Para Bellum

[Little Legionaire]

Dont rush my friend take your time and polish your work if you see it fit. I'm quite busy with the Italian culture update otherwise id like to test it before release.

[Sheridan]

First release available now in the original post! A Steam workshop page will be available tomorrow, along with a number of refinements from today's version (not to mention ACR included). Any feedback now would be very helpful, so enjoy and don't keep bugs or other issues to yourselves!

[Demokritos]

First release available now in the original post! A Steam workshop page will be available tomorrow, along with a number of refinements from today's version (not to mention ACR included). Any feedback now would be very helpful, so enjoy and don't keep bugs or other issues to yourselves!

Nice work, mate! Will grab the release version immediately and start a new campaign with it. Thank you very much for this contribution, Philip (I'll rep you again as soon as I'm allowed to).

[Sheridan]

Nice work, mate! Will grab the release version immediately and start a new campaign with it. Thank you very much for this contribution, Philip (I'll rep you again as soon as I'm allowed to).

Eagerly anticipating any feedback that you might have

[Demokritos]

Just a quick first note regarding your variantmeshes (after also testing my latest build for Totus): Merc Cretan Archers still have only one colour for tunics?

Now back to start a campaign with your mod. Should have something to say tomorrow or Saturday.

[Little Legionaire]

I'm not good at reporting nor the battle mechanics mate but i noticed that the phalangite animations are a bit weird. They dont properly thrust sarissas.

But nevermind my shallow feedback. Imo there are real vets around and will provide you solid feedback what you need most

[Sheridan]

I'm not good at reporting nor the battle mechanics mate but i noticed that the phalangite animations are a bit weird. They dont properly thrust sarissas.

But nevermind my shallow feedback. Imo there are real vets around and will provide you solid feedback what you need most

Nothing has changed with the animations there from vanilla. If I recall correctly though, it's possible to increase the likelihood of certain animations appearing, so I can look into that tomorrow (but it won't be a priority seeing as other things still need to be done first).

Do you like the battle pace? Missile balance? Spacing and soldier combat integrity? Just say what's on your mind from playing it.

[Demokritos]

After playing a couple of serious battles in my Vivisci campaign, I can already comment on a couple of things.

Spacing was very good. In the midst of battle, being concerned with other things, I did not notice soldiers being packed too closely to one another. Only when studying some screenshots afterwards did I find some instances of this, but it's way reduced compared with vanilla. I really dislike seeing the soldiers behaving like soap bubbles merged with one another, but I don't see much of that in your mod.

Battles have been pretty long and hard. In the last one (against the Insubres), I guess it was partly due to the commander of the enemy being a five star general (whereas mine was ranked two stars), so they were greatly inspired by this guy.

Missile units (at least slingers) appeared to play a large role for the outcome, though, if given an opportunity to do their business. I might like to have their efficiency tuned down a bit.

Biggest problem for me was (still) the surprising tenacity of some units. A slinger unit of the enemy, which may have had one chevron in experience before the battle, was down to ten soldiers and "shaken" by it, but still slinging away. Even under a five star general, that seems unrealistic, at least for an attacker (while defending their homes and hard pressed, they should be harder to break). So my advice here is to somehow cut down on the casualty numbers before the units give up but at least maintain the length of fighting time to reach that point. In history, battles were usually decided long before casualty rates became that high.

I wonder about the proportions in the stats for some units. Some missile units have a morale value of "2", for instance, while a good melee unit has five times more. This relation seems a bit odd, but maybe the battle mechanics take into account other factors which make such proportions work well. But what about the experience system? If one chevron of experience means one point extra in morale, then experience improves the fighting capacity of cheap units far more than expensive ones (in the example above, slingers would have their morale improved by 50% from the first experience, but the good melee unit only by 10%). But again some other factors that I'm unaware of may be involved for making the whole work differently.

The battles reminded me of another issue I have with the game: the speed of horses. The difference between them and foot soldiers, including light infantry, should be greater. I wish you could do something about that, too.

Anyway, all in all, a very good first impression of your work, Philip. May find reason to comment on some more details when I've had the opportunity to use your mod for a longer period (with a faction from a different culture and fighting tradition).

Regards,
D


PS. What's that "matched combat" thing some people are talking and modding about? Could some changes here improve the show of the battles?

[Little Legionaire]

Impressive battle report Demokritos! IMO this is all Sheridan' need,

[Sheridan]

Thanks for all your feedback!

If it was possible, I would disable formation attack by default for all units so that the AI wouldn't use it. It's the one biggest cause of blobbing/stacking in battles. Perhaps CA will adress it eventually, hopefully anyway.

I think you may be absolutely right about the slingers actually, they're a bit too accurate still and that allows them to be very effective against low-armoured units. I'll adjust it right away.

So about the morale, that's a very complicated part. Units have their own morale, but they also get affected by other things such as whether they have secured flanks, if they're being flanked/attacked in the rear or fighting cavalry etc. Slingers should be shattered at 10 men though, unless you were playing on very hard battle difficulty (for some reason this difficulty is not compatible with the morale values in the mod, enemy units will basically never rout). If you were playing on a lower difficulty, though, it shouldn't be happening, but can be fixed by some minor tweaks with the morale file.

The unit statistics largely follow the structure of Medieval 2, but that is not to say that some values like morale for units are not misplaced. The advantage of giving most basic missile units low morale (2-4 with the mod) is that they'll typically rout pretty fast in the face of immediate danger, especially if left alone with no other support units, and for missile units that makes a lot of sense. You're absolutely right about the experience gain of units, the only problem is not much can be done about it. However, even if cheap get more out of higher experience, they'll never really compare with the better melee units anyway.

Matched combat is the motion capture animations that CA made, basically a bit over the top animations for this setting. How frequently they appear has been reduced with the mod down to between 5 and 10%, so most of the combat will feature more typical slashing and stabbing motions rather than two soldiers dancing around while fighting each other. The advantage of a low matched combat percentage is better unit cohesion/formation integrity.

[Demokritos]

I forgot to mention the result of my cavalry trying to deal with the enemy slingers in that last battle. I had two units of light cavalry and one unit of heavy cavalry trying to eliminate 4 or 5 units of slingers while avoiding the enemy's support of those slingers. The cavalry managed to hit the slingers clean a few times, but the latter held the ground long enough to allow for their (swordsmen) support to arrive. The cavalry then extracted themselves from the melee, and maneuvered away from chasing enemy support to come back on the slingers from an other angle (which was difficult due to the slow speed of the horses, and took a toll on their stamina) and repeat the process. In the end, all my cavalry were driven off the field while the remains of four slinger units battled on (had to put my own slingers to neutralize those slingers). Again partly due to the presence of that general, I suppose.

But battle difficulty was set on hard. So perhaps the result was not that surprising, after all. This difficulty setting naturally affected the length of the battles, too. On normal, the battles would probably have been over more quickly. Too quick for my taste, I think.

Thanks for your explanations, including that regarding "matched combat".

Keep up the good work.

[Sheridan]

Were the slingers basic or elites (balearic or rhodian)? I think the latter tend to hold better, although they too are vulnerable to any type of melee combat. Basically cavalry works similar to how it does in Medieval 2, you need to build up a lot of momentum for a charge to be effective. If the momentum isn't sufficient, they won't really perform an effective charge and the result is often a prolonged melee combat in favor of the enemy. I can up the speed of cavalry a bit if you want, but they are really pretty quick already. Too high speeds and they will loook funny while running.

[Demokritos]

The slingers were native Gallic ones with at least one chevron.

What's required for sufficient momentum in cavalry charges? Have you increased these requirements (or decreased the charge effect) compared to vanilla?

[Sheridan]

Just enough distance between the cavalry and the infantry target, if they're too close the charge might not be very effective. I just tried a few custom battles with light and medium cavalry versus celtic slingers, the light cavalry managed to kill about a quarter of the slingers in the charge (when the slingers were desperately trying to run away and avoid it), the medium cavalry kind of shattered them immediately, they lost over half their strength really quick and that was it. In large amounts however I can see why the cavalry would struggle a bit to quickly wipe out slingers or other skirmish units, since a single charge wouldn't be sufficient to take out multiple units.

[Little Legionaire]

Results are great!

Sheridan mate, is this final version of your mod or will there be further tweaks?

[Sheridan]

Results are great!

Sheridan mate, is this final version of your mod or will there be further tweaks?

There will be further tweaks where improvements can be done, and of course as they become necessary to make new units compatible with the mod. Next on the to-do list is adding proper particle effects, making pikemen thurst more according to your request, polish up the rosters a little bit more and of course implement the new hoplite spear as soon as it's finished. After that.. well, the more feedback the merrier. It's essential to make further improvements.

[Little Legionaire]

There will be further tweaks where improvements can be done, and of course as they become necessary to make new units compatible with the mod. Next on the to-do list is adding proper particle effects, making pikemen thurst more according to your request, polish up the rosters a little bit more and of course implement the new hoplite spear as soon as it's finished. After that.. well, the more feedback the merrier. It's essential to make further improvements.

Sounds brilliant,

One thing... That pikemen problem may be related with my "Pikemen Holds Sarissa" mod. I'll test it and as soon as i can to give more accurate and refined feedback. Modding alone takes my a lot of time and believe me i didnt complete any single campaign for months. But thank god now is the time for fresh campaign with your mod. Demokritos' feedback was quite encouraging to me.

Keep up the good work mate!

[Sheridan]

Preparing to release it on the Steam workshop page now. It should be out within the next 30 minutes, so keep an open eye.

[Little Legionaire]

Great i'll put the mod to my recommendations!

[Sheridan]

Up and available on steam now. Enjoy!