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

[KAM 2150]

This is more superior to faster battles, because it is balanced in other ways. To be honest I have no time and will to get much into detail, but simply this one is more complex.

[Fedual]

Are the Blood & Gore kill animations were they cut off legs and heads enabled in this mod?

[bonesaw]

KAM -- love this submod! Here are some experiences from recent play:

- Sieges are real difficult as the attacker. As Rome, my hastati and decent AOR units (stats at or slight above hastati level) were beaten back from scaling the walls by Carthaginian townsfolk and local archers. To be clear, my units were on the walls, made it up there with few casualties, and, after 1-2 minutes, began to rout. Maybe this is intentional, but it made my guys seem a little wimpy. In the end, I re-loaded, autoresolved, and handily won the battle. I think the route was due to high number of enemy units on the walls causing my guys to feel outnumbered, even though they were worse quality and losing men, but you might know better than me.

- Units seem to have real purpose / difference on the battlefield. In vanilla DEI, all infantry units are basically in a slugfest as cavalry and missile units grind the enemy down. Here, attack-heavy infantry really have a purpose -- thanks for this, it is awesome.

- Stats give a clear indication of what the unit might be good for. In vanilla DEI, it's hard to tell, as the stats don't seem to vary a ton and the variances don't seem to matter much on the battlefield.

- A suggestion: can the general's presence be made to have a bigger impact on morale / keeping units in the fight? With an actual possibility that my units might rout, it would be nice for flavor and gameplay to need to move the general around to shore up foundering parts of the battle line.

- Is there any way as an attacker during a siege for my missile units to AT ALL impact the enemies on the walls? I had archers empty their quivers against those same Carthaginian peasants (read: no armor), and they netted 4-5 kills. Sorry -- this might have to do with missile units' arc / trajectory, which I believe has been covered extensively, but I thought I'd bring up, just in case.

In all -- thanks, though! This submod is awesome -- can't wait to see it incorporated into 1.1!

[Zonac]

Hey just some impressions while checking stats in custom battle: it seems that you also changed weapon damage for cav. that is no problem for me but you should check the stats for missile cav in general. they didn't change and are of the record. also one iberian cav unit (equites craetati) got again 17 weapon damage ( like pre 1.02) . also armenian cataphrakts have quite high melee def compared to other cav. also you didn't change the "mighty knights" of celts (mogeto epathias). also check dacian melle cav/missile weapon damage!
some britain units are also of ( slingers, cav); lugii elite cav; antigonidai shock cav has quite high def!;

Edit: I come to the result that you may chack all cavalry and 2 handed melee infantry again please?! I just want to test this at its fullest potential!
(propably give only druids enchorage for the while "so that it functions as a "chant" ability ")

and may I ask to give melee cav more melee def than shock cav?! so that they survive longer? that would be awesome!

I really appreciate that you are constantly trieing to tweak the system to get the fullest from the BAI CA gave us

[KAM 2150]

Some cav units are using the same weapons as infantry, forgot to change that as it did not matter for regular DeI balance ; P

Non shielded cav has more def, because in base they did not have any shield bonus so I gave them bigger base melee defence, but not it looks like they have more def ; D

EDIT: Forgot to add that non spear/lance cav does not get bonus vs other horses, so their higher damage is justified as they also lack the charge of spear/lance cav

[KAM 2150]

Just hover over defence value on the UI and it will expand into base defence and shield defence, that is why I put a lot of shield defence into 1.0 battles so while flanked, unit only had their low base defence.

[Krixux]

strange...
tbo my 3 Accensi slingers (not Rhodian) end up, with an average of 300 to 400 kills (large units , hastati 150 / unit for ex)

a normal battle
me +/- 2400 men in one Legion (Rome)
Enemy (AI) +/-3600 in one (single) army , (Norii for instance)
results:
my losses +/- 500; kills +/-3000
Their kills +/- 420; losses +/- 3000 (lol)
decisive victory = "Ego"

conclusion
I loose only 80 to 100 friendly fire, which is ok

in my case friendly fire is due to hastaii / principes fire at will

my ranged are behind enemy's' line in almost lap-dance distance so there is no way they can shoot (lol) over into my frontline...
my ranged units do not fire at will, and fire specific enemy units from a mild right angle to negate their shield, so hits fall on their "sword" hand/back side (quick annihilation), and if misfired (again lol) then in my front lines' shields...

[rjacko10]

conclusion
I loose only 80 to 100 friendly fire, which is ok

Even positioned right behind the enemy unit my peltasts have been known to route my own unit which should have shield protection.

I typically lose about 400 men to friendly fire if I target engaged units. These are unacceptable casualties so I simply stopped using skirmishers on engaged units.

I would like a little less spread in accuracy so shots don't miss their mark at point blank range. Orr manual fire for all skirmishers so I can target the ground the other side of the engaged units.

[Krixux]

Even positioned right behind the enemy unit my peltasts have been known to route my own unit which should have shield protection.

I typically lose about 400 men to friendly fire if I target engaged units. These are unacceptable casualties so I simply stopped using skirmishers on engaged units.

I would like a little less spread in accuracy so shots don't miss their mark at point blank range. Orr manual fire for all skirmishers so I can target the ground the other side of the engaged units.

ahem , I'm not (!) using "peltasts" as stated , in I use only(!!!) slingers
at close range their fire is strait thus direct into enemies back and not over them so they are not hurting my front line

while velites/peltasts missiles have a demi circle trajectory thus can go over the enemy and hurt my front lines
so : I do NOT use "velites" and such
only slingers and or archers

@KAM2150
just because I became a Master ( ) at using slingers along with other players(obviously ), this doesn't mean you have to nerf them

Slingers have no defense and I sacrifice elites to keep them safe
The mechanics are good as their are (polishing wouldn't hurt of course )


mind you, that in some battles AI succeeded in killing most my slingers..
this being seldom though due to my total awesomeness

lol is implicit ...

[KAM 2150]

Looks liek I will have to tone down sligners a bit more Although with surrounding enemy units and fireing in their backs it will always be like this, no matter if in regular DeI or on faster battles. Main problem with balancing ranged units is that AI will NEVER position his troops on the flanks, so if missile units are to weak, then AI will just waste army slots, since their units will be able to kill 2-5 guys per squad if lucky. When we increase ranged damage, then they are able to deal some more damage to the player, but for player both cases does not matter, as he will always flank with missile units.

In other words, there is no perfect solution for ranged units.

[Ivan_Moscavich]

Well, I tried a few battles with this, and can't really tell much difference. The battles ended on average about five minutes more quickly than without it, but casualty numbers, and over all battlefield feel don't seem changed at all.

I think the only real thing that was notable is the battle ended 5 minutes early because of the lack of every unit having encourage resulting in less morale and faster breaking.

[Richard III]

I'd be willing to test this in my currentcampaign, but would like to know if I can play it with these mods already in use:

-Global Armor upgrades
-Minor City Training Fielsds
-Restricted Campaign Movement
-Stop Barbarian Empires

I think they'll be ok as my mods are Campaign and not battle focused, but still would like to know for sure!

[KAM 2150]

Wow, are you sure you are not using any other mods? Your casualties seem almost impossible to get. 80 guys from friendly fire due to pila thrown into fighting troops was max, but my pelstats were always shovering enemies even from behind of my own troops.

Richard III, as long as they do not use the same tables then they should be fine. I never used those so I don't know which tables they use.

[rjacko10]

Wow, are you sure you are not using any other mods? Your casualties seem almost impossible to get.

No other mods that affect battles in any way. Next time I play I'll take screenshots and post them up in a new thread.

Maybe it's a specific unit problem, or something I'm doing wrong tactically.

[KAM 2150]

Ok, now I know why there isn't that much difference in kills sustained Anyway, new version will be posted tomorrow in the evening or late at night.

[nihlanth]

This sounds very interesting. I wont mind slightly faster battles as long as it results in the BAI being more responsive to my actions. I will give this a try.

[McCarronXLD]

While I appreciate the dedicated work for balance I will have to say I think this is moving the mod in the wrong direction. I prefer slower battles, longer battles, with low casualties. The old Ancient Battle Realism submod did an excellent job of turning battles into campaigns. I would plead with you to consider ranged units for a different role than killing. In the Ancient Battle Realism submod ranged casualties inflicted were very, very low. Decisive action was required to win and morale was the key to maintaining your battle lines. Ranged units, rather than having high killing power, would give debuffs to units they were attacking. Morale and speed penalties. While the mod did not do this I further changed it so that ammunition was infinite (or nearly so) on ranged units so that their role was always available to them. The exception was javelins which still had a high killing power.

Perhaps consider doing this for DeI. You might find it more satisfying than making ranged units into something they shouldn't be just because the AI can't protect them for the full battle.

[KAM 2150]

Yes, but still longer battles = easier battles, and even in current build of DeI they are ridiculously easy.

Plus as stated, this one is not going into main mod and if then in rather distant future.

[Ritterlichvon86]

Longer battles are indeed leading to easier battles, because the AI is a first-five-minute-one-trick-pony. And the more advantage a player gets by flanking, the easier the battle will become.

McCarronXLD, while your idea sounds noble, this is not how the BAI works. It doesn't adapt to slower, more realistic battles that are based on solely gaining the upper hand just by flanking or by morale. The BAI relies on its quick killing power - frontally - to become a challenge, to reach the unit-per-unit descision quickly enough to have an advantage over the average player's micro. Whether a battle ends with many or few casualties bears no relevance to this if you are not specifically talking about a losing AI, which usually ends in 4000 kills by the player and 300-400 kills by the AI in DeI at the moment. I believe KAM is moving into the right direction, and if you want to have super-realistic battles, you can go into submods (with a disclaimer slapped upon them that the BAI might perform passively after the lines have engaged). Also, even with these fixes here, DeI battles still take many times as long as Vanilla R2 battles and feature some of the longest engagements among the very big mods in the modding scene.


By the way, in Attila battles are probably two to three times as quick as in Rome 2. Basically, dedicating a unit to fight another at t=0 is the deciding factor wether it will win or be destroyed in Attila. So it is far worse than even in R2...

[MagicCuboid]

I'm definitely intrigued, KAM, though I think you could sell a cage to a lion with your arguments! I am hugely in favor of historical accuracy and "feeling", but I think enough is enough after I see the AI dogpile onto my center line for the last time. If this mod will force me to think about unit angle/position and pre-battle formation more than I currently do, then I am a happy camper. As a matter of fact, if this mod increases the ability for infantry to win a battle all on their own, I'm a happy camper. I'm tired of Roman Equites acting like Medieval Knights.

Alas, I'll keep dreaming of a Total War in which we can require tactical withdrawals, complex anti-flanking maneuvers, etc... Let's keep hoping. I think removing the nuance of combat mechanics is the only way the AI can really excel, which is something I don't really want to happen tbh. However there is a mod for Shogun 2 which inspired the AI to counter flanking maneuvers on my PC. This is because there are two types of infantry: Samurai and Ashigaru. The Samurai fight other infantry, the Ashigaru block for missiles/attack cavalry, the missiles attack everyone else. It was simple, yet very fun, and the AI tended to know how to fight.