavalry units fighting seem like only the first ones are "alive" while the rest seem to froze abit... These things in general which i suppose arent related to a unit stat should be the priority IMHO.

[QuintusSertorius]

I can understand the current stats, its not balanced yet and i suppose it wont be until a couple of major patches. i'd rather they release a patch focusing primarily on the reforms, culture and religion mechanics than to balance all those units.

But the unit collision, hoplites breaking formation, units that only charge with the 1st line (this happens like 100%), hard to do charges with cavalry, skirmishers bug, cavalry units fighting seem like only the first ones are "alive" while the rest seem to froze abit... These things in general which i suppose arent related to a unit stat should be the priority IMHO.

I can understand where you're coming from, but I disagree. For a beta, the campaign side of things is well advanced, first and foremost, it works! But more than that, complex mechanics like culture function mostly as intended, with only a few hiccups and strange things going on.

By contrast, the battle side of things is a little lacking at the moment. As I've said before, this isn't a fatal issue, just something that needs more testing, but it is an important aspect of the game. It has much more scope to sour people's experiences than reforms, if pressing "Fight This Battle on the Map" leads to a sense of despair, rather than anticipation.