Para Bellum

[Sheridan]

many thx!
( i see som changes definition in land_units db, example "shirt" or unit spacing "roman_triarii" , "town_watch" etc. but dont find all changes i think)

Yeah that's armour and various spacings. Once you've updated your version of the game though, you should go with the latest version (in the workshop), as there is a bit more features in it.

[Hoplite of Ilis]

What stuttering?

PB is not about formations at all, so I honestly don't see your point here. It's not like we've added new ones - quite the contrary for a lot of units. I have encountered a lot of mods giving a pike phalanx like behaviour to non-pike units, calling it "shieldwall" or similar things, but this isn't the case.

I tried some custom battles with pikemen and hoplites. It happened with pikemen - when they attack/being attacked from the front diagonal side, the ones not fighting, stutter. I don't know if PB alters formations at all, I just observed this. The hoplites (I think Royal or Heroes of Sparta) would expand to the back giving the impression that they are on somewhat loose formation.

[Sheridan]

I tried some custom battles with pikemen and hoplites. It happened with pikemen - when they attack/being attacked from the front diagonal side, the ones not fighting, stutter. I don't know if PB alters formations at all, I just observed this. The hoplites (I think Royal or Heroes of Sparta) would expand to the back giving the impression that they are on somewhat loose formation.

PB does not alter formations. It does change the radius of entities though. A couple of days ago I noticed slight stuttering with certain pikemen (Egyptian primarily, which were using the wrong man entity reference). This was corrected and the radius of all pike soldier entities was lowered a little bit just to make sure it can't happen. In other words, if you were to use pikemen in the mod right now, it wouldn't happen again.

Hoplites on the other hand haven't been finished as mentioned a lot of times before. When enabling their phalanx type it gets rather messy, there's no proper structure. That's also because the radius is too high for them when the formation is enabled. The plan is to delete their "phalanx" entirely and either let formation attack plus new equipment (and possibly animations) represent their way of fighting, or give them a reworked phalanx formation, still with new equipment.

[Little Legionaire]

Sheridan there's an abandoned mod titled as Moon' Hoplite.

For Hoplites, i'd suggest you to take have a look.

For example:

[JaM]

Only problem is that overarm grip for infantry is unrealistic. It is just not possible fighting like this for any extended portion of time, while even getting spear into such position would be impossible in tighter formation. Human can only hold arm up for few minutes, for fatigue to kick in - in tests, group using spear overarm experienced muscle fatigue just after 2-3 minutes of thrusting, while same group using spear in chest height and underarm grip (with spear over the shield) could fight without any issues for extended period of time.

In real battle, fatigue is everything. Combat style that makes you fatigued in 2 minutes is unusable for close formation combat as it would decrease unit ability to resist enemy. overarm use would be more harmful to own men than to enemy...

[Sheridan]

JaM we know, I've already cited you in discussions regarding just that. Thanks for the input though, your knowledge on this area is always interesting to hear.

Although it's unrealistic, I personally wouldn't mind using it for the mod. It looks great and probably plays great as well. For now though, no decisions will be taken regarding that. The new spear and shield needs to be finished first before testing and fine adjustments can be applied - such as deciding spacing for the unit and also combat effectiveness under different circumstances. After that, any animation changes can hopefully be applied (should a decision be taken to do anything in that area).

[Demokritos]

Only problem is that overarm grip for infantry is unrealistic. It is just not possible fighting like this for any extended portion of time, while even getting spear into such position would be impossible in tighter formation. Human can only hold arm up for few minutes, for fatigue to kick in - in tests, group using spear overarm experienced muscle fatigue just after 2-3 minutes of thrusting, while same group using spear in chest height and underarm grip (with spear over the shield) could fight without any issues for extended period of time.

In real battle, fatigue is everything. Combat style that makes you fatigued in 2 minutes is unusable for close formation combat as it would decrease unit ability to resist enemy. overarm use would be more harmful to own men than to enemy...

I'd be very surprised if they never used the overarm thrust, though, especially if the enemy expects an undergrip thrust: doing something out of the ordinary could be the quickest way to eliminate him, and thereby save energy for the next or end the fighting altogether. So I'd bet they alternated a great deal, depending on the situation; in battle, where the situation can very a lot, it would not be a good idea to limit your options.

Holding the spear vertically, close to the body, spear head down, while going into tighter formation should enable the soldier to lift it up into overarm position when needed, shouldn't it? And to bring it down for underarm grip...uh...let's see...might require some dexterity in your hands. But to bring the spear up from underarm grip to overarm grip in a tight formation, that could be trickier, especially in a quick way. Your own shield ought to need being pulled back a little etc. Leaving a gap in the shield wall for a moment etc. One would have to test the possibilities out in practice to know for certain how they did it.

I also wonder how much training with an overarm thrust can push away the fatigue limit. If you've been doing it for years, since you were young, I'm sure you can extend it well beyond 2-3 minutes. Maybe long enough to decide some battles that way.

Best animation might therefore be a combo, one which alternated between various grips (depending on the nature of the moment), if this is possible to implement.

[JaM]

Thing is, Dory was unsuitable for overarm grip.. it was weighted towards rear, which clearly suggest it was held there. if you have to hold spear in the middle, you need counterweight to keep the spearhead in the same height.. but with sauroter being heavier than spearhead, it would rise the spearhead up so it would be much more problematic to aim the spear.

besides, holding spear overarm is not something you can train to improve... your blood would go down with arm like that no matter what training you have.. and once it happens, your grip would weaken.

Another thing against it is the fact human wrist is very vulnerable. Holding spear like that would make your wrist very vulnerable and easy to break, besides spear would be very easy to block sideways, which would have quite bad effect on your wrist. twisted wrist would be something that would practically make you unsuitable for combat.

and close formation even makes it worse.. there is no space to get a spear up, or back down.

and there are plenty of other points which make overarm unsuitable.. try getting Storm of Spears from Chriss Mathew, he summed it up perfectly.

[The Wandering Storyteller]

One issue I have is that I have noticed that Republican armies really don't kill a lot of Greeks. I had around 1540 men, and only managed to take over 713 kills from an Eprius Army.

It seems the Greeks seem to be overpowered a bit too much? My principe couldn't beat a ecoriate manupliar infantry for some reason. There wasn't an equal amount of kills.

Or what is your position on this? My units seem to retreat at half length.

This is not a complaint, but its something I thought would be ok to share.

I notice that the armies ( are very well balanced, its an mix of good and elite units composed together so kudos!) but they only have one or two skrimisher units.

Playing as Rome, I will have around at least three-five skrimishers and velities. They really don't make much of an impact. Whereas the archer unit on the other side will easily attack my troops and kill them.

Also, Hastati can't destroy a single unit of cav. Attacking and destroying cav for hastati is hard. When cav attacks Principe, say Epriote Apollian Cav or some others ( this may because I am playing with other mods, perhaps a unit one which may be causing) but yeah simply to say cav is more effective in destroying my principe quickly, and cav even more effective at destroying Hastati,.

[Sheridan]

Thanks for your comments, Marshall of France.

If you're using other unit/battle mods along with PB, it could have a very major impact on how battles play out. Hastati are pretty vulnerable to cavalry charges, at least from heavier cavalry units, but they can handle light cavalry rather fine. Principes won't be an ideal target for most cavalry as they'll just suffer a lot of casualties over time, and charging into Triarii is suicide unless you have very heavily armoured cavalry that you intend to repeat the charging process with over and over.

By the way what's an ecoriate manipular infantry? Never heard of that in vanilla.

About javelinmen - their major advantage over archers and slingers is that they are far better adapted for melee combat and will often also hold longer. Due to the natural inferior range, it's a unit type you want to use most dilligently when the enemy army has few or no long range skirmishers. Using Velites with cavalry cav be a very effective combination, if done right you can wipe out any slingers or archers the enemy might have with the cavalry and then proceed by utilizing your skirmishers. What I can do is to increase their accuracy a little bit more, to make them more deadly against various infantry units.

[andrew881thebest]

Pictures of hoplites fighting https://www.google.it/search?q=hopli...o&ved=0CCMQsAQ : they ALL use overarm style. Ok, maybe it is an artistic license. But it is very strange coincidence that all hundreds pictures represent overarm, right?

There is not a serious debate on my opinion, there are enough evidences, storical, archeological and rational.

Underarm is good and effective, but NOT in a tight formation of overlapping shields, where you cannot even move your shield to protect yourself (and your arm): IN this case, you want to expose yourself the least possible, and hitting underarm provides this result; otherwise, if you raise your arm hight to do a high thrust with underarm grip, you expose armpit way to much. And hoplite armor gives no protection to armpit.

[JaM]

it is actually the opposite - overarm is not useable in tight formation. you have no space to move spear around, so unless you leave it like that entire battle, it would be not possible to get a spear into such position, when you have another line of men behind you.

moving spear around within tight formation would be impossible if you want to get spear into overarm position:


practically only workable formation with tightly packed men would be this:


- this allows you to thrust forward accurately, while benefiting from entire spear length keeping enemy at bay. fatigue is not a problem, as spear is supported by the shield rim, while blood loss is not an issue. Sauroter of men in front rank, can be fixed against shields of men in second rank, providing fixed spear position against enemy charges using mass of more ranks, with overarm, enemy charging the spear point, would have to be resisted just by the soldier wrist... such spear would be practically just pushed back and would do no harm

and regarding Greek vases, about 50% of them portray overarm, and 50% underarm. Yet, in majority of overarm posture, it is also possible to identify weapon as Javelin, not a spear... Famous Chigi vase has visible ankyle leather straps which clearly suggest those being javelins and not spears:


entire picture:


notice how those in overarm position, have small black heads, same as the javelin with visible ankyle on far left. thrusting spear are in vertical position, and have much larger "silver" heads
detail:




Another interesting thing about greek vases is that you would hardly find a single picture with spear held in overarm position, with sauroter visible. Sauroter had no place on javelins, it would destroy proper balance of javelin, so it would not fall with the head first. Sauroter was only used on thrusting spears. and so far every picture i seen with sauroter visible, it is in underarm position like this one:




and btw, that video, is quite funny because it show exactly why such posture would not work in real battle.. exposing unprotected armpit, whole spear being fixed just by the wrist, complete waste of standoff with spear held in the middle.. btw, why would Greek use longer and longer spears if they would use them overarm held in the middle? shorter spears would be more controllable (and less fatiguing) in such condition, not longer ones.. that video just shows that some reenactors live in their own world..

Anyway, i think this thread is not good place to discuss this, there are plenty of threads in historic forum for this. I'm sorry Philip for hijacking your thread like this.

[Sheridan]

Don't be, JaM. While it is the wrong thread for this discussion, the information is valuable nevertheless. It can be used as inspiration when re-designing the hoplite combat of the game. The underarm grip on "plate" 15 and 18 looks quite similar to the Rome 1 phalanx type. Question is, of course, how many spears that could effectively be used at one and the same time. From the pictures, two ranks looks possible. Do you think a third rank could effectively take part of the combat as well, or would the length of the spear or structure of the unit prevent that?

With shields angled at the right direction, the pike phalanx behaviour with some fine adjustments might just be the best way of representing the hoplite phalanx in game.

[JaM]

Personally, i think extending the dory to almost 3 meters, was exactly to get third rank into fight. I also think actual Pike Phalanx was a further development of hoplite phalanx, with spear getting so long it couldn't be held by single arm anymore, so shield was strapped on the shoulder, so pike could be held in both hands.

So while Iphicratean Hoplites could fight in 3 ranks, Philip's Phalangites could fight in 4-5 ranks, which gave them advantage.

[Sheridan]

Sounds very reasonable. I think the really tricky part will be to make hoplite vs pike engagements look proper. Due to the shorter spear, hoplites would struggle a lot in game to even get a single kill probably if meeting a pike phalanx face to face, which doesn't seem very accurate. I do wonder how exactly they managed to counter pike phalanxes head-on though. Anyway, thanks JaM!

[M@x1mus]

Although i tend to agree with andrew881 about the overarm spear position, Sheridan it would be great if somehow u could improve the hoplite phalanx animations. Awesome mod btw!

[Little Legionaire]

Guys this is a dumb question but is it possible to play at hard campaign difficulty and set the battles to medium. Because i truly love Para Bellum but vanilla hard bonuses for AI basicly messes up the game.

Thanks in advance,

[Sheridan]

Guys this is a dumb question but is it possible to play at hard campaign difficulty and set the battles to medium. Because i truly love Para Bellum but vanilla hard bonuses for AI basicly messes up the game.

Thanks in advance,

I gave it a shot some days ago but sadly it didn't work. It appears that the combat bonuses are determined by the campaign difficulty as well, so both battle and campaign needs to be set to medium which is a bit disappointing. On the bright side of things the campaign difficulty can be altered through modding that part of the game, but it's nothing I'm prepared to spend time with at the moment. (Especially not since there are already a lot of good mods out there by talented modders).

[WarlordZ]

this looks really great. I would just like to know if it is designed to be used with vanilla b/c i have a bunch of mods that I like to play with.

[Sheridan]

this looks really great. I would just like to know if it is designed to be used with vanilla b/c i have a bunch of mods that I like to play with.

It's meant to be used with the vanilla units and thus no unit packs, or other modifications that modify battles. You can play it with any campaign mods as far as I know though.