Thread: [Feedback] Questions, Critiques and Requests

  1. #7421

    Default Re: [Feedback] Questions, Critiques and Requests for 1.2

    Purely my subjective opinion, however, it may be worth weakening the cavalry in the future. Since historically in ancient times, almost all cavalry was auxiliary and not particularly effective in battle due to the lack of stirrups and saddles. For example, the barbarian cavalry was essentially mobile infantry, that is, dragoons, cavalrymen, dismounted before the battle, since mounted combat was ineffective. In addition, in DEI, all tactics in battle are reduced to the principle of a hammer and anvil. When even the weakest cavalry unit, striking in the back, is able to destroy the strongest units of spearmen or pikemen...

  2. #7422
    KAM 2150's Avatar Artifex
    Patrician

    Join Date
    Jul 2013
    Location
    Gdańsk, Poland
    Posts
    11,132

    Default Re: [Feedback] Questions, Critiques and Requests for 1.2

    Nearly all feedback I get about cavalry is that it is too weak in DeI so its defo not going to be even weaker. Also fully not agree that barb cav dismounted, we have plenty of examples where they charged.
    Celts even used special system to keep their cavalry mounted through whole battle as noted by Greek sources, it was called Trimarcisia and meant that noble had 2 backup horses kept by his servants. If the lost a horse, servant would bring him another one, it rider died, than servant would have taken his place, until all horses or servants are dead.
    Official DeI Instagram Account! https://www.instagram.com/divideetimperamod/
    Official DeI Facebook Page! https://www.facebook.com/divideetimperamod

  3. #7423

    Default Re: [Feedback] Questions, Critiques and Requests for 1.2

    Cavalry was way OP in RTW, and I suppose people expect that. I remember in my first experience with a Total War game, I couldn't get infantry to be effective at all, so all I did was repeatedly head-on charge with my generals unit, causing them to die nearly every battle. In reality charges were ineffective, as they didn't have saddles or stirrups in antiquity, and they had to drop their spears just before impact to not get torn off their horses. Keegan writes that there are no examples of a cavalry charge breaking a braced infantry line in all of history. (The only counterexample being one in the napoleonic wars, where the horse got shot just before impact and flew into the enemy line.) Horses are hesitant to run into spears, as you would be. I think cavalry was more of a way for nobles to ride around the battlefield uplifted from the rest of the rabble than a force for breaking infantry formations. Watch what happened at for instance Cannae or Pharsalus, and you see cavalry more or less skirmishing it out with another. Cavalry charges like the one at Gaugamela were more about the morale impact than what they killed.
    I'd say cavalry is about right in DeI, although I toyed with the idea of halving their unit sizes at the same cost. For some reason I still have it in the back of my mind that cavalry is the most expensive unit in the army, and the ones to disband first if you lack money. It just doesn't sit right that they cost less upkeep than principes (the mainstay of the camillan army, not high-end troops by any definition). I think that would match the cost of keeping horses in those days, a cost so discriminating that it distinguished one social class from another. Also, I just find it tedious to fight cavalry and always wish the enemy had less of it, that's just a personal gameplay preference.

    I only noticed this recently, but a lot of unit cards have the soldiers feet or spears sticking out of the frame. It kind of takes away the "cardy" look of it. The png's would have to be smaller or leave a little more room at the top and bottom.
    Last edited by ♔Greek Strategos♔; April 16, 2022 at 12:37 PM. Reason: Clean-up

  4. #7424
    KAM 2150's Avatar Artifex
    Patrician

    Join Date
    Jul 2013
    Location
    Gdańsk, Poland
    Posts
    11,132

    Default Re: [Feedback] Questions, Critiques and Requests for 1.2

    I think you got to hang up on early Equites cost vs Principes. Early equites are just sub par cav, hence their cost reflects it. ALL prices in DeI are done vis excel formulas based on their equipment. If you look at any good quality cavalry units, their cost is often 2000+ with some coming close to 3000 while there are only few infantry units that cost more than 1700.

    Byzantine cavalry manuals details how one should engage infantry to break it. Winged Hussars were also designed in mind to counter pikes with repeated charges. Small group of Polish cavalry routed Spanish infantry and gunners at Somosierra, despited being heavily outnumbered and charging uphill on several lines of prepared defensive positions. Ming heavy cavalry charged uphill on entrechned and numerically superior Japanese positions at Byeokjegwan and also routed them.
    Official DeI Instagram Account! https://www.instagram.com/divideetimperamod/
    Official DeI Facebook Page! https://www.facebook.com/divideetimperamod

  5. #7425

    Default Re: [Feedback] Questions, Critiques and Requests for 1.2

    Point taken. I wasn't aware they were meant to be a weak unit.

    Those examples you mention seem to largely be much later than the early roman timeframe though. I remember reading that they invented stirrups around the 13th century, and that would have made a difference. That charges worked in 1808 doesn't mean they did in 278 BC.

    I like cavalry to be somewhat effective in game, I just caution against expecting them to be super-units like in RTW. And they should cost accordingly. I think of them as a playtoy for the rich, that should cost above what the stats are worth. But maybe taht doesn't work gameplay-wise.
    Last edited by CIaagent11; January 11, 2022 at 01:41 PM.

  6. #7426

    Default Re: [Feedback] Questions, Critiques and Requests for 1.2

    Returning to the idea of the effectiveness of cavalry. Again, this problem, or more correctly, the question rests on the gameplay itself, and is a matter of taste of the players. Everyone has their own preferences on this issue. However, in my opinion, the more profitable and interesting DEI looks against the background of other mods, precisely because it was created with an eye to historicism. Therefore, sometimes it hurts to watch how the light cavalry of skirmishers in tunics with knives in their hands, alternating chargers, destroys strong infantry units, not to mention the more formidable cavalry units.

    The ancient cavalry in most cases was secondary in the battle and was used mainly for reconnaissance, maneuvers and pursuit of the enemy. Due to the lack of stirrups and saddles, it cannot be compared with the cavalry of the Middle Ages and modern times. And what is still not a little important, no truly large fighting breeds of horses have yet been bred, even the largest breeds of antiquity - Nisei Central Asian horses were smaller than knight destries. Therefore, the power of the charge even of cataphracts and getairs in the minds of players is greatly exaggerated. As already mentioned before me in the post above, the main effect of the charge was rather psychological. There were times when the Carthaginian cavalry experienced difficulties even in the battle with the Velites and had to dismount.


    P.S. Otherwise, we can talk about this topic as much as we want. This is by no means a criticism of this excellent mod, I just decided to express some thoughts. And I apologize for my English)

  7. #7427

    Default Re: [Feedback] Questions, Critiques and Requests for 1.2

    Quote Originally Posted by Messer_112 View Post
    even the weakest cavalry unit, striking in the back, is able to destroy the strongest units of spearmen or pikemen...
    This has not been my observation. I often see pikemen being completely surrounded from all sides resisting for a long time, even after the rest of their army has been routed.

  8. #7428
    valky's Avatar Ducenarius
    Join Date
    Dec 2009
    Location
    Germany
    Posts
    967

    Default Re: [Feedback] Questions, Critiques and Requests for 1.2

    Quote Originally Posted by CIaagent11 View Post
    Ok, walk me through it. Do I have to build a certain ship type to be able to ram or can any small raiding ship do it? I think transports can not? That's what went wrong in my last naval battle, it was transports against transports. How do I get those bonuses you write about? What technology is that and which general-skill? (They might be changed in revised character skills beta.) And in the battle map how do I actually ram? Do I like have to get on their side?.
    The basics: Greek factions & Roma have it the easiest, as their ships are pretty much top-of-the-line. For Barbarian you'd have to use mercenaries (Trieres - either missile or assault). Barbarian faction can only board, and recruited assault mercs used for ramming tactics are so much stronger. DOn't bother necessary with missile ships, as they get focused down, but can serve you in a tricky situation - also ramming ^^

    Good overall ship for ramming: Tetreres (!), once your general & tech has +40%, they sink those nasty missile fleets (Egypt) in one go and don't get that much casualties, thanks to shields.
    My early to-go fleet is like, when playing Greek factions: General (Hepteres), 3-5 Assault Tetreres (600 HP), 7-9 Assault Trieres (501 HP). And that's it ... the AI deploys in 2-3 columns, so any more ships are a waste.
    Mid-late game: 1-3 Hepteres (limited by DeI ^^), 4 Assault Hexeres, 2 Artillery Penteres (siege support for city assault, else ramming!), 4 Penteres, 1 supply ship


    edit: special ports, like Athenai let you recruit Trieres for Barbarians as well, so you don't need to wait for the merc-refresh. Pretty solid ship for ramming, you might lose 1-2, but it's a fine ship otherwise.

    Tactics: select all, deselect supply-ship and deploy in one line, press-B (or hit the specific icon) to disable boarding...engage. select ramming targets while they approach, AI likes to shot with whatever .....
    Enjoy another heroic naval victory

    edit2: it also depends whom you are at war with - in my 2 recent campaigns (Pontus + Getae), Pergamon + Egypt like to field those crazy nasty 1 general + 19 missile ship fleets. They get horrendous & terrifying auto-resolve bonus, but are soooo friggin' easy to sink. I think Seleucid does something similar as well. Missile-ships do jack against assault ships (thank you DeI! for bringing missile mayhem in line) and they are either the Trieres-variant or the weaker whatchamacallit-ship. Does either need 20% ramming boost to get rid of that.
    My uttermost ultra-heroic victory (should have taken a screen - else it's just 'telling'): Hepteres (General) + 7 or 8 Trieres (recruited + mercs) against 26 of those nasty missile ships. I was favoured with a 10% top win, oh it was soooo enjoying.

    conclusion: ramming >>>>
    Last edited by valky; January 15, 2022 at 11:06 AM. Reason: thingies
    I'm Commander Shepard and this is my favourite store on the Citadel!
    I'm Garrus Vakarian and this is now my favourite spot on the Citadel!

    Better ingame Encyclopedia for Shogun 2 (reworked) - RotS - FotS (new map) + web-based version

  9. #7429

    Default Re: [Feedback] Questions, Critiques and Requests for 1.2

    I just wanted to bring this to the mods attention: Single-Region Provinces.
    I'm sure that mod would be very unlikely to be compatible with DeI, but it sounds like a nice idea to make at least some of those minor cities their own provinces. I always disliked the size difference between major and minor cities.

    I'd also love to see a few settlements 'corrected' that got moved to slightly incorrect places due to the Augustus map. For instance, Taras was on the inner side of Italy's "heel", not on the east coast, and Arretium was much further east, practically in the middle of the country. Now that I noticed it, it nags me. These cities could either be renamed for some that were in those positions, or did somebody ever have success with, like, hex editing the map to move cities by a few x points?

    Edit: Why was the decision made to name Brundisium Taras? According to my research the city was around in the grand campaign timeframe.
    Last edited by CIaagent11; January 20, 2022 at 06:00 PM.

  10. #7430

    Default Re: [Feedback] Questions, Critiques and Requests for 1.2

    The population library code indicates that the faction-wide tax level affects the population growth:

    tax_growth_modifier = {0.025,0.03,0.06,0.06}, -- tax levels for vanilla are 60,80,100,120,140 the formula is (tax-100) * -0.01 so a mod value of 0.1 would be 0.04 for very low tax and -0.04 for very high growth

    But I find that the local tax rate also has influence on faction-wide population growth. For example, if I exempt a province from tax or disband a general who can improve local tax rate, the tax term of population growth will increase in all of my provinces. So I'm wondering how tax rate affects population growth actually? Could an accurate fomulataion about faction-wide population growth and local taxation rate be given? Thank you!

  11. #7431

    Default Re: [Feedback] Questions, Critiques and Requests for 1.2

    Just a small thing, but it would be great for 1.3 if the specifically "named Archers" as for example the Sicilian Archers or Judean Archers would have their own visual on the unit cards.

    Judean Archers have the same unit card as the standard-Greek psiloi archers and Sardinian Archers (they got great in-battle visuals by KAM recently), but still have the unit card with this large sun-hat ;-)
    ​VICTORIOSO SEMPER

  12. #7432

    Default Re: [Feedback] Questions, Critiques and Requests for 1.2

    Agree, I think unit card development tends to lag a bit behind the rest of the mod, because there's like one guy who does it and it's a lot of work, as far as I understand.

  13. #7433

    Default Re: [Feedback] Questions, Critiques and Requests for 1.2

    No Question, I really understand that its a lot of work.
    By the way in general i love the unit cards of DEI!
    ​VICTORIOSO SEMPER

  14. #7434

    Default Re: [Feedback] Questions, Critiques and Requests for 1.2

    hello guys Please help me solve this thing Why am i able to buy them? How i can fix that? https://ibb.co/cJYrJXC

  15. #7435

    Default Re: [Feedback] Questions, Critiques and Requests for 1.2

    I have played the latest DeI. It was great like before. However, just a few feedbacks and comments:
    1. Currently Legionarii Clibanariorum recruitment requires 2nd class plebe population. Can we make it connect to the 3rd class? This unit is almost the same as regular legionaries, with just a few extra armor. Also, after Marian reform, there is really no distinction between different classes in army.
    2. The projected income is really weird. Sometimes, it projects I will get 1k next turn, but I got 20k at the end. Sometimes, I was supposed to get 10k but only 5k in the end. Also, by clicking through cities, the projected income number changes
    3. Artillery ammo amount is really low. I usually run out before half way through the battle.

  16. #7436
    KAM 2150's Avatar Artifex
    Patrician

    Join Date
    Jul 2013
    Location
    Gdańsk, Poland
    Posts
    11,132

    Default Re: [Feedback] Questions, Critiques and Requests for 1.2

    3. That is intended for balance purpose. Field arty, especially large one, was almost not used and had minimal impact on field battles. With more ammo, people were fully replacing their ranged units with artillery. Plus you have general and army perks that increase ammo of arty.
    Official DeI Instagram Account! https://www.instagram.com/divideetimperamod/
    Official DeI Facebook Page! https://www.facebook.com/divideetimperamod

  17. #7437

    Default Re: [Feedback] Questions, Critiques and Requests for 1.2

    Some collected feedback from a text file on my desktop:

    All those extra pirate factions kind of psych out the Diplomat faction trait, since they add factions that hate you. And my "bitter enemy" Carthage just loooves me for all those common enemies we have. All in all I don't like the pirate popups.

    Shouldn't sicilian levies be peregrini?

    The replenishment script considers a friendly factions territory where you have military access "enemy territory" and disables replenishment.

    And just a casual reminder to whoever designs the units that people in antiquity were quite small and malnourished, i.e. they would have looked noticeably skinny (kind of like modern day hardcore vegans). And to be realistic, unit models would have to represent them quite scrawny. I always find that most movies and games assume that people in the past looked like well-fed post-industrial age first-worlders, but they weren't. I don't think the units ever open their mouths in game, but if they did they wouldn't have all their teeth. And since it was such a time of mans inhumanity to man, people would have more of a "kicked dog" look to them. Some have that look, others look more like proud 20th century body-builders.

    More:
    I don't know if this is moddable (or can be dealt with in other ways), but the movement of the AI on the campaign map is almost too clever at times. It's like they look for the weakest target within their movement range, even if that is a silly strategic decision. For instance, they often walk around my invading army in their territory and attack a small undefended settlement further away, only to leave their settlement undefended. They don't think ahead. I wish I could just have a nice battle, not this sneaky behavior. In the end TW should be about a nice experience, not about a hyper-realistic opportunity maximizing AI. I always have to calculate where they would be able to go in order not to leave some weak target in their movement range that they could conquer for one turn, removing all the native population.
    It's very all-or-nothing. If they attack my small army, they win without a scratch, and then they can probably defeat my bigger army too. But if I can combine armies I win without a challenge. It almost matters more to catch them outnumbered than to actually win on the battle map. I miss the way it was in Rome 1, where fighting a losing battle would weaken them a little, and throwing a few units their way would slow them down, but now if I don't win I just waste my troops for nothing.
    This is made worse by R2's open door policy for minor settlements. (Although my all-walled submod mitigates this problem, it creates new ones.) I had cases where they took my settlement and I took theirs, so we switched settlements, because both are indefensible in the face of a large army. Everything just folds around where the full stacks move. In RTW you could have small, interesting fights with 10-15 unit stacks, and even 5 units could matter. Now only full stacks matter. I remember sending a legion to gaul in R1 and they could win three battles without replenishment and keep moving, because the enemy didn't just build full stacks. But now if you fight one battle armies are often spent. They had a few small armies moving about the map, not just one full stack. It's all about out-manouvering it. Avoid it and you take their city without a scratch, fight it and you lose. I tried reducing the size of armies the AI buids, but I'm not sure that had any effect.

    Is there a way to lower the threshold for getting historic battle markers? I get one for nearly every battle, even if it's just one unit fighting a garrison. It kind of clutters the landscape with unimportant markers that have no memorability, particularly around cities. I find that RTW was better at only selecting big battles for markers. Would be cool if it was only battles that you fought yourself.

    Suggestion: Require a few movement points for going into patrolling stance, similar to the other stances. That way, the player isn't incentivized to (tediously) put his armies in and out of patrol stance when marching through friendly territory to not waste the upkeep and pop order buffs.
    Last edited by CIaagent11; February 02, 2022 at 08:05 AM.

  18. #7438
    KAM 2150's Avatar Artifex
    Patrician

    Join Date
    Jul 2013
    Location
    Gdańsk, Poland
    Posts
    11,132

    Default Re: [Feedback] Questions, Critiques and Requests for 1.2

    Changing unit skins is a no no. They are tied to animation skeletons and there would be a lot of clipping/transparent spaces between equipment since everything is made to fit certain skins. Also depending on location, they werent that small either. At some point, Romans even had minimum height for legionaires to be 168cm and for cavalry 172cm (so average for both might have even been a bit above that), according to Vegetius. Its not that far behind modern average height for males in Italy (177cm for North; 174cm for South). In general soldiers in DeI have very varied height even among same unit and you can see noticeable differences between cultures so its pretty much like in a mod you linked anyway. Of course in terms of TW, we refer more to warriors and nobles.
    Last edited by KAM 2150; February 02, 2022 at 08:24 AM.
    Official DeI Instagram Account! https://www.instagram.com/divideetimperamod/
    Official DeI Facebook Page! https://www.facebook.com/divideetimperamod

  19. #7439

    Default Re: [Feedback] Questions, Critiques and Requests for 1.2

    Quote Originally Posted by KAM 2150 View Post
    Changing unit skins is a no no. They are tied to animation skeletons and there would be a lot of clipping/transparent spaces between equipment since everything is made to fit certain skins. Also depending on location, they werent that small either. At some point, Romans even had minimum height for legionaires to be 168cm and for cavalry 172cm (so average for both might have even been a bit above that), according to Vegetius. Its not that far behind modern average height for males in Italy (177cm for North; 174cm for South). In general soldiers in DeI have very varied height even among same unit and you can see noticeable differences between cultures so its pretty much like in a mod you linked anyway. Of course in terms of TW, we refer more to warriors and nobles.
    Yeah, you're probably right. I was just writing down thoughts that came up.

    Would it be a thought to have some form of the Asiatic Vespers in the game via scripting or such?

    Would it be theoretically possible to create a RTW-like system of random generals skills via "invisible" values in a script? As far as I can tell yes. We can give buffs via scripting and save values in the save game.
    Last edited by ♔Greek Strategos♔; April 16, 2022 at 12:32 PM. Reason: Clean-up

  20. #7440

    Default Re: [Feedback] Questions, Critiques and Requests for 1.2

    Will there be a preview for DEI 1.3 version?

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •