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:
Unit stat variety examples for Spartan melee infantry:
Unique Iberian Horses:
New look for Indian elephants:
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.