Ancient Empires: Divide et Impera - Upd. 2/13/2016

[kwnic]

Great work so far. I'm really enjoying the map and culture additions!

Just wanted to post some feedback on my Seleucid test campaign.

Though there is an increase in provincial ownership it does not feel like it made the Seleucid Empire significantly stronger. You feel quite stretched to defend your lands from potential threats that surround you on all sides, especially with fairly strong satrapies that hate you at the start of the game. There is a constant fear of being at war with too many other factions at once and not being able to defend your lands.

I ran into a couple of issues playing though. The biggest one was the difficulty of converting culture to my own in order to create my core units. The entire time I played I could only recruit local or mercenaries. I was never able to increase my cultural conversion enough. I understand that it should be difficult at the start of the game, but even with a level 3 Temple of Zeus and a Governor I was unable to make a significant increase. It was only going up .5% per turn and this was around turn 30 so up to this point my main culture was decreasing even with level 1 and 2 temples. I was mainly losing the the Hellenistic Elites which seems to never decrease no matter how high my conversion rate is.

Perhaps and increase in the conversion strength would help fix this issue.

Another issue I ran into was due to the increased campaign map movement distance, it allowed the AI to come in and suddenly take out my client states in one turn when their army was out of their city. I could do nothing to stop it.

A last note, I have been using KAM's experimental battle pack so the battles feel very slow. It would not be possible to use KAM's mod with this mod correct?

This I am really enjoying the campaign map. It adds a lot of diversity with many new factions and new turns of events. I hope you guys continue the good work!

[La Tene]

I'm currently not playing this only because the DeI patch 16 pak download seems to be removed. Anyway, the upkeep modifiers seem way too much and I think the very high campaign movement range will mean very few battles will end up in the open terrain which is unfortunate. Although I'm pretty interested to see how the very long move ranges do in fact play out. Perhaps increase the minor settlement field battle likelihood to compensate.

With difficulty settings giving the AI dirt cheap armies combined with long movement ranges I can imagine some really annoying enemy assaults. Just some food for thought.

[ABH2]

Ok, quite a few fixes to report here:

• More thorough battle overhaul, pacing issues and kill rates should be fixed.
• Fixed character skills, traits, and everything related to that.
• Semi-corrected AOR script issue. Some playable factions (mostly minor ones) will not have working AOR. It's entirely off for them. For most factions, it should be working. AOR will not work in HaTG at the moment.
• Reduced public order hit from different religions based on campaign difficulty.
• Cut out faction uniforms - now back to use DeI's. Not sure if this caused any real issues.
• Fixed three faction selection maps (minor)

It is a shame that nothing can be done about the AI attacking from Boats with skirmishers and cavalry minus their
horses but I know that probably can't be fixed.

The only thing we can do is disincentivize the AI there not to go sailing. There's a few more things I'd like to try there.

vpapako - Working on many of the things you brought up, and some new things you brought to our attention. Thanks.

That's not entirely my point. The point I'm trying to make is your painfully slow cultural conversion combined with starting cultural differences in starting regions and the way AE uses the existing DeI cultural recruitment system means I'm 45 turns into a game as the Iceni, have total control over my starting province, and I'm still stuck using the local levy units, while my opponents in the area were able to recruit the core Britannic troops from turn 1.

As the Iceni, you would have been running into a screw-up on my part, but not related to cultural conversion rates. This should be fixed now with the latest release. Iceni should work fine AOR wise. The issue was that the home regions weren't working for them so you were stuck with levies even whe you shouldn't have been. On another note, I've reduced public order penalties.

I may start to tick back up cultural conversion a bit, though I'd still keep it slower than people are used to.

I ran into a couple of issues playing though. The biggest one was the difficulty of converting culture to my own in order to create my core units. The entire time I played I could only recruit local or mercenaries. I was never able to increase my cultural conversion enough. I understand that it should be difficult at the start of the game, but even with a level 3 Temple of Zeus and a Governor I was unable to make a significant increase. It was only going up .5% per turn and this was around turn 30 so up to this point my main culture was decreasing even with level 1 and 2 temples. I was mainly losing the the Hellenistic Elites which seems to never decrease no matter how high my conversion rate is.

Unfortunately, similar bug to above. Hellenistic AOR should work properly now, though you will still struggle with conversion.

Honestly, though, I'm glad you were struggling to defend territory. Not glad you were stuck to crummy units the entire time doing it. I do think you as the player, especially with increased movement points here, should be able to recruit your core units and move them where you need be. Hopefully as the Seleucids public order is a nightmare on the fringes and you have people encroaching and picking away at you. This is what I'd like to see for them. Only, with actual access to your core faction roster from the start. That was, again, my screw-up.

Another issue I ran into was due to the increased campaign map movement distance, it allowed the AI to come in and suddenly take out my client states in one turn when their army was out of their city. I could do nothing to stop it.

On this point, I would again say this is a good thing. Isn't the point of a challenging campaign that you get caught off guard? And you don't think this happened in real life in a territory the size of the Seleucids?

A lot of the features here (when they are all working right) are designed to make the player plan ahead and take precautions. It's the entire goal here.

A last note, I have been using KAM's experimental battle pack so the battles feel very slow. It would not be possible to use KAM's mod with this mod correct?

No, it wouldn't. That actually is *not* how our battles are supposed to operate normally. Our battle system was faster than DeI vanilla. It was actually quite polished, as well, before we decided to do this DeI submod. But then bringing it all in, having been focusing on Attila for so long...

Well, I can't apologize enough for the slop and bugs.

Anyway, the upkeep modifiers seem way too much and I think the very high campaign movement range will mean very few battles will end up in the open terrain which is unfortunate.

I would ask that you tried it before knocking it. When I first tested increased movement points, what I liked about it was that the AI would attack my armies. It was the exact opposite of what you're saying.

The AI is bad at planning ahead. But with increased (and, frankly, historically accurate) movement ranges, it's as simple as identifying and attacking. Blitzing as someone else said, though negatively. The AI isn't going to out think you over the long term, but it can catch you off guard and be opportunistic when its made simple enough for it. I worried increased movement would make it too easy for the player, but then I actually found myself ganged up on by AI stacks.

With difficulty settings giving the AI dirt cheap armies combined with long movement ranges I can imagine some really annoying enemy assaults. Just some food for thought.

Which is why the player has to protect their territory and plan? It's not as if you can't defend your border regions? The Romans kept them garrisoned for a reason.

[TFCAliarcy]

Something I noticed during a Parthia campaign is that a lot of the Eastern Provinces don't have any AoR. Instead of increasing conversion rate throughout the entire map why not increase the conversion rate in a major faction home province to be the normal rate.

[vpapako]

ABH2 Don't mention it, I love trying out the goodies you make. I tried a few turns as Egypt. Everything was ok. I played a battle and I think i noticed sth. Their pantodapoi look a bit Persian and their greek peltasts look a bit Bosphorian. The skirmisher cavalry looks a bit gallic - greek but I dont know if it was intentional.

BTW how did you get Sparta to have 3 subfactions?

[Maetharin]

I quite like the pace of frontal combat, but I dislike a few other elements of combat.

1) rear charges do nigh to no extra damage compared to frontal ones and have no real impact on morale.

2) romans don´t have formation attack resulting in blobs

3)exhaustions has a devastating effect on morale, IMO it should affect two things only, unit attack and unit speed, unit defence and morale debuffs are IMO unrealistic...
These men are fighting for their life, I don´t think anyone would ever be too tired to lift his shield...

[KAM 2150]

Umm...exhaustion has huge impact on how you can defend yourself ; P And I tell you that from a point of a person who is involved proseffionaly in combat sports and has some experience with weapon and armour combat. Basically when you get tired you lose strength, speed and balance, sure you can hold your shield, but you won't be fast enough to block all the attack or you won't have enough strength to hold your shield up (which is tougher then it looks for prolonged time in combat). Sure, adreanline helps a lot, I have good cardio and mostly do not feel that much fatigue during a match, but just after I come back to the backstage I just fall on the ground or find something to sit. Watch some boxing matches, you will notice what happens when one guy is blown out of stamina and is not even able to hold guard or react to incoming punches.

[Maetharin]

I´ve just recently tried out amateur training with roman equipment, a scutum is damn heavy, but I think the romans knew that too ^^

I´d say shields would have been held in a way that covered the body without moving about too much.
What i tried out with the scutum was leaning it on my knee so the shield was angled slightly backwards unto my shoulder.
Thus the only movement needed to defend my face was lifting it just a tiny bit. Everything else was covered the whole time.

Additionally, in this position it was easier to launch my shield boss into the face of an imaginary enemy ^^
But that´s beside the point...

As you said, adrenaline helps, or, as I think, rather dictates your every movement in such a situation...
Additionally, mortal fear tends to direct one´s focus on defence rather than offence...

IMO the more exhausted a unit is the less agressive/more conservative it should act, without affecting defensive performance too hard.

Best regards

[KAM 2150]

Yes, once you start to lose your breath you are more on a defence rather then offence Although I partially agree with you that fatigue should not completly reduce unit capabilities to zero as AI is unable to cycle its units in order to regain stamina.

[Maetharin]

I´m arguing more on a historical standpoint, rather than from a balancing standpoint, but at least we came to some conclusion^^

[ABH2]

ABH2 Don't mention it, I love trying out the goodies you make. I tried a few turns as Egypt. Everything was ok. I played a battle and I think i noticed sth. Their pantodapoi look a bit Persian and their greek peltasts look a bit Bosphorian. The skirmisher cavalry looks a bit gallic - greek but I dont know if it was intentional.

BTW how did you get Sparta to have 3 subfactions?

Sparta merely has 3 political parties.

The unit variants should really be fixed this time. I had it done days ago, but somehow the table got erased at some point. It's back in as of this morning.

1) rear charges do nigh to no extra damage compared to frontal ones and have no real impact on morale.

2) romans don´t have formation attack resulting in blobs

3)exhaustions has a devastating effect on morale, IMO it should affect two things only, unit attack and unit speed, unit defence and morale debuffs are IMO unrealistic...
These men are fighting for their life, I don´t think anyone would ever be too tired to lift his shield.

The battles are going to remain a work in progress. As Dresden made reference to earlier, it took DeI quite some time to balance their units. Putting in a new combat system, and then scaling units down made it playable.

It really is a pity. I'm biased, but I loved our battles before. They are now back to being a work in progress, but petellius and Philip will continue to work.

Some things are hard to represent well in game. In real life, the Romans cycled men in and out of lines. They had a tiered formation and kept reserves for a reason.

[Maetharin]

you mean the battles you had in the original version of the submod?
Completely rebalancing a whole game from the spot has to be a nightmare, and I deeply respect you guys, KAM even moreso since his system already stands functioning

Many of the roman´s advantages were neglected by CA in giving all factions in depth control & insight over their forces even modern generals do not have...
Of course CA never claimed historical credibilty, but with all their stupidly hardcoded systems in place, it makes it increasingly harder to actually do things the more you want to change...

Something I´d like to try once would be to increase unit sizes for levy or poorly trained units, with them costing the same as more trained units, this way one would have to decide between manpower or control
Eg: 1 unit of levy hoplites 2000 men
1 unit of Phalangitai 800 men
1 unit of Hypaspitai 200 men

As much as i like the unit system in DeI now, I am conflicted about it´s historical accuracy. We know how both Alexander and Philips Pezhetairoi seemingly acted as distinctive units in battles like fe. Gaugamela and Chaeronea.
But since the days of the Diadochs I never ever read of a Phalanx structured into distinct units and acting as such on battlefields. Same with "barbarian" hosts, their levy troops certainly didn´t attack with as much precision and control as the romans did^^

AFAIK the word Syntagma comes from writs concerning the military reform of Antiochos IV, in which he arranged Phalanxes in units of 256 each, but then silence, as he died rather soon and his successors quarreled amongst themselves.
The last great battle with Phalanxes I read of had by then already been fought, by Antiochos III no less...

In every great battle in which Phalanxes fought they were described as single mass coming upon it´s enemy, very frightening, as Aemillius Paullus allegedly said, but highly immobile.
The only distinct actions in any such battles are made by either elite or skirmishing units...

If any of you find fault with what I have written here please do answer, I´d really like to read more about the subject.

I wish you the best

[GatoVolador]

Hi, just started a cimmeria campaign, found this:




I have the steam version of DeI and AE, although I am still on patch 16.

Cheers

[vpapako]

Hi again, update on my Egypt Campaign. The Egyptian rebels that emerge from Aegyptos are labeled "Egytian". Also the temple of Ammon Zeus gives +5 germanic influence.

[vpapako]

Hi again, update on my Egypt Campaign. The Egyptian rebels that emerge from Aegyptos are labeled "Egytian". Also the temple of Ammon Zeus gives +5 germanic influence.

[TFCAliarcy]

An issue I have found is that casualties sustained has to much of an effect on morale as AI controlled Triari only need to be taken down 20 men and have a fear unit nearby, another effect of that is that pretty much when ever Calvary take even a few casualties they have a serious dip in morale making them very fragile. Another thing was that in a fight between Trirari and an African War Elephants the elephants had lost two elephants and started wavering before going beserk and having only been fighting for about 5 seconds. During the same battle I had ran a Libyan Peltast into a shaken Trirari and it seemed to have very little effect on morale until the Peltasts killed a few of them and they routed.

[PurpleScotch]

An issue I have found is that casualties sustained has to much of an effect on morale as AI controlled Triari only need to be taken down 20 men and have a fear unit nearby, another effect of that is that pretty much when ever Calvary take even a few casualties they have a serious dip in morale making them very fragile. Another thing was that in a fight between Trirari and an African War Elephants the elephants had lost two elephants and started wavering before going beserk and having only been fighting for about 5 seconds. During the same battle I had ran a Libyan Peltast into a shaken Trirari and it seemed to have very little effect on morale until the Peltasts killed a few of them and they routed.

Yeah I've noticed that. When I chase down routing units with cavalry they end up routing themselves. Is this intentional?

[FlashHeart07]

Yeah I've noticed that. When I chase down routing units with cavalry they end up routing themselves. Is this intentional?

DeI had that problem aswell. I believe it is due to the fact that routing units still at some point keep their stats even though they are routing and therefore is able to induce casualties to you, up to the point where low tier cav will rout.

[ABH2]

As much as i like the unit system in DeI now, I am conflicted about it´s historical accuracy. We know how both Alexander and Philips Pezhetairoi seemingly acted as distinctive units in battles like fe. Gaugamela and Chaeronea.

The more I know about ancient history, the less confident I am to say anything certain like this. I would have shared your assumption about the phalanx at one point, but looking at some battles, it doesn't hold up.

Pyrrhus in Italy seemed to mix his pike in with Italian native forces. Literally just alternated them. At the Battle of Sellasia in 222BC, Philip used a mixed force of Illyrians and bronze shields in a phalanx (most likely - we can't say this with certainty) to attack an enemy position on a hill. The bronze shields forced the enemy back and the Illyrians occupied it. His other phalanx was deployed on his other wing in a double line.

The Hellenistic states would intermix elephants in between parts of the phalanx.

Alexander the Great before he died was apparently developing a very odd mixed combat system with the Persians using spears and javelins. His soldiers mockingly called them his Persian war dancers.

Against the Romans, you are right. The phalanx attacked in a great mass when it was wielded by Macedon. Not always the case in some other battles like Pyrrhus, and at Magnesia the phalanx never engaged. It was over before they even had a chance.

Yeah I've noticed that. When I chase down routing units with cavalry they end up routing themselves. Is this intentional?

As mentioned by Flashheart, modders have been trying to address that for a very long time with no luck.

[KAM 2150]

The more I know about ancient history, the less confident I am to say anything certain like this.

Yes I concur that One of the very first things professors taught me at my university is that historians do not recreate hisotry, but they create history and spreading dogmatism is one of the worst crimes historian can make as to be honest we are almost not certain of anything. For example if you combine all written sources about Bactria you only get single page of text.