Para Bellum

[Sheridan]

I'm very much interested in this 1hit point system but things seem off with the morale system :/ will there be any changes to it in the new update? I'll check back when the new update is here either way.

What's there you don't like with the morale?

[Krieg_Boy]

Is the campaign working with last patch? When I try to start a new campaign it wont show any factions to choose, quite odd.

[Sheridan]

Is the campaign working with last patch? When I try to start a new campaign it wont show any factions to choose, quite odd.

That sounds very odd indeed. It has been updated since the latest patch, even after it was released, so there should be no issues there. Do you have any other mod that may be in conflict with PB?

[Demokritos]

God fortsättning, Sheridan!

Thought I should mention that your mod seems to disable the normal recruitment options in the WoS campaign. Mercenaries are good to go, but no other types of troops. Anybody else seen this?

[Sheridan]

God fortsättning, Sheridan!

Thought I should mention that your mod seems to disable the normal recruitment options in the WoS campaign. Mercenaries are good to go, but no other types of troops. Anybody else seen this?

Detsamma, och God Jul förstås!

I'll have a look into it

[Sheridan]

Should be addressed now

[JaM]

btw, that dust looks awesome

[Demokritos]

Should be addressed now

I can confirm it to be so. Thank you.

What about those Merc Cretan Archers - are they supposed to have one colour for tunics?

[Exiled Spartan]

I have a general question about the game. Is it possible to start mercs out with a few chevrons of experience? If they're full time soldiers, they should be hired as having more experience than troops you recruit. They should cost more too, but the benefit should be at least initally they're better than your basic troops.

[Sheridan]

I have a general question about the game. Is it possible to start mercs out with a few chevrons of experience? If they're full time soldiers, they should be hired as having more experience than troops you recruit. They should cost more too, but the benefit should be at least initally they're better than your basic troops.

There are ways to make this possible I suspect, yep. +1 or +2 experience would make sense, plus make them more valuable in times of need. Do you want me to fix that for the mod, or was it just a question?

@Demokritos

Will fix it later today.

[Exiled Spartan]

There are ways to make this possible I suspect, yep. +1 or +2 experience would make sense, plus make them more valuable in times of need. Do you want me to fix that for the mod, or was it just a question?

@Demokritos

Will fix it later today.

I have yet to play the mod, but I would say go ahead and do it. It should help the diversity by determining if its better to spend more cash for more effectiveness, or try and tough it out with regional troops.
Also, what is the time frame of this mod? Is it as such that Macedonian phalanx mercs(if there are any)should be super expensive and super effective due to their decades of wars due the successors?
I would also suggest a cap on Spartans, as in this time they were very very few(less than 1,000) actual Spartiates. And the agoge was in question of still being in effect or not, so aside from caps I'd think they should not be the greatest troops ever everyone likes to see, but instead a hardy group that is still hard to rout while looking awesome in their crimson.
Another pop cap I'd recommend is Companion Cav for Macedon. Or at least a long recruit time. AS these were men of close kinship or friendship of the king, there were not unlimited numbers of them. I think this should be represented.
Let me know what you think.

[Sheridan]

It's just a battle mod, so no specific time frame. The caps and longer recruitment times seem like a good idea, I'll fix that for the next update.

[Jamoid]

Shield Bearers, Silver Shield pikemen and Companion cavalry all have 65 armour in my game, is this intentional?

EDIT: Aha! Seems to be fine without Legionaire's Army Mod.

[Little Legionaire]

Shield Bearers, Silver Shield pikemen and Companion cavalry all have 65 armour in my game, is this intentional?

EDIT: Aha! Seems to be fine without Legionaire's Army Mod.

My mod is a visual one and doesnt have any affect on units stats nor battle mechanics.

[Jamoid]

My mod is a visual one and doesnt have any affect on units stats nor battle mechanics.

That's what I assumed (and why I didn't try disabling it first), but oddly disabling your mod fixed the issue. Somehow, some combination of your mod, Para Bellum and Varietas was causing it.

The only other mods I had enabled were GEM and the Rome 1 music mod. Pretty odd.

[Sheridan]

That's what I assumed (and why I didn't try disabling it first), but oddly disabling your mod fixed the issue. Somehow, some combination of your mod, Para Bellum and Varietas was causing it.

The only other mods I had enabled were GEM and the Rome 1 music mod. Pretty odd.

Very odd indeed, cosmetic mods shouldn't cause anything like that. I think I've encountered the same thing once in the past, but not recently.

[Demokritos]

I have a general question about the game. Is it possible to start mercs out with a few chevrons of experience? If they're full time soldiers, they should be hired as having more experience than troops you recruit. They should cost more too, but the benefit should be at least initally they're better than your basic troops.

I don't think mercenaries with some chevrons from the time of recruitment is such a good idea. It means they can't improve as much as other units, and lose relative value at the higher end of experience. Better to repesent their battle experience with higher than normal stats from the start. This would reflect the fact that as soldiers they're not green and therefore perform decidedly better than others of the same type, but they're new as mercenaries, and in this capacity they can develop in experience in as many steps as the rest.

That's what I assumed (and why I didn't try disabling it first), but oddly disabling your mod fixed the issue. Somehow, some combination of your mod, Para Bellum and Varietas was causing it.

The only other mods I had enabled were GEM and the Rome 1 music mod. Pretty odd.

Are you using my Varietas AND Para Bellum? I think the latter already includes the former nowadays, and the extra copy of Varietas might cause problems, although it seems unlikely to affect unit stats. Also, regular Varietas (which, as I said, may be included in PB nowadays) is not meant to go with the Legionaries Armies Mod. You'll have to use the down-slimmed version of ACR called ACLA for that. ACLA has one file completely removed in order to make room for the special repertoire of LAM. So it sounds like you're using a mod combo with more than one inherent conflict, which is normally not a good idea.

[...]

@Demokritos

Will fix it later today.

Saw them getting two colours for tunics. Makes them more interesting, thank you. Two was intentional, not three?


Anyhow, I came here for an other reason today, and this is to thank you officially again for your contributions, Philip. For the first time since I bought the game, I'm actually playing a campaign seriously now. I started playing as Rome to see how my new uniforms came out in campaign environment, but got hooked by the thrill of it - thanks in no small measure to mods like your Para Bellum and Enhanced Particles, Lithatrion's Better AI Recruitment Mod, etc. I must say it's been a very long time since I enjoyed a TW game this much. It's like I'm reliving Rome's history. Playing the game on hard campaign and battle difficulty (the latter against official PB advice on purpose for added challenge), it's taken me some 40 years to subdue the Etruscans for good, it was not easy to oust the Carthaginains from Sardinia, I had real trouble with a slave revolt that conquered the southern parts of my territory and nearly reached Rome before I managed to crush it, and now the Gauls are coming down the Alps in big wave after big wave making life difficult. It's great, haha! So thanks a lot for your work part in this experience, mate.

[Sheridan]

Saw them getting two colours for tunics. Makes them more interesting, thank you. Two was intentional, not three?


Anyhow, I came here for an other reason today, and this is to thank you officially again for your contributions, Philip. For the first time since I bought the game, I'm actually playing a campaign seriously now. I started playing as Rome to see how my new uniforms came out in campaign environment, but got hooked by the thrill of it - thanks in no small measure to mods like your Para Bellum and Enhanced Particles, Lithatrion's Better AI Recruitment Mod, etc. I must say it's been a very long time since I enjoyed a TW game this much. It's like I'm reliving Rome's history. Playing the game on hard campaign and battle difficulty (the latter against official PB advice on purpose for added challenge), it's taken me some 40 years to subdue the Etruscans for good, it was not easy to oust the Carthaginains from Sardinia, I had real trouble with a slave revolt that conquered the southern parts of my territory and nearly reached Rome before I managed to crush it, and now the Gauls are coming down the Alps in big wave after big wave making life difficult. It's great, haha! So thanks a lot for your work part in this experience, mate.

Couldn't get the third to work, so yeah.

Thank you very much for the comments. It's great to hear that all work paid off in the end. By the way, I really love Varietas - missile unit uniforms in particular look fantastic. Haven't taken time yet to really start a campaign on my own, but I think I will now. You've got to keep me up to date on how yours turns out!

For the next update, I'll up the melee attack of mercenaries by one, rather than increasing experience. There will be some neat changes, like the WoS hoplons for all units currently using hoplite shields, as well as a more specific role for skirmish cavalry. Anyway, it'll be on hold for a day or two - you may not want to have it updated as it might not be save game compatible.

[Jamoid]

Are you using my Varietas AND Para Bellum? I think the latter already includes the former nowadays, and the extra copy of Varietas might cause problems, although it seems unlikely to affect unit stats. Also, regular Varietas (which, as I said, may be included in PB nowadays) is not meant to go with the Legionaries Armies Mod. You'll have to use the down-slimmed version of ACR called ACLA for that. ACLA has one file completely removed in order to make room for the special repertoire of LAM. So it sounds like you're using a mod combo with more than one inherent conflict, which is normally not a good idea.

Oh I know, I was attempting to get Legionaire's Army mod to work with Para Bellum by using them both with ACLA (I read everything and made sure I was using the correct version). I assume that even though ACLA works fine with Legionaire's mod as intended, some part of the Varietas that was left inside Para Bellum was causing issues. Perhaps it's a load order issue... I'm not too familiar yet with Rome 2 modding. Would love to get them all working together, the effort you three have put into this game to make it feel closer to what it should've been is pretty astounding.

I'm trying out Divide et Impera right now, but if you want I can try to recreate the issue at some point.

[Demokritos]

Oh I know, I was attempting to get Legionaire's Army mod to work with Para Bellum by using them both with ACLA (I read everything and made sure I was using the correct version). I assume that even though ACLA works fine with Legionaire's mod as intended, some part of the Varietas that was left inside Para Bellum was causing issues. Perhaps it's a load order issue... I'm not too familiar yet with Rome 2 modding. Would love to get them all working together, the effort you three have put into this game to make it feel closer to what it should've been is pretty astounding.

I'm trying out Divide et Impera right now, but if you want I can try to recreate the issue at some point.

All you have to do in order to get LAM, ACR, and PB working together is to use LAM as is, the ACLA version of ACR, and then delete the two DB tables named "faction_uniform_colours" and "unit_variants_colours" from PB. If you edit PB this way, you should rename it and then enable that version of PB in the mod manager and disable the Steam version. Repeat if you want to use any updates of PB.

Nice to hear you like that mod combo. A lot of work has been put into it from all three of us, each from our own ends that happen to meet very well.

Couldn't get the third to work, so yeah.

Thank you very much for the comments. It's great to hear that all work paid off in the end. By the way, I really love Varietas - missile unit uniforms in particular look fantastic. Haven't taken time yet to really start a campaign on my own, but I think I will now. You've got to keep me up to date on how yours turns out!

For the next update, I'll up the melee attack of mercenaries by one, rather than increasing experience. There will be some neat changes, like the WoS hoplons for all units currently using hoplite shields, as well as a more specific role for skirmish cavalry. Anyway, it'll be on hold for a day or two - you may not want to have it updated as it might not be save game compatible.

Thanks for the heads up. I keep updating my own mod and therefore need to use an edited version of PB, so the automatic Steam updates for PB won't affect me. But the changes you have in store sound very good. I guess I'll just have to finish my present campaign first in order to take a look at them.

I'm glad to hear Varietas is to your liking, Philip. Haven't noticed that I did something particular with the missile units. I've just tried to make all units look rather interesting and authentic, with an eye on historical sources.