WIP Fix Pack 1.2.2b - Battle Stats Overhaul, come help us test! (Updated Oct 30)

[Krewal]

Gents,
As usually great mod etc.
I was thinking about it for quite some time now, since I do 2 extensive campaigns (1 grand Massalia & 1 Macedonian wars Pergamon). So unfortunately some of the things do not work as you wanted (at least I assume).
First of all - Greek reforms are to late, and Imperium 5 is way overkill. Playing as Massalia was super frustrating. At some point you face romans and other factions around, and there is just nothing more than your elite spear unit to play with against top level sword units (yes AI stack them). It really sucks cause you would expect them to at least give some good standing against sword units - unfortunately not that case. This way I am also mowing towards the other problem - spear units - hopites in particular are really weird. Sometimes, facing 1 to 1 say my elite hoplites vs Greek militia hoplites, are trading 1 to 1. Or facing weaker sword units, hoplites do 8 kills in 5 minutes encounter, while losing 30? I am pretty sure this is not intentional. Elswhere, silver-shields (elite mele) were trading 1 for 1 with Greek hoplites of AI. Some extra bonuses I cannot notice? I am playing on very hard but than switch battle difficulty to normal in game.
Same thing with the archers. Just earlier today I got 6 archer units (3 ships & 3 Greek garrison units) and they could not beat 2 enemy slinger / 1 archer. WTF I am asking? Eventually they all routed with heavy losses.

I know this is not exactly a topic for it but brining back cultural recruitment would be nice. Previously it was slowing down campaign for the AI players. Not sure if AI was ignoring that or not, but currently after 80 turns there is usually just few big factions left. Considering how late are some of the reforms (yes greek one's especially) - not to early for huge empires ? Also isn't level 5 of the imperium little to high for elite sword units, too?
Please focus on fixing some of that, otherwise it is great.

I know you are trying to keep it historically accurate, but it should be fun to play in the first place. Bringing back Etruscans could also bring more balance to Italy, where Rome always gets extremely dominant in 20 turns. Greeks got nothing to fight them off. Another thing that I saw few times, 2 stacks of Carthaginian/Barbarian/Greek armies forcing on Rome villages and being heavily beaten in result (with looses on Roman side ~35%). Something wrong with the calculator for auto battles?

Finally Kyreaper makes a lot of good points. if you proceed with these changes, plenty of units become useless, starting with most of the garrisons.

Regards.

[Frosthammer]

Krewal.
I mostly play for hellenic factions. I using hammer and anvil tactic. Thureophoroi acts as "anvil" ("paper anvil", it sound weird, but it is possible) and cavalry (mostly shock) as hammer. Try this tactic and kill rome as fast, as possible, after thureos reform if you can wait for right moment (ex. Massalia) or even earlier.

To slow AI expansion use no autoresolve bonus for major faction (as i do) or probably cultural tension (i heard it works for this).
I am interested in cultural requirement for recruiting units. What mechanic does it uses?I tried to do something similar in attila buy adding in land or main unit table religion required, but game didn't launch.
I thing, you can change AI recruitment priority by mowing elite units to spesial class (ex. "elite") instead of spearmen/cavalry/missile/etc. But this required modding skills (far better then mine). And buy changina AI recruitment priority, limiting "elite" to ~ 30%

[FlashHeart07]

Please stay on topic. This thread is for testing the new battle stats and not to discuss campaign matters or whether we should have cultural unit requirements and what not.
You are more than Welcome to discuss these things in the Feedback thread intended to discuss various matters of the mod and how we could improve it.


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[Dead*Man*Wilson]

The battles definitely feel more dynamic now. The previous battle system was fine, but all too often battles felt like hammer & anvil slug-fests until one side broke. This system seems more organic and ever changing with the battles having lives of their own (if that makes any sense). It also requires the better use of tactics. The same ole hammer & anvil tactics that I've grown used to won't work in every outing.

I'm gonna play around with it a lot more, but I like what I'm seeing so far! Good job, guys.

[Katsumoto]

I'm sure this is a known issue but is there anything that can be done about AI armies practically always attacking as a whole rather than sending skirmishers forward or flank assaults or something? It's probably a vanilla issue but it's a shame that most battles turn into this instant slugfest rather than having the battle evolve through stages as troops are committed.

[KAM 2150]

Sadly no but imagine that it is already massively improved over vanilla. Run a custom battle vs Rome and see what happens in vanilla vs what happens in DeI in AI behaviour.

[Tyso3]

Sadly no but imagine that it is already massively improved over vanilla. Run a custom battle vs Rome and see what happens in vanilla vs what happens in DeI in AI behaviour.

You could play about with visibility for both AI + Player, a reduction in visibility might encourage the ai to 'search' for the player, thus leading to more skirmishes.

[Dardo21]

The enemy usually searches for the player with their entire army.

[KAM 2150]

Reduction of visibility was the issue in the base game, making AI units see player pretty much all the time was one of large improvements in AI behaviour as without that, AI targets first units it sees so for example without that AI cav will not even try to flank as it will not spot the flank or just ignore your units on the flank and just ride next to them (since they are already targetting unit they first saw).

[Dresden]

Updated fix pack

Changelog (from KAM):
-Decreased attack and melee defence for top units, increased for low tier units, medium range units about the same
-Increased base walking speed from 1 to 1.25
-Changed minimum hit chance from 1% to 5% (For now, in future it will go back to 1% once stats are sorted out)
-Slightly increased melee intervals (To slow down the combat a bit but without changing balance)
-Added Formation Attack to some Roman units (For testing purpose, not yet added for all, please report how it works) - with changes I made in past few months Formation Attack seems to behave a lot better
-Added more realistic spacing for most of ranged infantry, overtime it will be tweaked to be more unit specific (like some being more disciplined, some in more spaced out order), please report how it performs
-Decreased penalties for melee defence from fatigue, some penalties were too high and were kicking in too fast
-Small tweaks to hoplite and phalanx formation values
-Since weapon attribute do not work, I've added weapon deadliness (AP) to maces, axes and falxes. Axes have lower overal damage but some AP damage, maces have even lower overal damage but more AP and falxes still have highest damage of all melee weapons but now with slithly less overal damage and some AP added. Current values are for testing purposes, please report how they work.


Things that we are aware of/might not work properly and they will be looked into later:
-elephants, chariots, wardogs
-some cavalry troops have problem with remounting (I will prepare specific entity for cavalry soldiers so they will be able to do that)

[KYREAPER]

Great Kam, thanks for being awesome as hell and figuring that stuff out (: this could be one of the best combat fixes for this mod to make troops really dynamic

I have a question though, does shield value get lowered with fatigue now? Or no?
In your original patch notes, yall state "Due to errors in combat calculations, shields seem to be also included for flanking combat and were not affected by fatigue, making an exhausted unit not that much of a weaker target."

So.... are shields STILL being included for flanking combat and NOT being lowered by fatigue?
Or did yall change this... to where shield value goes down when flanked and fatigued?

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*Edit

FORMATION ATTACK:

I just tested the formation attack... and I think I found a solution...

Firstly, we know formation attack makes a unit fight worst.... and that a unit NOT using formation attack fights better than a unit USING formation attack...
and it seems to still be the case now with this update. But like i said, i think i have a potential solution..

I tested using these conditions:

FIRST TEST:
Rome(player)
-Praetorians(just for general)
-Principes(late) - Uses formation attack
43 melee attack
32 melee defense
11 weapon damage
10 charge bonus
14 armor

Vs

Sparta(AI)
Spartan Hippeis
Spartan Reformed Hoplites

Result: Spartan Reformed Hoplites DESTROYED Principes with formation attack....
The principes only got like 20 kills...

TEST TWO:
Same factions:
But I swapped the Principes(late) with Vangionian Heavy Auxillaries(NO FORMATION ATTACK)
43 melee attack
30 melee defense
11 weapon damage
11 charge bonus
14 armor
(THE ONLY DIFFERENCE is the Vangionian Heavies have -2 melee defense and +1 charge bonus)

The Vangionian Heavies(no formation) DESTROYED the Spartan Reformed Hoplites....

Basically... they(Vangionian Heavies) got like 66 kills and only lost 14.....

So still, as we can see(still) the Formation Attack makes a unit fight SIGNIFICANTLY worst than units WITHOUT formation attack...
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SOLUTION:

I believe.... that the way to fix this.... is to give units with formation attack higher melee defense. I think its THAT simple...
This would simulate the fact that units staying in tight formation would be realistically having their shields locked and thus having less chance to be hit...
So increase melee defense for these units would make sense from a realistic standpoint...

BUT you have to increase their defense by a large enough amount so that they fight BETTER than units of equal stats WITHOUT formation attack...

Basically... you need to make units WITH formation attack have a significantly higher melee defense so that they perform better defensively, and thus become more effective units...

Realistically, tight formation is a defensive strategy.. not an offensive one. It basically means that your buddy next to you forms a wall so ur enemy cant strike u form multiple angles... only from the front(effectively increase melee defense in real life).

So units with formation attack need to be much better defensively(last longer) than units without formation attack.

I think this would ALLOW you to use formation attack to make the Romans look more authentic... while making sure they are still effective in a world where most other units arent using formation attack themselves.

What do you think Kam?

[Dresden]

To answer the one question, I think shield is taken into account even when flanked and not affected by fatigue.

[milohve01]

in my opinion the battles are a bit quick I insist that the phoplites when they are in formation are very strong when you kill their victims they fall as if they had an attack to the heart of the rest this all very well ...

[Falco]

in my opinion the battles are a bit quick I insist that the phoplites when they are in formation are very strong when you kill their victims they fall as if they had an attack to the heart of the rest this all very well ...

The Oct.30 update feels quite a bit better IMO than the 25th, going to have to agree that the battles feel a bit quick.

[KAM 2150]

Thanks for feedback Yes, they might be a bit quick now but they will eventually get a bit slower (although throwing two high attack/low defence units at eachother will be rather brutal)


As for Formation Attack, it currently gives them +5 melee defence but I will be working on specific stats later Yes, that kill ration on formation attack is still a problem although in the past of the main problems using it was weird angles and not even trying to get close to the enemy, now I think at least that part is working better

In case of shield and fatigue, shields are not counted into it so large shield units suffer less penalty than high melee def units without shields.

I am also working on a submod called "Ultimate Commander" that will be especially made for those who prefer slower, more tactical battles (And MP battles), without making it a boring slugfest but still too long battle time to add it into the base mod.

[Falco]

Thanks for feedback Yes, they might be a bit quick now but they will eventually get a bit slower (although throwing two high attack/low defence units at eachother will be rather brutal)


As for Formation Attack, it currently gives them +5 melee defence but I will be working on specific stats later Yes, that kill ration on formation attack is still a problem although in the past of the main problems using it was weird angles and not even trying to get close to the enemy, now I think at least that part is working better

In case of shield and fatigue, shields are not counted into it so large shield units suffer less penalty than high melee def units without shields.

I am also working on a submod called "Ultimate Commander" that will be especially made for those who prefer slower, more tactical battles (And MP battles), without making it a boring slugfest but still too long battle time to add it into the base mod.

Ooo the submod sounds cool.

[milohve01]

kam there is a mod that I am using that is called wall of shields that with their knowledge could be adapted to the hoplites I think it works better the phatax and hoplites have a very high death rate in my opinion

[charlieh]

Thanks Kam, that submod sounds most interesting :-)

[Maetharin]

When I was experimenting with FA, it seems the modifier in the KV_rules doesn't do anything.
Are you adding defense through this modifier or just add it to the defense of the unit?

[KAM 2150]

Send me the link but even without testing it I can assure you it does not work, despite what author claims.

I saw dozens of different formation mods but they either don't work or work only flr the player.

ONLY formations that are used by the AI are those based on pike phalanx (like our hoplites), flying wedge and regular wedge. At the same time those formations can't be given to same unit as AI will constanly switch them which leads to infinite charge loop.