Para Bellum

[Little Legionaire]

Overarm animation and longer spears for Hoplite units would be magnificent!

[Sheridan]

Small update now launched that includes some minor unit size changes for Carthaginian and Roman bodyguards, Druids and Sobek Cultists, plus small changes to some units' combat values based on Kiwimaster's feedback. The scare attributes have been added back to the two special units mentioned as well, and artillery now has a slightly slower rate of fire in first person.

Perhaps not the most exciting of updates but there'll be coming more in a matter of days with substantial content.

[andrew881thebest]

I noticed that pikemen when under fire raise shields wavering their long pikes exactely as all other units do with spears and swords...I am not sure if it is realistic.

[Sheridan]

I noticed that pikemen when under fire raise shields wavering their long pikes exactely as all other units do with spears and swords...I am not sure if it is realistic.

Yeah that's not a pretty animation. I'm still a complete beginner at working with animations in 3DS Max and motionbuilder, so don't expect too much there. It's CA's design and it.. works as intended

[andrew881thebest]

Yeah that's not a pretty animation. I'm still a complete beginner at working with animations in 3DS Max and motionbuilder, so don't expect too much there. It's CA's design and it.. works as intended

in vanilla they do not raise shields while under missile attack (and this is one of the few realistic things) though.

[Sheridan]

in vanilla they do not raise shields while under missile attack (and this is one of the few realistic things) though.

Then my animation fragment for pikes must be outdated. They definitely did, some months ago. If it's fixed in vanilla though I can easily adjust it in the mod.

[Little Legionaire]

Strange but i've seen couple time that they raised their shields when under missile fire. (i've no other battle mod installed)

[Sheridan]

I got the pikes working as they should now. Haven't tested every possible scenario yet, but no crashes so far anyway. So now they won't be trying to block projectiles anymore. Update will be launched soon

[Sheridan]

Tiny update launched, correcting the pike animations. If you notice any bugs with it, please don't keep it to yourselves

[Little Legionaire]

Examples of tenacity,

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

As you can see they just don't give up at all,

One thing though, custom battles are just fine. Flanked units rout and come back şf they're not chased by enemy and pikes hold the line until they're surrounded and head on charge to pikes is a bad choice and cause mass rout when the certain unit takes casualties beyond their tolerence limits. But something work different with campaign battles and i don't know how.

Hope it helps,

P.S: I've no other battle and even animation mods installed.

[Sheridan]

I don't think it's the battles so much as the campaign factors affecting them. Something is off, need to pinpoint just what that something is. It's not really my area of expertise, so any help would really be appreciated. LL, can you give me information about the general's skills, traits and household retainers who you used for that battle? Plus any eventual bonuses for the army and technological advancements that may have contributed to the morale. If there's any instance where an involved factor is not a modifier but instead a direct bonus, that might very well be the problem.

[Little Legionaire]

I don't think it's the battles so much as the campaign factors affecting them. Something is off, need to pinpoint just what that something is. It's not really my area of expertise, so any help would really be appreciated. LL, can you give me information about the general's skills, traits and household retainers who you used for that battle? Plus any eventual bonuses for the army and technological advancements that may have contributed to the morale. If there's any instance where an involved factor is not a modifier but instead a direct bonus, that might very well be the problem.

Campaign factors indeed! That's why i give custom battles example to refine the situation.

When i'm home ill give you the General effects and my researched technologies info with screenshots. But, i played the battles at Hard campaign difficulty. And my Seleucid campaign has come to an end. That means arse kicked God, the AI armies were fighting like Stalin' Komissars behind them!

[Demokritos]

So what changes have you made that could affect the campaign battles but not the custom battles like that, Philip?

[Sheridan]

So what changes have you made that could affect the campaign battles but not the custom battles like that, Philip?

I haven't made any separate combat changes for the campaign (that's not even possible), which is why this is quite worrisome. I've asked a few other modders if there are any campaign bonuses that are not modifiers - which as we've talked about could easily cause something like this - but they don't think there is. Yet, something must be different. Even if you combine the highest level of XP - which I think gives a +4 or +5 morale bonus, with say a +50% modifier from various campaign elements, a typical slinger unit would only get around 10 morale. In order to still remain steady at such low numbers as 20 men or less, a unit would have to have probably over 25 morale, so no low-tier units can even come close to that under the very best circumstances.

Can you give me all information regarding the battle with the slingers (or any more recent battle with similar events) that concerns their morale? Such as the general's morale modifying traits and skills, the army tradition bonuses, unit experience and anything else that you might find. It could be very useful to help figuring out what's the cause of this.

[Demokritos]

So far I've only seen this behaviour on the AI side - which I don't get much info from regarding those modifiers etc, for natural reasons. But I can note that in those two different battles I posted pics about, there was a five star general in the one and a one star general in the other. So the ranking of the general does not seem to matter much in this case.

I first thought it could be related to the battle difficulty, but you can evidently set the same difficulty in custom battles and still get different results. Next idea was that's connected with campaign difficulty, as I have that set on hard, too (in my preferences file). Don't know how that would affect battle difficulty in the campaign, however, other than something along the line of campaign difficulty set at X in game will automatically increase battle difficulty (to X) as well. But this would only be a problem if a change in the campaign difficulty in game adds to the battle difficulty set in the preferences file. Which doesn't seem likely.

As this behaviour is not seen in vanilla, the answer must be found in some tweak or other that you've made to the game, Philip, and you're the only one familar with them.

Despite the mathematical example in your last post, I wonder if it has anything to do with the new morale system in PB where slingers get a base morale of 2 instead of vanilla's 25. A fixed morale bonus in campaign mode of, say, 6, would not mean that much in vanilla, but in PB it would quadruple the morale for this unit. Which may be important if the conditions for a unit being "steady" has been adjusted to fit the new low-figured base morale system while that bonus hasn't.

[Sheridan]

Thanks for the info.

I can account for all campaign changes since they are of small volume. The first change is attrition damages, which just determines how many % of a unit that is lost under certain circumstances. The next and last campaign change is removed artillery for barbarians. That's all changes the mod includes specifically for the campaign, nothing more and nothing less. Any morale configurations that apply for custom battles apply for campaign battles as well, so the morale table is in effect there too. There's only one thing that could be the cause of the difference and that's the campaign bonuses we've been talking about. So I guess I'll have to play a few turns into a new campaign and see if there in fact are any fixed morale bonuses (or other fixed things for that matter).

In the meantime, and I know it's not much given what's been promised, here's a picture of the roughly 2.7 meters long hoplite spear that should be implemented in the mod in a few days or whenever it gets finished - http://i.imgur.com/TnAzV4H.png

[Sheridan]

Alright so about 10 turns into the campaign as Iceni, I played my first battle up in the cold north. To make a short story even shorter, it was a big mistake going up there with my inferior army but the battle that took place was epic. Anyway, what I noticed was that both my own and the AI's units routed at the numbers they should. For example, one of my slingers was attacked by one of the AI's numerous scout riders. After losing about half its strength, it broke. Most of the AI's scout riders broke at around 30 or so men after charging into spearmen (bad call, AI). However, I noticed one cavalry unit returning a bit later on, ~15 man strong, that wouldn't quite rout until it was down on like 5 men. That's the only time it happened, though, and it didn't seem very off. Campaign difficulty was Hard, by the way.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The general commanding the army gave a 10% morale bonus, the army itself 10% (somehow, traditions perhaps?). So all in all, only a 20% bonus.

[Sheridan]

I can finally deliver some good news regarding the tenacity of units. Well, sort of anyway.

After digging into the database a while this morning, I found a certain table where campaign bonus values are listed and which type they are. All common values, such as melee attack and damage, are listed as modifiers. There is just one bonus that is not - and you guessed it already - morale! Although it's tricky to be certain, this very much implies that there is a different between the other modifiers and morale. For example, the Britannic trait "No Quarter" is listed to give a morale bonus - not modifier. More than that, virtually every culture appears to have an equivalent. How extensive the bonus is isn't visible. With this new knowledge, there appears to be a few reasonable solutions.

A first way to solve it would be to delete all morale bonuses in this table that are not listed as modifiers. It's probably the easiest way to do it, too. Another way would be to try and locate the table that determines the bonuses (if there is any such) and then decrease this to a reasonable point. Which option would you prefer?

[Little Legionaire]

I knew something with special for campaign modifier. It was so obvious after testing custom battles.

Very good news Philip! Hope you handle the situation without problem.

IMO, theres no need for special morale bonuses for specific factions. Because it looks like a dead end to me in many ways. But, i'm not an expert nor experienced modder on such mechanics.

Earned bonuses such as army traditions, general bonuses makes perfectly sense but hidden or confusing bonuses like "No Quarter" means nothing.

Godspeed my friend,

[Demokritos]

I can finally deliver some good news regarding the tenacity of units. Well, sort of anyway.

After digging into the database a while this morning, I found a certain table where campaign bonus values are listed and which type they are. All common values, such as melee attack and damage, are listed as modifiers. There is just one bonus that is not - and you guessed it already - morale! Although it's tricky to be certain, this very much implies that there is a different between the other modifiers and morale. For example, the Britannic trait "No Quarter" is listed to give a morale bonus - not modifier. More than that, virtually every culture appears to have an equivalent. How extensive the bonus is isn't visible. With this new knowledge, there appears to be a few reasonable solutions.

A first way to solve it would be to delete all morale bonuses in this table that are not listed as modifiers. It's probably the easiest way to do it, too. Another way would be to try and locate the table that determines the bonuses (if there is any such) and then decrease this to a reasonable point. Which option would you prefer?

That's a very good find, Philip, good work!

My first reaction to that find is to wonder why those hidden campaign values for morale have a dramatic effect in your mod but not in vanilla. See where I'm getting at? Instead of trying to change those morale bonuses, the nature and extent of which largely eludes us, and perhaps risk an imbalance somewhere else, it seems more sensible to change the area which is fully visible to us: base morale.

How about making an experiment, Philip? Translate your base morale system to the figures in vanilla in tens (i.e. the "2" into "20", "3" into "30" or something like that) for a couple of factions and then let them be tested in a campaign battle. I'd find the result very interesting.


BTW, that hoplite spear is shaping up nicely. Would there be a difference in function in-game as well due to its length?