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

[Ivan_Moscavich]

While I have only had the situation rjacko is saying happen once with marian legionnaires on the walls fighting against Egyptian garrison spears (which by the look and stats appear to simply be renamed light hoplites? a lot of garrison forces seem to just be renamed standard units). For about ten minutes the kills were minimal on both sides, however I was losing legionnaires to the towers.
not enough to compromise the unit, but certainly I could tell the losses were from the towers, and not the troops on the wall. Yet my legionnaires couldn't gain many kills against these garrison spears.

Eventually I knocked out one tower with ship mounted ballista and turned the towers neutral by pouring in through some wall openings.

The wall troops started to waver once the gate was neutral, leading me to believe it was more a morale buff than anything else that kept them fighting in such good shape.

I can certainly say that rjacko and MagicCulbold's reports of units standing on a wall in confusion is semi-common however. And that occasionaly units don't seem to understand how to get off the walls. At some points my units tried to go down enemy ladders rather than down through the stairs in the wall.

I will download and test out these new battle changes you released today this weekend.

I've said repeatedly I don't see it as a challenge improvement, but the feel of battle is improved enough I think it's worthwile to become the standard of DeI with some polish to mechanics.
It's hard to explain.

[KAM 2150]

Thanks

As for walls, it is not a secret that pathfinding is utter crap in Rome 2 (this is also one of the reasons why this game lags soo much for some people and especially during sieges).

[KAM 2150]

Fix for arrow towers:

http://www.speedyshare.com/xWJq8/aStats.pack

[GourmetGorilla]

Fix for arrow towers:

http://www.speedyshare.com/xWJq8/aStats.pack

Should this be used in addition to or in place of 30.01.2015?

[Dakirin]

I read again the entire thread because I remembered that the discussion about boiling oil and towers has been in the past. So I found your post:

Fix for arrow towers:

http://www.speedyshare.com/xWJq8/aStats.pack

Are you sure that the tower nerfs are included in the 08.02 pack? Cause I had a siege attack with this results:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

As you can see I lost 1700 from the fighting and 1400 from towers and friendly fire. I will assume about 100 friendly fire, even if I always position my missiles to fire from the side of enemies to minimize my losses. So that means that almost half of my losses were due to towers.

Regarding attrition, Zeonix you’re assuming that the settlements had amazing administrators which kept vast amounts of reserve food and water in cities and that they had the ability to maintain them for longer than 1 year. Both assumptions very unlikely in my opinion.

It comes to mind the battle of Alesia where Vercigetorix had to remove the women and children from the city because of lack of food. Caesar didn’t allow them to pass, so they actually remained starving between the two armies for a while.

And as I said in my previous post, both armies should get attrition, with slightly higher figures for defenders.

[Grizwald714]

Kam since this mod effects units stats would Caesars legions be compatible or would the units be unbalanced.

By the way Great job on the submod.

[rusnmat]

Missiles are very OP , since HP was halved but missile damage didn't come down as much. Missile damage needs to be 25-30% reduced.

[Butan]

Missiles are very OP , since HP was halved but missile damage didn't come down as much. Missile damage needs to be 25-30% reduced.

I think its intended.



Also grind on walled settlement attack is normal: pathfinding/scaling/fighting 1 by 1 and defensive towers are always hell.
As MagicCuboid said be careful of how your units are behaving when on walls, they tend to forget to fight.

[rusnmat]

Missiles are very OP , since HP was halved but missile damage didn't come down as much. Missile damage needs to be 25-30% reduced.

I think its intended.


.

Then it's unfortunate. For instance, Germanic hunters, are just not Mongols or welsh longbowmen. With if these missile kill rates to stay, vanilla EE balance will be better game & historically wise.
To KAM2150:
Instead of reducing HP, wouldn't be better to increase melee attack values by 70% , charge by 50% and missile damage by 10% (or just leave it the same) for all the units in DEI ? The issue is with too prolong melee and units holding a thin line.. Making missiles OP doesn't solve it, just adds imbalance.

[Mithridates_Eupator]

Missiles are very OP , since HP was halved but missile damage didn't come down as much. Missile damage needs to be 25-30% reduced.


Then it's unfortunate. For instance, Germanic hunters, are just not Mongols or welsh longbowmen. With if these missile kill rates to stay, vanilla EE balance will be better game & historically wise.
To KAM2150:
Instead of reducing HP, wouldn't be better to increase melee attack values by 70% , charge by 50% and missile damage by 10% (or just leave it the same) for all the units in DEI ? The issue is with too prolong melee and units holding a thin line.. Making missiles OP doesn't solve it, just adds imbalance.

I agree. Germanic Hunters are already OP. They rake in so many kills it makes me wonder why I dont just go Agincourt on everyone. My house rules limit them 1 per army and they still rack up 100-150 kills every battle.

[KAM 2150]

Missiles are very OP , since HP was halved but missile damage didn't come down as much. Missile damage needs to be 25-30% reduced.


Then it's unfortunate. For instance, Germanic hunters, are just not Mongols or welsh longbowmen. With if these missile kill rates to stay, vanilla EE balance will be better game & historically wise.
To KAM2150:
Instead of reducing HP, wouldn't be better to increase melee attack values by 70% , charge by 50% and missile damage by 10% (or just leave it the same) for all the units in DEI ? The issue is with too prolong melee and units holding a thin line.. Making missiles OP doesn't solve it, just adds imbalance.

Because in your solution instead of changing around 30 values I would have to manually change few thoudens of them ; P

And like I said, this pack is EXPERIMENTAL, it aims at high values, because it is easier to spot difference between 30-50% increase and 10% increase which for many people might work as a placebo effect.

[geala]

I'm still not using it although I would like because I modded the units of a certain faction, also changing units to new ones, which I would have to change manually in the pack files all the time. I will wait for more results. Will you tone down missile damage? Instead I'm using now a version of the Cinematic Combat mod (it's removed from the Net seemingly) with toned down hit chance or a version of Mester's animation battle mod with increased hit chances, because they don't change the land units files. If the enemy has some armored high tier units (like Carthage in every army) I also lose battles because most of my armies consist of medium tier units which are frequently also rather naked (the modded ones).

I'm not sure wether I like the new disband mechanic. I never ever build experience or other upgrade buildings which would make my units better at recruiting, I only use battle experience and two champions despite of the imperium level. It's a bit harsh to lose long trained units totally. Isn't it a instigation to build unit upgrade buildings?

I appreciate the huge efforts to make battles more difficult, must be so time consuming to change all the stats. However battle difficulty can be handled in different ways. Trying to get very difficult battles for players using very good armored elite units all the time (like middle to late game Roma players, frankly said also the normal later Roman units are a kind of armored elite which they also were in reality) is a very tedious task I fear. Perhaps some fantasy should be left to the player to get a satisfying experience.

[Shaggy1973]

I've played around 20 turns with this as Rome after Polybian reforms.

I think it is a huge step in the right direction, but the battles are a little too fast. Every unit is once again useful, but some units are disproportionately useful compared to cost (missiles).

I'd tone down kill rates incrementally, say:
Infantry 10%
Cavalry 15%
Missiles 20%

The morale effects seem great, sometimes flanking moves can be successful just because the morale drops, not because they kill 50 men.

I'm not sure if this is main DeI, but all the bonuses from generals/traditions/ancilliaries seem to be getting dropped (halved it seems) which is also a huge step in the right direction.

Good work

[Ritterlichvon86]

I've played around 20 turns with this as Rome after Polybian reforms.

I think it is a huge step in the right direction, but the battles are a little too fast. Every unit is once again useful, but some units are disproportionately useful compared to cost (missiles).

I'd tone down kill rates incrementally, say:
Infantry 10%
Cavalry 15%
Missiles 20%

The morale effects seem great, sometimes flanking moves can be successful just because the morale drops, not because they kill 50 men.

I'm not sure if this is main DeI, but all the bonuses from generals/traditions/ancilliaries seem to be getting dropped (halved it seems) which is also a huge step in the right direction.

Good work

Tuning down the killrates is exactly the thing that's not possible without nerfing the AI heavily. If anything, they'd need to become higher for the BAI to become more competitive. It's a sad fact that the BAI cannot be modded and played around with


I must say, the battles are much more interesting since the 30.01.'s update already. We need to care for our units that they don't take too many losses, or we'll go home with a pyrrhic victory. The BAI's attacks become more decisive, and battles are generally faster - but not too fast as like in Vanilla or other mods. The outcome of a battle is important again, so winning but losing 80% of your army does not give you the option anymore to just wait 3 rounds and have a full army for free again (which was so unrealistic!).

Looking very good KAM

[Throwaways]

"units under 45% will auto disband after battle" This feels way too high. That way if I lose 45% of, say 6 units I lose: 165x6 990 extra units, if I have units of 300. This seems a bit rough to me, since you can't even merge them in to save the men, it's just like a 1000 extra men magically dissapeared. Other than that I like the patch and it's making the battles more exciting. Can't make a huge thin line and just outflank, need some backup troops to support where the enemy pushes through. Good work.

[Philozoraptor]

Would it be possible to merge those damaged units (if there is another unit like that) instead of disbanding them? I think familiar feature is in BGR V for SS for MTW2. Though I dont know if its possible for ROME II.

[Drowsy]

Instead of disbanding, would it be possible to merge the units if they met the 45% threshold? I think Rome did this.

[KAM 2150]

Instead of disbanding, would it be possible to merge the units if they met the 45% threshold? I think Rome did this.

Well, now I am almost sure no one almost uses the merge option, because units will be replenished in about 1-3 turns MAX. Anyway, you can still think that this fast replenishement is due to wounded soldiers and beaten units coming back for combat ;D

Yes, I know that some people use house rules but come on, how many of you guys do it and how many do it the same way? Sure, with house rules you can get some nice result, but they are ONLY limited by the person who uses it, which means that the same person might also abuse it or in most cases, be simply not aware of using them.

[zonks40]

45% disbanding is a bit high, although on the other hand, it would help the AI shake off it's early low tier units that it's armies consist of in the early game, and make room for better units in the mid game.

[KAM 2150]

I wanted it on 45% for now, because the difference is much more noticeable and hence easier to test in the campaign That is why this pack is experimental : D We test stuff

For past months it was on 35% but I noticed they often my units were down to around 80-90 guys left alive from the squad and almost never below this 35%.

Also higher disband ratio should put much more emphasis on saving elite units until vital points of battle, similar to how Romans fought So inexperienced units are expandable and therfore can fight in the first line, while elites should be left away from greatest danger until needed.