I have made some changes very long time , some of dating back to october of last year, so I might remember it incorrectly, but I will answer as I can.
Originally Posted by
QuintusSertorius
What did you do to change missile unit movement? Has it had an impact on the volume of fire coming from missile units (ie do they spend more time sat still and shooting, rather than running around)?
AI will try to shoot units from best position, but as missile-target-accuracy in battle config is very low, it will move units closer to hit more units (often to skirmish range and start running back and then move to best position and so on). I raised accuracy significantly (to 0.66) but AI will still place them 2/3 of max range. I can not raise accuracy to 1 because attack values are very high, but most of the running is gone.
+ they will ignore targets out of their reach + smaller skirmish range + larger reaction time before being intercepted + much smaller retreat time.
Originally Posted by
QuintusSertorius
How has the AI cavalry use reacted to needing a longer charge distance? How much longer is it?
AI dont react on this, it has already using it from long distance. It was made to cripple player (or at least me) from overusing it.
I disabled <unformed-charge> in battle_config for cavalry. Cavalry received this bonus when they started to run so I set it to 0 and now they must first get proper formation to receive bonus or else they only bump into the enemy and do a normal attack. If they are standing prepared to charge ahead, they will receive relatively shortly , but if they are disorganized it will take a very long distance. I'm terrible at guessing distance but I would say 150 m for a disorganized charge while before it was maybe 50.
also distance multiplier was lowered significantly from 7.5, but melee-hit-rate is 4 times higher (so less damage, but more melee hits will be accounted for) = heavy cavalry will have devastating charge and skirmish cavalry will have maybe even poorer performance as before charge:
Originally Posted by
QuintusSertorius
How did you boost the AI morale by changing their behaviour?
AI units count how much are they in danger (causalities, flanked, attacked, overwhelmed , under missle attack etc), once their threat level hit retreat limit, they will retreat to retreat point (calavry will have it 1.5x further away). But morale AI units is so low and AI generals are so bad, units will round in moment they will try for a tactical retreat and break all units around. It was a disadvantage for AI, just additional way how to rout enemy nothing more so I set counters to 9999.
This is vanilla example of their behaviour setting for retreat :
Code:
<retreat-analyser> <retreat-counter>
<easy>200</easy>
<medium>150</medium>
<hard>100</hard>
<very_hard>100</very_hard>
</retreat-counter>
<retreat-point>
<default>
<distance>40</distance>
</default>
<cavalry>
<multiplier>1.5</multiplier>
</cavalry>
</retreat-point>
</retreat-analyser>
Originally Posted by
QuintusSertorius
How did you change the siege priority away from the plaza? That sounds like a very positive change, nothing more annoying than sieges turning into a grinding slog in the centre where the enemy never routs. What outcomes have you observed as a result of the change?
It is more an observation of effects of other changes on siege battle. Most of the units will be simply killed or injured during fights on walls, at gate and in street. Less plaza fighting is because player needs to outnumber AI 1:4 not 1:10 and hold this advantage for 5 minutes not 20.
However in case it was not enough, siege battle run during several stages :
- repel attackers
- defend perimeter
- defend street
- fall back to plaza
I'm not sure if I made some changes to it, or what I did there and code is too long to check , but it is configurable how AI should move to another stage in config_ai_battle.
Originally Posted by
QuintusSertorius
Have the changes from that thread made a noticeable difference to diplomacy compared to base 2.3? I haven't really had much feedback on that so far.
First : I have added one point to WarWeariness limit and reduced chances to turn back from peacefull to warlike to 1/15 for more stable enviroment so I will give feedback on that. But effect is really huge. Before factions were fighting with every neighbour with few armies and sending remaining tiny armies against player from time to time. Now if they make peace with some factions and turn everything against remaining opponents , well its rough. I played as Rome, allied with gaul (I never know which one is which, the green one ) , he conquered another gaul, sweboz and boii and they betrayed me and invaded me with three full stacks and some smaller forces in the first two turns and I had nothing there.
Most of map looks same as before, it has a chain of events from time to time which change whole regions in relatively short time.
EDIT : Ahh dammit, I wanted to brag with map of my conquest and AI development, but I just realized that campaign is no longer compatible with new changes I made. I should read warnings I wrote.
Originally Posted by
QuintusSertorius
What is fragmentation of forces like (as in how often is the CAI sending small stacks in the same direction rather than consolidating them into big ones first)?
I raised power required for attack slightly so AI waits in/ near settlements slightly longer and thus reinforcements are fragmented less.Slightly.
Originally Posted by
QuintusSertorius
What did you do to the auto-balance?
I changed lopsided values for autobalance, I read somewhere on forum - and it seems correct, that first value reduces causalities after attacker have x more power and second value add attack after attacker have x more power. Reduced causalities bonus was removed, but attack bonus requires only 1.2 advantage (It was 1.5, or 2. I dont remember)
<lopsided_thresh float = "9999"/>
<lopsided_hn_mod float = "1.2"/>
Originally Posted by
QuintusSertorius
We didn't have a lot of luck with editing the formations file - it crashes very often.
Yeah, it does crash with smaller typos or error. If the value is set wrong, something line is missing, blocks are numbered incorrectly, some number was skipped, blocks pointing on undefined blocks and the list go on. The worst thing is there is that most no feedback what is wrong. Or there can be units without assigned slots. For example, if archers and siege engine are placed only into one block with max units 6, but there will be an army with 7 of those units, it will crash. Every formation should have a "catcher" block to prevent this crash with low priority and unlimited units of any type (or at least 20 slots for every type of unit).
Code:
begin_block 15 unit_type any 0.1
unit_density close
max_unit_width 25
block_formation line
block_relative_pos 12 0.0 -5.0
inter_unit_spacing 3.0
priority 0.01
end_block
Originally Posted by
QuintusSertorius
We also found it of limited impact, since no matter what formation you give them, once the battle starts the BAI takes over and moves everything around anyway. Did they stay where you put them more often with your formations?
Now armies are facing each other directly so they pretty much attack unit before them. I wish I could, but I was not able to prevent the second line from attacking right away without affecting the first line and I'm not sure if it is possible.
However, there is a way how to force AI to keep formation them through engage distance in config_ai_battle. It is used primarily before a battle, units will get an order where to go and they will go there until some enemy unit enters their engage range. If there is none there, they will wait there until they receive a new objective. If it is set too low enemies will hold perfect formation until next objective, but they will not counterattack, set it too high and units will pick a target from the whole army with the highest priority (often same one). I reduced this value 4x times for infantry so they keep fighting around their original post and raised it for 1/4 for cavalry units.
I used this to keep AI general behind a little longer by setting his engage value very low and it was also interesting to set it very low for cavalry. They came close, shoot javelins and then returned to their post, after some time, when I was fully engaged in line fighting, because they prevented me from flanking they returned and attacked me with both sides (I have no idea what triggered it) after my units were exhausted and without javelins, which was extremely smart move, but I have also very bad experiences with it. I might revive this experiment for the future version.
Another thing preventing AI from holding formation are battle scripts with objective ATTACK_ALL. I have disabled some of them or pushed other to trigger later but AI is very "visible" if they are not smashed into player's units so I kept most of the scripts working.
Scripts with forced attack are one thing I'm not sure if I want to play with or without. I played without it and sometimes AI played very smart, most notably general has his own head when he is not forced to attack, running behind the line, pushing breaches, charging into chasers and fighting on flanks and he even leave battlefield with cavalry and skirmishers if line is completely broken or things are too grim. I had to fight same Arevaci heir in four huge battles during my conquest of Hispania as Rome and it was most memorable part of the campaign because of this. But then AI had a bad day and don't move at all ... or move all the time... I ignored this behavior as if I fight against good and bad generals, but idk. There is a lot of good and bad things in it.
I hope it helps.