Open Test Reports

[The Wandering Storyteller]

My feedback:

Initial impressions:

It looks fantastic, the UI is extremly detailed, but its difficult to take a certain amount of siege units as you are limited to 1. The mod has some def looking fantastic units - which make it all the more better. Note, units are somewhat slower to respond. The mod is excellent, but the AI needs to be improved in terms of pathfinding. The siege battles are a hit and miss - if worked on, it will resemble a much better Ancient Battle. Since Attila has the upgraded siege features - you wouldn't want to miss out on this one.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

AI units getting stuck and retreating-



Units refusing to respond even after I tell them how to position themselves on the wall:


An example of how fort towers ruined this ladder:



CTDs -

One instance of CTDs was when I was fighting a siege battle in Rome as the defenders, and Carthage as the attackers. This was the battle map of Seguiso.

Missing unit cards:

I found that on the Cohors Extradoini - their unit card descriptions were missing. A unit of 180 men seems to move much slower than running, but I suppose this is because of keeping realism.

Report on Ravenna:

The AI should be given catapults, and other siege equiqment. At the minute it is limited to one, but here's what I saw, which was disappointing. The AI is swirling around with no clue what to do with out a catapult. Its going around in circles. The siege towers manage to go to the towers efficently, but where there is water - the pathfinding is extremly difficult for the AI. Including the fact that the towers in the cities manage to oblierate the ladders in seconds. That's got to be removed.

In the battle, it didn't last too long. 6:27, and Roman losses were very minimal, only 51 losses. I've had a look and Celtic Warband is horrendous. They quickly wavered after losing 156 of 180 men.


As far as pathfinding went, the AI suffers from pathfinding in water - and the Sacred Band Units are still stuck while the AI units are moving around.



Principes can have more detailed info. XP doesn't include much. Notice that the AI units are spreading in circles.

Same here:




An example of AI moving without siege weapons:



Fort towers are a pain.

[The Wandering Storyteller]

Some more:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

AI units refusing to move even after reaching the towers:



Impressive detail on shields:

[Denco]

I'm also immensely glad you caught on to what I tried to achieve with cavalry there, the berserk was added so that they would (hopefully) chase after the enemy cavalry after defeating them or being unusable for a while, as the cavalry fights usually quickly conclude battles I find.

I thought it happened because the cavalry unit got flanked

If they would like we can afterwards give the original mechanics but I see little reason to do so as these mechanics are the ones I plan to use from now on. Also Philip is correct, all units (specifically cavalry who will have it higher than all others) will omit a fear radius around the unit. This will mean that a unit can actually take flight even before a charge hits home, something I really wanted to show with the cavalry.

Collision damages are still subject to change. I think our ideal balance here falls in line with what most people perceive as accurate. Cavalry charges from the front should be rather devastating for both sides - if one doesn't break off first (which is something we're trying to model via an extended "fear" aura emitted by cavalry units). From the flank or rear, less so for the aggressor. There is still work to do there, but it requires a lot of testing, as every time you attempt a new set of modifiers, it needs to be tested in all possible scenarios.

I have a crazy idea. Can you add something in the line of berserk ( I dunno maybe call it panicked ) for all the units that get flanked. The idea behind is that once a unit gets flanked it should be disorganized and the player would have no control over it. I know this could cause all sorts of issues but if its added properly it could work. One way we could make it happen is so that the unit gets panicked when its charged from the flank and after a while it will regain its organization. Cool think this would bring to the table is that it could make, if it works, battles more dynamic by taking control from the player if he is not careful and thus make battles a bit harder.

Yes I asked ABH to include the most recent morale changes I made as this is what I will be aiming towards. As I only recently created it I was not really sure if it would work to how I wanted and knew I wouldn't really know until I opened it to other players with different play styles to see if casualties remained consistently low. This should make campaigns much more interesting, having to fight an army twice or more to actually defeat them.

This will hardly work. A normal player army will consist of some light cavalry to chase the routing units down. At least that's what I do . Not a bad idea but I doubt that anyone leaves AI units to route from the battlefield and with Attila/Rome2 mechanics it is very easy to move some cavalry to the far flanks to chase the routing units before they return to the fight, thus destroying the enemy army in the process.

This over all is a game and even though we would all like to make battles realistic there needs to be some line before it gets to realistic. Would the players enjoy chasing an enemy army down on the campaign map, how would the CAI react to this situations etc...

Thanks for the feedback thus far it has genuinely been invaluable I hope you are all enjoying the testing.

Its going to be incredible

I'm happy you guys stuck with it and have decided to make Attila a great game.

[Petellius]

This will hardly work. A normal player army will consist of some light cavalry to chase the routing units down. At least that's what I do . Not a bad idea but I doubt that anyone leaves AI units to route from the battlefield and with Attila/Rome2 mechanics it is very easy to move some cavalry to the far flanks to chase the routing units before they return to the fight, thus destroying the enemy army in the process.

This over all is a game and even though we would all like to make battles realistic there needs to be some line before it gets to realistic. Would the players enjoy chasing an enemy army down on the campaign map, how would the CAI react to this situations etc...

Hence why the cavalry go berserk once they have killed the enemy cavalry and chase after them and basically take themselves out of the battle.

Also from my experience with the old system on Rome 2 the CAI coped perfectly fine with it, they even once baited me with one destroyed army and hit from with a fresh one in a trap. Also I plan to make the morale a bit more stable once units are balanced, this should hopefully mean that both the AI and player will usually have at least one flank fall back, making battles much more nail bitingly close. We shall see however, do not forget I made this in about 3-5 days so its obviously not finished, I just wanted to know what you guys thought before implementing it fully.

I fear some of you haven't quite grasped the idea that units routing at such high numbers is intentional as I'm basing it on actual historical battles where in most there would be 10% losses for the victors and 30% losses for those defeated, so far this seems to have worked throughout most of the battles you have all played with and without cavalry, which pleases me.

[Denco]

Also from my experience with the old system on Rome 2 the CAI coped perfectly fine with it, they even once baited me with one destroyed army and hit from with a fresh one in a trap. Also I plan to make the morale a bit more stable once units are balanced, this should hopefully mean that both the AI and player will usually have at least one flank fall back, making battles much more nail bitingly close. We shall see however, do not forget I made this in about 3-5 days so its obviously not finished, I just wanted to know what you guys thought before implementing it fully.

I fear some of you haven't quite grasped the idea that units routing at such high numbers is intentional as I'm basing it on actual historical battles where in most there would be 10% losses for the victors and 30% losses for those defeated, so far this seems to have worked throughout most of the battles you have all played with and without cavalry, which pleases me.

I see. Now don't get me wrong I realize this is a design idea when it comes to morale and I like it I'm only asking if we can stabilize it more. But don't beat your head over it this is just testing feedback and discussion and in the end it all comes down to what the developers of the mod are envisioning and decide

Oh I forgot. The height at which camera in battles can raise to needs to be higher specially with huge unit numbers that AE has.

This is the kind of thing that should be achievable through scripts. However, we have nobody to work with scripts.. so despite all these great ideas, not much can be done right now. But that will hopefully change in the future.

I think unpredictability in general is the way to make battles more interesting, together with more distinctive unit roles. At least if the AI could handle these dynamics, which it more often than not can't.

I wish that someday we can have a feature like this

[Sheridan]

I have a crazy idea. Can you add something in the line of berserk ( I dunno maybe call it panicked ) for all the units that get flanked. The idea behind is that once a unit gets flanked it should be disorganized and the player would have no control over it. I know this could cause all sorts of issues but if its added properly it could work. One way we could make it happen is so that the unit gets panicked when its charged from the flank and after a while it will regain its organization. Cool think this would bring to the table is that it could make, if it works, battles more dynamic by taking control from the player if he is not careful and thus make battles a bit harder.

This is the kind of thing that should be achievable through scripts. However, we have nobody to work with scripts.. so despite all these great ideas, not much can be done right now. But that will hopefully change in the future.

I think unpredictability in general is the way to make battles more interesting, together with more distinctive unit roles. At least if the AI could handle these dynamics, which it more often than not can't.

[Petellius]

Test Results from ipwnu678

"- Starting numbers of each army

I aren't sure on numbers, however I had Scipio, 3x Triarii, 2x Extraordinarii (spearmen version), 2x Extraordinarii Hastati, 3x Hastati, 5x Principes, 3x Velites and 1x Equites while the Cathaginians had their usual line up at Ultra money setting.

- Numbers after battle (also if it is less than 2000 for the defeated or 1000 for the victors please can you give a small summary as to why)

The battle didn't end, i had a CTD as my skirmishers began engaging, about 30s after both sides cav engaged each other

- The length of the battle in minutes.

CTD as Less than 5 minutes, though including the deployment phase it was probably 5."

[ABH2]

I have a few requests for the people testing. Different things they can try that would help us to narrow down some of the issues.

One is - please try lowering your graphical settings and trying them on the lowest first and working your way up, if you don't mind.

Second - If there are CTD's still, if you don't mind focusing your battles on certain troop types (all cavalry, infantry, light troops etc.).

[Denco]

Tried to do another battle. This time 20vs20 stacks.

The game loaded just fine but just as the units were about to clash I've experienced my first CTD Strangely I cannot find the crash log. I know that Rome 2 stored them in the Root folder but apparently its not the same with Attila.

EDIT: Lowered the graphics quality to maximum performance and it happened at the same time. It is kind of strange since I'm using the same units I did for smaller engagements. Except for some cavalry. Re-testing without any cavalry.

[The Wandering Storyteller]

The Battle of Sirmium - fought somewhere in the Balkans, settings 20 vs 20 - no lag.

My report:

I was impressed with some of the unique formations that you could form. It looked damn well impressive when I saw my hastati and triaii were stepping up in the battlefield. Though Carthage was on a higher ridge, they waited for me to attack them. The AI didn't move one bit until I moved my troops. That is a bit of a worry.

One of the impressive things about the AI was how it kept its units in formation in small concentrated areas. I sent my triaii to attack this small band of soliders, two ligurian light infantries, one celtic warband skirmisher unit and a band of Sacred Band Levies totally destroyed my traii as they advanced. Whoever designed this gets some rep from me. Now that is proper AI utilizing the terrain. My triaii were getting smashed. This is a positive sign for me, the AI is working as it should.

A problem the AI didn't use was utilizing its Nuimdian skirmishers - they kept still, and they didn't move even when my units were attacking. If it had parthian shot, it should have swung around and at least attacked my troops. There are also missing textures for the Numiadian cav.
What I wasn't impressed with was the massive blobs forming. For one unit, nearly two three other units were attacking it. My traii were being kept in defensive wall formation. One of the units had been attacking and I could see clear line engagement. Now that is NEEDED. I don't want too many massive blobs forming. I'd have more organized structures.

As I approached upward with my troops, the AI used its slingers to attack causing me to form defensive walls. Now that is crucial - the player will have some immersion in my opinion. But as my traii advanced, they stopped, before a band of sacred levies rushed through them and attacked my triiai and then they attacked (the AI on slingers has to be a bit more balanced when moving them around, because they are quite slow to react). I accept Petillieus on his point that if the unit loses more units it will rout - but then wouldn't that make the battles shorter?

African Veterans numbers should be raised to 225, same the as the triaii, because they are an excellent unit and my favorite one, and I'd have them as one of the top tier units. They lost over 167 men out of 180, and the traii, 211 out of 225. I'd say the favour should go more to the Carthaigians to give them a fighting chance. Another thing is I found that is that principe vs Numdiian skirmishers on combat, the principes found it harder to remove the Numidian cav. On the sacred band cavarly fighting the principes, the principies found it much easier to destroy the Sacred Band Cav. The Sacred Band Cav is more stronger than the Roman cav, which is excellent because Roman cav on average were much weaker historically. But Sacred Band Cav should be much stronger against principes.

Here are the battle loses - I'm not so sure, I think it should be even sighted, but for historical purposes, I think Carthage gets more than Rome on this occasion.



In terms of extra details for sieges:

Another thing I noticed when I had earlier tested out the siege battle, was that moving trai on the wall made them unresponsive, moving, rotating and shaking. They were finding it difficult to follow the wall paths. Otherwise the units can move much better in the streets. When making these moves on the walls, these units were jagged. This is somewhat same with the cavarly, they are too slow in my opinion, making them evenly paced is better.

A small report on unfortied town assaults -

The AI is capable of attacking different spots in the towns. The AI attacked with a small force of principes, and then just by behind it attacked with a much larger force - I was totally thrown on the assault. The AI just kept on pouring troops and it was just awesome. I'd say this was the Battle of Constantina with 20 vs 20. I'd say the Italian spearmen are weak against the traii, because their javellins didn't pierce through the heavy armed traii.

In my opinion, the unfortified town assaults work fine for the AI, and Attila's set up makes it more interesting. Others may have different reports but I'd say they're perfectly fine, the AI knows well to use them.

[Sheridan]

What I wasn't impressed with was the massive blobs forming. For one unit, nearly two three other units were attacking it. My traii were being kept in defensive wall formation. One of the units had been attacking and I could see clear line engagement. Now that is NEEDED. I don't want too many massive blobs forming. I'd have more organized structures.

Blob means very different things to different people. Sometimes, it's about troops not giving each other sufficient space in combat (i.e. clipping), but this doesn't seem to be your complaint, which seems to focus on the structural integrity of units. The thing here is, it's rather subjective. In my mind, it would be difficult to keep a perfect, straight battle line with so many events a battle can hold. Formation attack is one means to significantly change the appearance of units in combat, but it doesn't come cheap. There are several known issues with it, among them rotating units (which looks nothing less than ridiculous) and stacking units. Both of these so negatively impact the visuals on the battlefield that, it's just not worth it, in my opinion. Particularly as the AI dilligently comes up with ways to make these happen, in just about every battle. Having said that, we could add this option in a next update for you all to try and see how you find it in Attila.

[Denco]

Did a 20 vs 20 test of Principes vs Iberian Scutari.

Ally: 4710, end 4420 ( 420 )
Enemy: 4713, end 2808 ( 1905 )

Not CTD. I did encounter a problem with Berserk and cavalry where my general unit went berserk, when started chasing a routing unit that was retreating trough my rear, and after a while started routing from the battlefield. The problem is it routed straight into the enemy thus a suicide route. I know this is the vanilla problem but it could show a small flaw with berserk.

Other than that the battle wen't as expected with Prinicipes winning and showing that these two units are not the cause of CTD's. Looking at AOE 2HD pictures it shows he's using units that I've used previously when experiencing CTD and did not crashed. Except for one unit, the Berber Archers. But upon further testing with only Berber Archers in the AI's army there was no CTD.

[Petellius]

A lot of problems that you pointed out here are vanilla stuff that is hard coded. Unfortunately we cannot change the AI at all. Also we are working on reducing bobbing but again we cannot change the AI

[The Wandering Storyteller]

A lot of problems that you pointed out here are vanilla stuff that is hard coded. Unfortunately we cannot change the AI at all. Also we are working on reducing bobbing but again we cannot change the AI

What about the Rome 2 mod that you made? Its an amazing mod, but you managed to change the way formations were made, so why not bring those elements or is Attila a bit hardcoded? Reducing bobbing will be good.

[Petellius]

What about the Rome 2 mod that you made? Its an amazing mod, but you managed to change the way formations were made, so why not bring those elements or is Attila a bit hardcoded? Reducing bobbing will be good.

What mod in Rome 2? We haven't released the one for Rome 2 yet. Are you on about spacing??

[The Wandering Storyteller]

What mod in Rome 2? We haven't released the one for Rome 2 yet. Are you on about spacing??

I'm talking about the mod you made for Rome 2.

[Sheridan]

I'm talking about the mod you made for Rome 2.

Are you talking about their default, non-combat spacing?

[Petellius]

I'm talking about the mod you made for Rome 2.

Legate of the Ninth??

[The Wandering Storyteller]

Are you talking about their default, non-combat spacing?

I think so.

Legate of the Ninth??

Yes.

[Petellius]

I made that over a year ago xD. I feel old. Anyway TED can already process battle fields