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

[KYREAPER]

I kind of think Formation attack is doomed against hoplites/pike units... just because of the nature of the strategic idea of maintaining such a static formation attempting to keep stationary instead of attacking openings as they present.

With Rome 2's formation attack, the formation units basically just stand still in their angled formation and fight 1v1 vs their enemy in front. They dont flood their units deep enough into the pikes to trigger the pikemen to switch to swords(which is the only way to do any damage to them...thats why hoplites in phalanx get basically no kills vs pikes.. bcuz they are told to stay in formation instead of pushing forward to trigger swords being drawn from the pikemen).

So i feel like formation attack helps slightly against nonformation units(hoplites/pikes).. but the formation will automatically cripple a formation attack unit from defeating pikes.

Formation attack works alright against hoplite phalanx, since the range advantage of spears is MUCH less than pikes, and they will end up at sword distance more often anyways.


Truth-be-told, formation attack is a mainly defensive design anyways.. even in real life. Just as charging forward is mainly a pure offensive strategy.

Sure, historically formation units do kill a lot, but thats just a product of keeping higher defense and winning the KD ratio game.

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Roman Praetorians vs Egypt Kleru Agema Pikes
(FORMATION ATTACK ON)
Kills: 34 Kills: 74
Battle time: 6:34
Winner: Egypt


Roman Praetorians vs Egypt Kleru Agema Pikes
(FORMATION ATTACK OFF)
Kills: 163 Kills: 38
Battle time: 10:19
Winner: Rome


NOTES: So the Romans destroyed with formation attack off, as expected. Now, this was a 1v1, and so with formation attack OFF, the Romans basically encircled the Pikemen... getting constant flanking hits to the side and the rear... these are automatic kills basically... so while Egypt slowing killed Rome from the front.. they were getting constantly dropped from the rear and sides.... This is how you beat a phalanx anyways... encircle it... and formation attack removes this tactic..

So without formation attack, the Romans did the smart thing and trapped the pikes and won.

Now... WITHOUT letting the romans wrap around the sides and back of the pikemen.... (while still keeping Formation Attack OFF)....
The Romans still lost. So down to the bone... Turning formation attack OFF offers one big advantage.. Formation attack allows you to get cheap easy kills from the sides/rear when some soldiers wrap around the enemy unit. This gives those specific soldiers a flanking advantage which basically gives them like a 10:1 kill/death ratio, meaning if 10 of these guys get back there... thats basically 100 kills(game over unless the enemy unit beats the living crap out of the front of the your unit).

TO ME: I feel like formation attack should offer stronger buffs to defense to offset this advantage(meaning, u should probably flank units using formation attack to... well.. simulate you breaking their formation).

Make them to where players have to treat them as almost hybrid phalanx units(without a phalanx ability).
What I mean this is... when we fight hoplites... we typically lock them in place and then flank with another unit... because phalanx units are so good from the front.

I think you should make units using FORMATION ATTACK a little bit closer to the defensive abilities of a phalanx, but still much LESS than a phalanx... while allowing them to keep their current offensive strength(which is a little better than phalanx units using spears).

Make them strong enough defensively that you basically SHOULD flank them(or overwhelm them like you do hoplites)... without them having the phalanx ability.

And MAYBE.... make all formation attack units have one less speed... since they are forced to not rush ahead out of formation....
Because consider this compared to units WITHOUT formation attack... some soldiers rush ahead of the others due to not being constrained to a formation, which gives them more speed.

Like.... I can outrun you if im not told i have to stay in formation. Instead, I can just GO and if ur too slow, then thats just too bad... ill make it to the enemy first.. or away from the enemy first(if fleeing).

So I think formation attack units should be deducted 1 speed, and gain increased defense(more than 5)
... i mean make it decently superior to units without formation attack... who just rush in and swing wildly without having their buddies locked in next to them to guard them.

[Maetharin]

AFAIK the upholding of their formation enabled the Romans to operate as aggressive as possible without exposing themselves to flanking attacks

So even though it's defensive in nature, the Romans used it as offensively as possible, just like the scutum.

All Roman military planning was based on aggression, sometimes they closed with the enemy even when they held a decisive terrain advantage! Goldsworthy sees both the abundance in manpower and the annual election of magistrates behind this. Every Consul tried to get as much glory under his belt as possible.

Of course this doesn't mean they held their formation rigidly,
when their was a chance to exploit enemy weaknesses, they took it.

[KYREAPER]

AFAIK the upholding of their formation enabled the Romans to operate as aggressive as possible without exposing themselves to flanking attacks

So even though it's defensive in nature, the Romans used it as offensively as possible, just like the scutum.

All Roman military planning was based on aggression, sometimes they closed with the enemy even when they held a decisive terrain advantage! Goldsworthy sees both the abundance in manpower and the annual election of magistrates behind this. Every Consul tried to get as much glory under his belt as possible.

Of course this doesn't mean they held their formation rigidly,
when their was a chance to exploit enemy weaknesses, they took it.

Exactly.
The Romans used it aggressively and offensively.... but their aggression was still NEVER as aggressive as the savage barbarians they fought, who would just swing wildly and with more vigor and less regard for their own safety.
They were just the most "aggressive sophisticated units" at the time.
But formation-less murder hungry barbarian units were even MORE aggressive than the Romans, especially when they ambushed.

So my thought is to make the Formation attack units(Romans) have slightly more melee defense and slightly more moral(than currently) than non-formation units... but less than the bonuses that hoplites get...
AND THEN make their attack just slightly less than non-formation units.


BUT the problem with this:

" Of course this doesn't mean they held their formation rigidly,
when their was a chance to exploit enemy weaknesses, they took it. "


is.... you cant make the AI turn off formation attack... so you have to design formation attack WITHOUT the "taking advantage of enemy weaknesses when the chance shows" in mind....

Basically... the AI is going to hold rigidity as long as formation attack is on their units... they cant turn it off..
The player can, but this mod is designed around making sure the AI plays correctly first and foremost.

[hoho96]

How about (after buffing the defence) limiting formation attack to only Roman units? this will solve the problem of encountering it too much with AI armies. A huge part of the playerbase still love playing Rome more than any other faction, and if you're playing other factions, you know when to expect an AI army with formation attack.

I agree that formation attack should work as a pseudo-phalanx where it offers substantial defence from the front (not as high as a phalanx) and maybe weaker morale penalties from being flanked but with weaker charge and movement speed. This could also make it harder to break the AI army from the front.

IRL the formation made the Romans quite the challenge to beat just with a frontal sword to sword grind as long as they maintained the formation.

[KYREAPER]

I agree with that, as well as limiting it to only roman units...
Because only the roman did it LEGITIMATELY that professionally. No one did it 100% like the romans... That could be something unique about them and really give them a historical flavor over other factions.

Just like some factions have hoplites... or pikes...
The romans would be "those guys with that cool formation attack that gives them a super good defensive buff" since they fight as a unit.

[hoho96]

I think we're onto something here

[Livin La Vida Loca]

I thiiiiiink the romans might just be strong enough as is, actually...

[KYREAPER]

I thiiiiiink the romans might just be strong enough as is, actually...

Except adding formation attack back to them makes them weaker, so they have to balance it by buffing them to ensure they dont suck.

Formation attack keeps soldiers in a unit back in formation and prevents them from wrapping around a unit and getting flanking kills.
So it severely limits the unit in this game for the sake of a pretty formation instead of a blob.

[projectcorner]

Except adding formation attack back to them makes them weaker, so they have to balance it by buffing them to ensure they dont suck.

Formation attack keeps soldiers in a unit back in formation and prevents them from wrapping around a unit and getting flanking kills.
So it severely limits the unit in this game for the sake of a pretty formation instead of a blob.

in my opinion in the game balance aspect, it is much easier to leave roman units as it was than giving them stats/morale buffs+formation attack to make sure AI don't suck.

In reality, roman soldiers would know when to stay in formation and when to be versatile. However, since AI does not turn off formation attack, it would be ahistorical anyway.

[KYREAPER]

Yeah, but they are testing formation attack with this patch, so if its possible to make it work, and make the romans look historical by BEING in formation and fighting as a unit(which they did more often than fighting out of formation) then im going to try and figure out how to make it work.

[Hydrall]

I don't know anything about modding, so this may be a stupid question, but is it possible to give them the same hold / push effect that hoplites have (with click and doubleclick)? Although I suppose the next question there is if the AI even uses it.

[Barra]

Simply place it in your data folder and load it before the main mod to try out the changes.

Hi Guys! It says to put in the data folder and load it BEFORE the main mod. Now, how do I do that? The launcher won't let me mess with load order and a mod manager I found screwed up my game so I have to reinstall.

Also, do the submods still work with 1.2.2b?

Thanks a lot!!

[hoho96]

If you're only using this "fix" pack plus the DeI files, it should load correctly on its own. If you have other submods, then you just need to go to the data folder and edit the name of the submod to have more "@" than the other mods and order your files alphabetically so it loads first.

Or just use the Total War mod manager (you can find it on the forum here for free) that lets you do all of this without too much technicalities.

[Barra]

If you're only using this "fix" pack plus the DeI files, it should load correctly on its own. If you have other submods, then you just need to go to the data folder and edit the name of the submod to have more "@" than the other mods and order your files alphabetically so it loads first.

Or just use the Total War mod manager (you can find it on the forum here for free) that lets you do all of this without too much technicalities.

Hi,
thank you. But didn't work as I mentioned in my post I dl'ed the Manager in v1.4 & 2.0 and none of them worked.

But thank you for the "@@@" thing

[FlashHeart07]

Just learn how to either change mod names directly in the data folder or use the script.txt method to control your load order. Dont mess around with custom mod managers. Too often people reporting problems with DeI is caused by unofficial mod managers


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[Kirsch27]

Without having tried the fix pack yet, I'm not sure if I like the idea of adding formation attack back since Romans were just so easy to destroy as Carthage or any Hellenistic faction when they had it previously. With formation attack, phalangites mauled Romans and the AI just had no way to deal with it unless you pretty much threw the fight on purpose. It also seemed to make them a lot more vulnerable to cavalry from the rear and sides, although I don't really mind that so much since Romans are really resistant to morale shock currently. I'll give this fix pack a shot and report back on how it plays, though! I'll probably play a game as Macedon so that should give me a good chance to test battles against a good variety of enemy cultures early on.

[Kirsch27]

First impressions from this fixpack -

I like that missile units are no longer standing around murdering my cavalry if I don't immediately retreat and charge again, however every other unit ALSO seems to have the morale of a cat in a thunderstorm. I'm winning battles with numbers like 52 to 1551 killed, etc. - maybe this should be toned down a bit?

I AM fighting mostly garrisons at this early point in the campaign so it's possible this is just an issue with the garrison stats as others in this thread have suggested there is a problem there.

I'm going to continue playing with this on for a little bit and see how it goes when factions get a little more developed and start fielding better armies.

EDIT - After having a chance to fight a decent army from Sparta, I can say that it is probably the garrison stat issue which is the biggest problem - I still think it's pretty easy to rout most armies with even one unit of flankers, however the really tough guys like Spartan bodyguards CAN stand up to a few rear charges. I'm also not really experiencing the same paper-thin morale issue with MY units as the enemy, even though I'm only using basic bronze shields as my main line infantry. I let some Athenians completely envelop a unit of phalangites and they still didn't rout despite taking over 100 casualties and being surrounded, although once again those were garrison units so maybe that's why.

[hoho96]

may I suggest trying the balance in custom battles? It's a bit hard to get a proper idea of how units behave with all the variables in a campaign.

[Chevalier1982]

1) Garrisons are weak. Even a small pack (3-5) of high/medium tier units can sweep the village. May be it's worth addin some slingers to garrison troops (they are really good against armored units).
2) Elites are elites. Now they are really effective. Low/mid-tier hundreds and thousands - all of them've stayed lying in front of the pike wall of Agemas.

P.S.
Tried roman legionaries:
1. Against pike/phalanx units.
a) formation "on" - loose;
b) formation "off" - win.
2. Against elite swords (arverni arjoi).
a) "on" - win with significant losses;
b) "off" - win with significant losses (the same result).
May be I've fought too few battles, but I couldn't recognize the benefits of 'formation attack' option.

[Maetharin]

Concerning the FA, there are modifiers in the KV rules table called:

• hnbonus_melee_loose_formation

I don´t know whether this does anything, but I think it may partially account for the increased prowess out of FA.

• melee_defence_formed_attack_bonus

I do know that when I extensively tested this, it didn´t really do much no matter how much I increased it.
What I´m uncertain about would be if this was due to the combat mechanics of the previous version, maybe it does have an influence on the current one.

I propose a reduction of the former with an increase of the latter.
It may have the desired results in the current iteration of combat mechanics.

1)
2. Against elite swords (arverni arjoi).
a) "on" - win with significant losses;
b) "off" - win with significant losses (the same result).
May be I've fought too few battles, but I couldn't recognize the benefits of 'formation attack' option.

Did it have any influence on the duration of the battle?