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

[leonardusius]

So what’s your point here? Please elaborate

First elaborate you what you mean with 'I have noted that when the enemy slam into me the ones that seem to get near the back of my units they hang around and fight so it seems to be an encirclement when using "Holding Position''

[♔Greek Strategos♔]

So what’s your point here? Please elaborate

First elaborate you what you mean with 'I have noted that when the enemy slam into me the ones that seem to get near the back of my units they hang around and fight so it seems to be an encirclement when using "Holding Position''

You could both elaborate though.

[Clint_Eastwood]

First elaborate you what you mean with 'I have noted that when the enemy slam into me the ones that seem to get near the back of my units they hang around and fight so it seems to be an encirclement when using "Holding Position''

Ok I was just pointing out that the units hang around rather than reform back to there unit, however this is historically correct as you would not be able to get back to your group without a fight I suppose so i am happy with the outcome! Also these units do fight even alone!

Hey Kam, just reporting back on some custom battles using Praetorian Guard Vs Arjos and I do see teleport and some sliding still in battle.

I tweaked the stats for heavy_heavy in battle_entities which affect both the above units and I found the following worked and reduced the bug to around 0.01% now!

radius = 0.5
shape = ellipse
radii_ratio = 0.5

getting good results on this setting now!

Can someone tell me the entries in _kv_rules to make battles slightly faster please?

[KAM 2150]

Cool, I will check these values out

[Clint_Eastwood]

Cool, I will check these values out

Hi kam, just for your info the mods I am using have all DEI settings apart from shield and class formulas as I have used the vanilla entries. I Thought to share this with you as I am unsure if these are needed to be changed in my mods to get the same results without having to change those entries in battle_entities.

Also out of curiosity which entry controls the charge as some of the opponents units charge at you again when activating "Holding Position"?

In the past I have not needed to make any changes in those two files as your BAI has always been Stable with my external mods.

[Maetharin]

KAM have you considered giving heavy units the rapid advance ability to make them able to run in situations when rapid position changes are necessary?
Since it does carry a hefty fatigue penalty afterwards, IMO it is well balanced.

Would be perfect if they were only able to use it when not fatigued, or maybe just once or twice per battle.

[Ptolemaios Soter]

I haven't had a chance to play or check the forums in a few days and looks like I ran out of time to provide feedback - I had wanted to get a bit further in my new campaign - but here's what I noticed so far. Overall combat flows really well. Playing on the normal speed version (which I understand is not outdated) combat felt very fast - most of my battles were running under 7 minutes counting positioning and skirmishes. So I'm glad to hear the slower combat version is moving forward. Like a few folks above, I also had an issue with full volleys of javelins to the back doing little damage. Archers in particular seem much weaker, and I notice they now have 0 AP (even elites like Syrians and Cretans). If that's all by design, I'm happy to roll with it as I understand the use of missile weapons was very limited in historical warfare in this era. Lastly, I've also noticed that cavalry aren't doing much damage on impact. On the one hand, that's good since you can't wreck a group of infantry with a missile cav anymore, but on the other hand, my heavy cavalry are also only really getting kills after the initial impact which feels a bit lame. Elephants are of course deadly on impact as intended. Not a big deal, but just figured I'd mention it.

Two errors I've noticed:
Arjos Epones (the Carthaginian recruitable mercenary version) have insane stats when they dismount. I assume the figures are their pre-battle pack values. Not sure if this affects other dismounted units as well.

Ptelemikio phendonetai Iudaioi (Egyptian Jewish Slingers) have 25 AP damage in melee.

I'll download the new version and look forward to playing. Thanks for the really great work KAM!

[Dardo21]

Can someone tell me the entries in _kv_rules to make battles slightly faster please?

melee_hit_chance_max 90
melee_hit_chance_min 10


Especially the latter one i believe.

[Clint_Eastwood]

melee_hit_chance_max 90
melee_hit_chance_min 10


Especially the latter one i believe.

Thanks Dardo the last entry I upped to 20 from 10 and made a great difference! +reps

[KAM 2150]

Thanks Dardo the last entry I upped to 20 from 10 and made a great difference! +reps

Please revert back as you just broke your game! Only change base bit chance as changing min valu will make ALL units have exact same hit chance. Basically you made all units have equal attack and defence stats.

With melee attack and melee defense values being as small as they are, do campaign buffs with 5% increases make a difference?

As stated in main post, bonuses are not changed yet.

[Clint_Eastwood]

Please revert back as you just broke your game! Only change base bit chance as changing min valu will make ALL units have exact same hit chance. Basically you made all units have equal attack and defence stats.



As stated in main post, bonuses are not changed yet.

Ah damn, thanks Kam, will change back then.

Will use base bit chance to make adjustments and thanks again for advice

[KAM 2150]

Ah damn, thanks Kam, will change back then.

Will use base bit chance to make adjustments and thanks again for advice

No problem, let me know if you will have any issues.

Happy to report that fanatic spears are now reasonably deadly in melee, and heavily armored troops fair well against them (after taking substantial casualties). As a Roman commander, it's disconcerting at first to see them trade blow-for-blow with your legionaries, but as time goes on the differences in armor seem to play out.

Don't let those suckers outflank you! Seriously though, the nerf seems to be really good. Nice work as always Kam.

btw, these battles are still way too fast for my liking. Do you plan on making a slower version of this, given this is technically the older slow version?

Yup, those fanatic guys should be easy to shoot down or become a target for cavalry but once they are in melee, they will sure do some damage!

As for the speed, anything slower than this pack will make you only play on cheat mode as it will not benefit AI, only make the challange smaller and not very dynamic. For now there will be no slower packs but I will update official slower battles submod if this pack will be added to main mod.

I apologize for not seeing it there the first time, and thus wasting your time. On an unrelated note, I think I found something weird about the barbarian shield wall. The ability states that the formation reduces melee attack and speed, but increases melee defense. However, when I was testing it in custom battle, the UI told me that melee attack and weapon damage were being decreased, melee defense was unchanged, and speed actually increased. I found this on two units I tested, the phalanx bodyguard for the Arverni and the phalanx bodyguard for the Suebi.

No problem buddy. Tooltips do not matter at all, I will update them at the end since during testing phase, values are changing constantly. I actually never even bother reading them ;P

I just started a new Campaign as Antiginodai, and it would seem short pikes have the wrong formation assigned to them. It seems like it's the same formation as hoplites and they will not use their pikes, only their swords. I've only tested the Peltast Pikeman and the Agema, and they both do the same thing, but normal pikes work fine.

They don't use long phalanx formation, they still use their pikes but they also fight closer to the enemy. At least they worked for me.

[Standard Nerd]

With melee attack and melee defense values being as small as they are, do campaign buffs with 5% increases make a difference?

[Standard Nerd]

As stated in main post, bonuses are not changed yet.

I apologize for not seeing it there the first time, and thus wasting your time. On an unrelated note, I think I found something weird about the barbarian shield wall. The ability states that the formation reduces melee attack and speed, but increases melee defense. However, when I was testing it in custom battle, the UI told me that melee attack and weapon damage were being decreased, melee defense was unchanged, and speed actually increased. I found this on two units I tested, the phalanx bodyguard for the Arverni and the phalanx bodyguard for the Suebi.

[BlueMatter]

I just started a new Campaign as Antiginodai, and it would seem short pikes have the wrong formation assigned to them. It seems like it's the same formation as hoplites and they will not use their pikes, only their swords. I've only tested the Peltast Pikeman and the Agema, and they both do the same thing, but normal pikes work fine.

[Tiny]

Happy to report that fanatic spears are now reasonably deadly in melee, and heavily armored troops fair well against them (after taking substantial casualties). As a Roman commander, it's disconcerting at first to see them trade blow-for-blow with your legionaries, but as time goes on the differences in armor seem to play out.

Don't let those suckers outflank you! Seriously though, the nerf seems to be really good. Nice work as always Kam.

btw, these battles are still way too fast for my liking. Do you plan on making a slower version of this, given this is technically the older slow version?

[Grigal]

Hey Kam, I did some battles and noticed that melee cavalry is struggling vs cataphract shock cavalry or any cavalry that has a good armor penetration (for example atropatkan royal skirmisher cavalry). I did a few battles with Carthage Late Sacred Band melee cavalry and Baktrian Late Cataphracts , 1v1 heavy melee cav of carthage is losing greatly even though they're both pretty equal in cost. Is it working as intended? In my opinion melee cav should be superior to shock cav or skirmisher in 1v1 situation (of the same tier ofc). The problem of melee cavalry right now is that it has poor attack and even though its slightly higher than of cataphract or any other cav that has high armor penetration value, it cannot fight them effectively. What do you think?

[KAM 2150]

Hey Kam, I did some battles and noticed that melee cavalry is struggling vs cataphract shock cavalry or any cavalry that has a good armor penetration (for example atropatkan royal skirmisher cavalry). I did a few battles with Carthage Late Sacred Band melee cavalry and Baktrian Late Cataphracts , 1v1 heavy melee cav of carthage is losing greatly even though they're both pretty equal in cost. Is it working as intended? In my opinion melee cav should be superior to shock cav or skirmisher in 1v1 situation (of the same tier ofc). The problem of melee cavalry right now is that it has poor attack and even though its slightly higher than of cataphract or any other cav that has high armor penetration value, it cannot fight them effectively. What do you think?

I checked your report and yes, you are right, for example shock cavalry with AP weapons has higher total damage value than spear and regular lance cavalry, while also having very high AP damage itself. I will make few tweaks for small fix tomorrow.

[KAM 2150]

Disctinction between melee, shock and skirmisher cavalry is meaninless, it is some concept that CA forced on us. Of course if two similar unit fight eachother, probably melee one should win but for the most part, they are same units. Now in case of Persian Royal Skirmishers, they are pretty much elite melee cavalry unit with ranged attack. Only difference between melee and ranged cavalry is that if unit is put into ranged cavalry group, it gets ability to skirmish so that it will run away from units. If you would give normal melee cavalry more ammo, it would just sit in place and try to use the ammo, it would not run away even from your infantry.

I will check out regual cavalry weapons vs ap cavalry weapons.

[ptaika]

Hi Kam, I had two Generals getting killed while running down shattered routing units. In both cases the General units were in bad shape (low health).

Question apart, there is any way to make AI use terrain for hidding units?

Thank you for your work!