Elite Units and other stuff

[Dulce_et_Decorum_Est]

I've been having a lot of fun as Parthia, or at least I was until events forced me to look into a new computer.

Before I was so rudely interrupted by hard drive failure, I had managed to get some immortals together, and was preparing to deliver some smack down with them, until I realized a horrible predicament:


They're too freaking slow.

I'm not talking about their speed on the battlefield; that can't be helped 'cause they're infantry. Rather, I'm refering to their speed on the strategic map, which is totally incompatable with my all-cavalry armies.

Would it be possible to re-define the immortals as cavalry in the unit description file so they would have more strategic movement points? They were supposed to have an enormous wagon retinue, so there's every reason that they would have moved as swiftly as cavalry.

It would look a little wonky on the mouse roll-over, but I think it would be a nifty feature.

I was also goofing around with the Spartan royal guard. Yes, I know, they're not really supposed to be a practical combat unit, they're supposed to be a royal guard who fix horrible problems by their (expensive) badassery.

A few things occured to me:

1) Their unit numbers could be bumped up to 50. That way we can have an even 300 of them. It makes them a little more cost-efficient, but not enough that anyone's going to start popping them out like regular units.

2) They're Spartans, noted for their brevity in speaking, their emotionlessness in combat and they're wearing Corinthian helmets. The enemy would likely pee their codpieces just seeing that. I think the frighten_foot attribute is justified.

3) The unit model shows them with a substantively larger shield than other hoplites. Some additional shield points would be justified. These are the guys, after all, who think a cloud of arrows is better than the hot sun. By that same token, their heat exhaustion might be bumped up a touch.


It occurs to me that vanilla RTW screwed over the Numidians. Unless they're played by a human, the most they ever accomplish is severely annoying the Carthaginians, Iberians and Egyptians. Might it be possible to give them some additional population in later builds? That whole region was much less desertified then than it is now, and thus capable of supporting many more people.

I could also see making their foot skimishers better than everyone elses for the same reason that their skimisher cavalry are better; it's their culture and that's what they train from youth to do.

If/when the Numidians get some more distinctive elephant units, it would be nice to give them javelineers on them. There's an animation pack out there that allows just this. Elephants that play as something slightly different than everyone elses elephants would be more interesting than a generic unit.

[Zarax]

1) Immortals are already a what-if unit and definitely parthians didn't have the resources for such a baggage train, this is not the old persian empire...

2) The royal guard is already unbeatable in the hands of the player as it is, bumping up numbers is out of question as they must be rare for game balance purpose.

3) Same as 2, giving other bonuses is out of question.

4) Maybe the heat penalty would be feasible, more shield points are pretty unnecessary imho.

5) Numidians now are just rebels, they are there just to annoy carthage now

6) an elephant javelin unit would be nice, maybe in some future build...

[RedFox]

Zarax: I just got an idea from the post though, I believe we could bump the royal guard unit size up to 75 (which is 300 in Huge), then make it so that it can't be trained, but only retrained, then make a copy of it with 40 men again just for the custom battles.
The 300 men squad would then only be for the player in the start.
Would it be wise for gamebalance?

[Dulce_et_Decorum_Est]

Zarax: I just got an idea from the post though, I believe we could bump the unit sizes up to 75 (which is 300 in Huge), then make it so that it can't be trained, but only retrained, then make a copy of it with 40 men again just for the custom battles.
The 300 men squad would then only be for the player in the start.
Would it be wise for gamebalance?

Pretty sure that 60 is the hard-coded limit to unit sizes.

A single group that large would be very unwieldy anyhow.

[Internazionale]

Cant you give every one but The Greek City States a trait that says ''-1 morale when figthing spartans'':hmmm:

[RedFox]

Acctually, it was either 300 or 400, that is the hard-coded unit size limit.

[Zarax]

I'm pretty sure the hardcoded limit is 240, if there is one unit that we might consider bumping up a bit is hoplites, from 40 to 50 men to justify price and recruitment...

[RedFox]

Well, the max unit size it went to was 300.
I'll bump the hoplite unit size then, though we could bump Ekdromoi size as well and lower the stats.

[Dulce_et_Decorum_Est]

Glad to see I can nucleate some useful discussion.


OK, I admit it; whenever I play XGM I'm on a horrible power-trip. I like powerful warriors; especially using them in large quantities to kill the enemy to a man, kill their general, and then extort them for money.

Is it really that suprising I dream of ways to make my soldiers more effective?

Hello, my name is Dulce_Et_Decorum_Est and I am a spartan-holic...

[RedFox]

Dulce: I know exactly what you are saying, I too used to be a sparta-holic, now i'm a creta-holic

The spartans have a certain weakness against slingers and archers like any other infantry, but against another melee/spear unit, they're invincible.
Only 3 phalanxes coming downhill can stop the spartans (levy phalanx that is).

But for game balance we must drop these bonuses, the spartans indeed were good fighters, but there never were a lot of them. It would ruin the gameplay if they were invincible. Sure they might completely crush waves and waves of sparabara, but so can the silver shields and companions.
The point is, making the spartans as strong as they are right now is already crossing the line a bit, if it helps you, you can open export_descr_unit.txt in the xgm/data/ folder, search (ctrl+f) for "spartan" and change the entry to this:

type greek hoplite spartan
dictionary greek_hoplite_spartan ; Spartan Hoplites
category infantry
class heavy
voice_type Medium_1
soldier greek_spartan_hoplite, 40, 0, 3.2
officer greek_spartan_hoplite_officer
mount_effect horse +8, camel +8
attributes sea_faring, hide_forest, can_sap, very_hardy, frighten_foot
formation 1, 1, 2, 2, 4, square, shield_wall
stat_health 2, 0
stat_pri 13, 12, no, 0, 0, melee, simple, piercing, spear, 25 ,1.0
stat_pri_attr no
stat_sec 0, 0, no, 0, 0, no, no, no, none, 25 ,0.9
stat_sec_attr no
stat_pri_armour 9, 9, 5, metal
stat_sec_armour 0, 0, flesh
stat_heat 2
stat_ground -1, 0, -2, 0
stat_mental 30, disciplined, highly_trained
stat_charge_dist 30
stat_fire_delay 5000
stat_food 60, 300
stat_cost 6, 8000, 820, 90, 130, 1200
ownership greek_cities, romans_brutii

It will take 6 turns to recruit them and they frighten foot, including a little bit boosted stats.

[Dulce_et_Decorum_Est]

I know all about the export_descr_unit.txt, in the same way monkeys know about guns. Only problem is, whenever I do anything in it, I simply cause errors and CTDs galore.

For the record, I do not advocate making the spartans take anything less than fifteen years to recruit. They're not very well trained from birth if they've only got six years no?

When I tried to get them to what I wanted, I changed to following:

1) Bump up the first number after soldier to 48

2) Doubled the number of officers

3) Gave them a bonus versus chariots, just for the heck of it.

4) Gave them frighten_foot; they're spartan elite, they're scary, gave them the legionary eagles effect; they're spartan elite, they ought to inspire nearby soldiers, and took away their ability to sap. They're the royal guard, putting them in tunnels to die in a collapse seems beneath them.

5) Bumped up their mental stat to 45. I've actually seen them rout before when they were totally surrounded by triarii... almost a quater of the triarii got away after the royal guard ran; totally unacceptable!

6) Made them 25% more expensive in upkeep and recruitment costs to compensate for the larger unit.


I'm still not sure why it didn't work. It was probably the two identical officers, so maybe I'll try again later once I get my new computer up.

[RedFox]

Not sure if the identical officers caused the crash, but i've seen romans have atleast 3 officers, so there you go.
Maybe bump the soldier amount to 50.
Remember there can only be up to 3 mount bonuses, any more and CTD.
Not sure if mental could cause the CTD, but try with 30 for starters and if it works keep raising it.

[Dulce_et_Decorum_Est]

Not sure if the identical officers caused the crash, but i've seen romans have atleast 3 officers, so there you go.
Maybe bump the soldier amount to 50.
Remember there can only be up to 3 mount bonuses, any more and CTD.
Not sure if mental could cause the CTD, but try with 30 for starters and if it works keep raising it.

Romans have three officers, but not three identical officers. Also, I did keep the mount bonues to exactly three; one for camels, one for chariots, one for horses. I wasn't to keen on having elephant-proof spartans, that seemed a little absurd.

[Cymera]

"elephant proof Spartans" that is gold! "now available in 300!" if u want to go for realism, then the Spartans should have all those traits, but perhaps by this time they should be less deadly fighters?

The arrow model i use, for example, has a distinct bodkin, so i gave the high level archers "effective against armor" but i lowered their attack. a couple volleys can obliterate a warband, as it should, they dont even use shirts!

All of these cool features can be implemented, but they may require a reworking of stats, thats all

[Dulce_et_Decorum_Est]

"elephant proof Spartans" that is gold! "now available in 300!" if u want to go for realism, then the Spartans should have all those traits, but perhaps by this time they should be less deadly fighters?

The arrow model i use, for example, has a distinct bodkin, so i gave the high level archers "effective against armor" but i lowered their attack. a couple volleys can obliterate a warband, as it should, they dont even use shirts!

All of these cool features can be implemented, but they may require a reworking of stats, thats all

Just adding the additional men and features the Spartan Royal Guard is nowhere near cost-effective. You're much better off with several times the number of regular hoplites, or phalangites if you want to get with the times. As long as their cost, upkeep and training time stay similar to what they are to begin with, the presence of the super-Spartans isn't going to seriously unbalance anything.

I know that serious mod developers are a lot more circumspect about super-units than I am though. As long as they're not cost-competative, I don't see anything wrong with the super-elite (you have to reserve them for special occasions that way). In a lot of RTS, though, the very presence of super-units has ruined the game.

Zarax's point about the Parthians not being able to support their theoretical immortals the same way that the Persians could is a good one. The Parthians were much more feudal, and much less centralized.

I would still love to see a dragoon type infantry unit, i.e. an infantry unit with cavalry strategic movement points. Is this at least possible in principle ('cause I can't find anyone who fought that way in the relevant time period; not since the Assyrian heavy chariots went the way of the thylacine)?

Speaking of arrow models Cymera, how do I add different types of arrows to the DESCR_PROJECTILES_NEW? I was hoping to add lower velocity arrows and higher velocity arrows so that I could have archers with different ranges and trajectories. What I got was a CTD.

[Cymera]

From what i understand the arrow velocities and trails are global. I am not familiar with modding that, Darth, however, will know for sure. If u want just a different texture, that is easy to do.

[Dulce_et_Decorum_Est]

From what i understand the arrow velocities and trails are global. I am not familiar with modding that, Darth, however, will know for sure. If u want just a different texture, that is easy to do.

What if I want high-velocity sling stones? Is that somehow easier?

[DimeBagHo]

Dulce_et_Decorum_Est: Adding different arrow types, with different velocities, is relatively straight forward. The thing you have to watch out for is the interaction between velocity and range. For a given velocity there is a limit to how high you can make the range. Make sure you have show_err activated - it should tell you if there is a problem with the velocity/range you have set.

If you want sling projectiles with different speeds there are already two types defined (stone and bullet) and I think XGM is only using one of these.

Phalanx_15: Unfortunately you can't give wedge to infantry units. It's a pity because apparently the Romans used it against phalanx formations.

[Internazionale]

Dulce_et_Decorum_Est: Adding different arrow types, with different velocities, is relatively straight forward. The thing you have to watch out for is the interaction between velocity and range. For a given velocity there is a limit to how high you can make the range. Make sure you have show_err activated - it should tell you if there is a problem with the velocity/range you have set.

If you want sling projectiles with different speeds there are already two types defined (stone and bullet) and I think XGM is only using one of these.

Phalanx_15: Unfortunately you can't give wedge to infantry units. It's a pity because apparently the Romans used it against phalanx formations.

[Dulce_et_Decorum_Est]

Dulce_et_Decorum_Est: Adding different arrow types, with different velocities, is relatively straight forward. The thing you have to watch out for is the interaction between velocity and range. For a given velocity there is a limit to how high you can make the range. Make sure you have show_err activated - it should tell you if there is a problem with the velocity/range you have set.

If you want sling projectiles with different speeds there are already two types defined (stone and bullet) and I think XGM is only using one of these.

I did notice the two sling stones, and wondered if that was an old thing that they took out at the last second.

Just out of curiousity, which units use which stones?

Also, what block of text should I copy to make high-velocity arrows?