Para Bellum

[Little Legionaire]

Something i noticed just like Demokritos' noticed the tenacity of units. Sometimes even the slingers, light cavalry fight till the last man. Even if they take for example 90 percent casualty they keep fighting. I saw couple times 5-10 man of enemy units walking around for a challenge. My last battle, two of the enemy generals are killed but milita hoplites and slingers kept fighting despite sustained casualty.

[Demokritos]

Regarding the battle difficulty I played that aforementioned battle with, it says "-1" in my preferences file. That's the first step harder from normal battle difficulty.


I agree with the idea that javelinmen should have better combat skills than slingers and archers, because they're operating at closer range of the enemy and should be prepared to be caught up in melee more often.

I also think different types of missiles should have different effects. An arrow should have greater chance of piercing through a given type of armour and thereby inflict lethal damage than a rock etc (although a rock with higher mass than an arrowhead might still inflict lethal damage when hitting certain parts of a protected body). Arrows can also be made to have a psychological effect, turn buildings on fire, etc. But rocks might be lethal from longer ranges, and cheaper to acquire etc. And javelins be most effective against armour etc. Such differences properly implemented would add to the strategical or tactical challenge of a battle.

What do you mean by AP having a "draining" effect, Philip?

[Sheridan]

Guys are you playing with no other mods enabled? It doesn't seem plausible that such low tier units would hold for so long given how the morale was designed. For example, hastati which I've perhaps used the most frequently in tests second to principes have 6 morale and they would rout almost every time after losing about half their strength, even if they are in the center of a battle line with allied units covering their back as reserves. In your observations, are the slingers and other units fighting to the last man in melee combat or are they just not routing after being whittled down by missile troops?

I've upped the melee attack of all javelinmen and peltasts now by the way, with a value between 1 and 3 depending on which units (less for peltasts as they already had high attack).

There's only so much that can be done with missile weapons, really. Since I want to avoid the draining effect I was talking about - which is when troops take virtually no casualties by the first few volleys but then start losing a lot of men fast, which doesn't make any sense and eliminates any chances of good balance and this "solid" feeling of projectiles, that they actually have an impact - all armour piercing damage for small projectiles is kind of out of question. It would kill soldiers instantly with the 1 hp system, too. However to better simulate the deadliness of javelins over arrows or tiny stones, I can add to their normal damage however. This would in effect mean that a javelin is more likely to kill a soldier upon hit than any arrow or sling stone, as the armour of the targeted soldier is less likely sufficient to protect from the danger.

Making a distinction between sling stones and arrows might be more tricky though in terms of how effective they are against armour. I can try and add a low AP effect (mind you, not damage) for stone projectiles. This should give them the upper hand versus armoured targets compared to archers, as it would basically split the armour effectiveness. Basically with the current configurations in this area, the armour effectiveness should be divided by 3 if the AP effect is applied to sling stones, which means that a unit with 9 armour would only have a third of it, 3, as protection against the projectiles, whereas an arrow would still have to deal with the full 9 armour. Worth a try anyway, or what do you think?

[Demokritos]

I was thinking that archers should have an advantage against armour over slingers. But slingers a greater hit chance, since an arrow, at least when aimed as to rain down on the enemy, only gets one shot at a hit, whereas a rock thrown horisontally, if it misses the nearest target, can still hit the next in line.


No other mods of relevance enabled in that battle of mine...

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Sheridan]

I was thinking that archers should have an advantage against armour over slingers. But slingers a greater hit chance, since an arrow, at least when aimed as to rain down on the enemy, only gets one shot at a hit, whereas a rock thrown horisontally, if it misses the nearest target, can still hit the next in line.

Oh right, I must have read that wrong. Shouldn't the arrow have less of an advantage when fired at such an angle though? At least with spears, it's better to try and thurst horizontally rather than from an elevated angle, at least from what I've read of some of JaM's posts. Being hit by a small stone on the other hand would probably hurt a lot without sufficient armour like perhaps bronze or something that comes in a single piece - although I could be wrong. It's tricky to tell which weapon would be more accurate though, in the hands of experts.

From what I can tell of the picture, the unit was bombarded by missile fire of some type? If that's the case the total casualty penalty needs to go up a bit, but it's going to require a bit of time to tweak so it fits with all units regardless of type and quality.

[Demokritos]

I'm just trying think logically here. Whatever the angle an arrow hits an armoured soldier with, it has a greater chance of piercing through than a rock, simply because the whole mass and force of the arrow is channelled through that smallest tip of arrow head, creating a great splitting power, whereas the rock has a far greater impact area.

In the hands of experts, of course, the arrow aimed horisontally should have the same accuracy as the rock. But arrows are not fired horisontally all the time. For greater piercing power from a distance, they should probably be aimed upwards so that they can use the gravity on their way down. Then they become more lethal, but at the expense of accuracy (since a miss would not mean another chance of a hit with a different target in near line with the first).

Anyway, these differences should already been thoroughly clarified by some scientific experiment or other. If we searched around the net a bit, we could have proper descriptions of the respective qualites to base the mod parameters on. I'm kinda busy with my own projects, so maybe someone else could volunteer to do this job.

Regarding the battle picture, that spot was only the last those slingers occupied before they routed (by the fire of my own slingers some distance away); they had been moving around on the battlefield a lot in order to get into position against my foot soldiers, avoid my cavalry, fight my cavalry, run away, come back for another shot at my foot soldiers etc. Note the shape of the shields on the ground. Those are not slinger shields. Some other units took a beating there as well and disappeared before the slingers turned up there.

How much can a general influence the morale and, consequently, the tenacity of the units?

[Sheridan]

Hmm well, that's definitely true about the arrow being far more likely to penetrate armour given its shape. At long distances I very much doubt that arrows would be particularly effective at penetrating armour, but then again it depends on if it's a type of single/double piece armour like bronze or a linothorax, or something like chainmail where there is lots of tiny holes everywhere which an arrow tip should have an easier time to penetrate.

The advantage with the rock would be the force it delivers and perhaps transfers upon impact on armour to the man wearing it, causing nasty damage. As of now in the mod, archers have slightly lower range and ammunition but quite a lot better accuracy generally speaking. Giving arrows a low penetrating effect would be the next step, based on our discussion, to differentiate the two weapons. Similarly, javelins should have superior damage to make them more effective against armoured and unarmoured units alike due to the sheer impact force of the weapon when thrown. That's a start for the changes anyway, if there are other things that can be done we'll figure that out eventually.

I'm not entirely sure of how much the prescence of a general affects the morale of nearby units, since it's not listed in the morale file it might be a modifier instead. The inspire ability gives an immediate +2 morale, though, but that's not the answer you were looking for I suspect. Even when inspired and with the prescence of a general, a slinger unit would never stand its ground in melee combat after such tremendous losses, but the insufficient penalties outside of melee combat don't bite enough on them evidently. Should have both the missile and morale changes fixed by tomorrow.

[Demokritos]

To fully account for the bahaviour of those slingers, it looks like we're missing some factor or other involved.

When it comes to the influence of the general, some effect ought to come from his ranking. A one star general ought not to inspire such as strong following as a five star general. And then we have these individual qualities that he can develop and as a player assign to him as represented by those cards, some of which can affect morale as well, if I'm not mistaken. And what about his "retinue"?

All factors together might sometimes pile up to work strongly in a certain direction, decidedly more so than from the usual or obvious parameters like unit stats.

[Sheridan]

I forgot to even ask, but if that was a campaign battle, we might be looking at some suspicious things indeed. As far as I know the only bonuses to troop quality given by traits, retinues and army tradition are modifiers that never go past 15%. If however there are direct bonuses hidden somewhere in the campaign mechanics, that would wipe out any balance. Imagine what a +5 morale bonus - which wouldn't be much in vanilla - would cause for a mod where that's the average morale of troops in most factions.

[Little Legionaire]

I played campaign battles only (Hard difficulty) and probably due to the selected setting morale values altered and caused that "unbreakable" levy units issue. That's the only explanation.

And no other mods but visual ones.

[kiwimaster]

Thanks for making the changes to the javelinmen. I have a few more questions regarding specific units.

Massagetae:
Saka cataphracts are inferior to Saka noble armoured lancers despite costing more as they have lower attack and defense values. Shouldn't the saka cataphracts at least have higher charge and armour values, since they're cataphracts compared to armoured lancers?

Egypt:
Sobek cultists seem to have had their fear trait removed, despite retaining their small unit size. Although they do have high morale to compensate, when testing against a similarly priced unit like hastati (which is actually 80 gold cheaper), the cultists seem to underperform. Maybe increasing the unit size to 120 men instead of the average 160 men might be better? Or just give them their fear trait back.

Iceni:
Druids have the same problem as the above-mentioned Sobek cultists.

Unit sizes (for ultra):
I like the fact that barbarian factions have increased unit sizes but is there a reason why this was limited to spear units only? And is it just me or does 240 units seem a tad too much compared to the regular 160 men sizes that civilized factions get? I'd personally prefer 200 units, but it's probably best to get more feedback from others on this issue.

Lastly, I've noticed that nomads get more men for their missile cavalry, but would you be opposed to increasing unit sizes for the rest of their cavalry? I feel that the nomads need a bit of extra help, especially since their economy is terrible.

[Sheridan]

Thanks for making the changes to the javelinmen. I have a few more questions regarding specific units.

Massagetae:
Saka cataphracts are inferior to Saka noble armoured lancers despite costing more as they have lower attack and defense values. Shouldn't the saka cataphracts at least have higher charge and armour values, since they're cataphracts compared to armoured lancers?

Egypt:
Sobek cultists seem to have had their fear trait removed, despite retaining their small unit size. Although they do have high morale to compensate, when testing against a similarly priced unit like hastati (which is actually 80 gold cheaper), the cultists seem to underperform. Maybe increasing the unit size to 120 men instead of the average 160 men might be better? Or just give them their fear trait back.

Iceni:
Druids have the same problem as the above-mentioned Sobek cultists.

Unit sizes (for ultra):
I like the fact that barbarian factions have increased unit sizes but is there a reason why this was limited to spear units only? And is it just me or does 240 units seem a tad too much compared to the regular 160 men sizes that civilized factions get? I'd personally prefer 200 units, but it's probably best to get more feedback from others on this issue.

Lastly, I've noticed that nomads get more men for their missile cavalry, but would you be opposed to increasing unit sizes for the rest of their cavalry? I feel that the nomads need a bit of extra help, especially since their economy is terrible.

Some exciting feedback!

Happy that you were satisfied with the changes for javelinmen.

You're definitely right about the Saka cataphracts. When editing hundreds of units, mistakes like that tend to occur and it's on me, sorry about that. The Sobek Cultists are part of a DLC (if I'm not mistaking?), so they were really difficult to balance given that I couldn't really test them in battle. I'll make sure to add back the fear trait for both them and druids. What's the manpower count of the cultists on ultra? Edit: found in files. Nevermind this question.

About the unit sizes, I guess it's really up to preference. A noble sword unit will still be effective against a noble spear unit, despite the difference in unit sizes. I have been thinking about increasing the ordinary unit size to 200, and it would probably work fine with the current balance, so.. it might actually be worth a shot. I'll fix it and send you a separate file via PM that you can try out and give feedback on, alright?

And lastly on the issue of nomadic cavalry numbers. I could increase their melee/shock cavalry to 100 men per unit, but it would require a little bit of testing first to make sure they don't get overpowered.

[kiwimaster]

Sure, I'd like to test out any changes to the unit sizes you make. The main problem I feel is that the high-tier barbarian spears like chosen spearmen/noble spearmen/noble spears/etc. not only have very good combat stats, but also a high morale that can really capitalize on their larger unit sizes. This makes it quite difficult for most civilized factions (except Rome) to counter them as they lack powerful infantry of a similar price. For instance, Athenian picked hoplites (940 gold) only barely beat out Arverni chosen spearmen (600 gold), which is troublesome since picked hoplites are the best infantry that Athens can field, while Arverni have even better units like noble spears and oathsworn. Either increasing regular unit sizes or decreasing high-tier barbarian spear unit sizes should be able to correct this problem.

[Sheridan]

Working on it now. We never really got to balance hoplites properly since we couldn't settle how they should be behaving as a unit in terms of formations and fighting style. There were ideas about removing the hoplite phalanx formation entirely, I had my own idea of giving them the Rome 1 type of phalanx and there were others who suggested that they should use the overarm grip, but at the end of the day nothing was changed. As of now I'm still waiting for that hoplite spear to be finished (it's being worked upon by the Antiqua Imperium team). When it's finished we might be looking at some animation changes and serious pricing and manpower changes for hoplites, to differentiate them from other spear units but also make them a viable unit type choice which is what they should be.

Back to the unit sizes - 200 per regular sword unit and 240 per spear unit sounds reasonable perhaps? And then something like 180 for hoplites of various kinds, including triarii. It'll be sort of tricky to get first cohorts right, though. Doubt a single ship would fit over 250 men, while a first cohort should be composed of about 280 to 300 men in this case. Missile units should probably be left at 160 men.

[kiwimaster]

Oh one other thing. If you're going with the route of slightly increasing unit sizes for most units, it may be wise to give skirmisher units 1 or 2 extra ammunition.

[Demokritos]

In another campaign battle...

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Technology developments, are those included in the modifiers that maximize at 15%? Physical Conditioning alone increases the unit morale by 5%.

What does that figure mean, anyway? 5% of the base morale? Then, for some mssile units having a base morale value of 2, that would mean an increase to 2,1. Does this mean anything at all in a battle? Not much in returns for that technology.

BTW, regaring unit sizes, just make sure everything works when disembarking from ships.

[Sheridan]

In another campaign battle...

Technology developments, are those included in the modifiers that maximize at 15%? Physical Conditioning alone increases the unit morale by 5%.

What does that figure mean, anyway? 5% of the base morale? Then, for some mssile units having a base morale value of 2, that would mean an increase to 2,05. Does this mean anything at all in a battle? Not much in returns for that technology.

BTW, regaring unit sizes, just make sure everything works when disembarking from ships.

All technology bonuses as far as I know are modifiers as well, so even with the best character trait that gives +15% morale, physical conditioning that gives +5% and let's for the sake of it throw in an additional 20% that might come from other things, a unit with 3 morale would only have it increased up to 4.2 (rounded to 4). All these modifiers increase the base morale, yes, but as evident not enough to have any serious impact on the battlefield for so mediocre or poor units that we're talking about. So there has to be some trait, skill or other thing that adds actual morale to the base morale, instead of modifying it. It's not going to be fun trying to figure out in which file/s that could be.

Unit sizes probably won't be changed for the official version of the mod, but rather released as a separate alternative at a later point, since there's simply too much balancing that has to be done in order to get it working properly. (Besides I personally think the sizes we're talking about would fit better for a full overhaul rather than a battle focused mod).

About the projectile changes we were talking about the other day. I tried applying the low armour piercing effect, but it had a very drastical impact on the performance of javelins in particular. In tests with velites against eastern spearmen, the velites would kill 20-25 spearmen before melee combat initiated (due to the latter charging) with current configurations, but with the low effect enabled they would kill 55-65 which seems far too much.

[andrew881thebest]

Working on it now. We never really got to balance hoplites properly since we couldn't settle how they should be behaving as a unit in terms of formations and fighting style. There were ideas about removing the hoplite phalanx formation entirely, I had my own idea of giving them the Rome 1 type of phalanx and there were others who suggested that they should use the overarm grip, but at the end of the day nothing was changed. As of now I'm still waiting for that hoplite spear to be finished (it's being worked upon by the Antiqua Imperium team). When it's finished we might be looking at some animation changes and serious pricing and manpower changes for hoplites, to differentiate them from other spear units but also make them a viable unit type choice which is what they should be.

Back to the unit sizes - 200 per regular sword unit and 240 per spear unit sounds reasonable perhaps? And then something like 180 for hoplites of various kinds, including triarii. It'll be sort of tricky to get first cohorts right, though. Doubt a single ship would fit over 250 men, while a first cohort should be composed of about 280 to 300 men in this case. Missile units should probably be left at 160 men.

as for hoplite phalanx and overarm grip, Moonhoplite hoplite animations were (i dont know if they still exist) very good, I made 2 videos in my youtube channel, you can watch yourself the result, on my opinion it looks very realistic, since formations do not break at all and hoplites do only stabbing (overarm and underarm) rather than duelling and moving.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7YEptNfFiA&list=UUIjT7OSnL7tA23j2CJPjY5w

[Sheridan]

as for hoplite phalanx and overarm grip, Moonhoplite hoplite animations were (i dont know if they still exist) very good, I made 2 videos in my youtube channel, you can watch yourself the result, on my opinion it looks very realistic, since formations do not break at all and hoplites do only stabbing (overarm and underarm) rather than duelling and moving. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7YE...7tA23j2CJPjY5w

Moon Hoplite did a great job with that yeah, unfortunately it's outdated (already tried implementing it but the game won't launch). Regardless, his work is an excellent source of inspiration if we were to change the hoplite behaviour to something similar in PB. (Which is the plan currently, but it will take some time).

[andrew881thebest]

Moon Hoplite did a great job with that yeah, unfortunately it's outdated (already tried implementing it but the game won't launch). Regardless, his work is an excellent source of inspiration if we were to change the hoplite behaviour to something similar in PB. (Which is the plan currently, but it will take some time).

you could ask him to update the mod. Anyway, quick answer!