[New experimental stuff]More challenging, BAI friendly battles - 13.07.2015 update

[MagicCuboid]

I am trying to follow the Roman army tactics method with the triple line.

However, my Hastis get slaughtered within a minute or so after charging. My principes relieve them, but they have a hard time fighting as well. Is it supposed to be like this?

There is a flurry of casualties right in the beginning of battle now, true, but the Hastati still serve a great purpose. They burn an enemy's missiles and return the favor, and they tire out the enemy's front lines ever so slightly. When the Principes relieve the Hastati, I've noticed that they suffer far fewer casualties as a result than if they had been manning the front. They then begin to outlast their enemies for stamina, so that by the time the Triarii are committed, the enemies are pretty tired and wavering at the prospect of facing a new foe. This, to me, is a nice abstraction of early Roman tactics

[KAM 2150]

That is the point of harder battles. Units die much, much faster.

[HarkonRules]

Early (Camillan) Romans really aren't great (they're not supposed to be), though they're quite good at holding lines as long as you don't let them overwhelmed / flanked. Polybian Romans become a lot more versatile and individually deadly. So present a solid line with some reserve infantry behind, shoot the enemy flanks with your ranged units and charge their backs with cav and you'll do well without too many losses in the end.

[rjacko10]

KAM - I've had a few more walled battles now and it's working much better. Perhaps it's because I use my units a lot more delicately when on the walls. But good stuff.

Also my other issue was massive friendly fire casualties. This has gone down a lot since I changed tactics, my peltasts only throw from behind/side of engaged troops. The looping ark tends to overthrow and destroy the wrong unit if positioned behind the enemy line. Also the faster battles have helped!!

SO all is good

[lavez]

Hello, new to the mod and having a blast with it so far! I've played the base game with official submod for reduced graphic variation, and my only complains so far were the battles, or to be more precise, the issue of unmoddable CA's BAI not dealing all too well with core design choices of DEI's combat. I'd love to give this experimental pack a go and check whether I get a better experience, but I'd like to hear from you first about it's compatibility with the latest (3.02.2015) DEI version. Cheers.

[Butan]

Its compatible of course! Simply load it before main .pack.

[lavez]

Its compatible of course! Simply load it before main .pack.

Good to know!

I asked because I got the impression this pack was updated till 1.03b fixback, and there might have been some changes between fixpack and 1.04 that could cause problems. That spotting distance pack is nice indeed, though I think the AI sees a little bit "further" than I do during deployment phase (or perhaps it is the AI who gets to deploy second in turn, after the player).

Some other observations about AI:

AI seems to consider unit width to decide whether a flanking attempt will be successful or even possible, and it often decides against flanking/enveloping the player after the main infantry clash in the middle when playing on higher unit size options.

Problem is most noticeable on "ultra" unit size, "large" size is about the highest that AI can reasonably handle before a "killswitch" triggers and it decides to have it's units loom idly, until said units are either:

1) attacked;
2) routed/killed or
3) rout/kill their current target (which causes the AI unit to run another "check" for a flanking attempt, which *might* succeed if there is enough "space" on the map now, i.e. some units died and the AI thinks it has enough "room" to make a flanking attack).

Map size, deployment areas, pathfinding and AI routines are sadly fixed, but unit size and width can be manipulated by modders. Hence, my suggestion for the time being would be to play on large unit size or lower for increased AI flanking performance.

Naturally, higher kill rates combined with higher likelihood of a rout when using this experimental pack somewhat reduce the problematic handling of ultra-sized units by AI, as the AI will issue a new pursue/envelop order as soon as it's original target changes status (routed, dead), but it doesn't seem to address the core problem of AI deciding not to flank, to flank less often or flank less successfully, if certain, unfavourable conditions are met.

Now I'll go play some more and see how the AI behaves under new settings. The spotting distance mod seems to make AI form a ready infantry line further back before the battle, waste far less time reforming before the middle infantry push, as well as move around the map in more coherent fashion, but it's a bit too early to decide if it's entirely beneficial, or perhaps causes some overly passive/defensive behaviour of the AI, when it clearly should be on the offensive.

[FlashHeart07]

And I would recommend to try the new submod that alters the hiding and unit detecting values together with this. It can be found in the submod forum. The link can also be found here in this thread further up or on a page further back. A post by MagicCuboid. Im using those and have good results with a more reactive and less dumb BAI

[Butan]

KAM, do you intend to give encourage ability back to some units?

In your actual pack, with only generals with encourage, I feel like its really good. The generals are the only portable morale boost and this have a massive impact on easier morale breakdown.
I feel like it could stay with no encourage troops, or to give it back to a selected handful of elite troops at worst.

[HarkonRules]

Yeah, only 1 or 2 of the most expensive units in a faction should have encourage; I kinda miss Encourage on Triarii and Pedites Extraordinarii.

[BooBooLovesAll]

I noticed there is a conflict with the less civil war mod and yours. What changes do you make in the campaign that overlap it? And if I use the less CW, will it mess your mod up?

[KAM 2150]

Campaign variables were changed for minimum unit strength. You can delete them or simply use CW mod before mine.

[KAM 2150]

New version is out.

[HarkonRules]

Good job! So it's now obsolete to use Magic's spotting mod?

[FlashHeart07]

Good job! So it's now obsolete to use Magic's spotting mod?

Since it has been implemented in the newest version of this. Yes that makes the submod from MagicCuboid obselete.

New version is out.

Nice. But I must say that battles at 15 min. Is not happening, at least not in my campaign. Playing on Hard battle difficulty and it usually only takes me around 5-10 min to win. And 10 is actually quite rare. Ambush battles (I know that these are supposed to be short) is taking me at times less than 3 min to win even against 20 unit stacks. Dont know if Im the only one experiencing this?

[Elianus]

The only problem I see with the vanila DEI system is how weak missiles are at the beginning. A volley of arrows should score some kills against unarmored men even if they have shields. A few arrows at least WILL find their mark (I know that it is because of HP). So, I am happy with missiles becoming more efficient from the front but the general ''balance'' seems off. Elite units seem to do much worse against naked levy than they used to. Thorakitai agematos should not be losing so many men against weak levy (not even on the charge... I mean come on, one side is naked and the other is ironclad). I also disagree with the increased losses of cav when they disengage. BTW it seems weird to me to have cav losses when I charge the REAR of a spear unit but this happens in DEI anyway so it is not caused by your mod.
TL.DR version: All is well with increased missile damage, damage caused by cav charges and shorter battles from the front but I suggest making other changes so that elite units don't lose their edge against weak ones.

[FlashHeart07]

Even on hard difficulty my heavy inf tears through levy units like a hot knife through butter. Battles won in 5 min with only 2 inf units used as a flanking force. This to me does not seem like elite units loading their edge against levy.

[Ritterlichvon86]

Even on hard difficulty my heavy inf tears through levy units like a hot knife through butter. Battles won in 5 min with only 2 inf units used as a flanking force. This to me does not seem like elite units loading their edge against levy.

Yes, elite units finally are worth it again. A general pays for his elite troops, and these guys are supposed to do their job professionally. After all, what good would elite units be for if they could not fight through and work through a part of an enemy medium line in a battle (battle time is finite, even in vanilla DeI the battles take 15 minutes max, just as long as it is needed to ride around and charge-repeat-charge-repeat-charge-witnessmassrout, so elite units would still take 10-15 minutes or more to break an enemy headon, which would make them replaceable by any other line, as the massrout would be decisive).

The tactical game is so much better again now too, even in MP, unit classes are more distinct in combat again, while still leaving enough time/room for tactical decisions even after main line engagements. (in opposition to Attila's terrible 2 minute engagements, more commentary on that after Feb 17th).

[suras333]

I started a campaign with Junia Rome VH/ VH ( both changes ) and until now looks good.

[FlashHeart07]

Im enjoying this distinction between levy and elite units. It really as you say, Ritter, make it meaningfull to recruit them