How to make a berserker unit (tut)

[Zorgrath]

its rather simple, only 2 things are needed (actually one)
note: you will be editing the export_descr_unit.txt file located in your data folder

lets take the simple peasant, now add drugs

type             Peasants
dictionary       Peasants      ; Peasants
category         infantry
class            light
voice_type       Light
banner faction   main_infantry
banner holy      crusade
soldier          Peasants, 60, 0, 0.8
attributes       sea_faring, hide_forest, can_withdraw, is_peasant, peasant
formation        1.2, 1.2, 2.4, 2.4, 6, square
stat_health      1, 0
stat_pri         4, 0, no, 0, 0, melee, melee_simple, piercing, spear, 25, 0.6
;stat_pri_ex      0, 0, 0
stat_pri_attr    no
stat_sec         0, 0, no, 0, 0, no, melee_simple, blunt, none, 25, 1
;stat_sec_ex      0, 0, 0
stat_sec_attr    no
stat_pri_armour  0, 3, 0, flesh
;stat_armour_ex   0, 4, 0, 0, 3, 0, 0, flesh
stat_sec_armour  0, 0, flesh
stat_heat        2
stat_ground      1, -2, 3, 2
stat_mental      1, low, untrained
stat_charge_dist 30
stat_fire_delay  0
stat_food        60, 300
stat_cost        1, 110, 90, 65, 50, 110, 4, 20
armour_ug_levels 0, 1
armour_ug_models Peasants, Peasants_ug1
ownership        england, france, hre, denmark, spain, portugal, milan, venice, papal_states, slave, normans, saxons
era 0            england, france, hre, denmark, spain, portugal, milan, venice, papal_states, normans, saxons
era 1            england, france, hre, denmark, spain, portugal, milan, venice, papal_states, normans, saxons
era 2            england, france, hre, denmark, spain, portugal, milan, venice, papal_states, normans, saxons
;unit_info        4, 0, 3

(blue is what section will be changed)
now you really only need to change the mental but, adding warcry makes berserker activatable whenever you want, simpley change to this

type             Peasants
dictionary       Peasants      ; Peasants
category         infantry
class            light
voice_type       Light
banner faction   main_infantry
banner holy      crusade
soldier          Peasants, 60, 0, 0.8
attributes       sea_faring, hide_forest, can_withdraw, is_peasant, peasant, warcry
formation        1.2, 1.2, 2.4, 2.4, 6, square
stat_health      1, 0
stat_pri         4, 0, no, 0, 0, melee, melee_simple, piercing, spear, 25, 0.6
;stat_pri_ex      0, 0, 0
stat_pri_attr    no
stat_sec         0, 0, no, 0, 0, no, melee_simple, blunt, none, 25, 1
;stat_sec_ex      0, 0, 0
stat_sec_attr    no
stat_pri_armour  0, 3, 0, flesh
;stat_armour_ex   0, 4, 0, 0, 3, 0, 0, flesh
stat_sec_armour  0, 0, flesh
stat_heat        2
stat_ground      1, -2, 3, 2
stat_mental      1, berserker, untrained
stat_charge_dist 30
stat_fire_delay  0
stat_food        60, 300
stat_cost        1, 110, 90, 65, 50, 110, 4, 20
armour_ug_levels 0, 1
armour_ug_models Peasants, Peasants_ug1
ownership        england, france, hre, denmark, spain, portugal, milan, venice, papal_states, slave, normans, saxons
era 0            england, france, hre, denmark, spain, portugal, milan, venice, papal_states, normans, saxons
era 1            england, france, hre, denmark, spain, portugal, milan, venice, papal_states, normans, saxons
era 2            england, france, hre, denmark, spain, portugal, milan, venice, papal_states, normans, saxons
;unit_info        4, 0, 3

(red equals whats changed/edited)
turns out the warcry ability is still in the game

before i figured this out i did it another way, like so:

type             Peasants
dictionary       Peasants      ; Peasants
category         infantry
class            light
voice_type       Light
banner faction   main_infantry
banner holy      crusade
soldier          Peasants, 60, 0, 0.8
attributes       sea_faring, hide_forest, can_withdraw, is_peasant, peasant, can_run_amok
formation        1.2, 1.2, 2.4, 2.4, 6, square
stat_health      1, 0
stat_pri         4, 0, no, 0, 0, melee, melee_simple, piercing, spear, 25, 0.6
;stat_pri_ex      0, 0, 0
stat_pri_attr    no
stat_sec         0, 0, no, 0, 0, no, melee_simple, blunt, none, 25, 1
;stat_sec_ex      0, 0, 0
stat_sec_attr    no
stat_pri_armour  0, 3, 0, flesh
;stat_armour_ex   0, 4, 0, 0, 3, 0, 0, flesh
stat_sec_armour  0, 0, flesh
stat_heat        2
stat_ground      1, -2, 3, 2
stat_mental      1, impetuous, untrained
stat_charge_dist 30
stat_fire_delay  0
stat_food        60, 300
stat_cost        1, 110, 90, 65, 50, 110, 4, 20
armour_ug_levels 0, 1
armour_ug_models Peasants, Peasants_ug1
ownership        england, france, hre, denmark, spain, portugal, milan, venice, papal_states, slave, normans, saxons
era 0            england, france, hre, denmark, spain, portugal, milan, venice, papal_states, normans, saxons
era 1            england, france, hre, denmark, spain, portugal, milan, venice, papal_states, normans, saxons
era 2            england, france, hre, denmark, spain, portugal, milan, venice, papal_states, normans, saxons
;unit_info        4, 0, 3

not as effective but similar

[Goatbuster3000]

Awesome! Glad to hear warcry is still in the game because I sure as heck haven't seen it.

[Zorgrath]

its not on any of the units in game, but its still there

[Douchebag]

so what exactly does this do? it makes peasants more tougher?

[Zorgrath]

no, if you played rome/BI theres units called berserkers, basically it causes them to looks control and go crazy on the enemy, its kinda like run-amok but they only attack enemy

[kleemann]

Well thare are some old things as in BI.

can_swim, - unit can swim across river - not tested yet, but i use it in testing purpose

shiled_wall - works fine, but the formation icon button is wrong.

CA keep most features, but the did not implemented these. Qualiti is above average.

[Zorgrath]

i just found something out, when a berserked(sp) unit enters combat it causes the game to crash, i believe some animations for this is missing. i'am looking into to see if its possible to get working, the warcry ability still works though.

[Heeehehe]

i just found something out, when a berserked(sp) unit enters combat it causes the game to crash....

same here

[Serious Spamurai]

What about adding "launching" to their attacks, that's what the beserkers in rome had if i remember correctly.

[Zorgrath]

ya its still in game, but not all berserkers had the launching ability.

[zhumin1978]

You get CTD if you do like this.
It's not about animations, cause chant&warcry works even without animation.
I think its something of battle ai that CA didn't insert that makes berserker cause CTD.

[Noobio]

ok..it's been like 2 years since someone posted...

does it work or not ?
if not ...does the alternative method (the one with the can_run_amok / impetuous nstead of war_cry / berserker) apply as a special formation (with an activation button) ?


anyway..could anyone familiar with all these aspects ,"complete" this tutorial ?

[Eothese]

It doesn't work, many have tried but can't stop the crash when in combat. Sadly the run amok idea is useless as well.

[Carle]

The run amok ability only works with mounted units.
Impetuous sort of does the same thing, but it only makes them charge "without orders" perhaps making the unit charge faster from farther away + do more damage with a charge bonus can imitate it. Also, you could give them the frighten_infantry trait along with the druid thing that the Coyote priests in the Americas campaign has. I can't remember if it boosts nearby unit's morale (probably) or reduces enemy morale, but either would be beneficial.

[seven.the.hun]

hmm, this one is interesting...been reading over things, havent posted in like 500 years so...
...
i still think there are ways to make at least an approximation of a berserker kinda unit.
...
i remember from rome bi, when making new units for a faction, the new units could cause a CTD when taken into battle, and this was sometimes due to a text entry left out of a file (in data folder, a battle.txt file of some sort) ...anyway it was a file that basically told the game how to deal with dead bodies in battles, so adding the new name of whatever units that were added was essential to avoid the battle crash.
i dont know if this is the same problem for a new berserker unit for Medieval II, but i'll try to test it at some pt.
also with stat_mental, the higher the first number is, the more likely the unit is to fight to the death.
...
and in RomeBI there were 2 warcries...
>the unit hounds of chulann or whatever had a warcry button that would initiate their bloodthirstyness, but after pressing it, they would run around on their own fighting til the battle was over.
>the unit woad warriors had a warcry button that would increase their attack for a bit, and possibly even decrease nearby enemy moral, but after pressing it, you could still control their actions in battle and just press it again later, similar to the rally button generals have...can be used over and over.
...anyway hope some of this helps.

[AJStoner]

Okay, this is the result of my testing here, using the "berserker" discipline level, "lock_morale," and the "druid" ability (hereafter referred to as druid-berserks):

*I have fought 20 battles with these units on each side and had no crashing episodes so the problem does indeed seem to be related to the "berserker/warcry" combination.

*The druid-berserks do not go into the uncontrollable frenzy I recall from RTW, however, they do seem to be especially impetuous. This is purely anecdotal evidence, but one of my factions was Ireland which has a large number of impetuous discipline-level units and the druid-berserks charged without orders more frequently than any other impetuous unit type.

*My conclusion is that the druid-berserker is a viable, if slightly watered-down, berserker type unit.

[Noobio]

Okay, this is the result of my testing here, using the "berserker" discipline level, "lock_morale," and the "druid" ability (hereafter referred to as druid-berserks):

*I have fought 20 battles with these units on each side and had no crashing episodes so the problem does indeed seem to be related to the "berserker/warcry" combination.

*The druid-berserks do not go into the uncontrollable frenzy I recall from RTW, however, they do seem to be especially impetuous. This is purely anecdotal evidence, but one of my factions was Ireland which has a large number of impetuous discipline-level units and the druid-berserks charged without orders more frequently than any other impetuous unit type.

*My conclusion is that the druid-berserker is a viable, if slightly watered-down, berserker type unit.

when AI , didn't they just stand there chanting ,while all around em battle was raging on ?
(i kinna lost interest in the druidic_chant ,special 'formation' when i saw the AI behaving like that)

[CDMan477]

^Tested a few things myself. As Seven the Hun suggested, I looked into battle.txt and the export_descr_advice files and there were some inconsistencies between Med II and Rome. Moving those entries over did no good however.

I don't think it has anything do to with a combination of "berserker/warcry" as berserk alone triggers the CTD. Hitting warcry from a distance actually sends the unit into berserk mode and they start running towards the enemy unit. It's only when combat starts that the CTD occurs. I wonder if the game is looking for that special spin attack the berserkers used in Rome, but it is no longer in Med II causing the CTD? It's the only thing that comes to mind considering the CTD happens just after combat initiates every time. Have never gotten into animations/skeletons, so I'm unsure if all the berserker animations are still in the game.

[Ngugi]

^Tested a few things myself. As Seven the Hun suggested, I looked into battle.txt and the export_descr_advice files and there were some inconsistencies between Med II and Rome. Moving those entries over did no good however.

I don't think it has anything do to with a combination of "berserker/warcry" as berserk alone triggers the CTD. Hitting warcry from a distance actually sends the unit into berserk mode and they start running towards the enemy unit. It's only when combat starts that the CTD occurs. I wonder if the game is looking for that special spin attack the berserkers used in Rome, but it is no longer in Med II causing the CTD? It's the only thing that comes to mind considering the CTD happens just after combat initiates every time. Have never gotten into animations/skeletons, so I'm unsure if all the berserker animations are still in the game.

Think this overlooked suggestion may be of interest.
Anyone with animation skills who would be able to have a look at it - or least denounce the idea?

[AJStoner]

If the chant is active they will do it unless engaged in combat. If combat ends for them they will resume the chanting.