[Experimental Battle Pack] - New stat and combat system (09.03.2018)

[KAM 2150]

Oww boy, after 3 years this thread comes back!

Welcome all to grand battle test!

Old lads will know what to expect, newcomers, please read below

This experimental battle pack changes most of stuff in Divide et Impera combat. Due to amount of changes, this is meant to be used for testing and errors are to be expected (and hopefully quickly fixed!). Nature of those tests is to seek unorthodox changes to how game handles specific parts of combat and a lot of ground breaking stuff were introduced thanks to them


Few things to have in mind:
-below does not reflect what will be added fully if at all to main mod
-please be aware of parts that are not yet finished before reporting issues
-this is not compatible with other combat submods (like faster/slower combat).


Now what current changes do?

1. Extensive stat overhaul, with DeI twist, thanks to inspiration from our good friend from Ancient Empires mod:
-stats are much easier to read and understand
-larger importance of unit armour
-larger importance of experience bonuses
-easier to spot differences between unit grades

Examples:

Hastati:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Principes

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Triarii

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

2. New damage and HP values:
-most of weapons have damage higher or similar to unit HP - discontinued
-this means that system is close to one hit kill, making armour and defence values more important to the outcome
-kill animations are playing more nicely due to them being more linked to amount of damage applied rather than unit hit chance
-pikes and hoplites are scoring kills like all other units, meaning they will be able to do something from start, instead of having no kills for first minute and than a lot of kills in the next one
-pikes and hoplites defend better from cavalry charges now
-elephant charge is much more lethal



3. Formed Attack deleted once again:
-no more Romans losing in frontal combat in situations they should win
-no more unit sliding and teleporting
-less bugs with unit positioning

4. Speed overhaul:
-unit speed is more streamlined and varied, closer to how it worked in Rome 1/Medieval 2
-heavy and medium infantry is unable to sprint
-light infantry moves at noticeably faster pace than medium and heavy infantry
-since little differences between medium and heavy units had no meaning for combat and messed up AI deployment, you have less issues and consistency
-walking speed is increased, thanks to which battles are still dynamic and armies can cross the map fluently
-AI is more eager to use walk instead of run command, meaning AI is less likely to tire itself out before combat even starts
-cavalry speed is divided into heavy and light cavalry.
-to fix issue with AI killing own cav while disengaging (since they got auto charged and decimated in few seconds!), cavalry charges speed is just a bit lower than running speed
-infantry charge starts closer to the enemy

5. Tweaks to unit UI:
-speed added to infantry UI display (as speed now uses round values, it can now be properly displayed since it rounds up the values by itself)
-bonuses vs specific unit types added to the UI
-position of information’s on UI panel more consistent across unit classes

6. Unit cohesion and other changes
-while heavy units feel more heavy now, they need to be suported by lighter troops!
-due to larger changes between unit speed, heavies are not best for chasing down lighter units
-ranged troops are easy to rout and mostly weak in melee but can do noticeable damage if left unchecked (as it did in real battles)
-heavy only army will of course still beat lighter troops but without lighter support, casualties will be simply not worth it
-multiple soldiers can again fight single target at the same time

7. New stat system is now calculated thanks to new excel formulas that allow for full stat overhaul in just few minutes It will be soon released for everyone to use and tweak in their own way!


Stuff to do!
-many units need their unit grade adjusted for better stat calculation
-add more variables to formulas for even better unit stat diversity
-tweaks chariots and wardogs
-artillery not tweaked yet
-try to work on AI target priority - hopefully AI cav will try to focus more on player cav, instead of ignoring it


IMPORTANT!
-campaign bonuses to units are not tweaked! They will not make current units OP but above changes will require new values for them
-do not use any combat related submods, even offical ones!
-unit prices might be a bit off with new stats


Fun facts:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

-I was looking for a long time to find a way how elephant damage is calculated. Their damage visible in stats and game files means nothing, same for them melee attack value. What I actually noticed is that their performance in melee depends on...melee defence. When soldiers tried to attack the elephant, he will be immune to elephant AOE attack as long as it hits a strike on the animal.
-AI depends a lot of weapon damage values. If you change ranged weapon damage to 0 but move it to bonuvs vs [unit class], damage will work correctly against that unit class but AI units will be broken as they will walk into player units or position awkwardly, instead of using ranged attack

Enjoy!
Download link:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/nr857q...etestver2.pack

Simply put above file into your Rome 2/data folder and enable in mod launcher.


Old Version

-most of weapons have damage higher or similar to unit HP

Download link for:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/472pdm...attletest.pack

[Dresden]

The returns of the experimental battle tests, I like it

[Jake Armitage]

Thanks Mr. Kam

[KennyTheKlever]

pikes and hoplites defend better from cavalry charges now

This has definitely got me interested on first glance. The only thing that looks weird to me on first glance is the attack and defence values, which look like they will fill up the entire bar over a wide range of higher values.

[KAM 2150]

They won't be much higher from where they are. For example on max experience unit get +3 melee attack.

[KennyTheKlever]

Fair enough that sounds fine. I'll test this out for sure.

[KennyTheKlever]

Just at a glance, the falx wielding units for Thracian factions have lost the large bonus to attacking elephants that they usually got. The Dacian equivalents seem to all still have it.

[KAM 2150]

Yes, I am going to work on those bonuses so for now I have taken them out.

[szabz]

Thank you KAM. Testing this on a new Macedon campaign

[Alannon]

Rhodioi trieres epibatoi - the mercenary ones, they still have 80 attack.

[popovic]

Unit cards now don`t display the HP of a unit any more.
I`m interested what are the HPs? Are they same for all units? Or are they just streamlined in some way?

[asher237]

this looks awesome.

[ltsweeting]

This sounds awesome. Another piece of art by KAM. What's the speed/pacing and flow of battles like compared to vanilla DeI or the slower battle speed submod?

Thanks!

[KAM 2150]

Pacing depends more on units, for example light unit army might move faster around the field while heavier army will be slower. 20v20 mostly took me around 10-15 minutes, which is perfect battle time if you want AI to at least try to be a challange but of course I also had 20+ minute battles.

Unit cards now don`t display the HP of a unit any more.
I`m interested what are the HPs? Are they same for all units? Or are they just streamlined in some way?

Yes, I took HP because it is fully irrelevant as melee infantry has same HP pool anyway and obviously HP difference between infantry and cavalry is not useful info because it does not tell you anything. Also UI has a limit of how many things can be displayed so better to have more useful info there.

Missile infantry has 45 HP; Melee infantry has 55 HP; Cavalry has 75 HP; Chariots 100 HP; Elephants 230-250 HP.

I might increase HP a bit later, epsecially for people who want even slower battles. Overal, the higher HP is, the more melee attack and defence mean while armour means less. For example, if you just increase HP, light infantry will get a lot better vs heavy infantry, despite having same stat increased. I have an idea about making all large sized melee infantry (300 men per squad) to have less HP than 200 strong squads but I need to find perfect damage/armour values to make it fun (Currently it meant unit like Thureophoroi losing 120-150 men to only 5-15 killed Principes).

[karasis]

Seems quite nice!! I will test it. I wonder are you planing about unit size changes also?(Since unit sizes also have effect combat) And giving some units arrow and javelins?

[Sarkiss]

looks interesting. have you considered halving the triarii unit size?

[KAM 2150]

No as those need changes to campaign starting units. Plus I am perfectly happy with current unit size.

Sarakiss, why would I change Triarii unit size?

[Sarkiss]

No as those need changes to campaign starting units. Plus I am perfectly happy with current unit size.

Sarakiss, why would I change Triarii unit size?

to represent the 50% smaller size of their maniple compared to hastati and principes.

[KAM 2150]

That would make them useless and suffer more casualties on autoresolve. Plus we don't use real life unit sizes as game does not allow for unlimited amount of squads per army. Not to mention that AI would not understand that they are too weak.

Slower Combat added as standalone pack

-unit HP increased
-even higher values of unit armour for higher tiers
-tweaks to ranged damage

Download link for Slower version:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/nr857q...etestver2.pack

[Sarkiss]

That would make them useless and suffer more casualties on autoresolve...

i see. i assumed it is possible to balance less men by raising other stats (we've got that in EB). not to worry, thanks.