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Thread: [Experimental Battle Pack] - Episode IV - A New Hope (Obsolete)

  1. #1
    KAM 2150's Avatar Artifex
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    Default [Experimental Battle Pack] - Episode IV - A New Hope (Obsolete)

    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!

    Please be as specific in your reports as you can like unit X fought unit Y in this way, preferably also including screenshots (especially for campaign reports where campain buffs heavily change combat).

    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).

    Main Plan:
    -rebalance of morale system for more fun and unpredictable battles
    -better balance between units
    -larger stat variety between units for more army composition options
    -much more agressive and active cavalry AI that cycle charges in similar way to player
    -AI melee units that don't have javelins assigned will brace against cavalry charges
    -unit mass and breaking off from combat rebalanced
    -overhaul naval combat to make it more fun (not yet started)
    -improve sieges (partially started)

    Download:
    Steam:
    https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfil...?id=1929403048

    Manual link added:
    https://www.mediafire.com/file/nz4vwfvawyuiy6n/@@@@experimentalpack.pack/file

    Compatibility patch for Alexander campaign added, it has to load before Experimental pack (should do it automatically), you need both packs enabled!
    https://www.mediafire.com/file/uydgvdpz5itdba3/%2540%2540%2540%2540experimentalalexpack.pack/file

    For manual files, you need to drop them in your Rome2/data folder


    Balance and other changes:
    -unique stronger general units like Spartan Hippeis or Macedonian Hiera Ile are now capped to 1 in Custom Battle/Multiplayer Battle
    -Encourage added to Druid units
    -unit HP reworked, hopefully cavalry and elephant will take less casualties from autoresolve
    -cantabrian circle buffed a bit
    -weapon damage reworked to come along with new HP values
    -reworked Agrianian infantry – they are now standing out more as an elite light infantry
    -war dogs reworked – size increased for 80 to 120; dog handler speed increased; dog handlers stats changed, they can now fight together with their pets! Dogs are very good vs light units but suffer in prolonged melee or against armoured units
    -ranged attacks & reloading now properly apply fatigue to units
    -fatigue penalties increased (affect melee attack, defence, charge bonus, speed, bracing) but it takes longer to reach them i.e. most of AI unit should not be exhausted in a 15 minute battle as it was before
    -slightly increased unit spotting range
    -reworked experience thresholds for units
    -reworked morale values, values are more or less similar for low tier units and a bit lower for upper tier units as morale values go up. This is due to morale buffs from campaign working on % values, which means that top tier units will still outclass lower tier units in terms of pure morale value. This helps with balancing morale values for mid/late campaign as before certain stuff like penalty for being attacked in the rear were too heavy for lower tier units while not really impacting top tier units
    -reduced killing power of infantry charge
    -units with expert charge defence can now effectively counter infantry and cavalry charges
    -melee intervals (cooldown between attack animations) reduced from 3 to 1,5 seconds
    -spear units are tougher to kill in melee
    -added bonus vs infantry for swords
    -rebalanced Socii units, now they have +1 attack, +3 charge bonus and -1 melee defence to Roman equivalents while in some cases a bit lower armour and morale. They are more assault oriented and not just weaker copies of regular units.

    Cavalry, Camels and Elephant changes:
    -Numidian cavalry ignores terrain penalties and has guerilla deployment
    -added custom weapon entries for camels – they now have combat advantage over horses, provided there is no big quality gap between them and their target (at which case they will still do better than light cav of similar tier)
    -camels provide large morale hit against cavalry
    -reduced and added more variety to cavalry running speed; AI cavalry will should not run ahead of own infantry as it used too; AI infantry and cavalry should engage player around the same time
    -reworked elephants – they are more resilient against ranged damage, especially frontally but are also easier to kill in prolonged melee against infantry, they will still do a ton of kills on charge but they will have harder time to just walk through units without consequences
    -cavalry spacing is a bit more tight
    -reduced strength of frontal cavalry charge on fresh units but also increased ratio of AI cycle charging due to decreased time for charge bonus to be applied; charging exhausted or damaged units will provide a lot of kills even frontally; charging fresh units when there is a big gap in quality, like cataphracts charging levy axemen, will provide a lot of kills
    -AI cavalry cycle charge is linked to how good it is doing in melee, AI will stay longer in melee before next cycle charge if they are doing well against their target
    -cavalry charges vs missile infantry is still strong
    -cavalry takes larger casualties while pulling out of combat
    -fixed issues with elephant HP calculation, which caused elephants with towers to have their HP multiplied by x2 compared to elephants without towers
    -added new "Thessalian" horse entry, that combines both speed and charge power
    -added unique Celtic "Mairepos" warhorse, that combines both speed and great charge power due to large size
    -added "Numidian" horse that may lack charge power of larger animals but has great speed, ignores ground penalties and accelerates faster

    Ranged combat changes:
    -artillery ammo reduced
    -slightly increased damage to siege equipment from fire attacks
    -Iberians have access to their historical flaming javelins called “Falarica”, they have lower damage and range than regular javelins but are much better at setting wooden towers and siege equipment in flames
    -fixed trajectory of horse archers attacks which sometimes prevented AI horse archers from fully using their ranged attacks
    -cavalry harder to decimate by precursor javelins of infantry while added knockback effect to these javelins can disrupt cavalry charge
    -added small knockback chance to all ranged weapons when soldier is wounded by projectile
    -javeliners get +1 ammo

    Battle AI behaviour changes:
    -AI should now use Disciplined Formation in Defensive battles
    -BAI cavalry behavior improved – both shock and melee cav are now under shock cav class, which means much more flanking and AI cycle charge timing is improved, BAI will be much more active with own cavalry
    -added custom weapon entries for elephants to make them function as precursor – this should make AI use elephants a bit better
    -infantry without any ranged weapon will now properly brace vs cavalry/elephants and use non phalanx formations like disciplined formation

    Unit movement and combat animations:
    -all Thureophoroi now have 3 speed
    -non heavy units with 2 handed weapons now have 3 speed
    -pikes and hoplites have harder time to pass through enemy unit as if there is no obstacle, issue with AI units turning is still there but now they actually need to push enemy away while keeping formation instead of just walking through – not great, not terrible
    -more rare kill animations should play out in combat
    -medium and heavy infantry speed increased from 2 to 2.5
    -slight increase to virtual model size for more spread out soldiers in combat
    -increased unit acceleration and deceleration speed – units do not get cramped as much after charge
    -decreased and fixed issues with soldiers getting up after being knocked down, allows for easier damage calculation from impact damage
    -slightly reduced spacing variation for certain ranged inf, ranged cav and barbarian units since some soldiers were nearly overlapping each other

    Unit Visual and UI changes:
    -Iberian horses again have their unique look
    -changed look of armoured Iberian horse
    -changed look of non armoured Indian Elephants
    -added some helmets to Arverni Veteran Freemen
    -added ranged stats to elephant UI display
    -fatigue penalties are now added to unit status i.e. Fresh (100% strength); Tired (70% strength)
    -morale % is now displayed on unit UI status when you hover over your unit i.e. Eager (Morale 85%-100%), Steady (Morale 50%-65%)
    -increased variety between all soldier heights inside a unit, garrison troops have largest variety due to often being ad hoc troops, Romans have the smallest variety due to Romans using minimum height system as requirement (for example 172cm for cavalrymen)


    UI changes example:

    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 


    Unit stat variety examples for Spartan melee infantry:


    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 


    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 


    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 


    Unique Iberian Horses:

    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 


    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 


    New look for Indian elephants:

    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 




    Credits:
    nvanputten & sboboo - for great help with testing and finding out new areas to tweak



    Compatible with saves games, graphical submods and Age of Hellenim submod.
    Semi-compatible with Alternative Economy, Scipio's Realism - some units might have too high/low cost due to changes of quality for certain troops.
    Not compatible with combat submods (faster battles, alternative phalanx etc.), TESTUDO.
    Last edited by KAM 2150; May 03, 2020 at 04:08 PM.
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  2. #2
    Dead*Man*Wilson's Avatar Campidoctor
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    Default Re: [Experimental Battle Pack] - Episode IV - A New Hope (12.06.2019)

    Amazing. Well done, guys.

  3. #3

    Default Re: [Experimental Battle Pack] - Episode IV - A New Hope (12.06.2019)

    Thinking of starting a new Mak w/TESTUDO 1.6.1 and will try this, thanks.

    -morale % is now displayed on unit UI status when you hover over your unit i.e. Eager (Morale 85%-100%)*low -> high*, Steady (Morale 65%-50%)*high -> low*
    I'm assuming the order of the higher and lower numbers don't matter?

  4. #4
    KAM 2150's Avatar Artifex
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    Default Re: [Experimental Battle Pack] - Episode IV - A New Hope (12.06.2019)

    That is a typo on my end, they are always low-high ingame

    Not sure about Testudo yet but it states only graphical mods are compatible.
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    ~Seleukos.I.Nikator~'s Avatar Campidoctor
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    Default Re: [Experimental Battle Pack] - Episode IV - A New Hope (12.06.2019)

    Wow, KAM! This looks really awesome and extremly promising!

    Do you know if one could test this pack on the Alexander Campaign, as well, or is there any incompability with some of the units that are specific to that campaign?

  6. #6
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    Default Re: [Experimental Battle Pack] - Episode IV - A New Hope (12.06.2019)

    Sounds great. I presume it is compatible with the Alternative Economy pack? Could you perhaps add a non-Steam download?

    I'm always playing with more shield defense against missiles and lower javelin range, I'm curious how that will influence the gameplay with this pack. I also have barely movable artillery, fast shooting small and extremely slow shooting big artillery, but I think that's of no importance.

  7. #7
    L.ANNIVS's Avatar Foederatus
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    Default Re: [Experimental Battle Pack] - Episode IV - A New Hope (12.06.2019)

    Quite a Revolution indeed!!! KAM is a scientist

    Starting to test... Is this compatibile with alternative pike/phalanx mods?

  8. #8
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    Default Re: [Experimental Battle Pack] - Episode IV - A New Hope (12.06.2019)

    EXPERIMENTAL BATTLE PACK SUBMOD COMPATIBILITY
    (with mainly used submods)

    - ALTERNATIVE ECONOMY
    Both Kam and Dardo's packs are changing the recruitment and the upkeep costs into main_units_tables
    This means (more or less and probably in most of the cases) that the units you are recruiting will not have the correct cost/upkeep
    (ps, @Kam and @Dardo, why don't you simply put multipliers into campaign difficulty table? So that it will be always compatible with any change into units tables?)

    - SCIPIO'S REALISM
    Same as AE (by checking your pack I think I'm correct, right @Scipio?)
    (ps, @Scipio, why don't you simply put multipliers into campaign difficulty table? So that it will be always compatible with any change into units tables?)

    - DATA VENIA
    Ygraine overhauled the battle system so no the experimental battle pack IS NOT COMPATIBLE

    - AGE OF HELLENISM
    No issues, AoH doesn't change anything for units

    - TESTUDO
    The RPGu feature has custom BG (except for the starting ones at first turn) and changes both land_units_tables and main_units_tables.
    This means that the experimental battle pack is technically compatible but NOT RECOMMENDED 'cause all the player's BGs who aren't the starting ones (the ones you have at first turn) won't be balanced

    MY PERSONAL ADVICE: PLAY THE EXPERIMENTAL BATTLE WITHOUT OVERHAUL SUBMOD
    GIVE THE PRIORITY TO PLAY WITH THE THE EXPERIMENTAL BATTLE + VANILLA DeI SO TO GIVE KAM MORE REPORTS AS POSSIBLE


    ----

    Well done, Kam!
    Last edited by Jake Armitage; December 06, 2019 at 10:51 AM.

  9. #9

    Default Re: [Experimental Battle Pack] - Episode IV - A New Hope (12.06.2019)

    Is it compatible with Alternative Phalanx and Alternative Pike mods?

  10. #10

    Default Re: [Experimental Battle Pack] - Episode IV - A New Hope (12.06.2019)

    Unit movement and combat animations:

    -pikes and hoplites have harder time to pass through enemy unit as if there is no obstacle, issue with AI units turning is still there but now they actually need to push enemy away while keeping formation instead of just walking through – not great, not terrible
    You need to disable Alternative Phalanx and Pike mods
    If you try it, don't forget to comment on this post about your experience

  11. #11
    KAM 2150's Avatar Artifex
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    Default Re: [Experimental Battle Pack] - Episode IV - A New Hope (12.06.2019)

    Quote Originally Posted by ~Seleukos.I.Nikator~ View Post
    Wow, KAM! This looks really awesome and extremly promising!

    Do you know if one could test this pack on the Alexander Campaign, as well, or is there any incompability with some of the units that are specific to that campaign?

    Alex has new unit entires so for now it wont be compatible.

    Quote Originally Posted by L.ANNIVS View Post
    Quite a Revolution indeed!!! KAM is a scientist

    Starting to test... Is this compatibile with alternative pike/phalanx mods?
    Combat submods are not compatible.

    Quote Originally Posted by geala View Post
    Sounds great. I presume it is compatible with the Alternative Economy pack? Could you perhaps add a non-Steam download?

    I'm always playing with more shield defense against missiles and lower javelin range, I'm curious how that will influence the gameplay with this pack. I also have barely movable artillery, fast shooting small and extremely slow shooting big artillery, but I think that's of no importance.
    AE will work for the most part but some units might have too low/high cost compared to their strength as I have changed dozens of entries. I would say that 90-95% of units have same cost but just wanted to give a warning

    I have increased missle block chance in this pack. I would be cautious with lowering javelin range as values in DeI are based on how game engine and AI treat them rather than real life values. For example any javelin unit with range below 60 will bug quite a lot. 80 meters seems to be best spot for minimum javelin range as anything less than that forces AI to fall back.

    As for arty, I did not test it to all possible scenarios but small arty was performing better against units than large arty.


    I will add manual download link tomorrow
    Last edited by KAM 2150; December 06, 2019 at 04:22 PM.
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  12. #12

    Default Re: [Experimental Battle Pack] - Episode IV - A New Hope (12.06.2019)

    Hey guys, gonna see if I can help test out some things.

    Started out with a simple Pergamon - Carthage battle, will do more.

    Here's the album: https://imgur.com/a/o81d7Qx

    Things I saw, Cretan archers have a range of 150 (pretty sure thats wrong), aaaaand the motherers still break your line and teleport behind you. Nothing personel kid.

    Anyways, as you can see I went for a fairly straight forward late game battle. I sent the peltast ahead of the main phalanx to screen and shoot, and their cavalry shot forward to charge them. I thought they would get stuck in melee or get bogged down, but their cavalry kept being very mobile all game. Only thing is that they often "cycle charge" single engagements, against cavalry too, which doesn't seem to bad, but sometimes retreating will decimate the unit that was having a decent fight in melee and causes them to fall back more and more. You can see this in the pictures, their cavalry barely shows up in the images, but if you check the minimap you'll see that they are fighting far behind the lines. They did have more cavalry than me so I was expecting flanking manouvers, but them charging into melee then retreating made it easy to avoid.

    Just a quick battle to see how cav behave, still have to check artillery, infantry charges etc.

  13. #13
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    Default Re: [Experimental Battle Pack] - Episode IV - A New Hope (12.06.2019)

    I don't think Benjin's Generals mods work with this either... My generals aren't wearing capes in Winter, and some of them seem to have applied Instant-growth beard cream.

  14. #14
    KAM 2150's Avatar Artifex
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    Default Re: [Experimental Battle Pack] - Episode IV - A New Hope (12.06.2019)

    Quote Originally Posted by Suas View Post
    Hey guys, gonna see if I can help test out some things.

    Started out with a simple Pergamon - Carthage battle, will do more.

    Here's the album: https://imgur.com/a/o81d7Qx

    Things I saw, Cretan archers have a range of 150 (pretty sure thats wrong), aaaaand the motherers still break your line and teleport behind you. Nothing personel kid.

    Anyways, as you can see I went for a fairly straight forward late game battle. I sent the peltast ahead of the main phalanx to screen and shoot, and their cavalry shot forward to charge them. I thought they would get stuck in melee or get bogged down, but their cavalry kept being very mobile all game. Only thing is that they often "cycle charge" single engagements, against cavalry too, which doesn't seem to bad, but sometimes retreating will decimate the unit that was having a decent fight in melee and causes them to fall back more and more. You can see this in the pictures, their cavalry barely shows up in the images, but if you check the minimap you'll see that they are fighting far behind the lines. They did have more cavalry than me so I was expecting flanking manouvers, but them charging into melee then retreating made it easy to avoid.

    Just a quick battle to see how cav behave, still have to check artillery, infantry charges etc.

    Cretan archers have 150 due to them using heavier arrows while their damage and reload speed are highest of all archers. They also have highest AP damage of all archers. That is in DeI for 1 year I think. As for AI moving through lines, that will never be fully fixed as this is game engine issue, we can only try to make it a bit less pain i.e. unit doing it wont destroy your unit right away.
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  15. #15

    Default Re: [Experimental Battle Pack] - Episode IV - A New Hope (12.06.2019)

    Was cavalry wedge taken out? See Thessalonian diamond.

    Edit: Rome is the only one I've seen that can form a wedge.
    Last edited by NorthernXY; December 08, 2019 at 04:10 AM.

  16. #16
    KAM 2150's Avatar Artifex
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    Default Re: [Experimental Battle Pack] - Episode IV - A New Hope (12.06.2019)

    For the most part yes, goal is to limit them to only some units to make them more special and accurate.

    There are few things to keep in mind when it comes to wedges.

    Firstly, from historical point of view, they were not used like we use them in game. Wedge was supposed to target side of the unit or a space between two units. Soldiers that have space to move out of the way will do exactly that, increasing the size of the gap and passing more and more horsemen through. For frontal charge wedge was not used as it made charge weaker, hence why in ancient and later eras block formation was what cavalry used for them.

    From gameplay point of view wedge if fine but it comes with own uses, mostly related to AI. Since we gave wedge to every single cav unit in the game, I was not able to spot it before but one of the reasons why AI cav was so dumb was wedge as AI will ALWAYS use it, it also causes AI to walk instead of run when moving out of combat or my favourite, AI will sometimes not even try to charge but will instead walk into player formation.

    What I plan to do is to make it less avaliable and hence make some units more unique. For example Hetairoi were using flying wedge, Thessalians were known for using diamond formation while cataphracts did no use any, simply forming a block to have as much impact on charge as possible.

    Other idea I have in mind is to make wedge formation an ability that is limited by time and has also a recharge time. That way we can buff it a bit for charge (since it has no other uses if we want to make it somewhat realistic) while it should not bug out AI that much.
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    Default Re: [Experimental Battle Pack] - Episode IV - A New Hope (12.06.2019) - Added manual links

    Manual link added:
    https://www.mediafire.com/file/nz4vw...pack.pack/file

    Compatibility patch for Alexander campaign added, it has to load before Experimental pack (should do it automatically), you need both packs enabled!
    https://www.mediafire.com/file/uydgv...pack.pack/file
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  18. #18

    Default Re: [Experimental Battle Pack] - Episode IV - A New Hope (12.06.2019) - Added manual links

    Hetairoi (Seleucid, not sure about other factions) have a speed of 5 while hippeis agematos have 6. Are they supposed to be slower?

  19. #19
    KAM 2150's Avatar Artifex
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    Default Re: [Experimental Battle Pack] - Episode IV - A New Hope (12.06.2019) - Added manual links

    Good point Falco and I forgot to mention it anywhere above.

    At the moment horse charge is mostly dictated by unit mass. Cavalry units use mass based on their horse entry so it works like this, the lower unit speed is, the bigger mass is. A lot of horse entries are shared between units so you might change it for one cavalry unit but it will also affect every single other cavalry unit with that horse entry, even if their models are different. For example both unarmoured and half cataphract horse can be assigned with very heavy horse entry.

    This is one of issues I want to adress in this battle pack but it will take me a bit of time as it is easy to mess it up.

    Other cool thing is that I want to add a lot more immersion to different types of ancient horses. For example Thessalian horses will have a custom entry that will both have a rather high speed and high mass. Since we cant display mass, people mostly link it with unit speed so seeing a unit like Hetairoi with high speed might look like they have low mass. To avoid this, I plan to add custom abilites that will have a horse breed and its characteristics in the description in similar way how Stamina works.
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    Default Re: [Experimental Battle Pack] - Episode IV - A New Hope (12.09.2019)

    Small update released:
    -elephant mass increased a bit
    -light and medium cavalry should be a bit better at rear charges
    -added new "Thessalian" horse entry, that combines both speed and charge power
    -fixed bugged entry for Celtic chariots that rendered them invisible
    -added bonus vs infantry for swords
    -small buff to mace AP damage, nerf to mace base damage
    -axe base damage slightly lowered
    -increased stamina of late Oathsworn
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