Fans suggestion thread for future releases

[Wulfburk]

Is it possible to add back some dust in battles, at least just in battles in sandy or desert like places?

Or at least just increase some dust effect on cavalry units as a whole.

In one of the battles between eumenes and antigonus the dust was so big that it allowed antigonus to send his cavalry to eumenes baggage train without him seing them.


Before the dust might have been too high but now they are too low (or not there at all as it seems)

On reemergent factions, i think they are strong enough. Make them spawn with 4 stacks and no AI faction will grow big.
In my current campaign the arueakoi that got to be the 2nd in ranking just got ripped apart by the lusitanians, but only after some 8 lusitanian rebelions failed in the 300 turns before. Which is quite cool IMO

[Kilo11]

There's a few things to keep in mind [about settlements]:

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Thanks for the response Kull. Your points are all on, and given those I respectfully withdraw my suggestion.

The point about the settlement representing the region and not the actual particular settlement is also something I regularly forget. Because it's not really Gerrha that's got a population of 1300, but rather the entire east coast of Arabia, which makes sense. And that area is huge in comparison to say Attika, and so it would have a comparable population given that while arid it's huge.

[LusitanianWolf]

Is it possible to add back some dust in battles, at least just in battles in sandy (...)

Before the dust might have been too high but now they are too low (or not there at all as it seems)

Now that you talk about it I really do miss the dust in earlier versions! Gotta increase it in my own build! Do anyone know what the file is and if it would be savegame compatible?

[Lusitanio]

BAI in TATW seems to be very good, the enemy troops attack without any issues, cavalry goes from a formation to another always exploring weaknesses in my line and generals are very tough to deal, especially since they seem almost immortal. Maybe we should consider that in EBII, making generals stronger would be positive, mostly because of the moral. But damm, there seems to be something in their AI that works really well.

[Jurand of Cracow]

BAI in TATW seems to be very good, the enemy troops attack without any issues, cavalry goes from a formation to another always exploring weaknesses in my line and generals are very tough to deal, especially since they seem almost immortal. Maybe we should consider that in EBII, making generals stronger would be positive, mostly because of the moral. But damm, there seems to be something in their AI that works really well.

I wonder how does the speed of the battles in TATW compare to the EBII. Would that BAI cope with that slow killing rate in EBII?
BTW, have you also experience that EBII BAI usually splits it's forces into 2 groups, with the second one composed of cavalry and set on the right AI's wing? I've seen it many times in my battles.

[Lusitanio]

I think it would cope with the slow killing rate in EBII because of battles in TATW (when you don't have cavalry) tend to be pretty long too, with the infantry grinding. In fact, the slow killing rate in EBII would be beneficial to TATW because as I'm playing as Isengard right now (they have terrible cavalry) I'm tired of seeing the enemy cavalry appearing out of nowhere to destroy my units rather quickly. But that just proves that the TATW BAI is very smart, they are always looking for open spots to attack or flank my units. And since TATW generals are almost immortal, battles turn out to be quite long.

Well, I did not saw that happening in my battles but I have been using this sub-mod http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...native-Battles
I can say the battles have improved using it, the only thing I may complain is too much money when sacking/enslaving settlements, otherwise its good.

[QuintusSertorius]

The only person who could realisticly apply any changes to the BAI is z3n, given he wrote it and knows the likely impacts best. It's an integrated part of the campaign_script, so you couldn't simply replace it with another BAI from elsewhere.

[Lusitanio]

I understand QS, but what about giving more hitpoints to generals? What do you think about that?

[QuintusSertorius]

I understand QS, but what about giving more hitpoints to generals? What do you think about that?

They already get bonus hit points; both through the health-related traits, and AIGeneral gives them too.

[Lusitanio]

I know and understand that they already have more hit points than normal, but could that increase a bit more? I'm not saying to put them on a level like almost immortal like TATW DAC but making them stronger would allow better battles against AI (generals would live longer and the moral destruction of the army would take longer). And also allow for a more strategical use of your general, I had generals dying on their first charge, it is rare but it happened, making me using them only to catch troops running away.

[QuintusSertorius]

I know and understand that they already have more hit points than normal, but could that increase a bit more? I'm not saying to put them on a level like almost immortal like TATW DAC but making them stronger would allow better battles against AI (generals would live longer and the moral destruction of the army would take longer). And also allow for a more strategical use of your general, I had generals dying on their first charge, it is rare but it happened, making me using them only to catch troops running away.

Test it and feed back how it impacts play. The simplest thing to change are the hit point boosts from AIGeneral - currently level 2 gets +1 hit point and level 3 gets +2 hit points. Change them to something like +2 for level 1, +5 for level 2 and +8 for level 3.

Don't think it's a savegame compatible change, though.

[Genghis Skahn]

+8 hitpoints would just be way too much...I am strongly opposed to such large boosts to hitpoints. A more reasonable solution in the short term might be +1 at lvl 1, +2 at 2 and +3 at 3. And no, not savegame compatible.

[Hellenikon]

Agreed, I'm also against making AI generals tougher to kill - it isn't realistic at all and deprives the player of valid options. Going for the enemy general is a perfectly valid tactic used in this time period (ex. Alexander and his successors). AI generals already receive bonuses that makes them competent generals even if they barely engage in battles.

[Lusitanio]

Soo, I did the changes and started a Roman campaign with the CAI on Very Hard, BAI on Medium and units on Huge. After hours of playing, this is my assessment:
Battle 1: Apuli rebels:
The AI general (cavalry unit) attacked my units and pulled out with only 27 survivors (with normal hitpoints he would probably have died). Only managed to kill him later in the battle. Didn't seem invincible as in TATW DAC or neither weak.

2 Battle - Rebel army in the north, General Ainorix (2170 Romans against 1894 barbarians)
Killed the general at the end of the battle, after managing to route his army, and when he was trying to leave the battle with only him and two BGs left.
Seems that the difference is that instead of killing the general and after winning the battle with a general route, now, more often than not, I have to win the battle and after kill the general.

Battle 3 - 1703 Romans against 1906 barbarians (AI General 4 stars/veteran)
Tough battle, managed to win after flanking the enemy army with my General and two units of Principes that killed the enemy general, after that, the route began...

Siege of Taras and Felsina
In Taras, the General unit was on the wall, in a good position. While I destroyed the rest of his army, he was the last unit to be destroyed. There were still a lot of his BGs when my units killed him. Not that hard.
In Felsina, I didn't notice a big difference on the AI General Hitpoints, my units killed him quickly.

Rhegion
While laying siege to the city, my army was attacked by another rebel army (so two general units to deal with). The first general charged alone with his cavalry to the center of my army and was quickly killed. The second general (a Triari unit) was killed with a cavalry charge from behind.

Alali

The city only had one unit, a Carthaginian general (Liby-Phoenician infantry), so I sent one unit of Triari and one of Principes to test him.
The Triaris engaged the enemy unit and all went as normal, a little later I sent the Principes to attack the AI General from behind with volleys of javelins. The enemy General was killed on the third volley.

Syracuse

Sent an army to Sicily and left it near Syracuse. Later the army was attacked with the army from the city and another army from outside.
The first army, the General attacked against the center of my army, after that he retreated to attack my cavalry that was trying to flank him and while fighting my cav and one Hastati Sabelli unit, the enemy General routed (with 23 BGs units still alive) without being killed. That allowed for his army to keep fighting for some more time, especially the cavalry.
The second army, the BG unit was composed by infantry and was therefore killed. Again, I didn't notice a big difference.

Conclusions:
Increasing the AI Generals Hit Points seem to have some differences. Although the Generals with infantry BGs didn't seem to make such a big difference (they were easily killed as before), the Generals in Cavalry units seem to be more capable to attack, disengage and survive more time than usual on the battlefield. What does this mean? It means that battles will be harder because the routing derived from killing the General will happen later but still in a realistic way. Generals in cavalry units will have more chances to flee the battlefield instead of dying so you will have more chances of fighting the same General on the battlefield. Infantry Generals may be a bit tougher than usual but, personally, I didn't feel any difference.

Note: I also made some more battles against smaller rebels armies but I destroyed them to quickly to make an assessment.

[Kilo11]

Lusitanio, could you say what changes you made exactly? The new battle performance seems promising (in my opinion, at least), but without an exact accounting of what modification you did the EBII team can't really make anything of your results.

[Genghis Skahn]

Moreover, the problem with Lusitanio's test is that, because the AIGeneral trait is a hidden trait, we can't really be sure just what kind of hitpoint bonuses the FMs he fought had gained. Testing solution: give all levels of the AIGeneral trait equal hitpoints bonuses--that way you can definitively isolate the effect that the extra hitpoints is having on general deaths. As it stands now, we have no idea what level of AIGeneral, and hence no idea of the hitpoints bonus, of the generals he's fought.

[Lusitanio]

Kilo11 I did what QS said, I changed the AIGeneral HitPoints to +2 on level 1, +5 on level 2 and +8 on level 3. They were the only changes I made.
I agree with you Genghis Skahn, I don't know what level were the Generals I fought, that's why I made a detailed report if anyone wanted to test and do the same battles.
Anyway, I'm thinking about changing the General HitPoints to +5 on all levels and test it in a Roman Campaign.

[OJ33DA]

Do general's body guards have more than one hitpoint? if they do, that can be problematic for the Ai.

[QuintusSertorius]

Do general's body guards have more than one hitpoint? if they do, that can be problematic for the Ai.

This isn't for the bodyguards, but the general himself.

[Lusitanio]

Oh right, as I wrote, I changed the AIGeneral Hit points to +5 in all three levels and started a new Roman campaign with Campaign difficulty in Very hard, BAI in Medium and units on Huge. This is my report:

Battle 1: Apulli rebels
Defeated the rebel army and while engaging the enemy general (cavalry unit), he began to route (with 55 BG units left) and left the battlefield alive (with 27 BG units left). Gave me the impression that if his Hit Points were lower, he may have been killed.

Battle 2: Attacked by two barbarian armies near Felsina. 2736 Romans against 3802 barbarians ( 2 AI Generals)
The first army attacked mine while I was in a good defensive position, the barbarian general went after some of my skirmishers that began to route and I sent my cavalry and a unit of hoplites to catch him. He routed and escaped the battle (with 27 BG units left). Again, I had the impression that had his Hit points been lower, he had died.
After destroying the first army, the second army began to slowly approach me and our troops engaged in a hard fight. The combat ended a bit later when the 2General died fighting on the center of the battle with support from his troops, after that, a massive route began. I must note that the second General was killed with only seven of his BGs left, that may mean that, had he had fewer Hit Points, he had died earlier and the battle would be easier (not good).

Siege/Assault of Felsina
This was the first time that I really saw the effects on the AI General Hitpoints. This time, the AI General BG unit was holding one unit of Principes and one of Triaris (I had the rest of the general army trapped behind him with the city center covered with my troops), while the General BG unit was managing to hold the ground against my units, I sent my General on cavalry to join the fight. A few moments later, I saw how tough the AI General was when he became the last survivor of his unit and tried to go back to the rest of his army (not routing). My cavalry went after and killed him. After that, a rout began and I won the battle.

Siege of Taras
Had two units fighting the General BG, after a good time fighting, they routed and my troops killed the General. Despite that, I saw that the General managed to fight some of my units, kill them and continue fighting, all that before the route.

Battle of Albabagenna - I sieged the city in order to be attacked by the armies nearby and fight at least two armies. 2510 Romans vs 5273 Ligurae. Three Generals, one BG unit composed of Etruscan Hoplites and the other two of West Celt Light Cavalry.
The first army to attack me had the two Generals on cavalry. The first General died with a cavalry charge while he was fighting against my skirmishers and a hoplite unit. Note that this General BG unit was almost intact since it was in the very beginning of the battle.
The second General died while routing when his army was already routing.
Finally, the third General was killed during the second battle, while his BG unit was fighting on the center supported by the rest of his army. Although he managed to hold out for some time, he got killed because he was at the front of the battle (even his BG unit only had lost 30 soldiers from a total of 160).

Conclusions:
It seems that Generals are harder to kill but still realistic. Although having more Hitpoints may not be realistic to some, it serves to compensate for the dumb decisions that AIGenerals normally do, like suicide charges to the center of the army, fighting on the center without retreating, etc.
If the Generals had fewer Hitpoints, the battles would be less fun and I think most of my battles would have finished a lot earlier with the traditional route.
However, after doing this battles with +5 Hitpoints on AIGenerals, it seems enough and more HitPoints than that would be too much and would make the battles highly unrealistic. In my opinion, +5 HitPoints should be the limit.

Note for QS: Before doing this tests on EBII I was playing a lot of TATW DAC and after returning to do battles in EBII I must say that AI reinforcements behave in a very different way on the two mods. While in TATW DAC the norm of the AI reinforcements is that they will try to attack me as soon as they can or join forces and attack me, in EBII the norm seems to be that one army will engage me and after defeating the army, the reinforcement will then proceed to attack me. While I respect this chivalry, I think you could ask z3n to review the AI and maybe ask the DAC team what they did in TATW DAC.