Experimental Pack Reborn - patch 09.04.2016

[KAM 2150]

Hello everybody,

Long awaited experimental packs are coming Some will be a bit controversial for many, some will be a true gift, but only one or two of them will make it into 1.2 release, rest will function as flavour submods.

There will be 4 packs, maybe increased to more later on, depending on ideas from our community.

PACK no. 1 - unit speed overhaul

This pack is be all about unit speed, but it gives the best effects with Pack no. 3.

Only units that are able to run are light infantry and cavalry. Initially I also wanted some light melee infantry units to be much faster, but it caused other problems like AI sending units to their death one by one, as heavy and medium infantry were left behind. The way infantry charges is also different as charge distance got reduced a lot, so melee infantry will start running only on last 10-20 meters before reaching enemy line. Light infantry will also walk at a bit faster pace then melee infantry. Thanks to those changes, missile unit work better for the AI, since with normal unit speed, AI infantry meets with player infantry much faster and AI missile units do not do much after it as they won't have clear line of sight. With no running for melee infantry, initial skirmish phase lasts a lot longer. Reserves also play much more important role, since if your unit in the center gets routed, you won't be able to send unit from one of the flanks to fill the breach.

Download:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/ac...xperiment.pack

PACK no. 2 - increased disband ratio

One of the most wanted features of previous experimental pack. For those who are new to DeI and Experimental Packs, it increased minimum unit strength for units after battle. Ratio is 45% men left for losing side and 35% for victorious side. It works both ways and it increased difficulty and helps AI. Even if you are victorious, you can still lose units and your army might not be strong enough for next battle or you will lose some units that are hard to get. It helps the AI in a way to, since AI does not disband its units so AI armies might still be full of only levies around 100th turn, if AI losses more units, it will replace them with more up to date units.

Why this pack is not in regular DeI? For some reason it started to generate CTD after 1.1 release, not at all times, but it did. If you use this pack, there is a chance that CTD will happen, but you can just deactivate the pack for the time of CTD and enable it again later on as it is save game compatible.

Download:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/2d...eddisband.pack

Put the file in your Rome2 data folder, enable out of date mods in Steam Mod Manager, it will auto load before DeI.

PACK no. 3 - experimental deployment zones

This part is the most controversial, but it won't be in DeI 1.2 anyway, so no need for butthurt here

This deployment zone is about making pre battle deployment much mroe important and increase role of manouvering. Deployment zone is closer to the enemy, only a little bit more then max missile unit range. The biggest benefits would show when used together with Pack no. 1. One of the arguments against closer deployment zones is that it makes manouvering and skirmish less important which is actually completly other way around. When both armies start further away, there is few minuts of nothing happening, no manouvering, no skirmish as AI won't send his missile units before main army plus skirmishers would be simply taken out by cavalry. It also makes initial deployment not important at all, since you will have all the time in the world to just send your units from one flank to another without any danger for AI, while AI will not change anything and its troops will only start the combat tired due to longer march. If used with Pack no. 1, player will have to put his units more carefully as he won't be able to change his battle line before combat and won't be able to reinforce endagered places so reservers will be more important then just having a huge line of troops from one end to the other.

Download:

Patch note - 25.02.2016

This is very rough first draft, all battles are treated as if defender is in the north, no matter which setting you pick You may notice that width of deployment zones is not enough to form full line with your troops but that is intentional for this version, it forces both player and AI to have more then single line and you need to do some manouvering from the start of battle to get advantage. Cool thing with close deployment zones is that AI cav immediately tries to flank players line or stays far away from players infantry to avoid being caught by the player right of the beggining.

IMPORTANT! It does not give that exact experience without experimental unit speed overhaul, so for now treat it as a curiosity, rather then fully fleshed feature.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/gc...%40deploy.pack

Put the file in your Rome2 data folder, enable out of date mods in Steam Mod Manager, it will auto load before DeI.

PACK no. 4 - pike combat overhaul

This pack will make pikes work as they should both for the player and the AI. I won't go into much detail about it yet, as it will be released in a month or two, since it will require changes to every single aspect of combat because it required new scale of armour values.

Pikes will be both able to hold enemies at a distance, while not be OP and will work the same for player and AI

Download:
(No ETA yet, around a month or two).

[FlashHeart07]

Nice work KAM especially excited about the closer deployment zones. I wouldnt mind that it was implemented in the main mod

[kuaminifu_mwenzi]

YES! PIKES!!!

[Bendit]

Sounds very interesting. Our asses have a good idea of what to expect. I am looking at you Experimental Pack #3.

[McCarronXLD]

Looking forward to the Pikes and Speeds!

[The Tribunal]

I really like the sound of the experimental deployment zone pack. It will downplay the huge advantage players have with bird's eye view and actually force us to cautiously position troops.

[Fluke]

Looking forward to trying out these new packs, especially 1, 3 and 4. Thank you for your extra efforts here.

[TWJunky]

great work kam! regarding ai, why dont you leave certain features in that dont work for ai but work for multiplayer scenarios. you could make a different mod version called multiplayer.

[KAM 2150]

More news from the front

First drafts of combined closer deployment zone with experimental unit speeds produced some nice result, biggest pross are that AI cavalry and missile units got much more competent, while overal length of battle was still very good, since infantry action was slowed down as I was unable to reposition my troops very fast and heavy infantry was just horrible at chasing down enemy troops

Overal, there is still a lot of tweaking, but for sure Deployment Zone pack will be released tomorrow for testing (not final as always with exp packs) to just get the feel what is ok, what to work on etc, while speed overhaul will be released next week as there is a lot more tweaking to be done to get best AI behaviour, while getting rid of some inconsistencies.

[philler]

Just one question, since I wont be able to play the game for about 2 weeks.. Is terrain usability totally eliminated by Pack #3 or is there still some place to maneuvre to the better position (like on the hill etc..)? I just mean, what are your experiences from testing?

[KAM 2150]

I haven't yet decided how those deployment zones will look, for now I just used totally random values. But positioning missile units on the hill will be even more important as it will take more time for infantry to move up that hill. Still, if you will mess up deployment phase, there will be no time for manouvering if you won't have fast troops like light infantry of cavalry. Going with full heavy infantry army might actually generate problems instead of being ultimate meta. AI is unable to benefit from the hills anyway, it was in Shogun 2 though, not that much in Rome 2.

[FlashHeart07]

What size are you going to set for the deployment zone, KAM? You could just increase the two x and y values (depending on the attac direction) and move the zones closer to each other but without decreasing the overall area of the deployment zone.

[philler]

Well, I must say, that AI surprised me many times by using their close hills wisely. Its not the part of BAI thinking, what is the problematic (like persistent AI blobing for instance)

[KAM 2150]

Rough draft of deployment zone released, but as text in the note states, it does not give that fully experience without new speed values.

To compensate for that, I will also release rough draft of unit speeds tomorrow I won't have time for modding through this weekend as I will be kicking people around in the ring, so if you guys have any ideas, it will be right time to start brainstorming something


Two new ideas from me, first to keep it short, there will be fifth pack that will include new deployment phase formations for AI, which will be included in 1.2 release. Second thing is my new idea for deployment zone pack. What do you guys think if attacking side would start with broad but thing deployment zone (So AI would flank more, since if AI is attacking it always deploys near their max range) and defender would have wider but broader deployment zone (since AI deploys at far end of it's zone, so AI would have still enough time to adjust lines, same for the player).

[joeyguy82]

[QUOTE=KAM 2150;14863148]Rough draft of deployment zone released, but as text in the note states, it does not give that fully experience without new speed values.

To compensate for that, I will also release rough draft of unit speeds tomorrow I won't have time for modding through this weekend as I will be kicking people around in the ring, so if you guys have any ideas, it will be right time to start brainstorming something



Hi cam, I did not see a release for the unit speed pack. did i miss it or did it get delayed?

[McCarronXLD]

Well I think making the AI flank more is the wrong way to go about things. It already flanks too much as is. While it may lead to a greater challenge due to the tedium of micromanagement it brings us farther away from historical battles. Currently the AI stretches out its lines as much as possible and then collapses on the player's formation. The middle will all blob against the player's center while the sides will go out of its way to try to flank the player (it will even run its units around you forever until you give up on repositioning).

In my opinion if you were to attempt to control how the AI does battle the effort would be better spent on making the AI deploy deeper lines and protecting its own flanks rather than having it flank the player. Battles shouldn't be about who flanks who. It should be about the integrity of your lines and the quality of your soldiers. I think the AI has a better chance of winning by going toe to toe with the player's lines anyway and pushing through. When you increase campaign difficulty they tend to have better quality units than the player too. I think too much emphasis is put on making the AI win in battle when half the battle should be won by your campaign decisions in the first place, which is where the AI does better.

TL/DR: If you're not able to make the AI wage battle defensively (reserves, protecting flanks, etc) it's probably best to just leave it as is. Making the AI deploy with a longer front line will exacerbate the situation.

[JCB206]

I'm kind of on both sides of the fence.

Didn't the AI, in vanilla, almost always line up in two or three lines? I thought this was interesting and would do the same and the enemy would meet me head on. Quality of troops and when to release reserves and a well timed flank attack were key. But then we all realized that our heavy infantry could run around the rear in about 60 seconds. Why have them wait in the second line.

Now I flank. Double envelopment, every time. The decreased movement will help KAM, I'm sure. Looking forward to it.

I have evolved from an 10-12 Heavy unit commander to a 4-6 units max. Of course that won't help too much in a slug fest. It will be interesting to test either way.

As far as deployment zones, I wish there was a way to judge how much or how little deployment room you and the opponent has. Scouting, skirmishing, something. Maybe increase FOW so that you must send skirmishers out or your heavies will get caught unawares. Don't know. Up to you.

I like the idea that heavy troops can't move as fast and can appreciate the disadvantage of having your heavies out of position come time to close lines. Just hope this doesn't turn into putting the player at a complete disadvantage every time, regardless of what we do beforehand just to help the AI.

The biggest problem as mentioned many times...no matter where you place the AI, they blob the center.

[KAM 2150]

If you make AI deploy in deeper formation and not flank, then you have the worst possible combination, as AI will blob even more and not flank at all, hence the situation that was before DeI 1.0. Players were just stretching their lines and AI was flanked even before battle started. When AI does flank, it gives at least some sort of fight and there is even chance to lose, something that was impossible before I made those changes.

But that was just an idea to make different combat widths, personally I prefer if both sides have equal width. It would be cool if deployment zones would be tied to general skills/technology.

[McCarronXLD]

I'd definitely give it a try if you were to do so!

[KAM 2150]

Yeah, sorry for that, I had a time to only turn on Rome 2 once this week and only for few minutes :/ I might have time to mod a little in the middle of next week but I can't even promise that for sure, past few months I always told myself "Ok, Kam, you will finish up that thing and then you will have a bit free time to mod!" After saying it to myself each week for past 4 months I finally stopped lying to myself and all I can say it that it will be done when it is done :/