An analysis of mass and its role in Rome 1 and Rome 2

[Sheridan]

The Karian had the 10:1 advantage in each of these runs.

That's not to say that I agree with test 1 and 2 being obvious. Parts of the Parthian core force has moved slightly backwards (as has very much the Karian troop in the second run), whereas they often have the same or even more small groups of soldiers fighting deep inside the enemy unit (a good bit further forward from their starting location). Naturally they're a bit more tricky to spot since they are less colourful compared to the Karians. This was the most extensive test so far and it's pretty telling if anything. You can also notice, if very observant, that I charged the Karian unit in the first two runs while it remained stationary. This is visible as my unit is slightly compressed compared to the stationary enemy unit. In the third test, I let it charge my stationary troop, and so naturally there's going to be a slight difference in how these turn out given that compressed troops are going to spread out more as they've each not got a full zone of integrity to begin with.

In conclusion, how it plays out is random. There is no cohesion mechanic and so it's quite rather impossible to tell if that would have made any difference. I doubt so given the nature of warscape combat, since troops always seek out individual enemy targets (which is, in combination with the long animations, what causes them to end up in such funny places after prolonged combat). Either way point remains; the game lacks collision, cohesion and pushing mechanics.

[PointOfViewGun]

The Karian had the 10:1 advantage in each of these runs.

That's not to say that I agree with test 1 and 2 being obvious. Parts of the Parthian core force has moved slightly backwards (as has very much the Karian troop in the second run), whereas they often have the same or even more small groups of soldiers fighting deep inside the enemy unit (a good bit further forward from their starting location). Naturally they're a bit more tricky to spot since they are less colourful compared to the Karians. This was the most extensive test so far and it's pretty telling if anything. You can also notice, if very observant, that I charged the Karian unit in the first two runs while it remained stationary. This is visible as my unit is slightly compressed compared to the stationary enemy unit. In the third test, I let it charge my stationary troop, and so naturally there's going to be a slight difference in how these turn out given that compressed troops are going to spread out more as they've each not got a full zone of integrity to begin with.

In conclusion, how it plays out is random. There is no cohesion mechanic and so it's quite rather impossible to tell if that would have made any difference. I doubt so given the nature of warscape combat, since troops always seek out individual enemy targets (which is, in combination with the long animations, what causes them to end up in such funny places after prolonged combat). Either way point remains; the game lacks collision, cohesion and pushing mechanics.

Well, thanks for showing us, once again, pushing occurring in game. The problem here is that you seem to be expecting each case to play exactly as the same down to every single soldier. That is a completely senseless thing to expect, at least in Rome II. There should always be a level of randomness. Otherwise, it would be less realistic and boring. The first two cases show pretty nicely how the Parthian unit is pushed back. The third one, however, shows an interesting possibility. That is, that a unit is more capable of holding ground if it's not charged.

[Sheridan]

Well, thanks for showing us, once again, pushing occurring in game. The problem here is that you seem to be expecting each case to play exactly as the same down to every single soldier. That is a completely senseless thing to expect, at least in Rome II. There should always be a level of randomness. Otherwise, it would be less realistic and boring. The first two cases show pretty nicely how the Parthian unit is pushed back. The third one, however, shows an interesting possibility. That is, that a unit is more capable of holding ground if it's not charged.

You're drawing conclusions based on your incomprehensive understanding of mechanical aspects of the game. Given your claims thus far, you are absolutely clueless as to what entity radius does and how it plays a highly relevant role in any combat situation visually speaking. Fair enough I would say, observing and deducing are two different steps and the latter may be less easy when you don't have substantial modding experience. But it's not fair enough, because you're being woefully ignorant and disrespectful by claiming that not only am I wrong, but I also did not perform these tests properly. (It comes across as a highly stupid thing to say; drawing conclusions from tests you believe are not legitimate).

I could talk on forever how entity integrity, compression, combat animations, formation attack etc. work independently and how they also form a bigger picture when they're in use during combat. The thing is, it would serve no purpose, as you reject what is real and accuse it of being false. That leaves me with the impression, which by now should be justified, that you are clueless on how these things work and have little to no modding expertise in this (and perhaps even previous) titles. Claiming to know how things work is one thing; understanding how they do is another.

[PointOfViewGun]

You're drawing conclusions based on your incomprehensive understanding of mechanical aspects of the game. Given your claims thus far, you are absolutely clueless as to what entity radius does and how it plays a highly relevant role in any combat situation visually speaking. Fair enough I would say, observing and deducing are two different steps and the latter may be less easy when you don't have substantial modding experience. But it's not fair enough, because you're being woefully ignorant and disrespectful by claiming that not only am I wrong, but I also did not perform these tests properly. (It comes across as a highly stupid thing to say; drawing conclusions from tests you believe are not legitimate).

I could talk on forever how entity integrity, compression, combat animations, formation attack etc. work independently and how they also form a bigger picture when they're in use during combat. The thing is, it would serve no purpose, as you reject what is real and accuse it of being false. That leaves me with the impression, which by now should be justified, that you are clueless on how these things work and have little to no modding expertise in this (and perhaps even previous) titles. Claiming to know how things work is one thing; understanding how they do is another.

Well, I'm not the one claiming that soldiers bump into each other while they're in attack animation when in reality their body would go through other bodies in the vicinity that is not part of the attack animation. No amount of modding experience can validate an incorrect claim about how it works. Accusing me of being clueless makes it ironic because of that. What's more curious is that you're arguing in favor of pushing without accepting that it's pushing. Notice that we're not really disagreeing on the fact that entity radius is causing pushing back. You're claiming that one reason is that units bump into allied units when they attack an enemy. I'm saying that units in the front sometimes take a step back which causes the unit behind them to take a step back and so on. Both are examples of how pushing can happen. Your scenario just doesn't happen. I wish it did but it doesn't. You don't need to be a mod to observe this. All you have to do is zoom in a fight. All in all, we get push mechanism. It just doesn't happen the way you say it happens while denying that it does happen.

[Sheridan]

Well, I'm not the one claiming that soldiers bump into each other while they're in attack animation when in reality their body would go through other bodies in the vicinity that is not part of the attack animation. No amount of modding experience can validate an incorrect claim about how it works. Accusing me of being clueless makes it ironic because of that. What's more curious is that you're arguing in favor of pushing without accepting that it's pushing. Notice that we're not really disagreeing on the fact that entity radius is causing pushing back. You're claiming that one reason is that units bump into allied units when they attack an enemy. I'm saying that units in the front sometimes take a step back which causes the unit behind them to take a step back and so on. Both are examples of how pushing can happen. Your scenario just doesn't happen. I wish it did but it doesn't. You don't need to be a mod to observe this. All you have to do is zoom in a fight. All in all, we get push mechanism. It just doesn't happen the way you say it happens while denying that it does happen.

That's because you don't understand how it works. The radius determines how much clipping there is, the higher you go, the less. If you have two soldiers fighting - with or without matched combat - and their animations cause them to gently or abruptly touch/bump into an unaware third soldier to the point at which this third soldier's radius is no longer fulfilled (the defined value in the files), this soldier will take a step back. That's one of the fundamental parts of this discussion. Not understanding how the radius makes entities interact during combat is understandable if you lack the knowledge, but it's no longer understandable as you directly claim it works in a completely different way. Do note; this does not exclude or neglect the fact that soldiers also take a step back when soldiers bump into them under other circumstances.

I'm not saying pushing happens in this game, my very first post on this thread points out the exact opposite, that the game lacks mechanics to represent this phenomena.

[Fanest]

I wouldn't say that its random how it plays out, mass still has some effect and 2/3 test confirmed this, last one is inconclusive, what i would say is that mass doesn't have the expected effect. One would expect the other unit to be pushed much more at this mass ratio but that is not the case.
Another thing that mass seems to stimulate is also this mixing of units -but that could also be cuz of countless battle animations triggering over this time and causing men to penetrate deep into another unit.

Now imagine "PUSH" ability - which would for short time increase units mass (1:1000 ratio mybe ) causing another unit to be pushed further back -this would most certainly be a very nice and useful thing - mybe some modder will figure the right attributes for smt like this, cuz this would most certainly revolutionize our battlefields.

Also noticed just now that between 2 and 3 pic in test3 there is only few sec difference so this is how it looks without pic 2. It still looks inconclusive although parthinas seems to be pushed by a few mm more to the left

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Sheridan]

I wouldn't say that its random how it plays out, mass still has some effect and 2/3 test confirmed this, last one is inconclusive, what i would say is that mass doesn't have the expected effect. One would expect the other unit to be pushed much more at this mass ratio but that is not the case.
Another thing that mass seems to stimulate is also this mixing of units -but that could also be cuz of countless battle animations triggering over this time and causing men to penetrate deep into another unit.

Now imagine "PUSH" ability - which would for short time increase units mass (1:1000 ratio mybe ) causing another unit to be pushed further back -this would most certainly be a very nice and useful thing - mybe some modder will figure the right attributes for smt like this, cuz this would most certainly revolutionize our battlefields.

Also noticed just now that between 2 and 3 pic in test3 there is only few sec difference so this is how it looks without pic 2. It still looks inconclusive although parthinas seems to be pushed by a few mm more to the left

Oh boy. Well, to briefly explain again why test 1 and 2 turned out like they did: In both instances I charged the AI. In test 3, the AI charged (or rather walked into, as it does sometimes) me. When you charge a unit, your own unit gets compressed depending on how high the radius is set to. This is among the first things battle modders look into, as it's typically desirable to prevent soldiers from clipping through each other - hence why many battle mods, big or small, tend to up this value a bit. The higher you go, the less units compress - but in the charge phase units partly ignore this, so it's not entirely effective. You might say it's sort of a replacement to unit collision to a certain extent, but it can't be set to too high or there'll be other problems. In vanilla, this radius value is rather low generally speaking across all unit types, including cavalry. As such, units compress more than necessary upon charging (note, without formation attack). If you translate this into what we're seeing in the test, you will notice how in test 1 and 2, my unit is way more densely packed compared to the AI's as it was the one who, through my initiative, charged. In other words, it's going to need a lot of space in order for each soldier to have its integrity zone fulfilled.

In test 3, the AI ran/walked into my unit (it sure looked like it was charging originally, but sometimes it stops charges). Now I know this because it's not compressed, had it fulfilled the charge it would have been. To sum this information up, you're basically looking at a unit with half the width of the enemy (test 1 and 2) and then equal width (test 3) upon first melee contact. Unsurprisingly, it's going to appear as though the compressed unit has been pushed back in the former two if you look at where the rearmost soldiers are positioned. The difference is almost a full gridline between a compressed and non-compressed unit so.. you get the point.

Perhaps not the briefest of explenations but still. As for mixing of units, you actually do have a solid point. Part of it can naturally be attributed to animations, while it to some extent - not the least in charges - depends on how heavy a unit is (and also its radius). The more mass of entities, the easier they penetrate an enemy formation (take elephants as the most obvious example). It's not to be confused with unit pushing through, as while they are pushing back groups of soldiers, these soldiers return to roughly their original positions assuming they survive the charge. You could probably achieve pushing by giving one side a ridiculous mass, radius and a repetitive command to move forwards, not that that is an ideal solution.

[Fanest]

Oh boy. Well, to briefly explain again why test 1 and 2 turned out like they did: In both instances I charged the AI. In test 3, the AI charged (or rather walked into, as it does sometimes) me. When you charge a unit, your own unit gets compressed depending on how high the radius is set to.

yea i get it now, charging and then unit expanding again could make this effect of "unit being pushed"; ah well lets hope future titles brings us something better...

[Sint]

They do, actually. The Rome II system has much to commend itself - units not slashing the air, and formation not a bloody wall, for starters.

Jup totally:http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...beautiful-line

....And instead of occasionally slashing the air they constantly hit shields like morons,phase through other units and are unable to properly hold formations.

[JaM]

Main problem is that CA didn't considered formation when modeling the combat animations. There are no formation animations with several soldier cooperating together. Everything is made one on one duel only which is a shame, as close combat in formation relied on men cooperating together, it was not a fight where everybody fought for himself, if your colleagues didn't supported you, you would end up dead fast.

[Humble Warrior]

Main problem is that CA didn't considered formation when modeling the combat animations. There are no formation animations with several soldier cooperating together. Everything is made one on one duel only which is a shame, as close combat in formation relied on men cooperating together, it was not a fight where everybody fought for himself, if your colleagues didn't supported you, you would end up dead fast.

That`s why R2 will never be fixed: because massed disciplined combat was never considered for the game. This is a KEY issue and would need a complete overhaul of the engine.

How ironic, this should have been no 1 on the plan drawing board of the game featuring Roman warfare. Instead they made a game for barbarian warfare.

Or perhaps they knew this all along but stubborness to keep Warscape come hell or high water led them to this mistake.

[JaM]

It is not warscape fault at all.. it is fault of simplification and low standard of current generation of players (no offense, but complexity of games is drastically down over years).. they prefer eyecandy duel animations and CA delivered exactly that.

[Humble Warrior]

It is not warscape fault at all.. it is fault of simplification and low standard of current generation of players (no offense, but complexity of games is drastically down over years).. they prefer eyecandy duel animations and CA delivered exactly that.

So what you`re saying , rather than any mistake on CA`s part, they wanted Roman battles that were nothing like Roman battles at all, yet saying it`s Roman? Interesting. And very deceptive if so since they made a great big deal of the Roman authenticity (discipline, etc) on the run up to release.

Seems strange then that they got rid of flags on the battle map and reintroduced defensive pilae. Perhaps some of their ideas were too much for the eyecandy crowd.

Personally, I believe CA stuck with Warscape because it would`ve taken too long to make a new engine and SEGA were not willing to wait. To me it smells of CA knowing Warscape did not suit Roman battles, but doggedly pressed ahead anyway. They were going to make Warscape work to paraphrase them.

[JaM]

no, i know a thing or two about Warscape. its not a bad engine, only fault i see is that it is not native 64bit. Everything else, is just the way CA wanted it to be. They could create it differently if they wanted but they did what they did for whatever reasons they had. Today's players wants eyecandy, wants to see silly and unrealistic duels, want to see ships being obliterated by the hit in seconds.. those things sell, at least that is what CA thinks, as large majority of players is constantly talking about (here or on official forum) Do i think it is right approach? nope. i think they should try to "educate" players with history thematic they chose to portray. it can be done in an interesting and fun way, they just didn't tried it hard enough.. for some reason, there is belief that historical authenticity would make game less fun to play. Those people don't realize one thing - having historical game historically plausible, means that game would be much better to be played, because it would not require some artificial rules to be present.

[Modestus]

no, i know a thing or two about Warscape. its not a bad engine, only fault i see is that it is not native 64bit. Everything else, is just the way CA wanted it to be. They could create it differently if they wanted but they did what they did for whatever reasons they had. Today's players wants eyecandy, wants to see silly and unrealistic duels, want to see ships being obliterated by the hit in seconds.. those things sell, at least that is what CA thinks, as large majority of players is constantly talking about (here or on official forum) Do i think it is right approach? nope. i think they should try to "educate" players with history thematic they chose to portray. it can be done in an interesting and fun way, they just didn't tried it hard enough.. for some reason, there is belief that historical authenticity would make game less fun to play. Those people don't realize one thing - having historical game historically plausible, means that game would be much better to be played, because it would not require some artificial rules to be present.

Hmm don’t know if your right you may be but......


I believe Warscape was built to create a series of Total war games and to be adaptable enough that it could be reused for different historical settings, in principle not a bad idea the problem though is that for RTW2 it did not work.

And it may not have worked because the very adaptability that CA were trying to achieve resulted in an engine that was a jack of all trades but master of none. Faced with units that needed to engage with each other in a very different manner to the previous games, with fortifications and a different type of naval warfare the limitations of the engine were exposed, bottom line the engine was not good enough to do justice to this particular historical period.

To make matters worse I believe that CA decided very early on to workaround the limitations of the engine which resulted in the removal of most of the walls from settlements and ladders that required wheels even then it was a miracle that the AI could manage to climb wall.

Almost from patch 1 CA have being trying to hack RTW2 into some shape and in Attila we can see indications of the same type of workarounds being used such as siege escalation.

That said and here is where I begin to agree, some of the workarounds like siege escalation are not bad ideas and if you had a much larger overall tactical area with more varied landscapes on the campaign map you would certainly have a strong foundation for MTW3 however unless there is a drastic improvement in the way units interact with each other and structures during combat your wasting your time.

[JaM]

To make matters worse I believe that CA decided very early on to workaround the limitations of the engine which resulted in the removal of most of the walls from settlements and ladders that required wheels even then it was a miracle that the AI could manage to climb wall.

Those are not actually limitations of the engine.. just the limitations CA created for them. As every company, they were looking at it from perspective of least work for a bang. They just didn't considered those things we consider as that important to be coded in, which is a huge mistake on their end, but not necessarily engine fault. That's the easy way out, blaming engine instead of lack of imagination and understanding to topic they chose for a game..

and that part saddens me the most.. they had huge community built over older games, they just had to step down form their throne, and ask that community what they think should be in Rome 2 Total War... but they thought they know better and now we see the result. Did they learned from this? Hope so. but wont hold my breath over it.

[JaM]

Cant tell what they were doing at the time, but obviously, all that effort seems to be focused on incorrect things..

[Sheridan]

"You don't understand how it works" is not a valid argument. Let the merits of your arguments speak for themselves. It's sad that its your go-to response... The kind of bumping you're talking about is at best very minimal. You can easily observe two soldiers fighting next to each other and bumping in and out of their respective models through clipping. You won't see either man moving away much. Whether you're right or I'm right in this case, however, completely irrelevant to the actual topic at hand. What's interesting here is that you're still describing one way of pushing mechanism. You're basically telling us that when a soldier takes a heavy blow on his shield or that he has to dodge an attack by taking a step back this translates to other soldiers taking a step back. That's one way pushing occurs.

Perhaps the explenation as to why that followed is valid, however..

Originally you claimed this my argument to be entirely false, that what I said did not happen in game. Now you say maybe. It's not the first contradictul claim here precisely. Troops will try and space out under virtually all circumstances when their zone of integrity is compromised in any way, one exception being if formation attack is enabled causing command to override this. In a typical combat situation without this attribute, your troops do not spread out based on that they are suddenly in combat as you've claimed. They spread out based on what the combat causes; movement. With varius movement animations for troops, they're going to collide with one another and hence spread out more. It's not pushing and should not be confused with it; both sides do it, equally much (assuming their radius value is identical, which is almost exclusively the case).

That's why I explained your gatehouse bottleneck situation with this. On one side you have a lot of compressed troops, on the other not so compressed troops. In between there are duels, causing movement, which from time to time leaves free space for soldiers (primarily the barbarians as they're a dense mass) to take. These duels also cause soldiers to bump others, which will have these others spread out further. In other words, leaving even more free space at certain places. Since the barbarian troops very much seek to each have their own integrity zone, they're going to just slide out into these free spaces.

You have the observation skill, to an extent. But you don't pay attention to details, like how compressed troops are as a result of charging (see my somewhat lengthy post to Fanest). Then you draw conclusions based on these insufficient observations. I'm not saying it's bad trying to explain observations - quite the contrary, it's a good thing. But it's a pointless venture to argue against people who have a more profound understanding and expertise on a specific area. Instead, it's better to try and form a realistic picture of what's going on based on all the evidence or information that is presented; rather than cherry-picking and rejecting what you don't agree with.

[PointOfViewGun]

Perhaps the explenation as to why that followed is valid, however..

Originally you claimed this my argument to be entirely false, that what I said did not happen in game. Now you say maybe. It's not the first contradictul claim here precisely. Troops will try and space out under virtually all circumstances when their zone of integrity is compromised in any way, one exception being if formation attack is enabled causing command to override this. In a typical combat situation without this attribute, your troops do not spread out based on that they are suddenly in combat as you've claimed. They spread out based on what the combat causes; movement. With varius movement animations for troops, they're going to collide with one another and hence spread out more. It's not pushing and should not be confused with it; both sides do it, equally much (assuming their radius value is identical, which is almost exclusively the case).

That's why I explained your gatehouse bottleneck situation with this. On one side you have a lot of compressed troops, on the other not so compressed troops. In between there are duels, causing movement, which from time to time leaves free space for soldiers (primarily the barbarians as they're a dense mass) to take. These duels also cause soldiers to bump others, which will have these others spread out further. In other words, leaving even more free space at certain places. Since the barbarian troops very much seek to each have their own integrity zone, they're going to just slide out into these free spaces.

You have the observation skill, to an extent. But you don't pay attention to details, like how compressed troops are as a result of charging (see my somewhat lengthy post to fanest). Then you draw conclusions based on these insufficient observations. I'm not saying it's bad trying to explain observations - quite the contrary, it's a good thing. But it's a pointless venture to argue against people who have a more profound understanding and expertise on a specific area. Instead, it's better to try and form a realistic picture of what's going on based on all the evidence or information that is presented; rather than cherry-picking and rejecting what you don't agree with.

Nope. I'm not saying maybe. I'm merely acknowledging you changing your arguments. You started with units bumping into each other generally which doesn't happen and then changed it zone of integrity argument. Though even that is a problematic stance because if that was real in an observable manner we wouldn't have blobbing in this game. The bumping you initially talked about does not happen. I never said that units spread out just because of being in combat. What I said was that Spartan soldiers were taking steps back as they were facing a dozen enemy units.

You're still arguing for pushing without calling pushing. It doesn't happen equally though. If it did, we wouldn't have only one side's front line getting pushed in the cases with no or little casualties. The middle line would be stationary with random breaches in both sides. We didn't observe that in most of the case we've demonstrated so far. Your conclusion, however, is precisely the one that relies on cherry-picking. Expertise only has a value if it's in line with what's observed.

Why don't you tell us how do you only expect pushing to occur?

[Sheridan]

Nope. I'm not saying maybe. I'm merely acknowledging you changing your arguments. You started with units bumping into each other generally which doesn't happen and then changed it zone of integrity argument. Though even that is a problematic stance because if that was real in an observable manner we wouldn't have blobbing in this game. The bumping you initially talked about does not happen. I never said that units spread out just because of being in combat. What I said was that Spartan soldiers were taking steps back as they were facing a dozen enemy units.

You're still arguing for pushing without calling pushing. It doesn't happen equally though. If it did, we wouldn't have only one side's front line getting pushed in the cases with no or little casualties. The middle line would be stationary with random breaches in both sides. We didn't observe that in most of the case we've demonstrated so far. Your conclusion, however, is precisely the one that relies on cherry-picking. Expertise only has a value if it's in line with what's observed.

Why don't you tell us how do you only expect pushing to occur?

Holy cannoli. Do you need help to put together 2 and 2?

I didn't start with one argument and shift to another; I reinforced the original by explaining how it actually works on a mechanical level. Bumping and radius correlate. Does it have to be so difficult to grasp that? On one hand animations generate the movements we see in game, on the other hand these would do absolutely nothing in the example situations if the radius was not sufficiently high. Reducing it to a quarter of its current value would effectively mean no bumping at all but an extreme amount of clipping. Reducing the lengthy combat animations where soldiers move a considerable distance would also mean less bumping. The soldier model you see on the screen only has as much integrity as it's been told to have via the entity file. If you change it, you can reduce the clipping entirely or make it happen on grand scale. The model itself has no integrity at all.

I'm not arguing for pushing at all, the mere fact that you haven't grasped that is beyond the point of ridiculousness. Because pushing is not something that exists in the game, which I've been saying all along. But mechanics that do exist, like entity integrity, can falsely lead you into believing that pushing exists by said mechanic's nature.

You are the one cherry-picking by rejecting virtually every piece of information, knowledge or thing of similar nature that I present to the discussion. Then you even shift goalposts. Take a few examples,

"What really happens is that soldiers in the front line who are attacked take a step back in certain conditions. Not because an allied or non-attacking enemy soldier bumps into them, but because of an attack they endure or for an other reason that makes them take a step back." and "Your scenario just doesn't happen" Which later changed to: "The kind of bumping you're talking about is at best very minimal."

"I doubt you're doing any of these tests properly or that weight is not the deciding factor." Which later changed to: "Perhaps, the weight variable is not a factor in pushing but the number of attackers are."

You're being inconsistent. And you don't understand how these things actually work. Read my last reply to Fanest carefully if you actually care even the slightest about finding out the reality of this. It explains thoroughly why we're seeing what we're seeing in test 1 and 2. Your "thanks for showing us again" reply comes across as the most ignorant post so far based on its content. You literally claim there's no difference in test 3, which you rationalise by saying "a certain degree of randomness should exist". But you can't even spot the one, single thing that made both test 1 and 2 turn out differently - a thing I pointed out.